Hogan Was No Hero

Victoria Berry found the door unlocked. That was highly unusual, which signaled her first sign of suspicion. Bob normally was a very cautious man when it came to his own personal security. So, when Victoria tried the lock after repeated attempts of knocking, she felt a slight unease as she entered the hotel apartment. Upon entering, she observed many of the things she associated with her boss and fellow actor. There was clothes thrown around on couches and chairs. And, of course, there was the video equipment. Normally, this was the first thing set up at every new town that they traveled in. Bob was very interested in technology, almost obsessively so. She called out his name and heard no answer. The unlocked door still unrattled her. Bob would always lock up if he was out. Just then, to her right, Victoria observed in the bedroom, a body form on the bed, sleeping. She approached the bed, and, at first, she thought a woman was lying there. The reason is that she saw hair about the head going in every which direction. Upon closer examination, Victoria Berry discovered her error. It wasn't a female lying there but a man. And, the reason the hair was going every which way was that the head under the hair had been bashed in. More than bashed in. It was bludgeoned, as if someone had taken a heavy object, and out of supreme anger, delivered blows to the head of the victim. At first, Victoria did not know who was lying there when she called the police. In time, she shockingly found out the body lying there in bed, with blood all over the sheets and walls, was her boss and co-star, Bob Crane........ The police quickly arrived and identified the victim. As is the standard procedure in any crime scene, especially a homicide, the area was roped off. Soon, forensics experts arrived to dust for prints and look for clues. But, this was 1978, June 29 to be precise, and the technology and advancements in criminal investigations were still somewhat primitive. The Scottsdale police immediately suspected that Bob Crane, famous TV star of the 60's show, ''Hogan's Heroes'', was the victim of a murder that must have happened sometime in the early morning hours of the day. The body had the crushed in head. The detectives suspected that a baseball bat had been used to do the deed. Or, some blunt instrument, such as a tire iron. There was also one more thing that they found very interesting. Rapped around Bob Crane's neck was a umbilical cord. Like the kind you would find attached to a video camera....... Bob Crane was nice guy, everybody agreed who knew him. He had made his name in radio, most notably, in Los Angeles, where he was the morning star of radio drive time. This was the early to mid-60's and radio was just starting to develop personalities to go with their music formats. Bob Crane was funny and charming, his natural affability came through the radio to his listeners. And, he was rewarded with ratings that made him Number 1. Still, Bob longed for bigger things. He would tell his wife, Anne, and their three little children, that above else, he wanted to be a movie star, kinda like his idol, Jack Lemmon. Bob knew he was no great shakes as a dramatic actor. No, his speciality was light comedy, comedy that made you smile. His radio show showed it, so, why not try the silver screen. But, he couldn't crack into movies. Television was his only avenue. And, he willingly guest starred on many of the popular shows at that time. You can see him on episodes of comedies like, ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' and ''The Donna Reed Show'', where he became a semi-regular. He played himself: lovable and charming Bob Crane. He still kept his radio show going during the mornings, but the rest of the day he was hustling TV work. At night, he was a doting father and husband. And, he played his beloved drums as much as he could. Bob Crane, in his heart of hearts, wanted to play jazz. He would give up Hollywood in a second if he could travel with a band. It was not to be his fate. Then, in 1965, his agent [ who naturally liked him ] gave him a script for a new situation comedy, set in, of all places, a POW war camp during World War Two......''Oh, the funny Nazis'', Bob said dismissively to his agent. He wanted no part in a show like that. But, the agent told him to take the script home and read it. Bob did, and, he also gave it to his wife, Anne, to read. Both agreed that Bob could make this work. He did. ''Hogan's Heroes'' premired in September, 1965. At first, the show took some slack because people thought they were trivializing the horrors of war. After a few months, the controversy died down and it became a hit. Bob Crane became a household name and he loved it. He loved the show, loved his castmates [ with the exception of Richard Dawson, who always needled him whenever he could]. After a while, the success of the show allowed him to quit morning radio and concentrate fully on his series. The public loved him because, like everything else he did, Bob projected instant likability and charm. He was the same on-screen as off-screen. Of course, with instant fame come the hangers-on and leeches that make up the dark side of stardom. All sorts of people made themselves available to Crane in the hopes of attaching themselves to his fame and fortune. Bob was a good looking man and women began throwing themselves at him. He kept his distance. That is, until he met John Carpenter........ John Carpenter was a gadget genius. He sold high-tech [ for its day] equipment throughout the 60's and 70's. His clients varied from the man on the street to celebrities like Elvis Presley, Tommy Smothers, and Richard Dawson. The equipment he sold was video taping cameras and machines. Again, today, this stuff is laughably primitive, but, years ago it was the toy of the rich. You could record anything, Carpenter told his famous clients, from your children's birthday parties to racy adventures in the privacy of your bedroom. John Carpenter knew about this first-hand because he liked to consider himself quite the swinger with women. And, some of his close friends whispered that they thought that Carpenter swung both ways, that he was interested in men also. John denied this, but, still, many people around him wondered.......... John Carpenter was introduced to Bob Crane by Richard Dawson. In a rare example of friendliness between them, Crane and Dawson went out one night during the show's heyday. They went to a strip club in downtown L.A. At the table with them was Dawson's good friend, the high tech buff himself, John Carpenter. Bob was friendly and charming with Carpenter, as he was with everybody, but what Bob mostly wanted to do was sit in with the house band that was playing alongside the strippers. Bob finally got up  there and played those drums, while the girls disrobed by him. Soon, Bob was visiting the same strip club nightly, playing the drums and getting to know the strippers. A seed had been planted in his soul. It blossomed quickly, changing him and his personality. In a short time, Bob was having sex with those dancers and not going home to his wife and children. Infidelity exploded the good family man........ And, he found a willing wing man in John Carpenter. Carpenter introduced Crane into the swinging world of Hollywood. Bob took to it like a duck to water. He became a sex addict, wanting to seduce any woman who crossed his path. Now, this is nothing new in Hollywood, particularly during the time of the late 60's, but, Bob Crane soon developed a reputation in the business as a man out of control with sex. He didn't smoke or drink. Sex was his vice. His loyal wife, Anne, at first, tried to look the other way, but, even she could not deny his wandering eye. They would divorce and she would get custody of his three kids. Still, despite the cheating, she held him in great affection. He was a terrific father and never denied his family anything. He was still the same old nice guy, great guy, Bob Crane, that everybody adored. But, he had his addiction to sex, which, like all addictions, took him down some dark roads. He bought the equipment that Carpenter peddled, anything new and improved Carpenter made sure to tell Bob about. The equipment was used to film their sexual encounters with women. And, it extended into the hundreds of encounters. Bob Crane had his own private photo albums and tapes of these women, so numerous that he could not remember their names or the cities he had sex with them. John Carpenter and Bob Crane hunted these women in sleazy nightclubs and strip bars. Bob would grab them because of his fame and ''Carpie'' would grab the leftovers. They photographed each other in threesomes and individually. Those close to Crane insist that he had no homosexual tendencies. But, there were the whispers about Carpenter. Some would later claim that John Carpenter held a secret love for Bob Crane....... Patti Olsen had been hired in the second season of ''Hogan's Heroes'' to play the secretary, Hilda. She and Crane hit it off immediately. Both were drawn to each other out of animal lust. Despite the stories she had heard about him [ and, the fact he was still married to Anne at the time] they began a love affair that would eventually end with them getting married on the set. Patti was very aware that Bob would never change his ways. It didn't matter to her. As long as he came home at night from his adventures, she deluded herself into thinking all was well. After ''Hogan's'' was canceled in 1971, she soon became pregnant with their son, Scotty. Financially, things were tough. Bob wasn't poor because he had the residuals from the show to keep them going. But, Bob Crane liked to work. However, the combination of typecasting [ producers only thought of him as ''Colonol Hogan''] and his growing reputation for sleazy sex, Bob had trouble finding work in Hollywood. Finally, his agent told him that he should travel the country doing community theater. Bob resisted at first because community theater was considered the bottom of the barrel in show business. In