Federal, H, 1862-1991, Undated

a3 3:

4 %

?

A cool $600,000—Iargest ransom demand on record—

was the price for the return of the Midwest auto

dealer’s son. The ransom was paid but a pair of

lovers killed the boy anyway—‘‘to protect’’ themselves

“It’s Mrs. Greenlease. ‘We were

shopping, down on the Plaza. She.

became suddenly ill—her heart. This

terrible heat, no doubt. :She’s in St.” .
Mary’s Hospital now. Her condition,

I’m afraid, is. very serious.’She has
asked. that Bobby be brought to her at
once.’

The sister looked at the clock on
the wall. It was 11 a.m. She glanced
out the window, noting the taxicab in
the drive before the door. For a
fleeting instant she thought it strange
that a public conveyance, rather than
the chauffeured Greenlease limou-
sine, had been sent for six-year-
old Bobby, butin the next moment she
believed she understood.

A heart attack in the 100-degree
heat under which Kansas City had
been smothered for.days was entirely
credible and, ‘in an* emergency like
this, doubtless there had: been. more
chen enough for the family circ
to do."* =

She- briefly studied: the: wondan
who had come for Bobby. The aunt’s
clothing—a’ white blouse, dark-skirt
and black hat—seemed of better than
average quality. Her reddish brown
hair and - her---hands, “ nervously
twisting-the strap of a black bag, were
well cared for, and her round face,
though drawn’ with apparent anxiety,
was as ingenuous as a child’s.

Her speech and demeanor marked .

her as a woman of some culture, as the
sort of person a close relative of the
wealthy Greenlease fanhty would be
expected to be.

“Our chapel is just across the
hall,” the nun said. “Perhaps. you
would like to pray there for Bobby’s
mother, while I bring the boy from his
schoolroom. ys

“Yes,” the woman agreed humbly.
“Yes, I should like to pray. I’m nota
Catholic but maybe God will hear my
prayers from your chapel, Sister.”

The woman’s piety erased any
shred of doubt from the heart of the
nun whose duty it was to guard the

portals behind which 250 children of

Py)

Body of kidnaped boy, with a bullet in his head. was found ina “hechyan grave.
Police learned he had been slain before first ransom demand was made on parents.

Kansas City’s foremost families
attended classes in the famous old

school.

~ A few minutes laterthenun return-
ed,, shepherding a slender, -fair-
complexioned princapinlt into the
reception room. ..-

Bobby Greenlease was a hand-

‘some child of six, with lively brown

eyes and a grin that showed a gaping
hole where a lower left tooth should
have been, not large for his age, but
quick and wiry as a rapier.

“Your auntie’s come to take you
home,” the nun explained. There was
no use, she thought, in frightening the
boy with the truth; much better to leta
relative explain, little by little, that
me mother whom the lad adored was
i

Bobby looked gravely Hien: the
nun to ‘the woman, who stepped
forward quickly. “We must go right
away,” she said to the boy. “Your

mummy’s sent for you.”

The child said nothing, but began
fumbling with the catch of a small
bronze Maltese cross—a_ religious

medal they had given him at school—

dangling from a red ribbon on the
breast of his fresh white shirt.
“You may keep it on,” the nun

a

ated

said. “God bless you,child—andcome ~ |
‘back to us soon.” "

~~

The double doors shut upon the 5 Aa

- woman and the little boy. The taxicab

rolled down the drive and out into the
street. In the school, the nun sought
out Mere Marthanna, in charge dur-
ing the absence of Mere Marie Irene
de Sion on business, and reported the

sudden illness of Bobby’s mother.

A notice went up on the bulletin

- board, asking prayers. for Mrs.

Greenlease’s swift recovery. At five
minutes past noon, Mere Marthanna

telephoned the Greenlease home in .

fashionable Mission Hills, just across
the state line in Kansas City, Kansas,
to inquire about the mother’s condi-
tion.

Mrs. Greenlease herself answered
the phone.

_ “How .are you feeling?’ Mere
Marthanna asked, more than a little
‘bewildered at hearing the voice of the
woman who had been reported, only a
short hour earlier, dangerously ill in

a hospital.

“Why, fine, just fine. Why do you
ask?”
Then Mere Marthanna knew—

realized in a flash how the nuns at >. 4
Notre Pame fe Sion, had been duped: ae

Oh ee


LA tor Cea ESE As oe Te ae ean
tifdads ALL HEADY » Ww eu LES 4

DO YOU REMEMBER
THIS
HEADLINE MURDER 7

Six-year-old Bobby was abducted from
school by woman who posed as his aunt
and told school: authorities that. boy's

' T WAS NO MORE than a step
from the blaze of the late mor-
=, ning sun through the thick, dou-
ble doors into the cool gloom of the
French Institute of Notre Dame de
“Sion, whose sedate, ivy-hung building
Yodked down a green slope upon
Gillham Park at 38th and Locust
Streets, on the south side of Kansas
“City, Missouri. :
‘is"The questioning. eyes of hie black-

fowned nun on door duty. were quick 2

to note the urgency: on the “leaadnt
features of the plump ¥ woman at. the
threshold. * HE
ted | have. “beanie pent: tot Bobby
Greenlease,””’ ‘the’ caller: explained.
“I’m his aunt—his, ‘mother’s sister.
It’s an emergency.”
“Please come in.” ‘The nun led the
way to the high-ceilinged reception

room off, the main corridor. “Perhaps,

‘will be kind enough to.

mother had suffered: a heart attack...

+p

-

—«

78

*

Booze, Babes and
Murder

(Continued from page 51)

ask him what it was he was building in
his playroom last Sunday night.”

If the abductor had come back with the
right answers, it would have been positive
proof that Bobby was alive, for no one
outside the immediate family could have
known them. But when “M” phoned again
he said, “The boy wouldn’t answer your
questions. He’s a sulky brat. Get that
money to us and take him off our hands.”

Eventually the ransom money was deliv-
ered, as per instructions. Soon afterwards
a message told Mr. Greenlease to go to the
telegraph office in Pittsburg, Kansas, to
await instructions for the recovery of the
boy. The frantic parents hastened there—
but long hours of waiting went unrewarded.
The instructions never came. There was
no sign of their little son. The kidnapers
had the $600,000 in ransom money and, as
far as anyone could tell at that time, they
were in the clear. Mr. and Mrs. Greenlease
lived in a torment of mounting dread and
despair.

On the afternoon of October 5th, as
friends of the Greenleases waited vainly
in the Kansas telegraph office, a chain of
events began to unfold in St. Louis—events
which gathered momentum with each pass-
ing hour as they built to a shattering
climax.

A cab driver, going off duty, transferred
a fare to a buddy, passing along the in-
formation that he was “a live one with
plenty of dough and rarin’ to spend it.”
The hackies transferred two heavy steel
suitcases from the trunk of the first cab to
the trunk of the second, under the watch-
ful eye of the “live one,” who said his
name was Steve. Steve was somewhat the
worse for bourbon, but still navigating
under his own steam.

With his new driver, he started to do
the town, in the course of which Steve
picked up a willowy blonde called Ruthie
Packer. The impression he made on Ruthie
did not suffer from the way he threw his
money around. He gave the cabbie an $18
tip for a $2 drink check, then tossed him
another $100 “on account.” Still later he
handed the astonished taxi driver $2,500,
with instructions to return the following
morning to the motel where he was stay-
ing with a car rented in the cabman’s
name, and a couple of suitcases.

In the morning, Ruthie showed the driver
$1,000 which she said Steve had given her
to fly to California “to mail a letter.”

“The guy is nuts,” she said. “He’s pack-
ing a rod, and those two tin suitcases are
crammed with dough. I’ll bet he’s got a
million bucks in them.”

At Steve’s directions, the driver now
went out and rented for Steve a $185-a-
month suite in a west side hotel. After
Steve moved in, he sent the taxi man out
to find him a girl. By this time, the cab
driver had begun to have pretty definite
ideas about Steve’s real identity, or recent
activity—and he wasn’t having any more
of this deal.

So, instead of getting a girl for Steve,
he called the police and told them about
the big spender. Lieutenant Louis Shoul-
ders and Patrolman Elmer Dolan then
crashed the hotel suite and took Steve in
custody. They found the suitcases full of
money and turned up a snubnosed .38
tucked away in a drawer.

Shortly after the prisoner was brought
to the Newstead Avenue station house, St.

Louis’ top police brass converged there.
A squad of police was assigned the task
of counting the money. They counted
$293,992 in 10s and 20s.

“We know exactly where those bills
came from,” Police Chief O’Connell said to
the prisoner. “You might as well give us
the story.”

“Yeah. I guess I might as well,” the
prisoner answered. “My name is Carl
Austin Hall. I’m one of the Kansas City
kidnapers.”

By the time Kansas City Police Chief
Brannon had arrived by chartered plane,
the St. Louis detectives had learned a lot
about Hall. He was 34, had lived in
Pleasanton, Kansas, and in Kansas City.
He was a parolee from the Missouri state
prison, where he had done time for a
string of taxicab stickups. He had a girl
friend who, he said, had helped him in the
kidnaping of Bobby Greenlease. Very oblig-
ingly, he took the cops to meet her, in an
apartment on Arsenal Street.

There they found Mrs. Bonnie Brown
Heady, 41. A chubby, 5-foot-5 divorcee
from St. Joseph, she was fighting a losing
battle with a hangover. Hall said it was
Bonnie who had taken little Bobby Green-
lease from his school. She did not deny it.

For a long time Hall tried to lead the
officers down a false trail. He claimed that
Bobby had been turned over to a third
accomplice, who was to have released him
when given word that the ransom had
been received. If anything had happened
to the boy, Hall asserted, this other man
was responsible. He also said now that
Bonnie Heady was an innocent dupe he
had used, that she didn’t know it was a
kidnaping. The FBI blasted this assertion
when they matched her fingerprints to
those found on the ransom notes.

FOI I III III IIIA ISI AI IASSIS AAAI.
BUY U. S. SAVINGS BONDS

AND INVEST IN YOUR FUTURE
FOI III IIS IIA ISI III ISS ISAA A

Eventually detectives succeeded in ob-
taining the real story. Even before they
had kidnaped Bobby, Carl Hall and Bonnie
Heady planned to murder the child. She
had taken him from the school to a drug-
store parking lot. There they transferred
to her station wagon. Then they drove to
a wheat field in Overland Park, a suburb
of Kansas City, Kansas. Hall had planned
to strangle Bobby, but the length of rope
he had brought for the purpose was too
short. The child put up a fierce struggle
and Hall had to hit him a couple of times.
Then he shot Bobby twice with his .38.
After that he and Bonnie wrapped the
little body in a plastic sheet they had
brought for the purpose and drove to
Bonnie’s house in St. Joseph. There they
buried their little victim in quicklime, in
a grave which Hall had dug the previous
day. They planted chrysanthemums over
the grave.

Once these details were taken care of,
they proceeded deliberately and callously
to the task of extorting over half a million
dollars ransom from the slain child’s father.

On October 30th a federal grand jury
indicted Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie
Brown Heady for the interstate kidnaping
of Bobby Greenlease. On November 3rd
both pleaded guilty, hoping to escape death,
because under the Lindbergh law the death
penalty can be imposed only on the recom-
mendation of a jury. Judge Albert L.
Reeves decreed they must stand trial.
Before the case went to the jury, after
hearing the confessions of the accused and

_ the testimony of witnesses, Judge Reeves

said, “They committed cold-blooded, heart-
less, first-degree murder. I fail to find any

mitigating circumstances in this case.” -

The jury’s verdict was not surprising:
Death in the gas chamber.

Carl Austin Hall came from good pioneer
stock. Born in Pleasanton, Kansas, his
father was a lawyer and the richest man
in town. He died when Carl was 12, and
from that point forward, the boy was in-
volved in a series of scrapes of one sort
or another. He went to good schools, but

‘he did not change his ways. In 1938 his

mother persuaded him to join the Marine
Corps, for discipline. It didn’t help much.
He was a drunk, frequently AWOL; he
logged an impressive amount of brig time.

In 1944 his mother died, and Carl re-
turned home in 1946 to claim a fortune
of some $200,000. In less than five years he
was broke; booze, babes, gambling, and
even an occasional fling at dope had taken
every dime he owned. In desperation, he
bought a pistol and began holding up cab
drivers in Kansas City. He was caught,
convicted of armed robbery, sentenced to
five years in prison. He served 15 months
and was paroled in April, 1953.

Less than a month later, in a bar in St.
Joseph, he picked up Bonnie Brown Heady.
Much later, she recalled his words as they
left the bar to go to her house for a ro-
mantic tryst. ‘You and I can go places
together, Baby,” he said to her.

Bonnie Brown Heady also came from a
substantial, middle-class background. Her
parents died when she was only two, and
she grew up with her grandparents on their
farm near Clearmont, Missouri. She had
a happy childhood, was popular in grade
and high school, and married a livestock
dealer from St. Joseph. They were a well-
liked couple with many friends, but Bonnie
became a lush, a difficult drunk, and the
friends dwindled away. She got a divorce
in December, 1952, keeping her house, car
and the 360-acre farm left her by her
grandparents.

When she took Carl Hall home with her
that day in May, he moved in and sponged
off her. He drove her car around town,
talked abusively about her behind her
back, and gradually established a domin-
ance over her which culminated in the
fantastic plot to kidnap and murder Bobby
Greenlease.

Hall and Bonnie Heady did not appeal
the death sentence. In a strange way, they
seemed almost to welcome it as a release
from the struggle and turmoil of a world
they were ill-equipped to face. Hall was
given little rest, however, as police and
the FBI grilled him again and again in
efforts to determine what had happened to
the missing $300,000 of the ransom money.
To the very end, he continued to insist that
except for what he had spent or given
away, all the ransom money had been in
the two suitcases and the brief case which
were in his hotel suite when he was ar-
rested. Ruthie Packer returned the $1,000
he had given her and was completely ex-
onerated of any involvement in the kid-
nap-murder.

At the Missouri State Penitentiary in
Jefferson City, Carl Hall and Bonnie
Heady were assigned to widely separated
cells in the basement Death Row. Special
guard details watched them round the
clock. They were allowed no contact with
other prisoners, because feeling ran high
among the convicts and prison officials
feared there might be an attempt on the
kidnapers’ lives. As an extra precaution,
they were fed from the officers’ mess. No
other inmates were permitted near their
food; guards brought them their meals
on trays. During the month they spent in
Death Row, they took no exercise in the
prison yard. Neither Bonnie nor Car] dis-
played much energy. They lay in their
bunks most of the time; apparently they

looked forward only to meal times.

Carl gain
death watc}
pounds to }
cared little
went for a <

Bonnie, h
end. She fr
lowed a nai
mirror bey:
of her cell. s
apply make

Thousands
prison addrs
but both H:
little interes
at a few lett
didn’t want
the time a
tastes. Bonn
after endles
thriller fan
Magazines a
could replen
A couple o

execution, ez
any commun
simultaneous
Greenlease §
for the terri
him and Bc
whom Car! }
reported, aft«
he believed t
for his crime
Warden R:
about 1,500 p:
telegrams anc
to see either
both. All suc
only visitors
by the prison
her lawyer
On the - af:
guards asked

they would li}

and™ Carl had

or communica
entire month
but, by a coinc

exactly the s

mashed potat:

salad, rolls, F

apple ice.

As a last co

to eat this di

pushed into t}

of Hall’s cel)

there. They s;

the meal, ch:

two, Bonnie wu
was tense. The

After dinner,

Bonnie was re

At 11:32 pr
they were ta)
driven, in se;
house, which
feet away. Her
cell and sat sid
for their last
ministers stood.
their talk.

“I wish they
Bonnie said.

“Yeah,” said (
He took a dee)

“I'm worried
complained. “\Y
him?”

She was” refe
At one time she
enter the gas c!}
thought better

Bonnie was \
had borrowed f
this she wore a
She wore no st:
was a pair of }
Hall wore the
prison uniform \
on the trousers,


case.”
prising:

pioneer
sas, his
est man
12, and
was in-
one sort
ols, but
1938 his
Marine
p much.
VOL; he
rig time.
Carl re-
fortune
years he
ing, and
ad taken
ation, he
¢ up cab
caught,
tenced to
.5 months

par in St.
vn Heady.
is as they
for a ro-
go places

je from a
ound. Her

two, and
its on their

She had
r in grade
a livestock
ere a well-
but Bonnie
k. and the
t a divorce
house, .car
ver by her

ne with her
ind sponged
ound town,
behind her
d a domin-
ated in the
irder Bobby

not appeal
ze way, they
as a release
1] of a world
ce. Hall was
s police and
ind again in
happened to
nsom money.
to insist that
ent or given
had been in
ef case which
n he was ar-
,ed the $1,000
ompletely ex-
it in the kid-

enitentiary in

and Bonnie
lely separated

Row. Special
‘m round the
.1o contact with
eling ran high
prison officials
ittempt on the
tra precaution,
icers’ mess. No
tted near their
m their meals
h they spent in
exercise in the
ie nor Carl dis-
y lay in their
apparently they
eal times.

Carl gained twenty pounds during the
death watch. Bonnie added about twelve
pounds to her already plump figure. Carl
cared little about his appearance; he often
went for a couple of days without shaving.

Bonnie, however, was feminine to the
end. She fretted because she was not al-
lowed a nail file. Female guards set up a
mirror beyond her reach outside the bars
of her cell, so she could adjust her hair and
apply makeup.

Thousands of letters were received at the
prison addressed to the condemned killers,
but both Hall and Bonnie Heady showed
little interest in this mail. After glancing
at a few letters, they told the warden they
didn’t want to see it. Instead, they passed
the time according to their individual
tastes. Bonnie did crossword puzzles, hour
after endless hour. Hall was a Western
thriller fan. He read cowboy stories in
magazines and books as fast as guards
could replenish his supply.

A couple of weeks before their scheduled
execution, each of the kidnapers, without
any communication between them, almost
simultaneously wrote a letter to Robert
Greenlease Sr., imploring his forgiveness
for the terrible anguish they had caused
him and Bobby’s mother. A clergyman
whom Carl had known since his boyhood
reported, after Hall had sent for him, that
he believed the killer was genuinely sorry
for his crime.

Warden Ralph N. Edison revealed that
about 1,500 people had written letters, sent
telegrams and made phone calls, requesting
to see either Hall, or Bonnie Heady, or
both. All such requests were denied. The
only visitors allowed were those requested
by the prisoners. Bonnie saw an aunt and
her lawyer. Hall saw only the minister.

On the afternoon of December 17th,
guards asked the condemned couple what
they would like for their last meal. Bonnie
and Carl had had absolutely no contact
or communication with each other in the
entire month of their stay in Death Row,
but, by a coincidence, each of them ordered
exactly the same dinner: fried chicken,
mashed potatoes and gravy, combination
salad, rolls, Roquefort cheese and pine-
apple ice.

As a last concession, they were allowed
to eat this dinner together. A table was
pushed into the corridor against the bars
of Hall’s cell, and Bonnie joined him
there. They spent about 30 minutes over
the meal, chatting and smiling. Of the
two, Bonnie was the more vivacious. Carl
was tense. The strain was showing on him.
After dinner, which ended at 7:30 P.M.,
Bonnie was returned to her cell.

At 11:32 p.m., Central Standard Time,
they were taken from their cells and
driven, in separate cars, to the death
house, which was only a few hundred
feet away. Here they met in a detention
cell and sat side by side on a narrow bed,
for their last conversation. Nearby two
ministers stood, and occasionally joined in
their talk.

“I wish they had let us be married,”
Bonnie said.

“Yeah,” said Carl, looking straight ahead.
He took a deep drag from his cigarette.

“I’m worried about my dog,” Bonnie
complained. “What’s going to happen to
him?”

She was referring to her prize Boxer.
At one time she had talked of having him
enter the gas chamber with her, but then
thought better of it.

Bonnie was wearing a black cape she
had borrowed from a matron, and under
this she wore a bright green cotton dress.
She wore no stockings, and her footwear
was a pair of heelless sandals, or scuffs.
Hall wore the regulation olive-green
prison uniform with black vertical stripes
on the trousers. His wrists were manacled.

Bonnie’s were not confined at the time.

At last the warden came in and said,
“It’s time.”

Bonnie and Carl stood up, and Bonnie
threw her arms around him, pulling his
head down to her so she could kiss him.
When he straightened up, the red smear of
her lipstick gave his face an appearance
like a clown’s makeup. He was unaware
of it. Black blindfolds were fixed in place
and they were led through the door into
the death house. Then into the death
chamber, sealed off by windowed walls
from the observation room where 17 wit-
nesses had gathered to see them die.

Attendants guided them into the twin
steel chairs and made last-minute adjust-
ments, tightening straps around wrists,
chest and waist.

“It’s too tight,” Bonnie complained about
a wrist strap, then added, “I’m not going
anywhere.” She seemed pleased with the
witticism and smiled, but no one laughed.
An attendant loosened the offending strap,
then buckled it again.

“Thank you,” Bonnie said.

Now she twisted her head this way and
that, craning her head backwards.

“T can’t see a thing,” she said, trying to
peer out from beneath her blindfold. Then,
turning toward Hall who sat in the other
death chair just two feet away from her,
she said, “Are you doing all right, honey?”

“Yes, Mama,” he murmured somberly.

At this point, all adjustments had been
made and the attendants left the chamber.
A U.S. marshal came in. He bent close to
Hall and asked if he had any last message.
Hall shook his head negatively without
speaking. The marshal then asked Bonnie
the same question.

“No,” she said. Almost as an afterthought,
she added, “Thank you.” She seemed piti-
fully eager to please.

The marshal left them and the doors
swung shut and were sealed, leaving the
doomed lovers alone under the eyes of 17
witnesses. Now their lips moved with
a seeming urgency. Both seemed to be
talking at once, but whether they were
praying, or speaking to each other, no one
will ever know. No one outside the death
chamber could hear what they were
saying.

The witnesses stared in hypnotic fascina-
tion for a moment, then suddenly the
warden moved a lever which released
pellets of potassium cyanide into the
crocks of sulphuric acid under the death
chairs. Yellowish fumes swirled upward
into the nostrils of the condemned couple.
Their heads fell forward suddenly, as if
they had dropped off to sleep.

Then, for an instant, their bodies con-
vulsed, fighting the straps that bound
them. Bonnie seemed to fight harder than
Carl. Now their heads jerked upward ina
violent motion. Carl’s mouth opened like
a narrow gash; Bonnie’s gaped wide, gasp-
ing for air.

In another moment, they slumped for-
ward and remained so for a long time.
At 12:12 am. Carl Austin Hall was pro-
nounced dead. At 12:14:10 Bonnie Brown
Heady was pronounced dead.

Her lipstick could still be seen through
the observation windows, grotesquely
smeared across the mouth of Hall where
she had kissed him for the last time. Very
likely they were smeared the same way
the first time she had kissed him.

When you come right down to it, either
kiss might be called the kiss of death. $$ @

Eprror’s NOTE:

The name Ruthie Packer, as used in
the foregoing story, is not the real name
of the person concerned. This person
has been given a fictitious name to pro-
tect her identity.

STORIES THAT
WILLHOLD YOU
IN AVISE OF
SUSPENSE

Just try to put this book down once you
start reading it. You can’t! It’s one grip-
ping true story after another. Stories of
fear suppressed by heroism—stories of men
you know, told as you never heard them
told before. Written by skilled writers
who know how to make a tale vivid and
exciting.

GREAT WAR STORIES

Stories of the beloved Ernie Pyle, and the
fightingest of them all, “Vinegar Joe” Stil-
well—stories about the sea and under the
sea—stories that make you wonder if he-
roes are born or made. But what stories!

True Stories of the Fighting
Men in Two World Wars

Stories, all of them about the kind of men
the free world needs today. Stories to in-
fluence the hearts of the young—facing the
atomic age. Stories to thrill the old and
bring back memories of those times that
tried men’s souls.

They read so easily. The words and sen-
tences flow so smoothly. The facts are so
accurate. For this is TRUTH you will be
reading here in this tremendous book of
war stories.

Send for Great War Stories now. Don’t
put it off.

192 pages—with
illustrations

Paperbound $1.00
Clothbound $2.50

ONLY $1.00
MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY

Grn tee arn pen ee i en ae ee 7
Bartholomew House, Inc., Dept. MG-760

| 205 East 42 St., New York 17, N. Y.
| Please send me the following books: |
| GREAT WAR STORIES |
| (0 $1.00 paperbound |
| © $2.50 clothbound |
I enclose............55 for books ordered: |
| |
NAME. .......cccceceeeecenaseeeeeneeneees I
| (lease print) |
STREET........ cptpuvive db cunca’s ivees |
CITY... cc ccccceeeeee eens STATE.........- |
mm ect im tein soon bin cnn cee de in es i ys gin al

~

a weenee

MEAADWAYV SA £44 C44 OURO FE

+. the newsmen outdoors became more

. tense.

On Monday ‘a week had passed
since the abduction of Bobby
Greenlease. The FBI was ready to
move-in. From their experience with -
, this kind of crime, the federal agents
“held among themselves little hope
that the kidnaped child was still alive.

A 6-year-old. boy, -the FBI men
realized, would be quite able to iden-
tify his abductors later on. Most like-
ly, since his murder would be deemed
necessary by the ciminals who had
snatched him, he had been slain
shortly after he was spirited away
from his school. Every minute that he
lived after his abduction, he would be
a liability to his captors. Any mishap,
however slight, might reveal his
whereabouts, but a grave was a silent,
hidden place.

There was, however, little the
federal agents could do, more than to
begin to put out feelers in the un-

-derworld and to prepare the informa-
. tion through which they might hope
to spot the ransom money as soon asit
was put in circulation. And there was
still that chance, slim as it might be,
that the miracle would happen—that
the boy would be restored safely.

At about 3:30 that Monday after-
noon, October 5th, John Hager
wheeled his taxicab into the stand in
front of the Hotel Jefferson in St.
Louis, 250 miles across the state of
Missouri from Kansas City. One of
his fellow hackies edged up to his cab.

“I got a Good-time Charlie on my
hands, Jack. Loaded with booze and
free with his dough. Wantsa Gate. Got

‘any ideas?” °
~ “Could be. Want me to give ita

~ whirl?”

“His name’s Steve: He’s got a
‘couple bags in my trunk. Wrestle ’em

GIANT PHOTO POSTER
2x3 ft. $3.50 hae

Send any color, b&w,
: poleroid, cartoon or maga-
zine photo. For slides or

Negatives add $1.00 per

poster ordered.
Better originals make better
posters. — Black & White
posters mailed to you ina

, sturdy tube.

TAX2 ft @$250
1X Th ft @$200

s *

Include 50¢ for postage & handiing for each poster ordered.
New York residents add Sales tax. You my sa yeturned »
undamaged. Send check, cash, or money order(no c.0.4.) to:

SUPER PHOTO POSTER
Dept 2G-10 © 222 East 46 Street « New York, N.Y. 10017

| (\ YOU CAN BE kc ae FSS 2
a® » > ITs MOST WAPORTANT
bel VAD We fit Elevates & taller
S heels for your shoes or ~

pre-fit them for our new,
fine boots & shoes, Free

OETAILS
Trial, Sat. Guar, FREE!

apiece.”

‘Hager had tebubli getting both
steel suitcases into the trunk of his
taxi, but his fare, Steve,refused to let

the cabbieride one bag up front, so the.

driver maneuvered both pieces into
They found Ruthie Parker, a
pretty blonde, 22, quite ready to go

on the town with a generous visiting.

stranger, particularly when the
visitor was young—in his thirties—
well-dressed and not too bad looking,
despite the receding line of his sandy
hair.

In a bar Steve paid for a round of
drinks and shoved the $18 change
from a $20 bill across to Hager. “Take
it,” he said.

The cabbie folded the bills into a
pocket. What a fare I’ve got here, he
thought.

He was a little worried when Steve
made some notes on a piece of paper,
and sealed them in an envelope,

afraid his fare was intent on framing

him on a procuring rap, but Steve.

laughed off his fears.

“If you knew the truth, John,” he
chuckled, “you’d really get a kick out
of it.”

He had Hager hand the note to
another cab driver, to be delivered.
John saw it was-addressed to a Mrs.
Esther Grant, with an address in the
4500 block on Arsenal Street, on the
south side of St. Louis.

On the way to a luxurious motel
west of the city, Steve gave the hackie
five $20 bills, ‘on account,” and in the
motel cabin, where he and Ruthie
Parker. registered, Steve peeled off
$2,500 in twenties.

“You look like a good vit he wail

to Hager. “Come back in the morning
with a car rented in your name, and a
two-suiter suitcase and a breifcase to
match. Use this dough. That’s what

_money’s for—to spend, I hate little

people. I like to be big.”
When Hager returned to the aokel

| on'Tuesday morning, with the car and

the luggage, Steve was pacing the
floor. ‘““There’s something I gotta do,”’
he said. “Drive Ruthie where she can
get a cab, then come back for me.”

In the rented auto, Ruthie pulled
out a bankroll. “A grand, he gave
me,” she said. “I saw one of those
suitcases open. It’s crammed with
dough, tens and twenties.”

“You gone outa your mind?”

“So help me. That guy’s got a
million bucks back there. Gave me all
this money and this letter and told me
to fly to California and mail the letter
there.”

Hager looked at the envelope. It
was addressed to a man in St. Joseph,
Missouri. He and Ruthie opened it.

“Things are not going so good,”
they read. “May have to leave the

~-|- country by ship or.plane. Carl.” ...

‘ransom payoff.

“after -

trampled each other in arush throu
Hager’s brain.

That afternoon, Steve took th
rented car alone and was absent for
about. three hours. John Hager was.

that decision was formed.

Steve, however, had urgent plan:
for -the cabbie. “Pm ducking som
insurance investigators,’ he con
fided. “Rent an apartment for me, a. :
nice joint, in your name.” :

‘Hager engaged a $185-a-month ®
suite in a swank annex to a west side .
hotel, overlooking Forest Park, and
carried Steve’s heavy bags into it. A
short time later Hager was talking ‘4
with Lieutenant Louis Shoulders in’
the Newstead Avenue police
stationhouse. p28

“There’s something real wrong |
with this guy, Steve,”’ Hager told:
Shoulders, an old time friend and one
of the best known officers in all St.'3
Louis. “He’s throwing dough around
like crazy, and he’s got it by the..
suitcase full. You could put the sneeze
on him with no trouble at all.” e

“How?” Shoulders asked.

“Rap three times gn his door, then
say, ‘Steve, it’s Johnny.’ I’m supposed
to rustle a babe for him and take her to
his place.”

Lieutenant Shoulders ‘took
Patrolman Elmer Dolan and went

the apartment Hager had rented for

his “Good-time Charlie.” ‘The d
code worked. Steve opened up.»
Dolan grabbed the man. Shoulder
opened the two steel suitcasés: He
knew at once what he had found—a
good part, at least, of the Green|

weapon, a.
Wesson, hidden in a drawer. ;
- Police Chief Jeremiah O’ Connell a
of .St. Louis reached the Newstead.
Avertue stationhouse a short time
Lieutenant Shoulders and
Patrolman Dolan arrived with their
prisoner. :

As Chief O’Connell, Shonides
and other high-ranking St. Louis
police officials closeted themselv
with the stocky prisoner, clad in @
sports jacket and slacks, a detail of
police began counting the sheaves of
$10 and $20 bills. In the suspect’
wallet they found more than $700;
and $450 was taken from the briefcase
which John Hager had bought. Inala . 4

the officers tallied $293,992.

“We know exactly where it
from,” Lieutenant Should
grizzled: six-footer, told the J ori

_Youmightas well give


*g
?
;
a
4
*
Z
t
P)
Ft
ae

Get into the big, year-round

EXTRA MONEY BUSINESS —
that’s EASY to learn—EASY to do--/.
and EASY ON YOU! |

Be a LOCKSMITH!

You Can Make Up to $10 an Hour
—even while learning! Train FAST at Home!
Never before have money-making opportunities .been so
great for qualified Locksmiths. Now lucrative regular lock
and key business has multiplied a thousandfold as millions
seek more protection against zooming crime. Yet there's
only one Locksmith for every 17,000 people!

- Start Collecting CASH PROFITS Right Away

You're ‘‘in business” ready to earn $5 to $10 an hour a few
days after you begin-Belsaw’s shortcut training. Take advan-
tage of today’s unprecedented opportunities in Locksmithing
for year-round EXTRA INCOME in spdretime—or fulltime in a
high-profit business of your own. Hundreds we've trained
have done it. So can YOU! All tools plus professional Key

THIS PRO
KEY MACHINE

YOURS TO KEEP

can add $25 to
$40 a week to your
income...and it .
won't cost you a cent
with your training!

ALL TOOLS, MATERIALS AND PRACTICE

EQUIPMENT COME TO YOU WITH YOUR COURSE.

jobs, too.

FREE

a

“Keys to Your Future’ on how Belsaw can quic
to make money in Locksmithing and how all tools and Key
Machine are given me to keep.

Machine given you with course. These plus practice materials
and equipment, plus simple, illustrated lessons, plus expert
supervision, plus business-building guidance will enable you
to KEEP THE MONEY COMING IN! Ideal for retirement—good

SEND FOR EXCITING FACTS—No Obligation
Discover what's in Locksmithing for you—how Belsaw’s mas-
ter-locksmith-approved training can give you the skill you .
can depend on to EARN MORE—ENJOY LIFE MORE. Just fill
in and mail the coupon below to receive full information by
return mail. Do it TODAY!

BELSAW INSTITUTE, 274) Field Bidg., Kansas City, Mo, 64111
. Accredited Member National Home Study Council
_ Approved for all Veteran Training

MAIL THIS COUPON—NO SALESMAN WILL CALL

BELSAW INSTITUTE 274) Field Bidg.
Kansas City, Missouri 64111

y | Please send me free of cost or obligation gous parce

train me

Telis how i Name
to make “4
money in | Address
Locksmith-
ing almost | City
from the

State Zip

start!

through, Bobby’s mother was

waiting, desperately anxious. “The -

questions I told you to ask,” she said.
“What were Bobby’s replies?”

“He wouldn’t answer,” the kid-
naper responded. “He’s been sulky for
two days now. Won’t cooperate at all.
You ba get that money into our
hands and take him back. We’ll be
glad to get rid of the kid.”

Now the instructions were simple.
The duffel bag with the $600,000 was
to be dropped along a lonely by-road
north of Kansas City early on Satur-
day morning.

These orders were followed to the
letter. The messengers had barely
returned to the Greenlease home
before the voice of “M” came over the
wire again.

“That was just a test run. You
better get out and pick up that dough
before someone passes by and spots it.

We'll tell you later how to make the -

real payoff.” -

-~<\‘We're quite ready to pay. The one
thing we want is to get the boy back
home—unharmed,’’ lLedterman
emphasized.

“Then wait for another call.”

It came at 11 o’clock on Saturday
morning. All the kidnaper had to say
was to instruct Ledterman to stand by
for another call at 8 o’clock that night.
The long, interminable hours of
renewed hope and desperate fear

dragged on. At 8 the same man phon-
ed again, as promised. He now
ordered: Ledterman to go to a specific
telephone booth in a hotel lobby at
once and wait there for further word.
Again the demand was complied
with. At 11:30 p.m. the phone in the
booth rang. The voice was hurried
and jittery. “M” was ready to give
final instructions and consummate

_the deal.

Ledterman was to drive east at
midnight on U.S. 40 out of Kansas
City for about ten miles, to a bridge
about 400 feet east of the junction of
U.S. 40 and alternate U.S. 40. He was
to drop the duffel bag over the extreme
end of the bridge, turn around and
drive straight back to Mission Hills.

At midnight, Ledterman and
O’Neill obeyed this directive. They
saw no one around the bridge, spotted
no car parked along the road.
However, only minutes after they
returned to the Greenlease home, the
telephone rang.

“We’ve got the money,” It was the
voice of “M” again. “Go to Pittsburg,
Kansas, and wait at the telegraph
office Monday morning. At 11 o’clock
you will be told where and how to
recover the boy.”

Early Sunday morning, Ledter-
man showed himself briefly to the
newsmen camped in the chilling rain
outside the Greenlease home. Then he

and O’Neill departed for Pittsburg.

For the first time in six days there
was genuine hope in the Greenlease
residence.

“Pray God our Bobby’s coming
home to us,” his mother breathed.

“pray God,” his father echoed.

He was showing the strain of the
long ordeal, this man who had risen
from poverty to great riches as a
pioneer in the distribution of
automobiles over the large area in the
Middle West. He had looked fear in
the face for seemingly endless days
and nights and had learned form it
how useless wealth sometimes can be.

But now the dark clouds. of dread
and sorrow were beginning to lift.
Another day—just 24 hours more—

In Pittsburg, Kansas, Ledterman
and O’Neill waited through Monday
morning, but no message came for
them at the Western Union office
there.

“Don’t lose hope, Bob,” Ledterman
urged in a long distance call to the
distraught father. “This fellow’s been
so erratic all through this, it’s no
wonder he’s failed to contact us on
time today. Norb and I will stand by.
Keep your chin up—and pray.”

Outside the Greenlease mansion,

‘the reporters missed Bob Ledterman,

who had talked with them each day.
heretofore. They began to sense a
break in the case. Hour by hour, as |


ter, more secure

Can | learn a
Will my job ever pa

a BE A SKILLED LOCKSMITH!

... and Solve ALL Your “FUTURE” Problems

No question about it... with Locksmithing skill YOU'LL
HAVE IT MADE! You'll do light, clean, always-fascinating
work in this fascinating security profession that urgently
needs YOU — where your choice of steady, high-pay job

opportunities, or a rg profit spare-time or full-time ctitute graduates now earning more, enjoying life every-

Tales Saas your Potent wv gin ae a, where. You can, too. Send coupon TODAY for illustrated

go on enjoying the work as long as you like, knowing
that layoffs, automation, slack times, minor disabilities,
forced retirement can’t affect your ability to EARN
MORE and LIVE BETTER in good times and bad.

Locksmithing is SO EASY TO LEARN — Enables You to
EARN Extra Money RIGHT FROM THE START! The bet-

business of your own

a Locksmith, regardless of age, education, previous ex-
1 perience, minor physical handicaps. Fun and earnings
| begin AT ONCE as you learn quickly, easily to CASH IN
1 on all kinds of locksmithing jobs. As little as one hour a
4 week at home working on all kinds of lock and key
problems under the guidance of experts brings quick
mastery—a quick lifetime solution to ALL your “future”

y more?

future you want can be yours FAST as

Everything

pasageoe U
KEY MACHINE
tocks, picks,
tools—supplied
with course.

State Approved Diploma

City

Name

Zx%9 tion. Instructors are just great.
ad Earned $250 while training.”
: £ William H.. Montgomery
‘aim Los Angeles, Calif.

‘Enjoyed ~y hocheni Wing <
_ | Course. Took it spare time and { *
| evenings. Immediately after ©
graduation, | applied for a job [eg
and was hired. The shop has. ¥
four Master Locksmiths.’’
Joseph M. Sturm @
Fort Smith, Ark.

problems. All locks, keys, parts, picks, special tools and
equipment as well as complete fully-illustrated lessons
supplied with course.

FREE Illustrated Book, FREE Sample Lesson Pages Give
Exciting Facts. Find out how being a skilled Locksmith
can put a quick end to your worries. Locksmithing In-

book and sample lesson pages without cost or obliga-
tion. No salesman will call. _

LOCKSMITHING INSTITUTE

Division of Technical Home Study Schools

Little Falls, N.J. 07424

Licensed by N.J. State Dept. of Education; Accredited Member,
National Home Study Council, State Approved Diploma,

Approved for Veterans.

LOCKSMITHING INSTITUTE, Dept. 1124-014
Little Falls, New Jersey 07424 '

Please send FREE Illustrated Book — ‘‘Your Big Opportunity
in Locksmithing,’’ complete Equipment folder and wae
lesson pages, FREE of all obligation, (no salesman will call).

Address

(Please Print)

State Zip

LD Check here if eligible for veteran benefits

“Yeah, I guess I might as well,”
came the reply. “My name is Carl
Austin Hall. I’m one of the fellows in
the Kansas City kidnaping.”

It was 3:30 Wednesday morning,
October 7th, when Chief O’Connell
telephone Police Chief Brannon in
Kansas City. Brannon and Major
Pond chartered a plane and reach St.
Louis at 6:30 a.m. oe

By then, Hall had directed detec-
tives to an apartment on Arsenal
Avenue, where they had arrested Bon-
nie Brown Heady, a 41-year-old
divorcee from St. Joseph, Missouri—

’ the woman who had taken little Bob-

by Greenlease from his classes in the
first grade at Notre Dame de Sion.

“She knew nothing about the
kidnaping,” said Hall, a 34-year-old
ne’er-do-well son of a former promi-
nent attorney in Pleasanton, Kansas.
“T tricked her into getting the kid out
of that school.”

Hall said he had met Bonnie
several months before in a tavern in
St. Joseph and had gone to live with
her in her white, five-room bungalow
at 1201 South 38th Street, just outside
the city limits.

“I told her I was separated from
my wife, who had custody of our son—
named Bobby Greenlease—and I got
Bonnie to go to the school and get the
boy, on the pretext that I merely
wanted to see him,” Hall said.

Bonnie had agreed. She turned
Bobby over to Hall in the Katz park-
ing lot and, at his instructions, went
shopping for an hour, she declared.
When she met Hall later, he told her
the boy had been returned to school.

It was not until they drove back to
St. Joseph in her red Plymouth sta-
tion wagon, she said, that she learned
of the kidnaping from the
newspapers. Then, she went on, she
was afraid to go to the police—afraid
for herself, but more so for Carl Hall,
whom: she loved dearly.

Although mistakenly identified at
first as a woman by the same name
with a long criminal record, Bonnie
Heady was later found to be a long-
time resident of St. Joseph. For 20
years she had been married to a
prominent livestock broker who was a
highly respected member of the com-
munity and whose social position
Bonnie had upheld by belonging to
the proper clubs and entertaining the
right people. College educated, attrac-
tive and gracious, she had been well
liked.

Suddenly she became bored with
what she considered the monotony of
her life and she began to drink ex-
cessively. About a year ago she had
divorced her husband. Until July she
had been living alone with her prize
boxers in her trim five-room house in
St. Joseph, on the income from an

$85,000 estate she had inherited from
her father.

Having renounced respectability,
she now became a chronic alcoholic
and a prostitute. She picked up men in
taverns and paid taxi drivers a fee of
$2 for every customer they brought
her. Her regular charge to the
customers was $20 a night.

It was in July that she met Hall in
a cheap local bar. They were made for
each other and Hall moved right in.

Hall had been a problem child,a
troublesome adolescent whose father
had sent him toa military academy in
Missouri, where he had known Paul
Greenlease, the foster brother of little
Bobby.

It was this acquaintanceship, he
said, which led him to plot the kid-
naping, a crime which had been in-
cubating in his mind for three years,
he disclosed.

Hall’s father had died in 1933. In
one of several efforts to straighten

_their son out, his mother had per-

suaded Carl to join the Marines, some
years before World War II. He had
been on duty in the Pacific in 1944
when his mother died, leaving him
sole heir to an estate worth $200,000.

Itching to get his hands on the
money, Hall went AWOL and return-
ed to Pleasanton to _ collect.
“Anyway,” he explained, “I’d rather
be in jail than in the Marines.”

« 77

tA,


et: 28.

£ALG UA BAAD AADAACSEAHCAAAwE A444 rw

beautiful home and 1170 acres of
Missouri and Kansas farmland. “Sen-
timent don’t mean a damn to me,”
he said, as he quickly turned the fa-
mily property into cash.

Always a braggart, a thief and a
cheat, money inflated his conceit. “I'll
show them how money and brains
can really get going,” he said. “My
hands are white as lilies and you'll
never see a callus on them.”

