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.Police found fingerprints on the pane of glass and the Frenchdoor.Experts at the Chicago Police Crime Laboratory said that threeprints were found on two pieces of glass that had been removed fromthe door.Only one print was clear enough to be useful, however, andit did not match those of any family members or people who came tothe house.Police also found five bloody palm prints left on the banisteras the killer fled down the stairs and out of the house.A funeral service for Valerie Percy was held on September 20, 1966, atKenilworth Union Church.The Percys were devout Christian Scientistsand funeral services are not usually held in churches.However, her fatherwanted a place to accommodate a large number of mourners.Some 400people came to pay their respects.Pink roses, Valerie s favorite flowers,decorated the oak altar.This was the family s second tragedy.Valerie smother, Jeanne, died in 1947 after a violent reaction to drugs, followingan apparently simple and successful operation.Percy married the formerLoraine Guyer in 1950.Mr.and Mrs.Percy, Valerie s twin sister, Sharon, her younger sister,Gail, 12, brothers Roger, 19, and Mark, 11, sat through the memorialservice.Also in attendance was former classmate and boyfriendAndrew Potash, 21.He had flown home from the University of Sussexin England the night before.After the memorial service, the familydrove to the graveyard of Christ Episcopal Church in Winnetka whereValerie s ashes were buried.The Percy family fled their Kenilworth home the following dayand slipped away from Chicago into seclusion.Campaign ManagerThomas J.Houser announced that all Percy campaign offices wouldstay closed until further notice.When he received news of the murderof his opponent s daughter, Senator Douglas sent him a message thatread, My heart goes out to you over your cruel and terrible loss.I amcalling off all campaigning. Percy responded, saying It is impossiblefor me to say at this time when I will be able to resume my owncandidacy.Whenever you resume your campaign, I will understandcompletely. 230 Cold Cases: Famous Unsolved Mysteries, Crimes, and Disappearances in AmericaThe election campaign was halted but the police investigation contin-ued.Police believed that the killer wanted to rid himself of the murderweapons as soon as possible and may have tossed them into nearbyLake Michigan.They hoped to find the glasscutter, the object the killerused to hit Valerie in the head, and the weapon used to stab her.Scuba divers with the Coast Guard dressed in rubber suits andcombed the lake s sandy bottom off the Percy family s private beach.They used an improvised dragnet that consisted of a heavy iron bar fivefeet long with six magnets attached like studs.The bar was attached tosturdy lines and dragged along the bottom of the lake.The men sweptthe beach for nearly four hours, wading a few steps, pulling up the barto check it, and returning it to the bottom of the lake.Chief Boatswain s Mate Leo Gross said that he found a hotspot about 35 feet from the shore in about four feet of water.The draglineregistered an object at the sandy bottom of the lake, but magnetscouldn t grab and retrieve it.A diver would go underwater to retrievethe object, which would be displaced several feet from the spot byturbulent waves.Severe squalls made it impossible for them to bringthe object to the surface.The Coast Guard was eventually able toretrieve an old army bayonet from the water, but there was no indica-tion whether it had been used to stab the victim.Police were following other leads as well.The morning of the mur-der, investigators had found the footprints of bare feet leading betweenthe Percy home and the family s private beach on Lake Michigan.Thisled them to believe that the murderer had fled towards the beach.Neighbor Nydia Hohf, who lived just south of the Percy house, hadbeen awakened by the siren wailing from the roof of the Percy homeat 5:05 AM just after the murder occurred.She grabbed her robe andran into her backyard.From her view of the south side of the Percyhome and their private beach, she didn t see anyone.A cab driver told police that he saw a green station wagon comingfrom Devonshire Lane just after the siren from the Percy homesounded.The Percys lived at 40 Devonshire Lane, a street that was onlyabout a block long.Detectives located the driver and cleared him ofsuspicion.It turned out that he had merely used the family s drivewayat 5:30 AM to turn around.Police focused their investigation on people who were familiar with thePercy family home
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