“This Man Started His Crime Career at 12”

PM, March 5, 1941, p. 32

This Man Started His Crime Career at 12
“…by forging his mother’s name to an excuse for absence at school. Now at 23 George Joseph Cvek, a pock-marked hitch-hiker, finds himself handcuffed between detectives behind bars – a confessed thief, rapist and killer (On pages 12 and 13, his clinical profile.) PM Pohoto by Weegee.”

PM, March 5, 1941, pp. 12-13

Portrait of a Killer: George Cvek Got a Bad Start and Kept Going

By John Kobler

“George Joseph Cvek (pronounced Civic), who admits having assaulted and robbed 15 women, raped 3 of them, and murdered a 16th, is one of the most unimaginative rogues ever filed in a Rogues’ Gallery…”

Daily Argus, March 4, 1941, p.1 (Associated Press Photo)

Brooklyn Eagle, March 4, 1941, p. 1 (Wide World Photo)

George Joseph Cvek, described by the NY Times as a 23-year-old “hitch-hike robber,” was arrested Monday, March 3, 1941 in a ” in a cheap midtown Manhattan hotel” (New Mills Hotel at 36th and 7th Ave., WI sconson 7-3254)…

One of the greatest lesser-known Weegee photos, printed as a full page in PM, shows how great the symbiotic relationship between photographer and newspaper…

(To be continued…)