Original subtitles

Warden, Paul Crump has been up to the brink of doom and back down again six,

eight times, something like this? It's been 11 times, I think, for Paul on

dates, and about 40 continuances in relation to his case over a period of

years. And this in itself is metal torture.

These men live from day to day, and of course with this pressure, I'm inclined

to think that they die daily with it.

For nine years, Paul Crump has tried to tell his story.

Either nobody listened, or nobody cared, or nobody believed.

The crime for which he stands convicted took

place on a Friday morning, the 20th of March, 1953,

at the Chicago Stockyards.

Hey, better move that car, unless you want to get sparks all over it.

And personnel.

Fred Rush, plant guard.

In that bag, the payroll.

More than $17 ,000.

Ted Zukoski, captain of a plant guard.

A family man.

Four kids.

Every Friday morning, the same routine.

Paymaster and guard join Martin Carlson of the credit union.

In that box, more than $3 ,000.

And every Friday, up the back stairs of the cafeteria where the employees'

checks are cashed.

Like clockwork.

A ritual familiar to hundreds of employees.

right that morning when a call came in from police headquarters to the city

desk.

The most daring daylight robbery in recent years was climaxed by a vicious

assault and murder.

Something had to be done fast.

The police knew it.

The cry for justice would soon be heard.

Something just had to be done.

I'm John Justin Smith of the Daily News.

Somebody told me Paul Crump would make a good story.

Nine years ago, he was brought into Cook County Jail, convicted along with four

others of the murder of Ted Zukowski. The other four drew prison terms.

Crump alone was sentenced to the chair.

This is the man who will throw the switch.

Jack Johnson, warden of the Cast Iron Jail.

And yet, even the cons will tell you that there's no more decent a guy.

No one of deeper understanding than the old man.

The old man's got a problem.

He doesn't believe in taking human life.

Yet his sworn duty has already called upon him to execute two men.

And I first came into the jail here, was first assigned to the jail.

Paul had an altogether different philosophy than he has today.

And as you know, we're not interested, of course, in the court action or in the

sentence itself.

At this level here, the institution, we're interested in the rehabilitation

the man.

And I would say Paul Crump is an example of a rehabilitation program.

Oh, wait, wait. You say a rehabilitation program. You mean you think he is

rehabilitated? Well, I would say yes. His entire philosophy has changed.

He has an altogether different view on life. He has a greater feeling for his

fellow man.

Today he can sit down and discuss many of the problems that arose in the past

and problems that face him today.

And he speaks and talks of them in the sense of attempting to work them out.

Look, a man walked in your jail here eight years ago, and today he's a

man. Can you take a...

And tell me why, what happened to Paul Crump as an individual that changed him?

Well, by taking the man out of the atmosphere of a caged animal, by

certain freedoms within the institution, by having him become involved in

programs within the institution.

Well, in Paul's case here, we gave him a job, one.

We put him to work in what we term a convalescent tier.

We allowed him a position of responsibility.

Doing what?

Well, in this case here, in this convalescent here, he has charge of

fellows down there that are sent in from the hospital itself.

These fellows are, in some cases, amputees, men that have had

ulcers and are on the way to recovery.

He has done a fine job down there.

Well, you could term it in some sense orderly, but in the institution we term

it, peer clerk, and he has complete charge of the peer and the

each one of these men.

And his responsibility, for instance, is one of the things that's gotten at Paul

Trump. Yes, understanding responsibility, and I think this is the

his life he's ever really accepted responsibility of knowing the needs of

fellow man.

When I first came in, he was very belligerent, angry at the world.

He didn't actually believe in anything.

He thought that the physical power of a man was the determining factor in rule.

But over the period of the last four or five years now, he's completely changed.

He doesn't have a belligerent attitude at all. He has accepted an entire new

philosophy. He has an understanding of the problems that face other men around

him for the first time.

He has accepted these problems and attempted in his own way to...

shall we say, bring about an answer for these people.

He has become very sympathetic with people within the area in which he's in

charge. What happened to him?

Well, Senator is an animalistic creature. What happened to him?

He has become involved in actions within the institution at which he recognizes

the feelings of his fellow man.

