Just days before his death in 2022, Robert Clary, the beloved Hogan’s Heroes star and Holocaust survivor, left behind a handwritten letter that has rocked Hollywood to its core. For decades, Clary had stayed silent about the gruesome 1978 murder of his co-star Bob Crane — a crime that remains one of Hollywood’s most chilling unsolved mysteries. But now, in his final words, Clary has revealed a side of Crane’s story no one has ever heard — and a truth that could rewrite everything we thought we knew.
According to insiders close to Clary’s family, the letter — found sealed in his personal journals after his passing — contains shocking admissions. In it, Clary defends Crane not just as a friend, but as a man “haunted by secrets he never got to tell.” He reportedly hints that Crane’s death was no random act, writing cryptically:
“He wasn’t killed because of what he did — he was killed because of what he knew.”
The revelation sent historians and fans scrambling to re-examine the long-buried case. Police files had always pointed toward Crane’s close friend, John Carpenter, but Clary’s words suggest something darker — a network of powerful figures who allegedly sought to silence Crane before he could expose them.
Clary’s letter reportedly describes late-night phone calls between him and Crane during the months before his death. Crane, he wrote, seemed terrified and paranoid, convinced someone was watching him. “He told me he’d recorded things he shouldn’t have,” Clary confessed. “He said if anything happened to him, those tapes would explain everything.”
Even more shocking, Clary implied that Crane’s controversial “private videos” — long dismissed as evidence of his scandalous lifestyle — might have contained footage that exposed Hollywood’s secret elite. “The tapes weren’t just about pleasure,” he wrote. “They were about proof.”
But perhaps the most haunting line in Clary’s letter comes near the end, scrawled shakily in his own hand:
“The truth is buried deeper than Bob’s body — and some people would kill again to keep it that way.”
Family sources say Clary intended to release the letter on the anniversary of Crane’s death but fell ill before he could finalize the details. Now, with the document reportedly in the hands of a private archivist, speculation is mounting that it could soon go public — reopening a 45-year-old Hollywood mystery.
Fans who once adored the laughter of Hogan’s Heroes are now left with chilling questions. Was Bob Crane’s death truly the result of a jealous friend? Or was it the silencing of a man who saw too much?
“He wasn’t the villain they made him out to be,” Clary’s letter concludes. “He was a man trapped in a game much bigger than him.”
