7NJ0103A0810 WEST VOLUSIA 7NJ0103A0810 ZALLCALL 15 23:44:19 08/09/08 B

MAN OFBRONZE

Associated Press

Bronze medalist Ryan Lochte, right, stands with gold medalwinner Michael Phelps, center, and Hungary’s Laszlo Csehduring the medal ceremony for the men’s 400-meter individu-al medley final.

By CAL MASSEYand MICHAEL LEWIS

STAFF WRITERS

Ryan Lochte of Port Orange foughtthrough a sick stomach that hit himtwo days ago and won the bronzemedal in the 400 individual medleyon Saturday night, swimming head-on into the Michael Phelps gold med-al, world record steamroller.

In an event Phelps hasn’t lost in sixyears, Lochte gained a slim lead dur-ing the breaststroke and backstrokelegs, putting pressure on Phelps twolanes away, but the Lochte surgedidn’t last long.

Phelps powered through his twoweakest legs to take back the leadeach time on his way to a world re-cord time of 4:03.84. Laszlo Cseh ofHungary took the silver in 4:06.16,while Lochte faded to third in 4:08.09— more than 4 seconds behind theamazing Phelps.

Steve Lochte, Ryan’s father, said byphone from China that Ryan has hada ‘‘very difficult time’’ in the last twodays in Beijing, and has been

SEE LOCHTE, PAGE 5A

cal.massey@news-jrnl.commichael.lewis@news-jrnl.com

The Daytona BeachNews-Journal

THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF VOLUSIA & FLAGLER COUNTIES

SUNDAYEDITIONA U G U S T 1 0 , 2 0 0 8

11 sections; 176 pages

TODAY’S FORECAST

www.news-journalonline.com FINAL EDITION $1.50

Eye on OurLocal Olympians

This is the strongest contingentof area Olympic athletes inmemory. Here’s a daily look athow our locals are faring andwhen they’re competing (alltimes are EDT and foractual events, not TVbroadcast):

Lochte, feeling ill,takes lead briefly,

finishes 3rdBlount and Hucks had met the

day before. Both were 23, on vaca-tion, and they spent all of Satur-day driving up and down DaytonaBeach in Blount’s jeep. Blount,two years out of the U.S. Army AirForce, had tricked it out in patri-otic colors — blue paint, white un-dercarriage, red seats.

It was Aug. 14, 1948. Three yearsafter the war, with gas cheap andoptimism returning, touriststhronged here from all over theSouth. Most had never drivennext to the ocean. Now theyglutted it with new Chevys andFords, which all too frequentlygot mired in the sand.

As evening fell, Blount andHucks headed north toward Or-mond Beach on State Road A1A,passing the beach cottages thatdotted the dark, narrow, two-laneroad. Hucks wore a green bathingsuit.

The couple had just left theriverfront home where Blountwas staying with his roommate,Tom Connor.

Blount asked Connor if he want-ed to go to dinner.

‘‘I was still asleep,’’ said Con-nor, a retired dentist in Atlanta.‘‘I had a bad hangover and I didn’teven leave the house that day.’’

Connor chose not to join Blountand his new companion.

‘‘I don’t think they ever cameback,’’ he said.

B lount had just finished hissophomore year at the Uni-versity of Kentucky, and he

missed his childhood home. His fa-ther had owned a Ford dealershipin Daytona Beach in the 1930s.

‘‘He just loved Florida,’’ said hissister, Jane Michler, 79. ‘‘He al-ways wanted to get back wheneverhe could.’’

After his parents divorced, ateenage Blount moved to Lexing-ton, Ky., with his mother and twosiblings. He shared a room withhis brother and attended HenryClay High School, where he was astarting guard on the footballteam.

‘‘I went to all of hisgames and watched himplay,’’ said brother Bry-an Blount. ‘‘He was justa good, all-around boy.’’

After high school,Blount entered the AirForce and was sent tothe South Pacific. Thewar was, by then, in itsfinal months, and Blountflew missions as a bom-bardier over Japan.

‘‘He was in a follow-upbomber squadron,’’ hissister said. ‘‘If the firstatomic bombs didn’twork, he was supposed togo over.’’

Blount had stopped togreet his sister — who wasworking as a camp counsel-or in North Carolina — enroute to Daytona Beach.

‘‘He was very excited,’’Michler said.

He had planned to stayonly a week but found a jobas a busboy in the diningroom of the Sheraton-PlazaHotel.