And I have a feeling that because of these things, his attitude today has

definitely changed.

I can't get it out of my mind, Jack Johnston, that you're wasting your time

Paul Crump.

You let the man dress, you rehabilitate him, you've improved him from his animal

state, and yet he's going to die.

Isn't this right?

Let me say that you've emphasized punishment for 250 years in this

it hasn't worked. You still have a steady increase in crime on the outside.

Capital punishment accomplishes nothing.

society is reluctant to kill this man.

There were no eyewitnesses to the crime.

The principal testimony against Crump came from two people.

One, the Libby guard, Fred Rush, identified Paul by his voice only four

give me your gun.

And these were hastily shouted through a mask.

The decisive testimony came from Hudson Tillman, who already had confessed to

the crime.

Only four men were observed at the scene.

It was Tillman who implicated the fifth, Crump.

In 1954, the Supreme Court of Illinois reversed the decision of a lower court,

and Crump was given another trial.

Again, he was found guilty and again condemned.

have anything to do with killing that guard at Libby's? Most certainly did

Nothing more?

Positively nothing.

Where were you? What did you do to say somebody killed somebody else out at

Libby's? I was with a woman. I was in a woman's bed.

Where? The exact time that this thing was happening.

Where and who?

The lady's name is Faye.

Faye Hinton.

Thank you.

I'd say we got to say at 5 .30 or 6 o 'clock, maybe, you know.

And this would have been on Friday, March 20th, 1953,

right? Early morning was Friday, 1953.

What time did you go to sleep?

I would say we went to sleep about 7 .30, maybe even later than that. Like I

said, it might have been 8 o 'clock.

In the morning, March 20th.

Three hours before the robbery out at Libby's, right?

And you slept until when? About one o 'clock in the afternoon, two hours after

the robbery.

And did she ever testify on your behalf?

She testified, but... What did she say?

She testified to just what I said to you.

That at the time that that man was killed, you were with her. Is that what

said? That's right, but... Where is she now, do you know? No, I don't. Have you

ever heard from her? I heard from her a few times until the...

Public ridicule. She was held up. She was ridiculed so much by coming out and

testifying that I was with her and under the circumstances under which I was

with her.

And I was married at the time, and she was married but separated. Both of us

were separated.

And you know what type of an impression a testimony like this makes upon people.

All right, after you left Faze, where'd you go?

hours after I left Faye, I picked up my wife.

There is history.

We went on a little shopping trip.

That afternoon, Paul and his wife went to a barber shop.

Oh, and this is pertinent.

One of the robbers that was identified at the scene of the crime wore a goatee.

The affidavit of the barber who worked on Paul that afternoon positively states

that his face was completely devoid of a goatee.

Later that afternoon, Paul put his wife on a bus and made plans to see her that

night.

The plans never materialized.

At nine o 'clock, he was picked up at Hudson Tillman's house and charged with

murder.

I'd like to know why on the evening of Friday, March 20th, you went out to

Tillman's house.

Out in Morgan Park, was it?

Yeah. What were you doing out there?

I went out there after learning from a fellow I knew.

He's a co -defendant in the case, Eugene Taylor.

Yeah.

I found out in my conversation with Gene that...

A robbery had been committed out of Libby's.

How did he find out, do you know?

Yes.

He informed me that he was one of the participants in the robbery.

And what did you go up to Tillman's house for?

Well, from what Gene said, Tillman had ran away with more than

his share of the loot.

You were going out to get it back, is that it? I wasn't going to get it back.

was going out there to rob Tillman.

To rob Tillman. Yeah, I was going to rob Tillman.

All right, Paul, back to March 20th.

You left your wife on 43rd Street, and you were waiting for a bus out to Morgan

Park. What happened then?

I see Eugene Taylor, and he says, yeah, you just got one seat.

I asked him what he gave me a lift, and he says, yeah. So I got in the car.

Why did he say that to you, you're just the guy I want to see? Well, after I got

in the car, he told me.

He says, asked me, did I know where Hudson Tillman lived?

I told him, yes.

Where did Hudson Tillman live? Hudson Tillman lived on 111th, I don't know the

exact address.

