The Story of A Routine Day That Ended In Tragedy
APRIL 8, 1970
Four young Highway Patrolmen were shot to death in Saugus Sunday night by two men, one of whom later held hostages at gunpoint in a Newhall home before reportedly committing suicide.
The incredible gangster-like tale began shortly before midnight Sunday when a motorist called the Newhall Highway Patrol office claiming that two men had threatened his life by waving a gun at him on the Golden State Freeway near Gorman after a minor auto accident.
At six minutes before midnight, patrolmen Walter C. Frago, 23, and Roger D. Gore, also 23, notified the patrol office they were behind the suspects’ red 1964 Pontiac. Officers James E. Pence, 24, and George M. Alleyn, 24, immediately radioed that they would assist with the stop.
Pence and Alleyn waited ahead for the automobile which contained two men who were wanted for murder in Oregon. The two officers were parked at the freeway and Valencia Boulevard, but the suspects’ car pulled off the freeway at Henry Mayo Drive.
Gore and Frago alerted the other Highway Patrol car that they were turning off the freeway at Henry Mayo Drive and Pence and Alleyn said they would follow.
Exactly what happened after Gore and Frago pulled off the freeway is not known. It is not known if the two suspects stopped after exiting from the freeway voluntarily or whether they were forced over by the two patrolmen.
Highway Patrol officials believe that Frago approached the suspects’ vehicle from one side and was immediately shot by one of the suspects who then grabbed Frago’s shotgun. Gore was either shot and killed simultaneously or immediately afterwards.
Patrolmen Pence and Alleyn apparently arrived seconds afterwards and as they arrived Pence Issued an urgent radio call for help.
It Is believed that Pence and Alleyn were met by shotgun blasts as they pulled up next to their slain colleagues and that Pence was probably killed immediately. Apparently Alleyn held off the pair of suspected killers for almost five minutes according to several witnesses.
The Sheriff’s department said that more than 100 rounds of ammunition were thought to have been fired as Alleyn battled with the two suspects. Witnesses from J’s Coffee Shop next to the roadway said Alleyn was finally shot point blank by one of the suspects after the officer apparently ran out of ammunition.
Many more shots were taken at the pair as they tried to escape by other Highway Patrolmen who arrived at the scene in response to Pence’s urgent call.
The two suspects, identified as 28-year-old Russell Lowell Talbert, and Jack Wright Twinning, 35, both of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, fled the scene which was a driveway of a Standard gas station and J’s Coffee Shop in their bullet riddled car, only to ram an embankment east of the shootout scene.
Police were still not positive of Talbert’s true identity as of yesterday, reporting that the papers in his possession which identified him might have been stolen from a man of that name.
The two took to their feet amid bullets from other Highway Patrolmen and scurried into the surrounding hills.
A massive hillside manhunt was immediately launched for the two.
The Highway Patrol, the Sheriff’s department and the Los Angeles Police Department all took part in the search which fanned out in every direction from the abandoned vehicle.
Special search units were called in and searchlights and Sheriff’s helicopters combed the area for several hours without success.
The younger of the two suspects, the man tentatively identified as “Talbert”, was the first to be heard from. He attempted to steal a truck and camper from a vacationing Chicago man who had pulled off for the night next to San Francisquito Canyon Road in Saugus.
“Talbert” had apparently wandered several miles through the hills from the shootout to the remote canyon area.
The camper’s owner Daniel J. Schwartz, 40, resisted “Talbert’s” attempts to enter his camper with a .38 caliber revolver, shooting “Talbert” several times with his own gun.
“Talbert” responded by pistol whipping Schwartz, overpowering him, and finally escaping in the truck.
He was later spotted at 5 a.m. further out San Francisquito Canyon Road by Sheriff’s deputies from the Antelope Valley office.
They arrested the wounded man without incident and transferred him under guard to Golden State Hospital where he was listed as being in good condition with a chest wound before he was sent by ambulance to the USC-County Medical Center in Los Angeles.
The other suspect, Twinning, had scrambled through the hills In the opposite direction and approached the Glenn S. Hoag home above the freeway at 24748 Pico Canyon Road in Newhall shortly after 4 a.m.
Twinning apparently had attempted unsuccessfully to steal Hoag’s late model car when Hoag heard him in the garage.
Hoag walked outside to investigate the disturbance while family dog barked and awakened Mrs. Hoag.
When Hoag stepped outside to Twinning pulled a gun, one of several in his possession, on the tall and thin Newhall resident.
Mrs. Hoag heard the two men talking and suspecting something wrong, called the Sheriff’s station. Later when lawmen arrived, she managed to sneak out of the house in her pajamas and crawl down the grassy hill.