Slayer vanishes after 1956 robbery, murder

A store holdup that began with the purchase of potted meat and crackers ended with the murder of the store owner’s only child, his 13-year-old son. Today, some question whether the boy’s family ever saw justice.

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Tom I. Sanders and his deputies followed a single clue to identify the armed bandits who robbed a Uneedus store on a Monday night, March 26, 1956.

Officers from the New Orleans Police Department assisted Chief Criminal Deputy Hulon Simmons and Deputy Harry Joynton of Tangipahoa Parish, along with Chief Criminal Deputy Melvin Bennett of St. Tammany.

Two bandits escaped the crime scene, but one, shot dead by the store owner Rudolph J. Hano, remained. Investigators found the name “Milton” tattooed on the dead man’s right hand. In addition, a laundry mark led them to a Jefferson Parish dry cleaner. Based on the tattoo, the cleaner identified the dead man as Milton Faciane of New Orleans.

Working fast, Sheriff Sanders’ men located the dead man’s brother, Alfred Tom Faciane, 21, living at 4251 Reynaud. Alfred Faciane admitted to knowledge of the robbery. He also fingered auto-mechanic Johnny McMiller, 42, of 1244 St. Bernard Street, New Orleans, as the killer. Investigators arrested a third man, getaway driver Elias Cyprian, 37, of Franklinton, completing their investigation.

Sheriff’s deputies drug Alfred Faciane from a locked room at The Blue Goose in New Orleans, where he insisted he had been all night. After searching several Gentilly barrooms, New Orleans police stopped McMiller’s truck on Chef Mentuer Highway. The St. Tammany deputies arrested Cyprian, a pulpwood laborer, at his home just over the parish line from Hano’s store in eastern Tangipahoa Parish.

Police charged all three with murder and armed robbery.

Store owner Rudolph J. Hano positively identified McMiller and Alfred Faciane as the two men who robbed him. He also identified Cyprian, saying, “Sure, I know you; I’ve seen you a hundred times around my place.”

At the Brown Funeral Home of Amite one day after the shooting, Rudolph J. Hano told reporters what happened.

“Cecil Baham had dropped in at the store to tell us about his fishing experience,” he said.

“About nine o’clock, I decided I would close up. As we walked to the door, Cecil said he wanted to take home ice cream, so I checked him out and walked to the front door with him.

“A stranger walked in and said he wanted potted meat and crackers. So I got them for him. He paid 35 cents, and I gave him his change. Then, I heard a sound and looked toward the front door as another man pointed a gun at me.

“He called me a son of a bitch, saying this was a holdup and to make it snappy.

“By this time, all three robbers were inside my little store. I raised my hands above my head. And so did Berkley, my son.”

“A neighbor heard my son ask the gunman not to shoot him. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. My son even said, ‘please.’

“One of them started in my direction back of the counter, and he held me back. I tried to stand up straight, but he threw his weight against me. We fell back into the room at the back of the store. I was bent over and wanted to get the guy off of me.

“I reached for my gun in my hip pocket, and the man yelled out. He told his buddies that I had a gun and to shoot me.

“I pulled my weapon, holding it close to my body. I fired it, and the guy let go of me.”

According to Hano, he was unaware the brawl also left him wounded. He walked from the small storage room back into the store. It was with some difficulty he pushed open the door to see his son standing upright by the little gate that provided an entrance from the store proper to the space behind the counter.

Blood spurted from Berkley’s mouth. He was no longer breathing.

The father ran to the store entrance and saw a car parked 40 feet from the front door.

The car wheels were starting to grind in the gravel, making a crunching noise.

To shoot or not to shoot flashed through the father’s mind. The driver might be a neighbor who had stopped and then, terrified, decided to drive on for help. Ultimately deciding not to shoot, he hurried back to his stricken son.

Not having a telephone, he had a school friend of Berkley’s drive two miles to the home of Jesse Brashear to call for help.

Neither Rudolph Hano nor Berkley’s visiting friend, 18-year-old Alfred Mansfield, witnessed Berkley’s shooting. Busy, the father struggled with Milton Faciane in the rear room as the other man shot Berkley. Alfred Mansfield told police he had gone into the Hano’s adjoining apartment when the robbers entered.

From inside the apartment, Alfred later told Sheriff Sanders before the shot, he heard Berkley cry out, “Please don’t shoot.”

The shot came from the front door, 16 feet from where Berkley stood. The father surmised that his son’s killer fired at Berkley on his way out.

Berkley’s mother, the former Pauline Neal, was away from home at the time of the tragedy. She had gone to a party at the home of Jeanette Miller.

The father told reporters he was grateful she was away. She might have interceded and also been shot, he said.

“I did not know I had been shot at the time,” Rudolph Hano said in reply to a question. “The first time I knew about it was when I felt something warm running down my leg.”

Berkley’s killer shot him through the mouth, and the bullet passed through the back of his head. Two lower front teeth shattered. The bullet tore the middle fingers on his right hand as he put his hand in front of his face. Police found the projectile buried in some food items on the shelves.

April 2, 1957, in the Amite courthouse, Judge Horace Reid sentenced Alfred Faciane and Johnny McMiller to die in the electric chair. Judge Reid gave Elias Cyprian life in prison for driving the getaway car.

All three men appealed and lost.

Cyprian fell to natural causes in the 1970s. Alfred Thomas Faciane, 23, died in the Louisiana State Penitentiary’s electric chair minutes after midnight on April 11, 1958.

Since Judge Fournet denied their request for a rehearing in November 1957, the state advertised the coming “double execution.” However, witnesses at the prison claim Johnny McMiller, 44, did not die that morning.

There is no record of his death or burial.

However, if Berkley’s killer did not stop breathing that day, he at least died on paper. There is no record of McMiller living in Louisiana beyond 1958.