Hall went through his fortune in
four years, gambling, drinking,
plunging in the stock market and
sinking funds in two unprofitable
liquor stores and in an airplane crop-
dusting venture that failed.

He .became a drunk and a drug
addict, taking morphine orally every
six hours. In 1951 he was arrested for
a series of taxicab holdups in Kansas
City, a criminal adventure which
netted him $33 and a five-year prison
term. He had been released on parole
on April 23, 1953.

Hall related how he had conducted
the negotiations for the enormous
ransom payoff with the represen-
tatives of Bobby’s father. He and
Bonnie had picked up the duffel bag
containing the $600,000 only
moments after it had been dropped
from the bridge early Sunday mor-
ning, he said.

“Bonnie was drunk at the time, in
a stupor. She didn’t even know what
was going on,” Hall declared
emphatically. _

With the money in a rented car,
Hall said, he drove to a Kansas City
bar, where he phoned the Greenlease
home to say he had the $600,000 and
would arrange for the return of the
child. igs
- “And where is the boy?” Chief
- Brannon demanded.

“At home, isn’t he?” Hall
answered. “He should be, by now.”
'- “Come off it. You know he’s not
been returned. You know he’s not
going to be returned.” =
Hall finally gave in. “The kid’s
dead,” he admitted. “But I didn’t kill
rm I wouldn’t have donea thing like
at.” \
There had been a third member of
the kidnap gang, Hall now said. He
named this accomplice as Thomas

John Marsh, 37, a man with a long.
record of arrests for minor offenses—~

chiefly drunkenness—and of prison
terms for two sex offenses against
boys.

After taking little Bobby from
Bonnie Heady’s home in St. Joseph,
where Bobby would be hidden until
the ransom was collected.

When he and Bonnie reached St.
Joseph in her station wagon Monday
afternoon, Hall continued, he found
Bobby dead in the basement. The

which Marsh had borrowed from
him—was lying beside, the body. The

child had been shot in the head.

“T sent - Bonnie downtown,” Hall
said. “She never saw the body. While
she was gone, I dug a grave behind
the house and buried the kid. I put
some flowers in the ground, and ex-
plained the digging by telling Bonnie
I wanted a fall garden.”

A telephone call to Kansas City
sent FBI men rushing to the Heady
home, in St. Joseph, 60 miles to the
north.

Here, inside a honeysuckle hedge
and a wire fence which was electrified
to keep Bonnie’s prize boxers at home,
workmen found the grave behind the
house. Carefully they began to dig.

Less than three feet down, they
came upon a thick layer of quicklime
and, beneath this, encased in a blue
plastic bag, was the little body of
Bobby Greenlease. There was a bullet
wound through his head and two of
his teeth had been knocked out, ap-
parently before he was shot.

The body was decomposed. It had
been in the grave for at least a week.
By Carl Hall’s own admission, the
child had been slain even before the
first demand for the huge ransom was
received by his parents.

“You bargained with them, know-
ing the child was dead?” Brannon
accused Hall.

“I figured I might as well go
through with it,” Hall said.

“You got the $600,000. A little less
than half was in your possession
when we caught you. Where is the
rest? Has Marsh got it?”

“TI haven’t seen Marsh, nor heard
from him, since I turned the kid over

to him in Kansas City. I got the

eee of it. There was no
split.”

~ Where’s the other $300,000?”

Hall shrugged. “I wish I knew.
Bonnie and I drove to St. Louis and
took the flat out on the south side. We
had a fight. I beat her up. I gave her
$2,000 and walked out.

- “T had the dough in three suit-
cases, after transferring it from the

‘duffel bag, which I dropped in a

garbage can. I wound up with only
two suitcases. For the life of me, I
don’t know what happened to the
other one.”

Hall said he figured Ruthie Parker
might have got it. The girl was quick-
ly traced to Kansas City, through a
telegram she sent to Hall at the motel
west of the city. She had only part of
the $1,000 he had given her to mail the
letter from California to an attorney
in St. Joseph. She had not even
mailed the missive and it was seized
by the FBI, who ordered her held as a
material witness.

___With a nationwide alarm out for

the ring finger on Mis 1e10 tau aus
putated at the first joint, Hall was a
questioned further about the missing. *%
$300,000. ;

e said he believed a taxi driver
could have taken the third suitcase. “I
was just too drunk to remember,” he
declared, “and I traveled around a
lot.”

A woman clerkin a hardware store
just west of the city said that on
Tuesday, October 6th, Hall, keeping a
taxi waiting for him, bought two
garbage fans, four plastic bags, a
shovel and a quantity of paper preser-
vative spray from her. | ie

FBI agents, who had taken over ©
questioning of Carl Hall and Bonnie
Heade, believed Hall had used the &
hardware store purchases to bury the’ 7
missing $300,000 somewhere, but he —
led them to the cans, the bags, shovel
and preservative, all untouched. He
had meant to hide part of the money
he had left, he admitted, but could
find no suitable place.

The landlady on Arsenal Avenue
told the federal men ofastranger who »
had called there for “Mrs. Grant” on .4
Monday afternoon, after Hall 3
departed. Who this could have been, 4
both Bonnie Heady and Hall asserted :
they did not know. Mrs. Heady said - %
she was drunk, and Hall hadnot been %

present. 2a
Could he have been Tom Marsh? .@%

As the search for this man was r oR

pressed—and as he was reported, a

almost hourly, in widely separated 7% |

‘places—the FBI agents became more -_
firmly convinced that he had had no “%
part in the kidnaping or, if he had #
been one of the gang, he was dead. 3
The. likelihood of Marsh’s death |
was heightened by the discovery of |
three fired cartridges in Hall’s
revolver, and the knowledgethatonly %
one bullet had been used on Bobby {
Greenlease. a
If Marsh was still alive, the federal :
men believed, he was not implicated
in the abduction. a
Had he been in on the snatch, they |
reasoned, he surely would have been |
on hand for the payoff. It seemed far
more likely that he merely was
acquaintance of Hall and Bonni

dragged into the case to try to draw.
some of the heat away from himself;:

Since the crime had been hatching
in Hall’s twisted brain for more thé
two years, it was entirely possib
that Marsh had been an unwitti
conspirator. Foreseeing the possibili-
ty of arrest, Hall perhaps long: apc
had planned to throw the burden
guilt on Marsh. If this plan was
succeed, however, Marsh must

Ene ire ala atin ie annem phan eS aig teh


and HEADY, Bonnie Brown, asphyx. Mo. SP (Federal) December 18, 1953,

—Batee House Museum

PONY EXPRESS HEADQUARTERS IN 1860

12th and Penn Streets and the
Box 1022
St. Joseph, Mo. 64502

National Historical Man (816) 232-8206 J ets) 5 e J ames H ome

January 29, 1985
Mr. Watt ESpy
Capital Punishment Research Project
University of Alabama
35486

Dear Mr. ESpy:

Thank you for your kind letter and request for information. I
am fascinated by your project.

I am a newspaper reporter and technical school teacher who by
some quirk got involved in restoration and museum-building about
25 years ago as a hobby. {It still doesn't pay anything, but oc-
casionally gets me in trouble, as you saw.

The issue is far from being resolved, too. It might even be
helpful if you sent a letter to my newspaper backing the project
as you did in my letter (That's the St. Joseph Gazette, 9th and
Edmond St., St. Joseph, Mo. 64501.)

Our exhibit actually has very little to do with Charles Hatcher.
It's a "Century of Crime," featuring 156 items from the old Police
Department trophy case. Murder weapons are only a small part. One
case will have 12 weapons that have killed 25 local people in the
past century.

There will be guns, knives, ballbats, an electric. drill, axes,
etc. There's even the three loaded and three fired shotgun shells
from Charles Teidt's 1945 shooting.

ft There will be cases with guns cases with illegal weapons,
burglar tools, and cock~-fighting spurs. To my surprise, the copper
v wire Charles Hatcher hanged himself with became availabie. With aii

the other Stuff, I couldn't see anything so shocking about a piece
of wire, but a guess the local folks feel otherwise.

You asked about legal: hangings. The last one in this county was
Mark Dunn in 1904. I checked Chris Rutt's book, and he was very ac~—
curate on what happened (my own research was based on newspaper sto-
ries of the time.)

Mr. Dunn is to have a special case in the exhibit. For 80 years
the police department had the false-bottomed kerosene can used to
smuggle the guns into jail. For the past 10 years I have had the two
guns, given by, Martin Thomas (now deceased.) His father was one of
the deputies from whom Dunn escaped.

\

Pony Express Historical Association


FRONT PAGE CASE BOOK

OUT OF CIRCULATION

'‘™ This is a dead Chicago hood.
He is Anthony Destefano, 48,
ex-con and ranking member of
Chicago’s notorious “42 gang.”
_ It was no surprise. to Chicago
police that Destefano ended
up stuffed in the trunk of his
car with five bullets in his
head. He had long been high on
their list of thugs to be hauled -
in and questioned every time
there was a gangland bump-off.
Police speculate that the slay-
ings were probably over the
Greenlease ransom bills. The
bulk of those recovered were
passed in the Chicago area.
(See. The Cleanup Spot, De-
eember Front Pace, 1955.)

COMPLETE COVERAGE
FROM OUR

CORRESPONDENTS

FINGERED

@. In a New York city police sta-
tion; Edna Meyer, statuesque and
tempestuous blonde, gives the time-
tried gesture of contempt to a gal
she allegedly found cozily cooped
up with her bartender husband
(rear). They were in the girl’s
apartment, Edna _ claims, and
when she unceremoniously marched
through the door, allegedly waving
an unloaded target pistol, she found
hubby clad only in‘shorts, the girl-
friend in even less. He piled injury
on insult, she says, clipped her on
the jaw and took away the gun.
The matter ended up in court where
Edna placed assault charges against
her husband. The cops charged Edna
with violation of the Sullivan Law.

IGG é |

e can are back together. While working on the
museum archives a copy of the Special wanted
(There was a ST, 100 reward. )

I have been with The Gazette 31 years, and my father who died
two years ago was an editor here for 56 Years ,: Bo: I Personally re-
Call the Tiedt case. Charles shot and killed three neighbors with
a 12-gauge Shotgun. As [ mentioned, I now have the three spent
shells, Plus the three he used to re-load the gun in case others came

He had two trials, and it took about five years. to gO through all-of
the legal proceedings.

Hall and Heady were living at a house in St. Joseph, although
the murder took place in Kansas City (actually, Kansas City, Kan.,
I believe.) They buried the boy in a flower garden in their back
yard and demanded a ransom. The ransom waS paid, and Police Lt.
Shoulders of St. Louis ended up with the money after they were ar-
rested at.St..Loutes:

Anyway both Hall and Heady were executed in the Missouri Peni-
tentiary - I. believe in early 1954. I'm Sure you are familiar with
the case. If not I could come up with more details.

Hope this will be of help in your research. Let me know if [I
Can be of further assistance,

Sincerely,

c
oh
Af Qn CR Onacty
Gary Chilcote
Museum Director

P.S<: I assume you know about the 6 Germans who were hanged during
World War II at the: Uy .8. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Lea-
venworth. My father was an official witness. Again, I can put
you in touch with the right People if you need information.


ssination

e ly
-e several
nology of
iiagnosis.
hose cer-
n all the
‘Ss unwar-
| was in-

s lengthy
‘standing
day, you
you take
you.” As
> the ju-
Stripped
honor—
ery end,
as, Lieu-
iterested
‘t a score

tance of
iT yn
18 &.EX~
ige or at
» crimes.
disturb-
ntly has
tely be-

ninority
stances.

Pe ee es

Case Histories of Murderers 69

murdering some adversary; he may be ruled by motives of greed;
etc. By and large, however, these factors do not seem to be as im-
portant as murderers and defense attorneys would like us to be-
lieve they are. Usually, some degree of emotional derangement is
involved. .

Take, for example, the two cases in Reinhardt’s book where
only a single incident of homicide was involved. In the first case,
Carl Austin Hall kidnaped young Bobby Greenlease, and with the
help of his female companion, Bonnie Brown Heady, murdered
the child and buried him in Bonnie’s backyard in St. Joseph, Mis-
souri. Hall then sent out a ransom note and collected six hundred
thousand dollars for the safe return of the boy. On the face of it,
this looks like a simple murder for profit, with the boy being killed
to keep him quiet and to protect the murderer from being iden-
tified later.

Carl was forced to wear fastidious clothes by his parents
when he was a child, was called a “sissy” by other boys, and never
got over the feeling of inferiority which overwhelmed him at that
time. When his father died during his eleventh year, he became
disobedient and domineering toward his mother, and terrorized
her. He rebelled against military school and repeatedly urged his
mother to let him return home. He then exhibited behavior which
was described by his schoolmates and neighbors as consistent!
“impulsive,” “arrogant,” “impatient,” “unconscionable,” and
“unfeeling.” Drinking bouts and sexual delinquencies led to recur-
rent arrests during his senior year in high school. At the age of

eighteen, he entered the United States Marines and spent consid-
erable ume in the “brig.” When his mother died, he squandered
his inheritance of two hundred thousand dollars in less than four
years, pouring much of it down the drain in a senseless, gorging
rage for recognition. When his funds ran out, he tried various get-
rich-quick schemes, resorted to armed robberies, and became a
drug addict. Reinhardt notes that “his powers of reasoning, and
his sensitivities, were dulled by an excessive intake of chemical
poisons. Medically, he was an alcoholic and a drug addict.
Whatever the frame of reference, Carl Austin Hall at the age of
thirty-four was mentally diseased, physically debilitated, and ut-
lerly cut free from the motive springs of socialized men.”

Ee ee

mera onli ten

Sn EE
OAR ate


nae

)
:

SEPTEMBER 1953

Thanks to an astute business sense and plenty of hard work, Robert
Cosgrove Greenlease had built a multimillion-dollar automobile busi-
ness in Kansas City by about 1920. During his troubled first marriage,
Greenlease and his wife adopted a boy, whom they named Paul Rob-
ert. At high-school age, Paul was enrolled in a military school. There,
he met a fellow student named Carl Hall, who became intrigued with
the elder Greenlease’s wealth.

In 1939, a then-divorced Robert Greenlease married Virginia Pol-
lack. They had two children, Virginia Sue in 1942, Robert “Bobby”
Cosgrove, Jr., in 1947.

Carl Hall, the son of a prominent judge, had chosen lawlessness
as a way of life. Following military school, he had lasted three months
in college and had gone from there into the Marines, where he served
poorly. His mother’s death in 1944 left him $200,000, which he
squandered. He married in 1946, but his drunkenness led to a di-
vorce four years later.

In 1951, Hall netted the grand sum of $33 when he robbed sev-
eral cabdrivers. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was pa-
roled after 15 months. While incarcerated, Carl Hall bragged he was
going to commit the perfect crime.

In May 1953, he met Bonnie Heady at a bar in St. Joseph, Mis-
souri, and moved in with her. He outlined his plan to kidnap six-year-
old Bobby Greenlease. Bonnie—a free-spirited divorcee, drunk, and
intermittent hooker—listened attentively, and agreed to participate
in the kidnapping plot. Hall told her he had decided in advance to kill
the little boy in order to cover his tracks.

On September 10, Carl bought 50 pounds of quicklime; he would
use it to dissolve the boy’s buried body. On the 19th, he bought a .38
caliber handgun; on the 26th, a shovel. The very next day, Hall dug a

grave.

CRIMES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

THE KANSAS
CITY KIDNAP-
MURDER CAPER

HEARTLESS KIDNAPPERS CARL
HALL AND BONNIE HEADY
DECIDED THAT A SIX-YEAR-
OLD RICH BOY MADE THE
IDEAL VICTIM

The Greenlease kidnappers, Bonnie Heady and Carl
Hall. They pulled off their brazen abduction scheme
with almost shameless ease, but no sooner was the
ransom collected than things began to fall apart. Less

than three months after the kidnapping, they went to
their deaths in Missouri's gas chamber.

77

|

ya

Da isSeth si PN

\!

Fa


Robert C. Greenlease, Jr., who was abducted from his
Kansas City private school, Notre Dame de Sion. One
of the kidnappers, posing as his aunt, convinced a
teacher at the school that the boy's mother had
suffered a heart attack and was urgently requesting
to see him.

178

September 28, 1953, brought Hall and Heady to Kansas City.
Bonnie took a cab to Notre Dame de Sion, Bobby's school, where she
passed herself off as Bobby's aunt and said that the boy’s mother had
suffered a heart attack.

With Bobby in tow, Bonnie rejoined Hall. Then they drove to a
field, and Hall shot Bobby behind his right ear.

The pair returned to Bonnie's house, where Hall placed the boy’s
body into the grave and covered it with lime. He then drove to Kansas
City to mail a ransom note, and mailed a second one a day later, Sep-
tember 29, accompanied by Bobby's Jerusalem Cross.

The first note demanded $600,000 in small bills. Greenlease
was warned against involving the police or trying any tricks. If he dis-
obeyed, the note promised, death would come to the entire
Greenlease family. An endless series of phone calls followed, in which
Hall detailed the method of delivery of the ransom money.

At 12:30 am. on October 5, Hall picked up the money from the
predesignated locale. He had promised to call the parents with in-
structions on how to retrieve Bobby. No call was ever made. Instead,
the heartless kidnappers took off for St. Louis with their newly found
wealth. When they arrived that same day, the pair drank continuously
and hooked up with a variety of new “friends,” one of whom told po-
lice that he had been with a man who threw around great sums of
money. The next day, October 6, the police picked up Carl Hall, who
admitted he had kidnapped Bobby Greenlease. A drunken Bonnie

Heady was soon arrested. Each kidnapper confessed to the FBI on Oc-
tober 7, 1953.

A federal grand jury indicted Hall and Heady before the month
was over. The pair pleaded guilty and were executed in Missouri’s gas
chamber on December 16, 1953. Fully half—$300,000—of the
ransom money was never recovered.

CRIMES OF THE 20TH CENTURY

’

“ae


Serva rca = Lee a

SECTION A

FORT

BONKIE HEADY : CARL AUSTIN HALL

le


~ they were lead into the

Hall, Mrs. Heady
' Executed by Gas

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. Friday, Dec. 18,.—(A_The

Greenlease kidnap killers died side by side
chamber early today, impassive to the

At the last
Marshal Wilka

m D. Tatman
to tell nim. ;

P !
Carl Austin Hall and his! para:

mour, Mrs, Bonnie Brown Beady
shook their heads in the negative.
Then the woman safd aloud: “No.”

It was another of many last
minute attempts to find out what
happened to half the record
$100,000 ransom paid the slayers
of six-Vear-old Bobby Greenlease.
The money has been missin
since capture of the pair.

For 10 minutes the onetime
lovers chatted together, smiling
and apparently at ease, in a little
detention cell just outsid@ the
gas chamber.

. Shares Cigarette
Hall, Was smoking a cigarette
and he leaned ovef ta give Mrs.
Heady a puff. \4
They were manacled, bu
hands while. they talked.
Mrs. Heady, who seemed ant-
mated, laughed aloud at some-
thing said by Marshal Tatman
who sat In front of them while
they sat side by side on a cot.

|

t held

in a jovial |‘ mood” tonight

, though his execution with Mrs. iGeorge L. Evans, Episcopal min. |

h
|

| Bonmie Brown Heady for the'
' kidtap-killing of Bebby Green.’ |
_ lease was only a few hours:

| away.

Marshall K. Hoag of: Pleas-

anton, Kas., Hall's home town, =|

said the kidnap-killer jokingly ,
told him he knew a fortune
‘teller whose
could ruin. i

“About 16 years ago she
told my fortune when I was
fn Honolulu,” Hoag quoted
Hall as saying. “She told me I
was going ito live to be 83
years old.”

The 34-year-old killer missed
that by 51 years,

black lindfold was put over

Hall's eves, tied in back with, ao

’

douhle strap. yoo
Then she was blindfolded and.

gas cham.
ber, Hall going first. — es
Bg.” Mrs.

“I can’t eee a thin
Heady said. H
While she was being strapped
into her chair she said, (
“It is tight. I'm not going any:
where.”

° ‘ i
- No Answer poy

» ‘She asked Car} if’ he had plenty
of room. He ai rot answer. He
‘was breathing Hard as the straps
were tightened. Vostast
Finally,” the straps on,
called out: “Are
right. honey?” : ae |
Hall replied: “Yes, Mama.”:  !
Just before the door clanged
shut, Mrs. Heady told the mar- |
shal and the guards “Goodbye, :
thanks for everything.”
One of the guaritis who had
seen the prisoners daily in death
row, Vernon Poirv, shook hands
with Hail, who said *thanks, very
much.” |
They kept on talking to each |
other even after the door of. the
lethal chamber had, been sealed
at 12:04 a.m. j

she
you doing ‘all

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. Dec. | |
17—P—Carl Austin Hall was |

reputation? he Al

While Mrs. Heady watched, a

a

in the gas
end.

, Just before the gas chamber closed, U. S.

aske

d if they had anything

The cvanide pellets were re
I@ased B00 seconds later and the
dhadly gas rose in a heavy white
cloud. .
‘Hall took a big gulp of {t.
hut Mrg. Heady appeared to hold
‘Pr breath for an instant. Her
or@athing continued for more
t two minutes after Hall's res

gs pirgtory movements had stopped. .

e of the prison doctors, Dr. |
' onald Shull, said Mrs. Heady
‘Kept breathing longer than any.”
ong he had ever seen. u, |
ath thus came at 12 minutes |

| after’ midnight for Hall and at 14°
; minutes and 10 seconds after 12

for: Mrs. Heady.

The prison was unusual!
ran execy
.. Witnesses
deputy ward

Y quiet
tion night. “|
waited outside the
en's Office tn the

fo

prison courtyard until the can.

‘degned pair were taken fram
, death row at 11:32 p.m. and driven
through the cold, still winter!

night a quarter of a mile to the.
gas chamber, |

When the prisoners reached |
the death house, they muttered |
pravers for a few minutes with |
their spfritual advisers, Rev. |.

ister from Kansas City,,; and his’
curate, Rev. Robert Hf. Bull I. |

Evans said the killers were “ab
solutely and completely recon- |
ciled" at the eod. . '

He said they were equally calm!
and made no Jast requests. |
“They are prepared to meet
mighty God,” he said. |

The private chat of the kid-
Napers “with Tatman sitting in,
could not be seen throughout the |
death chamber, but when Hall:

came out to enter the gas tank?
his lips were red as if he had
received a fimal kiss,
_ Theysshuffled into the gas tank, :
led by jguards who tried to keep.
them from stumbling, but both
almost tripped when: they stepped
up to get through the door,
“| Left and Righe
Hall-jsat to the left. as seen—
from the door, and Mrs. Ileady
to the fright. - ;
Mosticondemned prisoners have
their hhir cut short befure execu-.
and Mrs. Heady

tion. Hut Hall

were mot shorn. Her dark brown
hair Was wavy and carefully
combed.

Neither got a clear view of the
Rds tank and it: deadly apparatus.
It was} kept screened from them
until afteg the blindfolds were af-
fixed. |

Mrs.'Headv wore a bright green
cotton. prison dress and a pajr of
scuff t*pe sandals. Hall had on
regulation. prison pants and $ghirt
of olive green {wil]. He also wore
shoes without laces, but no belt.
Their fegs were bare. '

On the way down from ‘death
row. Mrs. Headyvi was kept warm
in the 12°degree cold bv a coat
thrown over her sonic k bv
Mis. Tatman, the marshal'’s wife.
She was the only woman at the
death chamber hut stepped) out:
side before the adtua! execution,

Death of the dissolute plathov
and his araneel paramour ¢li-
maxed the natiof’s most horrible
kidnaping in 20 years.

Ni a i A a aha a fee a

ing fact that little Bobby was slain shortly
after he was snatched, and that the in-
human brutes had been dickering with his
bereft parents while the boy lay dead ina
bed of corroding lime!

Fact by fact the sordid details of the
sudden capture and grisly discovery were
released by the police. Held in custody by
the St. Louis authorities were Mrs.
Bonnie Brown Heady, 41, a red-headed
divorcee from St. Joseph, and her boy-
friend, 34-year-old Carl Austin Hall, ex-
jailbird, narcotics addict, heavy-drinking,
fast-living black sheep son of a promi-
nent Kansas attorney. Hall had been ar-
rested in the Town House, a St. Louis
hotel. Mrs. Heady was taken in an apart-
ment at 4504 Arsenal Street in an exclu-
sive residential section of the city. John
Hager, a cab driver for the Ace Taxi Com-
pany, fingered the playboy extortionist
to the police.

“We drove to St. Louis after picking up
the money,” Hall told his interrogators.
“We didn’t stop all night. When we ar-
rived I bought two suitcases, emptied the
money from the duffel bag into them, and
threw the bag in a garbage can.

“We rented an apartment on Arsenal
Street, and started to drink. Bonnie and
I got into an argument. When she passed
out, I left, leaving about $2,000 with her.
I never did count the money that was in
the bag, but I knew it was a lot.

“I must have been a little out of my
head at that time. I asked a taxi driver to

get me a girl. He did, and we went to a’

motel in St. Louis County, staying there
all Monday night. I had the suitcases with
me all the time.”

Here's the story which John Hager, the
cab driver, tells. Another hackie had Hall
for a fare and wanted to dump him. He
asked Hager’s help. Hall changed cabs
and told his new driver that he wanted a
prostitute.

“I drove him out to Sandy O’Day’s,”
Hager says. Mrs. Sandra June O’Day, 22,
a five-foot-eight, 165-pound blonde, with
a string of arrests for prostitution, got
into the cab and accompanied the two
men to a bar. They had drinks, then Hall
shoved eighteen dollars in change at the
cabbie.

“You take this, John,” he said. “You're
a good sport.” :

ce
What a fare I’ve got here!” Hager ex-
claimed to himself. Then he began to get
suspicious. Suppose Hall was a cop who
was te to trap him for procuring him
a girl.

“I put it to him straight,” Hager said.
““T did all this for you as a favor,’ I said
to him. ‘You a cop?’ He laughed at that
one. ‘John,’ he said, “if you knew the
truth, you’d really get a kick out of it.’”

The truth slowly dawned on Hager. He
drove Hall and the girl to a motor court.
Hall tossed a fistful of twenty dollar bills
on the bed. He pulled out a .38 caliber re-
volver and let the light glint on its turn-
ing barrel.

_ “Ain’t this a beaut?” he asked, finger-
ing the gun.

Hager felt his flesh creep. He left the
pair at midnight, with instructions to re-
turn in the morning. 2

He called for Sandy early the next day.
Hall was in a tizzy. He wanted Sandy
brought back to town and gave her a let-
ter which he wanted mailed. But he didn’t
want it mailed in any ordinary way. He
gave the gir! $1,000, with instructions to
fly to California and post the letter from
there.

On the drive back to town, Sandy told
Hager that Hall had opened up one of the
suitcases and that there seemed to be “a
million bucks stashed away in there.”

56

Se
Hager jammed on the brakes, and looked
the girl over. “Let’s take a gander at that
letter he give you,” he said.

“I’m scared to,” Sandy said.

“I’m scared not to,” the cabbie told
her grimly. :

They tore open the letter and read it.
There were just a few words addressed to
an attorney in St. Joseph, Mo.

“Things are not going as good as they
should,” the note read. “May have to leave
ge be by ship or by plane. (signéd)

arly

The prostitute and the cab driver

looked at each other.

“What do you make of it?” Sandy
asked.

“Honey,” Hager said, “what name did
that guy give you?” ; ;

“Steve:” /

“He give me Steve, too. How come
he’s writing as Carl?”

“Tt must be Steve ain’t his name,” the
girl said.

Hager dropped the girl at her home and
went back to call for “Steve.” Hall wanted
“a nice room in a quiet place to lay low for
about a month until the heat dies off.”

Hager brought him to the Town House,
where Hall was given apartment 303. Hall
gave the cabbie $1,000 with instructions
to buy him a complete outfit of new
clothes. .

“And bring me up another broad to-
night, John,” the extortionist instructed.
“A young chick. Something fancy. Show
up about 8 o’clock. Knock three times and
I’ll let you in.”

The cabbie was worried. He decided
there was only one thing to do. He tele-
phoned to Police Lieutenant Shoulders of
the Newstead Avenue District. This call
was made at 3:30.

“Lieutenant,” Hager said, “meet me
about 7:30 tonight at Union and Pershing.
I'll give you something hot. I don’t know
what it is, but it’s a big guy with a big
revolver and he’s been spending too much
money. Let’s do this on the q.t. ’m afraid
of this guy, and I don’t want to get my-
self killed.”

The story now shifts to Lieutenant
Shoulders, who gives the following ac-
count: “I took Patrolman Elmer Dolan
with me to the meeting at Union and
Pershing. Our informant was there and
he told us that the man he suspected was
in apartment 303 of the Town House and
was expecting him.

“He said he agreed to take a girl to the
apartment at 8 o'clock and the man would
not be suspicious. We were instructed to
knock three times and call out, ‘Steve, this
is John.’

“We went to the apartment and Dolan.

knocked on the door and gave the signal
—'Steve, this is John.’ A man in the apart-
ment said ‘Okay,’ and apenes the door. I
had my gun out and shoved it into his
stomach, backing him to the wall. ‘One
false move and I'll shoot your belly full,
I told him. He was in handcuffs before he
could say ‘boo,’ We'placed him under im-
mediate arrest, and when we searched
we found a .38 caliber revolver in the
room and $700 in his wallet.

“There were two new suitcases in the
apartment, and when I opened them, uf
could see they were full of money. It
turned out later to be $300,000, all in ten
and twenty dollar bills. As soon as I saw

that cash I knew our prisoner must be ©

one of the Kansas City kidnapers. It hit

‘ me just like that. I knew it had to be the

payoff on the Greenlease boy. ‘Mister,’ I
said to him, ‘you’re hooked. We know all
about you.” |

“And that’s when he almost floored me
with his remark: ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I

knew when you put that gun in my belly
that it was all up with me.’”

Hall told the lieutenant where Mrs.
Heady could be found. Asked about the
boy, he said that Tom Marsh, an accom-
plice, had the child under guard.

“T saw the boy Saturday, and I know he
was living,” he said.

Shoulders and two plainclothesmen
quietly arrested Mrs. Heady. She made
no attempt to resist arrest. When taken,
she was found to have $2,000 and a pearl-
handled revolver in her handbag. Bonnie’s
iace was bruised and puffy from a recent
beating. She claimed Hall had given her a
going over.

There was no immediate publicity on
the arrests. The police thought it best to
work quietly and as quickly as possible to
save the child. Chief Jeremiah O’Connell
notified FBI agents in charge of the St.
Louis office. J. Edgar Hoover in Wash-
ington knew the facts a few minutes later.
G-then throughout the Midwest were im-
mediately alerted to shake down all the
motels around Pittsburgh and Kansas
City, in the hope of finding Tom Marsh
and the boy—alive.

Thomas John Marsh was well known
to the police, although from the very first
it was seriously doubted that he was in

. any way implicated in the case. He

seemed to be, from the onset, a conven-
jent invention of Hall and Bonnie Heady
to mask the gruesome truth of what had
actually happened to little Bobby.

Arrested thirty-four times in his adult
life, Tom Marsh, a wino and a weakling,
was a known sex offender who had been
arrested several times as a degenerate.
He had served time for molesting little
boys and had a long record for larceny.
Fogged by a life devoted to continuous
vice and depravity, he was known to be a
sadist and completely irresponsible. The
police flashed an immediate forty-eight
state alarm for the suspect and began a
race against time to locate him in the
Missouri area.

By morning, when the imprisoned pair,
Cari Hall and-Bonnie Heady, had made
their full statements, the FBI announced
that there was no doubt that'the boy was
dead. Even as the announcement was
made, workers under the supervision of
the St. Joseph police, had found the child’s
grave behind Mrs. Heady’s home in that
city. The boy had been buried under a
newly planted flower bed.

Dirt and mud-caked shoes were found
in Mrs. Heady’s cellar. There was also a
shovel, the long-handled post-hole type,
which was found in the-home. It became
of paramount importance’ to discover
when the shovel had been bought, when
the lime which lined the grave had been
acquired, and when the flowers had been
purchased prior to planting. The answers
to these questions could well establish
whether Hall was telling the truth with
regard to the circumstances of the boy’s
death.

According to Hall and Mrs. Heady, the
boy had been turned over to Tom Marsh
on the day of the kidnaping. The con-
spirators had separated after arranging a
rendezvous at Mrs. Heady’s St. Joseph
home. Hall claimed that when he arrived
there on the 28th, he found the boy’s body,
a bullet hole through the head, in the
basement. A gun, a .38 caliber revolver
which Hall claimed.to have lent to Tom
Marsh, was found. beside the body—ac-

‘cording to Hall’s statement. It was the

same weapon which Lieutenant

-Shoulders found in Hall’s hotel room at

the Town House.
Despite the fact that the child was dead,
Hall said, he decided to go ahead with the

ransom ni
ligious m:
and sent i

actually held t!

Bonnie knew :

even the fact th
* naped.

“She loves n

done anything |!
the impression t
son by a for:

wanted the kid,

to get him. She

dered. I gave h

interested in g

buy some potte
grave that I du;

Thus the
Greenlease fan
struck at the |
which chilled ;
Feeling, whic!
flared into 0;
mobs gathered
oners were he!
7, Hall and his
arraigned befor
sioner Edward

It was at this
to probe the c:
had been relat:
felt sure that 7
implicated in
doubted that |
since a nationw
ate had turned
knew the back:
they could not
sense to succe
dragnet which
him, Grudging!
weight of pub!
rant #vas issu
G-men.

The ransom
the case were
examinations <
Bonnie F
every o1
over the
Hall had __.
step by his fo
ing, and exami
criminal backg
tortionist, the
if Hall was in
vicious kidnay

Their survei!
strengthened
masterminded
didn’t measure
other hand, s«
perpetual stu;
eral appearan:
knew nothing
meantime, the
of the redheac
mesh of a fine
she was an al
than one occa
her home.

She had be:
spree on May
filed by the m
scuffle for a ¢

The redhea:
upon her rele:
She was alway)
another, and
torious in the
once been res

But the F}
ested in the «
they were int
in the crime. °
Bobby had *
Katz parking
nie’s name. |
stains, was


30

teachers’ association. His announcement convinced the
police that they had to deal with an organized gang of
professional extortionists.

Robert Greenlease took. some small degree of comfort
from this inference. He felt more hopeful, he asserted.
Professionals would be interested primarily in getting
money, and would be less likely to harm the child. Had the
plump redhead’s action been the manifestation of a deranged
mind, there would be more serious cause for alarm.

The public did not know that on the night of Wednesday,
September 30, the kidnapers contacted the Greenlease
family again. This time, Bobby’s mother, Virginia Green-
lease, asked to be permitted to talk with the extortionist.
She was obsessed by two questions. Was Bobby actually in
the caller’s hands, and was the little boy still alive? She
spoke to the caller and asked him to satisfy her on two
points of information which could only come from Bobby.

““Ask him the name of the driver who drove our car
when we were abroad in Europe last summer,” she de-
manded. ,

“All right. Anything else?” .

“Yes. Ask Bobby what he built for us with his blocks the
last night he was in his playroom.”

The contact said he would call back with these answers.
He actually did call back, but only to say that Bobby was un-
cooperative and would not answer the questions, However,
he pointed out that since he had already sent Mrs. Green-
lease her son’s religious. medal, she had no worry on the
score that she was doing business with the “right party.”

It was not the best argument in the world, but the un-
happy mother had no choice other than to agree—and
pray.

In that same Wednesday night telephone conversation,
Mr. Greenlease received the further instructions for which
he had been waiting regarding the payment of the ransom.
He was directed to go to a certain mailbox in metropolitan

’
/

A mechanical pencil like this, advertising the Greenlease
auto company, was carried by Bobby and found at murder site.

At left: Bereaved Greenlease family emerges: from mau-
soleum where Bobby was interred. The girl is his sister.
At right: According to the FBI, this is the murder spot.
In right background, agents are shown digging in wheat
stubble as they seek bullet which killed Bobby. The
site is about twelve miles from downtown Kansas City.

Kansas City. He was to find a slip of paper with additional
instructions pasted to the inside of the lid. This mailbox
was within ten blocks of the Katz Drug Store where Bobby
had last been seen.

Bob. Ledterman and Norbert O’Neill, another business
associate of Greenlease, loaded the duffel bag full of money
into a car and drove off. They arrived back at the Green-
lease home, tired and disgusted, shortly after dawn. They
had found the mailbox and the instruction sheet. From
there on, the going got rough.

“Tt was an impossible trip,” Ledterman revealed. “We
just couldn’t follow those instructions. First we were told
to pick up a letter, Then we were directed someplace else.
Then we were told to change cars. It was getting daylight,
and we couldn’t do it. We had to stop.”

This unsuccessful night run was followed by an angry

telephone call from the kidnapers.

“You di
man, “You
yqu one m

Ledterm:
instructions
He express
reasonably

It was n
explain to
“apathetic <
should rea!

ment or m
injury to t!
express per

The Gre
indignation
were addr¢


emerges: from mau-
he girl is his sister.
is the murder spot.
vn digging in wheat
killed Bobby. The
ntown Kansas City.

aper with additional
> lid. This mailbox
Store where Bobby

ill, another business
bag fufl of money
back at the Green-
tly after dawn. They
ruction sheet. From

rman revealed. “We

First we were told
ected someplace else.
was getting daylight,

slowed by an angry

“You didn’t do it!” A man’s voice screamed at Ledter-
man, ‘You're playing with fire. I’m only going to give
you one more chance.”

Ledterman calmed the man down. He explained that the
instructions had been too involved and impossible to foll®w.
He expressed his willingness to do anything which could
reasonably be done.

It was now Thursday. Chief Brannon was hard put to
explain to an angry public what was considered an

“apathetic attitude on the part of the officials.” “Everybody
should realize,” Brannon said, “that an ill advised state-
ment or move on the part of the police might result in
injury to the child. We will not make a move without the
express permission of the parents. We are marking time.”

The Greenlease kidnaping had stirred a wave of public
indignation all over the United States. Hundreds of letters»
were addressed to the anguished parents—now under the

Kidnapers crossed state line into Kansas, making them
liable under the Lindbergh Law. Slaying occurred Pe! te, ag

constant care of their physician—offering sympathy and
even their services as intermediaries.

In Washington, D. C., William C. Doherty of the AFL
National Association of Letter Carriers, asked 120,000
postmen all over the nation to be on the lookout for the
kidnapers.

“Letter carriers are not detectives by nature, but they
might just turn up the evidence needed to find the boy,” he
said, “After all, postmen visit practically every home and
office building in America.”

Members of the ministries of all faiths offered to make
appeals on Bobby’s behalf from the pulpits in churches all
over the country. Three quarters of the television and
radio stations in the United States used their facilities to
trdnsmit regular bulletins about Bobby Greenlease. His
picture and description were featured on the front pages
of the country’s press. The public shock was the greater
since there had been no major kidnaping in the United
States in nearly a decade.

The disappearance of professional snatchers from the
criminal scene was due in large part to the untiring efforts
of the FBI since the enactment of the Lindbergh Kidnap
Law in 1932. Since that time only two out of 459 abduction
cases have gone unsolved. With the federal government
taking a hand in the investigation of kidnap cases, the hard
headed businessman of the underworld shun the snatch
racket as the one type of crime least likely to pay off.

If the public sought some solace in the brilliant record
of the G-men with regard to cracking kidnap cases, the
federal agents were themselves more than a little appre-
hensive about thé Greenlease case. It was an ominous note
that the two unsolved cases on their books involved chil-
dren, both of whom had been found murdered.

Charles Matson, 10, abducted from his Tacoma, Wash.,
home in December of 1936, was found dead fifteen days
later. Peter Levine, snatched on February 24, 1938, in New
Rochelle, N. Y., was discovered dead more than two months
later. In each of these cases the abductors had become
frightened and had broken off contact. As a result, no
ransom had changed hands. It seemed of vital importance,
therefore, that no impediment of police activity be per-
mitted to disrupt ransom negotiations in the Greenlease
case if the stricken parents were ever to see-their boy again.

It was a hard thing for the police to sit around on their
hands doing nothing while a [Continued on page 55]

Arthur Eisenhower, left, brother of the President, gathered
together the ransom money. Below; Norbert O’Neill, left,
and Robert;Ledterman tell reporter how they delivered money.


the fran-

ered and

it, sir?”
“Otte.

me into the

said Mr.

t had made
it was fot
ulders spas-
ns ushered
r. She even
ned to her
vagaries of

in the mid-
e shadow of
n. She tried
lot gO away.
for the rest
e night. The
her Sunday
rate visit to
»secutor for
rt order the
iwn up and
ald Morely
court.
-esented Mr.
ng. He even
iece of evi-
ich Morely
is coatsleeve
< Mrs. Per-
stocked and
d punctilio,
orted to be
was not im-

f 4dpis, order
imen  repre-
: Morely, “it
t the bee un-
*. the de-
that you
and that

i nue of four

Murderous Duo and the
Kidnaped Heir

[Continued from page 31]

couple of human rats kept uncontested
possession of a small boy who was com-
pletely at their mercy. Yet in just this
suspension of official activity lay the only
chance to recover little Bobby alive.

The Greenlease negotiations hung in
the tenuous balance of conflicting sus-
picions. The family was proceeding com-
pletely in the dark. The abductors, on the
other hand, were fearful of tapped wires,
of police traps, of marked money, of the
thousand and one hazards which might
sour the caper and deliver them into the
hands of the law. There was no progress
in the negotiations until Friday night.
O'Neill and Ledterman were instructed
to make another night run. This time,
following their newest instructions to the
letter, they actually dropped the eighty-
five pound sack of money at a point to
which they were directed. When they re-
turned to the Greenlease home, the kid-
naper called and told them to recover the
money where they had dropped it and to
wait for word of a final run the next
morning. This was done.

At 11 am. on Saturday, the contact
called and instructed Ledterman to go to
a hotel and await a second call in a public
phone booth. Ledterman did this. At half
past 11 that night, the call finally came
through. Jittery and nervous, the contact
gave the intermediary the final instruc-
tions for delivering the ransom. It was to
be dropped from a highway bridge into a
culvert as per these instructions : “400 feet
east of the intersection of U. S. 40 Alter-
nate and about four-fifths of a mile east
of the point that County Highway 7-E
enters the main thoroughfare.”

The money was deposited in the culvert
by Ledterman and O’Neill, who then
drove back to the Greenlease home. Al-
most as soon as they arrived they re-
ceived-a call from the kidnapers saying
that the money had been received and
that the boy would soon be home.

“When?” Ledterman demanded.

“You'll get a wire from Western
Union.”

Ledterman had taken so much during
the past week. He tried to restrain him-
self, but he couldn’t. “I sure would like to
meet you some day,” he said to the sneer-
ing voice on the other end of the wire.

“You never will,” the contact answered,
and hung up.

No telegram came that night, nof the
next day, nor the next. It was not until
Tuesday, October 6, that the crushed
Greenlease family learned the harrowing
news. At that, they learned it only min-
utes before the curdling truth blazed in
banner headlines across the front pages
of newspapers everywhere.

Bobby Greenlease was dead.

His tiny body had been found moulder-
ing in quicklime in a secret grave behind
a neat two-story frame house in St.
Joseph, Mo. There was a bullet in his
head, and his decomposing features still
bore the marks of a brutally frightful
beating.

