Charles Fitzmaurice murder, 1964

This is another write up I did on another site a while back. It’s an intriguing case, but I’m not sure how much more there is to be discovered about it unless his family has information to share.

On the evening of December 12, 1964, United States Marine Corps (hereafter USMC) Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fitzmaurice answered a knock on his door in Springfield, Virginia. As he opened the door, a fatal shotgun blast tore into his body at point-blank range. This is the story of that strange, unsolved murder.

The Setting: Springfield is an upper-middle class suburb of Washington, DC in Fairfax County, Virginia and it was so in 1964 as well as today. Fitzmaurice lived with his wife and four children on Parliament Drive in the Kings Park subdivision. The subdivision was described as “new” in papers, so I presume they were either the first residents of the house or nearly so. Fitzmaurice had only moved to Springfield in June of that same year after spending 3 ½ years at Quantico, which means there was not much time to make enemies in the local area…

To at least attempt to preserve a little privacy for the current homeowners, I’m not putting the full address here, even though it’s easy to find online.

The Victim: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Fitzmaurice was an interesting man. He was a 28 year veteran of the USMC and had served on Saipan and Iwo Jima in World War II as well as in the Korean War. Later assignments included Okinawa and Kodiak, Alaska. 48 years old, he was currently stationed at the Navy Annex in Arlington where he was assistant head of the promotions branch in the USMC personnel department. (This will be relevant in the investigation discussion below). A contemporary article noted that he had a top secret clearance, “but did not handle such material in his current assignment”. Clearly the USMC wanted to head off espionage/assassination rumors from the get go! Fitzmaurice was married to Barbara Ann and had four children: John (13), Timothy (12), Colleen Ann (10), and Sean (7). Neighbors reported that he was “a cheerful man and a good neighbor” and friends described him as “easygoing” and without enemies they knew of. A neighbor said he was “always a happy-go-lucky guy who didn’t seem to have a care in the world”. An article noted that he and his sons were active in Boy Scouts. Of course, a natural reaction is to scoff at these superlatives and wonder at what secrets were beneath the perfect exterior. The fact is, these are the only descriptions of Fitzmaurice we have and anything beyond that is idle speculation.

The Murder: On December 12, 1964, a Saturday, Mrs. Fitzmaurice was not feeling well and went upstairs to bed early. Her four children also were upstairs in their rooms while her husband was downstairs reading. He was dressed in civilian clothes. Sunset that day was 4:48 p.m. and the area experienced a temperature range of 55-41 degrees with just under an inch of precipitation. Outside, “[h]eavy fog blanketed the neighborhood” and was described as limiting “visibility to a few feet.” It was noted that the front porch light was on, but given the fog, neighbors still didn’t see anything of what was to follow. Shortly before 8 p.m. Fitzmaurice heard a knock and answered his front door. (Police noted that when talking to her in her stressed state, Barbara Ann could have meant a knock or a doorbell ring, but articles consistently described her hearing a knock immediately before hearing the shotgun blast.)

Neither her nor any neighbors heard any conversation between Fitzmaurice and the killer. Rushing downstairs in her pajamas followed by her children, she arrived in time to see her husband lying just inside the front door, clutching his side and gasping ,“Oh my God, I’ve been shot”. (One article says she actually saw him collapse). She immediately called the “rescue squad” and the police were also immediately notified. An article stated that Fitzmaurice was “pronounced dead at the scene minutes later”; while “minutes later” is vague, it does seem clear that the police and ambulance got there quickly. Today there are two fire stations within a 6-7 minute drive of the house; assuming at least one was similarly located in 1964, a speeding ambulance could have gotten there very quickly.

It was reported that Fitzmaurice was shot in his right side “just above the waist” and investigators determined that the shotgun was fired from no more than nine feet away and “could have been as close as six inches”. Apparently the shotgun pellets “severed the aorta and he bled to death quickly.” According to police, “the blast would have been strong enough to knock him back into the house”. No other pellets were found in the area, so the blast was clearly very concentrated. It’s possible to reconstruct the scene a bit further, as it’s known there was a heavy front door that opened inward and to the left (from Fitzmaurice’s perspective) and a lighter screen door that opened outward to his left. As police noted, the killer could have held open the screen door himself, which would be the truly point-blank scenario, or, Fitzmaurice could have opened the screen door himself “as he peered out into the fog”, presumably after the killer had retreated a few feet. I don’t think the exact distance is particularly significant, but the mental picture I have is that if he’s shot in the right side, he’s opening the screen door to the left, leaving his right side unprotected and twisted slightly in front of the killer.

