Student chased before Clay murder
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1968, VOL. LX, NO. 54
University of Southern California
DAILY • TROJAN
Friends call Clay quiet, well-liked
By MIKE PARFIT Editor
Brian Clay’s roommate, Jim Booth, sat on the edge of his bed. talking about his friend.
“He is not the type of guy who would provoke an argument," Booth said. “He’s just not that type of guy.”
Most of the people who knew Brian Clay still find themselves talking in the present tense about him. although he has been dead since Monday night. At about 9:45 that night he was murdered near the Phi Delta Theta house, where he was a pledge.
“Brian had no prejudice at all,” Booth said.
Booth, like many of Clay’s friends, could find no motive for the killing. One of the members of the house said that the three Negro men who attacked Clay and fatally stabbed him must have been “Just looking for somebody to kill.”
Those who knew Clay felt that he was an extremely unlikely victim.
“He was quiet, reserved.” Booth said.
“Brian was really quiet.” another friend. Bob Kaufman, said. “He seemed to be a pretty serious type of guy.” Kaufman, a member of Theta Xi fraternity, had known Clay since fourth grade.
“You expected him to be a loud, typical carouser-type guy,” Kaufman continued. “He was tall, good-looking, and had a perfect build. He looked like a guy who does the playboy bit and all. But he was very quiet, almost to the point of being shy.”
Clay was bom in February, 1950. He was bom with a club foot.
“But he had an operation and overcame it,” an old friend of his family said. “And he became one of the best young athletes around.”
Clay spent much of his early life in the Palos Verdes area, where he starred in little league.
“He was a pitcher,” the friend, who declined to give her name. said. “And he was a fine one. He had everything going for him.”
Clay was also a quarterback.
“He could bullet pass a ball thirty yards when he was in fourth grade,” Kaufman said. “It was unbelievable.”
When Clay moved to Barrington, III., severa! years ago, he continued with his athletics. He lettered in football, basketball and baseball at Barrington Consolidated High School and was a co-captain in the latter two sports.
He also earned a 3.5 scholastic average, and this fall he entered USC.
He didn’t go out for any sport here, but he did quarterback the Phi Delta Theta intramural squad.
“He was like Steve Sogge,’ said. “He never lost his cool.”
Booth
DEATH AUTO—Homicide investigators examine car in which 18-year-old Brian Clay was fatally wounded by three
unknown assailants Monday night. The car was later impounded by the police.	Photo by Alan Gartenberg
Brotherhood, disbelief envelope Row as tragedy of death hits
By ANDY MILLER Editorial director
It was a time when men’s tears could never undermine manhood.
For there were no women on the Row in those hours after Brian Clay was stabbed to death. As the men congregated—and as they somberly witnessed the follow-up police investigation—each observer wanted to solemnly meditate, yet he wanted to hear the news.
Each on-looker, especially the members of Clay’s fraternity. Phi Delta Theta. never felt a truer bond of brotherhood.
For the Los Angeles Police Department, it was just a routine “cut” of freshman at the university.
I first learned of the death as I approached a Phi Delt who had gone to school with me since junior high school. I suppose his look should have told me.
“A guy’s just been killed, Andy. Shit.”
As he stared at the ground at the corner of 28th and Portland, just yards from the trail of Clay’s blood, it was hard for him or anyone else to look at anything but the grass.
One look up, and the tragedy again became a reality—the red Volkswagen surrounded by policemen, the tow truck waiting to impound the car, the crowds of curiosity seekers, the swarm of police patrol cars.
A police patrolman, whose name or badge number I was unable to get. leaned against his car as the detectives examined the Volkswagen across the street.
Factually, all he knew at that point was that three male Negroes had “cut” Brian Clay approximately an hour before.
But he was opinionated enough to hold the attention of the crowd for 10 minutes until his superior called for him, and then later on for a short time.
The crowd asked why the street wasn’t patrolled with greater frequency. The officer said that 28th was one of the most frequently patrolled streets in Los Angeles. It was.
Then he qualified his statement by saying that every time they answer a call on the Row, the police are abused. So he said for that reason, they now choose to patrol alternate streets sometimes.
“Let’s face it. The only reason this street is patrolled so much is because the guys want to see some white girls for a change,” he said.
The crowd offered no resistance, realizing the stickiness of his predicament, and also realizing that little could be done to prevent such a knifing.
In the meantime, groups of two or three fraternity men walked briskly down 28th Street to the Phi Delt house. As they reached the gathering, one said he had just called his girl friend and told her to never walk alone to class.
Another said to a friend, “and my mother wonders why I call them niggers.”
There is no doubt that emotions ran rampant in the crowd. Periodically, almost as if on schedule, a different observer would express disbelief.