There was more news, too; news that
stirred public fury to white heat. The
bloated redhead and her confederate—the
master mind whose sneering voice had
dictated the ransom terms over the tele-
phone—were in police custody. The

enormity of the unspeakablé crime was ,
compounded a thousand-fold by the chill-

EARN EXTRA MONEY-1S1

on

It’s easy for YOU to earn extra money—as much as $15.00 in a day in spare
time or full time—with this big, valuable Sample Case we send you FREE.
It’s jam-packed with over 150 samples of beautiful suit and overcoat fabrics
for you to show to friends, fellow-workers, and others. Then you just take
orders for fine quality made-to-measure clothes—and YOU POCKET A BIG
CASH PROFIT ON EVERY ORDER! No experience, no knowledge of
tailoring needed—and no money needed, ever. We supply everything FREE
—samples, style portfolio, complete order-taking equipment and simple instruc-
tions for taking measures. We guarantee complete satisfaction to every cus-
tomer. You can start making money the first day! Mail coupon below now.

Your Own Personal Suits
Without 1¢ of Cost!

We want you to wear on md our fine suits.
When men see the ex expert an ring the superb fit,
quality and value—THEY ‘ORD Ri That's why
we make it easy for you to get your own suite and
overcoats without ‘paying even one Leong oth
wait! Rush the coupon with your name

and age for your F SAMPL. SABE ODT

STONE-FIELD CORP., Dept. H-939
532 S. Throop Street - Chicago 7, Wlinols

IN Al
DAY |

In Just Spare Time

WITH THIS

No Experience Needed’, ¢ %

STONE-FIELD CORP., Dept. H-939

t
! 532 S. Throop $t., Chicago 7, itl, :
4 Please rush ABSOLUTELY FREE the raluatie Sample _
y Case with sult fabrics and style dis Include in- 5

structions, money-making plans and etails for getting

: my own suits without DAyIAg one cent, ;
ESO a ete u
H [itsegerersunsecsers ree RM s cigs be dase }
: pe PCP eee EERE ELT OO ERE TERE Ce ee '
H (2 Seer kere ere eR Pak 7 rere de ae ee .
Dhara ell habe hey at cat DBS eee Re ads ON

277TH
| Build a Better Future with U. S. SAVINGS BONDS =
& NC
*
IN THE NORTH WOODS!
TTI LIL Li a

Gold Medal Original Novel —

Never Before Published

"Timberjack

empire—
He fought for o lumber
snd for o woman te rule with hie

Buy this
Gold Medal Book

at your ‘ocal news dealer

by Dan Cushman

With ax handles and bare fists,
Tim Chipman fought the mur-
derous greed of Brunner, the
monatch of the forests. They
were two big men battling for a
lumber empire—and for the
woman to rule with the winner!

If your dealer is sold out send only 25¢ plus 5¢ for postage
and wrapping to GOLD MEDAL BOOKS, FAWCETT PUBLICA.
TIONS, GREENWICH, CONN. Canadian orders not accepted.

w
ow


MAN BEHIND THE KIDNAP

continued

Hager: He drove the cab, told po-
lice when tips were much too large.

toil and getting honest money for the work he was doing.

The elaborate plans to put Carl to work ‘did no good..
Hoag recalled that he often stopped at the large two-story
Hall residence, one of the finest homes in the community,
to talk with Carl’s father. But any- effort to draw out the
boy was to no avail. He was sullen and quiet and refused
to warm up. ~ ;

As the years passed, Carl kept getting into more difficulty
at school. His father, busy with his law practice, didn’t
have much time for his son and when the boy continued
to get in trouble he enrolled him at Kemper Military Acad-
emy ip. Boonville, Mo. ;

Kemper is a. noted school, and sons from some of the

wealthiest families in the Midwest attended while Carl was

there. One of Carl’s classmates was a handsome youth from
Kansas City, Paul Greenlease, an adopted son of Robert C.
Greenlease, a pioneer in the automobile industry who was
reputed to be the second richest man in Kansas City.

But military school was still not the right medicine for:

the incorrigible Carl. He returned to Pleasanton, boastful,

Sandy liked a good time, but she knew what she should be paid for it and it
wasn’t with suitcases full of $20 bills. She confided her worries to a cabbie.

aggressive and a: continual trial to his mother who had re-

‘cently been widowed. He bragged openly of his affairs

with women and was once threatened with a criminal charge
by one of the girls with whom he had associated.

It was his mother who paid $2000 to keep her son, out of
jail, but she knew that it was a losing battle. Her son was
never going to be the man she had worked and planned
and dreamed for. ;

She arranged to have Carl join the marines. It was a
few years before‘World War II. She sent him money reg-
ularly and more when he demanded it, but rules and regula-
tions were not for Carl Hall. He spent much of his time

in the brig.

PEOPLE in Pleasanton washed their hands of the surly
Carl. He was headed for trouble, they agreed—serious
trouble. '
Hall was in the South Pacific with the marines when his
mother died in a Kansas City Hospital in May, 1944.
Friends of the woman said she died of a broken heart.

Hall, releas:

in 194 ~~ 1
born.

in wh¢
Fletcher. Fle

Carl Hall was
told him that
shal. d

Shortly afte
Fletcher on th
Hall told hin
money.”

It was July
to Hall. In a

left a small t:
to receive $50
how Carl woy
it that he had

After their cg

u? You don’t
it want a baby,

ped me. She

at again—ever,’
iat again.’
* handled steak
It was on a
aer on the bed.
ife and -I came
o her. I don’t
of times, and
I killed her.
im too, Charlie
confess, because
hen confess.”

”

beside her and

s the last time .

all day Satur-
t up meats, and

The legs were
ave taken them
ie suitcases, be-
found them in
2 packages late
’ Sunday. Her-
don’t remember
re garbage can.

on Saturday
room. I
es I’d been

aer body in my
f all the labels.
that other suit-
a good-looking
ited a suitcase
ut of it.’ Jim-
concerned with
1 the matter.

’olice Commis-
aid, “We broke
ours—a ‘ darned
believe me, we

ag Jimmy Lew,
o do is sleep—

Charles Moyer
person who was
idents described
used to avoid
nt person.

sneering retort.
time that Hall
‘4 ON an assault

fall, dapper in
e, pleaded guilty
»e robbery. His
lant ‘be given a
judge reminded
ive requested it

on each of-
ntly, Judge
verbal: lashing:
ded out money
more without

tf

Folks in. Pleasanton accepted the report
philosophically.. “Best thing that could hap-
pen to him,” was the consensus. “The peni-
tentiary will straighten him out.” aos

But they were figuring without the diaboli-
cal workings of Carl Hall’s warped mind.

From. the moment the gates of the Missouri
State Penitentiary clanked shut behind Hall,
he began mulling over a plan to get big motiey.
Working for it, of course, was out of the ques-

tion.. The. hot checks he cashed and. the -

stick-ups he pulled had netted him paltry
amounts. Carl Austin. Hall was ready to try
something that paid off not in nickels and.
dimes or even in thousands. He was going
to try for hundreds of thousands.

- In a prison cell he had plenty of time to

think and to plan: His thoughts went back .
to-his school days at Kemper Military Acad-
emy ‘and to a classmate, Paul Greenlease. Carl
knew that Paul’s father, Robert C. Greenlease
Sr., was very wealthy, with a fortune in thé
millions. He knew that four years ago the
older Greenlease had become the father of a
boy—his own son, not an adopted child. He
remembered the lavish affection’ Greenlease had.
bestowed upon Paul. How much was , the
young boy worth to the old man? No price
would be too high.

Hall sweated it out in jail. Every month —

a-deputy sheriff came to see him and gave him
the $50 monthly allowance Hall’s mother left
in her -will. Fifty bucks a month. Fifty
lousy bucks a month. a

On April 24, 1953, having served only 16
months. of his. five year-sentence, Hall walked
out of prison on parole. A St. Joseph, Mo.,
attorney’ made the arrangements for the.
parolee’s residence and: job in St. Joseph.
Hall went.to work as an automobile salesman.

When he made. his monthly -report to the
parole board at St. Joseph, he told Francis

: J. Holley, state probation and parole officer ”

for the district, how glad he was to. be on the
outside and how he realized the errors of his
past ways.. os

ORE night, shortly after his release, Hall
was drinking up his mother’s $50 allow-
ance check in a St. Joseph tavern when he
saw a woman. She was a chunky brunette
in a tight-fitting dress that set Hall’s pulse to
pounding. And-she was really pouring down
the liquor. He introduced himself. Her -
name was Mrs. Bonnie Brown Heady and she
didn’t look her 41 years. :

“But don’t worry about the Mrs. in the ©
name,” she cracked. “I’m divorced. Was
married 20 years, but I’m divorced.”

Hall’s wife had divorced him, too, when he
got in trouble in Kansas City. There was
nothing to prevent.a Hall-Heady merger. He
moved into her two story home at the edge of
St. Joseph. It was a comfortable house, with

a_bar room decorated with pictures of nude

women. The house had a nice backyard en-

. closed in a high electrified wire fence.’ Two

Jarge boxer dogs romped in the backyard.
The house was furnished tastefully, and the
closets were jammed with expensive women’s
clothing. f pie
“Nothing but the best for me,” the Heady
woman told Hall as she showed him around.
She ‘confided thaf her father had left her
$40,000, in addition toa large farm. “But I’
ain’t got a dime of it left,” she said’ “Just
think of that, $40,000 my father left me- and
it’s all gone. But that’s me. I like to live
high.” Wat
Hall Jaughed.. This was his kind of a wom-

ideas. Big ones.”

ise

an, They. were as. alike as two pumpkin
seeds. He. pulled her towards him and

squeezed her soft shoulders. ~ cig

“Look, baby,” he whispered. “I like. to
live ‘high, too. We're both gonna live high.
You and me and plenty of dough. I got.

The next day he drove to Kansas City, then
out to suburban Mission Hills just across’ the
Kansas state line. - Mission Hills is one of the
wealthiest sections in the Midwest, an area of
fine homes, elaborate mansions, with large
rolling Jawns,. winding streets and hills. Hall

drove to Verona road ‘and slowed down at the

2900 block. ‘There was:a large rambling brick
house, set back from a spacious lawn and cir-
cular private driveway. Ivy covered the front
of the house, Four: Cadillacs were parked. in ‘

‘the driveway. sae

LAUGHTER came from a side yard shielded -

partly, from the street by a brick fence. A

' white French poodle scampered out of the

yard to the front lawn, chased by a small boy.
\. “Honey boy,” the lad shouted to the dog..
“Come here.” ‘ : f

The pup rolled on the thick green grass and
the boy grabbed and hugged the pet. He was
a gay child, full of life, with light brown hair
brushed. ovet his forehead, bright eyes and
a quick smile full of health and happiness. -

Hall watched until the boy was called in-
doors by ‘his governess then he. drove away.

That was just the“first of several trips into.
Kansas City, some of them past the large
house on Verona road, others past the French--
Institute of Notre Dame de Sion, an exclusive

Catholic school in ‘Kansas’ City, where Bobby

Greenlease was a student. . ,
In\the evenings Car] returned to: the Heady

home where he and Bonnie drank themselves

into twin stupors. Bonnie was an alcoholic

and Hall-stayed right, with her. Si

' Hall had left his job at. the auto agency and

taken one with an insurance company. He

had to have a steady. job to satisfy his parole

officer. F ; :

- On Friday, September 25, Hall made his

‘monthly visit to the. parole officer, Holley.

He filled out his report in routine fashion and
left. >

Three . days ‘later, on Monday, Hall and .

Bonnie drove to Kansas City in a new
Plymouth station wagon. Hall parked ‘in a
parking lot in back of a drugstore in the 3900
block of MainStreet. He looked down at
Bonnie. “Now you know what to do?”
Bonnie smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said.
“Pll be back shortly.” tals
She got’ out of the car‘and walked to a cab.
parked nearby. She told the driver to. take

‘her to the French Institute of Notre- Dame

de Sion ‘and to wait ‘for her.
Bonnie, dressed in a white blouse, skirt and

white gloves, walked confidently up the long

flight’ of steps to the large wooden door of
the school. Her ring was answered by a nun.

“Pm Bobby. Greenlease’s aunt,” Bonnie: told
the sister. “The child’s poor mother has just
suffered a heart attack while shopping in. the
plaza district. -I’d better ‘take him« right
home.” oak

‘The nun said a few.words in French, called
another nun and Bonnie told her the story.
The nun expressed her deep sorrow at hearing
of Bobby’s mother’s illness... re

“Tt will take me a few. minutes to. get the
child,” the nun told Bonnie. “Perhaps you

would like to say a prayer in the chapel for
his mother while I get him?” xt
! 4 . ¢ . ,!

Dae

“Bonnie went into the chapel and knelt as
in prayer. A few minutes later the nun
brought little Bobby. He was dressed in
brown linen shorts, brown shoes and a white
shirt. He was a quiet obedient lad and his
large. brown eyes looked at the woman. “I’m

‘not: a Catholic,” the woman told the nun:

“But it did me good to pray.”

. She took Bobby’s hand and they walked
to the waiting cab. She told the driver to
take. her back to the drugstore parking lot.
It was 11 a.m. .

. During the cab ride the woman asked Bob-
by about his two pet dogs and his black par-
rot. Bobby politely told her the parrot was
green. :

“Would you like some ice cream?” the wom-
an asked.

“Yes ma’m,” the ‘boy said.

The pair got out of the cab at the park-
ing lot. ‘

The cab driver was marking the trip on his
log,.when he saw the woman and boy walk
back into the’ parking lot. He thought it un-
usual that the woman would park her own
car, hire a taxi to make a trip and then re-

turn to the parked car. He wanted to see if

she actually got into a car, just to satisfy his
curiosity, but a driver behind him became
impatient and honked. The cabbie put his
car in gear and drove down the street.

. Bonnie and the boy got into the station
wagon and Hall stared at the boy and smiled.
Bobby looked up at the strange man, then he
looked at the woman and his face revealed his
bewilderment. :

“Now, Bobby,” Bonnie said. “We’re going
to get you some ice cream and a doggie.”

“T’d like that,” the boy said.

- Hall drove to the Plaza shopping district
where Bonnie got out.

“Meet you here in an’ hour and'a half,” he
said, then drove off with the boy.

Bonnie window shopped at the most expen-
sive dress houses. Then she went into a bar
and drank six highballs.- © .

Back at the school, several nuns were’ dis-
cussing their concern over the condition of
Mrs. Greenlease.

“What hospital is the poor woman in?”
one nun asked.

The other nuns didn’t know.

TH nun telephoned the Greenlease house.
“Can you please tell me what hospital Mrs.
Greenlease was taken to?” she asked.

The woman who ‘answered the phone was
surprised at the question. “There must be
‘some mistake,” she said. “This is Mrs. Green-
lease.”

The nun ‘called the police.

Later that afternoon’ a letter addressed to -

Robert C. Greenlease Sr. at 2920 Verona road
was intercepted at the post. office. The let-
ter was examined by Police Chief Bernard C.
Brannon and the alarmed parents at the
Greenlease home.

The letter was printed in pencil and de-
manded a ransom of $600,000 for the return

of the boy. Mrs. Greenlease fainted.

Quivering with emotion, the 71-year-old
father looked at the note over and over
again. It was considered a genuine message
from the kidnapers, as they would be the only
ones at that time who could have known about
the boy’s abduction. :

The letter bore instructions for Greenlease
to get $600,000 in $10 and $20 bills, with the
bank notes from the 12 federal reserve dis-
tricts, apparently to thwart any attempt to


vaid for it and it
cries to a cabbie.

ther who had re-
ly of his affairs
a criminal charge
ciated.

ep her son, out of
le. Her son was
ked and planned

irines. It was a
him money reg-
rules and regula-

much of his time

inds of the surly
agreed—serious

marines when his
1 May, 1944.
cen heart.

Hall, released from the marines, returned to Pleasanton
in 1946 and to the big two-story house in which he was
born. He was bitter and unfriendly. One of the few people
in whom he confided was the town constable, John W.
Fletcher. Fletcher was the marshal in Pleasanton when
Carl Hall was a little boy, and remembered that Carl once
told him that when he grew up he would like to be a mar-
shal.

Shortly after Hall's release from the marines, he ran into
Fletcher on the street. “People have their noses up at: me,”
Hall told him. “They’re jealous because I’m getting big
money.”

It was July 1, 1946, when the rich estate was turned over
to Hall. In addition to the. money and lands, he was also
left a small trust fund by his mother, from which he was
to-receive-$50 a month. Most folks said his mother knew
how Carl would react to big money, ‘and wanted to see to
it that he had at least something steady coming 4n.

After their confessions, special cells, away from an angry moh: he with a 24-hour guard; she with a spotlighted bed.

Carl didn’t even need the paltry monthly sum. He had
close to a quarter of a million dollars and he saw to it that
his money not only talked, it shouted. He bought two air-
planes, hired pilots,"and went into the crop dusting busi-
ness. This failed. Next there was a liquor store, then
another one, and finally a distributing company of hospital
radio equipment in Kansas City.

The ventures were sound enough, but Hall was not.» He
ran his business affairs as he ran his life, in slipshod fashion.
Much of: his fortune went for Cadillac convertibles, wild
liquor parties, and affairs with women that touched off one
scandal after another.

He broke up one marriage in Pleasanton, married the
woman and moved to Kansas City. He gambled heavily at
dice tables and with horse bookmakers. Just how long it
took him to-run through a quarter of a million dollars is
not known exactly, but it is believed he was broke 18
months after he got the estate. (Continued on page 62)


of eight cab driver stickups.. In his confes-
sion, he told police he was tired of getting -
a few pale. poke from sb divest, and t:

Lew and Moyer were held overnight and
were released the following morning—
Monday. Both men, however, were being
trailed. —~

“Both model homes. Their rooms are as
clean as whistles,” a detective told Inspector
Leggett. “If there’s blood in either one of
them, you’re going to need a miscroscope to
find it.. But we did find this.” He placed
a little silver box on the inspector’s desk.
“Sixteen decks of heroin in it. We found it
in Lew’s room.’

Leggett then had brought’ in a waitress, a
friend of Florence’s who was also a known
dope addict. “Yeah, that’s hers all right,”
the waitress told Leggett.

“She just showed it to me about a ‘week
ago. I remember because she said, ‘This is
my own private little dream world, dearie..
Right here in this silver box.’”

“Get Lew,” was Leggett’s direction: “He's
seen her, all’ right, since he came back to
town.”

Just before Lew was , brought atk into. his
office, Inspector Leggett took. Florenice’s pri-
vate little dream world—her silver jewel box—
and placed it on his desk. Just another item
among the stacks of paper, the. inkwell and

‘pens, the paper weights and cigaret boxes. In
fact, it could have been just another cigaret’

box.

“You just sit there, Jimmy,” the inspector
said. “We know we're taking up a lot of your
time, but maybe you can tell us some things
we ought to know about our friend Florence.”

Lew sat opposite Inspector Leggett. He
was a small man, just a bit over. five feet,
with a face that looked as if it'had been
carved out of ivory and had yellowed with
time. He focused his black eyes on the: in-
spector. “I don’t know what I'can tell you.”
Then his eyes dropped to the desk.. -_He looked
at -the silver box, but didn’t blink.

For several hours, he played a gentle game
of question and answer with Leggett, trying
to reconstruct as best he could’ for the. in-
spector what had happened between Florence
and himself for the past year or more: But
Jimmy Lew’s eyes kept wandering down from
the inspector’s face, gliding lightly across the
inspector’s desk.and coming to rest, time and
again, on the silver box that had been: Flor-
ence’s,

“No, I haven’t seen her since I came back
to town,” he said once, staring at the box.

“That wasn’t what I asked you.”

$y 4b Ard vB ER

“My ‘back aches. I’ve been sitting here so
long, my, back aches,” Jimmy Lew complained.

“It’s a hard life, isn’t it, Jimmy?” Inspec-
tor Leggett sympathized. He then hada cop
come in. Lew was permitted to lie on.a
couch in Leggett’s office while the cop mas-
saged his back. After that,-the questioning
was resumed, but Lew seemed less and less
able to concentrate on the questioning; less
and less able to keep als eyes off the little
silver box.

He failed to puff on the cigdret he was hold-
ing. He let it’ dangle loosely from his fin-
gers. He regarded the box and then the in-
spector. “I didn’t see her, you understand—
not since. Connecticut.” Then suddenly he
let out a sharp little cry and sprang to his,

feet.. The ‘cigaret had. burned down. to. his.

fingers... He put two fingers into. his: mouth.
“I burned myself,” ‘he whimpered.

Then he sat down. “I want to eat,” he
said quietly. “I’m : very . hungry. Spanish
beef stew’... . if I can have some Spanish
beef stew, I'll tell you about. it, because'I did
see her, -I guess I. killed her.” i

IMMY. eae was ro wie the meal he re-
- quested. Then he. told the police what
had_ happened.

“I quit up in New. Britsin--actually” T like .

Connecticut—because I wanted to check up on

Florence. -She’d been living with .me. And

she loved:me very much, only she was always
getting mixed up with miserable little people.

She couldn’t ‘stay away from men.. I knew

about -Charlie Moyer. He's .a : dope and no
good for’her:. She. needs me, . yay ae she
did. ” "

“When did you see “her?” the dotpector
asked: aif

a} | was with her all day Pridays t went to
that Reaaiaditis We started’ making love. I
- ‘said, ‘You'd: better come to. my place because :

what if. Charlie: Moyer comes ‘back??. |She’d
told him, to. go away, she said, but she‘ knew
he might come back... He was always coming
back, ; He’s like a little puppy dog. +.
“We went to my place. I said things about
him and she got angry. ‘I said he was a pup-
py. I said he didn’t know how to. make love,
was no good for her...I wanted to see how
she felt about, him. She: said she just might
marry him because he’d asked her to and I

‘ ‘hadn't:and anyway she liked him.

“Then I said, ‘You already made one big’

mistake, erence, and ed you're sing to:

ww.

make another one, aren’t you? You don’t
want a man, do you? ° You just want a baby,
don’t you?’ Then she slapped me. She

‘slapped me hard. ‘Don't do that again—ever,’
_I said. ‘Don’t you ever do that again.’

“But she did..I had a bone-handled steak
knife, I useeit when I coqk. It was on a
shelf. We’d been sitting together on the bed.
I.just got up and got my knife and I came
back and started putting it into her. I don’t
know how many times—lots of times, and
she tried to fight with me, but I killed her.

“And I was going to kill him too, Charlie
Moyer. That’s why I didn’t confess, because
I wanted to get him first and then confess.”

“When did it happen?”

@“Saturday morning—about 3.”
“Then what did you do?”
“T was tired. I lay down beside her and

went to sleep.- I knew it was the last time .

I. would ‘sleep with her. Then all day Satur-

day I cut her up, just like I cut up meats, and

packed her into two suitcases. The legs were
in a suitcase. Someone must have taken them
out so.that they could have the suitcases, ‘be-
cause that janitor said he just found them in
the garbage. I got rid-of.the packages late
Saturday night: or maybe early Sunday. Her-
head was ina paper bag. I don’t remember
exactly ‘where I. left it—in some garbage can.
Also the:knife.

“T didn’t take the packages out on Saturday
night until ‘I. had cleaned :up my room. I
scrubbed everything. All the clothes I’d been
wearing. I wrapped parts of her body in my
underwear, but first I took off all the labels.
I guess somebody. just picked that other suit-
case up and decided it was a good-looking
suitcase. He must have wanted a suitcase
pretty badly to take two legs out of it.” Jim-
my, Lew seemed genuinely concerned with
* someone's lack of propriety in the matter.

. It was.Monday night. Police Commis-
sioner ‘George P. Monaghan said, “We broke
‘this case in less. than-40 hours—a. darned

*. good job of teamwork. And believe me, we

worked round the clock,”

Everyone was tired, including Jimmy Lew,
who said, “Now all I want to do is sleep—
for about three days.”

 Eprroe’s: Norte: The. name Charles Moyer
is not the actual name of the person who was
in fact a participant in the incidents described
in this article. The name is used to avoid
embarrassment to this innocent person.

Man Behind the Kidnap

ps 2

continued from” » page 2L

In 1948 he tried to’ borrow money at. two

banks and was turned down: He said he
wanted to open up more liquor stores. The
banks, both of which had held some of his
estate in their vaults, considered him a poor

Carl’s name and antics were again the chief

. source of conversation in the little Midwestern -

town,

Hall had been arrested September 16 after
holding up a cab driver at pistol point, and
within a few hours he confessed to’ a series

For awhile, the people in Pleasanton forgot.
-about this wastrel son, but in December, 1951,

he was Sr eaatisg! to rob a tarsal City’ bank |
when’ the ‘officer arrested’him in a cafe. Hall

had reached for his gun-and was: knocked flat
by. ac petrolmnan: ie

R AX
zt ee

AT headiarteck” Ball ‘talked’ ‘teeely.’ Se:

«told how he had run through the huge in-

‘heritance, and that he was getting $50 a:‘month

under pegeces of his mother’s will, He said
before ‘he“started the stick-up routine, he got
enough | live on by passing worthless checks

* at Kansas ‘City “hospitals. ‘He admitted also
passing bad. checks in Chicago and. California.

One ‘of the. officers, ‘sickened at’ Hall's ‘cocky
attitude, said: “Maybe you should have stayed
marines.”

in the

“was © the former  cadet’s

€. sneering retort.
‘Police also learned at that time that Hall

was wanted in Kingman, Ariz., on an assault

charge.
On December 20, 1951, Hall, dapper in
“sports coat, slacks and mustache, pleaded guilty
to two charges of first-degree robbery. His’
attorney requested the defendant be given a
psychiatric examination. .The judge reminded
the lawyer that he should have requested it
_ before the trial came up,

In sentencing Hall to five years on each of-
fense,- to «be served concurrently, Judge
‘Thomas R. Hunt gave -him a verbal: lashing:
“You had'a family that handed out money

freely, and you tried to eet more without

tin

Folks in Pleasa)
philosophically. “B
pen to him,” was |

tentiary will straj
But they we
cal workings o

From the momen
State Penitentiary
he began mulling ov
Working for it, of c
tion. The hot ch
stick-ups he pullec
amounts. Carl Au:
something that pa)
dimes or even in |
to try for hundreds

In a prison cell
think and to plan.
to-his school days
emy ‘and to a classi
knew that Paul’s fa
Sr., was very wealt
millions. He knew
older Greenlease hz
boy—his own son,
remembered the lav
bestowed upon Pz
young boy worth t
would be too high

Hall sweated it
a deputy sheriff can
the $50 monthly al
in her will. Fift:
lousy bucks a mon

On April 24, 19:
months of his five
out of prison on p
attorney’ made tt
parolee’s residence
Hall went.to work

When he made
parole board at S:

' J. Holley, state pi

for the district, ho.
outside and how h

past ways..

QOrE night,
was dri
ance check in a

saw a woman. S!
in a tight-fitting di
pounding. And sh

(the liquor. He

name was Mrs. Bo
didn’t look her 41

“But don’t wor
name,” she cracl
married 20 years, |

Hall’s wife had «
got in trouble in
nothing to prevent
moved into her tw
St. Joseph. It wa
a_bar room decor:
women. The hou:

. Closed in a high «

‘large boxer dogs
The house was fv
closets were jamm
clothing.
“Nothing but th
woman told Hall
She ‘confided th

$40,000, in additio

ain’t got a dime «
think of that, $40.
it’s all gone. But
; ”

‘ Hall laughed.. 7

Le eT

Solving the Greenlease case should have brought Louis Shoulders fame but it meant dis
officers, are shown here with Bonnie Heady and Carl Hall, the two who kidnaped an

~” .

which was a novelty in our neighbor-
hood, I quit school before completing
the eighth grade. This was a mistake
and one which I have regretted and
have attempted to amend since. I al-
ways have been embarrassed by my lack
of formal education. It spurred me to
learn things from books on my own.
When I entered the police department
in 1926 I had no difficulty passing the
tough high-school tests.

In later life the dictionary became my

friend and I never encountered a new
word that I did not look up its definition
and try to commit it to memory. I re-
member the astonishment of my sister
Irma when she saw me reading the St.
Louis street directory shortly after I be-
came a taxicab driver. She asked me
what I was doing; I told her I was mem-
‘orizing it. I did, too. I recognize this fow
as a compulsion to hide my lack of
formal education by attempting nearly
impossible feats with my mind. I believe

it helped my powers of concentration,
which are such a necessity in police
work.

My parents had no objections to my
leaving school. This was an accepted
situation among the poorer families in

those days. The oldest usually went to:

work early. Education, if it came at dll,
was for the youngest in the family.

I was only fourteen when I presented
myself at a canning plant in St. Louis
and applied for work. I told them that

>

AEP RTE = RAR we rs

grace instead. He and Elmer Dolan, the arresting
d murdered little Bobby Greenlease, at the left

I was sixteen years old, another evasion
common among youngsters seeking em-
Ployment. They had no way of asking
me for recorded proof because prior to
1911 no birth certificates were issued
in Kentucky. This adding of two years
to my age showed up repeatedly in later
life and that is why during the Green-
lease turmoil, my age in various news-
papers and other publications varied
two years one way or the other. Actu-
(Continued on page 51)

1]


ets what everybody calls him—Four-
n.”

tae on earth do you call him
+?”

“He claims he’s Alexander Robillard,
the fourteenth. Always signs his name
with the Roman numbers after it, real
fancy. So we all call him:Fourteen.”

The officer made a note of the mon-
icker, then prompted, “You say he was
‘ape about the gat?’”

“Yeah. He carried that fancy gun
around in the waistband of his pants
and I think he even slept with it. He
thought it was the greatest.”

The officers had little doubt now that
Robillard had taken the gun from the
American President Line’s Lincoln.

But where was Alexander Robillard
XIV now?

“I think our best bet is to feed it to
the papers and TV stations,” Whitmore
decided. “If he’s around, somebody may
spot him.”

The information that Robillard was
sought, but not the clues that had led
to him, was given to the newsmen and
duly publicized. -

T= following day, Alfred. X. Julian,

a motel operator in Sacramento,
called the police. He told them he was
certain he had seen Robillard.

“He came in asking for a man who
wasn’t registered here,” Julian said. “I
thought I recognized him from the
newspaper picture. I was afraid he was
—t to rob me or something. But he
eft.”

Julian had gone out and jotted down
the license number of the car the young
man was in and he had seen another
young man and a woman waiting in
the car.

The motor vehicle registration bu-
reau listed the owner as a woman in
Redwood City. Officers were unable to
locate her. .

Assistant District Prosecutor Wilbur
R. Johnson, who was working on the
case with the sheriff’s men, recalled
that he had heard of the license num-
ber previously. He consulted his files
and found he was right.

Johnson had prosecuted a Ronald
Vidor of Redwood City on a hit-run
charge. He had had that license num-
ber. During the trial, police learned
that a white-and-salmon-colored Pon-
tiac belonging to Vidor had been regis-
tered in his mother-in-law’s name be-
cause he had lost his driver’s license.

The detectives hurried to Vidor’s
home. No one answered the door.
Neighbors told them that Vidor and his
wife had said something about going to
Reno for a few days.

A team of officers was assigned to
watch the Vidors’ house in case the
couple returned, and police in Reno,
Nevada, were notified to be on the look-
out for the Pontiac with Vidor, his wife
and Robillard in it.

“I’m going there and help,” Sheriff
Whitmore announced. fl

Redwood City Chief of Police Bill
Faulstich and Deputy District Attorney
Johnson accompanied Whitmore. The
Reno police gave them every possible
assistance in canvassing the hotels,
motels and gambling casinos.

Further investigation revealed that
Robillard had been picked up in Cas-
troville, Monterey County, on a traffic
citation the Monday before Doran was
killed. When he appeared before the
judge on the charge, he had given a
story about losing his license and was
released on the promise that he would
have it renewed immediately.

Robillard apparently had gone to San

Francisco to make application for a li- °

cense under the name of Kehoe, but

had backed out when he learned he had

= _—w his photograph and fingerprints
en.

Then a report came in from the
stake-out on Vidor’s home. The Pon-
tiac hardtop had driven into the drive-
way. A dozen squad cars rushed to the
house.

Vidor and his wife came out with
their hands above their heads.

At the sheriff’s headquarters In-

Customers came tothe Prince Cafe for fun, not for the frightening
Russian roulette game played there one July evening (see page 18)

spector Wesley Pomeroy questioned the
couple. Vidor admitted they had. been
with Robillard, whom he had met while
both young men were in the county jail.

“We got to be pretty good friends.
After he was released, he was broke,
and I loaned him a couple of bucks.” °

Vidor claimed that they had driven
Robillard to Reno.

“Where. in Reno?”

“I took him down to the Greyhound
bus depot, and he bought a ticket.
That’s the last I saw of him.”

“Where was he going?” ‘

“I don’t know. All I know is he paid
nineteen dollars and three cents for
the ticket:” :

Robillard had been wearing gray
slacks, a bright sport shirt and was
carrying a blue airlines kit bag, Vidor
told the officers. .

Pomeroy ‘called Sheriff Whitmore,
who was still in Reno, and gave him the
information he had gained from Vidor.

Whitmore, with Faulstich, Johnson
and several Reno officers, hurried to
the Greyhound bus depot.

“Where can you go for nineteen dol-

“lars and three cents?” Whitmore asked
the ticket agent. ;

He was told that the only destination
which would come out to that exact
fare was Salt Lake City.

Whitmore called the Salt Lake City
Police and asked their help in finding
Robillard.

Chief W. Cleon Skousen pulled out
all the stops. Off-duty officers :were
summoned from home. Bus, train and
plane terminals were covered. Cars
cruised the highways on the lookout
for a hitchhiker.

Detectives Bernard Valgardson and
Don Lyman found him in the Upland
Hotel, near the bus depot.

An ornate .32 Colt Bankers Special
was found in his room. It was fully
loaded, and six additional shells were
= out on the small table next to the

“What's the idea?” the young man
demanded.

“Your name is Alexander Robillard.
Some police officers up near San Fran-
cisco are real anxious to locate you.”

“My name is Par Steven.”

“Yeah, and it may also be David Ste-
ven Kehoe.”

Whitmore was notified in Reno that
Robillard had been located and had
been taken into custody. He immedi-
ately chartered a plane and, with Faul-
stich and Johnson, arrived in Salt Lake
City in a few hours. f

Later in the day, after Robillard had
been confronted with the evidence the
detectives had compiled, Whitmore an-
nounced that the youth had admitted

being on the scene at the time Doran
was killed. But he denied being the one
who had fired the shot.

“Who did?” Whitmore demanded.

“All I'm going to say is I didn’t kill
him,” Robillard said, according to the
officers.

Whitmore called Pomeroy in Red-
wood City. “Round up everybody who
ever knew this character,” he ordered.

“Will do,” Pomeroy said.

Robillard was flown to San Francisco,
where, the officers claim, he offered to
show them where he had thrown the li-
cense plates that had been on the car
when Doran stopped him. He said they
were off a pier on the waterfront.

A first effort by skin divers Edward
Ezekiel and James Rice failed to locate
them. A second attempt was made, and
the divers came up with the plates.

A number of ‘Robillard’s friends were
in custody by the time he reached Red-
wood City. He refused to name any of

them as his accomplices.

ONE of the suspects looked good for
a short time. But he claimed he
had been in a poker game at the time
Doran was killed. To prove it, he had to
admit losing a $70 relief check made out
to his wife. It.cleared him of suspicion
in the Doran case, but kept him in jail
on a charge of suspicion of forgery for
signing his wife’s name to the check.

Robillard was taken before Judge J.
A. Branson, and District Attorney Keith
Sorenson read the charge of murder
against him. Observers noted that the
youth seemed to panic when he realized
he faces a death sentence.

Sheriff Whitmore announced publicly
that his office considers the case closed.

“Robillard admits he was on the
scene when Officer Doran was killed.
The gun Robillard stole and had in his
possession is the weapon that fired the
fatal shots. He claims he didn‘t pull the
trigger, yet he won’t tell us who did.”

Technicians announced that the
handprints on the top of Doran’s cruiser
apparently had been made at some ear-
lier time. :

Robillard was given a psychiatric ex-
amination and pronounced sane.

On August 24, Robillard was ar-
raigned, and as this story was printed
he was being held without privilege of
bond, pending further legal action.

The escapee, Robert James Emmett,
was still at large and being sought for
trial on the narcotics charge. However,
police do not believe he had any connec-
big with Robillard and the Doran slay-
ng. ‘

The name Ronald Vidor is fictitious
in this story.

Louis Shoulders
Story

(Continued from page 11)

ally, I am 59 years old as I record this.

At first I was given simple jobs at the
can company. Soon I was put on piece
work. Again the quickness of my hands
paid off. I can remember dozens of
times when my own confidence in my
speed saved my life. Once I leaped to
grab a hidden gun in the face of an
armed bandit and was able to subdue
him before he could get to the weapon
in his belt. Eventually I had to kill this
man. I will tell you about that later.
-_ My parents decided that I would pay
them $7.50 a week for room and board.
I started out miaking twelve dollars a
week and: soon my salary grew. They
never asked me for more so this left me
with considerable cash. I was able to
buy a model T Ford in less than a year.
After I got the car I gave my parents
$10:50 a week. This was in the days
when a man could get good lodgings and
food for five dollars.

Like many poor people, I learned a
healthy respect for putting money aside.
I remember I had a gallon jar in the
basement of our home which I hid under
a huge rock. This was my bank. I tossed
greenbacks into it whenever I had any
extra. When my father and I counted
it under trying circumstances some
time later, I was astounded to find I
had saved $1,600—a fortune for a fam-
ily in the Patch in those days.

All these savings, though, did not
come from my salary at the can com-
Pany. I was a pretty capable baseball
Player, an infielder with various semi-
professional teams in the area. When I
earned $25 or so for playing, that went
into the jar in my father’s basement.
Once in a game with the old St. Louis
Giants I batted against Satchel Paige,
the great Negro player who made the
majors. He was the greatest pitcher I
ever batted against or ever saw. I will
remember the game against him all my
life because he allowed our semi-pros
one hit and I got it, a scratch single
over second.

I was a creditable soccer player, too,
winning berths on several champion-
ship teams during my playing days. One
other sport I followed during this period
was boxing. I took lessons from a re-
tired professional, Barney McCarthy.
This one-year course, for which I paid
Barney, was decided upon after Lou
Shoulders found a few fellows who
would not rough and tumble with him
but used a scientific way to employ their
fists and flatten his ears.

| WAS almost fifteen years old when I

married. The bare fact of my mar-
riage at such an early age might appear
shocking to the reader but I could not
possibly regret it. Because from this
short-lived union came my son Bruce.
This is the same son I was fleeing to in
Hawaii after the ugly suspicions grew
when I cracked the Greenlease case. It
was a terrible mistake on my part to
seek his comfort—I should have borne
the vituperation and accusations alone.
I know now I could have trusted Bruce
to understand without my personal ex-
planations. But this oldest boy of mine
had been part of almost all I can vividly
remember of my life and I was fleeing
to him as he had come to me when, as
father and son, we had made a life to-
gether after his mother and I were
on following our three-year mar-
riage.

The circumstances surrounding the
divorce I will not go into now. I was
given custody of the boy. I had met my
wife at the can company. Our marriage
caused minor explosions in both of our
families but they accepted it after a few
days. We both looked older than our
age (she was two months younger than
I) and I was well able to support her.

51


Shoulders grew up in St. Louis’
Kerry Patch. His son Bruce, far
right, his mother and brother next

naping and slaying on December 18,
1953, less than three months after the
crime was committed.

Six years have passed since I cracked
the Greenlease case and got from it
punishment, disgrace and a terror that
exists today.

The Greenlease story has had a long
intermission between the second and
third acts. I hope that this series of
articles will raise the curtain on that
third act. In it I intend to tell my story
for the first time.

What has silenced me all these years?
Admitted fear. Not fear of hoodlums
but fear of my own government. I was
a police officer in St. Louis for more
than 27 years, I held a spotless record,
I was a recognized expert in amassing
evidence that sent hundreds of people
to prison. I knew my business:

Yet I went to prison.

The missing Greenlease ransom
money has kept the books open on the
case all these years. The Federal Bureau
of Investigation persists in allowing it
to live. That mass of ten- and 20-dollar
bills has hovered over me, contaminated
my life and driven me almost out of my
mind. But I believe I know the FBI well
enough to state that this great police
organization too has met nothing but
bitterness and defeat in its six-year
pursuit of this money.

You will recall that Mr. and Mrs. Rob-
ert C. Greenlease, Sr., parents of the
kidnap and murder victim, paid $600,-

000 to Carl Austin Hall for the release ©

of their son. When I captured Hall he
had two suitcases containing money. It
was counted and more than half of the
original ransom was gone.

Payment of the ransom to Hall had
been futile He had killed the boy. The
case easily became the most publicized
kidnaping since the Lindbergh case in
1932, and because of the search for the
missing portion of the ransom payment,
it has lived a lot longer.

That missing money has been all that
has prevented the end of the Green-
lease story. I shall, in this series, re-
veal what I know about the lost portion
of the ransom, explain where I think
it has gone and teil you my side of that

fateful night when I arrested Hall and
my actions led to the suspicion that I
had known who got the money or even
that I took it myself.

Today, I think the Federal Bureau of
Investigation knows I did not get any
of the money. I have reason to believe
the FBI still monitors my telephone,
still tails me on occasion but not with
the conviction that Lou Shoulders got
a cut of the money or even assisted in
planning its theft.

They think, though, I can still make
admissions which will send others to
prison. Well, we shall see. If any such
important admissions could come from
me they willbe in this series.

| AM able to speak now because I have

lost most of my fear about the conse-
quences of what I might say. I told you
fear kept me silent all these years. The
fear was engendered back in those days
when I so wholly underestimated the
power, the diligence, the heights of
vengeance which motivated the persons
who sent me to prison for 25 months
and eighteen days.

Five years ran out several months
ago. I feel now that I can tell the story
as straightforwardly and as honestly as
one man is able. No longer do I worry
that some legal genius in the Depart-

- ment of Justice will pick a mite of in-

correctness out of the account and blow
it up to a’magnitude that again will
land me in prison, as was done before.

I am losing some of the bitterness
that made such a mark on me in the
early days of my trouble. Many a sleep-
less night I lie silently in my bed and
go back over those days and find myself
clenching my fists. But the hatred and
bitterness die down and the next day I
take up my simple chores and my un-
complicated life here in St. Louis and
forget it.

In the few hours when I do find
spiritual peace I cannot even blame my
fellow officers who, the night my part-
ner Elmer Dolan and I arrested Carl
Austin Hall, became suspicious of me.

That night was filled with deadly co-
incidences, some involving my personal
life, which I will explain in this series.

I hope to answer the charges once and
for all. I do not need to write this for
my few real friends, my children, or my
wife. They know me. Instead, I write it
for the cop just starting out in the busi-
ness, the kid who dreams of becoming
a police officer, the good citizens of our
land who may have suffered a moment
of sad doubt about the kind of world
they lived in when they read’about the
St. Louis police lieutenant who “got the
Greenlease money.” I want to make the
first move here in OrriciaL DETECTIVE
Stories to rebuild the confidence we all
must have in our police.

Despite my misfortune, I know that
I will never be anything but a police
officer. When someone drops around
who likes to listen I gather the tatters
and re-live those early days with him.
It takes a little courage to do this. I be-
lieve that few people would question my
courage. Many times I have faced death
and I have taken three lives in the per-
formance of my duty.

When I entered -police work my
mother was concerned about the neces-
sity to take human life. I did all I could
to ease her fears and I even made a
promise I would not kill. Young and
foolish, I thought then that a man in
police work could keep such a promise.

My promise helped my mother. She
and my father, Katey and Ira Should-
ers, had moved to St. Louis when I was
about four years old from a tobacco
farm in Kentucky. My father became a
motorman on the old Natural Bridge
street-car line in north St. Louis and
we settled ‘in a neighborhood on the
near north side called Kerry Patch.

This was a rollicking territory. Life
in Kerry Patch in those days meant
that a boy had to learn to use his fists
or his legs, and sometimes both.

