Arrest and Questioning of Heirens
On June 26, 1946, 17-year-old William Heirens was arrested on attempted burglary charges when someone saw him breaking into an apartment. As Heirens fled, the building's janitor pursued him and blocked his path out of the building. However, Heirens allegedly pointed the gun he was carrying at the caretaker saying, "Let me get out, or I'll let you have it in the guts!" The janitor ceased his pursuit. Heirens made his way to a nearby building to lie low, but a resident spotted him and called the police. As Heirens attempted to escape down a staircase two officers closed in, one at each end of the staircase. Trapped, Heirens brandished a revolver, perhaps pointing the barrel at one officer. Some reports state that he actually pulled the trigger but the gun misfired. In the police account, Heirens charged them after his gun misfired twice. In Heirens' version, he turned and attempted to run after bluffing with the gun and the cops charged him. A scuffle resulted that ended only when an off-duty policeman dropped three clay flowerpots on Heirens’s head, one at a time, from the top of the stairs, rendering him unconscious.
According to Heirens, he remembered drifting into unconsciousness under questioning. The police had taken him to Bridewell Hospital, which was adjacent to the Cook County Jail. The questioning became more intense, with officers demanding to know how he did it, to say that he did it, they "knew" that he did it. At one point, someone punched him in the testicles, causing him to nearly vomit. They also burned them with ether.
Heirens later said he was interrogated around the clock for six consecutive days, being beaten by police and not allowed to eat or drink. He was not allowed to see his parents for four days. He was also refused the opportunity to speak to a lawyer for six days.
Two psychiatrists, Doctors Haines and Roy Grinker, gave Heirens sodium pentothal without a warrant and without Heirens' or his parents' consent, and interrogated him for three hours. Under the influence of the drug, authorities claimed, Heirens spoke of an alternate personality named "George", who had actually committed the murders. Heirens claimed that he recalled little of the drug-induced interrogation and that when police asked for "George's" last name he said he couldn't remember, but that it was "a murmuring name". Police translated this to "Murman" and the media would later dramatize it to "Murder Man". What Heirens actually said is in dispute, as the original transcript has disappeared. In 1952, Dr Grinker revealed that Heirens had never implicated himself in any of the killings.
On his fifth day in custody, Heirens was given a lumbar puncture without anesthesia. Moments later, Heirens was driven to police headquarters for a polygraph test. They tried for a few minutes to administer the test, but it was rescheduled for several days later after they found him to be in too much pain to cooperate.
When the polygraph was administered, authorities, including State's Attorney William Tuohy, announced that the results were “inconclusive.” On July 2, 1946, he was transferred to the Cook County Jail where he was placed in the infirmary to recover.
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