At about 8:20 p.m. on December 18, 1968, 31-year-old Kenneth Olsen dropped coins into a light meter so that he and his 27-year-old wife, Caroline, could play tennis at a court in Santa Monica, California. Before they could begin, two Black men approached carrying guns. One of them declared, “We want your bread, man, or we’re going to burn you.”
The couple were forced to lie down on the court after giving up their cash, later said to be $18. The gunmen then opened fire. Both were shot multiple times. On December 29, 1968, Caroline succumbed to her wounds. Kenneth survived.
Three expended .45-caliber shell casings and three slugs were recovered at the scene. Another slug was recovered from Caroline in the emergency room.
On January 17, 1969, at about 2 p.m., Al Prentice “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins, officers in the Black Panther Party (BPP), were shot to death in the cafeteria at Campbell Hall on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The killings occurred during a joint meeting of about 400 members of the Black Student Union (BSU) and members of the BPP and another rival black militant group called United Slaves (US) incorporated.
James F. Naveau, a state police officer assigned to the UCLA campus with the job of penetrating subversive militant groups on campus, infiltrated and became a member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and was also a member of the Friends of the BPP.
Naveau would later testify that “there was a lot of friction between the Black Panthers and the US to take over the Black student union.” Officer Naveau went to Campbell Hall when he heard of the killings and met a man named Joe Brown, who blamed the killings on members of US.
Brown said other Panthers had gone to the residence of John Huggins to get weapons. He said a lot of US people and a lot of Los Angeles police officers “were going to get blown up that night.” Naveau knew John Huggins’s address was 806 Century Boulevard in Los Angeles. He notified his superiors, and officers converged on the home.
There, Melvin Carl Smith and Lujuana Campbell emerged carrying a rifle and a metal-type military ammunition box to a car, which departed. The car was stopped by the police shortly afterward. Campbell had a loaded .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol in her waistband. The car contained a .30-caliber rifle, ammunition, camping gear, gas masks, and medical supplies.
At the home, police arrested 21-year-old Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, who was crouching behind a station wagon in the driveway of the building. Pratt, who was a deputy defense minister for the Panthers, was unarmed. A large arsenal of weapons was found inside the building, including an M-1 Garand rifle, a Browning automatic shotgun, a J. C. Higgins shotgun, a 7.65 millimeter pistol, three .45-caliber semi-automatic pistols, three knives, and a bayonet.
One loaded .45-caliber automatic pistol found on a table adjacent to a second floor window overlooking the front of the premises was later determined by a firearms analyst to be the weapon used in Caroline Olsen’s murder.
On August 10, 1969, Julius Carl Butler, also known as “Julio,” met with Sergeant Duwayne Rice, a Los Angeles police officer whom Butler knew socially and trusted as a friend. Butler was a former police officer himself and was working as a hair stylist. He also had been a member of the Panthers and vied for the position of defense minister. Pratt had gotten that position and later engineered Butler’s ouster from the Panthers because of suspicion, which later proved accurate, that he was an informant for law enforcement.
Butler gave Rice a sealed envelope, saying that he felt there was a contract out on his life, that he may be killed, and that if anything happened to him to read it and give it to his mother. The envelope on the outside had written on it “Sgt. Rice” and “Only to be opened in the event of my death.”
After several months, Sergeant Rice feared he might be killed, so he gave the letter to his supervisor, who kept it in his safe at home unopened.
On October 20, 1970, Butler’s letter was opened for the first time. In the letter, Butler asserted that Pratt had confessed and bragged to him about being the “tennis court murderer.” The information contained in the letter was what caused law enforcement investigators for the first time to focus on Pratt.
Pratt was indicted by a Los Angeles County grand jury on December 4, 1970, on charges of first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit murder, and two counts of armed robbery. He was arrested on December 8, 1970.
In June 1972, Pratt, whose defense team was headed by Johnnie Cochran Jr., went to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. By that time, he had been sentenced to one to five years in prison as were other members of the BPP, all of whom had been convicted on charges arising from a shootout between Panthers and police officers on December 8, 1969. In that shootout, six police officers and three Panther party members were wounded.
