DATE: Tuesday, October 14, 1997             TAG: 9710100856

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Public Safety 

SOURCE: BY CINDY CLAYTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   58 lines

NORFOLK FORCE SOUGHT KILLER OF POLICEMAN, 93 YEARS AGO

The unsolved mystery of the city's first reported murder of a police officer in the line of duty plays like an Alfred Hitchcock film.

There is a man lurking in the shadows of a darkened grocery store. On the floor near the safe are a wood-handled chisel, a pair of tinsmith's shears and the safe's broken combination lock.

And as Patrolman John McNerney walks into the darkened store and reaches up to light a gas jet, a shot rings out and the man in the shadows makes his escape.

McNerney staggers out of the store to the street, then collapses.

For weeks, every member of the Norfolk Police Department - detectives and patrolmen alike - worked on the case to find out who shot McNerney on Sept. 22, 1904. People were rounded up off the streets and questioned. Every boat and train that left the city was closely scrutinized.

From the start, police were baffled. The murder was committed in the days before advanced forensic science - back when a newspaper cost three cents. The only useful clues police had to help them were the tools left near the safe and vague descriptions of the man who hid in the shadows that night.

``We have not a foot to stand on,'' Detective Sgt. George M. Heppel told a newspaper reporter. ``Still, we have not given up hope and will by no means admit that we will give up the search as a futile task.''

Police knew that McNerney was walking his beat as usual the night he was shot. It was nearing midnight as McNerney checked the front doors of shops near Cumberland and Bute streets.

As McNerney strolled along, the suspect apparently was cracking the safe inside W.A. Bonney's grocery store. When McNerney got to the store, he tried the handle of a side door, which was unlocked.

Because there were no signs of forced entry, police believe the killer entered the store through a rear door. He apparently unlocked the side door in case he had to make a quick escape.

A newspaper account describes what happened next: ``Without hesitation and perhaps without thought of the danger of such a proceeding, the officer, who was regarded as one of the bravest men on the force, walked into the unlit store to his death.''

The suspect had succeeded in breaking the handle of the combination dial from the door of the safe. Evidently, the account said, he heard McNerney approach and tried to escape through the back door.

When he couldn't reach the door, he huddled beneath the counter and waited.

After the shooting, McNerney died at St. Vincent's Hospital.

The Norfolk Landmark newspaper followed the story for the first few days. The final newspaper account - published five days after the murder - says that there had been some ``interesting developments'' in the case and describes detectives as having something ``up their sleeve.''

Whatever the detectives had planned, they never charged anyone with murder.

Little is known about McNerney, who lived on 13th Street with his wife and five children. One newspaper account said he was a policeman for about 10 years and described him as a ``splendid specimen of manhood.''

Originally from Canada, McNerney was said to have a ``quiet, self-contained demeanor.''

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