DOUBLE VISION - A LITTLE BIT O' SOUL

Although it was never mentioned on 'Starsky And Hutch', Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson had a brother named Jerome.  (But everyone knew him as "Jerry".)

 

While his brother Hutch worked as a detective in Los Angeles, becoming famous enough to have a movie be made about him and his partner, Jerry lived farther north in San Francisco.  He also followed his brother into law enforcement, working as a court officer for the San Francisco judicial system.

 

Jerry Hutchinson became romantically involved with a woman named Virginia Ryan, whose stepson was a juror on a murder trial for which Jerry provided security for the jury members. 

 

Mrs. Ryan had complete control over Jerry, to the point where she easily convinced him to kill her step-son so that her ailing elderly husband would hopefully die of heartbreak, leaving her the sole heir to his fortune.

 

Jerry must have been an avid student of the "perfect murder" and in his research he found a scenario which would hopefully keep suspicion away from him since he was supposed to be guarding the sequestered jurors.

 

About ten years before, at a gathering of "super sleuths" in Los Angeles, Police Chief Gaynor was murdered at a closed gathering of the greatest detectives in the world - from London, Paris, Tokyo, and Budapest.  As it turned out it was Mr. Toto of Japan who killed Gaynor.

 

I'm about to tell you how he dunnit, so if you ever want to see that 'Burke's Law' episode, "Who Killed Supersleuth?", then avert your eyes and come back tomorrow!

 

When the assembled "super sleuths" had discovered Chief Gaynor's body at the writing desk, it was Toto who reached it first.  He instructed the others to get help and while he was alone with the body, he killed Gaynor.  See, he wasn't dead before, merely drugged by Toto and so the others just assumed he had already been murdered.

 

Being an avid reader of crime stories, Jerry Hutchinson read of this case and it percolated in the back of his mind for years.  When he finally had a chance to use the scheme, he drugged Mrs. Ryan's son-in-law so that it appeared that he was dead.  Jerry declared him as such and instructed the other guard to go get help.  While that guy was gone, Jerry killed Ryan.

 

Jerry and Ken Hutchinson were both played by David Soul......

SHOWS CITED:

• 'Starsky & Hutch'
• 'Burke's Law' - "Who Killed Super Sleuth?"
• 'MacMillan & Wife' - "Guilt By Association"

BCnU!