Kenneth Olsen testified and identified Pratt as one of the gunmen. He admitted that he had identified Pratt in a photographic lineup, but was unable to identify Pratt in a live line up prior to trial.
Barbara Reed, who with her husband Fred Reed owned and operated the Lincoln Hobby Center in Santa Monica about four blocks from the tennis court, testified that on December 18, 1968, a few minutes before the shooting, two Black men entered her shop while she was waiting for her husband. She said one of the men was Pratt. She said she asked if she might help them and Pratt asked if they had merchandise to build a doll house for his wife. She replied that they did not have material at the time to build a doll house since they were just starting the shop.
Reed said Pratt said: “ ‘You act as if you don't want to sell us anything.’ ” She explained that she and her husband had just opened the store and were still bringing in merchandise. Pratt and the other man left the store. Feeling suspicious, Reed locked the door and turned the sign from “open” to “closed.” Shortly thereafter, she heard male voices, looked through the window of the door and saw the same two men standing in the doorway. Pratt was shaking the doorknob, asking to be let in. She saw a gun in the other man’s right hand.
Reed said went to the telephone to call the police, and the two men left. She said Pratt was wearing a safari jacket.
Reed’s husband, Fred, testified that he was driving to the hobby shop at about 8 p.m. that evening, and as he approached the store, he saw two Black men jimmying the front door trying to get in. After he circled the block, he saw the same two Black men, one of whom was wearing a safari jacket, hurry away on Lincoln Boulevard and disappear between two parked cars.
Mitchell Lachman, who was parked in a van next to Lincoln Park at about 8 p.m. that day, testified that he heard shots and then saw two Black men run very fast from the tennis courts, get into a red car with a white canvas convertible top, and speed away. He did not get the license number, but saw that the license plate had a white background with dark numerals. He identified a 1968 North Carolina license plate as having a color consistent with the color of the plate on the getaway car. He further identified a photograph of a car which was once red, but which had been repainted blue, as having the same body design as the getaway car. He also identified the red color under a right front chrome headlight frame which had not been repainted blue as similar to the color of the car he saw speed away from the scene of the shooting.
Officer John Lawrence Higgins testified that on April 12, 1969, at about 11:30 p.m. at 28th and Westview Streets, he stopped a 1967 Pontiac convertible, white over red in color with a California license number YEZ 997, which was driven by Pratt. He made a report that the identification number of the vehicle was 242677P-239094. He further testified that the strip of red under the headlight rim of the car—the car that had been repainted blue—was the color of the car he stopped.
Butler testified that on the day of the shooting Pratt came to his shop with another person whom Pratt introduced as “Tyrone.” Pratt told Butler to come outside as he had something to tell him. As they stood in the doorway, Pratt “told me he was going on a mission, and if he didn't come back, you know, to notify the other members of the Party that something might have happened to him.” Butler said Pratt did not indicate what the “mission” was. The two then left, and Butler went back to work.
Later the same night, around midnight or in the early hours of December 19, 1968, Pratt returned to the shop and “appeared to be very nervous,” Butler said. Pratt said “that he had shot some people, and he didn't know whether or not he had killed them, or words to that effect,” Butler testified. Pratt also told him the shooting occurred in Santa Monica.
The day after the shooting, Butler saw an article in the Los Angeles Times newspaper which reported the shooting. Later that day he met Pratt at the Black Panther headquarters at 7th Avenue and Venice in Los Angeles. Butler testified, “I showed him the newspaper and the incident, and he [Pratt] stated that that was the incident that he was talking about the night before.” Butler asked Pratt what happened to his car because the newspaper indicated that his car had been seized. Pratt said it was not and that it was hidden. Butler also stated that Pratt had a red or burgundy Pontiac GTO convertible with a white top.
Butler testified he wrote the letter and gave it to Sergeant Rice on August 10, 1969, because he had become disenchanted and disillusioned with the BPP and its philosophy and decided to quit. However, when he told Pratt that he wanted out of the Party, his life was threatened and he was told he couldn't quit because he knew too much, Butler said.
Butler then decided as an “insurance policy” to write the letter, which he did, and gave it to Sergeant Rice, a friend whom he trusted, in a sealed envelope with instructions that it should only be opened in the event of his death.
