Part 5: The Police Station

According to officials, Jim Duncan walked into the Lancaster Police Station on Oct. 20, 1972, and crossed the lobby in just a few steps. Without saying a word, authorities allege, he ripped the revolver from the holster on an unsuspecting officer's hip, stepped back, and shot himself in the head. But what sort of investigation was done after the fact? What sort of investigation could have been done — and should have been done? New episodes coming each Tuesday, through March 16. To continue supporting work like this, visit heraldonline.com/podcasts and consider a digital subscription. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Long Shot is a production of McClatchy Studios and I
Heart Radio. Previously on Return Men, he made some kind
of thing went about. I did never realized that having
so much money would create so many problems. When someone

(00:21):
was in they could altered state. Anyone who says that
they didn't know it, bullshit, Yes they did. I saw
him one day and the talk to Hi. My name
is Brett McCormick. I work at a newspaper in South Carolina.
Have you got some time to talk her? I'm Carlin

(00:53):
seconds of time absolutely today. The Lancashire County Corner is
Carlin Knight. Deeese. Do you know much about what I'm
wanting to talk to you about? I don't. Okay, Yeah,
it's been a while. Okay. She was elected corner in
We met at her office in Lancaster and I'll show you.

(01:16):
Oh wow, these were our own books. Dee is the
person I initially called to find an autopsy report for
Jim Duncan to see what a medical professional might have
determined about the former Super Bowl hero who died of
a gunshot inside the Lancaster police station, back when all
sorts of records were kept by hand. Crazy it's funny

(01:38):
to watch, like our your own kids come in and
they'll do research projects, and they sit in the conference
room deer in the handlights because you can't recursive. I
just was about to say that, surely I figured there
had to have been an autopsy done, except that after
searching her records, told me she couldn't find anything. Historically,
Corners didn't really have office is so I'm in this

(02:01):
state still don't and they would keep all their records
in their home, and somebody did have a house fire,
so I'm going to speak it like probably. Unfortunately, the
year that you're looking for, along with many other years,
is missing, just totally missing. Okay, there's another place where
a lot of them are archived, which is in our
basement of the county building records. There's not mini boxes there,

(02:25):
but we went through all of them. Nothing in that year,
along with several other in the seventies, which is totally
non existing, so we know nothing about it. It's no
secret Jim was in a fragile mental state when he died.
The combination of financial and career induced anxiety, possible drug abuse,

(02:46):
even a potential traumatic brain injury could have explained the
twenty six year old taking his own life, but his
family and friends still have questions that linger to this day.
And the more I researched this story, the less confident
I became that law enforcement back Ino had even tried
to answer them. We try to fill every single gap

(03:08):
before we close a case. We have families come in
a lot with questions and we vet those answers out
for them right there on spot. That's our job, is
to serve these folks. There's a frame sign on Diesu's
desk intended for visitors, many of whom are seeing her
on the worst days of their lives. The sign says,

(03:29):
it is my duty to provide you with a fair
and accurate investigation. It is my honor to do so
with pride, honesty, and integrity. That's my saying right there.
I don't care who you are, where you come from,
or what your lifestyle has ended up being. Somebody somewhere
cares about you, and it is our job to provide

(03:53):
these answers to your surviving family and treat you equally
and fairly. Coming in front of the goal post of
the Hui lined the duncan up to the fifth beat,
it seemed clear to me that des prides herself on
Lancaster County offering transparency today that clearly hadn't happened in
Jim's case. That's really outside. If authorities had done even

(04:16):
basic things actions taken in almost all police investigations, including
many at the time, a suicide verdict might have been
accepted in Lancaster. If providing a full account of Jim's
death had been a primary goal for law enforcement, then
so many questions wouldn't have persisted for nearly fifty years.

(04:40):
So how come it wasn't from the Herald McClatchy Studios
and I Heart Radio. This is return man. I'm Brett McCormick,
and this is part five the Police station m testing

(05:04):
the audio for the library in Lancaster, South Carolina. All Right,
who goes? I've spent countless hours in libraries and pouring
through university and newspaper archives trying to better understand what
happened in the police station and the events that followed.
Who says the skill that I don't think many millennials possess.

