WHEN KARL WENT DOWN TO the police station on the evening of January 7, 1969, it was entirely of his own volition. He had heard about Jane on the six o’clock news. She had been murdered, the reporter said. Karl already knew that Jane was dead—around four that afternoon, Stephen Williams had told him—but the fact that she had been killed was new information. Williams hadn’t known if it was an accidental death, or suicide, or the result of foul play.
“I immediately yanked myself down here because for the first time I got more news than we had heard in the Peabody. There are many rumors that were flying around, and once it became as clear as it apparently is that there’s some aspect of foul play in this, then I just popped myself into the car and came down here, simply because also the news said that Jim Humphries was here; and I know their close attachment.” He was sitting with Sergeant Petersen, Detective Amaroso, and Detective Tully.
The cops asked him the standard questions: How long have you known the deceased, when was the last time you saw her, did she have any problems you were aware of? Karl said she graduated magna cum laude and “Jane really, in terms of her work has—has continued the promise which she showed.”
The last time he saw Jane was on Friday when Jane came to his office to tell him what she hoped to do over the summer in Iran. “She was trying to detail what kinds of problems she wanted to attack, what she wanted to write her thesis on, as well as, clearly, to try and get some understanding of the kind of exam which would be coming up…the first part of which was taken today.”
As far as he was aware, he said, Jane didn’t have difficulties with anyone.