He Got Away With It — But Only for 46 Years
(“Marked for Life,” Forensic Files)
“Marked for Life” is one of just a handful of Forensic Files episodes involving a respected retiree harboring a horrible secret from his own ancient history.
Howard Elkins, for example, a long-married former factory owner, committed suicide a day after police showed up at his house in 1999 bearing evidence that he killed his pregnant girlfriend in 1967.
The Blowback. Gerald Mason, the subject of this week’s post, caused an even greater tragedy and eluded the law for longer. During one night in 1957, he terrorized and robbed four teenagers, sexually assaulted one of them, and shot two police officers to death. Investigators didn’t identify and track him down until 2003.
But instead of taking his own life, he admitted to his crimes and went to prison.
In cases like Mason’s — in which most of those involved have either died or stopped talking to the media — I like to look into the reactions that friends and neighbors had upon first learning about the past of the once upright-seeming man who lived peacefully among them.
Happy days. I also searched for more information about what Mason did between the time he vanished into a prosaic life and the day the law exposed him as a rapist and double murderer.
So let’s get going on the recap of “Marked for Life” along with extra information from internet research:
The episode starts out with black & white footage of Eisenhower-era police cars, beachgoers in swimsuits that didn’t require Brazilian waxing, and several scenes from Leave It to Beaver. It sets the stage for what Forensic Files calls a simpler, more innocent time (although it was probably pretty much like today except the ugly things stayed beneath the surface).
Fateful foursome. As if the producers weren’t already going above and beyond with the great retro clips, they found and interviewed one of the teenage robbery victims, Robert E. Dewar, a man well into his AARP years by the time the episode first aired in 2005.
On July 22, 1957, Robert and his buddy and their dates were parked at a lover’s lane on Van Ness Avenue in Hawthorne, near El Segundo, California. When Robert rolled down a window, a man pointing a firearm at him suddenly appeared. The gunman took their money and jewelry and made all of them undress, bound them, raped one of the girls inside the car, and then stole their 1949 Ford sedan.
Parting shot. About an hour and half later, two police officers — who had no idea that Mason had committed violent felonies earlier that night — stopped him for going through a red light on Rosecrans Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard, and prepared to give him a ticket. Mason should have just taken the summons and gone on his way. Instead, he pulled out his gun and shot the officers three times each. Richard Phillips, 28, radioed for an ambulance, but he died before it got there, as did partner Milton Curtis, 25.
Ballistic evidence at the scene suggested that Phillips, known for his marksmanship, had shot the attacker once before he fled.
But the mystery man had vanished after ditching the stolen vehicle.
Police found skirts belonging to the female victims inside the car.
Random finds. Robert Dewar described the assailant as soft spoken and uneducated with a Southern accent. Charlie Porter, a police officer who had driven past the scene where Phillips and Curtis had just stopped Gerald Mason, described him as about 6 feet tall, having short hair, and appearing arrogant (apparently a law officer can spot that from a distance), according to the 48 Hours episode “The Ghosts of El Segundo.”
Investigators lifted a thumbprint from the stolen car’s steering wheel but found no matches in their files.
Progress on the case stalled.
Three years later, Manhattan Beach homeowner Doug Tuley turned over two watches and a .22 caliber handgun he found while digging up weeds on his property. The timepieces belonged to the robbed teenagers. The attacker had apparently dropped the items while fleeing after abandoning the stolen car on that night in 1957.
Lots of legwork. Police traced the gun’s serial number to a Sears in Shreveport, Louisiana, which recorded the buyer’s name as “G.D. Wilson.” The gun, the least expensive one the store carried, cost $29.95.
Investigators discovered that a “George D. Wilson” had rented a room in a YMCA near the Sears store, but he’d given a fake address in Florida.
Police spent years checking up on every George D. Wilson they could find, but none panned out.
The case even made a 1958 issue of True Detective magazine, which appealed to the public for help catching the so-called Lover’s Lane Bandit (although “bandit” sounds like a rather light suggestion of his crimes). But that and other media efforts never yielded a viable suspect.