time, he would change his mind and began to go from town to town in a romantic comedy entitled, ''Beginner's Luck''. When he toured, he was a great success. Audiences still loved him. Especially, in true form, the women. It was the perfect scenario for him. Away from home and nailing chicks left and right. John Carpenter faithfully followed Bob from town to town. The women and sexual encounters piled up. But, Bob was living dangerously. In Hollywood, everyone was on the make and trading sex was thought of as advancing your career. But, on the road, it was different. There, you encountered girlfriends and groupie ex-wives. You encountered star fuckers. You encountered women who cheated on their husbands. And, then you had the husbands find out. Many towns in the country, Bob Crane made some enemies with the scorned husband or boyfriend of a woman he had been with. It was getting darker and sleazier for Bob. He had fallen down the hole of his addiction. His second marriage to Patti faltered. By 1978, he had destroyed this marriage and alienated Hollywood . There were only two things that were constants in his life: the play and his friendship with John Carpenter....... Scottsdale, Arizona welcomed ''Beginner's Luck'' in June of 1978. The carpet was rolled out for the cast and Bob Crane appearing in town was a big deal. Bob, however, by later accounts, was tiring of his life. He had started to talk to local priests about his addiction. He was trying to jump start his career and revive his second marriage. He missed his children, particularly, young Scotty. And, he was tiring of John Carpenter. At 49, Bob was thinking he was getting too old to do the swinger lifestyle. When Carpenter came to town towards the end of the month, Bob intended to break off this relationship...... On the night of June 28, after a performance of the play, Bob Crane and John Carpenter had a quiet drink together in a local club. The pickings were slim that night, no one was out. After some meaningless talk, Bob dropped the big news on John: he was getting out of the swinging scene and going back to Patti. They could still be friends, but, not involving women. By eyewitness accounts by other people who were in the bar that night, John Carpenter did not handle the news well. He started to beg Bob not to break off their roamings together. Then, he got angry. He began to put Bob down. Looking at this encounter from one side, Carpenter was acting like a lover who had just been dumped. They parted that night, both going their separate ways to their hotel rooms. Bob told John that he would drive him to the airport the next day, as Carpenter had business to attend to. Carpenter could just come on over to Bob's place. He had a key to get into the room........ When the police looked at the corpse of Bob Crane, they noticed that the head was so severely struck that it must have taken great strength to inflict such a blow. Most likely, the killer must have a been a male, based on the arc of the swing that did the damage to Crane's head. What had been used was open to debate. Some heavy blunt object, like a golf club or baseball bat. Or, maybe, a video tripod....... John Carpenter happened to call the apartment while the police were there. The police later stated that Carpenter's voice sounded agitated and quite nervous, as if he already knew what had happened in the apartment. Soon, Carpenter became the prime suspect, after the police had investigated Crane's life and the people close to him. His ex-wives were hundreds of miles away, so, they were eliminated. And, the only other person close to Crane was Carpenter........ A few weeks after the murder, John Carpenter was brought in for questioning. His answers were suspect, the police thought. While they could not put Carpenter physically in the room with evidence they knew he did it. He had guilt written all over him. Still, without DNA evidence, they couldn't arrest him. He was free........ Which he was until 1994, when the Scottsdale police reopened the case of the murder of Bob Crane. It had lay dorment for many years, but, finally, the prosecution thought they had some evidence to hang on Carpenter. It was a stain on the rental car John had when he was visiting Bob. It matched the DNA of Crane. Carpenter was arrested and tried for murder. But, because of Scottsdale police bungling in 1978, reasonable doubt was the reason the jury found John Carpenter not guilty. The jurors were later asked if they thought Carpenter was innocent. Most said they thought Carpenter killed Bob Crane but there was no evidence to support it. John Carpenter would die from a heart attack a few years later. There was no death bed confession. But, the police had the right man....... Bob Crane still lives on in the reruns of his old series. He is charming  Hogan, everybody's friend. He was a little hero in the show, battling the Nazis and getting the girl in some episodes. He was a nice guy. Never made an enemy. All-American boy.......... I'm not sure Bob Crane ever knew the real guy......