In Morgan Park? Yes.

He says, well, I've got to see this guy.

I says, why?

Man, he's got some do -over.

Did he tell you where he got that money or where they got the money? No, not at

that time.

When we hit State Street at about 47,

this flash came on. He had the radio on, and this came over the radio

about a four -armed bandit sticking up Libby McNeil and Libby Plant, you know.

And killing a guard.

And killing a guard, yes.

And they named the amount of money that was taken, and that was

my score.

That was my keeper.

Eugene Taylor told you at that moment that he took part in that holdup. That's

right. And that's the first you heard of the Libby robbery, right?

That's right.

I started questioning him with regards to it. He said it was a split up out

there and they couldn't stay together.

And that Hudson had taken more than his half of the loot

and had cut out with it. It was supposed to have been about six.

seven thousand dollars involved that Hudson ran away with.

So I told him, I said, look, if it's this much dough involved, man, I want

of it. If I take you out there, show you where Hudson live at, we run into

Hudson, you know, if I can squeeze this money out of him, baby, I want some. How

would you squeeze the money out of him?

To be frank, any way that I'm allowed.

The street right in front of the house, the pool room.

Went around to the side of the house and knocked on the door.

The

police

commandeered the Tillman house when they discovered that a car he had borrowed

and abandoned was the one used in the Libby robbery.

Tillman himself wasn't home.

Paul and Jean were the first to arrive, and before any questions were asked,

they were taken into custody and held for three days.

Lieutenant told me when I was at 11th Street the first time he picked me up

he was going to find the nigger that committed the damn job out there.

He was going to

bring

me back down to 11th Street and I wouldn't come down there.

from off of a rack except as a cork. All right, they bothered you for a couple

of days and then they turned you loose. A couple of days, it seemed like an

eternity. You have no idea of how it would feel to be strung up by your hands

and punched and beat around.

Why did they turn you loose?

They turned me loose because they didn't have anything to connect me with that

crime. They felt that he checked my alibis and things evidently because he

that I had an airtight alibi.

He said that when he first turned me loose. He turned me loose. They wouldn't

even book me for this. All right, so what did you do then? What happened to

I went home. I was in a daze. I was in pain. I went home. I knocked on the door

of the house, and my wife had come down.

And she was there. She opened the door, and that's all I remember until about

three or a couple hours later. I fell out. I was in a fever.

You sweated me until I was in a fever. You walked in the house and you fainted.

Is that the idea?

This was your mother's house?

My mother's. The 431 was 110th Street. Morgan Park. Morgan Park.

And how long did you stay there?

I stayed there until they came back and re -arrested me again.

About three days later, I was in this fever.

March 26th.

1953, Hudson Tillman confessed to the Libby robbery.

He named Paul Crump as Trigger Man.

His mother's house.

His mother, Mrs. Lonnie Crump, was the first to awaken.

The backyard was full of police.

They'd come right in with their guns drawn.

And it frightened me so.

I was so frightened.

And I read a pounding at my door, my back door. And I went to the door.

And I looked out and there was lots of policemen out in the back.

They reached in, asking where was Hope.

Asking where was the money.

My son, John, was in the bedroom.

And so they asked, was he, who he was, was he Paul? I told them, no, Paul was

downstairs, sick in bed.

Some went in the fridge room.

Some went in the down on their knees, crawling around.

Said they was looking for money.

Asked them, where was the money?

So they wrecked downstairs to where he was in his place.

They broke the glass out the door to get here.

So some went into the bedroom where my son was laying.

We couldn't even stand on his feet.

So my daughter started to...

started

to protect and help him.

And they told her to keep her hands off of him because...

They didn't. They'd take her down.

So they went and got a belt that belonged to my son -in -law.

And taken him and tied his hands.

And they pushed him and shoved him along as they went.

And just as far as I could see them, they would still push him and tell him

run.

Because they wanted to see him again.

Just as far as I could.

They arrested me. They kidnapped

me. That's what they did. It wasn't an arrest.

It was something that would come out of one of Hitler's dialogues,

where he treated me. Did they knock you around some more? Yes, they knocked me

around. And that's when you came out with what they called your conspiration.

that it?

