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Edwin James GRACE
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Anger with
employment agency
Number of victims: 6
Date of murders:
June 21,
1972
Date of birth: 1939
Victims profile: Men
Method of murder:
Shooting
(two sawed-off .22-caliber rifles)
Location: Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA
Status: Died July 8, 1972, of self-inflicted wounds in Cherry Hill Medical Center
An off-duty Pinkerton guard entered a Cherry Hill
office building killing 6 and wounded 6 others. Died July 8 of self-inflicted wounds in Cherry Hill Medical Center.
Gunman kills 6 in Jersey
He wounds 6 and himself
The New York Times
June 22, 1972
CERRY HILL, N. J.,
June 21 – A tall, mustachioed 33-year-old gunman later identified as an
off-duty Pinkerton guard walked into an office building in this southern
New Jersey suburban community today, shot six men to death and wounded
six more before shooting and wounding himself.
Anger with employment agency is
cited as gunman's motivation for Jersey shootings
The New York Times
June 23, 1972
CERRY HILL, N. J.,
June 22 – Edwin James Grace, who shot 12 men, killing six of them, in an
office building here yesterday, apparently had directed his rage at an
employment agency that failed to get him a job earlier this year.
Grace, who is from Brooklyn, had
filed an application with Key Personnel, Inc., one of the eight
companies with offices in the Heritage Building, at 383 Kings Highway.
He had sought "a job in his line of work, security," according to the
Camden County Prosecutor, A. Donald Bigley.
Slayer of 6 in Cherry Hill dies
2 of 6 wounded still in hospital
The New York Times
July 9, 1972
CHERRY HILL, July 8 – Edwin James Grace, the man who
the police say killed six men and wounded six others before he turned a
gun on himself during a shooting spree June 21, died today at Cherry
Hill Medical Center.
Grace, 33 years old, had been partly paralyzed and
unable to talk since he was admitted to the hospital with a bullet
lodged at the base of his skull.
The police said he apparently shot
himself behind the left ear with one of the two sawed-off .22-caliber
rifles he wielded during the attack on office personnel at the Heritage
House building at 383 Kings Highway.
Grace lived in Brooklyn and worked as a Pinkerton
guard. Four of the men he wounded have been released. The two who remain,
Wayne Stroup, 22 and Val Reshko, 24, both of Cherry Hill, were described
as in satisfactory condition.
Mr. Stroup is paralyzed but progressing, according to
a hospital official, and Mr. Reshko is recovering from a partial
amputation of his right leg.
The death of the gunman came the day after his sister,
Therese, disclosed that she had hired Frank Brenner, a lawyer, to
represent her brother.
The police were unable to find a motive for the
shootings, but former Camden County Prosecutor A. Donald Bigley said
that Grace had once applied for a job as a security guard at the Key
Personnel Employment Agency in the Heritage House building. Mr. Bigley,
a Democrat, was succeeded as prosecutor yesterday by Thomas Shusted, a
former Republican Assemblyman, who would have been responsible for
prosecuting the case.
The personnel office was one of those shot up by the
gunman during seven minutes of terror for 40 office workers in the two-story
building. The gunman walked from one office to the next, shooting and
reloading his weapons as he went, waving women workers out of the way
and shooting only men.
The police were alerted by a telephone call from one
of the wounded men. They surrounded the building, fired tear-gas
canisters inside and entered a few minutes later. The shooting had ended
by then, according to Wallace LaPeters, Cherry Hill’s Public Safety
Director, and the police did not exchange any shots with the gunman.
Grace was carried out with the dead and wounded, and
the police did not realize who he was until they found seven 20-bullet
clips in his pocket. The police said that more than 100 bullets had been
fired inside the building.
Grace was described by his family and friends as a
quiet man and an avid reader. William Linn, vice president of the
Pinkerton agency, said that Grace had worked off and on for the agency
since August, 1971, and had not received a single demerit.
