Bob Crane

Crane in 1963

Crane began his broadcasting career in 1950 at WLEA in Hornell, New York. He soon moved to WBIS in Bristol, Connecticut, and then WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a 1,000-watt operation with a signal covering the northeastern portion of the New York metropolitan area. In 1956 he was hired by CBS Radio to host the morning show at its West Coast flagship KNX in Los Angeles, partly to re-energize that station's ratings and partly to halt his erosion of suburban ratings at WCBS in New York City. In California, he filled the broadcast with sly wit, drumming, and such guests as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Bob Hope. His show quickly topped the morning ratings with adult listeners in the Los Angeles area, and Crane became "king of the Los Angeles airwaves".[8]

Crane's acting ambitions led to guest-hosting for Johnny Carson on the daytime game show Who Do You Trust? and appearances on The Twilight Zone (uncredited), Channing, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and General Electric Theater. After Carl Reiner appeared on his radio show, Crane persuaded Reiner to book him for a guest appearance on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

After seeing Crane's performance on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Donna Reed offered him a guest shot on her program. After the success of that episode, his character, Dr. David Kelsey, was incorporated into the story line and Crane became a regular cast member, beginning with the "Friends and Neighbors" episode. Ann McCrea was cast in the series as his wife, Midge Kelsey.[9] Crane continued to work full-time at KNX during his stint on The Donna Reed Show, running back and forth from the KNX studio at Columbia Square to Columbia Studios. He left the show in December 1964.[1]

In 1965, Crane was offered the starring role in a television situation comedy set in a World War II POW camp. Hogan's Heroes involved the sabotage and espionage missions of allied soldiers, led by Hogan, from under the noses of the oblivious Germans guarding them. The show was a hit, finishing in the top 10 in its first year. The distinctive military-style snare drum rhythm that introduces the show's theme song was played by Crane himself. The series lasted for six seasons, and Crane was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1966 and 1967. In 1968, he became romantically involved with cast member Patricia Olson, who played Hilda under the stage name Sigrid Valdis. He divorced Anne in 1970, just before their 21st anniversary, and married Olson on the set of the show later that year, with Richard Dawson serving as best man.[10][11] Their son, Scotty, was born in 1971,[12] and they later adopted a daughter, Ana Marie. The couple separated in 1977, but according to several family members, reconciled shortly before Crane's death.[11]

In 1968, Crane and series co-stars Werner Klemperer, Leon Askin, and John Banner appeared with Elke Sommer in a feature film, The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz, set in the divided city of Berlin during the Cold War. In 1969, Crane starred with Abby Dalton in a dinner theater production of Cactus Flower.

Following the cancellation of Hogan's Heroes in 1971, Crane appeared in two Disney films: Superdad (1973), in the title role, and Gus (1976). In 1973, he purchased the rights to a comedy play called Beginner's Luck and began touring it, as its star and director, at the Showboat Dinner Theatre in St. Petersburg, Florida, the La Mirada Civic Theatre in California, the Windmill Dinner Theatre in Scottsdale, Arizona, and other dinner theaters around the country.[13]

Between theater engagements, he guest-starred in a number of TV shows, including Police Woman, Gibbsville, Quincy, M.E., and The Love Boat. In 1975, Crane returned to TV with his own series, The Bob Crane Show on NBC, which was cancelled after 13 episodes.

In early 1978, Crane taped a travel documentary in Hawaii, and recorded an appearance on the Canadian cooking show Celebrity Cooks. Neither aired in the U.S. following his death. His appearance on Celebrity Cooks did air in Canada in late 1978, and was recreated in the biopic film Auto Focus.[1]

The Scottsdale Police Department, small in size at the time, had no homicide division, and was ill-equipped to handle such a high-profile murder investigation. The crime scene yielded few clues; no evidence of forced entry was found, and nothing of financial value was missing. Detectives examined Crane's extensive videotape collection, which led them to John Henry Carpenter, who had flown to Phoenix on June 25 to spend a few days with Crane. Carpenter's rental car was impounded and searched. Several blood smears were found that matched Crane's blood type; no one else known to have been in the car, including Carpenter, tested for that type. (DNA testing was not yet available.) With no other significant material evidence, the Maricopa County Attorney declined to file charges.[23]

In 1990, Scottsdale Police Detective Barry Vassall and Maricopa County Attorney's Office Investigator Jim Raines, a former Phoenix homicide investigator,[24] re-examined the evidence from 1978 and persuaded the county attorney to reopen the case.[25] Although DNA testing of the blood found in Carpenter's rental car was inconclusive, Raines discovered an evidence photograph of the car's interior that appeared to show a piece of brain tissue. The actual tissue samples recovered from the car had been lost, but an Arizona judge ruled that the new evidence was admissible.[25] In June 1992, Carpenter was arrested and charged with Crane's murder.[26][27]

At the 1994 trial, Crane's son, Robert, testified that in the weeks before his father's death, Crane had repeatedly expressed a desire to sever his friendship with Carpenter. He said Carpenter had become "a hanger-on" and "a nuisance to the point of being obnoxious".[28] "My dad expressed that he just didn't need Carpenter kind of hanging around him anymore," he said.[23] He testified that Crane had called Carpenter the night before the murder and ended their friendship.[29]

Carpenter's attorneys attacked the prosecution's case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They presented evidence, including witnesses from the restaurant where the two men had dined the evening before the murder, that Carpenter and Crane were still the best of friends. They noted that the murder weapon had never been identified or found; the prosecution's camera tripod theory was sheer speculation, they said, based solely on Carpenter's occupation. They disputed the claim that the newly discovered evidence photo showed brain tissue, and presented many examples of "sloppy work" by police, such as the mishandling and misplacing of evidence—including the crucial tissue sample itself.[24] They pointed out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in compromising sexual positions with numerous women, implying that any one of them, fearing blackmail, might have been the killer.[29] Other potential suspects proposed by defense attorneys included angry husbands and boyfriends of the women, and an actor who had sworn vengeance after a violent argument with Crane in Texas several months earlier.[23]

Carpenter was acquitted.[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] He continued to maintain his innocence until his death four years later, in 1998.[38] After the trial, Crane's son, Robert, speculated publicly that his father's widow, Patricia Olson, might have had a role in instigating the crime. "Nobody got a dime out of [the murder]," he said, "except for one person," alluding to Crane's will, which excluded him, his siblings, and his mother, with the entire estate left to Olson. Crane's son repeated his suspicions in a 2015 book, Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder.[39] The case's prosecutor, Maricopa County District Attorney Rick Romley, responded, "We never characterized Patty as a suspect," adding, "I am convinced John Carpenter murdered Bob Crane."[10] Officially, Crane's murder remains unsolved.[38]

In November 2016, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office permitted Phoenix television reporter John Hook to submit the 1978 blood samples from Carpenter's rental car for retesting, using a more advanced DNA technique than the one used in 1990.[40] Two sequences were identified, one from an unknown male, and the other too degraded to reach a conclusion. This testing consumed all of the remaining DNA from the rental car, making further tests impossible.[41]