posted 05-10-2009 09:28 PM               

On January 26, 1959 Commander Paul Havenstein was appointed the U.S. Navy "service representative" to the Space Task Group headed by Robert Gilruth. This was the original group formed to get Project Mercury off the ground. (On page 116 of "Failure is Not an Option", Gene Kranz mentions meeting him on his first day on the job.) Havenstein remained with the group for at least several months, helping to establish Mission Control.

Havenstein died in 2002. His widow, 63-year-old Mary Frances Havenstein, was found dead in her Maryland home last September. There had been a series of home-invasion robberies in the area, around the Washington Beltway, and she was apparently beaten to death by the perpetrator.

To quote from the Washington Post (you might need to log in to read the whole thing):

That day, Havenstein's relatives told detectives that her late husband had been a pioneering member of the Mercury space project.

It stuck in [detective Brian] Stafford's head: His father worked for Grumman Aircraft, helping on the design of a heat shield for the Mercury space capsules.

Ten days later, Stafford transferred from a major crimes unit to the county's Bethesda police district. He joined the search of the Hyattsville apartment after another detective linked Garcia-Perlera to stolen [during car break-ins] iPods, a radar detector and binoculars.

...in the apartment, detectives found black shoes with big buckles that made Stafford think of one victim's description of her assailant's "pilgrim shoes." A medallion etched with the likenesses of the seven original Mercury astronauts erased any doubts.

Detectives collected a DNA sample from Garcia-Perlera and linked it to a baseball cap left at the scene of the attack in Potomac, a handkerchief left at the home in Chevy Chase and a stick in Havenstein's bedroom, according to prosecutors' court filings.