The murder of Milton Curtis and Richard Phillips
El Segundo, Los Angeles County, California · 1957
Overview
In the early hours of July 22, 1957, El Segundo, California police officers Milton Curtis, 25, and Richard Phillips, 28, were shot to death during a routine traffic stop after pulling over a stolen 1949 Ford that had run a red light. The gunman had spent the previous hours robbing and terrorizing four teenagers at a Hawthorne lovers' lane and raping a teenage girl. He fled wounded, abandoned the stolen car, and vanished, leaving the double murder of two officers unsolved for 45 years. The case broke in September 2002 when latent thumbprints lifted from the stolen car's steering wheel in 1957 were searched through the FBI's national IAFIS database and matched a 1956 South Carolina burglary arrest card belonging to Gerald Fiten Mason, by then a prosperous retiree in Columbia, South Carolina. Mason pleaded guilty to both murders in 2003 and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms; he died in prison in 2017.
How it was solved
For 45 years the El Segundo police killings remained one of California's most notorious unsolved cases. In 1957 investigators had lifted latent fingerprints, including a partial left-thumb print, from the steering wheel of the stolen 1949 Ford the gunman had abandoned about a mile from the shooting, and they had traced the .22-caliber murder weapon, recovered in 1960, to a Sears store in Shreveport, Louisiana, where it had been bought under the alias George D. Wilson. The same name appeared on a check-in card at a nearby YMCA. But with no national fingerprint database and every George Wilson in the country eventually checked and cleared, the case went cold. The breakthrough was technological: by 2002 the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) had digitized tens of millions of arrest records from across the country. In September 2002 El Segundo and Los Angeles County investigators submitted the steering-wheel prints to IAFIS, and on September 17, 2002 the system returned a match to a fingerprint card from Gerald Fiten Mason's January 1956 burglary arrest in Columbia, South Carolina. The fingerprint hit was the identifying break; corroboration followed. A forensic document examiner matched the George D. Wilson handwriting on the YMCA and gun-purchase records to Mason's own South Carolina records, and when Mason was located he was found to bear a bullet-shaped scar on his back consistent with the return fire of Officer Phillips, who had wounded his killer before dying. Mason, by then a 68-year-old retired gas-station owner living quietly in suburban Columbia, was arrested on January 29, 2003. On March 24, 2003 he pleaded guilty to two counts of murder; in exchange the rape, robbery and kidnapping charges from the Hawthorne attack were dropped, and he received two consecutive life sentences. He died in a South Carolina prison on January 22, 2017, of natural causes.
Sources
- Gerald Mason
“In 2002, with advances in computerized finger-printing technology, the FBI decided to expand the system to include prints collected during arrests in all 50 states. A match based on the partial left thumb prints lifted from the steering wheel of the stolen car, came back to a man convicted of burglary in 1956 in Columbia ... Mason pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to two consecutive life terms ... Mason died in prison on January 22, 2017, nine days before his 83rd birthday.”
- The Ghosts Of El Segundo
“Officer Richard Phillips and Rookie Officer Milton Curtis were killed during a routine traffic stop on July 22, 1957 ... The suspect ran a red light at the corner of Sepulveda Boulevard and Rosecrantz ... The murder weapon was purchased in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1957 under the name George D. Wilson ... Fingerprints from the steering wheel were digitally reprocessed and matched to Gerald F. Mason, arrested for burglary in South Carolina in 1956 ... When examined, Mason had a bullet-shaped scar on his back.”
- Columbia man accused of 1957 murders enters guilty pleas
“Mason entered his guilty plea on Monday, March 24, 2003. He was 69 years old at the time ... He pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. Under the plea agreement, rape, robbery, and kidnapping charges were dismissed ... The court imposed two consecutive life sentences ... El Segundo police officers Milton Curtis (age 25) and Richard Phillips (age 28) were fatally shot on July 22, 1957 ... He was arrested at his Columbia home on January 29, 2003.”
- 1957 Cop Killer Asks Forgiveness
“Officers Milton Curtis (25) and Richard Phillips (28) were shot during a traffic stop for running a red light ... Mason tearfully addressed the courtroom: 'I don't understand why I did this' and 'Please forgive me. Do not be bitter.' ... Carolyn Phillips, daughter of Officer Richard Phillips, declared: 'Your cowardly act shattered our lives. We cannot and will not forgive you.' ... Keith Curtis ... 'He wasn't sorry for 45 years and the only reason we're hearing that apology now is because he got caught.'”
- IAFIS Fingerprint Search Solves 45-Year-Old Double Police Officer Murder
“For 45 years detectives pursued the suspect in a double police officer murder. When the latent print was digitally replicated and electronically submitted to IAFIS, a match was found to Gerald F. Mason, a 68-year-old White male. Based on the print match, evidence related to the gun purchase, and the identification of three surviving witnesses, Mason pled guilty to the murders and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.”
- Gerald Mason: A Murderer and Rapist Who Self-Reformed
“Investigators had lifted a thumbprint from the stolen car's steering wheel in 1957 ... In 2002, investigators used the newly available Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) to rerun the fingerprint. The system produced a match: Gerald Fiten Mason, a prosperous retiree who lived in South Carolina. His handwriting also matched signatures on records from the YMCA and Sears where he had purchased the murder weapon ... In March 2003, he pleaded guilty to two counts of murder. Mason died in prison on January 22, 2017, from natural causes ... The two officers killed were Richard Phillips, 28, and Milton Curtis, 25.”
- Gerald Mason
“On September 17, 2002, the IAFIS matched the composite to an exemplar fingerprint card from Gerald F. Mason's January 21, 1956, arrest for burglary in South Carolina, marking a technological breakthrough that resolved the 45-year-old cold case ... a 1949 Ford sedan ... Handwriting of the George D. Wilson who checked into the YMCA was matched to a South Carolina eye examination report in the name of Gerald F. Mason ... Mason died in prison on January 22, 2017.”
- Gerald Mason Murder of Two Police Officers in 1957
“A thumbprint was recovered from the steering wheel of the stolen vehicle. This remained unidentified for 45 years until entered into the IAFIS database ... 'Finally in 2002, when the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) had been online for a few years, investigators decided to run the latent print against all known fingerprints across the nation.' The print matched a South Carolina burglary arrest record added to the national database just two months prior to the search.”