No, that was a couple of days later. It's what it means for a couple of days.

After they picked me up the second time.

And you... I got a good question for you. Why in the world do you suppose

guy Tillman implicated you in this murder case? Why did he say you of all

was the person who had shot the guard?

This is a $64 question. This is nothing hard to figure out. People just want

to know. All you have to do is go over and... and check the records in the

criminal court they've got five the man was out on five armed robberies to get

life on that's right he's gonna get life on each one of those charges but the

fact there's always been bad blood between so many times my brother was uh

with his wife rather my brother was born with his wife and

his sister too and i had a relationship with

Some of the ladies in the family, and all of this, plus the fact that Truman

just a punk in my sight.

I mean, it was something to just sit around and step out of the way. It was a

dope dream.

It was a dope dream, yes.

The testimony of a narcotic, sir.

Enough to arrest a man, but not enough to indict him.

There remained a grim formality of getting a confession.

As it happened, the process involved a series of bitterly contested maneuvers

the state's attorney's office.

The promise made to Paul's first attorney, Bill Gerber. The first

state's attorney, Richard Austin, John, asked me to see him with regard to Paul

Crust.

I conferred with Mr.

Austin at that time, and I asked him permission to talk to Paul, Mr. Grady.

I told Paul that anything he stated... to the state's attorney was agreeable

with me because I wanted him to tell them the truth.

However, I did not want him to say anything outside of my presence because

his attorney.

He assured me that nothing would be done.

At that point, I then asked Mr. Austin that if any statements were to be made

any statements were to be taken by my client, that he was to notify me. And we

had an understanding to that effect.

The next I heard, a day or two later, that confessions had been obtained from

Paul Crump and others.

And I also heard and later ascertained that the confessions were witnessed by

six or eight reputable people from the county of Cook, some who lived 40 or 45

miles away from the criminal court cell.

And these people tried to keep the attorney who represented a man in a

case. knowing that he represented them, away from them when they took the

statement of that nature.

Did Trump get a fair trial the first time out? Well, John, it wasn't a fair

trial. I never believed it to be a fair trial. That's why we took it up to the

Supreme Court.

And apparently the Supreme Court felt as I did.

They reversed the case and said he didn't get a fair trial.

At the time I undertook the defense of Paul Trump and talked to him, I thought

he was innocent.

During the defense of this case, I thought he was innocent.

When we went up to the Supreme Court, I thought he was innocent.

And frankly, I still think he's innocent.

I think this is a sin to the police that you didn't do it. I said to the police

that I did do it because at the time, with the pressure and brutality, the

wimpy interrogation, I was feverish. I had a temperature of 103 .6.

Anybody put you around? I've been strung up for three days. How did they strung

you up? Where?

Where? It's 1121 South State Street.

And they strung you up by what, Paul?

By my arm.

By my arm? Over the door? It was something out of one in 35, something

them. That's why people don't believe these kinds of things happen.

Police.

Police in Chicago.

Two days you were at Stockyard Station. That's right. While they talked to you.

That's right. Did you have any sleep at Stockyard Station? No, I didn't. Did you

have anything to eat?

No.

One of the fellows that was in the cell next to me says, What happened, man?

I said, I don't know. They come in and they handcuff me behind my back.

He said, well, baby, you're going to get it.

I said, what do you mean, get it? He said, that's it. You're going to get it.

He said, all right, walk.

And I take it easy.

Walk. Then I turn around, watch it there.

And then I spin it, turn me around in a circle.

Then I heard the door open.

And hands grabbed me on the shoulder and by my arms, in my arms, so I wouldn't

be able to move from side to side.

Crump?

Yes. He said, turn around.

I said, what? Turn around, goddammit. And then we were stripped naked.

And you stood up there on the bench, and what happened? We stood on the bench,

and that's when we were interrogated.

They started shooting questions at us.

Where's the money? Over and over again. What makes you niggas think that you

could get away with pulling a daylight robbery of one of the biggest companies

in Chicago?

We're going to burn you, all of you.

You were the guy that had on the blue suit. You were the guy that had on the

checkered coat.