Pratt testified and denied ever being in Barbara Reed's hobby shop or in the tennis court in Santa Monica at any time including on December 18, 1968. He denied making a statement to Butler at any time on the evening of December 18, 1968, and he denied going out on a “mission” or later telling Butler that he had shot someone on that date. He denied discussing with Butler on December 19, 1968, a newspaper article concerning the “tennis court murder.” Butler also denied that he ever went anywhere with a man named Tyrone. He said he knew a Tyrone Hutchison who was a Black Panther, but had not met him until 1969.
Pratt testified he was in Oakland or San Francisco on the 13th, 14th or 15th of December 1968 to get acquainted with the BPP program. He did not return to Los Angeles until the day after Christmas 1968, he said. He testified that he was continuously in either San Francisco, Berkeley, or Oakland from the time of his arrival on the 13th, 14th or 15th of December 1968, until his return to Los Angeles. He admitted he bought the 1967 GTO Pontiac convertible identified as the getaway car with North Carolina license plates on it, that its original color was red and white, and that it was repainted blue but not under his direction. He stated the BPP took over the car payments, and other Panthers drove it.
He denied that the .45-caliber pistol used in the killing of Caroline Olsen was his or that he ever possessed it. Pratt, who had been decorated for bravery during two tours in Vietnam, admitted that he was familiar with such a weapon from his Army training.
The defense called Kathleen Cleaver, wife of Eldridge Cleaver, an early leader of the Panther Party who had gone into exile, first to Cuba and then Algeria, after being charged in a shooting involving police in 1968. She testified that she saw Pratt in the Bay area during the time period that Pratt said he was there.
The defense presented a Polaroid photograph of Pratt which Pratt’s brother contended had been taken just after Christmas in 1968, just days after the shooting. It showed Pratt with a goatee and mustache. Kenneth Olsen said the shooters were clean shaven.
The prosecution called a Polaroid employee who testified that the film was not manufactured until 1969, five months after the crime.
The jury deliberated for 10 days without reaching a verdict. On July 28, 1972, the 11th day of deliberation, the jury convicted Pratt of first-degree murder, assault with intent to commit murder and two counts of armed robbery.
When the verdict was announced, Pratt erupted. “You’re wrong. I didn’t kill that woman, you racist dogs.”
Pratt was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He spent the next eight years in solitary confinement, maintaining his innocence. “The last person I killed was in Vietnam,” he said.
Over the years, Cochran as well as San Francisco defense attorney Stuart Hanlon, continued working on the case. In 1992, Pratt enlisted the help of Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based non-profit organization devoted to investigating wrongful convictions. Over the next five years, James McCloskey, founder of Centurion, traveled 120,000 miles investigating the case.
McCloskey interviewed former Panthers who told him that Pratt was not involved in the tennis court shooting. Four of them identified Herbert Swilley and Larry Hatter, two fringe members of the Panthers, as the perpetrators. Both had laughed about killing two “pigs” on a tennis court in Santa Monica. Swilley was shot to death in 1972 and Hatter died of a head injury in 1978 during a robbery on a Santa Monica tennis court.
Ultimately, the legal team uncovered evidence that the prosecution had failed to turn over key information to the defense and lied about the FBI's involvement in the case.
In fact, Butler had been an FBI informant with four felony convictions and a grudge against Pratt, all of which he had lied about at trial.
Further, the FBI had failed to turn over wiretaps that would have established Pratt's alibi and claimed to have misplaced the records of those calls.
The case was moved to Orange County Superior Court because the original prosecutor had become a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. At a post-conviction hearing, a retired FBI agent supported Pratt’s claim that he had been in Oakland during the killing.
The defense also showed that the prosecution had allowed Butler to plead no contest to four felonies in exchange for probation around the time he testified against Pratt.
And, the defense had an index card from the prosecution files that listed Butler as an informant for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Based on this evidence, Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey overturned Pratt's conviction on May 29, 1997, and he was granted a new trial. On June 10, 1997, Pratt was released. On February 17, 1999, Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti dismissed the charges.
In 2000, Pratt settled a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles and the FBI for $4.5 million. He and his family resettled in Tanzania, Africa, where Pratt died on June 2, 2011.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 08-14-2025
