Henry Heinz was a wealthy and successful man by any standard. A Director and Vice-President of the giant Citizen’s and Southern Bank, he was also the President of the Kiwanis Club and the Atlanta Athletic Club. He was a mover and shaker in the Atlanta social and business scenes.
A member of the most exclusive social clubs in the city, Henry was very well-connected. He was a 33rd-degree Mason and a past potentate of the Yaarab Shrine Temple. To top it off, he was married to Lucy, the daughter of a man many would consider Atlanta’s most powerful citizen, Asa Candler, the former Mayor of Atlanta and the founder of the Coca-Cola Company.
With all of his good fortune, Henry’s curse may have been as a regular victim of crimes, primarily theft. In 1926, he and Lucy were vacationing in Atlantic City. A thief broke into their suite at Chalfonte-Haddon Hall and stole Lucy’s jewelry, valued then at around $120,000, including a ring with a twenty-carat diamond. Heinz pushed authorities for an arrest, and soon police arrested a bellman, Thomas Sears. When the accused went to trial, there was no evidence against him, and he was acquitted.
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In Atlanta, Henry and Lucy lived in an estate called Rainwater Terrace in the upscale Druid Hills neighborhood. Despite the high-profile location, they were frequent targets of burglars. Starting around 1940, thieves regularly broke into the home, sometimes while the occupants were awake. The thefts were petty, with small amounts of cash most often. Records show numerous calls from the house to the police. There were other attempts where the intruders had failed to gain entry. Henry offered bonuses to the police officers charged with patrolling his neighborhood if they could apprehend his slippery thief. Despite the efforts of the officers, the thief always got away.
On the evening of September 28, 1943, Heinz finally got a chance to catch the robber himself. One of the officers that had been offered the reward, Patrolman M.W. Blackwell, had made a pass by his home early in the evening but saw nothing of concern. He relayed this to Heinz.
Late that evening, Henry heard dogs barking, then movement in the library. He immediately went there and came upon an intruder. Henry tackled him. He yelled for his wife, who came to the library, saw the two men scuffling, and went to a nearby room to grab Henry’s gun. It was then that she heard gunshots. She hurried back to the library, where she saw her husband dead on the floor with four gunshot wounds.
Lucy called the police and then her son-in-law, dentist Dr. Brian Vann, who lived next door. Vann, who was armed, immediately came to the Heinz home and looked into the house from outside, supposedly trying to determine if the shooter had left the premises. When police arrived, the two officers entered the home, saw the body, and then went out to look for the suspect. Apparently, there was confusion about who was who, and a gunfight ensued between Vann and the two officers, Blackwell and Miller. Vann was struck in the arm and stomach, and his injuries were critical. An ambulance rushed him to Emory University Hospital. Officer Miller sprained his ankle in the struggle.
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It was later determined that a large number of police, reporters, and friends of the family had walked through the crime scene, contaminating the evidence recovered. Police determined that Heinz had been shot four times, and the murder weapon was a .38 caliber pistol. Three bullets were recovered. They also recovered a damaged wristwatch and a button that had been torn from a shirt, both presumed to belong to the killer. A fingerprint was found on a window. Mrs. Heinz gave the police a description of the intruder. A screen had been removed from a window and was located on the terrace floor.
The case led most national media. Over the following weeks, the police apprehended and interviewed numerous suspects, none of who they felt was the murderer. Rumors circulated in Atlanta’s circles that either Lucy or Dr. Vann had been the killer. No evidence was ever produced to support that theory.
The family hired private detectives, and rewards were offered for information, yet the case turned cold. Within a couple of months, a burglar broke into another house in the neighborhood. Another possible murder later that fall that went unsolved added pressure on the police department. The calendar would turn over 1945 before investigators got a break in the case.
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In mid-January, police made a traffic stop on a car they later described as suspicious on the city’s main thoroughfare, Peachtree Street. The car had been without headlights. After a conversation with the driver, the officer released him, but not before recording his tag number. A break-in later that evening produced a description of the robber, which police felt was similar to the driver’s description in the traffic stop.
The car and driver were located quickly. When the police came upon the vehicle, it was on a bridge, and the driver tossed a handbag into the creek below. The driver, a railroad worker named Horace Blalock, was arrested.
In his interview, Blalock commented about robberies he had committed, and the officers began to consider him a potential suspect in the Heinz break-in and murder. Police took Blalock’s fingerprints and held him in the Fulton Tower, awaiting the results. When three local experts and the FBI confirmed the print as Blalock’s, he was brought into another interview.
In the fifteen-hour session, Blalock gradually confessed to his crime. He eventually wrote out a detailed confession and as well as admitting to entering the home twice before the night of the murder. Blalock would later allege that police slipped something into the Cokes they provided him during the interview. Blalock revealed that he had bled from an injury obtained during his scuffle with Heinz, and the details he offered of his path that evening after the shooting matched blood trails found at the scene. He was charged with murder and scheduled to stand trial in just over a month.
