12/19/1958 - Providing the raw material and framework (along with the 1952 ordeal of the Hill Family of Whitemarsh Township in Pennsylvania) for a best selling novel, a Tony winning play (featuring Paul Newman in the role of escaped convict Glenn Griffin), and three films (the first, in 1955 stars Humphrey Bogart as Griffin, the second, a 1967 TV remake has George Segal playing Griffin, and the 1990 remake features Mikey Rourke as the chief bad guy), all called "The Desperate Hours," the brief criminal career of 29-year-old Richard Carpenter comes to an electrical end in the death house chair of the Cook County jail in Chicago, Illinois.
Carpenter
Born in 1932 as a public enemy crime wave sweeps over the Midwest of the United States, Carpenter grows up in a world of strife ... the family strife of two parents who grow to hate each other until the father finally leaves his family, and the strife of the Great Depression that causes Carpenter's doting mother (there are also two daughters to take care of) to park him in an orphanage for lack of funds; behavioral problems soon are evident. Joining the Army at the age of 18, he is also 18 when he is issued a dishonorable discharge and kicked out of the Army. Returning to Chicago, Carpenter begins a life of low-level crimes that sees the young thug committing dozens of petty robberies for chump change. In 1951 he is captured by police for the first time after robbing a local cabbie at gunpoint of eight dollars ... a crime for which Carpenter spends a year of his life behind bars. Trying to go straight upon his release, Carpenter becomes a cabbie himself, but the money he makes at the legit occupation is not enough for the hoodlum, and soon a new Carpenter crime wave hits the city. His modus operandi is to show up at a bar or tavern just before closing time (sometimes he even has a drink before getting down to business), whip out a pistol, and then help himself to whatever money is in the cash register (usually a sum between thirty and three-hundred dollars). Loot secured, he then runs out of the business on crepe-soled shoes and vanishes into the night ... no getaway car is ever used. For months, in almost seventy robberies, Carpenter terrorizes Chicago's many gin-mills, and the authorities don't know the culprit's name. Carpenter's phantom days however end on April Fool's Day of 1955.
Carpenter's Family
Following his regular routine, entering a small tavern just before its closing time of 2:00 in the morning, Carpenter pulls his pistol and demands whatever cash is in the till, but there is a difference to the robbery this time around ... one of the patrons in the bar is off-duty police officer, Medard Bosacki. Pulling his weapon and targeting Carpenter, Bosacki turns into a statue when the gunman points his weapon at the bartender's head and says he will pull the trigger if Bosacki doesn't put his weapon on the bar. Complying with the crook instead of risking bloodshed, Bosacki does what the thief says and Carpenter grabs the registers cash, pockets the police revolver and exits into the night. The robbery though is the beginning of Carpenter's problems ... Bosacki identifies the robber as local troublemaker, Carpenter, and there are repercussions for taking a police officer's gun and soon the city is flooded with wanted posters for Carpenter. Manhunt begun, it finally bears sour fruit that summer (it is August 15, 1955) when on his way to work on the subway, Chicago Police Detective William Murphy spots Carpenter and attempts to arrest the "Lone Wolf" robber. Taking his eyes off Carpenter for only a second as the officer reaches for his handcuffs, rattlesnake quick, the thief whips out a pistol and shoots the police officer in the chest with Bosacki's stolen pistol, transforming himself into a killer as he flees the subway platform where Murphy's bleeds (only 33, Murphy leaves behind a wife and two daughters).
Murphy
Incensed at the loss of one of their own, the authorities flood the area with cops but Carpenter seems to have vanished again, until two days later, off duty officer Clarence Kerr decides to take in a movie with his wife at the Biltmore Theatre at 2046 Division Street. Movie over, Kerr sees a man asleep in a back row of the movie house that he believes might be Carpenter, and gun at the ready he decides to rouse the man (a decision his wife tries to talk him out of) ... and suddenly is confronted by a growling bear holding a revolver. "Well I guess you got me," Carpenter states as he comes awake and then bolts out of his seat. Gunfire exchanged, the thug runs out of a side door while Kerr slumps to the floor of the theater, shot in the chest (almost a second cop notch for the killer's gun, the surgeon that saves Kerr's life says that if the round had hit the officer while his heart was expanded instead of contracted, Kerr would be a corpse ... showing his fortitude, Kerr gets off five shots at the Carpenter before collapsing). In minutes seem to be everyone as Chicago's finest react as if John Dillinger had come back to life, as newspapers, televisions, and radios are filled with the story of the hunt for Carpenter, but he is gone again ... briefly.
