If walls could talk, Bensalem site would tell of bombshells, bullet holes

Snippets in the haze remain from my teenage years. Memories have carved out little pockets in my brain, all frayed with lucid fragments mixed in the morass.

The bombshells were 40 pounds each. With the vigor of an 18-year-old I could lift those metal weapons of war without too much trouble even though at the end of the day the heavy T-shirt soaked in sweat added heft to my grind.

The labor at Straightline Manufacturing on State Road in Bensalem was no summer job at a fast food joint. It was slow, tedious, monotonous, grueling and mindless.

The following year I protested the Vietnam War at Penn State and in Washington D.C. Eventually I evolved into a person against all wars but never against the young souls in the service who put their lives on the front line to keep us safe. The powers in the background who decided to sacrifice them are another matter.

Back at the factory, I was mainly still a clueless, apathetic teenage dolt who seldom thought of the obvious, that the bombs would eventually be killing someone in a faraway land.

We just hoisted them in a robotic flow after co-workers put little pins in them and painted around the bottom of the shells. No bombs, just shells. They were assembled with the explosive materials elsewhere.

The building still stands five decades later. You probably wouldn’t even notice the place at 2424 State Road in Bensalem if it wasn’t painted red. It’s somewhat obscured behind foliage, vehicles and a fence. It survived a recent fire on a loading dock and two storage trailers. Firemen took care of business, which still operates on the site. As of 2022, three firms exist there. Scouring websites, an architectural business and metal business are listed as open on the premises. A wholesale outfit is listed as temporarily closed. But its distinctive history plays on.

Straightline joined the state work release program in 1967. Employment ads did not mention bombshells. The warehouse, built in 1940, advertised for metal stamping and punch press operators in 1966, step ladder and barbecue grill manufacturing in 1967, sheet metal fabrication and welding in 1969, general assembly in 1970.

On Jan. 26, 1971, three workers sustained minor injuries in an explosion at the metal stamping plant. The Bucks County Courier Times reported workers were attempting to weld a piece of metal and were supporting themselves with a 50-gallon drum of paint thinner. The welding apparently set off vapors which caused the explosion.

Late in the story, the report said the warehouse manufactured metal furniture and tail fins for bombs. That was semantics. We called those heavy tail fins bomb shells.

On May 1, 1982, things got ugly on the site.

Robin Martincak showed up to work at 9:40 a.m. and found his partner Robert Suckle’s body on the cement floor next to a forklift.

Suckle’s jacket was pulled over his head which had a bullet hole in the back of it. He had two other bullets lodged in his chest. The pair operated Great Northern Steel Processing Corp. on the premises.

According to the Courier Times report, Suckle, 38, was a “super salesman, headed to a brilliant future” to everyone except whomever ended his life.

Super Salesman Suckle was also known as “a big sports bettor who owed a least $20,000, most of it gambling debts and had run up large credit card and department store debts,” said Bensalem police Lt. John Robinson.

“We have ruled out robbery as a motive for the killing and are looking into the possibility that someone may have ordered a hit on him,” Robinson told the Philadelphia Daily News.

“He owed a lot of people a lot of money.”

The story took on other twists as both the FBI and the Philadelphia organized crime unit joined the investigation. The FBI move was fueled by the belief Suckle might have been killed as a result of gambling debts he had run up in other states.

The organized crime unit was contacted after Bensalem police chief Richard Viola determined two weapons were involved.

“We believed organized crime was involved because he was flat-out executed and two different guns were used,” Viola told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Viola said the bullets came from .38-caliber and .25-caliber guns. Suckle’s 1982 Cadillac, leased by the company, was found by a security guard five miles away in the parking lot of the Hilton Inn in Trevose.

Police also learned Suckle’s son, David, 15, had apparently made his own connection with loan sharks and run up a heavy tab.

“The 15-year-old had several thousand dollars of debts, unknown to his dad, “ said Robinson.

Police determined the 10th grader had run up a debt of $30,000 to bookies but arrangements had been made to pay. The night before his dad was murdered David celebrated his confirmation with his family at a congregation in Elkins Park.

Rabbi Aaron Landes said Robert was "a very loving father and devoted husband."

The rabbi said Suckle was active in Little League, manager of a basketball team and often played golf with David and his younger brother Richard.

Dad had also once owned race horses.

Research indicated the murder of Robert Suckle remains unsolved 40 years after his partner was shocked by a lifeless form and blood on the cement floor at 2424 State Road.

If only the walls inside the structure could talk.

Drew McQuade grew up in Levittown and now lives in Bensalem.

This article originally appeared on The Intelligencer: Bensalem factory site experienced bombshells and bullet holes