Press enter after choosing selection

Ziefle Slaying Defendant Bound Over

Ziefle Slaying Defendant Bound Over image
Parent Issue
Day
31
Month
August
Year
1971
Copyright
Copyright Protected
Rights Held By
Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Ziefle Slaying Defendant Bound Over

By William B. Treml
(News Police Reporter)

A grim-faced, mustachioed prison convict who police say garroted a retired office worker in a house on the city’s west side last month was bound to Circuit Court this morning on a first-degree murder charge.

Glenn G. Charles, 23, who escaped from a work farm outside Southern Michigan Prison at Jackson a week before the murder of Theodore R. Ziefle, was ordered by District Court Judge S. J. Elden to appear in Circuit Court on Sept. 17. The judge remanded Charles to the County Jail pending the court appearance.

The bind-over came after Assistant Prosecutor Thomas F. Shea had called a single witness in today’s resumption of the District Court examination which began Aug. 18.

Patrolman Ronald Bekker of the Grand Rapids Police Department gave a detailed version of the capture of Charles in Grand Rapids early on the morning of July 30. The officer said he and his partner, Daniel Reagan, spotted the white Buick Charles was driving and identified it as Ziefle’s car, which authorities say was stolen from his home at 449 Fourth St. at the time the retired Ann Arbor News credit manager was slain.

Bekker said his scout car and another Grand Rapids police car forced the Buick to a stop but Charles stepped on his accelerator and began speeding away. Bekker said he fired one shot from his service revolver and the slug hit a tailight of the fleeing car.

A high-speed pursuit followed which ended in a parking lot some blocks away, where Charles leaped out of the car and fled on foot, Bekker said. He said he and Patrolman Reagan cut Charles off as he ran down a side street, and when the convict tried to back track the officers chased him and caught him in a doorway.

Under cross examination by Defense Counsel Robert Grace, Bekker said there were 20 Grand Rapids police cars at the scene of the capture at one point. He said another officer, Robert Major, fired two shots at Charles while the convict was fleeing. The patrolman said he saw Charles’ face for five to seven seconds when the Buick was first stopped.

Prosecutor Shea rested his case after the cross examination, and when Grace offered no witnesses the state moved the case be bound to Circuit Court.

Grace protested binding Charles over on the first-degree murder charge, citing several state Supreme Court decisions in which first degree convictions were ordered reduced to second degree.

“Premeditation and deliberation must be shown in a first-degree murder conviction,” Grace told the court. “As the Supreme Court phrases it, ‘. . . a thought process undisturbed by hot blood . . . There is no evidence introduced here to prove premeditation.”

The defense attorney said an act done on a “sudden impulse” cannot sustain the premeditation requirement for the first-degree conviction.

Prosecutor Shea criticized the defense contention, noting that Ziefle’s head showed four wounds and testimony given earlier indicated he was unconscious when an electrical cord was wrapped around his neck and he was strangled. He said motive is not a necessary factor to prove a murder case in Michigan and he called a Supreme Court opinion on that point “in error.”

Judge Elden, in binding Charles over, noted that his court has no guilt-innocence jurisdiction and the state had established that a crime had been committed and reasonable grounds existed to believe Charles had committed it.