58

RECORDING NYDA-#146-98B. SEE NYDA-#146-98BT for corrected and edited transcription.

QUESTION: The recorder has now started, Mrs. Bingham. My name is Roger Leibnitz. I am an assistant in the office of the District Attorney, County of New York, State of New York. It is the eleventh day of September, 1968. I wish to question you about events occurring during the period August thirty-first to September first of this year at your residence. If for any reason you do not wish to make a statement, or if you wish counsel of your choice to be present during this interview, or if you wish the court to appoint such counsel, will you please so state at this time?

MRS. BINGHAM: No … that’s all right.

QUESTION: Very well. You understand, it is my duty to notify you of your rights under law?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. I understand.

QUESTION: For the record, will you please identify yourself—your full name and your place of residence.

MRS. BINGHAM: My name is Mrs. Gerald Bingham, and I live in Apartment Five A, five-three-five East Seventy-third Street, Manhattan, New York.

QUESTION: Thank you. Before we get started—may I inquire about your husband’s condition?

MRS. BINGHAM: Well … I feel a lot better now. At first they thought he might lose the sight of his right eye. Now they say he will be able to see, but the sight may be impaired. But he’s going to be all right.

QUESTION: I’m very happy to hear that, ma’am. Your husband is a very brave man.

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. Very brave.

QUESTION: Are you all right, Mrs. Bingham?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes … I’m all right.

QUESTION: If you wish to put this questioning over to another day, or if you’d like to rest at any time, please tell me. Would you like coffee … a cup of tea?

MRS. BINGHAM: No … I’ll be all right.

QUESTION: Fine. Now I want you to state in your own words exactly what happened during the period in question. I’ll try to avoid interrupting. Just take your time and tell me what happened in your own words. …

MRS. BINGHAM: It was the thirty-first of August. Most of the people in the house had left for the Labor Day weekend. We rarely go away because of my son. His name is Gerry—Gerald junior. He is fifteen years old. He was in an accident at the age of ten—he was hit by a truck—and he has lost the use of his legs. The doctors say there is no hope he will ever walk normally again. He is a good boy, very intelligent, but he must be helped. He uses a wheelchair and sometimes crutches for short periods. From the waist up he is very strong, but he can’t walk without help. So we very rarely go anywhere.

QUESTION: You have no other children?

MRS. BINGHAM: No. On the night of August thirty-first, my son went to bed about midnight. He read a while, and I brought him a Coca-Cola, which he dearly loves, and then he turned out his bed lamp and went to sleep. My husband and I were in the living room. I was working on a petit point cover for a footstool, and my husband was reading something by Trollope. He dearly loves Trollope. I think it was about fifteen minutes after one. I’m not sure. It could have been fifteen minutes either way. Suddenly there was a pounding at the front door. A man’s voice shouted, “Fire! Fire!” It was a very cruel thing to do.

QUESTION: Yes, Mrs. Bingham, it was.

MRS. BINGHAM: My husband said, “My God!” and jumped to his feet. He dropped his book on the floor. He rushed over to the door and unlocked it and took off the chain and opened it. There were two men standing there with masks on their faces. I could see them from where I sat. I was still in the easy chair. I hadn’t reacted as fast as my husband. I could see these two men. The one in front had his hand in his jacket pocket. They were wearing these strange masks that came to a knot on the tops of their heads. I didn’t know at first, but later I realized they were stockings—women’s stockings. My husband looked at them and he said again, “My God!” Then he … he struck at the man in front. He reacted very quickly. I was so proud of him, thinking about it later. He knew at once what it was and he reacted so quickly. I was just sitting there, stunned.

QUESTION: A very brave man.

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. He is. So he hit out at this man, and this man laughed and moved his head so that my husband didn’t really hit him. Then this man took a gun out of his pocket and hit my husband in the face with it. He just smashed him with it. We found out later it had broken the bones above and below my husband’s right eye. My husband fell to the floor and I saw the blood. The blood just gushed out. Then this man kicked my husband. He kicked him in the stomach and in the … in the groin. And I just sat there. I just sat there. …

QUESTION: Please, Mrs. Bingham … please. … Would you like to put this over to another day?

MRS. BINGHAM: No … no … that’s all right … no. …

QUESTION: Let’s take a little break. What I would like you to do, if you feel you are capable of it at this time, is to come with me downstairs to another office. There we have an exhibit of many types of guns used by lawbreakers. I would like you, if you can, to identify the gun the man used when he hit your husband. Will you do that for us?

MRS. BINGHAM: It was a very big gun, very heavy. I think it was black or maybe. …

QUESTION: Just come with me, and let’s see if you can identify the gun from our collection. I’ll take the machine with us.

[Lapse of four minutes thirty-eight seconds.]

QUESTION: This is NYDA Number one-four-six, nine-eight-B, two. We are now in the gun room. Now, Mrs. Bingham, as you can see, these are cases of weapons that have been used in crimes. What I would like you to do is to examine these weapons—take all the time you need; don’t hurry—and try to pick out the weapon you think that first masked man used to strike your husband.

MRS. BINGHAM: There are so many!

QUESTION: Yes … many. But take your time. Look at all of them and try to identify the gun the man used. [Lapse of one minute thirty-seven seconds.]

MRS. BINGHAM: I don’t see it.

QUESTION: Take your time. No hurry.

MRS. BINGHAM: It was black, or maybe dark blue. It was square.

QUESTION: Square? Come over to this case, ma’am. Something like this?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes … these look more like it …Yes … yes … there it is! That’s the one.

QUESTION: Which one is that?

MRS. BINGHAM: There it is … that second one from the top.

QUESTION: You’re sure of that, ma’am?

