Photographs by the Los Angeles Times

Frank Heller and Linda Mintz in a photograph published Nov. 11, 1958, in The Times. 

Slave Camp to Murder Trial

Nazi Victim Still Hopes

For Linda Mintz, tomorrow the horror may end.

The tiny, frail Polish war refugee, who has spent most of her adult
life behind bars and barbed wire, may once again know the luxury of
freedom.

Tomorrow morning, the district attorney’s office will reveal whether it
wants to try her for a third time for a crime which she denies today as
vehemently as she hysterically denied it 21 months ago, when officers
first took her into custody.

Then, on the final day of May, 1957, the $200-a-month domestic was
formally charged with the "vacuum cleaner" murder of Mrs. Thelma Macomber, 42, her wealthy Studio City employer.

The gray doors of County Jail have blocked her from society since — as
did the grim portals of Nazi concentration camps and European
displacement centers during the 40s and early 50s.

Twice in the last 21 months, the state has presented its case against Mrs. Mintz.

Each time, the juries deadlocked hopelessly.

The first panel, after four days of unsuccessful deliberation, was dismissed when it stalemated 7-5 for conviction.

The second jury, released only a few days ago after a week of violent disagreement, hung at 8-1 for acquittal.

Hours ago, I left the prison ward bedside of Mrs. Mintz in County General Hospital, where she’s resting after the 13-week ordeal of the second trial.

She fears reporters, photographers, newspapermen.

But on this, the eve of the most important day of her life, she wanted to talk.

"I will tell you that I am innocent, and I am afraid," she said.

She sat upright in her bed.

"Afraid of what?"

"I don’t know. I’m just afraid. I don’t think I can go through another trial. I just don’t think I can."

During her first trial. Mrs. Mintz broke up repeatedly, and when
it finished, she was treated at Patton State Hospital for a nervous
breakdown. At the second trial, she was much more composed — until the
jury foreman announced that a verdict was impossible.

"I don’t blame the United States. The United States has been good to me," she said.

Linda Mintz has a natural smile. Even when her forehead is furrowed with confusion, her lips are smiling.

She rambled endlessly as we talked, from subject to subject, from sadness to hope to sadness.

But no matter where the conversation started, it always ended up on her boy, Alex.

"When I’m free, I will study at night. Alex will go with me to school. I will never leave him."

Alex was 11 when Mrs. Mintz went to jail. Today he is being cared for in a children’s home.

"When the police took me, Alex was there. I don’t think I’d be gone for long. All I said to him- I said, ‘See you later, Alex.’

"I babied him," the boy’s mother confessed.

"But you don’t blame me. You can’t. I know how I raised my child. On
the floors of those camps, with lice and filth. I would walk 10 miles
to a farm to get eggs and milk for him."

Would Bury Sad Past

Mrs. Mintz’s steel eyes flashed when she talked of her son.

"He’s very mechanical," she continued. "Since he was a little boy, he
liked science. I want him to go to college and be a scientist."

Money?

"It’s gone now. But I can work. It went very fast after I was arrested, all that I had saved to send my boy to college.

"But Mr. Heller and Mr. Taylor (attorneys Frank Heller and Charles Taylor, who defended Mrs. Mintz at her second trial) never asked me about money. God sent them to me."

"Have your attorneys told you whether they think you’ll go free tomorrow?" I asked.

"They
have said there is a chance," she answered. "But I’ve just got
something else on my mind. About Alex. This is a boy. He has to grow up
to be a man. I think, for him, when I am free, I would like to change
my name.

"What am I going to tell that boy?" she continued. "Look at me. I’m 37. But my hair is gray now. I don’t know if he’ll know me.

"I want someone to give me advice. What should I tell him? How should I explain?"

Hopes for Understanding

"Mrs. Mintz," I said, "if you’re freed tomorrow, what are you going to do about Alex?"

"I’m
going to run to him," she told me. "The first think I will do. I will
look at him in every place all over to see that he’s all right.

"I will look in his head. I will look in his ears."

Mrs. Mintz’s voice pitched excitement.

"I don’t know what I’ll tell him. But I’ll hold him. I will kiss him a lot.

"A lot," she repeated softly.

Smiling, she closed her eyes. A moment later she opened them. The smile was gone. She looked at me closely.

"Do you think people will ever believe me?" she asked. "That I didn’t do it?"