Confronted by his past. Then, in 2002, a woman told El Segundo police that her late uncle had bragged about killing two police officers. It turned out to be a dead end, but it kick-started interest in the case again. Investigators used the newly available Automated Fingerprint Identification System, also known as AFIS, to run the fingerprint from the teenagers’ stolen car. Up popped the name of Gerald Fiten Mason, a prosperous retiree who lived in South Carolina.
His handwriting matched the signatures on the YMCA and Sears records.
Police, who surveilled him for weeks and observed him playing golf with friends and enjoying other innocent diversions, finally knocked on his door on Jan. 26, 2003. Depending on which media account you read, his response was utter disbelief, denial, annoyance, or cockiness.
“His jaw dropped to his knees,” officer Dan McElderry told the The Times of Shreveport Louisiana.
Successful entrepreneur. Yet a different publication said Mason’s attitude was basically, “Why are ya’ bugging me for that now?” Another article described Mason as acting as though he didn’t understand why they suspected him. But he immediately spoke of getting a lawyer once the lawmen materialized at his house, one source said.
Gerald Fiten Mason had made a small fortune by buying, selling, and operating gas stations and convenience stores, according to The Times of Shreveport. He was living quietly in Columbia, the same South Carolina city where he was born on Jan. 31, 1934. He had served a year in jail for burglary in 1956 but had no other criminal record whatsoever.
The army veteran was ensconced in a “comfortable suburban tract” with his wife, Betty Claire Blackmon Mason, the New York Times reported. The couple had two daughters and three grandchildren.
Loyal to Dad. A neighbor told the NY Times that the law must have the wrong man — why would a fugitive live out in the open as he had done for years in South Carolina?
A friend told CBS that the revelations were “flabbergasting.”
Jerri Mason Whittaker, daughter of the accused killer and rapist, would later tell People magazine that she “could not have had a better father.”
According to an LA Times account, Mason “was a genial fellow who checked up on neighboring widows and was always willing to lend them a hand with a man’s traditional chores: painting a mailbox or fixing an electrical glitch.”
Reunion of sorts. Dayton Sisson, who had lived next-door to Mason for 30 years, told the media that the two of them helped each other out when one needed to cut down invasive trees or renovate his garage. “If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have no garage like this,” Sisson told the Associated Press.
Mason went bowling regularly and was an “above average player.”
After his arrest, he was detained at a Columbia facility but ultimately returned to Los Angeles County to face a judge.
“Officers that hadn’t been around for 20 years came in walking on canes,” Assistant District Attorney Darren Levine told CBS.
Back bears evidence. Also in attendance was Howard Speaks, the investigator who had lifted the fingerprint off the steering wheel of the stolen car back in 1957.
In March 2003, Gerald Mason, who had a bullet-shaped wound in his back thanks to the dying Richard Phillip’s accuracy, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. It’s not clear why he didn’t face any charges for rape.
He teared up while apologizing for his actions, saying they didn’t “fit in his life” and he didn’t know why he did it. Mason would later characterize the crime spree as a baffling anomaly. (But he certainly prepared for it like a pro, with surgical tape, a flashlight, and a gun. And a handy pseudonym.)
Deprived youngster? Mason said he had the gun only for safety while hitchhiking and that he ended up in the lover’s lane while drifting.
He said he didn’t remember why he raped the girl.
He also tried playing the unhappy childhood card, alleging that he had never had a normal family life (although he had two brothers who attended his hearing in South Carolina, according to the LA Times).
Sorry, fella. The families of his victims didn’t feel a whole lot of sympathy for the guy.
“Your cowardly act shattered our lives forever,” said Carolyn Phillips, the daughter of Richard Phillips. “You caused our mother to become a widow with three babies to raise alone.”
The court honored Mason’s request to serve his sentence in South Carolina so he could be closer to his wife and children.
Mason lost a 2009 bid for parole.
On Jan 22, 2017, he died of natural causes in prison, never having quite explained how he rehabbed himself into a law-abiding neighbor and family man in the 46 years since he’d left trauma and tragedy in his wake.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
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