 In 1953, he was appointed as the head of the Norwegian American Hospital in Chicago.On July 22, 1956, Besley witnessed the murder of Margaret Mary Gallagher in Lincoln Park from his apartment through a pair of binoculars, which prompted the media to dub it the "spyglass murder".He flagged down a motorcycle patrolman and directed him to the scene of the crime, but he was unable to identify the murderer because he could not see his face from his vantage point.