Trials: Two Lives for a Fix

In the nether world of the narcotics addict, a man’s only loyalty is to himself. Richard Robles, a sallow-faced, 22-year-old junkie, learned that lesson too late last week when a Manhattan jury found him guilty of the sadistic murders of Career Girls Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert in August 1963. The most convincing evidence against Robles was provided by his two best friends, fellow addicts both.

One was Nathan Delaney, 36, a Negro twice convicted on felony charges; the other was Delaney’s white wife Marjorie, 30, a prostitute. A major part of the state’s case rested on the Delaneys, who by any standard were hardly credible witnesses. When he himself faced a homicide rap in the killing of a dope peddler last year, Delaney offered to lead police to Robles in return for leniency in his own case. After a grand jury refused to indict Delaney on the murder charge, he and his wife set about getting Robles to talk about the double slaying—within range of hidden police microphones.

Along with tapes of those conversations, the state’s case included a detective’s testimony that after Robles was arrested, he said: “I went in to pull a lousy burglary and I wind up killing two girls.” Needing money for a heroin fix, Robles said he entered the girls’ East Side Manhattan apartment through an open window, picked up two kitchen knives and started prowling around. Finding blonde Janice Wylie, 21, asleep in the nude, he sexually attacked her. When Roommate Emily Hoffert, 23, walked in, Robles said, he grabbed her, bound the two women together and tied them to a bed. Robles was quoted as saying: “Something told me I had to kill them. I got two soda bottles and struck them over the head. I knocked out Janice and I only stunned Emily. I just kept stabbing them.” Afterward, testified the Delaneys, Robles showed up at their apartment wearing bloodstained clothes and explained: “I need a shot. I just iced two girls.”

The reluctant chief witness for the defense was George Whitmore, 21, a Negro laborer who was first charged with the crime and later exonerated after Robles’ arrest. Defense Attorney Jack Hoffinger read to the jury a confession that police said had been made by Whitmore. On the witness stand, Whitmore denied having made a confession.

It took the jury of five women and seven men five hours to find Robles guilty on two counts of felony murder. Because New York abolished the death penalty last June (except for killing either a policeman or a prison employee during an escape attempt), Robles faces a maximum of two consecutive life sentences.