My parents were of Scotch Irish de-
scent with my father having some part
of him Cherokee Indian. I was always
tall for my age and because of this I had
to fight not only with kids in my own
grade at the old Bates School in St.
Louis but also with those several grades
ahead. The alternative to fighting was
to make a dash for home each afternoon
and spend the rest of the day in the

house and yard for protection. Most of
us, however, earned our freedom from
such limitation in the only way we knew
how. I learned that I had a talent for
quick use of both of my hands and fists.
Although I have taken beatings in my
life, I think that I can say I never
was bested in a rough and tumble fight
with anyone my size.

I say none of this to boast. But I think
my early life in Kerry Patch molded me
in such a way that I learned only one
method to tackle a job. Get it settled
with fists or guns, quickly, because there
was no profit in delaying something no
matter how much you feared it.

I was the only one in the family when
my parents moved from Kentucky. We
rented three rooms and a bath on North
Market street. It was the first bathroom
I .had ever seen. I was born in 1900,
next came my sister Irma, my sister
Nina, my brother Frank and lastly, my
brother James.

They all stood by me when the Green-
lease debacle struck, especially Irma and
James. Irma, until her death in Cali-
fornia, was untiring in her efforts to
have me paroled, even petitioning Presi-
dent Eisenhower.

T= Shoulders family was not desti-
tute. We lived in a flat that did not
leak and we ate well. Pork chops, T-bone
steaks, hamburgers and potatoes made
up many of our meals. On my father’s
salary of about eighteen dollars a week,
little was left for trimmings after the
rent and huge food bill were paid. But
we were happy and I can thank my long-
dead parents today for a pleasant child-
hood. My mother was a quick-tempered
woman who boxed my ears frequently
because of the roughness which my life
in the Patch impelled me to assume. My
father, a just man, beat me only once.
That was when the school principal
reported to him that she had caught
me smoking.

As the family grew, my father’s sal-
ary did not grow correspondingly. When
I entered my teens I noted that the pork
chops came less often to the table.
Partly to help my parents and partly
because I dreamed of owning a car,

Part | of an amazing, frank autobiography by an ex-cop, ex-convict

10


amas ee ALON RR RR SSS A RR Nt ama 2 2 .
; : : Ue ai Rta AAT
.

It was at this time that I dragged my
savings from the jar in the basement
and, before the growing wonder of my
father, counted it. I offered to split the
$1,600 with him and my mother but my
father declined. He said I would need it.

I always have managed to holéon to
minor nest eggs such as that through-
out my life. Until today. I believe I have
about $800 in the bank now—me, the
allegedly crooked cop who took all or
got a substantial cut of the missing
$300,003 Greenlease money.

In the same year, 1918, of my divorce
troubles, I was called up in the World
War I draft. I could have given my right
age and escaped the call but I did not.
Not because of heroics but because my
son and my marriage troubles had ma-
tured me beyond my years and I was
beginning to be ashamed of my lie when
I applied for work at the can company.
However, thé war ended before I could
be inducted.

I moved, with my son, back to my
parents’ home. We lived there until my
father died in 1926, the year I entered
the police department. My mother then
expressed the wish to return with her
remaining children to Hopkinsville,
Kentucky, where her parents still lived.
She wanted to take Bruce with her but
I couldn’t permit that. He was mine. We
managed by ourselves after my brothers
and my mother left. My sisters were
married by this time.

Bur this is years ahead of the story.
After my divorce I continued to
work at the can company and even-
tually was promoted to foreman. Then
I developed an ailment which we called
lead colic in those days. The company
physician advised me that if I wanted
to live I'd better quit my job. I could
believe him. I was six feet, two inches
tall and usually weighed about 185
pounds. As this ailment took hold of me
I went down to 142 pounds over a period
of years—which made me a sight in my
huge-boned frame.

I quit the job reluctantly; I liked it
there and I liked the people I worked
for. Only a week of selling insurance
proved conclusively that I was not cut
out for the work. I was a good automo-
bile driver because I’d had a car all
those years. So I decided to earn my
living at it. In those days St. Louis had
what were called “jitneys.” For five
cents, a passenger could ride from a
pick-up point in the suburbs to down-
town St. Louis. I bought a Studebaker
touring car—my Ford was too small—
and went into the business.

After buying the car, I had $2,700 in
the bank. A year later I had only $1,500,
which showed me that despite all the
money going through my hands from
the many passengers I carried, none of
it was sticking. Tires and fuel ate it up.

I decided to sell my car and become
a cab driver. This was a turning point
in my life because it’ was here I met
Joe Costello, the man who many be-

lieve engineered the theft of the Green-

lease ransom money. I will tell you my
ideas on that later.

When I met him in the fall of 1924
he was just a hackie like me. I went to
work for the old Brown Cab company
and there I met another cab driver
who was to hit the headlines in equal
force with me and Costello in later life.
His name was Leo Brothers.

Cab driving in those days was a good
thing. This was before the “five can
ride as cheap as one” system, which
wrecked the tipping of cabbies. As my
knowledge of my work grew, my salary
grew also. I was making up to $500
a month, which was wonderful pay in
those days for a boy from the Patch.

My whole life. centered around my
son, Bruce. I was a mother and father
to him. My parents took care of the boy
while I was at work but when I came

home I took over. I have three other
children who came with my second
marriage. One is my son, Louis Shoul-
ders, Jr., who today is serving a term
in prison. I believe Louis is another
victim of the Greenlease tragedy and
later I will tell why. My third son is

Frank, who is:married and a wonderful.
father and citizen. Also born to this’

second marriage was a daughter, Rita,
now married and happy.

Looking back now over the chasm
which was created by the Greenlease
case, I can see that early period of my
life as one of peace and simpleness of
purpose. Thinking of those days I can
exclude my 27 years in the police de-
partment which sometimes bring ugly
reminders of dishonor and injustice
which I want to forget.

Bruce and I shared a room in my
parents’ home. He entered school and
with him went my unspoken vow that

he would not be forced, or permitted,

to quit before he had gone as far as his
academic ability could take him. This
turned out well for me because the boy
had what I would call a brilliant mind.
He was always a good student,

The only time I struck him—and I
mean I hit him with my fist as hard as
I have hit any hoodlum—was when he
announced at the supper table one
night that he was not going to college
but would keep his summertime job as
a fruit and vegetable peddler.

Bruce was seventeen then, big and a
Golden Gloves boxer; I don’t think I
was taking any advantage of him ex-
cept that of surprise. I asked him to
stand up and then knocked him cold
with a punch. ;

My single act of fury against the boy
is understood by both of us today. He
knows that in him I had concentrated
hopes that I had no opportunity to
realize for myself. He still refers to my
punch as the best he ever received.
When he got up off the kitchen floor
his comments about the blow were

limited to, “If it meant that much to.

you, why didn’t you let me know before
you threw that right?”

As Bruce studied in school, I studied
with him a thome. This went on all our

lives. When he attended City College °

of Law and Finance in St. Louis before
entering the University of Missouri, I
got almost as much out of the course
as he did.

My work with the taxi company be-
came less profitable when the tipping
slowed because of new regulations.
Anyway, I was never proud of the title
“cab driver”; I wanted something more
out of life.

Much has been written, or hinted,
that Joe Costello and I were close
friends in our cab-driving days. This is
not true. Cabbies have a fraternal re-
gard for each other, such as is evident
in other occupations. I talked to Cos-
tello many times, waved at him in
passing other times, but never did we
become ‘close.

BEFORE the Greenlease case, I had
never been in Costello's home nor
visited socially with anybody in his
family. Costello is in prison today. He
was grabbed on a charge of buying a
gun in one state and bringing it to
another, which was a federal violation
because he already was an ex-convict.
The FBI is greatly interested in what I
know about Costello.and recently has
been trying to get me to make some

admissions against him. In this series--

I will tell them about our association.
I don’t know if it will be what they
want to hear. -

The other cabbie with whom my
name is linked, Leo Brothers, became
a hood, I: knew him in those early
days no better than I did Costello.
Brothers was later sentenced to life
imprisonment after he was convicted of

shooting to death Jake Lingle, the Chi-
cago reporter who knew so much about
the Al Capone operations in the 1920's.
Brothers served fifteen years of the
sentence and died about seven or eight
years ago following a heart attack in a
St. Louis hotel room. ‘fi

I bring his name into this story be-
cause it was a favorite trick of news-
papermen, attempting to paint me
black during the Greenlease period, to
harken back, in that one-paragraph
cleverness they possess, to my “early
association” with Joe Costello and Leo
Brothers. I wonder if some of the many
fine young men I knew in those days
who later became priests and ministers
ever had to defend themselves against
the charge that they once ‘associated
with” Lou Shoulders?

I held a kind of respect for Costello.
He was not the talk-out-of-the-side-
of-the-mouth rough like many in the
underworld. Instead, he was soft
spoken, alert and he could be a perfect
gentleman. But when he wanted to
turn mean he could discard his polish
and mix it with the worst of them. On
that count he did not have me fooled,
and he knew I knew it. But the press
during my trial and preceding it dug
the ‘“‘gentleman” characterization out
of my comments about Costello and
quite willingly forgot to add that I also
had described him otherwise.

I cannot say that I had any boy-like
dream to become a policeman. My love
for the business grew as I worked at it.
As I said, my earnings as a cab driver
began to drop off and I grew concerned
about my future. My father died on
July 31, 1926. He and my mother had
been friends of Doctor Arthur Magoon
for years. I don’t know how this friend-
ship started. Doctor Magoon was a
member of the St. Louis police com-
mission. I guess I had been told this
but it meant nothing to me until he
came to the house after my father’s
death to help with insurance papers.
My mother must have told him I was
going to quit driving a cab because after
looking over the insurance papers he
said to me, “Louis, how much do you
weigh now?”

j was sitting in the living room, my
head stuck in a book, and I had paid
little attention to whatever it was that
Doctor Magoon and my mother had
been discussing.

Reluctantly, I put down the book and
aneneree “One hundred and eighty-

ve.”

“That’s better than when you were’
with the can company,” the doctor said.
“You're looking better.” He paused.
“How’s the cab business?”

I told him it was not so good and I
was going to get out of it.

“Why not go on the police force?”

I asked how much a policeman made
and he said about $180 a month. ‘That's
what I was making as a cab driver then.
Doctor Magoon must have seen my lack
of interest.

“But they have pensions and you'll
get more salary as time goes on and you
can work yourself up,” he said. ‘“There’s
security in it.”

The word “security” was important.
I thought of my son Bruce. That’s what

‘I needed, security. I might inject here

that at this time I had no wish or plan
to marry again. Bruce and I were going
to make it alone. -

In this manner I entered the St.
Louis police department. At my initial
interview they asked me a lot of ques-
tions. I was not lily white; I had sev-
eral peace disturbance charges against
me, involving fighting, which was con-
sidered a badge of honor in the Patch
in my day. One arrest was related to
my trouble with my divorced wife. It
involved firing a gun, not at her but at
someone else connected:with the epi-

sode. However, on reading the circum-
stances, the examiner did not hold it
against me.

On October 14, 1926, I became a pro-
bationary patrolman and a new world
opened to me. I sit here now, an aging
man, -trying to recall what kind of per-
son I was before I became a police
officer. I must have been different than
I later became. Less cynical,’ assuredly.
Less likely to question. the motives of
others, more trusting.

A policeman has difficulty keeping
balance. He needs sympathy and under-
standing if his soul becomes a little
tarnished, his halo atilt. He is on the
battle lines against lawbreakers and
those who break the law with impunity
because of influence. It is a sordid
world. He reads daily reports on infidel-
ity, lewdness, brother stealing from
brother, mother harming son, friend
cheating friend, and before long the
world is sullied for him forever and it
never gets the same again.

I note this same cynicism and tend-
encies among newspaper reporters, to
a lesser degree. Not many of us give up
the battle to remember the whiter world
we knew before we got down to grub our
livings out of the slime I tried, not
always with complete success, I know,
and this must have shown up in my
home life and in my other personal
contacts outside my police work. I was
gruff, a disciplinarian and restive of
spirit. In those day I was a Godless man,
which I think may have made it worse.

But life in the Patch had prepared
me for much of the battle that was nec-
essary in my work, and it also gave me
the courage and the great tactical tool
of aggressiveness. As I had become one
of the fastest piece workers at the can
company, and had memorized the city
street directory as a cab driver, I now
settled down to make myself a better
policeman than the man next to me.

Te first incident of any consequence
that happened to me as a policeman
was during the disastrous tornado in St.
Louis the fall of 1927. I was sitting in
my cell one day during my incarceration
in Kansas City after I had been con-
victed of perjury when this incident
strangely came to my mind.

I was reading again a newspaper ac-
count of my conviction and I remem-
bered, without having thought of it in
years, the 100 children I saved during
that terrible tornado. I wondered if they
grew up to be good citizens and were
now joining the chorus which acclaimed
my conviction as a victory of good over
evil.

Because of my experience, I had been
assigned to driving a police car not long
after I entered the department. The
force had comparatively few of them, of
coursé, and no radios. When the tornado
struck, I was sent to the high school
with my partner. By that time the fun-
nel had passed over but a storm still
raged, pouring tons of rain on the dev-
astated area.

I dashed out of the car and into the
building. When I got inside, away from
the noise, I could hear the building
cracking and feel it sway. It was in dan-
ger of collapsing. I ran through the cor-
ridors of the building shouting at the
top of my voice for everyone to get out.
The students had been huddling, fright-
ened, in their rooms. Thankfully, they
heard me and filed out. As the last of
them got down the outside stairs I
walked out and the building collapsed,
rubble striking me in the shoulder and
side. Luckily, I was not hurt.

Eight died in that. building. I guess
they were frozen with fear and would
not move with the others. Instead of
feeling joy over the 100 that were saved
I was depressed for days about the eight
who died. I thought if only I had
searched the building more thoroughly

He promised his mother he'd never kill—then he became a cop

52


The cabbie got
his fare a girl
and entangled

himself with a

$300,003

lost

I sat thinking a moment about the
plausibility of this “big’’ arrest. Then I
turned to another factor. Whom would
I take with me to June’s house? If this
was going to be an arrest, I would need
hel

Much has been written and inferred
concerning my selection of young Elmer
Dolan, a patrolman, as my partner that
night. I selected him for several reasons,
and among them, I admit, was the fact
that he could keep his mouth shut.
This point I will explain first. It is
against regulations for an officer on
duty to leave his district without per-
mission. When conditions are quiet and
time and other considerations exist, we
don’t always keep that regulation. I
didn’t.

June’s housé was on Wabada Ave-
nue, in the near north side of St.
Louis, while the eleventh district sta-
tion is somewhat more centrally situ-
ated in the west. On evenings when
nothing much was happening I would
slip over there for supper, even though
it was out of the district. I didn’t shirk
my duty. I listened to police calls as I
drove in my unmarked lieutenant’s car
to her house and there I had a short-
wave radio which I monitored. If a call
came in for me or any message that in-
dicated trouble in my district, I could
make it from June’s house to my desk
in six or seven minutes

After my caller had hung up, I real-
ized that this deception would have to
be made known to one of my subordi-
nates. Which one? ee

Elmer Dolan was my choice, because
he fitted all the requirements; even the
minor one of not making public the fact
that I went home for supper frequently.
I had known Dolan since he was a sev-
enteen-year-old telephone operator in
the ninth district. I used to play a lot of
golf in those days and Elmer was my
caddy. As he grew older, he was trans-
ferred to the detective bureau at head-
quarters. There he became an expert
typist and learned how to make reports.
When he was 21 he joined the force.
After serving for a short time in the
eleventh district, he was put into the
detective bureau. Later, he married
and the split hours he worked palled on
him. His superior would not change the
hours so he came to me with his prob-
lem. The result of this was that he re-
quested and was granted a return to
uniform and was assigned to my
district.

So, instead of being an “inexpe-
rienced” police officer, Dolan, on the
night he and I were plunged into in-
famy, was a former detective of proven
courage and a good shot. One more fac-
tor influenced my decision to take him
along. I had promised the boy that I
would try my best to get him into plain-
clothes in the district. I felt he de-
served that. ;

How does a second in command work
up a man he knows has earned it?
Simply by pushing good arrests his way.
This is a common practice. It works
out well most times, except when som

54

1

playboy becomes the favorite of a man

in position. Elmer Dolan was not a

oe! He was a good, deserving of-
cer.

As five o’clock neared, I took off my
lieutenant’s cap and my police jacket
and put on a street hat and a coat that
matched my police blue trousers. Thus,
I was in. plain clothes. Out in the hall

‘again, I gave the keys to my unmarked

police car to Dolan and told him to
bring the car out in front.

Dolan and I drove out West Pine
Boulevard, through Forest Park and
onto Union Boulevard. At June’s house,
we waited until my brother got home
from work. We were ready to eat when
the telephone rang.

“T'll get this call,” I said.

“Lou,” the voice said, after I lifted
the receiver and said hello. “That fel-
low I was talking about hasn’t moved
yet.” ‘

Remember, he was going to tell me
when the man was in my district.

I replied that I would wait but if an
emergency came up.I’d have to leave.
Then he hung up. :

We finished our meal and Dolan,
Harvey and I sat in the living room.
Almost two hours passed before the
telephone rang again. The same voice
began talking as soon as I identified
myself. ¢

“Go to the northwest corner of
Union and Pershing and you'll meet a
man there who will tell you all about
it,” he said. He hung up immediately.

Dolan and I left June’s house and in
five minutes we were at the appointed
corner. Dolan pulled into a bus stop
and I got out. A man was standing by
the display window of a drug store. He
identified himself as John Hager, a cab
driver.

“How are you, Mr. Shoulders?” he.

asked.

I nodded, showing no warmth. The
man obviously was in deadly fear, either
of me or of something that was happen-
ing to him.

“We just moved him from the Coral
Court,” Hager said. “You know all
about it?” He pointed to a hotel apart-

ment across the street, the Town.

House. “He’s up there, on the third
floor. He might see us from here.”

T= name John Hager must be fa-
miliar to anyone who read even cur-
sory accounts of the Greenlease case. He
was an Ace Cab Company driver who
had picked up Hall in front of a down-
town St. Louis hotel and had been his
companion for almost two days.
Hager was to play a leading role in
that night’s activities and was later one
of the hubs in the many wheels around
which the FBI raced in the unsuccessful
attempt to find the missing money. To-
day he is living in California, still a sub-
ject of the FBI's interest. I understand
he was informed when I began to record

this series for OrriciaL DETECTIVE -

Stories and was urged by the FBI to
make a clean breast of it “because
Shoulders is talking.” :

My only interest in Hager as I stood
there with hjm on that busy inter-
section in west St. Louis was for him to
lead me,to this man who had embezzled
money in St. Joseph. It was another
night's work for me; I had gone through
similar meetings with tipsters.

.Hager said that a man who called
himself Steve Stroud had transferred
to his'cab from another in front of the
hotel after his driver asked Hager if he
could take care of a “line load.” A line
load, in cabbie jargon, is a passenger
who wants a girl. Hager said he could.

Hager told me that when he trans-
ferred the man to his cab he als®moved
two large suitcases, both very heavy.
Stroud had told him to be careful with
them because they contained samples
of an expensive serum. In addition, the
‘man carried a bulging brief case.

Sandra O’Day lived on North Ninth
Street. After several stops at bars, they
arrived at her house. . : ;

After they picked up Sandra, the trio
stopped at several more bars. They all
got pretty high. Then they drove to

the Coral Court on the outskirts of the

city, where Stroud checked into a room.
Hager, Steve Stroud, Sandra O’Day and
another girl stayed two days there,
drinking heavily and spending Steve’s
money freely on frequent trips to a
liquor store. Stroud and Hager became
friendly under the influence of liquor.
They discovered that they had many
mutual acquaintances. Finally Stroud
confided in Hager, telling him about
an embezzlement and stating that he

really had no serum in the suitcases

but cash. Eventually he opened one of
the suitcases. Hager said he’d never
seen so much money in his life.

Hager realized then that he had to
get out of the situation. He did not want
to get mixed up in anything that would
land him in the penitentiary.

Stroud told Hager that he would have
to dress sharper. They made plans that
the next day he would go to a downtown
St. Louis store and buy some clothes.
Late that night, or very early the next
morning, Stroud sent Sandra O’Day
on a strange mission to Kansas City to
deliver a letter to a lawyer He gave
her. $2,000 for expenses. Sandra made
the trip by cab.

You must understand that I am re-
peating here what Hager told me, as
I remember it. How much of this was
fancy on Hager’s part, I don’t know.
But before the conclusion of the case
a lot was corroborated. :

Hager decided to tip off the police. He
told me he.thought of telephoning De-
tective Sergeant Richard Jerabek of
the auto-theft bureau. But he thought
Jerabek might have to shift the case to
some other officer because he dealt with
auto thefts only. Hager knew me by
reputation as a man who could keep
his mouth shut to protect his sources.

I wonder what would have happened
had he called Dick Jerabek?

I can’t possibly describe the fear that
Hager had of this Stroud. He made me
promise solemnly that I would protect
him at every turn and keep his iden-
tity a secret. I promised.

Stroud decided to move to a place
with a little more room. While they

were awaiting this move, the telephone.

calls began coming into me and the tip-
off was being. arranged. Finally they
went to the Town House. Hager, while
he was talking with me, was supposed
to be on an errand to get Steve and him
some girls. When he returned he was
to signal by knocking on the door three
times and then saying, “Steve, this is
Johnny.”

Tut made it easier for me, I thought.
+ I knew the man had a pistol and he
had the advantage of being in a locked
apartment. Many people said I should
have called for assistance at that point.
But I couldn’t. Remember, I had to pro-
tect, at all cost, the identity of John
Hager. And, anyway, I had made many
a of this nature-before. I had no
ears. :

Dolan, Hager and I went to Room 309
of the Town House. Hager was white
with fear by now. Even at my most
vehement insistance, he refused to
knock on that door and give the signal.
So I told him to stand back and nodded
to Dolan, who knocked, pitched his voice
low and called, “Steve, this is Johnny.”

I heard the lock click, and as soon as
the door opened I pushed in and had
my gun on the man there. He was about

my height, burly, almost bald, with his °
‘clothes rumpled and his face swollen

from liquor. - :

“What do you think you’re doing?”
were his first words. Then he blus-
tered: that he was a liquor salesman in
town on business and he would have my
job for invading his privacy.

I cannot recall my exact words, but
I told him if he didn’t sit down and shut
up he would be committing suicide. He
started for an overstuffed chair. Expe-
rience has taught me never to let a man

‘you arrest sit or stand where he wants

to. Let him make the first move and
then see that he does just the opposite.
This may have saved the life of Dolan
and me that night. I ordered Dolan to

.

LE TE a TE TEE SITE AE A a nl RAN

The girl got a
letter to take
to Kansas City
and $2,000 for

her "expenses"

take him into another room and make:
him sit on a straight chair. Sure
enough, a pistol was stuck behind the
cushion of the overstuffed chair.

I searched his effects and found two
keys on a single string. The suitcases
Hager had described were in a bedroom
closet. I tried the keys on one of them,
and they would not open it. Then I
tried the other suitcase, and the lock
clicked. Both keys fitted that same
suitcase. I never did find out for cer-
tain what happened to the keys for the
second suitcase.

When I opened the lid of the case,
wrapped currency fell out. The suitcase
was not full, but the load had tilted to
one side as I handled it. One glance and
I knew I was not dealing with an em-
bezzler. It looked like a ransom load and
then followed immediately the thought:
Greenlease. <n

yus was October 6. Bobby Green-
lease had been kidnaped September
28.. The newspapers had carried the
story. However, they had not mentioned
the $600,000 ransom.

The money in that suitcase was in
packets of 20’s and tens with bands
around them stating, “Federal Reserve,
Kansas City, Mo.” That fact made me
unwaveringly certain in an instant that
I had the Greenlease kidnaper.

-To explain my actions better from
this point I must mention a police
axiom. No good investigator will ever

permit a suspect to know the amount

of, or the nature of any evidence he
has uncovered until it can be made
useful during interrogation. No matter.
how trivial the evidence may be and
how short a time the secret can be kept,
I never have deviated from that rule.

My one purpose now was to get this
man to the station without his know-
ing I had discovered that money. This
may seem somewhat ridiculous to the
layman but it derives from good, hard
Police training, and many times it is
profitable. The man could not fail to
realize that we would find that money
eventually, but the time that would
elapse until he was sure we had it might
be used to our benefit.

My problem was complex. I had a
prisoner. I had a man, Hager, outside
whom I had to protect. I had a kid-
naped boy I had to find, and the kid-
naper’s accomplice to account for. All
these thoughts were going through my
mind as I stood in that bedroom.

I could not possibly carry two suit-
cases and keep my gun in my hand on
the way to the police car. They were
large suitcases. So I went into the next
room and told Dolan we were going to
take “Steve” in and explained that
when I gave the signal I wanted him to
pick up the brief case, put his thumb
under the man’s belt and hold his gun
in his other hand.

Then I left the room and went out to
look for Hager. He was not in the hall;
eventually I saw him peering.

a window from a hiding place he had
found on the fire escape, almost beside


he

st pe NYE sane

“eae

himself with fear. At my urging he came
out into the hall. Repeatedly he re-
minded me of my promise to protect
him. I assured him that I would but
first he had to do a job for me. I was
going to put a suitcase into the hall, I
said, and I wanted him to take it im-
mediately to the police car, place it in
the back and then go to his own car and
follow us.

D® I make a mistake in permitting
an ex-convict to handle that much
money out of my sight? I don’t think
so. Remember, if Hager had wanted to
steal that money, he’d had many oppor-
tunities before this. And who could vis-
ualize then the suspicions that were to
follow? Remember, I had the kidnaper
of Bobby Greenlease and I was not go-
ing to let him out of my sight nor take
any gun off him. The boy was still alive
as far as I knew. Here was the one
chance to find him. If he should shove
Dolan away and make a run for it I was
going to have a gun ready and hit him
in the legs, which I knew I could do. I
could not kill him because he held the
key to the whole case.

I placed the suitcase in the hall,
watched Hager pick it up and move
quickly out of sight. Then I signaled
Dolan to proceed. He marched Steve
outside. I followed at some distance,
carrying the second suitcase. We found
a back way out of the building in case
someone at the desk might have a con-
nection with a newspaper. I wanted no
chance of a tip-off. This was one lid
that was going to be slammed tight
until I learned what had happened to
the boy and found the kidnaper’s ac-
complice. That accomplice might have
the boy and if she learned of the part-
ner’s arrest the boy might be killed.

This unwavering dedication to se-
crecy, when turned inside out by the
FBI and the federal prosecutors, cast
suspicion on me and played a major
part in the nightmare that followed.

In that manner we reached the police
car. I must explain that we had no
handcuffs with us. Lieutenants do not
carry them, nor are their automobiles
so equipped. We got Steve in the car
and, without his knowledge as far as I
could tell, we got those suitcases in too.

We rode to the district station. How
many times since then have I gone over
those events in my mind? Did I really
have that $600,000 then?

When we reached the station, Dolan
parked directly in front of the door. It
was brightly lighted, and several police
officers were in sight. I had no fear
about leaving the suitcases in the car.
My objective was to book my prisoner
and get him behind bars. If he had
escaped at this time, my chance of sav-
ing Bobby Greenlease would be gone.
This Steve Stroud was not a defeated
prisoner. After you have made enough
arrests you can tell which prisoners are
apt to give you trouble. The man who
sat between me and Dolan that night
was doing what I call “eyeballing.” His
eyes constantly moved this way and
that, searching for an opening and a
chance to escape.

Dolan and I brought Hall into the

station quickly, leaving the two suit- -

cases in the car. When I booked the
prisoner, he gave the name John James
Byrne, a switch from the Steve Stroud
he had used with Hager. I said nothing.
The desk sergeant, Raymond Berg-
meier, put the contents of his pockets
into a property envelope. Dolan and I
then took the prisoner back to the hold-
over, the overnight cells, where we
placed him in an end cell. I ordered
the turnkey, Lyle Mudd, to move two
other prisoners to. the far side to put
three cells between them and my man.

Then I collected Bergmeier, Mudd
and the telephone operator, Walter Mc-
Dowell, into a group and read the order
to them. If a reporter or bondsman was
tipped off about this arrest, I would
have them up for disobedience and sus-
pension before the board, I said. It was
rare for the commander of a station to
make an arrest, and I knew that this
alone would start“talk. But I was de-

termined that if anybody cracked the
secrecy which I was building around
this arrest, he would pay. - ;

I had planned to see a floor show-at a
night club with June after I got off
duty. She was at her home, not know-
ing what had happened; she’d been
worried when I left the house with
Dolan to make the arrest. So after we
placed Hall in the holdover, I went to
my Office and called her. I told her that
it was impossible for me to talk to her
fully, but I had run into something big
and if she would call me on the booth
telephone I would explain. I said that
our night-club date was off, although I
would get my car. to her.

June had made arrangements to
meet her aunt, who lived in south St.
Louis, the following morning. The
aunt was bringing her car in for repairs,
and June was to pick her up at a.north-
side garage. Then they were going
shopping. My car, which I had driven
to work, was parked in the station ga-
rage. I knew I'd never get home after
this thing got rolling, so I had to get
my car to June to let her keep that ap-
pointment in the morning. This may
seem trivial.in retrospect, but remem-
ber, my personal life was all mixed up
and I was much concerned about June.

Shortly after I hung up the telephone
after my brief conversation with June,
I called Dolan, who was in the lobby.

“Let’s get those suitcases in here

“now,” I said. .

I did not know it, but in the next fif-
teen minutes or so I prepared the way
for a three-year prison sentence.

Dolan and I went up the long hall to
the lobby, and just as we reached the
door, the telephone in the booth rang.
It had to be June. I told Dolan to get
one suitcase and I’d get the other.

OW, this is the telephone call that
created so much mystery when I be-
came the target of the FBI. Both the
G-men and the press believed I was
getting an outside call concerning cir-
cumstances involved in the missing ran-
som. Nobody wanted to believe that the
man in command of the district had to
receive a telephone call in the booth.
Those persons don’t know the workings
of a district station. Even though I had
a direct outside line in my office, my
conversations could be overheard there.
If anyone got the idea that the Green-
lease kidnaper was in our holdover, all
my threats about suspension would not
have prevailed. A tip like that to a
newspaper would make the tipster for
life. If I had the space, I could call up
a dozen episodes to prove the point.

But before my God, in whom TI sin-
cerely believe now, that call came from
June. The subject of most of our con-
versation was my plan to get my auto-
mobile to her, -I told her I had hold of
something so big it eclipsed anything
I'd ever been involved in before. I did
not tell her specifically what it was. but
I could not contain my excitement
about the imminent breaking of one of
the biggest police cases in the nation’s
history.

While I was talking, I noticed that
Dolan came through the door with one
of the suitcases. When I left the booth,
I saw him again. I asked him what he
had done with it, and he answered that
he had put it on my desk. I went out-
side and got the other suitcase, walked
to my office, put the brief case and the
two suitcases in a large locker I had
there and turned the key.

After I locked up the suitcases, I re-
membered the property envelope, which
was in the hands of Sergeant Berg-
meier. Could anything in that envelope
tip somebody off to the importance of
the arrest? I decided to get it and told
the sergeant to make a note that it was
in'my possession. This was not regular
procedure, but the cracking of the
Greenlease case required a_ special
treatment. I placed the property en-
velope in the locker. Actually,.what was
in that locker contained the psycholog-
ical key that was to unravel the kid-
naper when I questioned him later.

But a different interpretation was

placed on my removal of that envelope
from the desk. My detractors said I did
it to get the keys to the Town House
apartment, where. Dolan and I then
went to make the ransom split. If the
ransom money seems to be getting away
from us that night in a score of ways,
don’t get confused. These various theo-
ries were propounded seriously by the
FBI and carried in the press in one form
or another.

I took only the key to the apartment
out of the property envelope. My plan
was to stop at the Town House on my
way back from June’s.and to search for
the gun, which I had not found yet. A
gun is a prize piece of evidence to lo-
cate in compiling evidence, as you can
imagine. Police laboratories can do
near-miracles with them in tying them
to the accused. Had the gun been used
on Bobby Greenlease? At that time I

. did not know, but my experience told

me the gun could be important.

I did not get back to the Town House
that night. But when Dolan and I left
the station to take my private car to
June, the suitcases, the brief case and
the property envelope were in my
locker in my office. That is the truth.

I explained our mission to Dolan as

.we left. I was going to drive my pri-

vate car to June’s house, and he was to
follow in the police lieutenant’s car. If
he heard anything concerning our dis-
trict on the radio, he was to sound the
horn.

I knew that the time I would be gone
from the station would be to my profit
as far as the prisoner was concerned. He
would be alone with his guilt. This also
is good police practice.

Dolan and I had driven about half-
way to June’s place when he. honked
the horn. I stopped in front of a police
call box. Dolan told me that the dis-
patcher was asking Car 116—my car—
to call the station. I did. Mudd, the
turnkey, came to the telephone and told
me, “Lieutenant, you better get right
over here. That fellow in the cell says
he has two suitcases full of money in
his apartment.”

Later I learned that he had told Mudd
he had the two suitcases and wanted to
talk to the “big guy’—meaning me.
That he had more money than the “big
guy” had ever seen and he had a propo-
sition.

I hung up on Mudd and went outside

and told Dolan we'd better get back to
the station; the amateurs were trying
to play policeman again. This was a
sarcastic and arrogant comment, not
untypical of me in those days.

I went back to the station and read
the riot act to every policeman and em-
ployee in the place. Again I warned
them that if any tip reached the press
or a bondsman, I would take the se-
verest action.

OFTEN have been criticized for not

calling my superiors that night.
Maybe there is some truth to that. I did
call them later and made some attempt
to get them, but it was the night of the
Veiled Prophet Ball in St. Louis, and
the top officers were there. This ball
marks the opening of the winter social
season, and it is a big thing in St. Louis.
On the other hand, I was Lou Shoulders.
I didn’t need any help. As an interro-
gator I often had been applauded by
my superiors, and I proposed to get at
this man, find his accomplice and then
rescue the boy. I didn’t need any help.
Actually, neither Chief Jeremiah
O'Connell nor Chief of Detectives
James Chapman criticized my actions
in this regard. They knew I was expe-
rienced and could handle the interro-
gation.

After my tirade against Mudd and
the others, I went to my office and told
Dolan to follow me. There I took out
the suitcases and the property envelope.
I showed him the contents of the first
suitcase. Then we forced the other.
which I had not opened before, and it,
too, contained money. I told Dolan I
was deadly certain we had the Green-
lease kidnaper.

Then I went over the contents of the
brief case and found in it the wedge
with which I was going to crack the
whole case.

What was that wedge? How would it
send Louis Shoulders, the man who had
solved the Greenlease kidnaping, to
prison? And what really had happened
to the ransom money? For the first and
exclusive revelation of this big and im-
portant case—for answers the FBI still
does not have—see the next installment
of Louis Sholders’ own story in the
January OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES.
on sale Thursday, November 26.

Shoulders with his secand wife, Florence, and Louis, Jr.,
whom<he calls “another victim of the Greenlease debacle"

55


’ youngster.

Was CREECH pulled
taxicab into the Katz drugstore
parking lot, stopped, reached back and twisted the handle
of the door. .

“Here you are ma’am. | Eighty-five cents.” ”

She got out, her pleasant, chubby features undismayed
by the 120-degree heat, looking fresh and poised in her
modish white blouse and brown skirt, her reddish-brown
hair, flecked with gold; coiffed smartly beneath a pert
brown velvet hat. .

“Come on, Bobby,” she said to the child, still in the
cab. She clutched his small fist in one gloved palm,
proffering a dollar bill to the driver with her free hand.
“Keep the change,” she said, and walked off with the
“We'll see about that ice cream now,” Creech -

heard her say, but he noted that she pulled the lad past
the pharmacy entrance toward a dark sedan on the lot.
and began filling

He fished a pencil stub from his cap

stuck the pencil back in’ his cap, sh
along. He paid idle attention to his
halted now near

looking: woman who

the dark sedan.

ritzy private school, seven blocks

to get a kid and ride back

Routine fares,
would have cause -
should be given
would never forge

6-year-old boy.

t+ this woman and

ticke

*

t. ‘Under: the date :

September 28th, 1953, he wrote:

To Frenc

r

moved

stifling Indian Summer ay? Assy
had hailed his hack.to go to th
away, over on
here to the shopping istrict.
othing more. But . ill Cre
to remember ‘them.. ~ Indeed, : if he
all his 62 years to live again,- Cr

;
ee
4
i.
4
4
{

wie

Wit:
kille


- eee

Bilge 2terntnnen

a Re

pole Bee

epee he al

The Louis Shoulders Story

a knife; it was a gun. I fired hurriedly
and the bullet struck the man.

- He was flung backward to the floor,
partly paralyzed. I reached into his
pocket and took the small pistol, which
he still gripped. Its barrel had caught
in a hole in his trousers. Except for
that luck and my daughter’s presence of
mind, I would have been dead...

My failure to search the burglar and
find that second gun had been a rookie’s
mistake. Burglars of that type seldom
go armed—but this one did, and disre-
gard of the probability almost cost me
my life. Hé died en route to the hos-
pital.

This experience also shook me more
than I would admit. In fact, much that
happened to me when I was in the de-
partment affected me. I don’t think
many. fellow officers knew it. I was full
of rough talk and laughter, but this
was veneer. For instance, when I told
the story of my encounter with this bur-
‘glar, I said that I did not want to fire
that heavy gun and kill him because “I
didn’t want my wife to faint again.”

Nor do I think I was different from
most of my fellow officers. I detected
their inner struggle, too. We were tough
because it was necessary. You might
compare us to front-line troops who
change their outlook and personalities
as the strain of fighting continues. The
sight of a wounded enemy caught on
barbed wire is a subject for laughter
because it becomes the only way to live
through such nightmares. I believe that
is the way with most police officers.
Coarse talk and joking about tragedy
is a shield which normal men must
provide to protect themselves from the
proximity of death and the horror they
see about them.

I understand much of this more
clearly now that I have been away from
police work for many years.

WEEN Ireached my fortieth birthday

I made the rank of lieutenant and
got my transfer to the ninth district. I
was back in uniform. In 1945 I was
moved to the eleventh district, and
there I was catapulted into the Green-
lease debacle eight years later.

A district lieutenant has heavy re-
sponsibilities. He is in charge of the
station when the captain is not present.
Those eight years before the Greenlease
case were filled with hectic office duties,
the pursuit of criminals, case after case
—and watching my children grow up.

I already have mentioned that Flor-
ence and I were married in 1928, she
bringing two young sisters and I my son,
Bruce, into the household. Later, we
had our own three children. Florence
is now dead. I believe our marriage was
a success, considering the foundations
on which it was built. She was a good
mother, a wonderful homemaker and,
except for her delicate constitution, a
good partner.

However, we did not have the same
background in religious beliefs.

I might explain here that during most
of my life I had no religion, not even a
belief in God. At home in Kerry Patch
religion seldom was discussed, and none
of us went to church. I had no argu-
ment with those who believed in God
or practiced their religion, but it was
not for me.

Florence differed sharply. Her church
did not sanction divorce. Since I had
been divorced, she considered herself
outside her faith, and this preyed upon
her and contributed to a growing res-
tiveness. Finally she was advised that if
we lived as brother and sister, although
in the same household, she could re-
nounce our marriage.

Florence was quite happy with this.
I, of course, agreed, although I did not
fully understand it. We had a_ two-
story house at that time. So I moved to
a bedroom upstairs, and from then on
Florence and I lived as brother and
sister. I was content with the arrange-

(from page 23)

ae

ment -as long as it brought my. wife
peace.

This relationship went on for about
two years. Then I met June Marie
George. June operated a beauty parlor
and before that had been in civil serv-
ice as a dental technician. She was
younger than I and at the time was
getting a divorce from her husband.
We went out together a few times. I
made little attempt to hide our asso-
ciation because I had taken literally the
brother-and-sister ~ relationship be-
tween Florence and me. She eventually
heard about my dates with June and
we had a bitter argument one night. I
remember how right I thought I was
and innocent of any wrongdoing. Re-
peatedly I quoted to her that she was
to act as my sister, and whom a brother
‘wanted to go out with was not a sister’s
concetn. I confess my ignorance of the
whole business. With my lack of re-
ligious background, I had no way of un-
derstanding what was expected of me.

The climax of this argument was that
I moved out. I had no ready place to go,
so I went to June’s—an unwise thing,
although I immediately set about try-
ing to get a divorce from Florence so
that I could marry June.

SH had a large house. I-occupied a
bedroom that was separated from
her room by a large living room. In fact,
one of my brothers and I shared my
room for most of the time I was there.
When the Greenlease case turned on
me, June was swept into the scandal.
Her picture was carried in newspapers
beside pictures of the prostitutes and
shady women who were involved. Often
she was described as “Former Lieuten-
ant Shoulders’ landlady.”

But people did not know June Ma-
rie George. She stood up without a
murmur to all the vilification and guilt
by association. She is: the only person
or thing salvaged from the Greenlease
nightmare. Today she is my wife.

Again I am ahead of the story. Flor-
ence would not give me a divorce. I
was nonplussed. Now that I had moved
out of the house, whatever criticism
might come from our children and
friends. already was an accomplished
fact. I was baffled by her refusal. But
Florence was unmoved.

This situation existed for months.
Finally, a letter reached headquarters
asking if a police lieutenant in St. Louis
was permitted to live as a common-law
husband. This made it imperative that
an investigation be conducted by the
police board. Major Otto Selle, inspec-
tor of police, went to June’s house. For-
tunately, I had kept all receipts she
had given me for the room rent I paid
her. The major’s examination of our
quarters was exact. He even measured
the rooms and the distances between
the rooms and looked to see if any of
her clothing was in my bedroom, or vice
versa,

It was an embarrassing and madden-
ing situation. Instead of my doing the
sensible thing and moving out until I
could get a divorce, I became angry and
even more determined to stay. I was not
bitter at the police department; the
investigation was a regulation. But the
poison-pen writer and the others who
were criticizing me fed my anger even
though the police board cleared me.

This was my domestic situation the
night I was plunged into the Green-
lease case.

Much has been written about that
night, none of it wholly accurate nor
bearing reasonable continuity Nobody
yet has heard my story from beginning
to end, thrust against the background
of my years on the police force and my
personal life and with an understand-
ing of the kind of human being I am.

I believe my movements and deci-
sions that night were in’almost spotless
conformity with good police work.
Nevertheless, I went to jail. —

The lieutenant and his youngest son, Frank, long before the
Greenlease case heaped undeserved dishonor on the Shoulders

Early on the afternoon of September
28, 1953, ten-year-old Bobby Greenlease

had been kidnaped from a private school

in Kansas City by a woman who claimed
to be his aunt and slipped him away
with the false story that his mother was
ill. That evening Bobby’s father, a
wealthy automobile dealer, received a
ransom note demanding $600,000 cash.

The ransom money was raised. Under
the direction of President Eisenhower's
brother, Arthur Eisenhower, who then
was an Official of a Kansas Citv bank,
a-staff of clerks worked all night pre-
paring the $600,000 in non-consecutive
ten-dollar and $20 bills—recording the
serial number of each.

Kansas City police were prevailed
upon not to intercede when an inter-
mediary dropped the money from a
railroad overpass.

That was all anyone knew at the
time. Bobby Greenlease had been kid-
naped; the kidnapers had made off with
a tremendous ransom and so far, the
child had not been returned.

The kidnaping, of course, had been
in Kansas City, completely across the
state of Missouri from St. Louis. No one
had any idea where or in what direction
the kidnapers had gone. No one even
a that they might be in St.

uis.