SEE KILLINGS, PAGE 6A

Ryan Lochte,swimmer

Results: SaturdayP 4th overall in400 IM prelim.P 3rd overall in400 IM finals

Competes: Today9:11 a.m.: 4x100free relay, qual.11:33 p.m.: 4x100free relay, finals

Phil Dalhausser,beach volleyball

Results: SaturdayLost to 23rd-seedLatvia 21-19,21-18, in roundrobin playCompetes: Monday

10 a.m.: withpartnerTodd Rogersvs. Switzerland

Ex-Olympian’s dadmurdered in Beijing

BERNIE MACDIES AT 50Actor/comedianworked on‘‘Ocean’sEleven’’and ‘‘TheBernieMac Show’’PEOPLE,PAGE 16A

Tweens agree: Sunshine’s in!High: Lower 90s. Low: Around 70. PAGE 8B

2 0 0 8 S U M M E R O L Y M P I C S

CHAPTER 1:COLD-BLOODED KILLINGS

By BETH DUFF-BROWNASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING — The fatal stabbing of thefather of a former Olympian at aBeijing landmark cast a sad shadowover the first full day of Olympiccompetition Saturday, just hours af-ter China’s jubilantopening of the Sum-mer Games.

Todd and BarbaraBachman of Lake-ville, Minn. — par-e n t s o f 2 0 0 4volleyball OlympianElisabeth ‘‘Wiz’’Bachman and in-laws of U.S. men’svolleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon— were attacked by a Chinese manwhile visiting the 13th-centuryDrum Tower.

The U.S. Olympic Committee con-firmed Bachman died from knifewounds and that Barbara Bachmansuffered life-threatening injuries.

SEE DAD, PAGE 5A

About This SeriesThe News-Journal presents the first ofa four-chapter series looking back atthe Moonlight Murders.TODAY: Chapter 1, Cold-Blooded KillingsTUESDAY: Chapter 2, DubiousConfessionTHURSDAY: Chapter 3, Maze of CluesNEXT SUNDAY: Chapter 4, Voices fromthe Past

BACHMAN

BY STAFF WRITER SETH ROBBINSseth.robbins@news-jrnl.com News-Journal photo illustration/OCTAVIO DIAZ

P ONLINE: Delve deeper into the Moonlight Murders with our multimedia extras at news-journalonline.com P

Key operative lossThe killing of an al-Qaidaweapons expert dealsheavy blow to the group.

WAR IN IRAQ, PAGE 13A

Tween secretWhy can’t you ignore teen idols likeMiley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers?Because preteens have the power.

USA WEEKEND

Abby 4FBooks 5FClassified 5D, 5EDeaths 3BHoroscope 7DLetters 11A

Movies 4FNation 3AReal Estate 1ESports 1CSudoku 4FTravel 1F

War in Iraq 13AWeather 8BWorld 12AYour Money 1DPuzzles arein Comics

‘State of war’Hundreds of civilians arekilled as the fight betweenGeorgia and Russia escalates.

WORLD, PAGE 12A

Vol. LXXXVNo. 223

11 Sections© NJ 2008

News-JournalCorporation

T hey would come to be known only as the‘‘Moonlight Murders.’’ But on the warmAugust night 60 years ago, when GregoryBlount drove Mary Hucks to a secluded

stretch of sand, the moon’s rays were muted by anovercast sky.

More Olympic CoverageP SPORTS: Read more on RyanLochte and Phil Dalhausser, andhow they competed Saturday.PAGE 1CP IDEAS: Columnist Pierre Tris-tam: Olympic panel can’t sepa-rate sports and politics.PAGE 11AP BOOKS: New non-fiction focuses onhow the 1960Olympic gamesin Rome changedthe world. PAGE 5FP BEIJING DIARY: A lookat the first day of competition.PAGE 5AP COMING MONDAY: Take inspira-tion from Ryan Lochte and giveswimming a try. ACCENTP ONLINE: Read more about ourlocal Olympians.

news-journalonline.com/sports/olympics

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7NJ0602A0810 7NJ0602A0810 ZALLCALL 05 18:31:08 08/07/08

6A Sunday, August 10, 2008 The Daytona Beach News-Journal

He’s shot while asleep;she put up a fight

The MainCharacters

The Moonlight Murdersinvolved a lot of people. Thefaces and names of the keyplayers in this tragedy will berevealed as they enter thestory.

THE VICTIMS

Gregory BlountP The handsome collegestudent and Air Force veteran,then 23, was staying in Floridafor the summer when he tooka beautiful woman to asecluded part of the beach.

Mary HucksP The 23-year-old blondesecretary in an Atlantaarchitect’s office came toDaytona Beach for a two-weekvacation when she met Blount.

