The following excerpt is from the book Cruel City: The Dark Side of Hollywood's Rich & Famous, by Marianne Ruuth, copyright 1991. It tells the story of the murder of Sal Mineo:

     "On the evening of February 13, 1976, Sal Mineo parked in the carport of the apartment building on Holloway Drive in West Hollywood where he lived.  He was returning home from rehearsals of a play, P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, in which he was to play a bisexual burglar.

     "As he walked toward his apartment, he was attacked and stabbed through the heart with a knife.  When he cried out, the man scurried away and a neighbor came running.  Attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation proved of no avail and the young actor was dead at the age of thirty-seven.

     "Sal Mineo was born in the Bronx section of New York on January 10, 1939.  Beginning on Broadway, he graduated to playing the young prince in The King and I before moving to Hollywood and a string of troubled youth roles.  He was twice nominated for an Academy Award, in 1955 for Rebel Without a Cause and in 1960 for Exodus.

     "In 1969, he would return to New York to direct Fortune and Men's Eyes.

     "With Mineo's death, the Hollywood rumor mill had a feast.  Insinuations, guesses, and speculations filled the press and television.  A local Los Angeles television newscast based its reports almost entirely on unsupported gossip.  Most of the rumors that centered on Hollywood's favorite subject, his sexuality, were pure fabrication.  One friend stated flatly, 'Sal was not kinky.  He was not into leather and/or S&M...He was a sweet and very loving man.  And he took himself and his profession very seriously.'

     "Mineo's family and friends were aghast at the seamy stories that circulated.  At the funeral services held in New York five days after the murder, Chips Meyers eulogized his brother-in-law, 'He lived his life with courage, abandon, humor, style and grace.   His art-what he created-will always stand.  Nothing can take it away from him.'

     "Detectives from the West Hollywood's Sheriff's Office had a strong lead on Mineo's murder from the beginning of the investigation.  There had been a series of ten strongarm robberies in Sal's neighborhood within a month's period-all involving one man, using either a knife or gun-and the police had identified a suspect and questioned his relatives.

     "Police were searching for Lionel R. Williams, a twenty-one year old former pizza delivery man.  Williams' girlfriend told the police that he had come to her apartment the night of Mineo's murder with apparent bloodstains on his jacket, ranting a wild story about having stabbed someone.  Later that same night, when she and Williams were watching television, a photograph of Mineo was flashed on the screen and Williams blurted out, 'That's the dude I killed.'

     "Police still did not have enough evidence to arrest Williams for Mineo's murder, but they waited.

     "Early in 1977. Williams was arrested in Inglewood, California for outstanding traffic tickets, but was extradited to Michigan authorities to face charges of forgery.  Williams went willingly, but Los Angeles detectives advised Michigan authorities that he was a suspect in the Mineo case.  While serving time for forgery in Calhoun County jail in Michigan, Williams talked to a cell mate about committing the Mineo killing.  Three days before he was to be released, he learned the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office had filed charges and was seeking to extradite him to California.  They had connected him to a small, yellow Dodge Dart seen leaving the scene of the crime.

     "Williams was extradited to Los Angeles and charged with the murder of Sal Mineo on May 4, 1978.  Despite his boastful prison talk, he pleaded not guilty.  It took the jury a week to reach a verdict, but, in March of 1979, Williams was sentenced to a minimum of fifty years, receiving consecutive sentences of five years to life for the second-degree murder of Mineo, nine counts of first-degree robbery and one count of second-degree robbery."

© 1997 timpulski@aol.com

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