HEIRESS STRANGLED the front-page headline in the Post screamed. RICH GIRL’S VIOLENT END was the News’s take. COURTLAND DAUGHTER FOUND SLAIN was the Times’s more sedate reaction. None of the coverage contained any speculation about the probable killer or a motive. All three publications pointed out that the body had been in its resting place for several days and that the dead woman was the daughter of Daniel Courtland, “the reclusive Midwestern billionaire” and “well-known conservative” (the Post) and “right-wing biggie” (the News). The News also mentioned the earlier suicide of Daniel’s wife, noting that “this is the second time the tragedy of violent death has come to the billionaire’s doorstep.” The Times focused on the victim herself, quoting John Sommers of Gramercy House to the effect that she had been a “brilliant young editor who would be much missed by the publishing house” and whose death came “as a total shock.”
