Part 73, page 364

Transcript

The scan is the source; the transcript is machine-generated from it.

Was ..A Washington State wh[illegible]e on Nov. 23 1971 Jack Li[illegible] [guess: er] parachuted down wit[h] [guess: $200,000]? Did they all knew [guess: ...] much? About narcotic traffic and murders?

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Doctor's Murder Spree An Enigma

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DR. VAN PRAAG MELANIE VAN PRAAG

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Upland police checked the background of Dr. Jules Van Praag, 42, today in a search for a motive that triggered a murder-suicide rampage which left the Upland psychologist, his wife and their daughter dead.

Fighting for survival and still in serious condition in Arcadia Methodist Hospital is Van Praag's secretary, Mrs. Elizabeth Ann McClellan, 43, of 6220 Golden West Ave., Temple City. She was shot in the head in what police believe was a related incident.

Autopsy reports from Imperial and San Bernardino County coroner offices indicate Dr. Van Praag died from a self-inflicted head wound with a small caliber pistol and that Mrs. Van Praag and the girl, Melanie Jean, 14, died of "traumatic injuries to the head."

San Bernardino County Coroner Bill Hill also said examinations of the mother and daughter, both found in their fashionable Upland home in large plastic garbage bags, indicated "strangulation was a contributing cause of death."

Hill said he conferred briefly with Van Praag's Los Angeles attorney last night and "we are still looking for a motive. The attorney was shocked and said he had no forewarning that such a tragedy would occur."

But Hill's conference with the lawyer turned up, for the second time, evidence that Van Praag had given recent thought to complications that arise from death.

The attorney, according to Hill, recently had updated Van Praag's last will and testament. Earlier, investigators determined that the psychologist had made arrangements for the cremation of himself and his wife in the event of their deaths.

The grisly trail of death was discovered after Dr. Van Praag's secretary was found screaming and wounded in a street Monday night.

She said she had been shot after meeting Van Praag at his office, but that she did not see her assailant.

Hill said he didn't know when ballistic tests would be complete, but other investigators indicated she and Van Praag were shot by bullets from "small caliber weapon or weapons." Surgeons were expected to decide today when they could remove the bullet from Mrs. McClellan's head.

Van Praag's body was found early yesterday in a rented car in a gully just off Highway 86, north of Westmoreland in Imperial County. He had been shot in the mouth and officers found a .22 caliber revolver at the scene.

Several hours earlier, police in Upland found the body of Van Praag's wife, Anne, 43, stuffed in a plastic bag inside a closet of the home. The first search of the house failed to turn up any sign of the daughter, but 12 hours later the child's body, also wrapped in a bag, was found under a bed when investi-gators conducted a second search of the $50,000 home at 520 W. Emerson Road.

The wife and daughter both had been savagely beaten about the head, and Hill said each had marks on her neck. An ax was found nearby, he said, and laboratory tests were ordered to determine whether it may have been the murder weapon.

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DB Cooper-31724