The Goodnight Kiss Murder

Harold Winters had finished his coffee and was ready to get back into his patrol car and continue policing the streets of Southampton.

Officer Winters was working the night shift and it was his habit to enjoy his dinner break in the company of his girlfriend, Mary. After finishing his sandwich and coffee, Mr. Winters took his love in his arms and held her tight.

As they embraced and kissed each other good night, Mary heard a loud explosion and felt her boyfriend go limp. He dropped to the floor and blood spilled from a wound in the back of his head. Mary screamed and ran to the phone, calling for help. She knew instantly what had happened. It was Frank. She had been afraid of this for months.

The shot that killed Officer Winters was fired at approximately 10 p.m. on a Friday night, August 5, 1949.

Frank Zieman crouched in the darkness and watched through the back window as the couple inside stood up and their arms encircled each other. As their lips met, it was more than he could take. Everything that had happened in the past few months came crashing down on him at that moment so he aimed his rifle at the back of Mr. Winter’s head and pulled the trigger.

Afterward, he ran toward his parked car while his heart, no doubt, pumped wildly in his chest. Once inside the car, he started the engine and took off, heading toward Bridgehampton, checking his rear view mirror the entire way.

The killer had one more thing to do before he was finished.

Mr. Zieman was born in 1904 in Southampton. His father, Leo Zieman, was born in Poland and his mother, Marian, was from Germany. He was Leo and Marian’s sixth child.

The elder Mr. Zieman made his living as a driver for a coal company and could not read or write at the time of Frank’s birth, though he and his wife spoke Polish, German and English.

As the years went on, the Ziemans continued having children, ending up with a grand total of 11 by 1920. At that time, four of the Zieman children were gainfully employed and presumably helping with expenses while 15-year-old Frank, and the others, attended school. By 1920, Frank’s father had learned to read and write.

Ten years later, in 1930, the elder Mr. Zieman had a new job working at a “clubhouse” and the family had moved to West Prospect Street. At the same time, his son, Frank, then in his mid-20s was single and still living at home, working as a plumber.

Between 1930 and 1935, Frank exchanged his plumbing career for a job in retail sales. It was while he was working behind the counter at a large store in Southampton that he met a pretty, red-headed, young woman named Mary. The young women would eventually marry him. In 1935, she gave birth to a son.

Frank would later leave the retail sales business and take a lucrative position in the civilian branch of the United States Navy. The position, however, would require him to work overseas for a while. With a wife and child to provide for, it was an opportunity to better himself so Frank took it.

When he returned, after being overseas for months, he discovered that his wife of 15 years had taken a trip to Palm Beach, Florida while he was away and gotten a divorce behind his back. To make matters worse, he eventually discovered that his wife was deeply involved with another man, Officer Winters.

Even though Mr. Winters was born on Grand Street in Brooklyn, he spent most of his life in Southampton. His father, John Winters, worked as a machinist in a rope factory and his mother, Stella, was a stay-at-home mom. Mr. Winters had one brother, John Jr., who was eight years his senior.

It is not known why, but in 1920, the Winters family split apart. The Winterses left Brooklyn to live in Jersey City, minus their two children. Their eldest son went off on his own and 15-year-old Harold moved to Southampton to live with his grandparents.

The Southampton household consisted of Cleveland Winters, his wife, Eva, and Eva’s mother, Jane Wells, who was 90 years old at the time. Cleveland was 64 and worked as a freelance farm laborer, difficult work at any age. Harold made his grandparents proud in 1929 when he became a motorcycle patrolman with the Southampton Police Department. Then, at the age of 25, the handsome police officer married a pretty 23-year-old schoolteacher named Marion. They lived on Wooley Street in the village and by all accounts were a happy family.

Until Harold Winters met Mary Zieman.

After three children and almost 20 years of marriage, Ms. Winters divorced her husband right around the same time that Ms. Zieman made her trip to Palm Beach, Florida and divorced her absentee husband. It is unknown how long Ms. Zieman and Officer Winters had known each other but it would seem that they became serious approximately six months before Mr. Zieman returned home from the Pacific.

The cuckolded husband thought he was coming home to a loving wife. But instead he returned only to discover that his wife had divorced him six months earlier and he didn’t even know it. For five months after his return, Mr. Zieman obsessed over his marriage, expressing outrage at the fact that his ex-wife and her new lover were spending time in the very same house that the Ziemans had lived as husband and wife. Even the telephone was still listed in Mr. Zieman’s name.

Mr. Zieman was forced to move out of his own house and accept the fact that his family was gone. He moved to an apartment in Islip and was able to get a good job working for the Central Islip State Hospital. However, he was never able to move on.

On the night of the murder of Officer Winters, Mr. Zieman was spotted in Sag Harbor around 6:30 p.m., drinking with friends. The evidence would later show that he arrived in Southampton around 10 p.m. and waited in ambush outside his house for his nemesis to arrive.

Then, as the couple embraced and gave each other a good night kiss, Mr. Zieman shot Officer Winters in the back of the head. He then got into his car and drove to a beach at the end of Ocean Avenue in Bridgehampton where he took his own life.

His body was found, along with a suicide note, nine hours after he murdered Winters. Tragically fitting, the beach that Mr. Zieman chose to commit his final act was the same place he had chosen to court his wife and eventually ask her to marry him.