With this case still active, I reported
for duty at the eleventh district the
afternoon of October 6, 1953. I just had
ended two days of recreation—special
time off which all officers get—and I
was hoping for a quiet night. June and
I planned to go to a night club after I
got off duty at eleven p.m. That was all
I had on my mind—that and routine
police worries. I was aware of the
Greenlease case but certainly not ex-
pecting to be involved.

The incoming watch shows up for
duty a half hour early, so I arrived at
the station about 2:30. Most of the men
were upstairs for roll call, which in-
cluded getting their assignments from
the sergeants, who received their in-
structions from the district captain,
Thomas Diranne, or from me.

I smoked a cigarette and then entered
my office to read the reports of what
had been going on during the two days I
was absent. While I was deep in this
work, my telephone rang.

I picked up the receiver and identi-
fied myself: “Lieutenant Shoulders.”

A strange voice asked me, “Did your

‘friend call? Are you going to be in your

office later?”

“Who is this?”

“Never mind,” the voice, a man’s,
said. “You’re going to get a call soon
that will lead to a big arrest.”

“Give me the information now,” I
said.

“No. But it’s big and you'll hear from
me again.”

I asked once more who the caller was
but he did not answer. Finally the tele-
phone clicked.

I did not get excited about the call.
After you’ve spent 27 years on the police
force, an anonymous tip does not pro-
duce gangbuster reactions. I have re-
ceived literally thousands of such “tips”
in my life. Some were authentic, others
from cranks, drunks and even tipsy
friends trying for a joke.

I went back to reading the reports,
dismissing the call from my mind. Per-
haps ten minutes passed when my tele-
phone rang again.

I identified myself once more and a
voice said, “Shoulders, I got a real hot
one for you but I’m not going to call
you at the police station.”

Something was familiar about this
voice, I thought. It was not the first
caller, unless he did a good job of dis-
guising his voice. But I couldn’t place
it; I still cannot.

MAN people who have given: me in-
formation have not identified
themselves. Some I knew, of course, but
others were only voices that gave me
helpful leads in numerous investiga-
tions. Tipsters like these are of great
service to the police. There is not a suc-
cessful investigator who does not have
such men.-supplying him with informa-
tion. If guilt by association is credible,
then every policeman in the country
could be. sent to jail.

The second caller went on to explain
the big arrest he was setting up for me.

“This fellow has a pistol and two suit-
cases full of money he embezzled in St.
Joe,” he said. He meant St. Joseph, Mis-
souri. ‘The fellow is not in your district
at this time but he is going to move in
soon. He’s dangerous; he keeps the pis-
tol in his brief case.”

Occasionally, I would break in and
ask the speaker who he was. He did not
answer that question.

“I’m not going to call you at the sta-
tion any more,” he continued. ‘““Where
will you be between four and seven?”

“If you wait until after five, I can tell
you,” I said. By this time my interest
was aroused because the man was talk-
ing in specifics.

_ “Sure, Shoulders, it will be after five.”

I gave him June George’s mumber.
“You can reach me there between five
and eight,” I said. “If I don’t hear from
you by eight I won’t expect you.”

“Oh, you'll hear from me,” the voice
said. Then he hung up.

53


MASTER

DETECTIVE

APRIL

at all newsstands on
MARCH 3rd

THE WHIP

They found the murdered woman’s
nude bedy face down in a clump of
laurel, her long red hair matted with
blood. Her smooth, white back was
crisscrossed with livid welts from
neck to waist. Who killed her?

BLACK WIDOW

When the sick man’s brother finally
persuaded him to go to the hospital
they both believed the ailment was a
simple case of stomach trouble. But
the doctors who made the examination
called in the police. The investigators
went to work and turned up one of
th+ most diabolical murderers of all
tina.

HIDDEN GRAVE

There was a young girl missing—
an anonymous phone call—and a
state wide alarm that brought about
a surprising arrest and the discovery
of a bizarre and brutal murder. The
brifliant detective work that went into
the “eracking” of this case will thrill
you as few stories have.

ALSO—

Masrer Detective for April brings
vou all the popular, regular features,
the outstanding current fact detective
stories and the cream of the classics.
Don't miss this great issue.

in the April

on sale March 3rd

MASTER DETECTIVE
True Cases from Police Files:

believe, they had gone purposefully about
the business of mulcting $600,000 from the
frantic father, even returning their victim’s
religious medal to persuade the parents
that Bobby was alive and would be re-
turned.

In their confessions to FBI agents, long,
detailed documents whose contents were
not revealed until much later, Hall and
Mrs. Heady described the scene of the
murder in a lane beside a tall hedge just
off U. S. 69, south of Overland Park.

They had admittedly crossed the Mis-
souri-Kansas state line with their victim.
They could be prosecuted under the fed-
eral kidnaping statute—the Lindbergh law
—the terms of which permitted a jury to
assess the death penalty for the crime.

Hall and Mrs. Heady were whisked
across Missouri to be lodged in cells on the
eleventh floor of the Jackson County court-
house in Kansas City, while United States
Attorney Edward L. Scheufler and _ his
aides began assembling the evidence by
means of which the government officials
hoped to speed the unholy pair to their
deaths in the Missouri gas chamber.

FBI agents located the scene of Bobby’s
murder, certain of the spot when they
found not only a plastic automatic pencil,
bearing the name of the Greenlease Cadil-
lac agency in Kansas City—a pencil Bobby
had worn clipped to his shirt when he left
school with Mrs. Heady—but also the
brown velvet hat that Bonnie Heady had
worn the day of the abduction.

She admitted having lost the hat at about
the time of the little boy’s murder.

She confessed, too, at first, to having
stood by while Hall tried to strangle the
child, who fought so desperately for his
life that his killer had to shoot him.

“It was exciting,” she said. Later she
changed this story, in the 6000-word con-
fession which she dictated and signed.

During the next two weeks, investiga-

| tive activity was centered in St. Louis on

a hunt for the $300,000 missing from the
ransom hoard.

Miss O’Day proved satisfactorily that she
knew nothing about it. She was held for
a time under $10,000 bond as a material
witness in the case, was then released, and
crossed into Illinois, where she took a
job.

A part of the money Hall had spent
was recovered, and the final total of the
ransom that could be accounted for was
$296,280, leaving $303,720 to be tracked
down.

From their files, FBI agents listed the
serial numbers on the missing bills—13,401
$20 bills and 3570 $10 notes—and published
these figures in a 40-page list to be distrib-
uted all over the country in the search for
the fortune which had disappeared.

In St. Louis, in the flurry of the hunt for
the money, Lieutenant Shoulders resigned
after 27 years of service on the police
force. He swore that he knew nothing
whatsoever about the missing $300,000.

John Hager, whose tip resulted in Hall’s
arrest, was taken from his home and
questioned by federal agents, then re-
leased. He, too, vowed he had no idea
what had happened to the missing money.

Meanwhile, government officials in Kan-
sas City, readying their case for a federal
grand jury, dug deep into the personal
histories of Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie
Brown Heady, seeking some answer to
what seemed an imponderable question.

What sort of humans could these two
be, to have committed one of the most hell-
ish crimes on earth?

Carl Hall had been born of pioneer
stock in Pleasanton, 75 miles south of
Kansas City, the son of the town’s fore-
most lawyer and its richest citizen. His
mother’s father had been a district judge.

Lawyer John Hall was a proud man, and
a hard and grasping one who worshipped

the dollar and the position in society to
which he believed his wealth entitled
him. He meant for his son—Carl’s elder
brother had been born hopelessly de-
formed and had died at the age of 9—to
be a considerable cut above the rest of the
youths in Pleasanton. Hall kept the boy
aloof, until the lad became something of
a lone wolf.

His mother, however, tried to see that he
was a regular kid, but she busied herself
a great deal with politics, welfare work
and church and social affairs.

“She was a fine, intelligent woman,”
said a former teacher with whom Carl
went to stay after his father died when
the boy was 12. “But as a mother she
was the most cold-blooded and _ hardest-
hearted woman I ever saw.”

Carl began getting into scrapes. His
mother tried to keep him out of them. In-
deed, if old Pleasanton memories were
correct, she tried to run his life, down to
its least detail.

She persuaded an old family friend to
put Carl to work on a line gang, “to keep
him off the streets,” and she paid back his
wages herself, secretly, to the company
at the end of each week.

She sent him to a select military acad-
emy. She was asked not to return him
the following year. He was graduated
from his home town high school, and he
was vice-president of his senior class.

At the age of 17 he was in trouble with
a girl, a pretty young student nurse
whom his mother bought off.

Mrs. Hall steered Carl into the Marine
Corps in 1938—for discipline. He was
drinking too much. As a marine he was
frequently in the brig, usually for going
AWOL. He phoned his mother, time and
again, for money—and generally got it.

Some of his letters to his mother, writ-
ten while he was a marine, proved illum-
inating.

“I realize how childish and demanding
I have been. I have made up my mind for
a law career. I am going to lead my class
just as I have led this platoon.”

He was a private then. In eight years
of service, including twenty months of
battle duty with the famed First Marine
Division in the Pacific, he rose as high as
corporal, but was eventually given a dis-
charge “not honorable” because of his bad
record as an AWOL.

He wrote his mother that he was being
“ribbed” by fellow marines for studying
in the library. He wrote her of the sail-
boat he had at San Diego, saying he wanted
a bigger craft. He boasted he would some
day be a credit to his father.

Mrs. Hall died in 1944, long before she
could ever know just how far her son had
fallen short of that boast.

Carl returned to Pleasanton from Oki-
nawa in 1946 to claim his $200,000 fortune,
which consisted of the 18-room family
home, farms with a total of some 1300
acres and the rest in stocks and bonds.

Samuel Tucker, 74-year-old head of a
phone company, long a Hall family friend
and the nearest substitute for a father
Carl had known after his own parent died,
tried to convince the young veteran that
he could settle down and live comfortably
off the income of his estate the rest of his
life.

Carl’s answer was in an immediate head-
long assault upon the assets of the estate.
He sold his 10,000 shares in the telephone
company and picked up the check without
even looking to see how much the stock
had brought.

He took a hotel suite in Kansas City,
bought a flashy convertible, began gam-
bling and drinking and found it easy to
consort with “big-shot” underworld
figures, whom he took back to Pleasanton
and introduced as his bankers, his business
associates, sometimes as his bodyguards,

ae

He cashe:
property,
with talk ¢

“Tll neve:
he bragged

He sold «
so ridiculou
it back on }

He peddlk:
$8000.

He set uj
both. It w:
bankrupted

He dropp:
dusting ven
capital.

He bough:
cabs in Kan

in one of th
the $100 tip:
ackies such

Hall was
and sentencr
served 15 mc
was freed o;

A month }
in the Hote]
and Bonnie
glasses toget
hangovers, 1
begun.

Mrs. Head)
Missouri, ha:
parents’ far;
mother died
old:

Her childh
grew into a |
ular, an exc:
tended a stat«
one-half yea:
tician, then m
erous commis
livestock yard

The Heady:
new home wa
tivity until, a:
habit of drain
became a con
one too man:

gradually dimi
little Indians, ¢

No one in ¢
Bonnie’s declir
chronic alcoho
she got a dive
house, car, her
acre farm she
grandfather—a:
a pattern of se:
ness. She dr:
bourbon a day.

Bonnie rare!
had spent $500/
in the attic of

, the
yector..
510’s—
lize it
e ran.
ready
fe) Next

y of some
sated this

ist,” Bob-
. envelope
. at Kan-
{dentifica-

exclaimed.

@
a

: Lovely Sandra O’Day (l.). leaves FBI Building with
of $1000 gift from killer; Willard Creech (r.), last to see mystery woman

“Three times as much as the biggest ransom demand ever

made in this country before. Can you raise that much?’
“T can and will,” Greenlease said incisively. “Gentle-
men, I informed you at the very first that no price is
too high to pay to bring my son safely home to his
mother, his sister and me. Let me try to buy them
off. Please don't impair this one chance, however
slim you may estimate it to be, for us to get Bobby back
alive and well.” ; Bg

The men whom he addressed were fathers, too, as well
as experienced cops. The lumps in their throats were
scarcely easier to swallow than the husk that choked off
Bob Greenlease as he stood before them, helpless for all
his riches. They did not need speech to give their assent;
they would not interfere with the ransom payment, al-
though they owned the brutal knowledge that no amount
of money would save the life of the child if the kidnapers
should decide that Bobby was a menace to them.

They were aware, too, that the child might already be
dead; slain as quickly as possible after his abduction, in
the realization that, alive and in custody of his abductors,
he was a minute-by-minute danger to them. Any mis-
chance—a minor traffic accident, for example—would be
enough to expose the criminals, if they still had Bobby
on their hands.

“J don’t like this,” FBI Agent Grapp confided to Robey,
his superior. “It’s a cleverly planned job. Using the
woman to decoy the boy away from school was not the
work of some stupid amateur. And note the instruction

jumbers on the bill i
widely-varied numbers. They would be hard to spot,
once they were put in circulation.”

Chief Jeremiah O’Connell after she told

with Bobby

Robey nodded. “A cunning brain at work, all right. A
cunning, vicious mind—scarcely the type to know the
meaning of mercy or fair play.”

Greenlease conferred with ‘Arthur Eisenhower, brother
of the President and executive vice-president of one of
Kansas City’s largest banks. The $600,000 ransom money
could be obtained—in equal amounts from all twelve fed-
eral reserve districts—within a couple of days, at most,
Eisenhower said.

Bobby’s father returned home, ready to comply in every
least detail with the kidnapers’ demands.

News of the abduction brought a mob of reporters and
photographers to the Mission Hills mansion, where
friendly Bob Ledterman, appearing: always in a fresh
white shirt and dark tie, affable and persuasive at the
same time, conducted frequent press conferences in the
drive beneath the stately trees in front of the Greenlease
home.

Ledterman handled the eager newshawks with the skill
of a professional public relations executive. From tele-
phones strung to the trunks of the towering trees, the
reporters flashed such information as ‘could be reveale
to feed the big black headlines that were read from coast
to coast, and overseas as Web.

Inside the house, Mrs. Greenlease, a pretty brunette, .
was under a physician’s care, while Bobby’s father strug-
gled to keep aglow the spark of hope that his son was
still unharmed. .

There were times, many times, when despair flooded
the eyes as well as the heart of the big man, So impotent
now to help his cherished child. ‘Family friends, priests,
messages of sympathy arrived to encourage him. Both
he and Bobby’s mother replenished their courage fre-
quently in prayer, but the (Continued on page 74)


KIDNAP AND KILL

(Continued from page 19)

insatiable germs of dread fed and multi-

plied in their veins.
There were messages,

and by mail, which did

also, by telephone
nothing to comfort
Most were from cranks; some
were ransom demands from other than the
authors of the first note.

One of these, a 19-ye
arrested in a phone boot
a hotel in St. Joseph,
in the very act of deman
Robert Greenlease.

Nabbed on a tip fr
this boy was a

ld youth, was
h in the lobby of
les to the north,
ding $50,000 from

‘om a switchboard
ble to prove he was
in the snatch.
would be some easy
-d callously. He was held on
federal charges of extortion.
Greenlease ha
ting the spurious

The original
led before the
known to others
ily and a small circle of offi-
further messages
uld be safely

not implicated

Fortunately, d one lode-
star to guide him in separa
demands from the genuine.
ransom letter had been mai

than the fam
It was upon the
from “M" that attention co

arrived on Tuesday, al-
Omitted now
Main Street with a

A second note
most a replica of the
was the drive along
white flag on the aerial.
second envelope was
medal which Bobby
away from school the previous day. Now
no shred of doubt remaine
sive was from the re

The phone calls began. Th

Ledterman heard over the wire was
The quality of tone and dic- “The boy wouldn’t answer your ques~

d to indicate a person of rather tions,” the kidnaper told the mother when
he phoned again. “He’s a sulky brat. Get
that money to us, and take him off our
‘M’,” he said the first time. hands.”
“Don't try any tricks, and you'll get

al kidnapers.
e voice Bob

good education—certainly no underworld

for as Jong as ten minutes, obviously care-
less that his calls might be traced.

“I know you won't try
he said confidently.

Ledtcrman asked that Bobby be put on tact.”
The orders came on Saturday night. Fol-

But when he lowing them to the letter, Ledterman and
the kidnaper said he could O'Neill drove eastward out of Kansas City
phone he was) on US. 40, to a bridge just beyond the
junction of Route 40 and Alternate U. S.
Tracers on 40. They eased the heavy bag over a
d them from public — railing at the far end of the span,
al neighborhood of the and drove back to Mission Hills.

here Bobby had last A phone message a few minutes after
Creech, in the drug their return brought welcome
“We've got the money. Go to the tele-
acknowledged the ad- graph office in Pittsburg, Kansas, Mon-
the day morning. At eleven o'clock you will

that the $600,000 ransom money learn how to get the boy.”
All through Monday, Bob Ledterman

the child to the

Ledterman understo
all the calls had pl
booths in the gener
shopping center w
been seen, by taximan
store parking lot.

vertisement in the Kansas City Star,

The huge sum had been accumulated
at the bank on Tuesday, 20,000 each of
$10 and $20 bills. After the bank’s closing,
80 employees worked long overtime hours
counting the money—and FBI agents stood
by, recording the serial number on each

and every bill.

An old Army duffel bag had been pro-
cured. The 400 sheaves of currency,
banknotes to each parcel, filled the bag
so full the drawstring would not com-
pletely close the opening at the top.

The bag of money weighed 85 po
To his daddy, Bobby Greenlease was liter-
ally worth his weight in high-denomina-

tion currency.

It was early Friday morning when Led-
terman and Norbert O’Neill set ou
to deliver the ransom for the first time.

They found their instructions, given over
the phone, impossible to follow, and re-

turned.

“W’ soon called again. Mrs. Greenlease

now seized the telephone.

“Pm Bobby’s mother. I’ve got to know
he’s safe and well. You must prove that
”

to me.
“How, lady?”

“Ask him two questions, and tell me the
answers he gives. Ask him the name of the
chauffeur who drove us in Europe last
summer. Bobby was very fond of this
man, so he will remember the name. And
ask him what it was he was building in
his playroom last Sunday night.”

No one outside the family could know
a small the name of the chauffeur in France a few
Maltese cross on a red ribbon, a religious short, happy months before, nor co
had worn pinned to outsider possibly guess that the model of
taken the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which the boy
had set up with a construction toy his last
d that the mis- night at home, still stood in his playroom.

Mrs. Greenlease waited through long,
desperate hours for the next telephon
that trom ‘M’.

the New instructions sent Ledterman and
O’Neill to a lonely road-north of Kansas
lled frequently, talking sometimes City, where they dropped the duffel bag.

‘MW’ called again. “That was only a test.
Get back out there and pick up the dough
anything foolish,” before someone else grabs it. T’ll let you
know later where to make the real con-

address, to make sure
Write to: Subscription Dept.,
206 East 43rd Street,
Send both old and

le your new adc
us. However, if the curre
address before that notice

Please notify us six weeks in advance of change of
that each issue of the magazine will reach you.

TD PUBLISHING CORPORATION,

New York 17, New York.
new address and postal zone number. If pos-
sible, enclose mailing label from your copy of MASTER DETECTIVE

lress with the Post Odiice, they will notify
nt issue has been dispatched to your old
reaches us, the Post Office will not for-
o you unless you pay extra postage for it,

and Norbert O’Neill kept their fruitless
vigil in the Western Union office in Pitts-
burg, 125 miles south of Kansas City.

All through each long minute of every
interminable hour, Bobby’s parents nursed
their taut, raw nerves, waiting for the
joyous jangle of bells they never heard.

That same afternoon in St. Louis, 250
miles eastward across Missouri, the Bobby
Greenlease case began moving toward a
surprising, a puzzling and a tragic climax.

In front of a hotel in St. Louis, John
Hager picked up a transfer fare from a
fellow cab driver, a stocky, flaccid, well-
dressed man in his thirties.

“A yeal ‘Good-time Charley,’ ” the first
hackie said. “Got dough, and spends it.
Wants company. You know what I mean.
He’s all yours, chum. I’m checkin’ off the
job.”

Hager tugged two heavy suitcases into
the trunk of his cab, two steel suitcases
which his passenger, who called himself
Steve, insisted be locked securely in the
baggage carrier, and set off with the fare,
who was obviously feeling his oats together
with the effects of some Missouri bourbon.

They picked up Sandra O’Day, a 22-
year-old blonde charmer who was herself
charmed by Steve’s bankroll, with which
he quickly proved himsclf as generous as
most people are with advice.

Steve gave Hager the $18 change from
a $20 bill tendered to pay for a round of
drinks. En route to a motel west of the
city, he gave Hager $100 more, “on ac-
count,” and in the motel cabin he peeled
off $2500 in $20s.

“Take it,” he said to the taxi driver.
“Come back in the morning with a car,
rented in your name. And bring me a
two-suiter bag and a briefcase to match.”

Hager stared questioningly at the money.

“Go on, take it, and do like I say,” Steve
urged. “Spend the dough. That’s what
it’s for, to spend. I hate little people. I
like to be big.”

The next morning, Sandy O’Day showed
Hager $1000 which Steve had civen her
to fly to California to mail a letter.

“The guy’s nuts,” Sandy said. “He's
packing a rod, and those two svitcases
are crammed with dough. Tl be ‘cha he’s
got a million bucks in em.”

They read the letter, addressed to a man
in St. Joseph. “Things are not going so
good,” it said. “May have to leave the
country by ship or plane.”

Steve now had a new request for the
cab driver. “Rent an apartment for me,
a nice place. Rent it in your name, vohnny.
I gotta lay low awhile. I’m ducking some
insurance investigators for a few days.”

Hager took a $185-a-month suite in a
west side hotel. Steve now wanted an-
other girl. Hager left to find one. Instead,
he telephoned Lieutenant Louis Shoul-
ders, a veteran detective whom Hager
knew, at the Newstead Avenue police
station.

Lieutenant Shoulders and Patrolman
Elmer Dolan went to the suite Hager had
rented for Steve, knocked and heard the
challenging voice from within, “Who's
there?”

“Tt’s John, with the girl.”

The door opened. The officers crashed
in. Within a few minutes they had found
the steel suitcases, filled with greenbacks,
a briefcase with a wallet and another thick
stack of currency, and a snubnose_ .38-
caliber revolver, hidden in a_ dresser
drawer.

It did not take long for Shoulders and
St. Louis Police Chief Jeremiah O’Connell
to guess who they had on their hands.

The enormous sum of money, about
$292,000, all in $20 and $10 bills, told
them plainly enough that their prisoner
must be one of the Bobby Greenlease kid-
napers.

A long-:
Chief Bran:
St. Louis fr«

plane.

By the tir
the St. Loui

prisoner was

formerly

Kansas City
the Missou
served part :
holdups, an
the abducto:

Hall took

on Arsenal ‘
Bonnie Brov
41, from St.
long bat wit

It was Bo:
taken little !

“Where's i
angrily dem:

“At home.
blandly. “7
“You kno
with him?”
Hall shrug
he said. “T
Carl Hall s
Bobby Gree:
lot after the
She then wei
handed the
Marsh, a 37-
whose long 1

tions include:

offenses agai:
the lad’s cust:
self had car

payment of tl
nie, on Satur«

money in a r«
driven to St.
Greenlease ho
-been received

returned.
Hall had be«
‘with Mrs. He

Joseph. She k
ing, he told hi

“Bonnie swa!

he related.
a former m:
wouldn’t let n
wanted only i
why she agre
school.”

With this st
adding that w
papers of the
silence about |
great love for

Spurred by
officers, sheri{
went to Mrs.
Cape Cod ds
paint, set on ;
well-kept ma;
just south of |

A thick he
cealed an ele
bors said he!
in its own d

away. Inside
uties found a
placed flowe:
vated, except
chrysanthemu:
the rear pore)
There was :
Heady’s 1950 b!
was not in th«
Back in St. |
he had no ide:
Greenlease co
was one other
he could not vu;
half of the rans
He figured. h«
away, perhaps
his sum, with
his suitcases ar


jruitless
in Pitts-
City.
, of every
sts nursed
s for the
ver heard.
Louis,
the Bobby
toward a
ic climax.
suis, John
re from a
vccid, well-

’ the first
| spends it.
hat 1 mean.
\cin’ off the

itcases into
el suitcases
ied himse
rely in the
-h the fare,
ats together
iyi bourbon.
Day, a 22-
was herself
with which
, generous as

change from
a round of
| west-of the

. taxi driver.
» with a cary

| bring me &

O'Day showed
had aiven her

y said. “He’s
two svtitcases
lll betcha he’s

cessed tova man
» not going so
oe to leave the

reauest for the
tment for me,
~ name, vohnny:-
« ducking some
a few days.”
vonth suite in a
aow wanted an=
{ind one. Instead,
Louis Shoul-
ve whom Hager
| (| Avenue police

and Patrolman

e suite Hager ha
ed and hear the
rate 3

inh.”

ae officers crashed
sas they had found
ad with greenbacks,
t and another thick
{ a snubnose 38-
jen in a dresser

Jeremiah o’Connel
sad on their hands.
, of money, about
and $10 bills, told
that their prisoner
yby Greenlease id-

A. long-distance phone call brought
Chief Brannon and Major Pond racing to
St. Louis from Kansas City in a chartere
plane.

By the time Brannon and Pond arrived,
the St. Louis cops had learned that their
prisoner was 34-year-old Carl Austin Hall,
formerly of Pleasanton, Kansas, and
Kansas City; that he was a parolee from
the Missouri state prison, where he had
served part of a term for a series of taxicab
holdups, and that he was indeed one of
the abductors of the Greenlease boy.

Hall took the officers to an apartment
on Arsenal Street, where they found Mrs.
Bonnie Brown Heady, a plump divorcee,
41, from St. Joseph, blowsy now from a
long bat with the bottle.

It was Bonnie, Hall admitted, who had
taken little Bobby away from his school.

“Where’s the boy now?” Chief Brannon
angrily demanded.

“At home, isn’t he?” Hall answered
blandly. “That’s where he should be.”

“You know he’s not. What did you do
with him?”

Hall shrugged. “That was Marsh’s job,”
he said. “To take the boy back.”

Carl Hall said that Bonnie had delivered
Bobby Greenlease to him in the parking
lot after the taxi ride from the school.
She then went shopping, and Hall, in turn,
handed the child over to Thomas John
Marsh, a 37-year-old habitual drunkard
whose long record of arrests and convic-
tions included two prison terms for sex
offenses against boys. Marsh was to be

returned.
Hall had been living for several months

-with Mrs. Heady in her home in St.

Joseph. She knew nothing of the kidnap-
ing, he told his questioners.

“Bonnie swallowed the story I fed her,”
he related. “That Bobby was my son by
a former marriage, that his mother
wouldn’t let me see the boy, and that I
wanted only to talk with the kid. That’s
why she agreed to get him out of the
school.”

With this story, Bonnie herself agreed,
adding that when she read in the news-
papers of the kidnaping, she kept her
silence about her part in it because of her
great love for Carl Austin Hall.

Spurred by a phone call from St. Louis
officers, sherifi’s men from St. Joseph
went to Mrs. Heady’s home, a beautiful
Cape Cod dwelling, trim in its white
paint, set on a plot of smooth lawns, with
well-kept maples, elms and evergreens,
just south of the city limits.

A thick hedge, they discovered, con-
cealed an electrified fence which neigh-
bors said held Mrs. Heady’s big boxer
in its own domain and kept intruders
away. Inside the hedge, the sheriff's dep-
uties found a tiny wonderland of artfully
placed flower beds—all carefully culti-
vated, except for one, a fresh planting of
chrysanthemums, in full bloom, just off
the rear porch.

There was no one in the house. Mrs.
Heady’s 1950 blue Plymouth station wagon
was not in the garage.

Back in St. Louis, meanwhile, Hall said
he had no idea where Marsh and Bobby
Greenlease could be found. And _ there
was one other mystery which he declared
he could not unravel: the whereabouts of
half of the ransom money.

He figured he may have spent, or given
away, perhaps $8000 in a two day spree.
This sum, with what had been found in
his suitcases and briefease, would account

IT SMELLS GRAND

FRAGRANT AS A TREE-TOPPED HILL

IT PACKS RIGHT

=i)

cuT TO PACK JUST RIGHT
(iT WILL!)

IT SMOKES SWEET,

{ TRY IT MAN!
IT'S SURE TO THRILL!

IT CANT BITE!

SIR WALTER RALEIGHS BLEND OF CHOICE
KENTUCKY BURLEYS IS EXTRA-AGED TO
GUARD AGAINST TONGUE BITE. AND SIR
WALTER RALEIGH NEVER LEAVES A SOGGY
HEEL IN YOUR PIPE. STAYS LIT TO
THE LAST PUFF.

FA yok

for $300,000 of the ransom fortune, but
what had happened to the other $300,000?

Hall said he did not know. There had
been no split-up with Marsh. Sandy O’Day
might have made off with the missing
money, _ Hall suggested. Another cab
driver—he had employed several—could
have taken it.

“J was drunk,” Hall said. “I ean’t re-
member.”

This money, however, was of secondary
importance at the time. The pressing ques-
tion was, where was Bobby?

Chief Brannon never for a moment be-
lieved Hall’s_ story that Marsh had the
child, that Marsh might have pulled a
double cross and decided to hold the
youngster for more ransom. Brannon set
an enlarged photograph of the bright-eyed,
smiling child on the desk in front of Hall,
and wearied the prisoner with a barrage
of questions.

Hall finally broke. “1 don’t know where
Marsh is,” he said. “J haven’t seen him,
nor heard from him, since he took Bobby
last Monday. But the kid—he’s dead. I
buried him, under the chrysanthemums,
behind Bonne Heady’s house.’

Hall swore that when he and Bonnie
returned to her home on Monday eve-
ning, he found the child dead, shot through
the head, undoubtedly by Marsh, who
had disappeared.

“J got Bonnie to go downtown,” Hall
related. “She knew nothing about all
this. While she was gone, 1 buried the
kid.”

Bobby’s body was disinterred from the
grave. It had been buried in quicklime,
and wrapped in a plastic cover, three feet
deep. There was one bullet wound
through the head. Two teeth had been
smashed out, indicating the child had been
savagely beaten before he was slain.

Hall admitted that his snubnose .38 was

the murder weapon, but said he had loaned
the gun to Marsh, and had found it be-
side Bobby’s body, in Bonnie’s garage, on
Monday night.

Mrs. Heady’s claim of having acted in-
nocently in the crime was seriously dam-
aged when the FBI found her fingerprints
all over the two ransom letters, and finally
she confessed that she had written them,
that she was, indeed, a party to the abduc-
tion.

“The whole thing was planned by Carl,”
she whimpered. “I was so crazy in love
with him that I agreed to anything he told
me to do.”

Hall’s blame of Marsh, for whom a na-
tionwide search was under way, for the
slaying of the little boy, began to lose its
validity when FBI agents found Mrs.
Heady’s station wagon at a service station
in North Kansas City. One bullet from
Hall’s 38 was. pried from the left front
door. Another had_ hit the floor mat and
was found in the fiber base beneath the
rubber tread.

At last the truth came out.

Hall had picked up Bonnie and the boy
at the Katz parking lot, drove them in the
station wagon to a wheatfield below Over-
land Park, a southern suburb of Kansas
City, Kansas, and there had murdered the
defenseless child.

There had been no Tom Marsh involved.
Hall admitted he had plucked the name oui
of thin air, to take the heat off himself and
Mrs. Heady. It was by sheer chance, he
contended, that he had chosen the name of
a man, a native of Missouri, with a long
police record, an ex-convict whom the
police might readily enough suspect as an
accomplice in the crime.

Hall and Mrs. Heady had planned, be-
fore abducting Bobby, to murder him.
Then, with a greedy callousness the police
and agents of the FBI found difficult to

» a 8 TTT

————


NI aa

Heady said she had been hoaxed by
Hall into luring Bobby away from school
and he affirmed her story. She said that
Hall had told her the boy was actually
his son and the Greenlease family would
not permit him to see him. She insisted
that she was not even aware that it was
a kidnapping until she read about it in
the newspapers and did not know until
after her arrest that Bobby was dead.

St. Louis Police Chief Jeremiah O’-
Connell had shouted at her:

“So you helped plant flowers on the
boy’s grave!”

“He’s dead!” she cried. “Oh, you
found him. I thought you'd find him safe
and sound.”

Mrs. Heady said that after she learned
Bobby actually had been kidnapped she
did not tell police “because I loved him
so much.”

“T didn’t want anything done to him.”
she said. “I thought if I kept still he'd
return the boy.”

During questioning it was learned
how she was well enough acquainted
with the affairs of the Greenlease fam-
ily to convince the nun she was Bobby’s
aunt. Hall. she said. had coached her.
And Hall knew because he had met Paul
Greenlease. an adopted son now asso-
ciated in business with his father. when
they both attended Kemper Military
School. He knew all about the family.
Hall said. Two years ago he decided to
get some of their money by kidnapping
Bobby. After the Kidnapping, she and
Hall stayed at home, Mrs. Heady said,

Manacled together, pair arrive for
hearing with deputy federal marshal.

22

and got drunk as soon as they got out of
hed in the morning. (In the light of
subsequent disclosures. this was at least
one statement by Mrs. Heady that was
never questioned.) She said they drove
to Kansas City several times. Obviously.

Arrow points to grave beside house of woman who posed as victim’s aunt to kidnap him from school. Then he was murdered.

these were occasions when Hall made
contact with the Greenlease family.
There was never any hesitation on the
part of Greenlease about meeting the
kidnapper’s price of $600.000. And im-
mediately. under direction of Arthur B.


Eisenhower. brother of the President and
vice-president of the Kansas City Com-
merce Company. the laborious task of
assembling $600.000 in $10 and $20 bills
was begun. Eisenhower said later that
it took eighty bank employees five hours
just to count the money. And, although
it was never said so officially. it was
known that the money counters also re-
corded serial numbers of all the bills.

On Sunday night, October 5th. Hall
and Mrs. Heady. who had been drinking
wildly. drove to the spot near Kansas
City designated as the ransom drop.
(Hall placed it as being on Highway 40
and Junction 1OE,. ten miles to the east.)

“T picked up the duffel bag full of
money,” Hall said. “It weighed about
eighty pounds. Bonnie and I were in the
car. She was in a stupor.

“The pickup took place on a bridge.
1 waited until the contact man put the
money at one end of the bridge and
drove away. Then I got out of the car
and picked it up.”

Hall and Mrs. Heady then drove
across the state to St. Louis. They ar-
rived Monday morning and rented an
apartment on Arsenal Street.

Almost immediately they began to
drink—and fight. Numerous cuts and
bruises on Mrs. Heady’s face and arms
attested to that fact.

Then, in the afternoon. Hall stormed
out of the apartment, shouting that he
“wanted a woman...”

He spent the night with a 22-year-old
blonde prostitute.

Now. two days later, new revealing
ligltts began to sweep upon this bloody
mosaic of murder, greed. lust and de-
hauchery. First. the FBI disclosed that
Mrs. Heady’s fingerprints had been
found on the ransom notes. This blasted
her claim that she was merely an inno-
cent dupe. And Mrs. Heady. herself.
made a disclosure that pointed to Hall
as the actual slayer.

On the drive with Hall from Kansas
City to St. Joseph. the day Bobby was
stolen. she said she glanced in back of
the station wagon and saw a bundle.
wrapped in blue plastic. Hall, she said.
explained that it was “dog food.” Her
response to this, she said. was “That’s
an awful lot of dog food.” She said she
never saw the bundle again after leaving
the station wagon at St. Joseph.

It will be remembered that Bobby’s
shroud was a blue plastic bag... .

At last. the hideous truth was laid
bare. Both Hall and Mrs. Heady made
full confessions.

They had at no time intended to re-
turn Bobby to his parents as they care-
fully made their plans.

Hall bought the lime for the boy’s
grave well in advance.

Even the grave had been prepared
ahead of time—and Mrs. Heady helped
to dig it.

Workmen sift soil for fatal bullet. Bag of lime, murder gun and shovel used to
dig grave are trial evidence. Boy also had been beaten, two teeth knocked out.

When she took Bobby away from
school. she knew she was taking him to
his death.

And she was there when the youngster
was so mercilessly executed by’ Hall.
who fired a shot into Bobby’s right tem-
ple.

The scene of death? In the station
wagon, after they had driven to a point
about one and a half miles on U. S.
Highway 69.

Peering into the sordid corners of the
life of Bonnie Heady. it is learned that
for some inexplicable reason she had an
insane, consuming hatred for little chil-
dren—she liked dogs much better. But.

f

perhaps more to the point. is what she
told her cellmate in St. Louis:

“I'd rather be dead than poor.”

And what of Hall. who brought trag-
edy to all the lives he touched—his
mother; a young girl whose child he
fathered at seventeen; a pal. whose beau-
tiful wife he stole and abandoned; even
Mrs. Heady; and finally. Bobby Green-
lease and his heartbroken family.

The evil pair were tried. found guilty.
and sentenced to death in the gas
chamber.

They were duly executed, side by side
in the gas chamber at the Jefferson City
Penitentiary.

23

THE END.

HALL and HEADY, whites, asphyx. Mo. (Federal)

ROBABLY the most) shocking
crime of all—the most difficult
for the normal man or woman to
comprehend—is the murder of a

small child by a woman.

Yet, even within this category of crime
there are several sub-classifications—
several degrees of callousness. as it were.

Mentally deranged women have been
known to murder children they loved
very much because. in their twisted
minds, they were thus sparing them the
cold cruelties and stern realities of the
everyday world.

This. at least. we are able to under-
stand—the murderess is insane. But how
does one explain the type of human
monster. in female form. who coldblood-
edly aids in the murder of a child for

the sole purpose of obtaining money?

Yet that was the motive in the brutal -

Greenlease kidnap-murder, which began
when the red-haired woman came to the
French Institute of Notre Dame, a Cath-
vlic school in Kansas City. and quietly
asked for little Bobby Greenlease.

It was 11 o'clock on the morning of
September 28th, 1953. and the six-year-
old boy. son of multi-millionaire Robert
C. Greenlease, was in his first-grade
classroom.

The red-haired woman said she was
Bobby’s aunt, sister of his mother. She
spoke familiarly of the family and of
his father’s business, distribution of fine
cars in Kansas City.

She informed the nun who received
her that she had been shopping with
the boy’s mother, Virginia, when Mrs.
Greenlease was stricken with a heart
attack and had to be taken to a hospital.

20

TRE C&RImE

So she had come to get Bobby. She
thought it best. she said, that he be taken
to his mother’s bedside.

“Tl get the boy.” said the nun, after
wishing Mrs. Greenlease a speedy re-
covery. “While you are waiting, why
don’t you go into the chapel and offer
a prayer for her.”

The red-haired woman went to the
chapel. When she reappeared to take
Bobby from the sister, she said:

“I'm not a Catholic. But it did me a
lot of good to pray.”

Bobby. a handsome, fair-skinned boy,
with a fresh haircut and nattily attired
in white shirt and linen shorts, went
along obediently with his “aunt” al-
though he had never before seen her.

What “good” it did the red-haired

woman to pray was shockingly plain
nine days later when Bobby Greenlease
was found in a shallow, lime-saturated
grave behind a honeysuckle hedge in a
St. Joseph. Missouri, backyard.

He had been battered about the face
and two of his lower teeth were knocked
out. He also had been shot in the head.

The discovery of Bobby’s body
brought a dreadful end to the hopes of
his parents for his safe return. No search
had been made for the youngster’s kid-
napper—not officially, anyway—for the
first seven days following his disappear-
ance. From the very first, the Green-
leases had asked police to take no action.
And insofar as was known, their wishes
were respected.

Not until the boy’s body was found
was it revealed that the family had been
in almost daily contact with his kidnap-
pers who, by phone and letter, had

isis a sacha aie A

Oct® SER

on 12-18-1953,

redhead told nun. Then abducted boy.

He spent ransom for liquor and women.

ITLB


pressed their outrageous demands, and
offered assurances that he would come
home unharmed.

Now it was known why the Green-
leases had been so hopeful. They had
eagerly paid the demanded ransom—
$600,000 in cash—the greatest kidnap
ransom ever recorded.

Bobby’s mother, aged forty-five, and
his seventy-one-year-old father were in-
consolable and under the care of two

doctors. Dr. Donald Black said the el-
derly Greenlease suffered a “brief inter-
val of collapse, but recovered.”

The sorrow that cast a pall over the
wealthy neighborhood was overwhelm-
ing. Friends who drove into the drive-
way leading up-to the red brick man-
sion were crying openly.

A bitter aspect of the case was that
the Greenleases had kept absolute faith
with the faithless kidnappers and had
followed all instructions to the letter.
Money was no object—nor was it to any
avail. For the kidnappers, to whom it
was tossed in an’Army duffel bag at a
highway bridge ten miles east of Kansas
City. had never intended to return
Bobby. By the time they collected the
ransom, the boy had lain in his grave
seven days. He had been murdered al-
most immediately after he was stolen by
the brazen woman.

On the seventh day after Bobby Green-
lease’s abduction, the FBI entered the
case. Under the Lindbergh Kidnap Law,
the FBI may step in only after a seven-
day period on the assumption that the
victim has crossed state lines.

The first break in the case came soon
and from a most unexpected source—a
St. Louis cab driver named John Hager.
His tip led police straight to the kidnap-
slayers and to little Bobby’s lime-cov-
ered body, lying in the fresh earth be-
neath newly planted flowers.

Hager became suspicious of a passen-
ger he thought was a “Good Time Char-
ley” when he learned that the man, who
had casually given him a thousand dollar
tip, had a loaded gun and two metal
suitcases crammed full of money.

This man was Carl Austin Hall, thir-
ty-four, a sullen, flaccid drug addict and

Child’s body in plastic bag was placed in grave, and covered with lime.

convicted thief out on parole. Black sheep
of a wealthy Pleasanton, Missouri, fam-
ily, he had his first clashes with the law
several years before, after running
through a $200.000 legacy from his fa-
ther. He had turned to robbery and the
practice of administering sadistic beat-
ings to his victims—mostly taxi drivers
who were smaller than he.

Hall, although he was patently an-
noyed that he had been nailed so easily.
talked and talked. He told where to find
the red-haired woman—and little Bobby
Greenlease’s body. He admitted plotting
the kidnapping for two years, while he
was in prison, but he denied the murder.

Police and the FBI lost no time in
picking up the red-haired woman. She
turned out to be Mrs. Bonnie Brown
Heady, aged forty-one and plump. It was
in the yard behind her trim, white six-
room bungalow in a quiet tree-lined
street in St. Joseph that Bobby’s body
was buried.

There was no doubt about the identity
of Hall whatsoever. He had been out of
the Missouri State Penitentiary only five
months. paroled after serving a five-
year-term for robbery.

Bonnie Brown Heady had no police
record and had been a respectable mar-
ried woman for twenty years, a figure in
society and a church worker in the thriv-
ing town of St. Joseph, an hour’s drive
from Kansas City. Then she got a di-
vorce. met Hall in a tavern two months
after his release from prison and began
throwing parties in her bungalow that
shocked neighbors.

Weird and contradictory were the first
stories told by Mrs. Heady and Hall.
Both admitted the kidnapping but both
denied any part in Bobby’s murder. Mrs.

