CRIMINAL MIND > FORENSICS & INVESTIGATION

Beverly Hills Cop

The Murder Weapon Surfaces

One month after the crimes, in August 1957, Brad Tuley, a man living near Manhattan Beach, found two watches in his back yard.

But he didn't tell anyone.

In April 1959, nearly two years later, Tuley found the frame of a .22 caliber H&R revolver.

But he still didn't tell anyone.

Shells From Murder Weapon

Then, in March 1960, Tuley's son, while roto-tilling the yard, found the cylinder of a revolver, which contained six shell casings, one live cartridge—and, most important, several empty chambers.

Murder Weapon

Mr. Tuley believed it was time to call the El Segundo PD.

The victims of the rape and robbery identified the two watches Tuley had found. The one live cartridge in the gun was proven to be consistent with the ammunition used to kill officers Curtis and Phillips. Ballistics, in its infancy as a law enforcement tool in 1960, subsequently proved that the revolver Tuley found was in fact the murder weapon. Excited, El Segundo detectives then traced the revolver by its serial number to a Sears Roebuck and Company store in Shreveport, Louisiana, and found out it had been purchased on July 18, 1957, four days before the crimes.

The man who purchased the gun was one George Wilson.

So now they had a name—but was it a real name? The investigation seemed to be heading in the right direction. The community was optimistic. A suspect was within reach.

Unbeknownst to detectives was that George Wilson was indeed a fake name, and the address Wilson gave when he purchased the weapon was a gravel pit in Miami, Florida.

Another dead end.

Detectives were sent to Louisiana and checked the area near Sears and determined that a man named George Wilson had also checked into the local YMCA (next door to the Sears store) the day before he bought the gun, thus signing the guest registry using the fictitious address 2306 NW 34 Street, Miami, Florida. In what would be one of the most important finds of the investigation forty-two years later, detectives in Louisiana obtained a photo static copy of the registration card—in which George Wilson had signed his name, thus leaving a sample of his handwriting—albeit a ruse—that would come back to kick him in the ass.

YMCA registration card

By then, it was believed that the individual or person using the name George Wilson was likely responsible for the crimes. Over one thousand people bearing the name George Wilson were then questioned over the next two years, a part of the investigation that took detectives all over the country. Literally, anyone named George Wilson, living anywhere in the U.S., was questioned by El Segundo detectives during the early 1960s.

But nothing came of it and the investigation once again stalled. Cops were baffled. What seemed like a great lead again turned into nothing, yielding no new information. By 1963, the case ended up in a file room—where it would sit for the next thirty-nine years.