?????P The small-town grocer wasgunned down in his shop inStarke. Three men were seenspeeding away. Finding thecar wouldn’t be hard; couldsolving his murder shed lighton the moonlight case?

THE INVESTIGATORS

Sheriff Alex LittlefieldP ‘‘The murderers were sexperverts, pure and simple,’’ hetold a News-Journal reporter.He would get a confession, butwas it the right man?

?????P This special investigatorworked on the state’s toughestcases. Did he miss the answerthat was right in front of him?Or did he have another theoryhe took to his grave?

?????P A cold case investigatorpicked up the case after 60years. A tip from a colleaguesent him to Bradford County,where he followed the trail ofanother shooting. Could thatbreak the case?

THE SUSPECTS

?????P A petty criminal whotraveled through OrmondBeach after escaping a prisonroad gang. After a two-dayinterrogation, he confessed.But there was a problem.

?????P His fancy ride would provehis downfall. He’d die for oneman’s death, but why was hedetermined never to return to‘‘Daytonie’’?

?????P Named for the dredge boatwhere he lost a finger, he wasID’d by the others as theshooter. Did he also leavefootprints in Ormond Beach?

THE CONFESSOR

?????P A war injury left him with anintense stutter, but his writtenconfession would speak toinvestigators decades later.

Volusiasheriff calledperpetrators‘sex perverts’

How investigators reconstructed the double murderThe path of the killers who attacked Gregory Blount and Mary Hucks on a lonely stretch of beach four miles north of GranadaBoulevard is reconstructed here in a map first published days later in The News-Journal. From footprints in the sand, sheriff’sdeputies surmised that the slayers began their prowl at the top of an auto approach (top left), about three-fifths of a milesouth of the murder scene. They walked past the couple then circled back, attacking from the other side of the jeep. After Blountwas shot, Hucks fled and was overtaken (1). Dotted lines show the route over which Hucks was dragged and (2, 3, 4, 5) wherestruggles occurred. After she was shot, her body was left in the center of a deep hollow and the killers walked through theunderbrush to the highway. The photo of the site was taken the day after the slayings. Arrows show where the bodies were found.

KILLINGSCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A

Formerly the Clarendon Ho-tel, the Sheraton-Plaza Hotelstood at the end of SeabreezeBoulevard and was known asthe ‘‘Grand Old Lady’’ of thebeach for its elegant wooden ve-randas and salmon-painted fa-cade. Its tunnel still stands.

But Blount was fired. So he be-gan towing cars out of the soft,red sand with his patriotic jeep.In the last photograph taken ofBlount, he languidly reclines inits driver seat, his feet proppedon the dash. The wind musseshis brown hair. He is tanned andsquinting. His strong jaw jutsout as he grins.

A pretty girl walking alongthe beach had offered to take thephoto of him, his old roommaterecalled.

‘‘He was very good-looking,’’Connor said, ‘‘and the womenliked him.’’

W hen she arrived daysbefore from Georgia,Mary Hucks rented an

apartment on Silver Beach withher friend, Betty Godwin. Thepair planned to stay anotherweek.

Hucks worked as a secretaryto Henry J. Toombs, an Atlantaarchitect. Toombs thought sohighly of Hucks that after hermurder, he wrote to Florida Gov.Fuller Warren about her: ‘‘MissHucks had been a person of ex-ceptional finesse and that makesit all the more tragic what hap-pened to her on the beach.’’

Hucks’ name was Mary, buther cousins always called her‘‘Betty’’ so as not to confuse herwith her mother, also namedMary. Her relatives recalled heras slender with shoulder-lengthblonde hair. After her death,newspapers described her as ‘‘at-tractive’’ and ‘‘shapely.’’

‘‘She was the big, grown cous-in,’’ said Barbara Covington,now 75. ‘‘She always had makeupand lipstick. She was very lady-like.’’

Hucks lived at home with hermother, a widow.

‘‘She and Betty were close,’’said Jackie Williams, 77, anotherof Hucks’ cousins. ‘‘It haunted(her mother) for years. All youhad to do was look at her to tellsomething was missing.’’

B lount and Hucks werestill getting acquainted asthey headed north on

State Road A1A. Passing thepink stucco Coquina Hotel at theend of Granada Boulevard, noth-ing lay beyond it but for a fewhomes and the wild vegetation of

the sand dunes.Four miles north of Granada,

Blount guided the jeep through apath — not a formal beach ap-proach, but likely a place Blounthad been before because thebrush was tamped down. Thetide was low, and only the jeep’sheadlights illuminated the end-less runway of sand.

