Who Killed Bob Crane? Carpenter, Collapsed Trial, DNA Testing

No one has ever been convicted of killing Bob Crane. The Hogan’s Heroes star was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment on June 29, 1978, and the question of who killed Bob Crane has never been formally answered. The only person ever charged, Crane’s friend John Henry Carpenter, was acquitted at trial in 1994, and DNA testing conducted in 2016 further undercut the physical evidence against him. The case remains officially unsolved.

How Crane Was Killed

Crane was in Scottsdale performing in a dinner theater production called Beginner’s Luck and staying at the Winfield Place Apartments on East Chaparral Road. On the afternoon of June 29, 1978, his co-star Victoria Berry went to the apartment after he missed a session to dub a voice track. She found the door unlocked and Crane dead in bed.¹

He had been struck twice above the left ear with a heavy instrument while he slept, and an electrical cord was knotted around his neck in a bow.²¹ There was no sign of forced entry. Police also recovered a large collection of pornographic videotapes from the apartment.³ Prosecutors would later theorize the weapon was one of Crane’s own camera tripods, but no weapon was ever recovered.⁴

Why John Henry Carpenter Was the Suspect

Carpenter, a video equipment salesman from Torrance, California, was a suspect from day one. He had supplied Crane with recording gear and the two socialized regularly; prosecutors later said they shared sexual partners, with Carpenter setting up equipment to record encounters and Crane serving as the draw. Lead prosecutor Bob Shutts told jurors Carpenter “fed off the energy and fame of the actor,” and that Crane was “a source of women that he could never obtain for himself.”⁵

Several things pointed at Carpenter. He had been visiting Crane in Scottsdale at the time of the killing and was seen arguing with him in the days before. He left town the morning the body was found.⁶ After hearing the body had been discovered, he called the apartment but, according to police, conspicuously failed to ask whether anything was wrong. Crane’s appointment book showed all future meetings with Carpenter crossed out, which investigators read as a sign the friendship was ending.⁷ The prosecution’s theory was that Carpenter killed Crane out of fear of losing the lifestyle Crane enabled.

Investigators also found blood in the car Carpenter had been renting in Scottsdale. The blood type matched Crane’s.⁷ It was not enough. Scottsdale police declined to bring charges, and the case went cold for more than a decade.

Why the Prosecution Collapsed

The case was revived in July 1990 when Maricopa County investigator Jim Raines, going through old files in a courthouse storage room, found a 1978 crime scene photograph that had apparently been overlooked. It showed a small red speck on the interior passenger door of Carpenter’s rental car.⁸

Dr. Heinz Karnitschnig, the Maricopa County chief medical examiner, concluded the speck appeared “consistent with human adipose tissue,” or fat. Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley went further, publicly calling it “brain tissue” on television. A task force spent two years building a case, and Carpenter was arrested in June 1992, 14 years after the murder.⁸⁷

The physical tissue speck itself had never been preserved. The Arizona Department of Public Safety had destroyed its reports on the murder in 1988 and could not produce the original negatives for the 21 photographs taken of the rental car. Other medical experts who examined the photograph disagreed with the brain-tissue characterization, testifying the speck looked like ordinary tissue or fat that would have shriveled within hours in Arizona summer heat. Defense attorney Steve Avilla noted that the ruler visible in the tissue-speck photo appeared different from the one used in the other 20 photos, raising a question about when it had actually been taken.⁸

At the 1994 trial, Avilla pressed on the weakness of a 16-year-old case built on evidence that had been lost, destroyed, or degraded: no weapon, no preserved tissue, no original negatives. He also offered an alternative theory, that Crane had been killed by a jealous husband or boyfriend of one of the many women he had been involved with.⁹ After an eight-week trial, the jury deliberated nearly two and a half days and acquitted Carpenter. The jury foreman, speaking about the tissue speck, said: “Nobody knows what it was, not even the doctors.”⁴

What 2016 DNA Testing Showed

The 1978 blood evidence was reexamined decades later using modern DNA analysis. The original case had relied on blood-type matching, which was consistent with Crane’s type but could not identify the blood as his specifically. In 2016, the preserved samples from Carpenter’s rental car were retested. They did not match Bob Crane’s DNA.¹⁰

Journalist John Hook, who obtained access to the evidence and oversaw the retesting for his book Who Killed Bob Crane, said the result was not a definitive “game-changer.” Those who still believed in Carpenter’s guilt could argue the tested blood was simply unrelated to the crime. Carpenter’s former attorney, Avilla, called the finding “vindication.”¹⁰

Other Theories

A few alternatives have been raised over the years, none backed by enough evidence to produce charges. The defense’s jealous-partner theory ran into a problem at trial: Detective Barry Vassall said he never interviewed a woman who expressed anger or dislike toward Crane.¹¹

Crane’s son Robert has pointed at Crane’s second wife, Patricia Olson, who had acted on Hogan’s Heroes under the name Sigrid Valdis. Crane was in the process of divorcing her when he was killed. Robert Crane has argued she had a financial motive: without a divorce she kept her share, and without a husband she inherited everything.¹¹

A podcast hosted by retired police chief Mark Spawn, Unscripted: Who Killed Bob Crane?, has examined other angles, including a “black bag” Crane reportedly kept containing compromising photographs of prominent people.¹² None of these threads has produced a break.

Why the Case Will Likely Stay Open

Carpenter died on September 11, 1998, in Torrance, California, at age 70. His wife, Diane, attributed his death to stress from the trial and the media attention around it; the official cause was not publicly released.¹³¹⁴ His death closed off any realistic prospect of a renewed prosecution against him even if fresh evidence had emerged, and double jeopardy would have blocked a retrial regardless.

Arizona authorities effectively stopped pursuing the case after Carpenter’s acquittal. No other suspects have ever been publicly named.¹⁵ No one has served a day in prison for killing Bob Crane.¹⁶

1
Phoenix New Times. The Bob Crane Murder Case Part Two
2
Entertainment Weekly. Bob Crane Hogan’s Heroes Unsolved Murder
3
ABC15. Hollywood Star Brutally Murdered in Scottsdale Apartment in 1978
4
Tampa Bay Times. Friend Acquitted in Slaying of Bob Crane
5
New York Times. Conviction Promised in Slaying of Actor
6
Deseret News. Evidence Will Convict Best Friend in Actor’s Death, Prosecutor Says
7
Los Angeles Times. Case Against Carpenter
8
Phoenix New Times. The Bob Crane Murder Case Part Three
9
UPI. Trial Begins in Crane Murder Case
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11Alive. Actor Bob Crane Died a Gruesome Death; Anchor’s Book Takes Another Look
11
Entertainment Weekly. Bob Crane Hogan’s Heroes Unsolved Murder
12
Evening Tribune. Podcast Examines Unsolved Murder of Hogan’s Heroes Star Bob Crane
13
Los Angeles Times. John Henry Carpenter Obituary
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Baltimore Sun. John Henry Carpenter, 70, Who Was Acquitted
15
NBC Los Angeles. Hogan’s Heroes Bob Crane Murder Cold Case
16
Fox 10 Phoenix. Bob Crane’s Murder Remains Unsolved Four Decades Later