(05:28):
May when he use a microphone machine excuse okay, a
councilor often second hand and as you'd expect sometimes conflict.
A few official details come from one source law enforcement.
Do you remember, um, what was your job with the

(05:49):
department that cold October morning. The dispatcher behind the counter
was a new trainee named George Lloyd. Yeah, that was you, Okay,
that was what you job was. Do you remember how
the station was laid out? I mean, was there like
a front desk. We spoke briefly by phone at his
home outside Lancaster. He declined to appear in this podcast,

(06:11):
but he repeated to me the official version of the story.
Just um, and just to be clear, So you were,
you were sitting at the desk and he just walked
right by you. According to Lloyd, Lieutenant Henson had just
arrived at the police station. He was going through the mail,
and Lloyd told me Henson was leaning on the counter
with his back to the front door. Moments later, Jim

(06:34):
entered the station. Okay, and he just went right on
past you. Lloyd told me. Quote, this guy walks in
and got about halfway across the floor. I said, can
I help you? And that's when he reached and grabbed
the lieutenant's gun and stepped back and shot himself. He added,
quote the lieutenant turned and grabbed him to try to

(06:56):
stop him, but it was too late, so it was
in front of you. Got you okay, so authorities said.
Jim entered the police station, crossed the reception area in
a few steps, grabbed Hinson's revolver out of the lieutenants holster,
and shot himself in the head, all before Red Hinson
could even comprehend what was happening, much less stop it.

(07:18):
What was your reaction to what happened? I mean, that's
a pretty crazy thing to have happened when I guess
you had only been there a couple of weeks, Lloyd
told me quote, I just ducked behind the desk so
he wouldn't shoot me. Soon after the shooting, another police
officer went to the liquor store where Ellery worked to
tell her Jim was hurt. The former football player's body

(07:40):
was taken to nearby Springs Hospital. There he was examined
by the city corner named Richard Chandler because he had
to go when you don't want about to die, so
he had to be there like a car wreck, so
he had to go. This is Billy Ray Crawford. He
was also there at the hospital that day, no, Tolbe
and rischd was like that were running together and stuff.

(08:03):
It wants somebody else to see it to be a
window since it was black. So because they called me
if you body shop would come up. That being Lancaster's
corner wasn't exactly a full time job, and Richard Chandler
spent most of his time running an auto body repair
shop in town. Chandler died in two thousand nine. Crawford,
who's now in his eighties, was the only black employee

(08:25):
at Chandler's repair shop, and he'd even seen Jim a
few times in the month since the football player had
come back to town. Yeah, I've seen most every week ever,
elto weeks. What would you guys do? Yeah? I heard
he was good at shooting pool. Did you guys shot? Yeah? Yeah,
go to dinner, potters and stuff. Everybody know what a mine?

(08:48):
You know, because it was school right and everything. We
hung out again a lot. Did he seem the same
as he had been or didn't seemed different in anyway
or he seemed the same same. Yeah, that's what would
make it weird that he killed himself all the sudden, right, right,
you know he was married, right, I don't think a
lot of people even were aware that he was right. Yeah,

(09:12):
I don't. I don't think you're the only one that doesn't.
Right right, That's what I've been told. Um, you got
a starlight, right right. Word of Jim's death spread quickly
in such a small town. A friend called Elroy in
Charlotte to tell him his brother had been shot. Later

(09:34):
that day, l re called Alison Greenville. By the time
the coroner and Crawford got to the hospital, Jim's body
had been laid out on a table. He was still
dressed in what Crawford described to me as jogging clothes.
So you saw his body after he died, yeah, yeah,
it looked like a sail everybody. But he was just

(09:54):
laying there like your sleep. Well, will be back after this.
Jim's body was prepared for burial at the McMullen Funeral
Home in Lancaster, on the east side of Main Street,
a few hundred feet down a correct asphalt road from

(10:15):
the St. Paul A m. E. Church. A service for
Jim was held at the church three days after his death,
So he found out the day that he died. How
quick digital you get to Lancaster, I didn't go right away.
Jim's funeral was the first day Alice had been back
to Lancaster. Yeah, you're so young. I don't know. Alice