Exhausted after a long day inthe sun, the couple grabbed ablanket and spread it along theshore. They placed a portable ra-dio on the sand and stretchedout. Blount rested his head on a

leather pillow.Friends and family members

insist that Hucks and Blountwent to such a remote spot be-cause they hoped to see a sea tur-tle laying eggs.

At any rate, they both fellasleep.

I t was about 10 p.m. when16-year-old William RogersJr. came upon Blount, lying

alone in the sand, in trousers butshirtless. Blount did not stir asRogers approached, and the

teenager, thinking that strange,started back toward the CoralSands cottage colony, where hewas staying with his parents.Something made him turnaround again. Rogers called toBlount but received no answer.He bent down over Blount’s faceto get a better look. In the diffusemoonlight, Rogers saw blood.

Rogers ran nearly a mile backto the cottage and told the mana-ger about his macabre discov-ery. The manager calledOrmond Beach Police Chief Rog-ers Willis, who was the first offi-

cer to arrive at the scene. SinceBlount’s body lay about a mileand a half north of the OrmondBeach city limits, Willis called inVolusia County Sheriff Alex Lit-tlefield. The deserted stretch ofsand soon crawled with police.

‘‘The entire area was alivewith winking red lights,’’ Willissaid, remembering the scene sixyears later in a newspaper story.

Blount rested face-up on theblanket, a bullet hole through

SEE KILLINGS, PAGE 7A

News-Journal graphic

News-Journal

Murder in the MoonlightGregory Blount and Mary Hucks,both 23, were shot and killed at thisspot 60 years ago. A beachapproach still stands. Here is whatthe area looks like today.

Kathy Dr.

Sunset Blvd.

Seabreeze Dr.

Concord St.

WW II tower

Ocean

ShoreB

lvd.

VOLUSIA COUNTYMapArea

Miles

0 1/2

N. Beach

St.

AtlanicOcean

A1A

1

OrmondBeach

Ormond-by-the-Sea

Halifax

River

Briggs Dr.MoonlightMurders site

StandishDr.

JohnAnderson

Dr.

N. H

alifaxD

r.

Granada Blvd.

Gregory Blount: A Life Cut ShortGregory Blount lived in Daytona Beach as a child but grew up in Kentucky. He was proud to have served in the Air Force duringWorld War II and was proud of his jeep. Here’s a snapshot of his life as a young adult. Unfortunately, there are few photos of MaryHucks in existence.

AIRMAN: Blount would have been in the next wave to attack Japanif the atomic bombs weren’t successful.

IN KENTUCKY: He had just completed his sophomore year at theUniversity of Kentucky.

IN DAYTONA BEACH: Blount, far right, was rooming with TomConnor, left, in the summer of 1948. Connor said Blount wasalways popular with women.

TRAGIC END: Blount never got the chance to defend himself. Hiskiller or killers shot him while he slept on the beach.

Photos from Gregory Blount’s family, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office

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7NJ0702A0810 7NJ0702A0810 ZALLCALL 05 18:32:27 08/07/08

The Daytona Beach News-Journal Sunday, August 10, 2008 7A

Shock sets in as brutalityof murders revealed

KILLINGSCONTINUED FROM PAGE 6A

his right eye. Nearby, two sets offootprints marked the sand. Thetracks started at the closestbeach approach and then passedBlount, circled back behind himand ended near his head, wherethe portable radio stood — si-lent.

He had been shot while heslept.

T he prints continued intothe nearby sand dunes. Athird set of prints, much

smaller and barefoot, alsotracked into the dunes.

A powerful set of portablelights allowed investigators tofollow the tracks through thetangle of sea oats and scrub.

Deep into the second tier ofdunes, they stumbled uponHucks’ body, hidden beneath anoak tree.

Her green bathing suit, nowstained with blood, was drapedon a nearby palmetto. It hadbeen ripped off.

Like Blount, Hucks had beenshot in the face, the bullet shat-tering her left jaw.

Hucks apparently awoke fromthe shot that killed Blount.

She ran, but her assailantscaught her some 30 feet from theblanket. They dragged her intothe nearby sand dunes but stillshe fought, breaking brush andscattering sand.

Sizing up the maelstrom in thedunes, investigators deducedshe had attempted to free herselfat least five times.

Eventually, though, Huckslost consciousness, or quit, be-cause where her body was found,in a deep hollow between the twotiers of dunes, there was notmuch evidence of a scuffle.

S heriff Littlefield spear-headed the investigation,putting Deputy Sheriff Bill

Freeman in charge of gatheringevidence.

Freeman, a wiry man withglasses, began the inquiry wear-ing a suit and light fedora.

