Between Father and Son

When police first recovered the body of 18-year-old Ella Jean Scott from a grave on a Chesterton, Ind. farm last February, their chief problem lay in deciding which of two conflicting stories to believe. According to slim, handsome Joel Saikin, 25, his father Samuel, 49, had murdered the go-go dancer in his Chicago warehouse and enlisted his son's help in disposing of her body. According to the elder Saikin, Joel was the girl's killer. Joel passed a lie-detector test, and the authorities put papa on trial for murder. But after hearing all the evidence in a Chicago courtroom last week, a jury of nine men and three women concluded that the truth was past finding out.

Different Kind of Affection. The crime was as bizarre as it was mystifying. The younger Saikin testified that the trouble began in the spring of 1967, when he brought the girl, whom he planned to marry, down to the farm to meet his family. At first, he said, his fa ther loved Ella Jean "like a daughter-in-law." Later, the elder Saikin developed a different kind of affection for the pret ty but not too bright girl, who had man aged to cram a lot of living into her short life. Before the end of the sum mer, the father was escorting Ella Jean to her room each night where they would give each other "rubdowns." He was also checking on Ella Jean's back ground. Upon discovering that she was married to Air Force Sergeant Samuel Mumma, he brought her estranged husband to Indiana for a successful reconciliation.

Ella Jean and her husband left the farm and, by Joel's account, he had no contact with her until later that fall.

Then the girl, who had again left her hus band and was dancing in Las Vegas under the name "Tina Mumma," called and told him that she was returning to Chicago for an operation that would erase her memory. The day after she arrived, the elder Saikin appeared at the Indiana farm and told his son that he had shot the girl as she knelt on the warehouse floor. Joel then helped him bury her body.

Samuel Saikin denied everything. Taking the stand in his own defense, he said that he had brought Ella Jean to Chicago in an attempt to patch up her marriage. When she arrived, he met her at the airport and took her to his warehouse. Early next morning, they drove to the farm, awakened Joel and drove along the Indiana Toll Road so the two could talk before returning to Chicago to drop off Ella Jean's luggage. He waited in the car while Joel and the girl entered the warehouse. Joel returned alone, he said, and admitted having killed Ella Jean.

Unresolved Conflict. The trial failed to resolve the conflict between the two accounts of the murder. Prosecution witnesses confirmed that Samuel Saikin had threatened both Joel and Ella Jean, and two recalled his mentioning the surgery to blot out her memory. But the defense was just as strong. One witness said that Joel had complained about his father and promised "to get even" with him. More important, a gas-station attendant placed the two Saikins and the girl together on the Indiana Toll Road and produced a credit-card slip to confirm the identification.

Although entertaining reasonable doubts as to whether the elder Saikin was the killer, the jury was plainly convinced that he was somehow involved in the crime. It found him not guilty of murder, but guilty of conspiring to obstruct justice by hiding the girl's body. State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan has no plans to prosecute Joel for his part in the case, and the verdict precludes any further action against his father.

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