In banner headlines, the serial killings were being called “the Merchant Murders.”
This time, the body lying next to a pair of loafers spilled from a shoe box wasn’t just any businessman. This time, it was personal.
On a more personal note, Martin Lock’s now 74-year-old son Herschel recalls how the mood darkened inside the Lock family home after their relative was gunned down. His already-burdened DA dad now carried an even heavier load. One of the newspaper clippings saved by then-DA Martin Lock following the murder of his uncle Morris Lock.The Midtown shopping district was bustling that Friday afternoon. The glorious spring weather filled the sidewalks with people. All were now potential witnesses to a killer who had yet to be identified, despite two previous brazen, daylight robbery-homicides at shops elsewhere in the city.
FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY: Read about more cold cases, notorious cases and heart-breaking true crime stories from PennLive’s archives. Almost immediately after switching off the television right around 5 p.m., Snyder heard scuffling sounds from the store below. Then, almost simultaneously, a single gunshot.
She was an ear-witness only. Snyder couldn’t even phone police about the unmistakable gunshot she just heard. The family had recently moved into the apartment, and the phone line wasn’t hooked up. Almost immediately after inspecting the scene and examining the body, county Coroner Thomas J. Fritchey declared the circumstances of Lock’s homicide as “completely similar” to the two prior shopkeeper killings
Despite the early moments of the Lock probe, investigators were unshakable in their certainty that it was the same killer. “We don’t have anything definite yet,” one told reporters. “There is still a lot to be sorted out here. Talk to me later.” No one dared admit it right then, but police were no closer to the shopkeeper serial killer than they were before Morris Lock had been shot.
This fact is telling. It indicates the killer didn’t appear threatening. Perhaps, Morris even knew him.The killer must look like an ordinary shopper. People shop in downtown Harrisburg in the 1960s. On a busy Friday afternoon in 1963, a killer struck precisely when Morris Lock’s shoe store would be empty -- right before he would routinely lock up at 5 p.m. so he could drive over to the state Capitol, where wife Jennie worked, and take her home.In hearing the shot right after switching off her favorite program, Joan Snyder fixed the time of the murder at just before 5 p.m.
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