But as he worked through thenight and into the morning, heshed his jacket and tie. In one po-lice photo, his sleeves are rolledup as he carefully pours plasterinto a footprint.

The Sunday morning editionof The Daytona Beach News-Journal carried only a brief re-port of the slayings, tucked in-side with the headline ‘‘CoupleFound Dead.’’

Deadline pressures had madeit impossible to write muchmore, but the paper managed toreport Hucks was found naked.

Readers dropped their papersand headed to the beach, eagerfor a better look. A tenacious re-porter, Juanita Greene, was as-signed the story.

T he evidence was scant: A.22-caliber casing, a blood-stained bathing suit, and

two sets of men’s footprints insizes 7 and 91⁄2.

Detectives spoke to the vic-tims’ roommates, Connor andGodwin. Two deputies ques-tioned Conner at his house,where they sniffed Blount’s serv-ice pistol to see if it had beenfired recently. It had not. Theroommates identified the bodies.

‘‘We were all in shock,’’ saidJackie Williams, Hucks’ cousin,whose father went to DaytonaBeach to identify the body. ‘‘No-body should have been beatenlike that,’’ Williams recalled herfather saying when he returned.‘‘You could just tell that shefought like hell.’’

Greene had to know why. Shedogged Littlefield all morning onthe beach, and then, in the af-ternoon, followed him to hisheadquarters in DeLand.

Littlefield refused to talk toher, taking refuge in the men’sbathroom to rid himself of herpestering. She banged on thedoor.

‘‘Come on out, Alex,’’ she said.‘‘I know you’re in there.’’

Reluctantly, Littlefieldemerged.

Hucks had been raped, he toldGreene.

‘‘I don’t know of anythingmore cold-blooded or premedi-tated,’’ Littlefield was quoted assaying in the paper the nextmorning. ‘‘The murderers weresex perverts, pure and simple.’’

News-Journal file photos

GATHERING EVIDENCE: Volusia County Deputy Sheriff Bill Freeman, far left, pours plaster into the footprints left by the two assailants. With him working thecrime scene on Sunday, Aug. 15, 1948, the morning after the Moonlight Murders, are Deputy T.J. Wright, Sheriff Alex Littlefield and Deputy W.R. Billingsley.

Their Last Day AliveWhile the exact details are sketchy, here is howGregory Blount and Mary Hucks spent theirtime together leading up to their murders theevening of Aug. 14, 1948:

MEETING: Blount and Hucks met the day beforethey were killed. Both were vacationing inDaytona Beach, which was full of tourists whoenjoyed the Boardwalk and driving on thebeach. Blount started the summer working atthe Sheraton-Plaza Hotel, and later mademoney towing cars that got stuck in the softsand.

SHERATON-PLAZA HOTEL

GETTING TO THE BEACH: They spent Saturday —Aug. 14, 1948 — driving on the beach in Blount’sjeep. At about 6:30 p.m., they stopped atBlount’s place and asked his roommate todinner. He declined. That evening, they drovenorth on State Road A1A to a secluded spotabout four miles north of Granada Boulevard,passing the Coquina Hotel at the end ofGranada. They parked on the beach, spread outa blanket and a portable radio and fell asleep.

COQUINA HOTEL

THE ATTACK: Based on tracks in the sand,investigators determined that two men cameacross the couple as they slept. They shotBlount in the eye, waking Hucks. She ran about30 feet before she was caught and dragged, stillfighting, into the dunes, where she was attackedand shot.

SECOND VICTIM DISCOVERED: Ormond Beach Police Chief Rogers Willis points out the spot between sanddunes where Mary Hucks’ body was found to Volusia County Sheriff Alex Littlefield.

How This Series Was ReportedP News-Journal reporter Seth Robbinsspent a year poring through police casefiles, newspaper and state archives to piecetogether the story of the ‘‘Moonlight Mur-ders.’’P The reporting is based on those docu-ments, plus dozens of interviews with sur-

viving friends and relatives of thoseinvolved in the case.P Also contributing: Derek Catron, editor;Scott Turick, designer; Octavio Diaz, graph-ics; Justin Yurkanin, videographer/photographer; and News-Journal research-ers Helen Morley and Karen Duffy.

DISCOVERY: At about 10 p.m., a 16-year-old outfor a walk came across Blount’s body, his facebloodied from the gunshot. Investigatorswouldn’t find Hucks’ body until they brought outa powerful set of portable lights to follow thetracks.

COMING TUESDAY:CHAPTER 2

Littlefield gets his man — anda confession. But there’s aproblem.

SOURCE: News-Journal research

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