A Slight Case of Murder

When snub-nosed Wayne Long walked out of the old brick state penitentiary at Salem, Ore. one day last week, FBI agents had the word and they were on hand to tail him. Twenty-five-year-old Long was a toughie all right; he had three stretches for stealing and assault on his record, had crashed out of prison twice. But it wasn't Long the G-men were interested in. They hoped he would lead them to his old pal, John Omar Pinson, a cop killer who had escaped from Salem a year before and worked himself onto the FBI's list of "most wanted" criminals.

With the FBI men shadowing him, Long hitchhiked 51 miles to Portland, snaked through heavy traffic and thick crowds to a house in the southeastern part of town, and came out with an oilcloth-covered package cached there years before by a prison pal. Next morning, Long unwrapped his package, took out a Reising submachine gun, and ambled into a branch of the First National Bank of Portland. He froze the bank's employees in their places by pumping four shots into the ceiling, forced a typist to stuff $9,716 into a paper bag, grabbed the loot and rushed from the bank toward a Ford truck.

At that point eight FBI agents, who had been waiting outside, went into action. There was a spray of gunfire; Wayne Long fired back, injuring one of the FBI men. Then Long himself, after dashing for a block, fell to the ground wounded.

It looked like a triumphant day's work for the FBI. But next day, Portland police got to wondering about where Wayne Long had got the Ford truck, discovered that it was owned by a Portland carpenter. The carpenter's body was found 25 miles outside of town; he had been shot through the head with a large caliber bullet. Wayne Long was charged with first degree murder.

Somehow, the incredulous police surmised, Long had managed to commit murder, automobile theft and possibly abduction under the very noses of the FBI. Portlanders gasped with dismay and wondered how it could have happened. The taciturn men of the FBI offered only an embarrassed, partial explanation--they had seen Long drive off with the carpenter, feared they would be spotted if they followed them into the wide-open countryside, left Long uncovered from midnight to 6 a.m.

"This case is really one for history," said the Portland Oregonian. "But not for the radio program, This Is Your FBI."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.