The disbelief expressed was simple. Why, and how could a person be stabbed to death on the Row so early in the evening, in such a conspicious location?
However, each onlooker knew that as the weeks pass, the disbelief would soon be translated to fact, and that only the believers would remember.
BULLETIN
A student was chased Monday by a knife-wielding trio about a half hour before Brian Clay was fatally stabbed, the Daily Trojan learned yesterday.
The student, a senior who declined to be identified, said three Negro men chased him on foot for a block down Main Street after he left work at 9 p.m. at the Western Frame Co., 3675 S. Broadway PI.
He said the three were driving a small dirty white car, "possibly a Renault or Fiat." As he was standing outside the store waiting for a ride, the three parked their car and approached him.
He said, "One of them pulled a knife out of his belt and said, 'Hey Whitey, got any money?' I said, 'No, sir,' and got out of there as fast as I could.
"I made Elvin Hayes look like a turtle. I had an operation on my knee and it's plastic and I kept thinking, 'Oh, God, I hope it doesn't give out.'
"I tried to flag down somebody but nobody would stop. One guy was stopped at a light and I ran up and yelled, 'They've got knives. They're trying to kill me.' He ran the red light to get away from me."
The student ran to a liquor store at the corner of Jefferson Boulevard and Main Street and a driver who had seen him running down the street returned and offered him a ride home after asking him if he was alright.
The student said he contacted the police after reading about the Clay murder the next morning.
He identified the man with the knife as 6-2 with straightened hair, a windbreaker and jeans. One of the other men was about 5-5, he said.
He said the knife appeared to him to be a kitchen knife with an eight or nine inch blade.
By ROGER SMITH Assistant city editor
Chances of apprehending the slayers of Brian G. Clay were described as “slim” yesterday by Los Angeles police, in spite of the discovery of what officers believe is the murder weapon.
“I hate to cast gloom over this,” said Lt. R. C. Barclay, who is heading the investigation. “But we have to be realistic.”
The weapon, described only as “a cutting instrument” by Barclay, was found early yesterday morning by police officers near the northeast corner of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority lot.
Barclay declined to describe the weapon further, saying that the details might be involved in a polygraph test if any suspects are apprehended.
Fingerprints were taken from the car owned by James Booth, 18, one of Clay’s Phi Delta Theta brothers. Clay was stabbed by three assailants near the car.
Police will find out today if the prints can identify some suspects,
Barclay said.
Clay, 18, a freshman, was stabbed to death Monday night when he went to Booth’s car to obtain a pipe and tobacco for Booth.
Booth was unable to go to the car himself because he had been assigned to guard a symbolic candle in the Phi Delta Theta living room, a part of the fraternity’s traditional “Candle Week.”
The week is designed to enable the fraternity’s pledges to get to know each other.
Booth’s car, a red Volkswagen, was parked across the street from the fraternity house.
An elderly couple, whom police refused to identify, witnessed the slaying. They said Clay was backing out of the car when three men confronted him.
The couple said there was a brief exchange of words and then onp of th:: three made a lunging movement with his arm.
The assailants then ran north on Portland Street. Police said several persons witnessed the escape.
Clay staggered to the door of the fraternity house where he cried, “Get me an ambulance!” before collapsing.
Jeff Klein, 18, and Forest Brown, 21, pledge brothers of Clay, heard him.
Klein told police Clay “kept asking “Am I all right? Am I all right?”
“I told him he was,” Klein said, “But he kept getting paler and paler . .. and then he stopped talking.
“I could see the wound was awfully close to his heart.”
Clay was taken to Central Receiving Hospital where he underwent surgery. He died 35 minutes later.
Preliminary results of an autopsy yesterday disclosed that Clay died of a knife wound which penetrated his heart and lung.
“We don’t know what to think,” said Brown. “All we did was ask a pledge to get something from a car, right in front of the house. I’m sure the people who stabbed him didn’t know him. And he had nothing to steal.”
The three assailants were described by witnesses as male Negroes between the ages of 20 and 22, five feet 11 inches to six feet tall and 155 to 170 pounds.
Barclay speculated that the assailants might have been attempting a robbery or trying to steal Booth’s car.
“Several witnesses have indicated that three men were on the Row peering into cars before the murder occured,” he said.
Barclay expressed hope that neighbors and students would continue to phone in possible clues and leads.
“I wish we knew who we were looking for,” he said. “We may find out yet. We might gather all the witnesses together and try to come up with composite drawings of each of the suspects.”
Clay’s body was taken to Inglewood Mortuary last night for cremation. The remains will be flown to Barrington, 111., Clay’s hometown tonight. No date for funeral services has been set.
Clay’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Clay, were in Los Angeles yesterday. Edward Clay is an executive with United Airlines in Honolulu.
They have requested that donations be made to any worthwhile cause in lieu of flowers.
The Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC) will meet tonight at 10 in Hoffman Hall Plans for a memorial service will be announced at the meeting.
BRIAN CLAY
Clay decided to major in business at the university, but he was not certain exactly what to do with his future.
“He was real good with words.” Steve Nicholas, Phi Delt president, said. “He could explain his opinions. He was one of our top pledges. He was the type of guy that had leadership abilities.”
“He was just a really nice guy,” said a girl Clay had dated. “He was sort of quiet, but not really when you got to know him. So many guys seem so involved in the fraternity bit, but he wasn’t that way at all.” Clay, she said, had never talked to her about himself. She had not known he was an athlete until after his death. But Clay didn’t date mucb while at the university. Instead he wrote to a girl with whom he had gone to high school.
“They were very close,” Jim Booth said. “She is very beautiful.”
Clay was going to make his first trip to Hawaii over the Christmas vacation to visit his parents, who moved there recently. His father is an executive for United Airlines.
“He wasn’t excited about Hawaii,” said the girl Clay had dated. “I think he wanted to go back to Barrington.”
Pasternak announces plans to resign
By RON SMITH
Matt Pasternak, vice-president of programs, has announced that he is resigning his office to take a more active role in the Committee Against Institutional Racism (CAIR).
In an ASSC Executive Council meeting yesterday, Pasternak said he felt he could serve his personal convictions better by working through CAIR than as vice-president of the ASSC.
“Basically, the student government is not realizing the impact of what is going on,” he said. “We’ve become too bogged down in details: we've lost the perspective of our functions and what we’re trying to serve.”
Recalling the controversy over the council’s decision to send a congratulatory’ letter to Tommie Smith and John Carlos for their action on the victory stand at the Olympics, Pasternak criticized those who felt the council was over-stepping its bounds.
“Everyone is ignoring Bill Mauk’s guidelines set forth at the beginning of the year,” he said. “And the most important of those was that he wanted
to see an attitudinal change in the students.”
Bill Mauk, ASSC president, agreed with Pasternak.
“Students are in a critffcal
advantage of it,” he said. “The problems of the universities are also the problems of society.”
Mauk told the council that if others felt they weren’t accomplishing what
situation—and we should take they really wanted to, then they
Dorothy Nelson among 'Women of the Year’
Dorothy Wright Nelson, interim dean of the USC Law School was one of 13 women to be honored as the
1968	Los Angeles Times Women of the Year.
Nearly 500 civic leaders and family friends of the recipients were on hand as Otis Chandler, publisher of the Times, presented shining silver cups engraved with the words “For Outstnading Achievement.” The ceremonies were held Monday afternoon in the Harry7 Chandler Auditorium of the Times Building.
Mrs. Nelson, the only woman in the country at this time to hold the position of interim dean of a law
school, considers the interim status as hers by choice, because of her additional duties as wife of Municipal Judge James Nelson and mother of three children.
Speaking at the ceremony, Ed Guthman, Times national editor, said that Mrs. Nelson “has honored the law to such an extent that many women will be inspired to become lawyers and many male lawyers will be spurred to greater achievement.”
Mrs. Nelson, a Phi Beta Kappa, was the first full-time woman faculty member of the USC Law Center and the 1967 Alumna of the Year of the UCLA School of Law.
should follow the same course as Pasternak.
During the Thanksgiving vacation, Ron McDuffie, junior class representative, said he went to the San Francisco area to see just what was happening at Berkeley and San Francisco State.
“The students are in a bind,” he said. “They have no communications with the administration or the campus paper. It made me appreciate the student government here, even with all of its faults.”
McDuffie encouraged the council not to lose faith in itself. “We’ve got the channels of communication and it’s up to us to develop the means,” he said.
Although the council never did reach a quorum level, committee reports were given.
Fred Minnes, Associated Men Students (AMS) president, said that in light of the Clay murder, his committee, which is investigating the campus police, would make the additional recommendations that two more men and another patrol car be added to the force, that the campus police patrol the Row and other areas
densely populated by students and that there be an increase in the security budget.
BLACK POWER SPEECH TONIGHT
Black Power's role in education is the subject for one of three speeches which are scheduled for the campus area today.
Dave Perasso, a student at Caltech, will speak on "Human Institutional and Cultural Evolution" at noon in Student Activities Center 204. His speech will be sponsored by the Forum for Student Awareness.
Robert Hall, cofounder of Operation Bootstrap, will speak on "The Role of Black Power in Education" at 6 p.m. in the Gamma Phi Beta sorority house.
John Knolts, an assistant district attorney for Los ^ngeles County, will speak on "Law and Order" at 6 p.m. in the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house