Kerr At The Theater Receiving The Last Rites
Kerr, His Wife, And Surgeon
Two blocks away, just returned home after a long day driving his truck, Leonard Powell is confronted at the screen door of his kitchen by a sweaty stranger holding a gun with blood stains on his pants ... Richard Carpenter. No introduction necessary but one given anyway, the gunman forces his way into the home stating, "I'm Carpenter. I just shot another policeman. If you behave you won't get hurt. If not, I'll shoot you. Now let me in." Taking Powell, Powell's wife Stella, and their two children hostage (Diane, 2, and Robert, 7), the family suffers through an ordeal which newspapers will call the family's "desperate hours." Seconds to minutes and the minutes become hours, Carpenter paces about the house and his hostages blathering endlessly about his life and crimes, while occasionally pausing briefly to peer out from behind the curtains of the Powell abode at the police search going on outside. Not the sharpest blade in the kitchen, when the next morning arrives, Powell convinces Carpenter that he will be missed if he is not allowed to go to work. With warnings of what will happen to his family if he talks to anyone about who is in the Powell residence, Mr. Powell completes a full day of work worrying constantly about his family, but returns to his home without telling a soul his secret. A rerun of the first evening, after 23-hours with Carpenter, Mr. Powell decides he has enough and expands on his tale of the day before ... if the rest of his family is not allowed to go about their normal routines, it will be noticed and will draw the authorities to the Powell home ... and with the result of nothing happening the first time he released Powell, the pinhead killer allows the rest of the family to also vacate their home.
Outside The Hostage House After
A horribly bad decision that will end up costing the killer his life, as the family reaches their front porch, Powell whispers to his wife to get everyone out of range as quick as possible without bringing attention to herself, then he walks off in the direction of his father-in-laws home, stopping as soon as he is out of sight of Carpenter to call the police. Already in the neighborhood, three minutes after the call over thirty police squads respond and have the area cordoned off and are at Powell's front door. Immediate exit required, Carpenter leaps through a window at the side of the house and enters the neighboring apartment of Stanley Sciblo. He is quickly located inside and after he refuses to surrender, the Chicago authorities flood the unit with tear gas before entering, Fighting back at first (the thug will be described as reacting like a vicious, cornered animal), Carpenter gets a well-deserved beat-down, before finally accepting his arrest as he whimpers for the arresting officers, "Don't shoot." Taken to the nearby Bridewell Hospital to have his wounds treated, Carpenter confesses to a host of robberies and to shooting police officers Murphy and Kerr.
Busted
In For Attention
At trial, Carpenter's lawyer tries to blame all the killer's crimes on him being nuts, which the hoodlum backs up by acting the fool during the proceedings and constantly being aggressive with his handlers. The insanity plea of course falls on deaf ears and it takes his jury only 90 minutes to find him guilty of first degree murder in the shooting death of Detective Murphy. Sentenced to death in the state's electric chair, appeals last three long years before the Illinois Supreme Court rules that his execution should be carried out. And so it is ... at 12:04 in the morning of 12/19/1958, Carpenter's Chicago crime spree ends with the 29-year-old killer receiving three massive jolts from the chair that stop the killer's heart.
Fighting Officers
Drug Into Court
Before Carpenter dies however, there is one more moment of craziness the killer leaves behind. In his last act other than walking to the chair and getting juiced, Carpenter takes the heel off of one of his shoes. Asked what he is doing by one of his guards, Carpenter replies, "I don't want anybody else to stand in my shoes." Walking to his death, Carpenter states that he doesn't believe in God, and that he is going to the chair and there is nothing he can do about it. As reported by the Chicago Daily Tribune, Carpenter's last muffled words as a black hood is pulled over his head are, "Get it over with quick."
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