User:Auric/Murder of Merrill Bodenheimer

The Murder of Merrill Bodenheimer occurred on July 20, 1959, when his body was discovered after a search by police, in an icebox in Houston, Texas.

Initial suspicion focused on a man previously convicted of molesting girls and then seven African-American teens, ages thirteen to seventeen, and police extracted confessions that they had sexually abused and then killed the white boy. Some of the accused immediately recanted, stating that the confessions had been beaten out of them, and four of the defendants had witnesses placing them far from the assault at the time that it occurred. Joe Edward Smith and Adrian Johnson were eventually convicted.

Biography
He was the son of William Merrill Bodenheimer and Doris Bodenheimer.

Murder and discovery of body
On the afternoon of 20 Jul 1959, he went to go swimming and left on his bicycle. When he did not return, a search was made and he was found inside a closed icebox in a small shack.