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Show CTAIF.EB EXTREME vfSALTI IS TERROR ERIPS mil SEMEIR Confessed Killer Tells of Ambitions to Attend At-tend College; Says Inability to Go to School Caused Crime LOS ANGELES, Dec. 28. (UP) Cowed and broken, William Edward Hickman nervously paced his cell in the Los Angeles county jail today, awaiting arraignment tomorrow on the indictment charging him with kidnaping and murdering murder-ing 12-year-old Marion Parker. The harassed mind of the youth seemed groping in bewilderment be-wilderment for some self-justification of the crime he has admitted to its last horrible detail. It appeared as though he were going constantly through devious mental processes by which he hoped to arrive at some explanation of his act that would be comforting at least to him. i,"ilteny Disappointed" i "I was so bitterly disappointed because I didn't have the money to go to college," he said. "I wanted all along while I was in high j school -to study to be a minister. I "It didn't seem that I got ahead at all by working. Then I turned to small holdups, and wasn't able to lay much away. Then I decided the way to make a college education certain was to kidnap a child for ransom. You know the rest." While Hickman philosophized on his brief life of crime that was climaxed by the most shocking murder this section of California has ever known, District Attorney Asa Keycs of Los Angeles county wont ahead with preparations fof Hickman's prosecution. Keyes declared today that Um report of Dr. A. E. Wagner, count? autopsy surgeon that Marion died of fright or exhaustion instead of strangulation would have no important im-portant bearing on the case. "The guilt of Hickman and hir responsibility for Marion Parker's j death is established, regardless of j statements that may bo advanced as to the cause death," Kcye?. said. I "The state of California will sek trial for Hickman at the earliest . possible date and will make every effort to send the young murderer , to the gallows." Plans for the defense remained indefinite pending the arrival of Jerome P. Walsh, Kansas Citv lawyer, who will defend Hickman. Whether Hickman will enter a plea of guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the court will not be decided until Walsh reaches here. On the train returning from Pendleton, Ore., Hickman express-eel express-eel his willingness to plead guilty and go to the gallows "after I've seen Marion Parker's father and told him "I'm Sorry." In the event of a plea of guilty. Judge Carlos Hardy of the Los Angeles county criminal court will determine whether the penalty will be death or life imprisonment. It was Judge Hardy who paroled Hickman to his mother lust summer sum-mer after he had admitted forging checks while employed in the bank of which the father of the murdered murder-ed girl is an officer. Hickman talked much of his ambition am-bition for a college education when interviewed again today in his cell. "God," he said, nervously rolling one blue clad leg back and forth knew that I wanted to go to college I wanted to go very badly. I felt that God was with me in my efforts ef-forts to get an education." The Machiavellian doctrine that the end justifies the means was never more tragically expressed than by the white-faced boy leaning lean-ing on his elbow on the jail cot. "What do the people of Los Angeles want of me?" he suddenly asked. "They want your life," he was told, "rightly or wrongly, that 13 what they want." The youth's face went a shade whiter and he asked with a puzzled expression, "but was it nnv worse than Loeb and Leopold did?" His "theory" of how he came to end up "so bad was evolved fluently fluent-ly while his eyes wandered slowly about the coll. Sought Ministry Hickman 'said he wa3 greatly disappointed because ho could not go through college in September. 1!)2G, after his graduation from Central High School, Kansas City. "Arrangements for a room had already boon made and I was mcommendod for entrance into Purk college, a Presbyterian school of high school standards by Dr. Harry Roberts, member of the college col-lege board of trustees," Hickman snid. Park college is practically the whole thing in Parksvillo, a small tewn. Under its system it is possible pos-sible for students to work their wnv through. "I estimated it would have cost mo between $300 and $400 the first of the four years. "I wanted to take a course that vould fit me, first to be a teacher probably of history. "Afterward I thought I might graduate in law and practice or perhaps enter the ministry" he said. |
