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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Crater murders remain mystery Tomorrow will mark the 48th anniversary of an unsolved crime in this area: the "Crater Lake Murders." After all these years, the case remains unsolved. I was in Klamath Falls in 1952, working for a radio station owned by the Herald and News. Several times a day, I checked with the editor�s desk to learn what news had turned up. One morning I went into the newsroom to find the place abuzz with news that two men had been shot to death in the Crater Lake National Park. The men were Albert Jones, 56, of Concord, Calif., and Charles Culhane, 52, of Detroit, Mich. They were executives of United Motors Service, a subsidiary of General Motors. The men drove one car while their wives followed in another. Both cars used the Crater Lake National Park road as a shortcut to Union Creek, where they had agreed to meet at a summer cabin. The wives found the men�s car in a turnout overlooking Annie Creek Canyon. The car doors were ajar. The wives notified the rangers at the park�s headquarters, and a search was launched. The two bodies were found later in an open stand of Ponderosa pine about a quarter-mile off the road. Each had been shot in the head from close range, execution-style. Their hands were bound with rope, their shoes were removed, and their clean stockings indicated they had not walked shoeless for any distance. While Jones� shoes were nearby, Culhane�s were never found. The crime scene was not sealed off until several hours after the wives found their husbands� car, and the milling around of tourists must have destroyed clues. I drove up to the park as soon as I could, but with the victims� car gone and the murder scene roped off, there wasn�t much to see. Murder in a national park is a federal crime that is handled by the FBI and not local police agencies. The first federal agents to arrive learned that the Park Service kept a record of the license plates of all cars entering the park. The agents began tracking every license plate number in the park�s records that day. As it was the peak of the season, and there were license plates from many states, the tedious job lasted for several years. No arrests were ever made. The killer or killers took the men�s watches plus $300 from their wallets, yet left their expensive luggage in the car. Some local officers speculated that burglary was the motive, but a special agent, speaking off the record, said the slayings had all the marks of gangland hits. Stories about the killings appeared in local papers on anniversaries of the crimes, but that was about it, Then almost 10 years ago, Alice Simms approached Mail Tribune reporter Paul Fattig about the crimes. She was the granddaughter of victim Albert Jones. Her father, Alexander Cota, gave her some clippings and two sealed envelopes. He had found them carefully preserved in the things of her mother, Virginia Jones Cota, after her death. The sealed envelopes were addressed to the Seattle Post and the Medford Mail Tribune. The unmailed one-page letter to the Tribune was signed by Virginia Cota. She wrote that her father had given her a letter a month before he was murdered. "In his letter, he wrote that things were worse than they have ever been." She didn�t elaborate. "I know who was responsible for my father�s murder," Virginia concluded. "I don�t know the murderer�s name, but I know the organization that arranged for my father�s death." Alice Simms told reporter Fattig that she had been thinking about the case after her mother died, and finally decided to do something about it. Unfortunately, 10 years after her visit, the case remains unsolved. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA