Lake Wellington Headley (August 31, 1930 – May 15, 1992) was a

private detective A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

and writer who made a name for himself by being hired to investigate high-profile crimes. Crimes included the

Wounded Knee incident The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota (sometimes referred to as Oglala Sioux) and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied ...

Patty Hearst Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954) is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found a ...

kidnapping, court-martial of Clayton Lonetree, the murder of Vicki Morgan, and the

Don Bolles Donald Fifield Bolles (July 10, 1928 – June 13, 1976) was an American investigative reporter for ''The Arizona Republic'' who was known for his coverage of organized crime in the area, especially by the Chicago Outfit. His murder in a car bo ...

car bombing. In a series of

true crime True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 per ...

books, Headley wrote about his investigations.

Early life and career

Lake Headley was born in Indiana. He attended Goshen High School in Indiana. In the yearbook for 1948, at around age 16, he stated in that he wished to be a lawyer. He began his career as a police officer in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

, but his killing of a suspect when a young officer prompted him to quit policing and become a p.i. In 1962, he left the force, where he was a detective, to become one of the first private detectives in Las Vegas. He went on to work for thirty years in the field, and was considered one of the best. Los Angeles prosecutor

Vincent Bugliosi Vincent T. Bugliosi Jr. (; August 18, 1934 – June 6, 2015) was an American prosecutor and author who served as Deputy District Attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office between 1964 and 1972. He became best known for su ...

called Headley "the best private investigator on earth."

Patty Hearst and the SLA

During the

kidnapping saga, two of the families of SLA members, including

Willie Wolfe William Lawton Wolfe (February 17, 1951 – May 17, 1974) was one of the founding members in 1972 of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American radical group based near Oakland, California. While in the group, he adopted the name "Kahjoh", ...

's father, contracted Headley to investigate the matter. Headley concluded his investigation, and filed a sworn affidavit of his findings. Among these included:

That Patricia Campbell Hearst and her parents disagreed bitterly over Patricia's political and personal relations. That a love affair between a black man and Patricia Hearst did take place prior to her relationship with her fiancé Steven Weed. That Mrs. Randolph A. Hearst subjected her daughter to extreme pressure to change her personal and political relationships.

On May 4, 1974, Headley, along with freelance writer Donald Freed, held a press conference in San Francisco. They presented 400 pages of documentation of their findings, some of which included: * a year before the kidnapping Patty Hearst had visited convict,

Donald DeFreeze Donald David DeFreeze (November 16, 1943 – May 17, 1974), also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was known as the "spokesman" of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small, American far-left gro ...

, who later became the SLA's figurehead. * DeFreeze's arrest records; * the work of Colston Westbrook with

Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal Police, police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the thir ...

's CCS (Criminal Conspiracy Section) and the State of California's Sacramento-based CII (Criminal Identification and Investigation) unit.; and * evidence of links of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

to Police Departments. On May 17, 1974,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

ran the story of DeFreeze and the

. However, the story was largely overlooked due to this being the day of the shoot out and conflagration that killed DeFreeze and five other members of the SLA. In a book he co-wrote with freelance writer, William Hoffman, ''Vegas P.I.: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Detective'', he presented well-documented evidence that Donald DeFreeze, was a police informant and an

agent provocateur An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, th ...

. Headley also uncovered evidence that, in the house fire in LA that killed six members of the SLA, at least one of the suspects was shot in the back while trying to surrender.

Family life

Headley's wife was Terri Lee Yoder. She was originally his assistant and they married in 1981

Death

Headley died of

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

in 1992.

Bibliography

* 1994 ''Contract Killer'' (published posthumously) * 1993 ''Vegas P.I.: The Life and Times of America's Greatest Detective'', with William Hoffman (published posthumously) * 1990 ''Loud and Clear'', with William Hoffman. * 1989 ''The Court-Martial of Clayton Lonetree'', with William Hoffman.

References