Police Still Without Clue To Slaying

Police Still Without Clue To Slaying

Mayor Offers Reward; Search Continues For Nurse’s Red Pocketbook

Police today had checked more than 50 suspects in Sunday's campus-area slaying of 34-year-old Nurse Pauline Campbell, but still were without a single tangible clue to the killer's identity.

But a search continued for the red pocketbook reportedly belonging to the slain nurse and which she may have carried to her death early Sunday morning.

Investigators were pursuing the possibility that the motive in the murder may have been robbery rather than the sex urge of a homicidal maniac.

Reward Offered

Meanwhile, Mayor William E. Brown, jr., offered a $500 personal reward yesterday afternoon for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the bludgeon-slayer of Miss Campbell. The sum would be paid on approval of the police chief and the county prosecutor.

"I can't help but feel that someone else besides the killer knows about this brutal slaying. He would be doing this community a great service by coming forward with identity," Brown said.

But the police are running down every possible clue, no matter how insignificant, the mayor added.

Brown said that he had received no complaints on the manner in which the investigation was being conducted by the Ann Arbor Police Department. He also criticized a statement made in a Detroit newspaper that the department had not availed itself of aid from the state police or the sheriff's department.

'Always Accept Help'

"We generally don't have to send these police agencies an engraved invitation to enter a case. They just come over and offer their help. We always accept," he said.

Ann Arbor Police Chief Casper Enkemann said that since the night of the murder, his department had requested and received help from police departments at Detroit, Ypsilanti, Chicago, Trenton, Flint and Milan.

"There had always been a tacit understanding between this department and those of the state police and the Washtenaw sheriff that their aid is always welcomed in our investigations," he declared. "And both have been in on this since the beginning."

Enkemann revealed that most of his force was engaged in checking through a list of sex deviates known to the department over a period of years.

It was learned from another source that checks dating back 10 years were made on all sex offenders who now live or have lived in Washtenaw county at one time.

U-M Cooperating

Authorities at the University Neuropsychiatric Institute also disclosed this morning that they were cooperating with the police department.

Latest suspect to be questioned, Enkemann revealed, was a 38-year-old Ann Arbor man who was subjected to a lie detector test at Lansing late yesterday afternoon. He was later released after the examination proved satisfactory.

Enkemann said he was planning to check all employes of St. Joseph's Mercy Hospital who came off the 11:30 p.m. shift Saturday night with Miss Campbell.

He said orderlies, janitors and other employes would be asked to account for their time.

Police said blood-stained clothing picked up from a local dry cleaning firm yesterday noon turned out to have no bearing on the case. The blood was spilled on the articles during a family row, they said.

Drop Elyea Investigation

In other police developments, the incident in which Frances C. Elyea, 38, night superintendent of the University Maternity Hospital, was reported to have been chased by a man shortly after midnight Sunday morning, turned out to have no connection with the murder.

Detectives said a student, whose name was withheld, reported that it was he whom Miss Elyea probably saw as she emerged from the Pemberton-Welsh Nurses' Residence to report for work shortly after midnight Sunday morning.

As he approached the building to escort a date, police quoted him as saying, he stumbled against a rock causing him to step quickly forward several feet to regain his balance. The nurse, he related, turned and fled into another nearby nurses' home.

Funeral services were held yesterday in Alma for Miss Campbell. Burial followed in Riverside Cemetery there. She was raised by Mr. and Mrs. Asa C. Elsea, a farm family who live near Alma.