CRIME: Incident in New Canaan

Imogene Stevens was the kind of girl at whom men always looked twice. When Imogene landed in neat, suburban New Canaan, Conn. (pop. 6,500), New Canaanites looked at her in various ways.

Dark-haired, dark-eyed Imogene was the bride of young Major George Stevens III. She had come to New Canaan because that was where George’s parents lived. George, an officer in an airborne division, had to go overseas. Imogene settled down in a brown-shingled little house next door to the Charles Miltons on decorous East Maple Street.

Beauty’s Lot. Parting from soldiers seemed to be Imogene’s lot. Born on a farm near Amarillo, Tex., she had first married when she was only 18 and just out of high school. The man she married, Carl Funderberg, was more than twice her age. They had a baby.

Funderberg, who became a gunner in a B17, finally divorced her. She was an “unchaste” person—that was the way he put it. He won legal custody of their child, but Imogene refused to give the baby up. She moved to Nebraska, got a job at the Alliance Air Base, where she met and married George Stevens. Sergeant

Funderberg finally went off to Europe, where he was shot down, captured and later released. He came home and married a widow named Mrs. Schmaltz.

But all that was past. In New Canaan, Imogene was more interested in the present. She was frequently photographed in scanty swimming suits. She turned her dark, innocent eyes on next-door neighbor Charlie Milton, susceptible treasurer of a bolt company, father of three. New Canaan tongues began to clack.

End of a Party. Charlie Milton’s wife left home. She was gone for months. But she finally came back, and one night last week she and Imogene went out together. Charlie met them at Amend’s Tavern and they all went back to Imogene’s, where they had a heated argument. Focus of the argument: Charlie. Wrathfully Betty Milton jabbed an ice pick through Imogene’s screen door. Imogene, just as wrathful, rushed out and hurled a beer glass through one of the Miltons’ windows.

Charlie took his wife for a walk to cool off. Imogene, fondling an automatic pistol which her husband had given her, fired a few practice shots into her fireplace.

End of a Fishing Trip. At this point 19-year-old Seaman Albert Kovacs, with his brother James, appeared on the dangerously crowded stage. Al, a veteran of the Pacific, now stationed at Portsmouth, had been fishing. He had had a date with Faith Coombs, an 18-year-old high-school girl who looked after the Milton children. He was late; Faith was not there. Except for the children upstairs, asleep, the Milton house was empty. Al raided the icebox for some beer and he and James sat down to drink it.

Al was sitting at the piano when Imogene burst in. The Kovacs brothers were a little startled. She demanded to know what they were doing there Al said: “I’m waiting for Faith,” and walked toward the stairway. As James Kovacs remembered it later, there was the crash of a shot and Al dropped. Imogene fired two more shots. Then she demanded: “Now will you leave?”

James later told police: “I half dragged, half carried him to the porch, with her holding the gun on us. … I put my hand on his breast. I decided he was dead.”

Imogene went to the phone and called the police. “I just shot a man,” she reported. “I thought they were housebreakers.” The cops found her waiting for them in the Miltons’ house, holding one of the Miltons’ children in her arms, rocking back & forth. The police took her in.

While she was held in $50,000 bail on a charge of manslaughter, a mourning family buried Seaman Kovacs. Charlie Milton disappeared from public view, and at week’s end had not been heard from. Neither had George Stevens, who was still overseas, although Imogene had sent him a peremptory cable: “Come home at once.” George’s father was sure he would if he could: “George will stick with her. When a man’s stuck he’s stuck.”

But to Imogene’s instant aid had rushed her father, J. O. Dumas, veteran Texas police officer. Father Dumas drawled sadly: “Her mother is all tore up about this.”