(10:40):
declined to lend her voice to this podcast, but we
spoke for nearly four hours. I think you're part of it.
Is to me is like the most heartbreaking because not
only did you have this crazy event just like explode
your life, but then after you got in the family too.
And I think that's part of the story. I mean,
because if you're thinking about how people have dealt with it,
you're not getting answers from anybody. She had spent the

(11:06):
past few days thunderstruck by a loss she couldn't understand.
Jim's family seemed to blame her for his career tales
spin and for Jim being back in Lancaster at all.
At the same time, Alice's family had been concerned for
her safety there. She told me, quote, when I went
to get information as to where his personal things were,
the police followed me every step of the way, everywhere

(11:28):
I went until I left the city. Friends, neighbors, and
Jim's old bar Street teammates paid their final respects to Butch.
The overflow crowd spilled onto the sidewalks. Sandy Gilliam, Jim's
high school and Maryland State coach, gave a eulogy and

(11:51):
the church choir saying what a friend we have in Jesus.
Jim was remembered as quote and admired citizens, loved and
respected by all, a beautiful person with an open mind
and friendliness to charm the world. Following the service, a

(12:14):
caravan of cars drove six miles down US to the
Salem A. M. E. Zion Church Cemetery in nearby Heath Springs.
Did you go to his funeral? Yes? Floyd White was
one of Jim's coaches at bar Street High School. Just
soldom you don't know. I don't think no no by

(12:35):
the CADI pope and say anything enough not that. But
this is solid. As shock and disbelief wore off, it
was replaced by suspicion in the hearts and minds of
Jim's family and friends. The official story of Jim's death
has been clear for decades, but somehow there's little official

(12:56):
evidence for it. I had read that Larie didn't either
body until a few days later, and the Alice so
didn't see it till a few days later, but that
had been normal for the way that he died. Well,
not really, no, no. Glenn Crawford was one of the
friends who played sandlot ball with Jim as a child,
and he worked at the funeral home where Jim's body

(13:17):
was prepared. I'm trying to think now. I don't even
know whether they'd get an autopsy. I can't really think
what would be the order of operations, Like would it
have gone to like an autopsy, medical examiner, and then
to you guys. Okay, we'll be the land fore. Yeah. Yeah,
did you see his body? Yeah? What do you remember

(13:37):
about that? I can't discuss there is it? Is it? Yeah? Okay,
I was gonna say it's it's like a funeral director's code. Yeah,
I gotcha. Okay, you didn't work on it though, did you. Ah.
I won't say. Okay, weill say it would do on here,
but it wouldn't do what I wish the lex question

(14:00):
and in no time at all, Floyd White told me.
The swirling questions about what exactly happened in that police
station consumed Lancaster. They say he came in and the
author we had handsome overnight. Your temper cool, good, just
revolved was some and he try to see But those

(14:23):
from talk they say he committed Suicia. But they say
after the funeral, Alice spoke with Lancaster police about the
incident in the very building where Jim died. Alice was
told by police that, as unbelievable as it might have seemed,
Jim grabbed Lieutenant Henson's revolver with his right hand, raised

(14:47):
the gun to his head, and shot himself behind his
right ear. Yet Alice insisted to me that in a
different conversation she had at the time with Jim's mortician,
the mortician told her Jim had been shot behind his
left year. She said to me, quote, how can you
shoot yourself on your left side when you're right handed? Wow?

(15:08):
Because a lot of the stories said that he shot
himself on right here, So why would you pull it? Yeah,
we're just about ready to get the second half underway,
the public calls Jim Duncan. In the days following Jim's death,

(15:30):
anger grew in Lancaster and the NFL community beyond well
knowing Speedy about as well as anyone outside of this
family knew him. I'll never believe that Bob Grant was
Jim's best friend on the Baltimore Colts the story he
grabbed one of the policeman's guys and shot himself. I'll

(15:52):
never believe that he did that. Never good. It was dunning.
The duncan a real breath. Eddie Hinton was the cultural
receiver who faced Jim every day in practice suicide with
police look good, okay? Back in Lancaster Police Chief Larry

(16:15):
Lower apparently kept control over the investigation. He told reporters
he was taking it upon himself to handle the investigation
into Jim's death personally. That was unusual. Hypothetically, if that
happens this day in time, the agency, let's just say,
if it did happen at a police station, that agency

