WHO KILLED BOB CRANE?!

Decades later, the TV actor's brutal murder may never be solved

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In the late 1960s, handsome actor Bob Crane was a fixture in households across America as the star of prisoner-of-war comedy Hogan’s Heroes. And those who loved him as the charming Colonel Hogan were devastated when he was brutally killed in the summer of 1978, in one of the most high-profile murders in Hollywood history.

The grisly case remains unsolved, almost 47 years after Bob was found bludgeoned to death in his Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment, with two huge cuts above his left ear and an electrical cord knotted around his neck.

There was so much blood – it was splashed across the walls and ceiling and had turned Bob’s pillow crimson. The actor was two weeks shy of his 50th birthday.

At the time, the TV jobs had dried up and he was getting by on theatre gigs. It was co-star Victoria Barry who made the gruesome discovery, and theatre manager Ed Beck who had to identify the body.

“There was no way I could identify him from one side,” Ed said of the gory crime scene.

The mystery surrounding Bob’s death has long captivated people – there have been at least five books, three investigations and a 2002 movie about the case.

For the actor’s son Robert, it’s the prospect of never knowing for certain what happened in apartment 132A on June 29, 1978 that haunts him.

“I really dislike the word ‘closure’. For the families, wives, kids – there’s no closure for us,” Robert, 73, tells Woman’s Day from LA, where he’s lived most of his life. “I miss my dad every day, my sisters, Debbie and Karen, we’re talking about him all the time.”