True Crime Tuesday: Sal Mineo - The Stabbing That Almost Went Unsolved

 

Modern film buffs might not know the name Sal Mineo, but there was a time that he was a rising star who showed great promise. By the age of 15, he was already making a name for himself on the silver screen in addition to appearing in several contemporary TV shows in the mid-1950s. He starred opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and appeared in such shows as The Philco Television Playhouse and Big Town.

By the 60s, Sal’s name had become more recognizable. He was a guest on The Patty Duke Show, Combat!, and Run for Your Life. Heading into the 70s, Mr. Mineo appeared in My Three Sons, Mission: Impossible, and The Immortal. Later, he would star in Escape From the Planet of the Apes, In Search of America, and How to Steal an Airplane. 

The mid-70s saw Sal’s return to television with a long series of guest roles on such shows as Police Story, Columbo, and Hawaii 5-O. His final appearance would be on Joe Forrester in 1976.

Sal Mineo is Murdered

On February 12, 1976, Sal Mineo was stabbed and murdered just outside his apartment near the intersection of Holloway Drive and West Hollywood. The crime took place in an open carport adjacent to The Park Wellington Towers.

Residents heard some screaming:

“Oh God! Someone please help me!”

Those cries for help were to be Sal Mineo’s final words.

Two men ran to help Sal, but they arrived too late. A 17-year-old named Steve Gustafson came running from inside his nearby apartment. Scott Hughes, a 24-year-old security guard, also came running. Both men described a young, slender white male fleeing the scene. They agreed that the suspect had brown hair that appeared straight and long.

Police Suspected the Murderer Might Have Been a Jealous Gay Lover

As the police launched their investigation, they talked to neighbors in Sal’s building and searched his apartment. They found gay porn magazines in his apartment, and neighbors recounted seeing gay men coming and going from Mineo’s apartment.

“Young men in and out. They were gay, he was gay,” said a 29-year-old neighbor named Frederick Rushlow. “There were a lot of, you know, young men around.”
Hollywood actors in the know confirmed that Sal was both gay and promiscuous. He was known to go bar hopping in search of lovers and often had one-night stands with young black men. Yet, as far as more long-term love interests went, Mineo seemed to have a definite type. He typically dated clean-cut white men in their early 20s.

Even though it had initially seemed likely that Sal’s demise had been the result of a gay spat gone horribly wrong, investigators soon realized this was a dead end in their investigation.

The Investigation Turns an Eye Toward the Theater

On the evening of his murder, Sal Mineo had been arriving home from rehearsing for his new project. He had a starring role in the play, P.S. Your Cat is Dead. Investigators questioned the play’s director, Milton Katselas, and Sal’s co-star, Keir Dullea. While they didn’t know anything about the murder, they were able to confirm that Mr. Mineo had gone out to dinner that evening with two friends, Kristine Clark and Michael Kaplan.

A thorough look into Sal Mineo’s career was as fruitless as their look into his personal life. It started to seem unlikely that Sal’s killer would ever be caught.

Sal Mineo’s Killer is Brought to Justice

As it turned out, Sal’s killing was little more than a mugging gone awry. Rather than uncovering a conspiracy, police would eventually discover that the actor’s death was senseless and fueled only by greed. Unfortunately, these details wouldn’t be revealed until more than a year had passed since Mineo had been stabbed to death.

Far from Hollywood, Michigan State Police arrested Lionel Williams for passing bad checks. While in lock-up, Williams boasted to the other inmates that he had been the one to murder Sal Mineo. Williams hoped confessing to the murder would earn him credit among the other inmates, so his time in prison would be a little easier.

There was just one problem: Lionel Williams was a black man with a large afro hairstyle.

Once word of the confession reached Los Angeles police, the investigation was relaunched. The investigators discovered that Lionel had recently changed his hair. At the time of the killing, Williams did in fact have long, straight hair that had been brown. He’d had his hair teased and straightened and he’d had a hair stylist dye his hair to a light shade of brown.

While living in California, Williams and a friend obtained money from people by mugging them as they exited their vehicles in dark parking lots. On the night of Sal’s death, Lionel had been working alone. It might have been Sal’s cry for help that caused Williams to panic. Whatever the reason, the mugger thrust his knife into Sal’s chest, puncturing his heart, and fled the scene.

To corroborate the case against Williams, his ex-girlfriend, a 19-year-old girl named Teresa Collins, provided the police with the murder weapon. Upon testing, the medical examiner verified that the knife supplied by Collins was the same one used to kill Sal Mineo.

Lionel Williams Stands Trial

In addition to second-degree murder charges for the death of Sal Mineo, Lionel Williams was charged with 10 robberies. He was found guilty on all counts and given a 51-year to life sentence. Convicted in 1978, Lionel Williams served 12 years and was granted parole in 1990.