The Savage City by T. J. English Page B

station house phones. Off-duty detectives were coming by to see what was going on. The reporters’ cigarettes created a layer of smoke in the air.
    Around 6:30 A.M. there was a rustle of expectation. Chief McKearney appeared and read an official statement from a yellow notepad: “Suspect’s name is George Whitmore Jr., age nineteen…admitted killing one Minnie Edmonds…attempted to commit felonious rape on one Elba Borrero…was apprehended by Patrolman Frank Isola, who had engaged the suspect in a chase…did admit these crimes.”
    The reporters shouted questions: What about Wylie-Hoffert? Yeah, the Career Girls Murders—did he do it?
    The chief continued: “Whitmore is a drifter…. He wandered to the apartment on 88th Street…. He found the door cracked…stabbedthe girls repeatedly after binding them with a sheet…. Then he calmly washed his hands and left as he came.” McKearney added that a walletsized photo of Janice Wylie had been found on Whitmore. At first, said the chief, the perpetrator claimed he’d found the picture on a dump in his hometown of Wildwood, but under questioning he admitted taking it from the apartment on the day he killed the girls.
    The reporters jockeyed for position, tripping over one another to ask their questions.
    The chief was tired and running low on patience. “Look fellas, we wouldn’t have booked him if we weren’t sure. He gave us facts only the killer could give…. We got the right guy—no question about it.”
    From the top of the stairs, Whitmore heard shouting and the sound of cameras flashing. Bulger and Di Prima were still holding him, with a phalanx of detectives behind them. When he spotted the mob of reporters below them, George hesitated. One of the detectives said reassuringly, “It’s okay, George. Let’s go.”
    They descended the stairs. Bright lights from TV cameras illuminated the dingy precinct. Phosphorescent bulbs flashed. Questions were shouted all at once: George, why did you do it? Did they beat you? What do you have to say, George? George, was it fun?
    Fred Shapiro pushed to the front of the crowd. Years later, in a book on the Whitmore case, he would write: “The detectives made no effort to clear a path for Whitmore…. rather, it seemed that he cleared a path for them through massed reporters and photographers who pressed close to, but did not touch him.”
    Within a few moments, the prisoner was led out of the station house to a squad car that would take him to arraignment court in downtown Brooklyn.
    The police station quickly emptied out, with reporters dashing off to file their stories in time for the next edition. There was nothing left to say. The NYPD had their man.
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    AT ARRAIGNMENT COURT in downtown Brooklyn, Whitmore felt so weak he thought his legs might give out. The room was packed with reporters, cops, lawyers, and the judge seated on high looking down on the accused. George saw some of his family in the spectators gallery—his aunt, his girlfriend Beverly, his brother Gerald—and felt a wave of humiliation.
    â€œDo you have a lawyer?” barked Judge James J. Comerford. Though the judge had been living in New York most of his life, he had the accent of a man who’d never left the green fields of his birthplace in County Clare, Ireland.
    Whitmore stood handcuffed, with Detective Aidala on one side and Detective Zinkand on the other. To the judge’s question he answered, “No.”
    â€œDo you intend to get a lawyer?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI can’t hear you,” said the judge.
    â€œYes,” said Whitmore.
    â€œWhen will you have a lawyer of your own choice?”
    Detective Aidala spoke up. “He can’t afford a lawyer, Judge.”
    â€œLet him speak for himself. Is there any lawyer in court here now?”
    The judge scanned the area where lawyers from the public defender’s