William Heirens - Press Influence

Press Influence

As Time observed in its July 29, 1946, issue:

"The News and Hearst's Herald-American hit the street together with front-page layouts showing Heirens as a Dr. Jekyll (hair combed) and Mr. Hyde (hair mussed). He had not yet been charged with murder, but the Tribune airily convicted him: HOW HEIRENS SLEW 3.''

On July 14, State's Attorney William Tuohy met in a close door meeting with Heirens' lawyers, the brothers Malachy and John Coghlan, to discuss a possible plea bargain.

On July 18, 1946, Chicago Tribune staff reporter George Wright wrote a piece on the case entitled:

Wright manufactured details and cited "unimpeachable sources" that said Heirens had confessed. The Tribune devoted 38 columns for the story. It began:

"This is the story of how William George Heirens, 17, kidnapped, strangled and then dismembered Suzanne Degnan, 6, last Jan. 7, and distributed the parts of her body in sewer openings near her home. It is the story of how William George Heirens climbed into the apartment of Miss Frances Brown...and shot and stabbed her to death, and left a message on the wall with lipstick imploring the police to catch him...And it is the story of how William George Heirens entered the apartment of Mrs. Josephine Ross...and how he stabbed her to death when she awoke."

A radio newscast reported on the Chicago Tribune's scoop of the "confession," which Heirens heard in his cell. He was incredulous, stating:

"I didn't confess to anybody, honestly! My God, what are they going to pin on me next?"

State's Attorney Tuohy also absolutely denied that Heirens had made a confession. The other four competing daily newspapers reprinted the confession in their publications with Chicago newspapers headlining the story 157 times over the next ten weeks. As The Tribune wrote later:

"So great was public confidence in the Tribune, that other newspapers . . . reprinted the story solely because the Tribune said it was so. . . . For a while, Heirens maintained his innocence. But the whole world believed his guilt. The Tribune had said he was guilty."

Heirens had a few supporters in the press. The London Sunday Pictorial ran an article called "Condemned Before His Trial, America Calls This Justice":

"While all America waits for a man to be charged in one of the most complex murder cases in history, a suspected youth has already been tried in the pages of Chicago newspapers. And he has been found guilty.”

As late as 1975, the Chicago Daily News was still taking credit for its "scoop."