According to the papers, “over 200 pellets were found lodged in his body” and that “No. 4 shot” was used. With 200 pellets supposedly hitting him, then clearly they are talking about birdshot and not buckshot. Birdshot seems to be a bit of an odd choice if you are intent on murdering someone, but I suppose they knew that at point-blank range it would do the job.

The Investigation Begins: Fairfax County Police Sergeant William Haines reported that he and other investigators had canvassed the neighborhood seeking clues and had left two police officers at the scene on Sunday night (the day after the murder) to continue the investigation. All of Saturday night and all of Sunday had been spent combing the neighborhood for clues. Several neighbors heard the gunshot but all said they did not see the killer in the fog. A neighbor across the street reported that she heard the shot and then one of Fitzmaurice’s sons shouting “[m[y dad’s been shot”. Haines admitted that investigators were “at a complete standstill” and in a very unfortunate turn of phrase, Police Chief William L. Durrer said that “any theory is just a shot in the dark”. There had been no previous reports of “unusual or suspicious activity in the neighborhood” other than a “suspicious” magazine salesman was reported being in the neighborhood recently, but the police checked that lead and found no connection.

Early in the investigation, police theorized that the killer may have parked at nearby Kings Park Elementary School and walked on foot to the Fitzmaurice house. There wasn’t a positive sighting of a car in the school parking lot, but rather this was the police’s theory due to the fact that neighbors did not recall seeing or hearing a car around the time of the gunshot (which was clearly heard by several neighbors). Neighbors stated that a car in the school parking lot could have gone unheard. As you can see on the map, the school is only about 50 yards behind the Fitzmaurice house as the crow flies and up a small, wooded hill. Note that there is now a sidewalk labeled leading directly from the school parking lot to within a few yards of the Fitzmaurice house, and I would presume this or a similar path was there in 1964. This obviously would have been a quick and logical escape route from the house and would explain why neighbors didn’t see the assailant or see/hear his car. It should be noted that Chief Durrer wasn’t committed solely to the idea that the killer had a car, but it certainly seems less likely that the killer escaped by walking through a subdivision on foot with a weapon and along the way successfully disposing of the shotgun without it being found.

Within days of the murder, police followed up a report that a neighbor had heard a girl’s voice say the Fitzmaurice’s house number “at least an hour before the shooting”. Police decided that someone was looking for a particular house, a girl had gotten out of the car to get a closer look to see where they were at (remember that it was foggy), and had happened to see the Fitzmaurice’s number to report back to the driver. Investigators decided it was not the killer making a reconnaissance beforehand (and presumably he would have done it more subtly and not utilized a girl).

Footprints: Initially, it was reported in the Washington Post that a footprint, “perhaps that of a woman’s shoe” was found in a flowerbed (or “the soft ground of the evergreen bed”, depending on the source) in front of the home. The Northern Virginia Sun called the print possibly “from a cowboy boot or a woman’s shoe.” While it sounds like one footprint is being discussed here, a subsequent article clarified that there were two. One was a woman’s footprint that was dismissed by police as being unrelated, but there are conflicting reasons given why in different newspapers. One stated that the footprint “belonged to the woman next door, who ran through the bushes when she heard Mrs. Fitzmaurice scream”; (that’s a pretty good neighbor)! Another paper stated that it “proved to have been made by Mrs. Fitzmaurice as she was attending to her flowers”. A photo in the Washington Post shows the footprint site to be immediately to the side and front of the door just off the entry pavement, so it’s an area that could have easily picked up completely unrelated footprints. It is not in an unusual location like if someone was peering into a window. The other footprint, which the investigators were interested in, “belongs to a man and we’re saving that one”; a plaster mold was made of the footprint. This is the last mention of a footprint I have found in any article, so I can only assume that this lead did not pan out. Given the location of the footprints (just a step or two off the sidewalk), you couldn’t even be certain they were from the killer. Based on that day’s precipitation, I don’t know if they could determine how long the print might have been there. Whether the source of the man’s footprint was found and cleared or just never identified, I unfortunately do not know.