(16:36):
backs out immediately. Sure Lancaster's current corner Carla dize they're
not involved in their own investigation. Normally another agency will
come in when we have something that's that questionable. I
actually have a forensic criminologist who I retained. I would
call her in at the beginning before we ever remove

(17:00):
the body. When you have something like that, if you're
not an expert in the area, you need to seek
out experts. Following Jim's death, Lancaster Police requested some help
from SLED the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division, where
it would be for a minute, Okay, I've got the

(17:24):
file pulled up. Tom Berry was the Freedom of Information
Act coordinator at SLED when I began researching this story.
He has since retired. We did not do investigation. We
did lab work for the investigating and agency, so we
did not independently investigate. There would have been some kind

(17:48):
of paperwork when your request came in. We literally went
back to the card catalog for those old cases, going
back that far that we could not find anything under
the name James Duncan, Jim Duncan, Jimmy Duncan. We didn't

(18:09):
find anything related to those names in any of the
investigative files. Following Jim's death, Lancaster Police discovered a water
pipe in his car, which was parked a few blocks away.
The pipe was one of the things Lancaster Police sent
to sled's Columbia Crime Lab for analysis. There, SLED performed

(18:31):
three separate tests and the results were written in sloping cursive. Yeah,
it looks like firearms, blood alcohol drug analysis. That much
were certain of because Barry sent me the grainy photocopied
scans of those results in response to my FOYA request

(18:52):
for that firearm test SLED analyze Lieutenant Russell Henson's gun
and the plane lead bullet recovered from the floor near
Jim's body. The man who performed that test a SLED
was Senior Agent f. Dan de Frieze. All right, my
name is Brett. I work at the newspaper in rock Hill,
and uh, I'm actually looking at a sled lab report

(19:12):
from two that signed the Frieze, and I'm thinking that
maybe you're the person that did the test. I reached
the Frieze at his home outside Colombia and we spoke
in broad terms. After performing thousands of these tests in
his career, the routine analysis Lancaster Police requested didn't stand out.

(19:33):
You're referring to a compatibility test to determine, if possible,
whether a particular bullet was fired by a particular gun, darrel,
and that is possible to do, and we did it
an awful lot of it. You know, I don't remember
this case at all. I have you know, don't know
anything about this case, you know, because just doesn't what
you told. But you know, in such cases it would

(19:56):
be very common for us to confirm that the bullet
was hard by the gun. According to SLEDS documentation, the
frieze found that, yes, the bullet that killed Jim was
fired by Lieutenant Henson's smith and wesson. In the second test,
Lancaster police wanted to know Jim's be A or blood

(20:17):
alcohol level at the time of his death. That's to
determine whether or not he was drunk when he entered
the police station, and according to SLEDS analysis, the answer
was no. It appears Lancaster police also wanted Jim's blood
checked for hard drugs because quote plus heroin was written
on that same request for him Speedy developed problem addiction

(20:41):
to heroin. No, I never actually saw him do it,
but I had heard from our old teammate Speedy has
this problem. But sled couldn't test Jim's blood for drugs.
At the bottom of the report, a phrase was scribbled
sample Q and S for further analysis. Q and S
means quantity not sufficient. Car Ladie told me a Q

(21:05):
and S is not unusual and that Jim's blood on
the police station floor or on his body was contaminated
and not suitable for testing. The final test was conducted
on a water pipe police found in Jim's car, which
still had liquid in it. The pipe tested positive for marijuana.
One more question, would um would slan have had fingerprint

(21:28):
capabilities into probably of some type. Yes, okay. Tom Barry
was the Freedom of Information Act coordinator when I began
researching this story. It sounds like SLED tested things that
the legas a p D asked them to test. Appears
that fingerprints were not among those things they wanted tested.

