do you think I did? Like you told me, Pop. I just tipped my hat as I left and said, 'Good afternoon, gentlemen.''

DEATH DENIED

Last week in Memphis, husky and handsome Ed Leonard, 28-yr-old ex-bellhop, asked a jury to give him the electric chair for murdering 31yr.-old bookkeeper, Robert Bennett, whom Leonard said was homosexual. Ignoring advice from public defenders to plead quilty and keep his mouth shut, Leonard calmly told jury how he had always hated homosexuals, and had "never done anything like that with a man in all my life." An off-and-on convict, twice briefly married, Leonard, who came from a sternly religious family, kept describing how he always felt like a girl walking down the street with men whistling at him, and he didn't like that. After losing a hotel job for theft, Leonard was waiting in the Memphis bus depot to go to Houston when Bennett sat beside him and ordered coffee. "I got the opinion he was a queer. You can tell by the way a man looks. I don't want anyone to look at me like that. I got mad. I'm not in the habit of going around with people like that. I have never been with a mannever had sexual relations with a man in my life. I got mad. I said, 'Let's go.' I always carry a gun with me... He said that the best place was the outskirts of town. I was trying to get him there because I knew a shot in town would be heard

I had made up my mind to kill him because I had been approached by other men so many times. I was in a bad mood. I didn't want anybody to fool with me." Drawing his gun, Leonard ordered Bennett out of the car, shot him twice, felt his pulse to make sure he was dead, dragged his body into ditch and took off in Bennett's car-minus the

ignition key. After the car stalled, a few miles south of Memphis, he hitchhiked to McComb, Miss., his home, and told his sister about the affair, then returned to Houston and pushed his vendetta further. He shot Glen McMahon, 32, a hospital employee who invited him up for coffee. Back to Memphis to confess to various members of his family, and knowing he would eventually be caught. Given a lift by New Orleans businessman H. T. Bach, whom Leonard also decided to kill, though he did not indicate any suspicion Bach was homosexual. He'd gotten less than $10 total off Bennett and McMahon ("I didn't kill because I needed money") he saw Bach was carrying several hundred in cash. He pulled his gun, ordered Bach to pull off the road, but Bach, after arguing for several minutes and offering Leonard the money, suddenly swerved toward a filling station, hit the brakes and grabbed for the gun, which he managed to jam. Thrown from the car, they wrestled for the gun, which Leonard fired twice. Two attendants ran out from the station and Leonard was knocked out. A sheriff who happened to be nearby and heard the shots showed up, and Leonard gave him the confession. "I gave it freely. I knew my time was up. I was treated nice, not beaten or anything. I was tired and a little nervous. But I knew what I was doing."

Psychiatrist James A. Taylor testified that Leonard identified himself as feminine, that he was strongly motivated toward homosexuality, and that by killing homosexuals he was acting out a symbolic suicidekilling the homosexual in himself. Psychiatrist Dr. Adler, for the defense, concurred. "Leonard subconsciously kept exposing himself to where homosexuals hung out. When aproached, he would become angry and leave. Leonard resented this

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