The Hot Rod Murder Case

"The Hot Rod Murder Case" started as an armed robbery on August 16, 1949 in St. Petersburg, Florida that ended up with a retired New York police officer named John Schineller lying mortally wounded outside Red's service station. Schineller went into the store on Tangerine Avenue S (now 18th Avenue S) to buy a loaf of bread just as James Porter, fresh out of prison, entered with a handgun. Schineller, 58, tried to wrest the gun away and was fatally shot. James Porter, 25 years old, was wounded but fled in a rusty hot rod. At the time of the crime St. Petersburg Times reporter Jerry Blizin and St. Petersburg Times photographer Bob Preston were listening to a police radio in Bob's car, enabling the two to beat the police to the scene. When they arrived in Bob's black sedan two boys were outside the grocery. They thought Jerry and Bob were detectives in an unmarked car, so they gave a couple of shell cases they had found. The boys described the assailant and said he got away in a "polka dot hot rod". They didn't know the license number. When the police arrived Jerry and Bob turned over the cartridges and had the boys repeat their story. One officer recalled issuing a ticket for speeding to the driver of an odd-looking hot rod weeks earlier. It had some round rust spots that looked like big polka dots. A search of traffic records turned up a copy of the ticket, and the name of Glenn William Heck who lived in Pinellas Park. Jerry and Bob joined a police and sheriff's team that questioned Heck and staked out his home. Turned out he had loaned his car to Porter, but Porter hadn't returned it. Police then went through Heck's garbage, looking for clues to Porter's whereabouts. They found the address of a woman friend, and that's where Porter was arrested without incident early the next morning. During the scuffle with Schineller, Porter had been shot in the left hand, and his bloodstains were still on the car door. Porter was defended by lawyer Harry Fogle, who later became a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge. Porter got a life sentence for murder.

A radio and television production company called Prockter Productions, whose hit NBC show was called The Big Story, picked up on the murder because Times city editor Stan Witwer sent the company a letter about it. Prockter Productions made a TV and radio vesion of the story, the TV version was dubbed "A Warm Sun, A Hot Rod and a Cold Stiff." The story about James Porter was the first "Big Story" to feature the west coast of Florida. St. Petersburg Times reporter Jerry Blizin was made into a hero in the case, who single-handedly solved the crime. A professional actor named Grant Richards was hired to play Jerry, amateurs from St. Petersburg Little Theatre played the other roles. In the show the shooting locale was changed from a grocery store to a sporting goods store. The show featuring the hot rod murder case was aired March 23, 1951. March 27, 1951 Look Magazine had a two-page spread titled "Jerry's Big Story". The story compared the real story to the TV version and concluded that reporter Jerry Blizin would be the first to admit that routine police work captured the killer in this "big story".