21


P car stopped and, as one of the occupants
very excited and began to struggle. Carl fired two shots at him... , My hat got knocked off in the excitement"

openly when they are in the process of If the look on the cab driver’s face “Did she talk to him on the way?” and I'm pretty Sure it was a Johnson
‘the snatch”, Could have been preserved and Passed Creech thought it Over. “Yeah, She County number.” }
These were the things that were on, it would have Saved millions of was talking about how things were at “Did you see them get into it?” 4
soing On as Nesbitt and Bennett con- words that were written in an attempt his home. She asked him about a Creech shook his head.
inued their investigations, to describe what the feelings of Kansas couple of dogs and he answered some- Nesbitt and Bennett left Soon after,
City residents were when the full im- thing; 1 don’t know what. I remember ey had. gained some ground y
[HE Toedman Cabs Office is on Main pact of the crime was vf they talked about the fact he had a ew. The woman had talked about a |
Street and not. far from the French — “No kidding!” he cried. “Okay, you black parrot at home.” black parrot the Greenlease family ;
‘onvent. There the two captains op- ask the Questions; I'll do the talking,” “Is that all you can remember?” Owned and the car they'd approached |;
eared fifteen minutes after they com- Nesbitt told him first who the boy “That’s all, You know, it isn’t a very when they left the cab had a Johnson |
leted their talk with Chief Brannon was. The name was well-known in long ride. It was over pretty quick.” . County license on it. The Mission Hills
; was @ reputable Company and trip Kansas City and Creech immediately “Did the boy Sound like he knew the home of the Greenleases is in Johnson |
ckets are carefully kept so the officers realized the importance of what had woman?” County. Possibly Someone near the 4
d not expect difficulty in tracing the happened, “TI been sitting here trying to figure family was in on the kidnaping, ;

‘iver.- Nor were they wrong. He was “This is a big thing,” he said. “They that one out before you asked me, After the two captains made. their 3
‘illiard P. Creech of Baltimore Avenue. are worth a lot of money. Have they Truthfully, I don’t know, Some things report to Chief Brannon he asked.them

tt he was not on duty. The Officers been contacted yet?” he said Sounded like he did and some to visit Greenlease, They still were /
‘ove to his home and found him in, , Nesbitt said they had not, He added, things didn't, I don't mean what he e only men on the case despite the H
Creech had the typical air of aware- “What did the woman look like?” . Said exactly, but the sound of his voice. fact that by now the news was being }
88 of most cab drivers and the cap- Creech Considered, then slowly de- “One thing is Sure; she brought up broadcast over the radio and was |
n knew they had been spotted as Scribed a chubby woman and his de- the subject about the pets.” about to be Published in the early eve- |
licemen the second he saw them, Scription agreed in general with thé one “You mean she knew he had a Parrot ning newspaper. Brannon was keeping
len they explained that they would the police had been given at the con- and dogs at home?” his word that he would not frighten off
e to talk to him about a fare he had vent. ; “She sure did, I don't think she had any attempts the abductors might ]
Tied that day he invited them to ‘The cabby added one Significant a chance to talk to him very much be- make to reach the family,
on the porch, “where it’s more detail. fore they got into the cab so she must The case in these early hours already 1
vate-like,” : ; “I would say that she had a couple have Mentioned it for the first time was taking on the characteristics which }
‘he three men Sat on cane-back under her telt,” he Stated. when they were with me,” later were to but it on the lips and in #
irs and took out cigarets, “How’s that?” ‘ the hearts of every American, A boy j
Which one was it?” Creech asked, “You know how it is in this business; THis Statement, if it were true, had been wrenched from his home and -)
esbitt finished lighting his Cigaret you judge your tips by the load the brought the Case closer to home. It terrorists were willing ‘to trade for j
re answering. “The .woman you fare has on sometimes, It’s.almost sec- would indicate that someone who knew dollars on the most fundamental of i
‘ to the convent,” F ond nature in figuring if you gota fare a number of intimate facts about the human emotions. They were relying on /
veah?”—. who is on the town for a good time or Greenlease household was in on the the instinct of mankind, and even the }
Vhat can you remember about her?” = just out on business. There's a differ- kidnaping, animal world, to protect its young. ;
® shrugged. “4 fare. She came to ence in the tips.” Ns “What happened when you got to When the Officers arrived at Mission
lot and I did business with her.” “Did she say anything to you on the the Parking-lot?” Nesbitt asked, Hills they found several cars parked
Vhere did she meet you?” way to the convent?” '

“I pulled up and let them out in in the Greenlease driveway and a knot |
t the lot. At the company lot. She “Sure, She said she wanted me to front of the store. Then I stopped to of curious People standing on the lawn, |
in and said She w: to go wait’ at the Convent because she was write out my trip ticket and I noticed The detectives were inspected curious-
he French Convent. 1 told the going to the drug-store barking-lot the two didn’t go into the store. They ly as they trudged the few Steps to the
itcher where we were going and near Thirty-ninth and Main Streets went up the driveway into the Parking- door. Already severa) newspaper re- i
ed out.” He paused. “What was after she was finished, whi } j
4 female Jesse James?” went inside the school I pulled upinthe sixth or seventh car when Some guy be- what would become a long vigil at the |
| id she pick UP anyone at the con- driveway and turned the cab around hind me honked. 1 had to pull out Greenlease home.
| " and sat there and waited for her to then.”
| ech nodded slowly, trying to read come out. The cab meter Tan up about “Didn't you look back?” THE door was answered by the maid,

stectives’ minds, “Sure. A bright twenty cents while I waited.” “No. Who would figure anything like Nesbitt explained who they were {
boy.” : “What happened after they came this? To me they were just a woman and what they wanted. Mrs. Greenlease )
d you know him?” out?” and a kid. When I drove past them I had been given a Sedative and was lying |
'. Say, what is this?” - “Well, that was simple enough. She did Notice they were Standing beside & down, the maid said, but the elder
e@ was a kidnaper,” Nesbitt said had this boy and they got in and Idrove blue Ford, either a fifty-two or a fifty- Greenlease and his children were in the

to the drug-store Parking-lot.” three. It had &@ Kansas license Plate living-room with some friends.

a “ ue Sheed coee takai iberieees fois MeN at Sirens miyetgi “3

5 iictoeadisd A site: Pe Sata hm iy eee Sine

at


Where you bought it and when and the
make. A complete description.”
Sheperd was puzzled, but. he told ihe

“oMeer everything he could.:

THe third day after the shooting
dawned, and police were on edge.
Had the killer, following his pattern of
violence every three days, left another
trucker on the roadside with another
bullet in his head? |

“I don’t think so,” said Captain
Dodson. “He knows he muffed this last
one, and he’s probably scared. I think
he will lie low for awhile.”

The prediction proved right. Days
passed without further sign of the
killer.

Meanwhile, police were ‘working on
the routine but essential chores of the
nvestigation. Armed with a list of over
500 light-colored Chevrolets registered
n western Pennsylvania and eastern
Ohio, they canvassed to see if they
sould find one which had been near the
iites of the three shootings.

From the trucking companies and
oll-gate records, they obtained the
1ames of more than 450 drivers who
iad traveled the death stretch of the
Curnpike on the nights the first two
lrivers were shot. Questionnaires were
ent to each one, with questions de-
igned to refresh their memories about
inything unusual they might have
een,

After the questionnaires were re-
urned, officers personally interviewed
nore than a third of the drivers, going
s far as Connecticut and Georgia to
alk to some of them.

All the while, rumors raced up and

yapers as the wTurnpiive Phanto
vas reported in half a dozen places:
nce.
Some of the tales were purely
thers resulted from odd
nd taut nerves.

nd it led to a
tudent who was o
all team.
Yes, he had driven on the Turnpike
he night in question, he said. The air
ad been cool rine put on his foot-

his school’s foot-

all parka, turning the hood up over
is head, But jon the nights of the
hootings, he proved he was in his
ormitory, burning the midnight oil.
1 Youngstown, Ohio, a former mental
atient was questioned after boasting
1a tavern that he was the phantom.
ut police learned that he had
o gun, no auto and only a hazy know!l-
ige of the case.

In Philadelphia, a distraught hos-
ital orderly got a priest out of bed
efore daylight by pounding on the
sxctory door. “Please have me arrested
afore I kill ahother one,” he begged.
(m the Turnpike killer.” When police
ouldn’t belieye his confession, he
Tered another\just as likely: “I’ve got

ith a good watch,” Dodson sa

2ep it, sell it or pawn it. But he won't
irow it away. Sooner or later that
atch is going to turn up. When it
yes the hands will point straight to
1e killer.”

From a jewelry store in Wheeling.
‘est. Virginia, where Sheperd had
vught the watch, Dodson learned its
orks and case numbers. He also
stained a photograph of an identical
atch. He then had leaflets printed
ith the picture, the tell-tale numbers
id an account of the crimes. Across
ie top of the leaflets, in large type,
as re fy eye-stopping message: ‘$11,000
ewar

“We'll send these out to police

0

stations around the country, but not
right away,” Dodson said. “They get
hundreds of Miers like this every week;
and after a few days ours will be buried

«on the bottom of the pile. I’m counting

on the killer to pawn the watch. But I
want to give him plenty of time to do
it before we send out our fliers. That's
the important thing, timing.”

August and September passed with-
/Out further activity on the part of the
gunman. With the advent of October,

son decided the time was ripe to
elease the leaflets.

4

HE day after one arrived at Police
Headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio,
Detective Carl Obert of the pawn
division sat down and compared it with
is records. In almost every state,
Pawnbrokers are required by law. to
supply police with a periodic list of the
items left, with them as security for
pans. When the article has an iden-
ying mark, such as a serial number,
that also is listed.

This was st a long-shot, Obert

an hour of fruitless
what he was look-
f a fifteen-jewel
nd the numbers

probably the name
phony,” Obert
bell. “But at least we can try.”
A plump, blond young woman opened
the do por.

“You mean.John—John Wable, the
name jis,” the
uple of months agoc
‘don’ t\know where he is now.”

ced themselves
and learned that the _girl.-was Leora
Crissey,,\22, who lived there with her
mother and stepfather. She said Wable,
25, had| roomed at their house for
several months while he worked in/an
electrical appliance plant in Cleveland.

“I went out with him several times,”
she said. “He always seemed /like a
nice guy. He was crazy about my little
daughter, Pamela. Always buying gifts
for her. He was almost like one of
the family.”

She told the detectives that Wable’s
parents lived in Ohiopyle, a small town
in Western Pennsylvania.

He had driven a light-colored Chev-
rolet for awhile, she added, and made
frequent trips to visit his family.

: ttt a in August/he quit his job and
e
him,”

Whilel/they were talking, her step-
father, John Jandura, came into the

Jandura declared. “I knew it when
I found that package.”

“Package?” Obert ask

“Yes. Early in Au
package in that closet
didn’t say anything about it, and he'd
been acting strange, so I opened it. I
found a gun and a holster inside.”

“What did you do with them?”

“I didn’t want a gun around, so I
gave it to Dominic Meurti,” Jandura
said. “He’s the police chief of Bedford
Heights and a friend of mine.”

The detectives went to Bedford
Heights, a Cleveland suburb, and
obtained the pistol from Chief Meurti.
It was a .765 millimeter German Wal-

ther automatic, the equivalent of a .32-
caliber gun.

They notified Captain Dodson and he
sent two men from: Greensburg to
assist with the investigation. The
automatic was rushed to Harrisburg to
be test-fired in the ballistics laboratory.

Two days later State Police Commis-
sioner Cecil M. Wilhelm telephoned
Major Andrew Hudock, commander of
the Greensburg barracks, with good
news. The tests, he said, proved con-
clusively that all three bullets were
fired from the German gun.

“Well, that does it,” Hudock said.
“We've got to find Wable.”

But capturing him was another
matter. A nationwide flier was sent ou
listing him as “highly dangerous”.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania and
police tried to pick up his trail,“They
learned, with some embarrassmént, that
Wable had been arrested by/Cleveland
police and FBI agents just seven days
after the last trucker was shot. He had
spent the next month, if a Pennsylvania
jail.

At the time, hotever, he was not a
suspect in the, rnpike slaying. / An
auto-rental gency in Uniontown,
, had obtained a larceny
rom Alderman Robert F.
, Junior, of Uniontown, charg-

rented car. The FBI had entered the

se when he was charged’ with fleeing
Ohio to avoid prosecution. At FBI
request), he’d been picked up by Cleve-
land police and returned to Uniontown
by Constable John Day.

He was kept in jail there until
September 16, when his family agreed
to make restitution and the charges

“TER Wable was named as a sus-
ct in the Turnpike case, his for-
mate came to Fayette County

cellmate had asked why he was so
interested.

“Because I'm the ‘one they’re looking
for,” Wable was quoted as saying. “I
shot those two truck, drivers on the
Turnpike and another ‘one in Ohio.”
that Wable also had given his cellmate
the descrip-
tion of those stolen from \Sheperd.

After Wable was released,\the warden
said, he had made two trips\to the jail
trying to arrange for his fo
mate’s freedom. The last tri

turned him into a suspect.

Police soon learned that
allegedly made another stop that \day.
When Theodore Chesler, a Uniont

Wable had stolen his car, they an-
nounced,

“I practically helped him steal it,”
Chesler said, police claimed. “He came
in the restaurant about midnight and
borrowed a screw-driver because he
wanted to fix his car. A little while
later I looked out and my own car, my
screw-driver and this fellow were all
missing.”

Police issued a notice for the auto,
but for three days no trace of it or
Wable was found.

At dusk on the third day, three young
bandits robbed a service station on
Highway No. 66 on the ‘outskirts of
Albuquerque, New Mexico. The attend-
ant telephoned a speedy alarm, and
State Police threw uv road blocks along
the highway and adjoining side roads.

The fugitives’ car slithered past two
of these road blocks and outran a patrol
car which took up the chase.

But when they came to a road block
at the town of Belen, about 30 miles
from Albuquerque, they skidded to a
stop and jumped out. Two teen-agers
were captured at the spot. But the
pty man in the car escaped across a
field.

Half an hour later, Nurse Caroline:

Smith and a companion, Midge Har-
mon, saw oa thin, sallow faced stranger
walking along a side road. Miss Smith,
who had heard about the chase, noti-
fled police.

They converged on the spot and
captured this one, too, without a
struggle. He told the officers that he
had picked up his two companions
while they were hitch-hiking across
the Mojave Desert.

To Sheriff Harold Hubbell, they were

just three petty holdup men—until
State Trooper T. J. Chavez found an
registration card in the glove com-
artment of the car. It was made out
he name of Beatrice Chesler, wife
of/the restaurant operator in Union-
n.
/ The third man captured said that he
had borrowed the car. Chavez didn’t
believe him. He put in a long-distance
call to Mrs. Chesler.

“No, I didn’t lend him my car,” she
said. “It was stolen. And the police
here are hunting that fellow for ques-
tioning about some killings.”

New Mexico authorities immediately
notified Pennsylvania State Police.
And the third man admitted that he
was John Wable.

The next morning, Corporal Smith,
Westmoreland County Detective Merl
D. Musick and Assistant District At-
torney Joseph M. Loughran flew to
Albuquerque.

With them they took warrants
charging Wable with two counts of
murder. Westmoreland District Attor-
ney Alexander Sculco announced that
he would seek indictments at the next
meeting of the grand jury. Wable
agreed to waive extradition for his re-
turn to Pennsylvania.

At first he denied any knowledge of
the Turnpike slayings.

Later, Sheriff Hubbell said, he ad-
mitted owning the German gun and
pawning the watch, but he still denied
the shootings.

“I loaned the gun to another guy and
I bought the watch from him,” Wable
was quoted as saying.

At first he refused to name the “other
guy” but later he gave the name as
“Parks”, detectives said.

“He was a counterfeiter, and I used
to go to Pittsburgh to pick up money
from him,” they quoted Wable. “On one
trip he asked me to leave my gun.
Later he gave it back to me. What he
did with it I don’t know.”

Back in Pennsylvania, Captain Dod-

son put no credence in the story of
another man named Parks. He in-
structed Smith to keep working for a
confession.

The detectives had intended to take
Wable back to his home state by air.
But at the last minute they chose the
longer route by train.

It paid off. During the day-and-a-
half journey, Wable wrote out in long-
hand a 14-page: “confession”, they
said, in which he still placed the blame
for the actual shooting on “Parks” but

When they ‘arrived at State Police
trict Headquarters in Greensburg,
le was len aon again. The third

izing him and leieting to him
named the soprano-voiced

the scenes of the two killings and dis-

with detectives.
the trigger man
Parks.

At a hearing before Squire Henry
Frederickson at Greensburg, he pleaded
innocent to two chargés of murder. As
this is written, John Wesley Wable is
in the Westmoreland County Jail at
Greensburg awaiting action of the
grand jury.

On October 21, an official of one of
the firms offering the reward said that
it would go to the persons designated
by proper authorities and speculation
indicated that these would be from
New Mexico.

his acquaintance,


A pleasant home, a well-cared-for yard and, at the spot where the
shovel handle can be seen, the grave of the boy who was kidnaped

what pets Bobby had,” the girl said. No one had noticed it but the tele-
“Why?” vision news program had been on the
“Because they called a week ago and air for several minutes. Nesbitt and
asked about them.” Bennett whirled around when a famil-
iar voice came from the set. Cab driver

NESBITT was interested in this. One Creech was being interviewed by a

of the servants had told her about commentator,

it, Virginia saiq. She turned out to be The speed with which the press was
the one who had let them into the hopping on every shred of news being
home. Attentively, she acknowledged unfolded made the officers realize that
that she had given the information to the case was catching hold and its full
someone who had called and said she import was becoming k

nown to every-
was from the school-district office. day citizens, This trend was to con
“Was it a woman?” tinue until in a matter of hours it was

A s to engulf the nation.

“How did she bring up the matter of Creech told the commentator sub-

pets?” stantially what he had told the detec-
“She asked first how many children tives an hour earlier, When he talked

were in the home, what their ages were about the Parrot a cry came from

and what schools they attended. Then Greenlease’s daughter:

she asked what food they preferred and “The parrot isn’t black; it’s green!”

they did she asked if they had any and BENNETT hastily flipped through his
i A notebook and. found that indeed

“What school district is this?” Creech had said the woman talked to
Nesbitt asked, the boy about a “black” parrot. This

meant only one thing. The woman who
Without another word Bennett Pick- stole the child was not really familiar
ed up the telephone and soon was with the Greenlease household. She
speaking to someone on the school was feeding the boy bits of i

informa-
board, tion she had Picked up second hand—
When he finished talking he Said to Possibly through the fake school survey,

‘ Greenlease, “Are you familiar with a Nesbitt could feel the doors that he
ie man named Harold Dent?” thought were leading to so many places

Greenlease was, “He is the superin- clicking shut. The case was right here
tendent of the district.” in the room, with the Greenleases. All

“Well, Dent Says that the school dis- the pat theories and angles
trict has authorized no such survey as working out in his mind
the one your housekeeper here speaks
i)

mm” oe
bad.

“Mister Greenlease, this sHows that unless the Slim element of luck that
As they entered the room a Silent ably is only one of several People in- the person who called here was Betting rides with the police happened to ap-

f
information for Some other reason. pear. Such as a tip, a witness, a care- :
‘on set which was blaring out a com- Greenlease changed the subject Ang” ; €Ss word overheard and relayed. to the

reial. It struck an odd note. abruptly. “Can we help you in any way? “And you think it was the kid- authorities, |

ireenlease rose to greet the detec- Would you like to talk’ to any of us?” naners?” - : He'd had such luck before but he was

‘Ss. “Are you the Police?” he asked. He Pointed out a girl Sitting in front of “Perhaps. In any case it does look not looking for it now.’ In a case this ]
Vhen they had shown him their the television Screen. “That’s my

like we're dealing with Professionals,” (Continued on Page 51) |
lentials he stated that nothing had daughter, Virginia, and the man on the
1 heard yet from the kidnapers and far end of the sofa is my son, Paul. The

’ were waiting for the news pro- other two men &re Robert Ledterman

n on the local station to learn if and Norbert O'Neill, both friends and .

police had made any progress. business associates,” d Lieutenant Louis Shoulders, Patrolman Elmer Dolan: They knew they
Ve haven’t learned much, Sir,” “Daddy, the schools would know d run into something big—just as big as it could Possibly be
itt said. “And we are just about f

‘eenlease frowned. “ f course.
understand my Position.”
ompletely.”

° you think they might have seen
‘ome in?”

0. If they do contact you it will
’ telephone, letter, or through the
oapers. Even the dumbest amateur
1 know enough to stay clear of the

suppose you’re right, But I hope

ire professionals,”

bitt was surprised. “Why?”

vant to deal with them and get it

vith. They would more likely not

the boy.” Z

ditt could have reeled off a list °
ilar kidnapings done by profes-

‘ which did not have a happy

iter Greenlease, is it pretty well
that your boy has &@ parrot?”

man studied the question. “
Snot, although he Probably
about it to his friends.” ;
s he have any dogs?”

He has one pet especially, a
ach poodle, Why do you ask?”
tt .recounted ‘what they had

from the cab driver, Creech.
WS excited Greenlease. “Then
| trace them to the parking-

emed relieved that the woman
ated the boy so well. “She
sound like anyone who would
m, does she?” 4 a,

Udn't think so, But she prob-

The Kidnap-Slaying of Bobby Greenlease (Continued from Page 13)

x the police couldn't afford to wait

r such good fortune.

No more could be learned from the

reenlease family so Nesbitt and Ben-

tt returned to Police Headquarters to
ake a full report of their investiga-
yn. They were in the middle of it, ten
inutes later, when Brannon entered,

s face grave.

“The kidnapers made their first con-

ct,” he announced briefly.

“How?” Nesbitt asked.

“A letter. It hit the post office about

fteen minutes ago and it looks like the

al thing. We sent it on to the Green-
ases.”’

“How much do they want?”

Brannon’s face whitened. “They said
x hundred thousand dollars.”

The two captains were silent. More
ian half a million! It was fantastic,

credible.

“What do we do?”

“Above all, keep your mouth shut,”
rannon said. “We can’t afford a leak
1 any of the dickering between the
ing and the Greenleases. No one must
ispect that it’s going on if we have to
> outright. The kid’s life is at stake.”

“We don't just sit here, do we?” Ben-
ett asked.

“As far as those letters are con-
ned, we do. They were gone over
ympletely. The writing is in a kind of
\ildish scrawl. We have a handwrit-
1g expert at the Greenleases’ now.”

“What makes you think it is
snuine?

“The time element,” Brannon an-
vered. “The news was released only
n hour ago and this letter was posted
‘fore then. It had to be to get it into
1e post office for handling. It must
ave been someone who knew it hap-
ened long before the news was re-
rxased.”

“And that would be the kidnaper,”
lesbitt added.

“That’s right. And a smart one.”

“How so?”

“He wants the dough in ten- and
wenty-dollar bills and—get this: He
yvants it from all twelve Federal Re-
erve districts.”

The officers knew that this was to
nake tracing of the bills more difficult.
f bills from only one district are in-
volved as ransom money, bank clerks
yeed watch only for them, before re-
erring to serial numbers. With all
welve districts to watch, the ransom
ills are much more likely to slip
hrough undetected.

tee ransom letter, Brannon went on,
instructed Greenlease, to whom it
vas addressed, to assemble the $600,000
ind place it in an Army duffel bag.
When the money was ready he was to
irive along Main Street between 29th
ind 39th Streets with a white rag tied
to his car aerial However, before he
lid this he was to insert an advertise-
ment in the Kansas City Star personals
column so that the person who signed
the letter ‘“‘M’ would know that it was
ready.

The ad was to read: “C. Will meet
you this week in Chicago. G.”

“What is Greenlease doing about it?”
Nesbitt asked.

“He'll get the money. He hopes to
have it ready by tomorrow evening.”

This was what Greenlease had hoped
for—a clear-cut demand for payment
and the transfer of the cash in ex-
change for his boy. The sooner the
better.

But it would not be very soon, the
veteran police officers feared. A deal of
this magnitude, involving professionals
like this, would not be transacted so
easily. Before the case would be over
everyone would be under a terrific,
nerve-wracking strain. But the detec-
tives could do nothing then.

On Tuesday morning another letter
was intercepted at the post office. This
cancelled all the plans in the first
letter except the advertisement and
even this was changed The writer,
still using the childish scrawl which
had been proved to be forced, told

“A

Greenlease that when the moncy was
ready he should change the ad to read:
“M. Will meet you in Chicago Sun-
day. G.”

Enclosed in this second letter was
the small medal in the form of a
Maltese cross which Bobby had worn
pinned to his shirt when he was taken
from the school. For the first time
everyone concerned was sure that they
were dealing with the actual kidnapers.

As Brannon had_ suspected, tips
poured into his office on the day fol-
lowing the kidnaping. Any of them
might be the key to the solution. Each
would have to be followed up.

Someone might spot the kidnaper,
might note him acting suspiciously. He
would have to take chances to mail the
letters, to slip into and out of his hid-
ing-place. In effect the very pressure
of the police investigation, although
light, was moving the man like a piece
on a chess board, making him go this
way when he wanted to go the other,
making him move at night when it
would be to his advantage to operate at
day. It also was forcing him to reveal
his character. His method of opera-
tion was drawing a sketch in the mind
of every police officer connected with
the case. He was coming alive and
every move he made brought him closer
to — stage where he would be iden-
tified.

HEN the Greenlease family re-

ceived the second letter with the
medal in it, their hopes rose. They were
sure their boy was alive. The automo-
bile dealer had given instructions the
night before to the Commerce Trust
Company to get the ransom ready.
Arthur B. Eisenhower, brother of Presi-
dent Eisenhower, an executive vice-
president of the bank, took charge of
the monumental job of getting the
money together according to the speci-
fications’ of the extortion letter.

Fortunately, the task of rounding up
currency from all the Federal Reserve
district banks was made simple through
the fact that notes from all in the de-
sired denominations were on hand at
the Kansas City Federal Reserve
branch. -They were delivered Tuesday
afternoon to the Commerce Trust Com.
pany.

Eisenhower then had the ticklish job
of assembling the money, counting it
and listing the serial numbers without
letting bank employes know what was
being done. Some 80 employes were
placed in various departments of the
bank to count and package the money,
which was of considerable bulk because
of the low denominations. The work
was arranged in such a way that each
of the employes would have had to
compare notes with each of the other
79 to arrive at the correct amount. It
wasn’t an air-tight system, as Eisen-
hower later admitted, but unless the
employes were particularly determined
to find out the sum it would suffice.
Serial numbers of the notes were
turned over to the FBI

As the five-hour task of counting
neared its end Eisenhower sent an em-
ploye to an Army surplus store to make
sure that the part of the instructions
concerning the duffel bag was carried
out to the letter. He personally assisted
in placing the ransom in the bag. FBI
agents and Brannon watched while this
was going on. The money, when it was
placed in the bag, filled it neatly to the
top.

When the job of sealing the duffel
bag was complete it was placed in a
vault of the bank which could be
opened at any time and there it would
remain until Greenlease asked for it.

Eisenhower informed his friend,
Greenlease, that the job was finished.
Brannon and the FBI told the million-
aire to go ahead with the next step of
the instructions.

The advertisement telling M to meet
G in Chicago Sunday was inserted in
the Wednesday afternoon Kansas City
Star personals column and then to
minimize the chance for a misunder-

standing it also was placed tn the
Thursday morning Kansas City Times.

However, this precaution proved un-
necessary. The terrorist was watching
the Kansas City Star. Several hours
after its first edition was on the street,
Robert Ledterman, the friend of Green-
lease, answered the telephone in the
Greenlease home.

This was not the first call Ledterman
had answered there with dread ex-
pectancy. The phone had been ringing
steadily since the news of the kidnap-
ing was released. Each caller who did
not identify himself or spoke darkly
about the boy was asked questions
which quickly showed that he had
nothing to do with the crime. This was
simple because at that point none of
the information concerning the letters
received or the request for ransom was
known except by the family and a few
friends and, of course, the police.

Other telephone calls to the Green-
lease mansion had carried expressions
of sympathy from friends and ac-
quaintances and citizens touched by
the tragic circumstances. These all
were answered patiently.

But this mid-afternoon of Wednes-
day Ledterman knew he was talking to
the man.

When he picked up the receiver and
identified himself the voice on the
other end of the line asked to speak to
Greenlease.

Ledterman could tell the man was
nervous but his talk was straight and
it did not sound as if he had been
drinking, as had been the case with sev-
eral crank callers. Patiently Ledter-
man explained that Greenlease was not
available but he was completely author-
ized to talk.

After a pause at the other end of the
line the voice said, “This is M. Is the
money ready?”

Ledterman knew then he was talk-
ing to the actual abductor. No one else
would know about the money or the
initial used in the advertisement.

The money was ready, Ledterman
said, and what should they do?

“Did you get the medal?” M asked.

Ledterman said they had. He asked
how the boy was and the stranger re-
plied that he was fine and would stay
that way if Greenlease continued to
follow instructions and not let the cops
in on it.

Ta. abruptly, the caller hung up.
This was a practice that was to con-
tinue through all his subsequent tele-
phone calls.

Brannon and the FBI were ready for
action. They could not do too much
but they had traced the call. It came
from a small cafe with a public phone
about three blocks from the large drug
store where the woman and the boy had
been taken by the cab driver. Police
were not rushed into the area. This
was a decision that had to be made but
was not made easily. Instead, officers
filed this additional bit of information
away and the sketch of the terrorist
had one more line added to it.

The night of September 30 went by
with no further effort by M to reach
the Greenlease home. On the following
day a story broke in a Chicago news-
paper stating that the kidnaper had
contacted the family and had de-
manded $500,000. This showed that
the vast scheme to keep all negotiations
under cover was springing leaks at the
seams. The Chicago story was denied
by Ledterman but rumors persisted
and before the next day came around
newsmen were convinced that the
rumors had some basis in fact. They
tactfully held off further stories, fear-
ing that extortionists might consider
such reports a breach of faith on the
part of the Greenleases. Instead they
printed Ledterman’s denials and let it
go at that.

Anxiety was mounting on every side.
The Postmaster General's office in
Washington, D. C., sent word to its
thousands of letter carriers asking
them to read a description of the boy

and watch for him = th their daily
rounds. The theory was that they pre-
sumably visited nearly every home in
the United States and chances of
running into something suspicious
were good.

HE Teamsters’ Union headquarters

in Washington printed thousands
of handbills containing a description
of the woman who had taken the boy
from the convent and a picture of
Bobby. These were distributed to all
the union’s members, many of whom
wheeled trucks across the nation’s
highways and might see a boy and
woman fitting the description. This
action was prompted by the hundreds
of alarms to the police that a boy and
woman answering the descriptions of
Bobby and his abductor were seen in
almost every state in the union. Every
one of these tips was carefully investi-
gated but in no instance were the
findings encouraging.

On Thursday, October 1, M got in
touch with the Greenleases again, this
time by letter. Greenlease was told to
write a letter to M and attach it to the
window of a church about five blocks
from the drug store. Greenlease did
this but luck stepped in then. A
passer-by noticed the letter, removed
and read it and then turned it over
to the police.

That night at about 8:30 M tele-
phoned again. Ledterman answered
the telephone. The caller identified
himself with the usual, “This is M.”
He added that he had received the
letter at the church. Ledterman knew
this could not be true and for the first
time he had misgivings that he actually
was dealing with the abductor. He did
not tell M why but he said that the
boy’s parents had some doubts he was
the boy’s kidnaper. Could they talk
to Bobby?

M was reluctant. However, he said,
they could ask any questions they
wanted to prove his authenticity. Mrs.
Greenlease long had considered this
possibility and she had framed two
questions which she knew only her boy
could answer. However, before Led-
terman could summon her to the tele-
phone, M hung up.

The call was traced again and it
proved to be from a public booth in
the drug store itself, next door to the
fateful parking-lot.

Friday night M called again. This
time Norbert O'Neill, the other business
associate of Greenlease who remained
at the family’s side through the ordeal,
answered. M asked what sort of proof
they wanted that he had Bobby, and
this time Mrs. Greenlease reached the
phone.

She directed M to ask Bobby the
name of the driver who chauffeured
their family car in Europe the past
Summer and what he had built from
blocks in his room the last night he'd
been home.

“I don’t know,” M said. ‘The kid is
driving me nuts. I'll try to ask him.”
And the connection was broken.

A tracer once more led to a public
booth in the drug-store area.

Brannon decided to sift one or two
men who were dressed not to resemble
police into the vicinity. This was a
weak way to approach a giant problem
and he knew it. But constantly before
him was the picture of Bobby Green-
lease. What was his life worth? Send
300 men into that area in one big
gamble to make it or else? That was a
responsibility he could not accept.
Get the boy back alive; that was most
important.

y= demand for the $600,000 auto-
matically had set a pattern for the
investigation to follow if the money was
handed over. Police throughout the
nation would not have to be informed
what to look for. The kidnaper’s next
move, if he followed the pattern he'd
established, would be to spend the
money. He would have so much, it
would burn holes in his pockets. If he

51


Be

Decline, Dormancy, and Resurgence

a case until the fate of the victim had been decided. As a result,

the first report in the Times did not appear until twelve days

after the kidnapping. Accompanying It was an editorial

reflecting public sentiment concerning the appropriateness of
the death penalty for Hall and Heady, as retribution. It was

the first editorial response by the Times to a ransom kidnapping

in almost twenty years. Other editorials followed which reviewed |
the ransoming experiences of the 1930s, the federal kidnapping
war, and the legendary exploits of the FBI. U.S. Attorney Gen-
eral Herbert Brownell, Jr., reinforced the reputation of the
bureau when he told dinner guests at a New York City social
function that in the last twenty years the FBI had virtually wiped
out the crime. In Congress, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee
reacted by announcing that he would introduce legislation to
make the bureau‘even more effective by empowering Hoover's
agents to take immediate jurisdiction in kidnapping cases. Ke-
fauver said that the present seven-day waiting period made it
“almost impossible” to conduct a thorough, efficient investiga-
tion, and two other senators agreed, maintaining that immediate
jurisdiction “would be a ‘deterrent’ to future crimes” (10 Oct.
1953, p. 34).

Soon after their arrest, federal charges of using the mails
to send a kidnapping demand were levied against Hall and
Heady. These charges, however, were merely a holding action
until it could be determined if capital Lindbergh Law charges
could be brought. If not, Missouri authorities would prosecute
under capital kidnapping or murder statutes. Hall and Heady
admitted that they had taken their victim over the Missourl-
Kansas line to kill him, thereby justifying federal jurisdiction.
They pleaded guilty to the federal kidnapping charges, and their
trial in November solely was for the purpose of determining
the punishment. The jury’s recommendation of death was
greeted by applause in the courtroom. The executions were
scheduled for December 18.

Ordinarily, the initial execution date would be a mere for-
mality and would be stayed several times by appeals, but not
in this instance. On order of the judge and with the concurrence
of the defense attorneys, it was agreed that no appeals would

129]


RANSOM KIDNAPPING IN AMERICA

be instituted. Hall and Heady, the latter the only woman ever
executed for kidnapping, went to the gas chamber on schedule.
They were the third and fourth kidnappers put to death under
the 1934 amendment to the Lindbergh Law. The Times pointed
out that the executions took place only eighty-one days after

the abduction, constituting “the swiftest punishment ever meted _

out under the Lindbergh Law” (18 Dec. 1953, p. 30).

The decade’s other sensational case occurred in 1956. On
July 4, the one-month-old Weinberger infant, son of a wealthy
drug firm executive, was taken from his carriage when his
mother left him alone momentarily on the patio of their Long
Island home. When she returned, Mrs. Weinberger faund the
carriage empty and a ransom note demanding $2,000. The note
threatened to kill.the infant if authorities were notified and
also contained an apology from the abductor: he wrote that
he regretted his action but was in great need of money and
was only asking for the amount needed. On July 5, the ransom
was left at the designated site near the Weinberger home but
was not picked up. It was revealed later that the abductor had
driven to the ransom site with the victim in the car but had
been frightened off by crowds in the vicinity, crowds which
had gathered despite a voluntary media blackout on the case.

When the blackout ended on July 6, media reactions to the
kidnapping and public interest were particularly intense, since
the Weinberger case occurred in the same locale from which
a three-year-old child had disappeared less than a year before.
The same intensity characterized New York area law enforce-
ment reactions. Reminiscent of actions taken by his predeces-
sors three decades earlier, the police commissioner of New York
City published a list of instructions to parents of kidnap victims
and announced that all 2,500 of New York City’s detectives
would attend a kidnapping investigation procedures course. A
Times correspondent, sent to cover the course, reported in detail
on what the detectives were being taught about motives and
types of kidnappers (12 July 1956, p. 51).

The FBI once again adhered strictly to the seven-day waiting
period, but entered the case upon its expiration on July 11.
Before this time, they had been on the scene but only as
observers. J. Edgar Hoover announced that the full resources

130]

eS ee

wr AEE OR Gn

Pe Pl

ARE V9)

ALix

atten

RANSOM KIDNAPPING IN AMERICA

little to challenge the prevailing impression that ransom kidnap-
ping was a crime of the past.

The Decade of the 1950s: The Greenlease and
| Weinberger Cases

During the 1950s, a total of ten ransom cases was reported
from Missouri, New York, New Mexico, California, Arizona,
and Washington. The ransoms demanded in two of the cases
were newsworthy in that they were the largest ever, but con-
tributing most to the publicity was the execution of three of
the kidnappers. All’ of the &xecutions resulted from the two
kidnap murder cases—the 1953 Greenlease case in Kansas City
and the 1956 Weinberger case in Westbury, New York.

When the Greenlease case became known in September
1953, it generated the most intense societal reaction since the
1930s. The offenders were Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie B.
Heady. Hall reportedly had gone through a $200,000 legacy
and then turned to crime. He admitted to having planned the
crime while serving a robbery sentence. His accomplice, Heady,
was portrayed in the press as a hanger-on to various midwestern
criminal gangs.

On 28 September 1953, Bonnie Heady obtained possession
of the victim, the six-year-old son of a wealthy Kansas City
businessman, by representing herself to school officials as an
agent of the boy’s parents. The victim was killed by Heady
and Hall on the day of the kidnapping and his body buried ina
lime-sprayed grave. The next day a letter was received at the
Greenlease home demanding $600,000 ransom, the highest in
American kidnapping history. The FBI again adhered strictly
to the seven-day waiting period dictated by the 1932 Lindbergh
Law, and local authorities delayed active intervention for five
days at the request of the victim’s parents. The $600,000 ransom
was paid on October 4. Two days later, local police and federal
agents arrested Hall and Heady on a tip from an informer and
located the victim’s body.

By 1953, the press had adopted the practice of not reporting

128 |

Teg eae? 3
5 et hapa ee


Bert). > y
oo eer nn cman ye | > ae ¥

~ Heady

) Colin Wilson

and Patricia Pitman

| ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF MURDER

FOUNDED 1638

tn

GP

$

/.


Rasmus Hansen and Thomas St. Clair, hanged San Quentin {San Francisco
a? under Federal authority - October 18, 1895.) -

"San Quentin, October 18, 1895-Hans Rasmus Hansen and Thomas St, Clair were hanged at 2 o'clock
this afternoon for the murder of Maurice Fitzgerald on the bark Hesper. The hanging was under
the supervision of U, S, Marshal Baldwin. The hanging took place in thé Joft of the jute mill,
The executions were witnessed only by Marshal Raldwin, four deputies and twelve doctors, The
newspaper men and others were excluded, in accordance with a wish said to have been expressed
“by Hansen. Neither Hansen or St. Clair made a spéech on the gallows, and death in both cases
ensued speedily, Hansen and St, Clair spent the morning with Fathers Lagen and Gallagher,
Both men are said to have written statements of the crime, but the contents of neither have
been divulged as yet. Hansen wrote a long letter to Miss Ella Peterson, of San Jose, the young
woman who has shown him so much attention during his imprisonment; and also one to his father.
Marshal Raldwin refused to divulge the conterits of these letters, After the execution, great
secrecy was maintained by those who were present, and with the exception of the fact that
each man died quickly, as if his neck had been broken by the fall, nothing could be learned,

St. Clair's remains were placed in charge of a San Rafael undertaker, Hansen's body was turned
over to an undebtaker of San#Francisco where it will be buried by a Danish society," aa

,

i Story of the crime: .
"The crime for which St, Clair and Hansen were hanged was murder on the high seas, They killed
Mate Fitzgerald of the bark Hesper and threw his body overboard, The story of the mrder and
the mutiny on the Hesper reads like an old-time pirate story instead of a tale of modernc rime.
The bark Hesper sailed from Newcastle, N. S. Wey on the 22 of December, 1892, bound for Honolulu,
Thomas St. Clair, Hans Hansen, Herman Sparf_and others were members of the crew. St. Clair
planned a mutiny and the others joined in the conspiracy, They planned that they should at
night seize the vessel, after murdering its officers, and sail to Chile and engaged in Coastwise

trade, It was decided to kill all the officers, beginning with Morris Fitzgerald, the second
mate, who was not popular. The other officers were to follow him to Davy Jones' Lockber the
game route, The night of January 13, 1893, was selected for the disposal of the officers, The
starboard watch, which was Fitzgerald's, stood from 8 to 12 that night. The watch was otherwise
‘made up of St. Clair, Hansen and Herman Sparf, There were others in the cospiracy, but the case &

against them was less strong thah taht against the three named, and they were ssed as witnesses

- by the Government, The mrder of Fitzgerald was accomplished according to program, It was a

_ black night and there was a very heayy wind. Fitzgerald was attacked before midnight. He was

_ Ainviegled by St. Clair to the after part of the vessel and there he was set upon by three of the. 7)
assassins, One weilded a bludgeon and another a hatchet, Those who were still awake on the a

~ vessel at that hour - and one of them was the wife of the captain - heard a shriek. The shriek

followed a blow which struck Fitzgerald with a hatchet, and it was the last sound he uttered. —

A few minutes later his corpse was thrown over the side, Then the murderers took a brook and «
tried to wash the tell-taale bloodstains from the deck; but they remained, and the hatchet with
which the midnight deed was. done was washed, but a San Francisco chemist found the stains of the

second mate's blood on it months afterward, At midnight on the night of the murder, when the
port watch went on deck, the second mate was not to be found, Several sailors who had been on —
watch said they had last seen him climbing into the rigging. The blood stains on the deck were
soon discovered, the murder was suspected, and the remaining officers went below and armed them-
selves, The obstacle thus offered to the consummation of the plot intimidated the mtineers andh
they submitted to arrest. Three were arrested and brought to San Francisco in irons. St.
Clair was tried as the leader and actual mrderer of Fitzgerald and Sparf and Hansen, the other
riggleaders, were jointly tried, Convictions were secured in both cases. 4n appeal to the U,-
S, Supreme Court (1) Supreme Court 1002; 15 Supreme Court 273) resulted in the verdict as to |
St. Clair being sustained, In the case of Sparf and Hansen there was a point as to the trial
Court's power in determining the facts in the case, .and the lower Court was reversed as to
 Sparf and sustained as to Hansen in the longest opinion that had ever been give out by the —
‘Supreme Court in a criminal case. Sparf secured a new trial and was the first of the accused
men to take the stand, He admitted the conspiracy and the mrder, but said he had been intimi- —
dated into assisting the others in killing Fitzgerald. He failed to ‘show why he had not given
 4nformation of the murder to the Captain when there was no longer any danger from his fellow-
conspirators, but the jury acquitted him, It was in his favor that there was no alternative 5
st degree with the death penalty se the desired to d_ for manslaugh- —
me Sor petnou % hore had boar a final decision in ae hair's obey SSS before tne of REx HW queh
disposed of, the last time until the 16th of this Rovghe 9-18-1895
countrymen made atron SACRAMENTO BEF, Sacremento, Bos 95


ak, 1 is lll ak MRR Sat:

Friday, November Z

The Kansas City Times
nn

By James J. Fister

Evil lies
in graves
forgotten

ARYVILLE, Mo. —
M North of here, over
back country roads, is

a little town. And with it, high
: on a hill, is the town’s cemetery.

Its your | r=
| typical Maryville | **
north Mis- Kansas ie
sourl ceme- |. | city ea
tery —|>
shorn grass
now fading aeeyes “3

from its

summer green, a dozen or so
towering junipers on the perim-
eter, marble gravestones from
the 19th century giving way to
the granite markers of the 20th.

The town is typical, too.
There’s a gas station, a water
tower, neatly painted houses.