A Personal Grudge: By December 15, the police were publicly saying that they suspected a “personal grudge” was the motive for the killing, but at this point it seems like they were generally theorizing rather than having a suspect in mind. It’s a rather obvious conclusion, after all; there was probably not a random maniac roaming neighborhoods and shotgunning people at their door. Police also said they had “ruled out the possibility of neighborhood or domestic disputes” as a motive. I think we have to take this at face value; of course the idea of a romance or love triangle gone wrong immediately jumps to mind as a motive, but there is simply no information to make an evaluation about that. Any supposition in that regard is purely speculation.

The direction of the investigation was confirmed early on, with Chief Durrer saying that the murder “must have had something to do with his work or come from his past”. However, he also noted that they had already interviewed Fitzmaurice’s co-workers and supervisors and looked at his military records and found nothing suspicious. Chief Durrer said he believed the killer intentionally “aimed at his stomach, where a man normally would sustain agony before dying”, indicating a particular vindictiveness. I think the Chief was probably reading too much into this; if you’re going to shoot somebody with a shotgun at point-blank range, you’re probably going to aim the barrel either at their head or somewhere around their stomach.

As of December 17, the investigation continued to focus on the USMC, with Chief Durrer noting that investigators were examining the records of any courts martial he had sat on and any promotions that he may have turned down. Fitzmaurice’s current job “involved mostly paper work in promotions of individual enlisted men as well as officers” and he “did not interview the men who were considered for promotions”. Also recall that he had only moved into the area from Quantico in June, which is presumably when he started his new job. Not much time to make enemies with his current job.

The next (and last) article in the Washington Post appeared on January 16, 1965. By then, Chief Durrer said investigators “were confident that if and when we do find the murderer, it will have to do with the colonel’s work”. He added that Fitzmaurice was “a good family man and a good friend. If the slaying was due to something else, other than his work, his family doesn’t know what it could be”. I’m sure investigators weren’t naive enough to assume Fitzmaurice or his family couldn’t have any secrets, so as much as it’s natural to speculate, I can only take their assessment at face value without further information being available. Local residents were still naturally concerned about the murder in their neighborhood and police had instituted additional patrols for their peace of mind, although they did not expect the killer to return. In addition, Fairfax County police held a public meeting in January at Kings Park Elementary (a bit eerie given the proximity to the crime scene and their suspicion that the killer parked at the school). Detective Richard Lester told the 250 attendees that police were sure the killer was not a local resident. A bit oddly, the article specified the killer was not thought to be from “the community or the metropolitan area”; I can understand the police being confident in eliminating suspects from the immediate community, but why were they so confident that the killer couldn’t be in the greater DC area? It sounds like they were convinced that the killer really was from Fitzmaurice’s past and not someone associated with him since moving to Virginia. On the other hand, was it pure luck that the killer struck on a foggy night, or was he at least spending enough time in the DC area that he could wait for favorable conditions like this? One of the many questions that come to mind in the case. Detective Lester assured the crowd that “there is no mad-dog killer running wild in Kings Park”.

The Visitor: The Northern Virginia Sun had a very intriguing report on December 16 that I will quote at length: according to information provided by Chief Durrer, “one of Fitzmaurice’s youngsters told police that one day last week a man knocked on the door and wanted some papers he claimed the youth’s father had”. Durrer added that the “youngster told us that the man said he was a sergeant and wanted to see Col. Fitzmaurice”. The paper continued, “the boy told police that he told the stranger his father was not home and the man left. The boy reported the man was carrying a leather case of some kind. Police believe it was a brief case”. In a pre-email and pre-cell phone world, I don’t think it’s completely outside the realm of possibility that a subordinate from Fitzmaurice’s work might need to come by his house to deal with pressing paperwork. However, I’m sure this would have been very easy to clear up by investigators when they interviewed his co-workers, and presumably they determined that no one had been there on legitimate USMC business. It does raise the question of why his killer would want to visit beforehand; maybe there was a pistol in the briefcase and he decided on a shotgun later. Or maybe he wanted to talk things out regarding the presumably negative paperwork he wanted to recover and only decided on murder later. Or perhaps it was totally unconnected to the murder. Yet more guesses in a baffling case.

