# Was Sal Mineo's Killer Ever Caught? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 7, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-sal-mineos-killer-ever-caught/531665 "2010-03-07T22:59:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-sal-mineos-killer-ever-caught/531665/1 "2010-03-07T22:59:44Z")
The late Sal Mineo was found dead, under suspicious circumstances. Did the police ever identify a sustpect? As I remember, Mineo’s career was in decline, and he wasn’t living in the best of neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-sal-mineos-killer-ever-caught/531665/2 "2010-03-07T23:03:52Z")
> **[Sal Mineo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal_Mineo#Arrest_in_Mineo.27s_killing)** > > Salvatore Mineo Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as John "Plato" Crawford in the drama film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at age 17, making him the fifth-youngest nominee in the category. > Mineo also starred in films such as Crime in the Streets, Giant (both 1956), Exodus (1960), for which he won a Golden Globe and received a second Academy Award nominat... > [@](#): > > A pizza deliveryman, Lionel Ray Williams, was sentenced to 57 years in prison for killing Mineo and committing 10 robberies in the same vicinity.[10] Although there was considerable confusion relating to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, it was later revealed that prison guards reportedly overheard Williams admitting to the crime.[7] Williams claimed he had no idea who Mineo was. Williams was paroled in the early 1990s, but was soon jailed again for criminal activity.[3] Many of Mineo’s friends believed that Williams was not the murderer, especially since a blond white man was seen running from the incident. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2010, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-sal-mineos-killer-ever-caught/531665/3 "2010-03-07T23:04:34Z")
[Apparently so.](http://www.salmineo.com/bio.html) ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2010, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-sal-mineos-killer-ever-caught/531665/4 "2010-03-08T08:48:45Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > As I remember, Mineo’s career was in decline, and he wasn’t living in the best of neighborhoods. Well, not sure what the neighborhood was like back then, but currently it is in the heart of West Hollywood, and it ain’t cheap to live anywhere near there. The building where he lived and died is just a couple blocks from Barney’s Beanery\*, a local hangout for Bogart and Bacall and lots of other celebrities back then - as well as Jimi Hendrix and also being the last place where Janis Joplin was seen in public before she died. Estelle Getty lived just around the corner from Mineo’s apartment building until she died, and quite a few celebrities live, or have lived, within easy walking distance of that location. \*Barney’s Beanery was also a sore point for Gay activists - for years they had a sign that said, “No Fags” that was supposedly “a joke” about smoking, but most knew what it really meant and what the owner’s policy was. It was a big deal when they were finally forced to remove the sign from the entrance - but that is another story.