And people who know part of
the legacy of the cemetery just
to the southeast ... a place
where lawmen came not all that
long ago to guard the roads to
the cemetery during a burying.

“If you write anything up,
don’t use our name,” said one
man who'd happened to tell a
visitor who the place’s best-
known native was. “You know,
some people still are bothered
by it.”

“It” took place almost 34
years ago — Dec. 19, 1953, to
be exact. On that morning, 15
mourners, flanked by Missouri
highway patrolmen alert against
any incident, gathered as an
overweight, doughy-faced
woman in a beige-colored suit
was laid to rest near the center
of the cemetery.

There was no need for the

See KIDNAPPER’S, B-7, Col. 1

a iad

0, 1987

Continued from Page B-1

troopers. Nothing happened. And
over the years the name of the
woman on a brown granite head-
stone has remained undisturbed,
thanks to the anonymity of the
town.

The woman is buried next to her
father, French P. Brown, 1878-
1949, a well-thought-of farmer, and
her mother, Mabel E. Brown, 1881-

~~1914,
The name of the daughter in the
adjacent grave?
Bonnie E. Brown Heady, 1912-
1953, who on Sept. 28, 1953, had
taken a walk away from a car parked
“> in what then was described “‘as a
rural area between Overland Park
_and Lenexa, Kan.” ©

While Heady, 41, strolled, her
“boyfriend, her fellow drunk, and a

=wawe ewww Re ee

Om te me eee

‘- man avaricious for money, Carl
. Austin Hall, 34, shot 6-year-old

‘ Bobby Greenlease to death. The
*. body of the child, who had been

‘- kidnapped from a Midtown Kansas
:- City private school earlier that day,
': was then taken to a prepared grave

-. behind Heady’s St. Joseph home
‘- and buried.
,. - Less than three months later, Hall
“ and Heady, attired in bathing suits,
sat side by side in the Missouri State
_Penitentiary gas chamber at Jeffer-
son City and inhaled lethal gas.
-Heady’s last words to Hall were,
we “Honey, are you all right?”
- The next day, about the hour
| Heady was buried in north Missou-
«ri, Hall, son of a well-to-do family,
was buried in a small Kansas town
halfway between Kansas City and
Pittsburg. Both funerals were con-
* ducted in an air of near-secrecy, not
surprising since the night of their
execution, 3,500 people gathered
silently, almost ominously, outside
the Jefferson City funeral home
where the bodies were taken before
.’ shipment to their respective homes.
» - Although Heady had wanted to be

P| oat Cot. (.

Kidnapper’s tombstone
conveys no sense of evil

buried next to Hall, that request was
denied. Their graves are 175 miles
apart.

For all those years, Heady’s mark-
er has stood atop the small hill near
the small town, all but indistin-
guishable from the others. If people
come to see it, they do not announce
themselves.

And in all those years, a lot of
people have forgotten — about the
$600,000 ransom, the frantic search
for the child, how part of the money
was stolen by a police lieutenant
upon Hall’s arrest in St. Louis, of
the heartbreaking story when the
body was found.

They’ve even forgotten the
names. Ask around. Carl Austin
Hall? Bonnie Brown Heady?

“Sounds familiar but I can’t place
it,’ was the reply of one man in
north Missouri just Thursday after-
noon. Told who they were, recogni-

‘tion flooded his face.

““Oh, I remember that.”

Heady and Hall. Those in the
Midwest who lived through it all,
who heard the radio and read the
newspaper accounts, thought they
never would forget. But how many
of those are dead now? And how
many alive today weren't even born
then?

Why remember now? ;

Simple. As a society we tend to
mark things in decades and quarter
centuries. If still alive, Bonnie
Brown Heady would have been 75
this year.

And the victim?

Bobby Greenlease would have
been 40.

When you have something to
sell, call Classified, 234-4000,
and get results fast
THE KANSAS CITY STAR.
The Kansas City Times


care

through the South,
connecting Washing-
ton City with Ameri-
ca’s flourishing new
port, =
The road also Played }
a major role :in mo-  -
ilizing

War of 1812, and its}.
Construction led to a}*

Creek Indians.

Well, yes,

Upening the

M@ Although the Story of the
Federal Road is tainted with

. dark moments of Oppression

and slaughter, it also contains
doses of triumph and humor., :--

By BLAIR ROBERTSON AP 92° aT asus

Advertiser Staff Writer

' _ The Federal Road — its name alone”
penal an-air. of distinction-and-impor--
nce.

Important, yes. Built in the early

1800s, the Federal Road wound its way

New Orleans.

troops in the}:

ajor war with ‘the |

And distinguished?

Upon his capture, one of the robbers,

Joseph Thompson Hare, wrote a confes.
sion illustrating that although he took in '

history in the South, there had been no
detailed account of its significance until
now, with the publication. of “Federal
Road — through Georgia, the Creek Na-

tion, and Alabama, 1806-1836” by Henry
deLeon Southerland Jr. and Jerry Eli-

jah Brown. Pee Legs BRL

ot ey pals. & $
The study allows for both the hope
“and the pathos along the Federal Road

While many of the travelers were ex-
ploring a new and mysterious frontier,
there were those = Slaves and Indians
— who were painted on a far more trag-
ic canvas.

Indians, the authors wrote, were the
original environmentalists, treating the
land as something precious and sacred.
But, as the road builders and road trav-
elers -carved their way through the

until finally they were completely dis- :*’
Placed and shoved westward in 1836:

he journal of one
traveler, Harriet Martineau, she had not
discovered “in any brute an expression
of countenance so low, so lost.”

“This kind of study unseats a lot of
real simplistic notions about what life
was like at the time,” said Dr. Brown,
44, a native of Clark County and scholar.
in-residence as well as professor of jour-
nalism at Auburn University. “It’s rich
with paradoxes.” ° ;

The story of the Federal Road is the
story of the men. and women who
struggled to pass over it. They delivered
the mail; they transported military sup-

: plies; they were British and French and

American; they were nobility and indi-

gents all thrown together on a road that.

everybody despised.

The much-maligned ‘road veered
southwest near Mount Meigs and never
made it to the area that is now Mont-
gomery, but a connector Toad was
Promptly built, bringing settlers in
droves. When they got to that spot, “it
was like arriving in heaven because the
conditions along the rest of the road

were just so bad,” Dr. Brown Said.
Wrote traveler Thomas Hamilton in

1831, “I have had occasion to say a great

‘deal about roads in these volumes, but I

ay on the present occasion to be posi-

i tively, comparatively and superlatively

the very worst I have ever traveled in

“the whole course of my peregrinations.””. :

It grew into a wider “War road” around
ith the ‘British
intensified and American soldiers
needed a road to move supply wagons
and cannons from one Post to the other.

But the expansion Project only served ‘

to further elevate cultural tensions that
had been mounting for a century be-

ans opted for the Modern ways of the
» white man while others clung to customs
“that were in grave danger of being

“Only students wearing star-spangled
blindfolds,” the authors declare in the
introduction, “can ignore the brutality

travel and settlement — or pretend that
the ultimate price was not paid by the
Creeks.”

Asked how he attempted to portray
the plight of the Indians in the context
of this historic road, Dr. Brown frowned
and said, “I can’t go back to that Period
without having an awful lot of sympathy
for them and admiration for them.

“They were completely overrun. They

- Were caught in a cultural and political
idal wave and there was no way they
could stay,” he said.

Although the story of the Federal .

Road is tainted with dark moments of
oppression and outright slaughter, ‘the
authors manage to introduce doses of
triumph and humor. :

“I contend that this book offers noth-
ing but a cross-section of life and that’s

what the Federal Road did,” -Dr. Brown -

Said. ; $
“To ‘Study the Federal Road is really

Southern frontier

to get a CAT scan of the Southern
frontier.” : .

Many of the most entertaining and
insightful Passages in the book are
excerpts fYom\the abundance of travel

narratives, that. grew-out of the glory’ “also

days of the Federal Road. For writers
and explorers, this wild and ‘beautiful

the crowd that gathered, he wrote
_ seemed mysteriously placid: 4

“ ‘Has a doctor been sent for?’ inquir-
ed one of our party, ARES OT =
3 ™ ft “I reckon there ain’t much use. of
“ doctors here,’ replied another of the
‘»- Crowd. ‘Burnt Brandy couldn't Save ei-
ther of em, man or hoss.’

“ ‘Has this man a wife and children?’
inquired I.

“No. children, that I knows on,’
answered a female, who was sitting on
the ground a short distance from the
dead man, smoking composedly.

“ ‘He has a wife, then?’ I remarked.
‘What will be her feelings when she
learns the fatal termination of this most
unfortunate race.’

“ *Yes,’ sighed the female, ‘it was an
unfortunate race. Poor man! he lost the
whisky.’ og EaS

“ ‘Do you happen to know his wife?
Has she been informed of the untimely
death of her husband?’ were my next in-
quiries, :

“ “Do I know her? Has she been
informed of his death?’ said the woman.

widder.’ ” BAR Oe se ey ee
Although several of the surviving nar-
ratives offer favorable accounts of the
unfolding South, Dr. Brown believes
that these early works, complete with
-the tragic and the grotesque — vivid de-
scriptions of con men, drunken Indians
and the like — are the seeds that blos-

somed into the Southern literary tradi-
tion of William Faulkner, Erskine Cald-
well, Richard Wright and Flannery
O’Connor. :

The travel Narratives, the author Says,
underscore the negative image of
Alabama that continues to this day.

“It’s obvious these writers see this big
disparity’ between the resources of
Alabmama and the Capacity of the peo-
ple to use those resources to create a
great civilization,” Dr. Brown Said, “and
we have never gotten away from that lit-
any.”

While there are accounts in the book
about high-class dinners of. venison and
champagne, there is no avoiding the de-

. Struction of disease — Alabama was

long known as “Yellibama” for its dead-
association with yellow fever — and

“the scourge of whiskey that was every-

where and was especially debilitating to
the Indians who flocked to this new:
found elixir. ;

Viewing the scene of a slaughtered
Indian wobbling around on his horse, a
group of Indians could only laugh and
cry out, “Whiskey too much,” an apt
metaphor for what alcohol did.

But the road would eventually disap-
Pear. Just as the fax machine and jet
airplanes have altered the way we trav-
el and communicate today, the advent of
the railroad and the telegraph in the
mid-1800s would soon make the Federal
Road unfashionable and inefficent.

Messages that once took weeks to de-
liver a few hundred miles were now only
seconds away. And as technology
advanced, that devilish and hated road

ame more and more obscure, until it
was eventually smothered by weeds and
young saplings. — -

and scattered with history. Thousands
of men and women fell dead along the
way. Now, their voices, once long for-
gotten, have been revived to tell a story
of an emerging nation, an adventurous
people and their victories and defeats.

Kee, : : i

Living ©

AND ALABAMA JOURNAL Piz SFO

.

THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER

SUININAY CroNMDTIADY 9c 490AaNn

bid Popa

pesuey

te WE,

8T8T/OT/6 aN

fedcout 4 [eg

(P 2x4 )

© 1990 by E. Randall Floyd
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published by August House, Inc..,
P.O. Box 3223, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72203,
501-372-5450.

Printed in the United States of America
10987654321
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
More Great Southern Mysteries / (collected by) E. Randall Floyd—
ist ed.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 18

i. Southern States—History, Local. 2. Curiosities and wondcis—
Southern States. 3. Legends—Southern States.

‘, I. Floyd, E. Randall.
F209.5M67 1990
975—dc20 90-1194

First Edition, 1990

Executive: Liz Parkhurst
Project editor: Judith Faust
Design director: Ted Parkhurst
Cover illustration: Byron Taylor
Typography: Lettergraphics, Little Rock

This book is printed on archival-quality paper which meets the
guidelines for performance and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the

Council on Library Resources.

AUGUST HOUSE, INC. PUBLISHERS LITTLE ROCK

Peerontnut)

er ma aa

ree

ibis bookR is
dedicated to
Anne

uosdmouy udesop ‘myrwy

Cfo WE *pueT few


-

si

je -
a e

” *
* .

oe

oe

oe
~* ~
o *

>

short

ee zo

— * os

aa *

Seen

Kidnapers collected ransom of half a
million dollars after child was slain

might be returned unharmed. The
ransom demand, $600,000, was three
times as large as any ever previously
recorded in the United States, but his
father was ready, willing and eager to
pay it.

“I'll pay,” declared Robert C. Green-
lease Sr., wealthy Kansas City auto-
mobile dealer. “I’ll pay any amount
I can possibly raise to get my son back
safe and sound.”

As considerately as they could, de-
tectives warned Greenlease of the
eventualities that had to be faced.
Bobby, they pointed out, was six years
old, a bright little youngster capable
of identifying his abductors if they
were caught after releasing him un-
harmed. The criminal pattern in such
cases was to kill the victim of a snatch
as a safeguard against any possibility
of positive identification, then proceed
to collect the ransom.

Greenlease indicated his understand-
ing of this risk, but he was not de-
terred. At a meeting with Police Chief
Bernard C. Crannon in his office at
the Greenlease Cadillac Agency, he

 aenNited, tenkiivuiih seeaeeeen neat

we

pleaded, “Promise me one _ thing,
Barney. Hold your men off, get the
FBI to cooperate, don’t do a thing that
might jeopardize Bobby’s safe return.
V’ll pay anything they want.”

Officially, the FBI could not move
into the case for a week unless there
was evidence the kidnapers had taken
the boy across state lines, but they
had been notified at once and already
they were consulting with Mr. Green-
lease and Kansas City police. They
were also making a careful study of
the ransom note which had been in-
tercepted at the post office just a few
hours after the kidnaping. The im-
portant part of this note read:

“Your boy been kidnaped get $600,-
000 in 20s & 10s—fed. res. notes from
all twelve districts. We realize it takes
a few days to get that amount. Boy
will be in good hands—when you have
money ready put ad in K.C. Star—M
—Will meet you in Chicago Next Sun-
day—Mr. G.” A_ postscript added,
“$400,000 in 20s $200,000 in 10s.”

From an analysis of the technique
thus far used by the kidnapers, FBI

Police recovered Bobby’s body, wrapped in a plastic bag, from a grave in the garden behind Bonnie Heady’s home in St. Joseph

a ’ ~ =e
ee a de Le yy oes”
ae RN 5

mer n
convince
criminals
gence I
Bobby ha
proved th
At ll
a nun att!
Dame de 5
bell to fin
40 years «
side, witt
“T've
lease,” t}
aunt—his
gency.”
The nur
her to
then aske
‘It’s
saia
the Plaza
ill—her hs
Hospital :
dition is
that Bob!
Everytt
seemed
simply, t
manner!
drive
‘Pert
prayer
chapel
bring the
nun said
The w
should {i
olic, but
prayers
More
this sim;
dispelled
mind of
the boy
The dece
when the
formed
tack, calle
dition
swered
moment
clear.
son—for

U

schoo]
and meti
woman
fection
“note the
—all 10s
serve dis’
serial nu:
some 4(
They’d be
in circu
Haunte
the kidn:
dered hi
every


men and the Kansas City police were
convinced they were dealing with
criminals well above average intelli-
gence. The cleverness with which
Bobby had been taken from his school
proved this.

At 11:00 a.m. on Monday morning
a nun at the French Institute of Notre
Dame de Sion had answered the door-
bell to find an agitated woman, 35 to
40 years old and a bit on the plump
side, with an urgent request.

“Pye been sent for Bobby Green-
lease,’ the woman said. “T’m_ his
aunt—his mother’s sister. It’s an emer-
gency.”

The nun asked her to come in, led
her to a sitting room near the door,
then asked her to explain.

“It’s Mrs. Greenlease,” the caller
said. “We were shopping, down on
the Plaza, and she became suddenly
ili—her heart. She’s in St. Mary’s
Hospital now, and I’m afraid her con-
dition is very serious. She has asked
that Bobby be brought to her at once.”

Everything about the plump woman
seemed genuine. She was dressed
simply, but tastefully. Her speech and
manner were cultured. Outside in the
drive, a taxi waited.

“Perhaps you would like to say a
prayer for Bobby’s mother in our
chapel just across the hall, while I
bring the boy from his classroom,” the
nun said.

The woman agreed readily. “Yes, I
should like to pray. I’m not a Cath-
olic, but maybe God will hear my
prayers from your chapel, Sister.”

More than anything else, it was
this simple manifestation of faith that
dispelled any lingering doubts in the
mind of the good nun. She fetched
the boy and he left with his “aunt.”
The deception was discovered only
when the acting Sister Superior, in-
formed of Mrs. Greenlease’s heart at-
tack, called to inquire as to her con-
dition. Mrs. Greenlease herself an-
swered the telephone and in a few
moments the terrifying truth was
clear. Someone had stolen her little
son—for what purpose, she dared not
think. Hurriedly she called her hus-
band. He called the police, and in a
matter of minutes the chief himself,
with his top detective aides, was on
his way to meet with Mr. Greenlease.

The ruse to obtain the boy from his
school showed diabolically intelligent
and meticulous planning. The plump
woman had played her part to per-
fection. “And,” said an FBI agent,
“note the instructions about the money
—all 10s and 20s, from all federal re-
serve districts. Even if we record the
serial numbers on the bills, we’d have
some 40,000 widely varied numbers.
They’d be hard to spot, once they were
in circulation.”

Haunted by the ominous thought that
the kidnapers might already have mur-
dered his little son, but clinging to
every last shred of hope, Greenlease

set the wheels in motion to amass the
$600,000 in the manner prescribed. Ar-
thur Eisenhower, executive vice presi-
dent of a Kansas City. bank and brother
of President Eisenhower, assured him
the bills, in equal amounts from all
twelve federal reserve districts, could
be obtained within 48 hours.

Now began the worst ordeal of all,
awaiting the preparation of the money
and further instructions from the kid-
napers. A swarm of newsmen de-
scended upon the Mission Hills man-
sion of the Greenleases, but they were
handled with masterful tact and finesse
by a friend of the family, who held
frequent press conferences in the
driveway. Worst of. all were the in-
evitable cranks who bombarded the
family with messages and phone calls,
tying up the line over which the anx-
ious parents awaited vital communi-
cations. There came, too, a rash of
phony ransom demands, many of which
had a remarkable ring of authenticity.
All of this complicated the task of com-
plying with the instructions of the actu-
al kidnapers. It took time to determine
which were real and which were false.
The one invaluable aid in accomplish-
ing this was the fact that the first note
from the kidnaper had been received
before the public knew of the crime.

There was no mistaking the authen-
ticity of the note which arrived Tues-
day afternoon. It contained a reli-
gious medal which Bobby had worn
when he left the school with the plump
woman—a small Maltese cross on a
narrow red ribbon.

The kidnaper called frequently dur-

ing the two days it took to gather the
ransom money. His voice was assured
and confident, his speech that of an
educated man. “This is ‘M’,” was his
usual identification. Once he said,
“Don’t try any tricks, and you'll get
the boy back.” Another time, his voice
ringing with confidence, he said, “I
know you won’t try anything foolish.”
He chatted sometimes for as long as
ten minutes, apparently indifferent to
the fact that long conversations might
enable his calls to be traced.

Once he was asked to bring Bobby
to the telephone. ‘Maybe next time,”
he replied easily. But on his next call
he explained that he couldn’t bring
the boy to the phone he was speaking
from. To the sleuths this was un-
derstandable. Tracers had pinpointed
the kidnaper’s calls from phone booths
in the general neighborhood of a shop-
ping center.

On the first attempt to deliver the
ransom money—85 pounds of $10 and
$20 bills in 400 bundles crammed into
an army duffel bag—the instructions
were impossible to follow. When the
kidmaper called again the boy’s dis-
traught mother grabbed the phone.

“Tm Bobby’s mother,” Mrs. Green-
lease said tensely. “I’ve got to know
he’s safe and well. You must prove
that to me!”

“How, lady?”

“Ask him two questions, and tell
me the answers he gives. Ask him
the name of the chauffeur who drove
us in Europe last summer. Bobby
was very fond of him. He'll remember
the name. And (Continued on page 78)

Metal suitcases containing part of ransom money were taken from Hall’s hotel room.
A count revealed $293,992. Also found were gun,

hat, brief case and other items


48

HOW KILLERS DIE

HE
nar
in
it migh'
ain a live
would |
all the
most |
nods. B
in gest
have di
extende
smokes
cigarett
The
the whi!
ingly h
in her c!
was obl
see onls
held th
chambe}
they sat
their m)
This
began a
fore, th
evil liv
through
spendin;
and sod
reached
cold-b!
—in the
six-yeal
When
mite 5 C “ie Bobby
vd aon tara , ( , : ¥ City, M
sl 1953, th

Bonnie was innocent, Carl had asserted, did not know it was a kidnaping. But her fingerprints matched those on ransom note


‘BY CARL JENSEN

“You and I can go places together,” Carl said to Bonnie
when he picked her up in a bar in St. Joseph, Missouri.

He was right, but the place they went was the gas chamber

HE LOVERS sat side by side on the

narrow bed, his left hand clasped

in her right. To a casual observer
it might have seemed they were engaged
in a lively conversation, but a closer look
would have revealed that she was. doing -
all the talking; his replies were, for the ©
most part, monosyllabic, or wordless
nods. Both were smoking. At one point,
in gestures which revealed they must
have done this many times before, they
extended the hands which held their
smokes and each puffed on the other’s
cigarette.

The single naked ceiling bulb accentuated
the whiteness of his drawn features, unflatter-
ingly highlighted the lines beginning to show
in her chubby face. At this moment, though, he
was oblivious to her imperfections. He could
see only the bars of the detention cell which
held them; he could think only of the gas
chamber, beyond the door 15 feet from where
they sat, which in a few moments would end
their miserable existence. :

This was the last page of a romance which
began as a barroom pickup seven months be-
fore, the sorry conclusion of two wasted and
evil lives. Theirs was a story that slogged
through chapters of illicit love, profligate
spending, criminal delusions of grandeur, dope
and sodden alcoholism. It was a story. which
reached its climax with heartless, premeditated
cold-bloodedness that shocked an entire nation
—in the kidnaping and murder of a tow-headed
six-year-old boy. ;

When the news of the kidnaping of little
Bobby Greenlease was flashed out of Kansas
City, Missouri, on the night of September 28,
1953, there was some hope that the youngster

insom note

49


felt the soul-shaking shock of: the
knowledge that Bobby Greenlease
had been delivered up as the victim of
one of the oldest and most heinous
crimes known to man.

“Kidnaped? Bobby, kidnaped?” In
his office in the Greenlease-O’Neil
Motors Company in downtown Kan-
sas City, Robert C. Greenlease Sr.,
a 71-year-old multimillionaire
automobile distributor, echoed his
wife’s anguished words into the
telephone in stunned disbelief. “Darl-
ing, there must be some mistake! Who
would do such a thing? Why?”

His own phone call to the school
convinced the big gray-haired man,
whose greatest moment in life had
been the birth of his only son when
the father was 65 years old. A moment
later he was speaking with Police
Chief Bernard C. Brannon, of Kansas
City, Missouri, who promised to meet
the motor magnate immediately at
Greenlease’s Cadillac agency at the
29th and McGee Street Traffic-way.

The two men met briefly in
Greenlease’s office, then sped to the
father’s mansion at 2920 Verona
Road in Mission Hills, where they
were joined by Major Eugene M.
Pond, chief of the Kansas City detec-
tives, Captain Harry Nebitt and
Detective Richard Bennett. It was
then 1 p.m., Monday, September 28th,
1953. §
“We can hope for the best,” Chief
Brannon said. “By that I mean, the
chances are that Bobby was taken
away by some woman with a psy-
chopathic urge to mother a little boy..
If that turns out to be the case, we'll
‘get him back absolutely unharmed.”
- “And -if this is the work of

~ professional criminals, what then?” -

Greenlease countered painfully. “It’s.

common knowledge that I’m a>

«wealthy man. I’d pay anything I

ae could possibly raise to get. my son ts
back—but will I get him back alive?”

ee “Let’s look at the odds,” the chief

said. ““‘There’s been no child abducted
and harmed in the last fifteen years.
The last four who tried the snatch
- racket wound up in the chair or in
prison. Very few crooks have enjoyed
any fruits of a kidnaping ‘since the
Lindbergh law was passed, twenty
years ago. The professional criminals
have given it up. Kidnaping’s
poison.”

“Promise me onething, Brannon,”
the father pleaded. “Don’t make a
move that will shave the hundredth
part of a chance of our getting Bobby
back. And tell me, what will the FBI
agents do?”

“Until there’s concrete evidence
the boy’s been taken across a state
line,” the police chief said,-“the FBI
has no jurisdiction, under the

oo

Li ‘Lindbergh Act, for | seven. days.

They’1l be in close touch with the case,
of course, but they won’t move in fora
week. We'll know, before then, just
what we're up against. I give you my.
word, my men will do nothing to
endanger Bobby’s life. You’ll have
every possible opportunity to buy him
back—if it’s money the kidnapers
want. There are, of course, some steps
we will take in the meantime. We will
help all we can and we will in no way
hinder whatever negotiations you
may undertake.”

Special Agent James A. Robey, in
charge of the FBI office Kansas City,

was between 35 and 40 years old,”
about five feet five inches tall, an 3
weighed about 135 pounds. a:
“She had class,” he said. “She got.
in my cab in the 3800 block on Main’
Street. I radioed her destination, the;
school, six blocks away, to my dis-
patcher. On the way there, she said ”
she wanted to go to the Katz q
Store parking lot, near 39th and 4
Main, after she got her little boy from 7
the school.” 4
Bobby did not cry,/or seem afraid, |
in the cab, Creech told detectives. The 4
woman talked to him about a couple ©

he Probe finally led to handcuffed suspects Carl Austin Hall and Mrs. Bonnié Heady

was promptly informed of the abduc-
tion. His report 'to Director J. Edgar
Hoover in Washington, D.C., brought
specialists from national head-
quarters winging to Missouri to plan
their course of action, if and when the
federal men should be called upon to
enter the case. rane
On the information that tie

woman who had posed as Bobby’s.

aunt had called for and taken: him
away in a taxi, city detectives a few
hours later turned up 62-year-old
Willard Creech, a driver for the Toed-
man_Cab Company, whose hack had
been used in the snatch. | gece

To the description of the woman’s

appearance, Creech added that she

of dogs ‘and a parrot at home, and
asked if he’d like some ice cream.
When they left ‘the taxi at the
pharmacy, Creech remembered, the
woman and the boy did not enter the
store, but walked on into the parking
lot. As he stopped to write up his trip,”
ticket, he watched them go up beside a ;
blue 1952 or 1953-Ford sedan with “|
Kansas plates. Then a driver behind e
Creech -honked impatiently and he ‘
had driven off. He did not see his a
passengers again. histo a
With an alarm broadcast for the 4
woman and little Bobby—and the |
possibility that they might be in the |
company of a man. or more than one;

(Continued on page 72)


religious medal, the Maitese cross,
which Bobby had worn to school on
Monday. Now the parents could be
sure, at least, that they were in con-
tact with the people who had stolen
the child.

There were amendments to the
original instructions. The ad in the
newspapers was to read: “M (instead
of C). Will meet you in Chciago, Sun-
day. G.” And the drive up Main Street,
with a rag on the aerial, was aban-
doned.

The $600,000 was ready on
Wednesday morning. The ad
appeared in the Star that day.

Tensely, Greenlease waited.
Reverently, Bobby’s mother prayed
for her child’s deliverance.

That evening came the first phone

‘call which the Greenleases and their
loyal efriends could believe was
authentic.

: “This is M,” the man’s voice said.

“The boy is all right. Just do as you’re
told, and you'll get him back: Try to
trick us and—well, you guess the
rest.”

On Thursday, three days after
Bobby’s disappearance, there were
two calls. Ledterman answered both.
It was the same voice. The kidnaper
talked for several minutes, seemingly
unworried over the possibility that
police might trace the call.

100180, Ne sala.

“Put the boy on the line,” Ledter-

man urged. “Let us hear his voice, to
prove that you have him, and that
he’s still unharmed.”
_ There was a pause. “Maybe I will,
next time I call,” came the mocking
reply. “I'll think it over, pal. But this
much I can promise. You’ll get your
instructions then, on how to deliver
the dough.’”’

When he telephoned again, “M”
said he could not risk bringing Bobby
to the instrument he was using. This,
Ledterman knew, was doubtless true,
for the previous call had been traced
to a booth only a few blocks from the
parking lot where the woman and
Bobby had disembarked from the tax-

-icab, and a tracer on this second
conversation, which lasted for 10
minutes, spotted the kidnaper in
another booth in the same
neighborhood.

Now the kidnaper gave instruc-
tions. The duffel bag, with its 85-
pound treasure, was to be loaded in a
car and driven to a street corner on the
south side of Kansas City, Missouri.
There the lid of a~mailbox was to be
lifted, and further instructions would
be found on a paper pasted inside it.

It was early Friday morning,
before dawn, when Ledterman and
O’Neill set out to follow their orders.

Lf You Need Money NOW--- Our

Message is Simple

and to the Point®

YOU CAN BORROW
te OP 70 $1500 22
_ BY FAST AIRMA/L

/

—Convenient terms—up to 36
months

—Easy to Get Money—No interviews
—Private . . . Relatives not contacted
—Fast airmail service

FINANCED | PAYMENT | PAYMENTS | PERCENT

$ 528.76 | $22.00 $ 792.00 28.50 |
738.97 | $30.00 | $1080.90 26.50
954.91 | $38.00 | $1368.00 25.00

1064.42] $42.00 | $1512.00 24.50
1233.07 | $48.00 | $1728.00 23.50
1521.06 | $58.00 | $2088.00 22.00

“Pay only for time you use money.
We are State licensed . . . assuring
fair rates, supervised reliability!

Dept. 198-01

6018 Military Ave. e Omaha. Neb. e 68104

_ *

7 +: retin nw sino Wong ements ne -~ eer team ty

POSTAL FINANCE co. !

Pay all your bills at once! If you need $500
. . - $800. . . even $1500; . . you can borrow
by mail on just your signature. No cosigners!
Relatives are not contacted. ‘Your privacy
guarded and respected. Have just one con-
venient amount to repay monthly ‘BY MAIL.
Our service is fast; as soon as we receive
your request, we will rush by air mail im-
mediately everything you need to get the

| money. Over 65° years of service to reliable

men and women. Try us! We are ready to
serve you now!

s §6Tell Us How Much Cash You Need
i
6018 Military Ave. $

Omaha, Nebraska 68104

Rush FREE complete Loan Papers.

i Name Age.
Address_
y_ City. State— Zip.

nei iar across tne City wo anotner - gg
spot, where further instructions were 7

to be found. Here they were directed to a
still another location, but this second 4
message was so vague they were still 4
searching for the next rendezvous «1
when day broke. They gave up the 4
attempt to fulfill their mission, and <1
returned to the Greenlease home. 4

Bobby’s parents were distraught ~
at this failure to make the ransom ~:
payment. The kidnaper’s anger, when :
he phoned later on Friday morning, ~
did nothing to allay their fears. a

Ledterman patiently explained ~“
that the instructions he had been 4
given had been impossible to follow. :

“Okay,” came the gruff response. *
“We'll give you one more chance. |
You'll hear from us later.”

Mrs. Greenlease desperately |
snatched the phone. “Please let me =
talk with him,” she urged. “I’ve got to
know my boy’s atill alive.”

Into the mouthpiece she pleaded, .
“You must do this for me, please. You -|
can prove that Bobby is all right. Ask ~
him two questions, and tell me the *
answers he gives.” i

“What are the questions?”

“Ask him the name of the man
who drove usin Europe last summer,”
the mother said. “And ask him to tell
you what it was he was building in his
playroom, here at home the—the last
night he was here.” 4

In Bobby’s playroom there still %
stood the model of the Eiffel Tower, ~
which he had built with a construc- “
tion set on Sunday night. .

No one, outside the family could |
know this, nor could any stranger |
possibly guess the name of the French
chauffeur whom Bobby had liked so
much when the Greenlease family
was abroad a few months earlier. a

The slow hours wore on. Ledter- 4
man again kept his rendezvous with |
the newspapermen in the drive out- /
side, still revealing no hint of the +
contact with the kidnapers. 4

Chief Brannon was keeping his 4
word. The fact that negotiations were
under way to pay the $600,000 for the
child’s return was kept a close secret 4
and police departments all over the +
United States were running down *
alarms and hundreds of tips on red- 7
haired women seen with small boys. |

The serial numbers on the ransom ‘
bills had been recorded, and the;
phone calls to the Greenlease home *
had been traced, but these were police®
activities of which the abductors)
could have no knowledge. No step ha 4
been taken openly by detectives to try:
to nab the culprits. None would be.
made by Brannon’s men until Bobby
Greenlease was safe at home—or un=
til all hope for his return had been
given up.

_ When the next phone call ca

Bag Pe


AAU ICEL CAsUDdsigy sO MOO WT

ico, caught: up with Pancho Valentino
as he walked down a_ highway
between Fuentezuela and Tequis-
quiapan. He was captured after a wild
chase on horseback across open
fields.

The prisoner sneered as_ they
snapped handcuffs on his wrists. “So
you’ve got me! What do you want now,
blood?”

“You should know, Pancho,” one of
the officers retorted.

He was rushed back to Mexico City
under heavy guard, as a precaution
against lynching attempts by the
enraged populace, whose anger still
seethed at the wantonmslaying of the
gentle priest.

This left only Vallejo still at large,
and as the search for him continued,
new developments kept exploding to
keep the’ case on page one of the
nation’s newspapers. Valentino ad-
mitted taking part in the robbery,
with qualifications.

“T was there,” he said, “but I didn’t
kill the padre. In the confusion, I don’t
recall which of the boys hit him. Butit
was Barbosa who masterminded the
whole job.”.

Valentino also boasted of having
had four wives, of whom only one was
with benefit of clergy. He said he had

them to inherit only one thing from
him, the ability to become brilliant
criminals!

Valentino’s only legal wife, turned
out to be a ravishingly beautiful
Belgian-born blonde, who had
married him five years before. The
marriage ended in divorce, however,
after bitter quarrels and a reconcilia-
tion attempt by Valentino in which he
slashed her face with a knife when
she refused to return to him.

In the first week of February, less
than a month after the bloody slaying
of Father Fullana, Valejo, the last
fugitive, was captured.

But it was not until the end of that
year that the trial of the four robber-
killers was concluded. On December
30th, in the 15th Penal Court in Mex-
ico City, Judge Salvador Martinez
Rojas found all four defendants guilty
of the murder which had outraged the
Republic. Each of the convicted men
was sentenced to a penitentiary term
of 33 years.

In view of the shocking nature of
their crime, the possibility of parole
was said to be extremely unlikely.
Theirs was a “milestone murder,” one
to which all ‘subsequent crimes of
violence continue to be compared.

oo¢

Bobby Greenlease

(Continued from page 32)

man—there was little more the volice
could do except to wait for the kid-
napers’ first move.

Meanwhile, in the big, red brick
home in Mission Hills, close friends of
the stricken parents were gathering to
comfort and to help. Paul Greenlease,
the foster son whom the wealthy
automobile distributor had adopted
years before his marriage in 1939,
rushed to his parents’ home. The 11-
year-old Greenlease duaghter was
hurried home from her school lest she,
too, be in danger of abduction.

Outside the mansion, beneath the
stately trees at the foot of the semi-
circular drive curving to the
Greenlease door, a_ battery of
newspaper reporters camped as near
as they could get to the most shocking
crime story in decades. Radio cars
were parked behind hedges,
telephones installed on trees. The en-
tire nation was alerted and anxious.

Stewart M. Johnson, general
manager of the Greenlease Motor Car
Company, and Norbert O’Neill, a
partner in Greenlease-O’Neill Motors,
were on hand to aid their lifelong
business associate and friend. Robert
Ledterman, a _ partner with
Greenlease in a Cadillac-Oldsmobile
agency in Tulsa, raced northward to

72

lend what help he could.

Little Bobby had been gone but a
few hours when the first word from
the kidnapers was received.

It was a letter, intercepted by
detectives in the main Kansas City
post office. So crudely scrawled that
Bobby’s parents for a time believed
the boy had laboriously put down the
words as they were dictated to him,
the missive demanded a ransom for

-the boy’s return.

The sum was $600,000, three times
the largest ransom ever paid in an
American abduction case.

It stipulated that the money was to
be assembled in $10 and $20 bills—
$400,000 in twenties and $200,000 in
tens—and the money wasto be drawn
from all 12 federal reserve districts in
the United States.

“The reason for that request,” ex-
plained Wesley Grapp, assistant FBI
agent in charge at Kansas City, “is
that the currency issued in each dis-
trict bears distinctive digits in its
serial numbers, and too much money
from one district, spent in another,
might be spotted. i

The ransom note instructed that,
when the money was ready, it should
be placed in an army duffle bag, and
Greenlease should then insert a
classified ad in the personals column
of the Kansas City Star, and its sister
paper, the Times. The ad must read:

“C. Will meet you Sunday in

The extortion message was “endl
with the initial ““M.”

After the ad appeared, Greenleas
would be advised when to drive, with’
the money in his car, up Main Ss ot.
between 29th and 39th Streets, with a)
white rag on the car’s aerial. “

The father quickly got in touch
with Arthur B. Eisenhower, brother o f
the President and himself executive!
vice-president of the Commerce Trust |
Company, who already had made up|
a sum of $100,000 in anticipation of.
the ransom demand. The remainder”
of the huge sum, Eisenhower said, °
could be obtained—in almost equal |
amounts from the 12 Federal Reserve:
districts—from the Federal Reserve:
Bank in Kansas City.

Headlines across’ the nation |
centered the eyes of nearly every.
parent in America on Kansas City,’
but no word was allowed to leak out”
about the ransom demand as Bob;
Ledterman, a bulky, genial man,
always smartly dressed in a white’
shirt and dark tie, held friendly press |
conferences in the drive in front of the@
Greenlease home.

Some developments, however, were”
outlined for the reporters. About ten
days before the abduction, a maid in +
the home had answered a phone call 4
from an unidentified woman, who .
said she was making a school survey. }
She inquired the names and ages of '
the children in the family. The caller |
had asked also about the pets in the .
house.
School authorities said no such >
survey had been made. A flurry of
reports by other Kansas City parents 7
about similar calls led detectives to ©
the discovery that these had been |
made as part of asalescampaign bya |
firm handling an encyclopedia set. ~

This firm had not made the call to ©
the Greenlease home. Upon request .
from the authorities, it promised to .
discontinue the telephone canvass. "
Apparently it had been the kidnaper |
who had called, to get information >
about the Greenlease children.

Late Monday afternoon, police 4
and sheriff's officers from Johnson ‘|
County, on the Kansas side of the line.
where the Greenleases live, concen- '
trated swiftly in a hunt for Bobby and |
his abductors, after a truck driver®
reported having seen the youngster in |
a red station wagon, being driven:
west on 75th Street near Overland:
Park, 10 miles southwest of the heart}
of the city. The officers did not sight’
the machine. y

Inside the Greenlease home,
the ransom note had been read andi
handed over to the FBI for examina}
tion by hand-writing and laboratory,
experts, the long, tortured vigil begans

Mrs. Greenlease, a comely
brunette of 45, was under


e ad appeared, Greenlease

on ar’s aerial.
the. ,_ckly got in touch

, who already had made up
$100,000 in anticipation of

ge sum, Eisenhower said,

nes across’. the

se home.

evelopments, however, were 4
for the reporters. About ten §
re the abduction, a maid in
had answered a phone call 3
unidentified woman, who §
as making a school survey. 4
ired the names and ages of %
n ‘- ‘ke family. The caller @

a bout the pets in the 3

1: authorities said no such 4
1ad been made. A flurry of:
yy other Kansas City parents 4
milar calls led detectives to. 4
overy that these had been
part of a sales campaign by a,
dling an encyclopedia set. . 4

rm had not made the call tos
nlease home. Upon request |
e authorities, it promised to’
nue the telephone canvass. j
tly it had been the kidnaper:§
d called, to get information j

e Greenlease children.

Monday afternoon, police §
riffs officers from Johnson,
on the Kansas side of the line;

e Greenleases live, concen=;

iftly in a hunt for Bobby and 7
uctors, after a truck driverg®
| having seen the youngster in @
tation wagon, being driver bs
. "75th Street near Overlands
) miles southwest of the heart)
ity. The officers did not sight

shine.
le the Greenlease home, 8
som note had been read 4

ove * ‘he FBI for examing

hai iting and labora ry)
, the tortured vigil beg:

_ Greenlease, a )
fe (of 45, was under

rtion message was signed 2
itial “M.” a

dvised when to drive, with 3 4
in his car, up Main Street, 3
h and 39th Streets, with a a

ur B. Eisenhower, brother of a
ent and himself executive 4
ent of the Commerce Trust 4

m demand. The remainder +

obtained—in almost equal 4
from the 12 Federal Reserve

nation §
the eyes of nearly every 3
America on Kansas City, ;
ord was allowed to leak out |
e ransom demand as Bob %

, a bulky, genial man, 4
martly dressed in a white q
| dark tie, held friendly press q
es in the drive in front of the 4

comes

Sipps ic aris Ui & COAalr, Or pac-

ing the floor, fighting the dread that
sometimes spilled over.in a flood of .

tears.

There were callers at the door,
close family friends with brief words
of sympathy, priests with the solace
of religious faith, telegraph
messengers and special delivery
postmen with expressions of hope
that, in the next four days, became
almost a deluge.

The telephone rang constantly.
Bob Ledterman, Stewart Johnson
and Norbert O’Neill answered the
incessant bells. There were heartfelt
messages of good cheer from friends.
There were calls from cranks, as well.

“Fast for. three days, and
everything will be all right,” was a
typical bit of counsel.

There were, too, the voices, ob-
viously disguised. “We have the boy.”

They asked ransom, sums ranging
from $5000 to $200,000. Some were
baldly frauds; they could neither
describe the child nor tell what
clothing he had on. Others almost
convinced the father that their claims
were genuine.

Only one thing held Robert
Greenlease back from moving to meet
some of these demands—he could
have paid out $1,500,000, all told, to 16
fake kidnap ransom negotiators—
‘and that was that letter received Mon-
day afternoon, the day of the kid-
naping. This certainly was from the
real abductors, since it had been
dropped in a letterbox before the kid-
naping was publicly known. And no
other claimant who phoned knew the
contents of that missive. ;

The long night passed. By Tues-
day, Arthur B.' Eisenhower had
collected the $600,000 ransom fund
from the Federal Reserve bank,
drawn from all 12 Federal Reserve
Bank districts, as the ransom demand
had specified. At the close of the day’s
business, 80 employes of the Com-
merce Trust Company worked many
hours overtime counting the bills.

As the money was tabulated and
packaged in sheaves of 100 notes
each, federal agents recorded the
serial numbers of each piece of curren-
cy.
They knew full well that it would
be an almost impossible task to trip
up the kidnaper by spotting these
numbers, since the bills were of small
denominations and the numbers were
not in long consecutive series. But
possession of a quantity of these notes
by any suspect arrested in the future
would be valuable evidence.

On Tuesday, September 29th, as
the grief-stunned parents bravely en-
dured the torture on the heavy hours,

a second letter arrived from the ab-
ductors. .

Buh x
4 le %

VW SPECIAL POLICE
Raat, ASSOCIATION

, Ay JOIN OUR TEAM
SSS oe cruvericurensy

ANNUAL DUES $10

* $5000 Death Benefit
* Special Identification Card
* Star Emblem to display
* Detective Training Material
SEND FOR MEMBERSHIP NOW

MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY!
SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER To:
1100 N. E. 125th Street, Suite 100-HC
North Miami, Florida 33161

; Name__ Age.

REAL POLICE
HANDCUFFS
$]00 iF You

Jorn NOW!