They beat me, they punched on me. They were telling me about just detail, the

detailed activity of the... People that participated in the robbery, they said

it to me over and over again until it became the thing that I knew, I knew by

heart. Their theory, if this was their theory, I knew it by heart.

I even knew the part that they wanted me to play.

I confessed, and you would confess, and anybody else that was in the position

that I was in would confess.

And as a result of that, you spent nine years right on...

In this jail, because I'm waiting to be executed.

Right here, and no one believing a fragment of what I said.

No one caring, really, because no one knew the first one to come out here to

interview me.

Mr. Dodd, speaking of Mr. Dodd.

State's attorneys, none of them went out of their way. I learned later on that

this was supposed to be one of their duties, to help a defendant prove

innocent, but no one is doing it.

attempted to raise their hand to see whether or not the things that I claimed

were true.

The only thing they wanted was a conviction. They got the conviction, and

it. They got the conviction, Paul, and now you're sitting in the Cook County

Jail waiting execution.

How many times have you been up to within a day or two? Oh, I've lost

I don't even like to think about it.

Twice I was arrested, twice brutalized, Paul says.

We deny this emphatically. The police said it at the last trial.

Here's the condemned man version.

I hung down.

And I didn't think I was going to ever get down.

And he said, now what did you do with the money?

I said, I don't know anything about the money.

He said, who was the guy that had the bag and the shotgun?

I said, I don't know who had the bag.

shotgun. And I started praying.

I started saying prayer.

And I started praying out loud.

What prayer do you know? I started saying the Hail Mary.

I started saying Our Father.

And I was saying it. First, I was saying it to myself.

Why would you say the Hail Mary? You weren't a Catholic at the time?

Yes, I was.

I'm a Catholic. I've been a Catholic ever since 1946.

And I said it because I wanted some help.

Did you get help, Paul?

No, I didn't get any help. When I started praying, they came in and they

started.

Paul? Grab on, Paul.

Paul,

what did they do?

Well... One of them... Somehow, I don't know who it was.

One come up to me...

And he hit me in the stomach and he told me to stop praying. He says, you black

son of a bitch. So what do you know?

She should be in the jungle.

He said,

what would the white mother of God want to do with a black son of a bitch like

you?

in the hands of the naval young civil liberties lawyer Don Moore.

Our civilization's act in killing Crump does more harm

to our tradition of decency

and civility than Crump's act, if he did it, in

killing that guard. Now that's a fact, and the reason it's a fact is because

This killing is done in cold blood.

That killing wasn't.

I don't think that our government should kill anybody in cold blood ever, under

any circumstances. There's no excuse for it.

All right. How do you feel about Paul Crump's charges of police brutality and

the police denial of those charges?

I would say that the overwhelming probabilities in this case are...

I may be wrong, and this is my opinion, but this is what I think. The

overwhelming probability, based on the record of the Chicago police made over

the last 30 years, are that Paul was beaten to within an inch of his life.

if I had a bet on it, that's what I'd bet, because that's what I think,

this is what the Chicago police have been doing to get confessions.

The memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

This thing has got a history going back 40 years.

The history is disgraceful.

The tradition is bad. It's worse than bad. It's unconscionable.

And this has been going on. I'm not talking just about Paul's case now.

I'm talking about the beaten and battered people that I've seen with my

eyes, fresh from police stations.

All the people that allegedly fell down the stairs.

All the people that allegedly accidentally ran into the cell door.

all the beaten and bruised and battered people that have been beaten up in these

Chicago police stations for the last 30 years. And I'm not saying all police

officers do it.

I'm not saying that any police officers do it all the time. And I'm not saying

that I'm sure they did it to clump, because I don't know. What I do know is

a man goes into one of those police stations and is held incommunicado, he's

fair game.

Monday morning, March 26, 1962, a familiar silence came over

the maximum security block.

It was once called Death Row.

The warden received a phone call from the United Press.

The news from Washington had just come over the wire.

Paul's final appeal had been denied by the United States Supreme Court.

I have received unofficial word that the Supreme Court has turned down your last

petition.

Have you given any thought to this, or has counsel talked to you?

