Bob Crane's pal and partner in numerous sexual escapades has been acquitted of charges he bludgeoned the "Hogan's Heroes" star to death 16 years ago.
Jurors deliberated 21/2 days before deciding Monday that the evidence against John Henry Carpenter - including a grainy black-and-white video showing him and Crane in a sexual threesome - was too circumstantial."There wasn't any proof," said the jury foreman, Marine Sgt. Michael Lake. "You can't prove someone guilty on speculation."
Prosecutors said during the eight-week trial that Carpenter murdered Crane because he was afraid the actor would end their friendship and cut off the parade of willing women drawn by Crane's fame.
"My life is back together again after 16 years," said Carpenter, a 66-year-old electronics equipment dealer.
After the verdict was read, Carpenter's wife, Diana, sobbed, "It's over, it's over," from the spectators' bench behind her husband.
Prosecutors said Crane, often accompanied by Carpenter, lived a swinger's life while traveling the dinner-theater circuit after his TV series about a Nazi POW camp ended in 1971. Crane played the wisecracking Col. Robert Hogan.
Crane was 49 when he was found bludgeoned to death in bed in an apartment he was renting.
Among prosecutors' main evidence was a photograph of a speck found on the door of Carpenter's rental car. Prosecutors said the speck, which was lost, was fat tissue from inside Crane's skull. Defense experts said that was impossible to prove.