Three Bullets Sealed His Lips

The gangland style slaying if State Senator Warren G. Hooper on January 11, 1945, three days before he was to testify before a grand jury investigating alleged corruption in the Michigan legislature, forced coverage of Allied war triumphs from the state's newspaper headlines. National media representatives flocked to Michigan to join local reporters in following the efforts of grand jury special prosecutor Kim Sigler and the State Police to apprehend the killers. Because no arrests ever were made, a 1951 journalistic prediction has proven true: "The Hooper case will continue to come back to remind the people and politicians of Michigan of the black days of 1945 when almost every official of the state had his price." For this reason, the Hooper murder has endured as one of the most intriguing unsolved mysteries in the annals of Michigan crime.
Utilizing interviews, trial transcripts, State police files, and a collection of grand jury testimony long thought to have been destroyed, Professors Bruce A. Rubenstein and Lawrence E. Ziewacz set forth the reason for Hooper's assassination. Written in a lively style, using dialogue taken from court records and correspondence, Three Bullets Sealed His Lips demonstrates that historical writing need not be dull.

Bruce A. Rubenstein is a professor of history at University of Michigan-Flint.

Lawrence "Larry" Ziewacz was a Professor at Michigan State University and taught in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures and the American Thought and Language departments until his death in December, 2003. Articles he has authored or co-authored have been published in journals such as Michigan History, the Michigan Historical Review, the Sport Sociology Bulletin, Country Music Annual, the Journal of the Great Lakes History Conference, Midwestern Miscellany, and History Reviews of New Books. He co-authored, with Douglas A. Noverr, The Games They Played: Sports in American History: 1865- 1980.