Yes, he talked to me all about it.

And he let me know that I had exhausted, I have exhausted all my legal

rights. as far as appeal.

Do you intend to allow him to ask for commutation?

Well, it's my intention to go along with him in whatever he thinks best

to do for me next.

I'm glad that I was able to accomplish something of worth through all of this

long ordeal.

And I hope, naturally, that it...

doesn't want to be terminated in the manner that you and

I know it could happen.

If this is the will of God that this should be done, then

I'll have to accept it.

I'm more concerned about, especially with you and your view, and the

relationship that...

Given what I've had over the years, I find that I'm a little more concerned

about the effect that it will have on you.

Now, Paul, you know it's a job that has to be done in case this does come about.

You know my viewpoint relating to capital punishment. I firmly believe

that it isn't a deterrent in any sense, and certainly it can't be called

punishment.

I think it's you yourself who are...

I've proven that rehabilitation is possible regardless of what the crime

that a man is charged with or found guilty of.

I did some papers. I did some things. That's why I can't feel too embittered

about my situation because I did some things. Man, if I got caught for them,

be in kind of trouble. You never killed anybody. No, I've never killed anyone,

you know, never.

But just more or less prove what goes around, come around, you know.

Well, they didn't get me for those things, but they got me for this shit. I

can't, it's just, I tried to work up a...

a tremendous indignation of anger and bitterness but i can't do it because uh

ever since i was 16 years old i've been out there hustling

long

years of making himself over

One thought remains uppermost in Paul's mind.

The thought of death.

The virtually certain knowledge that all his efforts toward redemption will end

in the elected chair.

There is no getting away from it.

You can escape two moments in grief.

I have managed to do so. my writing to a degree, but it's always

there. It's like the bomb that surrounds you. It's like the cold

steel that you see your arms fall up against accidentally when you're

trying to relax, when you think cold, cold death.

Then you think about the fellow.

upstairs that ain't here with you you think about their troubles because their

troubles are your troubles and when one of them get turned down you turn down

because it makes you know that people that are ruling

upon whether they live or they die are actually

well to them they just knew Because he is a statistic and you

are a statistic.

And you think, well, I am as less valuable to them as

one, as he is. And so he is me.

And the person died. The man was executed.

You think you died too.

Because you know the process.

You've been in a death cell. I've been down there.

I know the deathly hush of it.

I know the horror of seeing people that you've come to know and

like and who you have did things for and who have small things.

Just giving a cigarette.

They're giving you a cigarette.

You see them, the parents, who go through this ritual, taking your life.

It's often like a part of a macabre dream, a nightmare, but you know it's

nightmare because you can feel it within your heart.

You can hear it pounding in your head.

You can hear it. It's going to break out. You can feel it in your heart, in

throat. You think over all of this, well, it is torture.

It's mental torture. It's physical torture.

Will it actually prove anything to anyone?

What will be gained out of it?

And then after 1201, and you know that the man is dead,

you find that there is no feeling other than a

numbness within you and the knowledge that

someone that you knew was gone, that has a vacuum in life.

that there's what you can call this fellow's name that you often do

accidentally, if you have been intimately associated with, and you've

asked, never asked.

I just started thinking in terms of their past, the effects of them

waiting out these long, anxious hours.

And we wonder about prayer.

And we wonder about God. If he hasn't completely destroyed everything

that we have been taught that God believed, that God's hand was.

And this will make you a little cynical.

And this will make your fight to sustain a belief in mankind

a little harder, a belief in God a little more harder.

The thing that affects me most is that after a week or

so has passed, nothing has changed. After the headlines have died down,

has changed.

Another fellow will come in for murder.

Another fellow will be sentenced to death for murder.

And they just go on and on and on in this vicious bobber.

It confuses you so until you don't know whether you're in a nightmare or whether

or not you're really living.

I found that I have to reach out at night. I work hard and exhaust myself

so I can sleep.

Then before sleeping, I have to reach out and grab the bars and hold them.

I guess this is just my way of holding on.

to reality and holding on to my sanity the

possibility that i won't just slip

away and be no more i don't but that's the way i have to go to sleep