Beyond Grief

Addressing a Saturday night rally of campaign workers, the candidate could not resist a word of praise for his daughter. "Valerie," he said, "is my best precinct worker." Charles Harting Percy was not simply indulging his paternal pride. In his hard-hitting campaign to unseat Illinois' three-term Democratic Senator Paul Douglas, 74, comely, honey-haired Valerie Percy, 21, a June graduate of Cornell, proved one of Chuck Percy's doughtiest aides. With sunny enthusiasm that made the task seem effortless, she recruited and coordinated hundreds of youthful Percy-for-Senator volunteers, helped set up 22 campaign centers in the Chicago area, made dozens of warm little speeches for her father. She toured the wards wearing a winsome smile and a button that said, "HI! I'm Valerie Percy--Chuck's My Dad."

About midnight, five hours after his ad-libbed tribute to Valerie, Chuck Percy wearily returned to his $230,000, three-acre estate, Windward, on the Lake Michigan shore in Chicago's elegant suburb of Kenilworth. Valerie was in her bedroom watching television. She had decided earlier that day not to attend a "Dance-for-Percy" party on the North Shore; she dined at home with two young men who were working for the campaign, and retired shortly after 10 p.m. Her twin sister Sharon was in another room. Another of Percy's daughters, Gail, 13, was asleep; his sons, Roger, 19, and Mark, 11, were away. Percy and his wife Loraine looked at a late TV show, went to their master bedroom, and turned out the light at about 1:30 a.m.

"She Is Dead." About 31 hours later, Loraine Percy was partially aroused by the sound of tinkling glass and brief, faint, clicking sounds. Assuming that one of her children had knocked over a drinking glass, she sank back into sleep. Minutes later she was awakened again by a deep, agonized moaning. Mrs. Percy leaped out of bed and followed the sound down the hallway to Valerie's room. Inside, she saw a shadowy figure bent over Valerie's bed. The intruder instantly straightened up, whirled about and transfixed Loraine Percy in the blinding glare of a powerful flashlight. Screaming, she ran back to the master bedroom, where she punched a wall button that set off a rooftop burglar-alarm siren.

Her husband at once ran to Valerie's room and switched on the lights. The girl, piteously mutilated, lay blood-soaked and inert. Loraine Percy felt a faint pulse. While she swabbed the blood from Valerie's face with a pillowcase, Chuck Percy telephoned Dr. Robert P. Hohf, a neighbor.

The doctor arrived minutes later, at about 5:10 a.m. He found that Valerie had been stabbed six times around her nose and left eye, once in the neck, twice in the chest and twice in the stomach. There were four cone-shaped puncture wounds in her skull, all caused by heavy, bludgeon-like blows. Dr. Hohf slowly descended the circular staircase to the living room where Percy, Loraine, Sharon and Gail sat in wordless shock. Percy rose, and Hohf said: "Valerie is gone. She is dead."

Intruder's Path. Investigating their first murder case since Kenilworth (pop. 2,789) was incorporated 70 years ago, patrolmen from the eleven-man police force were joined by Chicago detectives and crime-laboratory experts,

Cook County state's attorney's men, sheriff's deputies, state police and FBI agents. As best they could, the investigators reconstructed the murderer's moves. The intruder, it seemed, had entered the 17-room mansion by way of a flagstone patio on the lake side of the house, slashed an opening in a copper-screen door, then used a glass cutter to remove a pane in the French door. The killer reached through the hole to open the door from the inside, then crossed the slate-covered floor, climbed the 18-step staircase, walked stealthily past the open door of Mark Percy's empty room, past sleeping Sharon's closed door and into Valerie's bedroom.

The police found several clear fingerprints that did not belong to the Percys or to people who frequented their home. The investigation, at week's end, had yielded frustratingly little evidence; it had not even been established whether Valerie's murderer was a man or a woman. Police theorized that the killer might have been familiar with the Percy home, and may have come there with the intention of seeking out and killing Valerie. Lawmen had a vast list of people to question. At week's end 150 had been interviewed--though none, apparently, were rated prime suspects.

"I Will Understand." After the first few hours of private grief, boyish-looking Chuck Percy, 47, a devout Christian Scientist, weathered the ordeal with spartan composure. His life had been a classic tale of success--a rise from $12-a-week clerk to president of Bell & Howell Co. at 29, a millionaire at 40. But this was the second untimely death that had stricken his family. In 1947 his first wife, Jeanne (who was not a Christian Scientist), died of a violent reaction to drugs after a seemingly simple and successful operation. Percy married the former Loraine Guyer, now 37, in 1950. Last week, the day before a memorial service for Valerie, Percy stood with his family in a funeral-home receiving line for four hours as grieving friends filed by. Though his eyes occasionally brimmed with tears, he remained sternly in control of himself, automatically wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and speaking individually to each mourner. "We all have problems and we overcome them," he said to one friend. "There has to be a reason for everything." After Valerie's body was cremated and buried in a Winnetka cemetery, the family fled their home for a few days' rest in private.

The Senate race was suspended at least until Percy's return. On hearing of the tragedy, Senator Douglas, who was once his opponent's economics professor at the University of Chicago, wired Percy: "My heart goes out to you over your cruel and terrible loss. I am calling off all campaigning." Before Percy left Chicago last week, he replied: "It is impossible for me to say at this time when I will be able to resume my own candidacy. Whenever you resume your campaign, I will understand completely." It was a savage irony, for the death of Valerie Percy will probably seal a victory for Chuck Percy in November that had already seemed almost within his grasp.

Percy had been labeled a long-odds underdog last winter when he resigned as board chairman of Bell & Howell to devote all his energies to the Senate race. His dynamic, articulate campaign since then had steadily propelled him ahead of aging Paul Douglas. The liberal Democrat's dignified but tired electioneering stirred little enthusiasm. His immovable stand in favor of open-housing legislation--a particularly explosive issue in Chicago--and his consistently pro-civil rights votes on Capitol Hill cost Douglas the support of many fearful whites. Against the advice of campaign aides, Percy has also come out in favor of modified open-housing laws, but he has not been so outspoken on the issue as Douglas. Beyond that, the Democrat's prospects have been dimmed by an inchoate sense of dissatisfaction with the Administration.

At week's end Chuck Percy had said nothing publicly about resuming his campaign, but advisers predicted that he would restrict his activities to a few television appearances and issuance of position papers on major issues. No matter which man wins in November, his victory will inevitably be clouded by Valerie's death, a tragedy that made political issues seem almost irrelevant.

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