(21:50):
So yeah, that was pretty much that was what was
requested and that's what we did. So Lancaster Police requested
three tests which confirmed the pipe in Jim's car had
once contained pot, that he wasn't drunk when he entered
the police station, and that Lieutenant Henson's gun was the
firearm that killed him. But none of those tests clarified

(22:12):
who fired Henson's gun or why. In the aftermath of
Jim's death, those were the questions threatening to shatter the
peace in Lancaster, everybody got a little more cautious about
a lot of things. That's the way I see. Glenn
Crawford grew up down the street from Jim. They played
sand lot football together along with Thomas House. What things

(22:35):
did you guys get more cautious about white police officers stop? Yeah,
and that because of the time, you know, if you
got stuff you made shore, you let them know that
you hand on the glove, or even when you got
up downtown and somebody knew where you will be coach
if they didn't, you know, you never know. You're looking
at the thing on TV M and Dave when you know,

(22:57):
like down the Salem, Alabama people get dull. Yeah, it
didn't never happened to you. Right, we've believed through this,
we've ended deal with this all out. Yeah, and he'll
deal with it today. We'll be back in a moment. M.

(23:22):
He's cool. They put um people's occupations in the phone
book and this would be right there. I love this.
James E. Duncan pro ballplayer, Baltimore Colts. Mm hmm. Like
there's Charlie Duke's He's the twelve person to walk on them.

(23:42):
It's funny there. Un Like that same page, Lancaster Police
Chief Hour seems to have rejected oversight by Sled in
favor of keeping the investigation of Jim's death in house.
So it's obviously important to understand how his department approached
that investor Gaistion. I'd hope to ask Chief Our that myself.

(24:04):
It was about the NFL player that committed suicide in Lancaster,
but he practically hung up on me when I called,
even if he didn't want to talk. Now, I figured
that Lowers report from the time could speak for itself.
Unfortunately there isn't one. I reached out to Lancaster's current

(24:25):
police chief, Scott Grant. He arrived in Lancaster in the
late nineties and didn't know anything about Jim Duncan when
I contacted him. Chief Grant told me he asked a
few employees to check multiple record storage facilities, but they
found nothing related to Jim Duncan, no records of any kind.
One news report from nineteen seventy two said Chief Owers

(24:48):
team had taken photographs of Jim's body, so some sort
of documentation might have existed at some point, But the
current police chief told me the Lancaster p D moved
in to a new building and the old one where
Jim died had been demolished, so Grant said it's possible
those historic records didn't survive the move, but that also

(25:09):
means it's impossible to verify what sort of investigation Chief
our really did after Jim's death. Well, let's be a
little bit cautious. Seth Stoughton is a professor at the
University of South Carolina Law School. Investigations into police shootings
in the sixties do not look like what should be
investigations of police shootings today. Unfortunately, there are at least

(25:31):
some investigations of police shootings even today that would have
looked pretty normal back in the sixties. That's not because
the investigations in the sixties were so good. That's because
even today we still have some pretty shoety investigations into
officer involved shootings. Stoughton said that in a case like this,
it can be easy to judge a small town police
department by today's big city standards. There were no video

(25:55):
cameras in the lobby of the Lancaster Police station in
ninety two, much less amrazon the bodies of the officers.
Unlike today. They might not have been able to perform
gunpowder residue tests on people's hands or analyze stipling, which
is the way gunpowder tattoos the area around a close
contact gunshot wound, or done a burned pattern analysis on

(26:20):
Jim's body and clothes to know how close the gun
was to him when the bullet exploded from the barrel.
Also the position and angle of the wound. And this
is something that I would have expected them to have
been able to identify. Uh, it's not always possible to
line up with perfect accuracy the penetration pattern of a bullet,

(26:43):
and thus to backtrack that and say, okay, well, the
bullet penetrated here, then it clearly came off at this angle.
But we can rule out certain things, right. We can say, okay,
well it definitely came from somewhere over here as opposed
to somewhere over here. Stowton was a police officer himself
before he became a lawyer. If they're examining this gunshot
wound and the person is right handed, but it's from

(27:06):
over here, then we have some questions. It's not impossible,
but it becomes a little bit more improbable when you
start to put together things like distance and angle. Then
you can maybe, and I'm emphasizing maybe, start to say
this looks consistent with where this does not look consistent

(27:27):
with a self inflicted gun jobund But even being cognizant
of standards in the early seventies, it still seems like
there are some basic investigative steps that just weren't taken
in Jim's case, and that's coming from Chief Lour himself.
Back in a reporter asked him if the Lancaster p
D had even checked Lieutenant Henson's gun for fingerprints. Lour

(27:51):
wasn't exactly clear. He said, quote, I think that this
would involve a criminal matter, if that's what it's going
to be at a later date, And I don't see
where we should divulge any information of that sort. Pressed
by the reporter as to whether or not there would
be a criminal investigation at a later date, Lower replied, quote, nope.

