The Captain Billy Binnacle show began in 1961 on Albuquerque tv station KGGM 13. The character, played by Ernest Scherer, hosted an morning cartoon show. Captain Billy also appeared at public events such as Easter egg hunts, softball games, family movie premiers, and store opening ceremonies.
During a Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon he was hosting in 1972, Ernest “Stretch” Scherer/Captain Billy, put his arm around a female volunteer on camera for just a moment. Her husband Willie Crowder was watching the telethon and that gesture made him angry. He started calling the television station and making threats.
On October 27, 1972, in the morning, Willie Crowder went to the T.V. station and asked to see Captain Billy, then waited in the lobby for him. Scherer was told there was a man who was quite upset waiting to see him. He laughingly replied, “I’m a celebrity! There’s a guy up front who wants to kill me!”
When Scherer arrived in the lobby, Crowder produced a .32 caliber pistol and shot him in the chest.
Articles regarding the shooting from 1972 (Albuquerque Journal)…
Articles regarding the shooting from 1972 (Albuquerque Tribune)…
Scherer hung-on to life for a week and then succumbed to medical complications…
Albuquerque Journal December 17
Abuquerque Tribune…December 18
The police arrested Willie, but the prosecution never got a conviction. After the courts found out he had been injured in WWII at Guadalcanal and had other mental illness issues since then, he was deemed insane at the time of the shooting and sent to a state mental hospital in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Sometime in 1973, he left that facility on his own accord and was found in Arizona and arrested. Since there were no charges pending against him in New Mexico, an Arizona judge refused to extradite him.
Crowder stayed in Arizona and died in 1991.
