It seems the Associated Press picked up the story, first published in San Diego on Thursday 7/21/60, and distributed a shorter summary that was reprinted elsewhere over the following week. The Access Newspaper Archive shows it Friday 7/22/60 in Albuquerque NM, Hayward CA and Salt Lake City UT; Saturday 7/23/60 in Phoenix AZ; and Wednesday-Thursday 7/27-7/28/60 in Pasadena CA. The headlines vary but the text is nearly identical in all of those instances. I didn't find any other mention of it during the 1960s or 1970s.
Dan Brown, #2408