American Notes PENNSYLVANIA

Leaning on the arms of his captors and clasping a towel to his face to protect his emphysema-weakened lungs against the cold, the frail prisoner hardly looked like a man capable of murder. But as he stepped off a train in Paoli, Pa., last week, William Henry Redmond, 66, was walking back through time to face charges in the April 1951 death of Jane Marie Althoff, an eight-year-old ) who had been strangled near a carnival outside Trainer, Pa.

As the carnival's Ferris wheel operator, Redmond was questioned by police at the time, but eluded them after an arrest warrant was issued in 1952. Then in 1985 Trainer Borough Police Chief Hubert Morris revived the investigation. "I had heard about little Janie Althoff since I was a boy," said Morris, 57. "I really wanted to see what we could do to resolve this." He enlisted the expertise of State Police Trooper Malcolm Murphy. Using court records and driver's license registrations, Murphy located Redmond living quietly as a retired trucker in Grand Island, Neb. Confronted by his pursuers after 37 years, Redmond "incriminated himself," prosecutors said.