A Rage To Kill And Other True Cases

although he was a desultory employee at best.
    Up on Queen Anne Hill, his seventeenth family was at its wit’s end wondering what they would do about Michael. He frightened them because they had no idea what he was thinking. When he was home, he gulped his food and then stared at them with eyes that were as cold as a wolf’s. They found comfort in knowing that soon he would be eighteen and he would be free to live on his own.

    On the evening of March 28, 1961, Blossom Braham took a little time for herself. She was thirty-eight, the mother of two school-aged boys, and she didn’t get that many chances for solitude. Blossom was quite beautiful; a lot of people remarked how much she resembled the movie star Donna Reed. She had once had a career in show business herself—as a dancer. But now she was a full-time mother. She stopped by the Queen Anne branch of the Seattle Public Library that Tuesday evening, returned some books and picked out some others. She needed a few items for breakfast and she walked the few blocks to Jay Samuel’s Grocery Store. It was a little after eight in the evening when she got there.
    Blossom Braham was a familiar customer and she shopped often at the little neighborhood grocery. Mr.Samuels looked up from the account books he was balancing as she walked in, and called “Hello, Blossom.” She smiled and moved to the bread rack and studied the breakfast rolls. The prices were higher here than at the supermarket, but it was within easy walking distance of her house and she liked Mr. Samuels.
    The bell over the door tinkled again as a young man hurried into the small market. He carried a gun in his right hand.
    It was a moment frozen in time. Samuels stared uncomprehendingly at the boy with the gun. He didn’t say a word, but something made Blossom turn around. The gunman told them both to get behind the counter.
    Then he ordered Samuels to empty the cash register and place the contents in a paper sack. There wasn’t that much money—less than $40; a neighborhood grocery wasn’t the kind of target a professional would have chosen.
    Neither Samuels nor Mrs. Braham had resisted in any way. They barely breathed as the young gunman grabbed the sack and backed toward the door.
    “Stay where you are,” the man with the gun ordered—quite unnecessarily. Both Samuels and Blossom Braham remained motionless behind the counter.
    The gunman reached behind him for the doorknob, and then, almost as an afterthought, he raised the gun and fired twice.
    Blossom Braham fell like a stone, a bullet between her eyes. She scarcely had time to see death coming. She looked surprised, as if this could not be happening. Samuels made an involuntary move to help her and the gunman shouted, “I said stay where you are!”
    It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Blossom Braham was dying. Jay Samuels fully expected to hear the gun roar again but the gunman turned and ran out into the street.
    Patrolmen E. E. Stallman and D. C. Moe received the first radio call for help at 8:43 P.M. They found Blossom Braham on the floor behind the counter; she was unconscious and breathing only sporadically. The officers knew it was the agonal breathing of a person in extremis. An ambulance crew arrived to take Blossom Braham to Harborview Hospital. Harborview’s emergency room had wrenched a lot of people back from the edge of death, but there was nothing they could do for Blossom; she died without ever regaining consciousness.
    Jay Samuels was in shock, but he tried to gather his thoughts for the homicide detectives who arrived right after the patrol cops. Dick Schoener and Bob Honz asked him if he could describe the gunman. “He was young—a kid, really,” Samuels began. “Average height and weight but he had such piercing blue eyes. I’ve never seen such cold, deep blue eyes in my life.”
    He thought the weapon had been a .22 handgun. Schoener looked down at the floor and recognized the .22 casings there.
    Detective Al Kretchmar joined the group of investigators at the scene, while a cordon of patrol cars was stationed around the area in the faint hope that the shooter was still in the neighborhood. Other officers moved in to hold back the crowds of curiosity seekers who were trying to peek into the store.
    Samuels was positive that he had never seen the gunman in his store before, and he was baffled about why the man had fired his gun. “We didn’t fight him,” he kept repeating. “We didn’t even move. He just