Daniel Pinna
Police seek '77 killing link to slain youths
Chicago and Homewood police are investigating a possible link between the three youths whose bodies were found stabed (sp) to death Sunday and a Homewood youth whose fatal stabbing two years ago was never solved.
One of the youths found slain Sunday was to have testified in the forthcoming trial of John D. Norman, who police have said is the leader of a nationwide child pornography ring.
In the earlier killing, Kenneth Hellstrom, 17, of 18511 Lexington Av., Homewood, had started home on Jan. 20, 1977, from his job at a gas station several blocks away when he was attacked and stabbed six times in the back. He made his way home and collapsed. He died several hours later.
The Homewood youth had implicated Norman on child molesting charges in 1973. Norman pleaded guilt and was sent to prison for four years.
In the Sunday stabbings, three youths were found dead in a car parked in an alley at 1460 W. Pensacola Av. about 3 a.m. Each of the youths had been slashed many times and their throats cut in what police described as an "almost ritualistic" stabbing.
The victims were identified as Michael Salcido, 17, a ward of the state who lived at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines; his brother, Arthur, 19, a former state ward who lives in Princeton; and Frank Mussa, 16, the son of a Princeton grocer.
Michael was the youth scheduled to testify at Norman's upcoming trial. Witnesses told police that 30 minutes before the bodies were found, they had seen six males and a female in and around the car.
Norman was arrested last June in his apartment at 68511/2 Wrightwood Av. after two boys told police he had photographed them naked and performed a sex act with them. Norman, on parole at the time for the child-molesting conviction, was charged with contributing to the sexual delinquency of minors.
Although Norman was in prison the night Hellstrom was killed, police want to question his allged accomplice in the child prostitution ring, Phillip R. Paske, who was once tried for murder but later pleaded not guilt to theft after plea-bargaining with prosecutors.
Informants have told police that Paske often dresses as a woman. Investigators are divided about whether the three victims were killed in the car, as suggested by the positions of their bodies when found, or whether they had been killed elsewhere, as suggested by the relatively small amount of blood in the car.
- Written by Philip Wattley and Patricia Leeds and appeared in The Chicago Tribune on Wednesday February 28th 1979.
One of the youths found slain Sunday was to have testified in the forthcoming trial of John D. Norman, who police have said is the leader of a nationwide child pornography ring.
In the earlier killing, Kenneth Hellstrom, 17, of 18511 Lexington Av., Homewood, had started home on Jan. 20, 1977, from his job at a gas station several blocks away when he was attacked and stabbed six times in the back. He made his way home and collapsed. He died several hours later.
The Homewood youth had implicated Norman on child molesting charges in 1973. Norman pleaded guilt and was sent to prison for four years.
In the Sunday stabbings, three youths were found dead in a car parked in an alley at 1460 W. Pensacola Av. about 3 a.m. Each of the youths had been slashed many times and their throats cut in what police described as an "almost ritualistic" stabbing.
The victims were identified as Michael Salcido, 17, a ward of the state who lived at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines; his brother, Arthur, 19, a former state ward who lives in Princeton; and Frank Mussa, 16, the son of a Princeton grocer.
Michael was the youth scheduled to testify at Norman's upcoming trial. Witnesses told police that 30 minutes before the bodies were found, they had seen six males and a female in and around the car.
Norman was arrested last June in his apartment at 68511/2 Wrightwood Av. after two boys told police he had photographed them naked and performed a sex act with them. Norman, on parole at the time for the child-molesting conviction, was charged with contributing to the sexual delinquency of minors.
Although Norman was in prison the night Hellstrom was killed, police want to question his allged accomplice in the child prostitution ring, Phillip R. Paske, who was once tried for murder but later pleaded not guilt to theft after plea-bargaining with prosecutors.
Informants have told police that Paske often dresses as a woman. Investigators are divided about whether the three victims were killed in the car, as suggested by the positions of their bodies when found, or whether they had been killed elsewhere, as suggested by the relatively small amount of blood in the car.
- Written by Philip Wattley and Patricia Leeds and appeared in The Chicago Tribune on Wednesday February 28th 1979.
Date & Place:
in Chicago