(28:17):
Back in the day, at a smaller agency, at a
more rural agency, at an agency that may not have
been leading the charge of police reform and professionalization, a
lot of ship happened that never got reported. Stoton's hypothetical
here presumes, for the moment, the official account of Jim's
death is entirely accurate. In a case like this, if

(28:39):
you had anything, you might have a one line or
one paragraph right up in the watch log at oh
three pm. One man later, identified as Jim Duncan, entered,
attempted to take an officer's firearm and shot himself. Period done.
If you had that, nobody's going to jail the officers.

(29:00):
We're never gonna have to testify against anyone because the
only bad actor here, or so to speak, is the decedent.
Why bother No autopsy was ever performed on Jim's body
or even requested by Chief Lour or the county corner
at the time, Richard Chandler. At the time, Chandler told

(29:21):
a reporter quote, I could see no value in having
an autopsy because there was no question as to the
cause of death. So we don't even have independent confirmation
that Duncan actually died from a single gunshot below and
behind his right ear. That's one thing that I've preached
our fate, and I said, what you don't understand is

(29:41):
where the huge freetroopers. Carla Diese is Lancaster County's corner
now and forty fifty years from now. Somebody needs to
be able to pull our stuff, and it be for
the most part saying list. She stressed to me that
over the past fifty years, increased education certification requirements and
record keeping procedures have all raised the level of professionalism

(30:03):
in her department. You know, historically, I just I don't
know how people thought or what they did. I can
just tell you how it's transitioned and how we think
and what our policy is now. We have a standing
policy around here that if it is not a natural death,
that's an automatic autopsy. Every vehicle accident, every gunshot, every suicide. Sure,

(30:28):
you may have a vehicle accident where the person has
multiple blunt force injury. Sometimes we find out that somebody
had a heart attack going down the road, so that
changes the course because they actually died a natural death
from a heart attack, not from a wreck. You know,
those sure things we need to figure out. There may

(30:48):
be some answers in there for the family, there may not,
but I'm going to try to provide that those are
exactly the things so many people wanted to know about
Jim's death in too and still do to this day.
There are some predictable possibilities to explain what happened. It

(31:09):
happened the way that the police waiter said it did,
and they acted appropriately in the aftermath. It happened the
way the police said it did, and they botched the aftermath.
It did not happen the way that the officers said
it did, and there is some ineptitude at best, or
active cover up at worst. We don't know. As I

(31:33):
looked into this case, I found myself more and more
confused by Lancaster Police at the time. If Jim had
died exactly the way authority said he did, why did
so many of their actions after the fact make it
seem like they could have been hiding something, even putting
aside the humanity of providing closure for Jim's family and friends.

(31:54):
If all lancas Or Police had to do to settle
any speculation about their involvement in Jim's death was simply
document what happened, why wouldn't they have done it? At
the time, officers didn't feel the need to present an
authoritative narrative because their verbal explanations would be enough. At

(32:15):
least it would be enough for everyone who they cared about. Suddenly,
the relative tranquility of that old milltown blew apart at
the seams. And on part six of return Man, what
is a hero? Right? They would saying, grabbed the police,
go in the shot itself. But I don't believe as
there are conspiracies in the world and growing up in

(32:37):
the Jim Crow South, you're viewing the world in the
way in which the world is treated. It was quote
room capath that come, we held a capathor would and
we have bey bony out. It involves rates the mental
state of the person and a town that was scared
to death to say anything. I'm Brett McCormick. Return Man

(32:59):
is it for production of The Herald, McClatchy Studios and
I Heart Radio. It's produced by Matt Walsh, Kara Tabor,
Kata Stevens, Rachel Wise, and Davin Coburn. The executive producer
for I Heeart Radio is Sean Titone. For lots more
on this story, go to Harold online dot com Slash
return Man. If you have any additional information about Jim

(33:21):
Duncan's life or death, email us at return Man at
Harold online dot com. To continue supporting this kind of work,
visit Harold online dot com slash Podcasts and consider a
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