MRS. BINGHAM: Absolutely. No question about it.

QUESTION: The witness has just identified a U.S. pistol, caliber .45, 1917, Colt automatic, Code Number nineteen seventeen, C-A, three-seven-one-B. Thank you, Mrs. Bingham. Shall we go upstairs now? Perhaps I’ll order in some coffee or tea?

MRS. BINGHAM: A cup of tea would be nice.

QUESTION: Of course.

[Lapse of seven minutes, sixteen seconds.]

MRS. BINGHAM: I feel better now.

QUESTION: Good. This is NYDA Number one-four-six, nine-eight-B, three. Ma’am, do you think you’d like to finish up today—or should we put it off?

MRS. BINGHAM: Let’s finish now.

QUESTION: Fine. Now then … you said your husband hit out at the masked man. The masked man drew a weapon from his pocket and struck your husband. Your husband fell to the floor. The masked man then kicked him in the stomach and in the groin. Is that correct?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes.

QUESTION: Then what happened?

MRS. BINGHAM: It’s all very hazy. I’m not sure. I think I was out of my chair by this time and moving toward the door. But I distinctly saw the second masked man push the first one aside. And the second man said, “That’s enough.” I remember that very clearly because it was exactly what I was thinking at the time. The second masked man shouldered the first one aside so he couldn’t kick my husband anymore, and he said, “That’s enough.”

QUESTION: And then?

MRS. BINGHAM: I’m afraid I don’t remember in what sequence things took place. I’m very hazy about it all. …

QUESTION: Just tell it in your own words. Don’t worry about the sequence.

MRS. BINGHAM: Well, I ran over to my husband. I think I got down on my knees alongside him. I could see his eye was very bad. There was a lot of blood, and he was groaning. One of the men said, “Where’s the kid?”

QUESTION: Do you remember which man said that?

MRS. BINGHAM: I’m not sure, but I think it was the second one—the one who told the first man to stop kicking my husband.

QUESTION: He said, “Where’s the kid?”

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes.

QUESTION: So he knew about your son?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. I asked him please, not to hurt Gerry. I told him Gerry was asleep in his bedroom and that he was crippled and could only move in his wheelchair or for short distances on crutches. I asked him again, please not to hurt Gerry, and he said he wouldn’t hurt him.

QUESTION: This is still the second man you’re talking about?

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes. Then he went into my son’s bedroom. The first man, the one who kicked my husband, stayed in the living room. After a while the second man came out of the bedroom. He was pushing my son’s empty wheelchair and carrying his aluminum crutches. The first man said to him, “Where’s the kid?” The other one said, “He’s pretending he’s asleep, but he’s awake all right. I told him if he yelled I’d come back and break his neck. As long as we’ve got his chair and crutches, he can’t move. He’s a gimp. We checked this out.” And the first man said, “I think we should take him.” And then the second man said, “The elevator is stopped. You want to carry him down? How we going to get him down?” And then they argued a while about whether they should take the boy. Finally they agreed they would leave him in bed but they would gag him and look in on him every ten minutes or so. I asked them please not to do that. I told them that Gerry has sinus trouble, and I was afraid if they’d gag him, perhaps he wouldn’t be able to breathe. The second man said they were taking my husband and me down to Mrs. Hathway’s apartment on the fourth floor, and they couldn’t take the chance of leaving Gerry alone in the apartment, even if he couldn’t move. I told them I would make Gerry promise to keep quiet if they would let me talk to him. They argued about this for a while, and then the second man said he would come into the bedroom with me and listen to what I said to Gerry. So we went into the bedroom. I snapped on the light. Gerry was lying on his back, under the covers. His face was very white. His eyes were open. I asked him if he knew what was going on, and he said yes, he had heard us talking. My son is very intelligent.

QUESTION: Yes, ma’am. We know that now.

MRS. BINGHAM: I told him they had taken his chair and crutches, but if he promised not to yell or make any sounds, they had agreed not to tie him up. He said he wouldn’t make any sounds. The man went over to the bed and looked down at Gerry. “That’s a bad man out there, boy,” he said to Gerry. “I think he’s already put your pappy’s eye out. You behave yourself or I’ll have to turn him loose on your pappy again. You understand?” Gerry said yes, he understood. Then the man said there would be someone looking in on him every few minutes so not to get wise-ass. That was the expression he used. He said, “Don’t get wise-ass, kid.” Gerry nodded. Then we went back into the living room.

QUESTION: Did you leave the light on in the bedroom?

MRS. BINGHAM: Well, I turned it off, but the masked man turned it on again and said to leave it on. So we went back into the living room. My husband was on his feet, swaying a little. He had gotten a towel from the bathroom and was holding it to his eye. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before. I’m afraid I wasn’t behaving very well.

QUESTION: You were doing just fine.

MRS. BINGHAM: Well … I don’t know. … I don’t think I’m very brave. I know I was crying. I started crying when I saw my husband on the floor and the man was kicking him, and somehow I just couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. … I tried to stop but I just. …

QUESTION: Let’s leave the rest of this for another day, shall we? I think we’ve done enough for one day.

MRS. BINGHAM: Yes … all right. Well, they just took us down the service staircase to the fourth floor, to Mrs. Hathway’s apartment. I imagine you know what happened after that. I helped support my husband on the way down the stairs; he was still very shaky. But in Mrs. Hathway’s apartment we could take care of him. They had brought everyone there, including Dr. Rubicoff, and he helped me bathe my husband’s eye and put a clean towel on it. Everyone was very … everyone was very … everyone … oh, my God, my God!

QUESTION: Yes, Mrs. Bingham … yes, yes. Just relax a moment. Just sit quietly and relax. It’s all over. It’s all completely over.