The January 1965 article gets interesting in its last paragraph: Detective Lester “said there is evidence that the killer is the person who visited the Fitzmaurice home a week before the slaying and later phoned, only to be told by one of the Fitzmaurice children that the colonel was out”. Read in isolation, “visited the Fitzmaurice home” makes it sound like it was someone known to them who openly visited them, but combined with the December 16 article quoted above, it seems like it is actually only referring to the stranger at the door. The addition of the information about the phone call gets the imagination going; why did police believe the visitor and the caller were the same person? Did they find more evidence or was it just a guess? The wording of this brief snippet would suggest that the police had discovered more information, but we don’t know what that was, assuming they even had solid evidence.

Very frustratingly, that is the last article I could find on the Fitzmaurice murder. Just when it seemed like the police were developing a suspect, the story abruptly drops from the papers. It seems like there are two main reasons why this could have happened: 1) that lead proved to be another dead end and the case simply went ice cold with no suspects, or, 2) the police had developed a suspect, wanted to start keeping things close to the chest, but ultimately could not muster the evidence against them. Take your pick! I will say that Fitzmaurice’s murder is listed on Fairfax County’s cold case website; if the department was sure they had their guy and just didn’t have the evidence to charge them, would they later have bothered to select this cold case as one to advertise? Who knows. Maybe it really was just a dead end.

Last Thoughts: Fitzmaurice was buried in a military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery on December 16, following a Requiem Mass at the Fort Myer Chapel. The horse-drawn caisson carried his remains to the Arlington grave site and the grave of this veteran officer is well worth a visit today.

The Marine Corps publicly stated that “a board of inquiry probably would open an investigation…as is done whenever a Corps member on active duty dies under unusual circumstances.” I don’t know how in-depth this board of inquiry was, or what records could be released today, but I did check with the National Archives regarding his Official Military Personnel File. Apparently they can’t be released until 62 years after the service member has left the service. So, with a death date of 1964, that means Fitzmaurice’s file couldn’t be released until 2026. I’m not sure it would be very helpful in this matter, anyway.

I hesitate to even mention a couple local rumors that have lingered over the years for fear of perpetuating them, but I think it’s better to dispose of them here. One rumor is to the effect that the police wanted to question Fitzmaurice’s oldest son and his mother shielded him, implying that the son was to blame. Besides being unsubstantiated gossip from an unknown source, recall that his oldest son was only 13. I don’t picture a 13 year old having the foresight to grab a shotgun, sneak downstairs and out the back of the house past his father, go around the house, and knock on the door as part of pre-planned assassination, all while not leaving footprints in the damp ground. Not to mention that he would have had to quickly dispose of a shotgun in a matter of minutes, and I’m quite sure the police would have investigated whether the family owned a shotgun that could have been used in the crime. The other rumor is the rather obvious one of the wife, Barbara Ann, being involved in his death, presumably with a lover being the perpetrator. The fact that she went to bed early and the children were all upstairs perhaps inevitably led to gossip that she had intentionally left him downstairs alone, knowing what was to come. This is simply idle gossip with no basis in any facts that I have discovered. According to her obituary, Barbara Ann apparently did not remarry and she spent 1965-1985 working as a “security specialist who processed background checks at the Army’s Cameron Station facility”. I am quite certain the she would not have been employed in such a job by the Army if there was any suspicion of her being involved in her husband’s murder. She and her children were by all evidence simply additional innocent victims of this peculiar tragedy.

I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of this mysterious case, but it would seem that the police were probably on the right track, regardless if the mystery visitor was in fact the killer. Fitzmaurice must have, perhaps unknowingly, planted a deep-seated grudge in someone from his USMC past. Perhaps a subordinate passed over for promotion due a negative evaluation from Fitzmaurice or one that blamed a bad conduct discharge on Fitzmaurice? Stranger things have happened. Or maybe there is some unknowable secret at the heart of the case that has never been uncovered. Regardless, next Veteran’s Day, give a thought to this career USMC officer who had his life taken in such a strange and mysterious way