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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1957)
TWELVE MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE Thursday. August I. 1JS7 Slaying of Two Young Brothers by Recently Released Psycopath Predicted by Officials Fditor'l note: An hvahvU ih 1 : - i i : ...u:u v:- 1 1 1 , - I . . . . . . .... . tiuLr. Mn ex-eonvict wlln liked his new room, which was decorated in pink and white, and a curious mixture of religious pictures and photographs of movie actress Debra Paget. Near his bed was a large autographed Warden Grennan reported his that -day, Ohlson straightened the same place he got another knife parole officers had taken pool that afternoon, chatted briefly with the Logan brothers, returned to his room, took his knife from beneath his pillow and walked back to the park. Police said Tie confessed forc ing the boys into the woods, stabbing them and tossing their nude bodies on a rough funeral pyre of wood and underbrush. .. " murafrinr two younit broth-r, si !lv after relM frrm prlon. Uhv ai a potential menare to sorirty, wn he J'Vfn hl freedom? That quemion naa touched off a rontroversv whlrh .'?plorel in 011 following dii patch. picture of Miss Paget, below it a statue of Christ. On a small table was a religi ous statue he made in prison. hobby there was carving such figures. Concealed Knife Before he left the apartment his bed, taking care to conceal under, his pillow a long-bladed knife with an ornate handle. He had bought it at a pawn shop, from, him three weeks before. Ohlson later told police 4ie strolled down to the field park By CHINA ALTMAN United Prei Correspondent Brockton, Mass. iw For six years Raymond F. Ohlson spent his leisure in prison carving re ligious statues. Fifty-one days after his release for good be havior he allegedly butchered two young brothers. The slaying of John Logan, 12 ana his brother Paul, 10, was labelled "savage" and "fiend- isn. JLater, a state correction official examined a long police me marked "Ohlson" and added that it was "inevitable." From across the state came a storm of "I told you so's." Pris on officials, psychiatrists and state parole board members agreed the 20-year-old sexual psyhcopath "never should have , been release." No one knew the Logan brothers would be the victims, but the crime had been predicted by a dozen men. Correction official, Dr. Ray Gilbert said It was almost in evitable that this person would would commit such an act un less aided or segregated from society." Shocking Record Police Chief Joseph C. Wright said Ohlson's record showed a history of sadistic sexual attacks on boys. When he was only 12, he had beaten a 3-year-old child. Two years' later he was sen- tenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting and near ly strangling a 12-year-old boy within 100 yards of the Logan brothers murder scene. Dr. Ian Paley Rak, Concord Prison psychiatrist, reported Ohlson "presents a very grave potential danger to the commu nity." Rak said Ohlson has "strong homosexual drives . . . and is potentially dangerous on the basis of past acts with sadis tic sexual elements of a serious nature to the lives of others." A staff member of Metropoli tan State Hospital said "extreme caution should be used in per mitting this boy in . the com munity." From the father of the slain children came the same question that hundreds asked "How could they ever have let him out?" Warden Edward S. Grennan had one answer: "We had to let him out. His time was up." Grennan said Ohlson was a timid, withdrawn boy, but a "model inmate." He had nearly four years deducted from his sentence for "good time." State Correction Commission er Arthur T. Lyman said "Theo retically Ohlson could have been committed indefinitely under the sexual psychopathic law." Confused Law "However," he said, "this whole law is extremely con fused. It never even has been activated." He explained that the 1954 measure would become effective only when a center for sexual psychopaths was estab lished. "Such a center has never been built or designated," he said. The parole board which twice turned down Ohlson's petitions for an early release, had rec ommended to Plymouth County District Attorney John R. Wheat ley a year before his scheduled discharge that Ohlson should be indefinitely committed. But both Wheatley and Dr. Jack S. Ewalt, state commission er of mental health, said there was no legal basis under which he could be confined, partly be cause of the ineffectiveness of the present law and partly be cause Ohlson's deviation was classed as neurotic rather than psychotic. "Confusion," said Lyman, was part of the answer to why the youth was discharged from Con cord. So it was that Ohlson, a free man, came to live with his moth er, Dorothy Ohlson, here in a three-room fourth floor apart ment. Neighbors described the two as "very quiet and pleas ant." Mrs. Ohlson, a graying blonde in her late 40s. divorced her machinist husband 3Vi years ago. On the day of the Logan brothers' murder. July 26, Ohl son awakened in his room at 10 a.m. It was his day off from his new job at the Stacey-Adams Shoe Co. Day of Rest The slightly built youth dress ed that day in his favorite clothes, dungarees and an open collar shirt." He stood before the dresser mirror a long time, combing his straight brown hair. He planned to "loaf around, maybe stay home all day," he had told his mother. She often told friends proudly that he Nude Body Discovered In Lake Washington Seattle (IB The nude body of a strawberry blonde was recovered from Lake Washing ten near Kenmore Wednesday afternoon. An autopsy determined death was due to drowning and both the sheriffs office and the cor oner's office were trying to es tablish her identity. lrcf 17R nf The uermau ,, it U-boats during World War II. ! mmmmmm MEDFORD 0 IJL STORE HOURS 9:30 to 5:30 IF YOU'RE THE GAL v. 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