. &

.-» For Lack of Control
BE SURE WITH “EVER-SAFE”!
“EVER-SAFE” is Cool, Undetectable, Comfortable
& Effective. Weighs only 7 oz. Novel “fluid
barriers” with heat-welded seams enclosing absor-
bent launderable liners in soft vinyl, prevent
escape of any moisture. Clothes, bedding stay dry.
Use 2 sets of liners for full nights sleep without
change. Moneyback guar. Sizes for all ages, adults
& children. ORDER BY WAIST SIZE! Complete:
with liners, $6.95; extra liners $2.95/set; 50
disposable liners, $6.95. RALCO MFG. ‘CO.

‘Deptt 78 1534 E. Edinger, Santa Ana, Calif. 92705.

G.I. &
FOI

. men.and wo:
Ww: ond rewarc

; profession. St
DETAILS about course, les

No salesman will coll,

UNIVERSAL D}
EXTENSION TRAINI

DEPT CC. pp
UNIVERSAL erty

HEARING AIDS

Huge — on tiny, all-in-
the-ear, behind the ear, eye-
glass and body models. New
space age models are so tiny
and well concealed your clos-
est friends ~ never even
notice. FREE HOME TRIAL.
Low as $10 age Money:

back guarantee. Order direct
and save. Write today for free

cateel and confidential booklet.

PRESTIGE, Dept. T-61, Box 10 |

“Sta-T

r HIGH” 1

I SCHOOL |

AT HOME IN SPARE TIME

Low monthly payments include stand- | ie

ard text books and instruction. Credit

for subjects already completed.

Progress as rapidly as your time

| and abilities permit. DIPLOMA AWARDED

SEND FOR BROCHURE—TELLS YOU HOW
a me ae me ee oe oe Our 77th Year eeaennaae

Dept. 130

Drexel at 58th St.

gh Chicago, Ill. 60637

| name con] Anns
address. :
City. State. zip. ;
A ved for Veteran Training

Accredited Manber NATIONAL HOME STUDY COUNCIL
eC OC ae ee a

STA-TRIM INC.,

28 E. Jackson Bivd.

He's thousands. 2,618 cash sources. |

for details! |
TIONAL COUNSE!

ene Dept.57 Kerrvitie,

* BAD CREDIT NO
PROBLEM

INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE

3003 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, Ariz. 85012
1550 Post Road, Warwick, R.!. 02888

325 2nd Ave. N., Great Falls, Mont. 59403 :
423 Carondelet St., New Orleans, La. 70130 ¢

International Acceptan
Name

Address

City—

State Zip


then put it back im tne car. we usc

drove to St. Joseph and buried itin my
back yard.

Not to arouse the neighbor's
suspicions, they placed potted yellow
chrysanthemums in the newly up-
turned earth, calling the grave their
fall garden.

“T was awfully nervous during the
actual killing and my hat got knocked
off in the excitement,” Bonnie said.

The only regret or emotion Bonnie
Heady showed was when she con-
sidered the failure of the plot. “We
planned to invest half of the $600,000
in gilt-edged securities,” she confided
tearfully, “and travel on the other
half. I’d rather be dead than poor,”
she concluded.

Their transportation of the boy
from Missouri into Kansas, brought
both under the provisions of the
Lindbergh law, the federal statute
which has made kidnaping a capital
crime.

Under heavy guard, in a motor-
cade that sped across Missouri at 80
miles an hour, Hall and Mrs. Heady

ae aro Te LOR nary
OPE ae AE a Pe ae et te eae nets OL

“No collecting or investment.

a

"MARKET PLACE

Far od rates write Classified. 100 — Ohio, Chrago

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES _

te HOME IMPORT MAIL ORDER BUSINESS. Start
without capital. Free Report. Mellinger, Dept. H1761,

Woodland Hills, Calif, 91364.

i MADE $40,000.00 YEAR by Mailorder! Helped others

make money! Start with $15.00—Free Proof. Torrey, Box

318-MT, Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197.

MONEY MAKING OPPORTUNITIES
* EARN EXTRA MONEY Selling nationally-famous
p Shoes. Immediate cash commissions. Free
sales kit, Lowell 8. Harris, Dept.” MAl, Knapp Centre,
Brockton, Mass. 02401.

MAKE $1.00 PER SALE selling engraved metal Social
Security plates. Sales

*’ HOW TO MA
Envelopes. Offer
Peterson, Chicago 60659.

SALESMEN WANTED

EARN BIG. COMMISSIONS soliciting delinquent accounts.
Metropolitan Finance, 1129
West 41st, Kansas City,

Missouri.
EDUCATION—HOME STUDY
A Train in time f t
Fe eB Atco Betalis Sree’ Notional School, Dept.
4-31, 2019 20th St., N.W., Washington D.C. 20036.

ACUPUNCTURE TRAINI Manuals, Supplies, Catalog!
Cc Box 219W, Toronto da M6M 422.

DETECTIVE COURSE, Free Information. Universal De-
tectives, Box 8180-C, Universal City, Calif.

——_______ SOLF_EQUIPMENT—NEW
* 1974 PRO ONLY CL at a your Pro can’t
match! Box 831, Warner ins 31093.

FREE RARE COINS—From Giant Catalog—Send 25c.
Allen’s, 5674-MG Beacon, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15217. -

esvisniesiiiieaanc
VACUUM IMPROVES moasurements immediately. Llus-
trated, $1.00 (Refundable) . Aspira, 210 Fifth, NYC 10010.

$500 MONTHLY possible addressing, stuffing envelopes
(longhand—typing) at home. 00 monthly Clipping news
emai Send stamped

NE DRESSING, Mailing
ME Ae ress Brothers, 8686

LP_WANTED— NT ATION

WORLDWIDE OPPORTUNITIES . . . All Occupations!
$700-$4,000 Monthly! mployment International, Box

29217-RM, Indianapolis, Indiana 46229.

$25,000.00 POETRY CONTEST. Details: Send stamp.
Clover, 210 Fifth, N.¥.C. 10010.

SLEEP-LEARNING—HYP ISM!
Autos ia, W:

ti Box 24 0 or a
estion, Box 24-

HYPNOTISM \ REVEA eI Free TMiustrated Details: Powers,
12015 Sherman Road, North Hollywood, Calif. 91606.

L
North Calif. 91605.

REMAILING SERVICE. We remail your letter every Mon-
day ll, Norway. $2—check. Box 4A ard,
N1415 Norway. $1—only from Oslo, Norway. Box Oppe-
gard, N1415 Norway.

——______ ADVERTISERS— AGENCIES

* “SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL CLASSIFIED ADVER-

TISING” tells short-cats to bigger mail response and

profits, includes copy-hints plus where to place your ads

Detalls about millions-of- Sapous fi es a cot Write
-of - pros: ‘or “‘offer,’”

S, Omessi, Dept. SO-MI, Classified, » 100 East Ohio

Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611,

Excelsior Springs,

WV CAD 2D AAUMA £4 1 444 Be Bet

City on October 13th, federal
prisoners, to be charged with the
interstate kidnaping offense.

As Bonnie Heady was rushed to
the waiting car, she realized that she
and Hall were not to travel together.
“Can’t we be together?” she pleaded.
“We have so little time left.”

They were together but a moment

after their arrival in Kansas City,
where a federal grand jury was to
consider indictments against them,
and that was during the brief ride in
the elevator up to the eleventh floor of
the county jail.

Bonnie snuggled up to Hall, who
did not seem receptive to her
demonstration of affection. Bonnie
tried to get him to talk to her. “Did you
get any rest, dear?”

“A little,” he answered coldly.

On October 30th a federal grand
jury indicted Carl Austin Hall and
Bonnie Brown Heady for the in-
terstate kidnapping of Bobby
Greenlease. On November 3rd both
pleaded guilty, hoping to escape
death, because under the Lindberg
law the death penalty can be imposed
only on the recommendation of ajury.
Judge Albert L. Reeves decreed they
must stand trial. Before the case went
to the jury, after hearing the con-
fessions of the accused and the
testimony of witnesses, Judge Reeves
said, “They committed cold-blooded,
heartless, first-degree murder. I fail to
find any mitigating circumstances in
this case.”

The jury’s verdict was not sur-
prising: death in the gas chamber.

Hall and Bonnie Heady did not
appeal the death sentence. In a
strange way, they seemed almost to
welcome it as a release from the
struggle and turmoil of a world they
were ill-equipped to face. Hall was
given little rest, hoever, as police and
the FBI grilled him again and again
in efforts to determine what had
happened to the missing $300,000 of
the ransom money. To the very end,
he continued to insist that except for
what he had spent or given away, all
the ransom money had been in the
two suitcases and the briefcase which
were in his hotel suite when he was
arrested. Ruthie Packer returned the
$1,000 he had given her and was
completely exonerated of any involve-
ment in the kidnap-murder

' At the Missouri State Penitentiary
in Jefferson City, Carl Hall and Bon-
nie Heady were assigned to widely
separated cells in the basement Death
Row. Special guard details watched
them round the clock. They were
allowed no contact with other
prisoners, because feeling ran high
among the convicts and prison of-
ficials fears there might be an attempt
on the kidnapers’ lives. As an extra

officers’ mess. No other inmates were
permitted near their food; guards
brought them their meals on trays.
During the month they spentin Death
Row, they took no exercise in the
prison yard. Neither Bonnie nor Carl
displayed much energy. They lay in
their bunks most of the time; ap-
parently they looked forward only to
meal times.

Carl gained 20 pounds during the
death watch. Bonnie added about 12
pounds to her already plump figure.
Carl: cared little about his
appearance; he often went for a couple
of days without shaving. —

Bonnie, however, was feminine to
the end. She fretted because she was
not allowed a nail file. Female guards
set up a mirror beyond her reach
outside the bars of her cell, so she
could adjust her hair and apply
makeup.

Thousands of letters were received
at the prison addressed to the con-
demned killers, but both Hall and
Bonnie Heady showed little interest
in this mail. After glancing at a few
letters; they told the warden they
didn’t want to see it. Instead, they
passed the time according to their
individual tastes. Bonnie did
crossword puzzles, hour after endless
hour. Hall was a Western thriller fan.
He read cowboy stories in magazines
and books as fast as guards could
replenish his supply.

A couple of weeks before their
scheduled execution, each of the kid-
napers, without any communication
between them, almost simultaneously {|
wrote a letter to Robert Greenlease %
Sr., imploring his forgiveness for the .#
terrible anguish they had caused him
and Bobby’s mother. A clergyman 4
whom Carl had known since his 4
boyhood reported, after Hallhad sent . 7

for him, that he believed thekillerwas
genuinely sorry for his crime. . ~ 4

Warden Ralph N. Edison revealed
that about 1,500 people had written
letters, sent telegrams and made
phone calls, requesting to see either ;
Hall, or Bonnie Heady, or both. All 7
such requests were denied. The only 4
visitors allowed were those requested 7
by the prisoners. Bonnie saw an aunt 4
and her lawyer. Hall saw only the |
minister. a

On the afternoon of Decembe
17th, guards asked the condemned *
couple what they would like for their 7
last meal. Bonnie and Carl had had:
absolutely no contact or communica:
tion with each other in the entire:
month oftheir stay in Death Row, but, ®
by a coincidence, each of them 4
ordered exactly the same dinner: fried
chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy
combination salad, rolls, Roquefo
cheese and pineapple ice. :

As a last concession, they w

a SP thet it nape
een any ee ee
6 Sire Mi nat 5
Gis <7 Sees!

aft APR HA i bak cpa ep

Yat tip tia Jigar Pes a ee Cee Weta” pp oe Bt hike
ERE ee 0 Sc Oe EP SR RST a

= S Pet WS = ie 23
Neiccs  shase dex ha dala hnaaidees ia an acdied ST

te ae be on
SE

ns tbe Bos A ale
Serer
cues ‘Sted ?
oe: Nee -
* panties 2 as, Tat sak ng

3.

Pa ea

Senn to aR kg

bas
i RS .

‘‘We started our own Anti-

inflation program with this
beat-up sofa /m@geg) picked up for $5...sold

aa.
ew

for $300.00! [===S8/ Now that MUI taught us
the secret, we'll never be poor or dependent again!

THOUSANDS OF NEW HOMES, BUILDINGS, HOTELS, MOTELS, RES-
TAURANTS, BARS... all need upholstered furniture, chairs, sofas, foot- /
stools, etc....what a market for a skilled craftsman. Imagine how much {' for $5. Sold
wears out every day and needs re-upholstering, restyling, re-covering. Yes, it for $300!
upholstery is on the move with America too... campers, trailers, mobile a at. ‘
homes, planes, boats»and millions of the twenty-six million autos need “It hurts when | think of the long years | put in slaving away
re-upholstered seats, headliners, door panels. Cash-in on our nation’s at a dull dead-end job. The meager paychecks that never

a

EKO

YOU GET 6 BIG €
FURNITURE KITS FRE

“WITH YOUR MUI

] TRAINING. Learn by
doing ... Build a
roomful of

TOOLS 00!

YouRS To
KEEP!

greatest boom ...don't let it pass you by!

HAVE YOUR OWN BUSINESS! or take your
PICK OF TOP PAY AUTOMATION-PROOF JOBS. MUI home
training qualifies yo:: in upholstery, drapes, slip covers.
Start in your kitchen or corner of your garage. It takes
7s } $0 little capital. Profit from your own money-making
business almost immediately. Start in spare time,
keep your present job while you make
“custom furniture worth hundreds of dol-
lars. The whole family can help. You're
probably sitting on a gold mine right .
now! Computers ahd machines never
will learn upholstery—but you can quickly,
easily, the practical step-by-step MUI way.

ALL YOU NEEO #S YOUR SKILLED HANDS...
MU! shows you the rest. If you can’t be a college
graduate, at least earn like one. MUI training has
shown thousands of low pay men and women, 4ll
ages regardless of education or experience, the
ways of big money and success in upholstery. Your
MUI diploma can be your ‘passport to prosperity,
independence and security in this gigantic new field
that's waiting to share its billions with you. MUI is
authorized by the California Superintendent of Address
Public Instruction te issue a DIPLOMA in upholstery. |

MODERN UPHOLSTERY INSTITUTE
Box 899AAO Dorange, Calif. 92669 |

quite stretched far enough! My family was doing without

the good things of life—while right at hand were oppor-

| Name

Start YOUR OWN anti-poverty pregram!
This 32-page book may change your life
as it has for thousands.

‘ MODERN UPHOLSTERY INSTITUTE

| sex 899AOD orange, Calif. 92669 1
Please rush illustrated career book, sample lesson, facts on MU! {

| home training —all FREE, without obligation.

tunities for making money that | never dreamed about.
Now that we know upholstery, every home
in our town and every thrift store (where
they practically give away old, cast-

off furniture) is a gold mine for us!”

THIS FREE UPHOLSTERY CAREER

BOOK & SAMPLE LESSON MAY

BE THE MOST IMPORTANT LITERA-

TURE YOU'LL EVER READ!

State Zip

be allowed to be questioned by the
authorities. Marsh, therefore, must
never be found. Either Hall knew that
Marsh was already dead, or Hall
himself murdered him. Dead men tell
no tales.

Moreover, the stories told original-
ly by Hall and Bonnie Heady were
beginning to come apart at the seams.

Bonnie Heady’s fingerprints were
found on the ransom notes sent to the
Greenleases, damaging her conten-
tion that she knew nothing of the
kidnaping and had no actual part in
it.

Confronted with this fact, she now
admitted that, when she and Hall
drove back to St. Joseph, there was a
bulky object—about the size of Bob-
by’s body—in a plastic bab in the
back of the station wagon.

A blood trail in the basement gar-
age of her home strongly indicated
that the boy’s body had been lifted
from the station wagon inside the
garage.

The station wagon itself was
found abandoned in North Kansas
City. A bullet which had been fired
from Hall’s revolver was dug from a
rubber floor mat in the machine.
Although a careful attempt had been
made to clean the car, bloodstains
were found in it.

In checking back on all early infor-
mation about the crime, the G-men
came across the report of the truck
driver who had seen a red station
wagon, with a man, a woman and a
young boy in it, being driven west on
75th Street, near the suburban com-
munity of Overland Park, shortly
after the abduction on September
28th.
Federal agents moved into the
Overland Park district, prowling the
streets and rural roads in search of
other witnesses who had seen the red
machine.

On Monday, October 12th, FBI
men working southwest out of Kan-
sas City, found one witness who had
seen a red station wagon, standing
just off a by-road 12 miles southwest
of the heart of the city.
which has made kidnaping a capital
wheat stubble here. On the ground
they discovered an automatic pencil
bearing the name of the Greenlease
Motor Car Company in Kansas City.

Bobby Greenlease had worn such
a pencil, clipped to his shirt, when he
left his school with Bonnie Heady.

With this evidence, the last
defenses of Carl Austin Hall, the man
who, as a boy, had always sought
quick, easy money, and man of whose
home town neighbors had predicted

that he would come to no good end,
and of Bonnie Heady, the fading
alcoholic who kept her house as neat
as a pin and crammed its closets with
expensive clothing, were completely
shattered.

Both made confessions and signed
statements dictated before agents of
the FBI.

Tom Marsh had had no part in the
crime, they now confessed. Hall and
Bonnie Heady had planned it
together. They actually had dug Bob-
by’s grave, bought the blue plastic
bag and the quicklime, before they
journeyed to Kansas City to steal him
away from school.

This is the ghastly, cold-blooded
story Bonnie Heady told:

“We took the boy to a deserted road
in Kansas. He hadn’t been told he
was going to die, but he became
frightened and agitated. He didn’t cry
or yell, but when the car stopped he
started to struggle. He almost got
away from us.

“Carl fired two shots at him, but
because the boy was jumping around,
both shots missed. Carl finally had to
beat him with his fists, knocked out
ine of his front teeth. Then he shot

im.

“We took the body out of the sta-

tion wagon, put it in the plastic bag,

79


“= OO mw MDM QMO om’ NO

Le eee ae ee - » ae

:

lapie Was pusned invo tne corndor
against the bars of Hall’s cell, and
Bonnie joined him there. They spent
about 30 minutes over the meal, chat-
ting and smiling. Of the two, Bonnie
was the more vivacious. Carl was
tense. The strain was showing on
him. After dinner, which ended at 7:30
pins Bonnie was returned to her cell.

At 11:32 p.m., Central Standard
Time, they were taken from their cells
and driven, in separate cars, to the
death house, which was only a few
hundred feet away. Here they metina
detention cell and sat side by side by a
narrow bed, for their last conversa-
tion. Nearby two ministers stood, and
occasionally joined in their talk.

“I wish they had let us be
married,” Bonnie said.

“Yeah,” said Carl, looking
straight ahead. He took a deep drag
from his cigarette.

_ “I’m worried about my dog,” Bon-
nie complained. “What’s going to
happen to him?”

She was referring to her prize
Boxer. At one time she had talked of
having him enter the gas chamber
with her, but then thought better of it.

Bonnie was wearing a black cape
she had borrowed from a matron, and
under this she wore a bright green
cotton dress. She wore no stockings;
her footwear was a pair of heelless
sandals, or scuffs. Hall wore the
regulation olive-green prison uniform
with black vertical stripes on the
trousers. His wrists were manacled.
Bonnie’s were not confined at the
time.

At last the warden came in and
said, “It’s time.”

Bonnie and Carl stood up, and
Bonnie threw her arms around him,
pulling his head down to her so she
could kiss him. When he straightened

up, the red smear of her lipstick gave
his face an appearance like a clown’s
makeup. He was unaware of it. Black
blindfolds were fixed in place and
they were led through the door into
the death house. Then into the death
chamber, sealed off by windowed
walls from the observation room
where 17 witnesses had gathered to
see them die.

Attendants guided them into the
twin steel chairs and made last-
minute adjustments, tightening
straps around wrists, chest and waist.

“It’s too tight,” Bonnie complain-
ed about a wrist strap, then added,
“I’m not going anywhere.” She seem-
ed pleased with the witticism and
smiled, but no one laughed. An atten-
dant loosened the offending strap,
then buckled it again.

“Thank you,” Bonnie said.

Now she twisted her head this way
and that, craning her head
backwards.

urying Ww peer OUuL Irom beneath her
blindfold. Then, turning toward Hall
who sat in the other death chair just
two feet away from her, she said, “Are
you doing all right, honey?”

“Yes, Mama,” he murmured
somberly.

At this point, all adjustments had
been made and the attendants left the
chamber. A U.S. marshal came in. He
bent close to Hall and asked if he had
any last message. Hall shook his head
negatively without speaking. The
marshal then asked Bonnie the same
question.

“No,” she said. Almost as an
afterthought, she added, “Thank
you.” She seemed pitifully eager to
please.

The marshal left them and the
doors swung shut and were sealed,
leaving the doomed lovers alone un-
der the eyes of 17 witnesses. Now their
lips moved with a seeming urgency.
Both seemed to be talking at once, but
whether they were praying, or speak-
ing to each other, no one will ever
know. No one outside the death
chamber could hear what they were
saying.

The witnesses stared in hypnotic
fascination for a moment, then
suddenly the warden moved a lever
which released pellets of potassium
cyanide into the crocks of sulphuric
acid under the death chairs. Yellowish
fumes swirled upward into the
nostrils of the condemned couple.
Their heads fell forward suddenly, as
if they had dropped off to sleep.

Then, for an instant, their bodies
convulsed, fighting the straps that
bound them. Bonnie seemed to fight
harder than Carl. Both their heads
jerked upward in a violent motion.
Carl’s mouth opened like a narrow
gash; Bonnie’s gaped wide, gasping
for air.

In another moment, they slumped
forward and remained so for a long
time. At 12:12 a.m. Carl Austin was
pronounced dead. At 12:14, Bonnie
Brown Heady was pronounced dead.

Her lipstick could still be seen
through the observation windows,
grotesquely smeared across’ the
mouth of Hall where she had kissed
him for the last time. Very likely they
were smeared the same way the first
time she had kissed him.

When you come right down to it,
either kiss might be called the kiss of
death.

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Ruthie Parker is not the real name
of the person so named in the
foregoing story. A fictitious name
has been used because there is no
reason for public interest in the
identity of this person.

Join his ‘Animal Care Team” as a

VETERINARY
ASSISTANT or other

type Animal Care Careers

Pets are big business...and now you can get in on
‘this ground floor opportunity. Here is your chance
to combine your love of animals with a rewarding
career — and work side-by-side aiding a man dedi-
cated to helping those who can’t help themselves.

Thanks to the intensive training you will receive
from North American School of Animal Sciences,
you will be able to earn the trust of this man. He
will come to depend on your skill and knowledge.

Your training teaches you how to help him in ex-
amination, treatment, laboratory work, office pro-
cedure and put to use the specialized knowledge
that will distinguish you as a member of
his animal care team.

It’s the convenient way! Many of the nation's most
successful men and women began their careers with
home-study courses. Home-study doesn’t disrupt your
life. You keep your job, you study at home in your
spare time at your own pace.

Your Career Begins Here. If your present job (or
the one you expect to get) promises anything less than
the kind of career you deserve .. °do something about
it! NOW! The North American School of Animal Sci-
ences offers you practical solution to the problem of
training for a new career without risking your present
job or income.

@ Which of These ANIMAL CARE

CAREERS Do You Want?
@ Zookeeper @ Humane Agent
© Veterinary Assistant

@ Laboratory Aide

® Animal Hospital Aide

@ Pet Shop or Kennel Owner -
© Animal Control Officer

Make your move!
We'll send you a FREE

oer! Ae Career Kit—
C i E Accredited
ys areers mn F Member, National
i Animal Care i Home Study Council
eel SSS Mail coupon below.

Frorth American School of Animal Sciences, Dep. NBOC 3]
i Careers by Home Study « 1
pre Campus Dr., University Plaza,Newport Beach, Ca.92663 |
Rush FREE “Career Kit”
jo Mr.
C Miss
OO Mrs. Age

t sdaints

I

I

I

|

|

City |
=i

81


ii iM a ty ive
i te A Og S88 BS TORS 8 enn ait te li an Ce ne ee ses Aan tik elias Sain a Nes l
. ede 5a % kot} r % ‘. 4

sy ‘

A

“HALL, Carl Austin, ‘white, asphyxiated Missouri (F,deral) on 12-18-1953.

oe MURDER

AND
ASSASSINATION

by ALBERT ELLIS, Ph.D., and
JOHN M. GULLO, M.A.

Lyle Stuart, Inc., New York, N. Y.


PLAY NICE—When they refused to
leave their cells to eat, or to cooperate \

in other ways, twelve Prisoners at the Arthur Roth, 37-year-old marine insur-
Eugene, Ore., city jail were put on a ance adjuster, was indicted before General

bail. Miss Backer, a business partner of
Roth’s, was found by police in her Man-
hattan apartment, and allegedly had been
dead for several days (Strangling Is So
Silent, August. FRonT PAGE,- 1962). Roth
disappeared from his home and office for
Te a week, but police captured him when he

KWAY) returned to his office one evening for the
SOAS, bea Purpose of getting a night’s sleep,

special diet for four days—rations of | former workhouse prisoner, was shot to
baby food. The jail Superintendent, who | death by a member of the city’s’ police,
ordered the diet, said, “If they want to | decoy squad whom he had robbed in’ an
act like babies, they will have to eat the alley, The officer was part of a unit con-
same way.” sisting of two civilian-dressed crews alter-

A BITTER PILL—Scheduled to face | a police dog and handler. One of the decoys,

drunkenness charges but: in no shape to -}~ Was .a policewoman: The unit was Pree.

appear in court was the man found in | paring to set a trap for would-be attackers

all from the store’s stock. to the ‘ground, snatched his wallet, and

BARE FACTS—A Windsor, Ont., law. | when he continued to run, the policeman
yer won his case in court, but lost his | fired two shots, striking his attacker in the
shirt. Before appearing in a divorce case, | back. The man died a few minutes later,
he changed into traditional court robes in Since the decoy squad. was organized last

the barristers’ dressing room, then re- | year, there have been several important
turned after making a successful plea to arrests made by its members (Stand Back,
find his shirt, tie and suit coat gone, Punk—It’s A Decoy, November, Front

PAGE, 1961). One of two robbers who beat
SWAT HIM DOWN—Police in Shrews- | a squad detective was wounded and cap-
bury, England, were on the lookout for | tured, and several purse snatchers have

Supreme Court of Illinois. In. January of
1961 Bartley was convicted for the 1951

slaying of Frank Higgins, a tavern owner -

and former state trooper. Decatur police
arrested Bartley at his Pekin, Ill., barber

guilty to the charge and was held withoute shop on August 24, 1960, after receiving

an anonymous tip implicating him in the
' gunshot murder of the tavern owner after
an attempted holdup. Bartley was con-
victed and given a life sentence. During

Job David (Crazy Tony) Gonzales, the
18-year-old boy who terrorized the West
Side. of Chicago for_many ‘months, and

Was accused of the April, 1961, murder of -

Michael Ferfecki; 69, (Crazy Tony Was
Here, June Front PAGE, 1962), was de-
clared sane by ‘a court psychiatrist. Fer-
fecki was fatally shot: when Gonzales at-

man’s home. The youth was captured ‘by

bull pen of the jail and had used to scratch

a human fly who apparently wants to been arrested as the result of traps in “Crazy Tony” on the jail w.
make time stand still. In a two-month which. policewomen posed. _as strolling, nt da a
Period, he vandalized five of the city’s | pedestrians, ouls Shoulders, the former police lieu-

May of 1955 (Hoax—Shmoax—Where is
She?, September Front PAGE, 1956). Re-

cently, a letter signed “Evelyn Throsby
Scott” was turned over to handwriting ex-
perts for examination. Police Officials said
the letter read: “Sir, I am not dead yet.
Don’t you think: L. Ewing has suffered
enough -at your hands?” According ‘to the
authorities, the handwriting was “crude,
‘ erratic and inconsistent,”

nine clock towers, stealing the hands from

three clocks and bending the hands on Edward M. Bartley, found guilty of a
the others enough to make them useless, Decatur, Ill., murder ten years after the

tenant who went from fame to notoriety
in the Bobby Greenlease kidnap case (Man
Behind the Kidnap, January, FRONT PAGE,
1954), died in St. Louis, Mo., at the age
of 61, apparently of a heart attack. In
1953, Shoulders arrested Carl Austin Hall
and Bonnie Jean Heady, who abducted
six-year-old Bobby and received $600,000
in ransom from the boy’s father, a wealthy
Kansas City auto dealer. The pair was
executed for Bobby’s murder, and only
ransom money was found
in Hall’s suitcase. Shoulders was allegedly
involved, and served a two-year prison
term, for not telling what happened to the
other half of the money. Since his release
from prison in 1956, he had lived a se-
cluded life. :

To get. at one clock he had to make an slaying (We, The Jury; May ¥FRont PAGE,
| almost perpendicular climb of 100 feet. 1961), had his conviction reversed by the

14

Joe Harry Milani, who pleaded

the murder of 17-
Lily Roberts, of C
sentenced to 150
charge, has appeal
preme Court for :
of insanity. Milan
after a fellow in!
worth, Kan., testif
- told him how he
wounding her fian
from the parking a
life refuge (The K
Lily Roberts, Dx
1960). With his a
Milani said he had
'-ing Miss Roberts,
pleaded guilty und

‘s coercion of court-aj

insanity plea is a
record of restraining
examinations while
Menard State Penit
ing a 40-year sente:
shooting and robb
fiance.

Julian Price We
arrest last Decembe
the electric chair the
in the United Stat
death in the electri
Falls, Tex., jury, fc
Robertson, 52, of
Murder List Went
PAGE, 1962). The
reached after one h

deliberation, and Wi
™ tence passed in Wic!

SU

In The Bes

Students (above) g
cutting in only thei
getting actuval practi:
on all the latest pow


yot

found guilty
ntenced to 150
ge Case Book,
time taxi driv-
ime of his first
; defense was
ity, Ill. After
word that oil
ct of land: in
ld an interest,
‘d worthless.

1, the 16-year-

i001 boy whose

Jed with the

r, and the fatal

Alva Jackson,

1ed him as he

| ‘t wounds, has
counts of mur-

of Hate, July

n shot Jackson

30 people. The

4

tas veen found
‘r for the death
Jeannette Ear-

wve Her, March’

iette had been
Mo., home
ad that he
o her body
: of town. She
1e head. There
attack. Priest
ce’s school, and

“insanity.

took her on a three-day holiday, and then
shot her. “I don’t know what you call
loving something so much that you want
to kill it,” he told officers. “Just blame it
on being crazy, I guess.” Priest, however,
was found to be sane and went to trial
at LaClede County, Mo., Circuit Court.

- ANTHONY ZILBAUER, 53-year-old
Norwalk, O., machinist, went to his death
in the California lethal gas chamber for
the fatal shooting of Andrew Kmiec, 32,
on a lonely road near South Whittier, Cal.
(Look For a Psychopath, March FRONT
PAGE, 1954) Zilbauer, who made an ap-
pointment to see the car Kmiec had
advertised for sale, met Kmiec and his
“girlfriend, directed them to a deserted
spot of highway, pulled a gun and shot
and killed Kmiec with two shots, but the
girl managed to get away. When. appre-
hended several weeks later, Zilbauer made

ra)

a complete denial. Although  Zilbauer
was an ex-convict with a long record of
offenses, it was never shown that he had
been paid. for Kmiec’s murder. Police
were unable to find a motive.. At Hy
trial, it was shown that he was connected
with other burglaries involving answering
ads for ,items advertised for sale, and

that the murder gun was found in his -

possession. He was found guilty and sen-
tenced to death. Appeal was made but
the California Supreme Court upheld the
conviction. But the court refused to hear
a second appeal, and Zilbauer went to his .
death on schedule. ~

WILLIAM PATRICK Farrell, accused
of the mutilation murder of New York
University coed, Ann Yarrow, has been
found insane and will be committed to
the Matteawan, N. Y. hospital for the
Criminal Insane. (Who Murdered the
Village Coed, June FRONT PAGE, 1955)
Examining ‘psychiatrists reported that
Farrell was a “sex maniac of the worst
type.” Farrell, who was arrested after he
tried to rape his sister-in-law a block
from the Yarrow death scene, entered a
mandatory verdict of innocent, and may
be tried for the murder if ever ruled sane.

OR

‘ove that your
ORE to

inte
SPARE TIME mesg $50 AND

ysPa’

MAKE BIG MONEY IN YOUR FREE TIME!
Show Elmira’s sparkling new line of beauti-
ful. imprinted Christmas Cards, personal- |
ized stationery and napkins, gorgeous gift

wrappings with gift-tying ribbons. Every- MAIL COUPON TODAY — GET YOUR FREE GIFT!
one buys for themselves or for gifts. | Etnira Greeting Card Co., Dept. 512, Elmira, N.Y.

And you get CASH FOR NEW CLOTHES, !
REDECORATING, VACATION, SAVINGS, }

Name the popular American song by
unscrambling the letters in the puzzle.
Enter your solution in coupon below. e

oeeoeee eG © © © © Oe
GET ABSOLUTELY FREE

DELUXE BOX OF 21 BEAUTIFUL

ASSORTED CHRISTMAS CARDS

ELMIRA GREETING CARD Co.
Dept. 512, Elmira, N. Y.
IN.CANADA, write 119 Pearl St., Toronte |, Ontarie

My answer for the Topsy-Tumne Is.........-0..0eeeeeeeaee
Send my FREE CARDS—also details on how my free time
ca!

_ Money was ever accounted for.

/

CHRISTMAS GIFTS. | in make money, together with assortments on approval, ]
Unscramble the Topsy-Tune, Fill in Your Mame... |
; pox! Address 1

“1 City & Zone State |

Check here for information on SPECIAL FUND- |

and assortments on approval! =|, RAISING _PLAN Fon eee Se
FORMER POLICE Lieutenant Louis MR. NANNIE DOSS has pleaded

Shoulders is going to stay in jail a while
longer. Convicted of perjury over ques-
tions. about just what happened to $300,-
000 of the $600,000 of the ransom money

paid to Carl Austin Hall, the kidnap-mur-:
.derer of Bobby Greenlease, Shoulders was

sentenced to a three-year term. (Men Be-
hind The Kidnap, January FRONT PAGE,
1954) Shoulders was one of. the officers
who arrested Hall and recovered the ran-
som money from him. Only half of the
Accord-
ing to Shoulders’ testimony, he took the
money directly from Hall to a police
station. An investigation followed,. lead-
ing to Shoulders’ conviction. But after

he had served enough time to become ©

eligible for parole, the federal parole
board ‘has announced that . freedom -for
Shoulders will be: denied for the present.

PAUL A. PFEFFER, who was con-

icted of the brutal slaying of seaman Ed-
ward Bates (Hothead, December FRON
PAGE, $953) but later orcas when kittér
John Fran Rech was the
“killer, has been ‘nnllented in two new
crimes. The. first, the brutal beating of
Harry Meyer, 45 "(see Did Pfeffer Throw
Away His Biggest Break? page 46); the
second, the murder of Mellon Byrd, 60.
Pfeffer had been free. on bail waiting re-

trial for the Bates murder, when Harry .

Meyer identified him as the man who

had given him a beating, took his wal-:

let, and left him for dead. When po-

lice went to Pfeffer’s room, they discov-

ered papers belonging to Byrd, whose
body was found in a shack several. weeks
before. Pfeffer allegedly told police that
he met Byrd while returning home from
a drinking. spree, became enraged when
Byrd called him “white trash,” chased
him to the shack. where’ he struck him
over the head with a: piece.of metal.

ish ili allen. 9 ae ambi, ti

guilty t& the murder of her last husband,
Samuel Noss. Previously, a Tulsa, Okla.,
jury decided that Mrs. Doss} a giggling
grandmothar who confessed jto the rat-
poison fhurders of four husbands, is sane
enough to- stgnd trial. (What’s My Line?
March FRONTPAGE, 1955)/The jury heard

sharply divided testimony from psychia-
trists during. the three-day hearing, then
retired to decide whether Mrs. Doss is a
“mental defective with the brains of a
five-year-old child,” or merely a selfish,
conniving woman. Said Mrs. Doss, “I’ve

. never felt more sane in my life. I guess

I ought to know better than anybody if
-I’m crazy.” She now faces either a life
sentence or death in the electric chair.

ie

15

arrested August
an additional
ins. He readily
, but refused to
s“or fate unless
sity. He finally
2en accidentally
uction. Pascal
anced to life.
-ind.

ork City, 1921:
its seized five-
of his home.
t the Verottas

suit, they de-
‘om the boy’s
he rumor was
demand down
advised move,
dly captured a
<up, and police
€ gang retaliat-
pi. He was the
1 when the ran-

mplicated as
five were con

geles, 1927:
ansom kidnap- |
ed up 12-year-
1, claiming her
er twin sister,
Four ransom
owed. The po-
er at the first
ned to go bet-
pper the mon-
ived Marian,
1d apparently
aver. Her arms
ff and a wire
er eyelids had
appearance of

oper, 19-year-
ed in Oregon.
vank as Parker
being fired for
cted, Hickman
the first per-
vith a ransom

;

r, Tacoma,
red by reports
atfier’s death
2rs snatched
x3eus~" “his

HALL-HEADY

(Crime Beat, April, 1993)

JNAPRINGS

lucky survivor: Timberfamily scion George
Weyerhaeuser was successully ransomed.

way home from school. His parents
promptly paid the $200,000 ransom.
George was released unharmed after a
week, a little worse for wear from being
chained to trees and rocks in the woods.

The ransom money, its serial numbers
recorded, started popping up immediately.
Within two weeks, the first two kidnappers,
Harmon and. Margaret Waley, were caught
in Salt Lake City. Plot leader William
Dainard remained at large for almost a
year before the FBI arrested him in San
Francisco. The trio received terms ranging
from 20 to 60 years.

harles Mattson, Tacoma, 1936: A few —
days after Christmas, a gunman burst -

into the home of Dr. William Mattson, a
prominent surgeon, seized 10-year-old
Charles, and left a ransom note demanding
$28,000. Oddly enough, Charles had been
a playmate of George Weyerhaeuser’s.

The Mattsons prepared to pay and com-
municated with the kidnapper via newspa-
per ads. However, the kidnapper suddenly
stopped responding and never collected
the ransom. Charles’s frozen body was
found in an Everett, Washington, field two
weeks later. He had been beaten to death.
The case became the first major unsolved
ransom kidnapping since the FBI assumed
jurisdiction.

obby Greenlease, Kansas City,
Missouri, 1953: Using the same “ill
relative” ruse as Ed Hickman, six-year-old
Bobby, son of a wealthy car dealer, was

taken from his. private school. The
Greenleases paid the record-setting
$600,000 ransom within the week: It was
all for nothing. The kidnappers had killed
Bobby hours after capturing him.

Two days later, Carl Austin Hall was fin-

_ gered by a cabbie suspicious of the large

‘amount of money his fare waved around.

His accomplice, Bonnie Heady, was arrest-
ed soon after. In a blinding display of
_ speedy justice, both were executed in
_ December, only 81 days after the killing.
$300

000 of the ransom was never recov-
ered. ¢
enneth Young, Beverly Hills, 1967: In
a daring crime, 11-year-old Kenneth
was kidnapped from his second-floor bed-
room as he slept. The ransom was set at

$250,000. His father, a wealthy bank pres-

ident, wisely complied and Kenneth was re-
leased unharmed. It was one of the largest
ransoms ever paid for a live victim.

Kidnapper Ronald Miller, an IRS agent,
enjoyed his windfall for almost three years
before he was arrested three days before
the statute of limitations expired. He was
convicted and sentenced to life.

eith Amold and Gerald Craft, Detroit,
973: In what was called the “Black
Lindbergh Case,” six-year-old Keith—a
child model and actor best known for his
impish grin in a Kentucky Fried Chicken
commercial—and eight-year-old Gerald
were kidnapped as they played football.
The kidnappers initially set ransom at
$53,000, but later dropped their demand
to $15,000.
A police trap at the ransom pickup
failed. The bulletriddled bodies of the two
boys were found three days later. The three

Chowchilla kidnappers and (above} one of their many victims, 1O-yearold Darla Daniels.

kidnappers, Byron Smith, Geary Gilmore,
and Jerome Holloway, were all captured
and received life terms.

howchilla, California, 1976: In the

most massive kidnapping in U.S. histo-
ty, three men hijacked a school bus retum-
ing children from summer school. The 26
children and driver were imprisoned in a
moving van buried in a quarry in Livermore,
100 miles away.

Luckily, the improvised subterranean
prison wasn’t especially secure. While the
kidnappers relaxed, letting suspense build
and putting the final touches on their $5
million ransom letter, the victims were
working. Sixteen hours later, they escaped.
Within two weeks, the three kidnappers,
Frederick Woods, Richard Schoenfeld, and
James Schoenfeld (left to right, below),
were captured and sentenced to life. CO)

¥
a \ ctealastediemmanaammineinniiiainaiae!

CRIMEBEAT

APRIL 1993 49

Ti ate eee


CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

BILL G. COX
BILL FRANCIS
WILLIAM J. HELMER
GARY C. KING
JULIE MALEAR
DAVID NEMEC
SAMUEL ROEN
BILLIE FRANCIS TAYLOR

Crescent Books
a


28

Lieutenant Louis Shoulders, above left, and Patrolman John
Dolan make report at headquarters after arrest of kidnap-
ers. At right is evidence found in St. Louis hotel room of
Carl Austin Hall. New suitcase contained $295,000 of the
ransom money. The gun is believed to be murder weapon.

my haste and for being so nervous, Sister,” she said to the
nun, “It’s just that I’m so worried about Mrs. Greenlease.”’

“Of course,” the nun said. “I understand.”

There was strain on the woman’s face as she went
through the door with the boy and descended the steps to
where the taxicab waited. She raised her left hand and
waved. “Goodby,” she called over her shoulder.

The cab sped away. The ostiary related the incident to
Mere Marthanna, acting head of the convent in the absence
of Mere Marie Irene de Sion, the Mother Superior. Mere
Marthanna posted a notice on the bulletin board calling for
prayers for the recovery of Mrs. Greenlease, At noon, she
decided to telephone the Greenlease home to make inquiries
about the boy’s mother. Mrs. Greenlease herself answered
the phone.

“H-how are you?” Mere Marthanna asked, surprised.

“Why just fine,” the woman answered.

“Just fine?” The nun’s voice caught in her throat. Her
fingers on the phone grew clammy and she was aware of
the pounding of her heart. She knew in that moment ex-
actly what had happened—that Bobby Greenlease had been
taken from the convent on a ruse.

Mrs. Virginia Greenlease immediately telephoned her
husband, Robert Cosgrove Greenlease, Sr., wealthy Cadillac
distributor, at his office at 1414 Baltimore Avenue. The
father called police headquarters and asked Chief Bernard
C. Brannon to meet him at the intersection of 29th Street
and the McGee Street traficway. Brannon was there with
Eugene M. Pond, Chief of Kansas City Detectives. The
two officers drove with the anguished Greenlease. to his
home,

A complete description of the boy was telecast over
station WDAF-TV at 3 o’clock. It was the first announce-
ment of the kidnaping to the general public.

Bobby, when taken from his convent schoolroom, had
béen wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, short brown
linen trousers, dark brown anklets, and brown leather shoes
with white tongues, Pinned to his shirt with a red ribbon
was a sinall bronze school medal. Clipped to his shirt pocket
was a giveaway mechanical pencil imprinted with the firm
name of his father’s Cadillac agency.

The Kansas City police quickly located the cab driver
who had driven the abductress to the French Institute. He
was Willard P. Creech, and shortly before 11 that morning,
he was sitting in his cab at the Toedman Taxi parking lot
at 3834 Main Street. The plump inobtrusively dressed
woman entered his cab and asked to be driven to the French
Institute over at 38th and Locust.

“T told the dispatcher on the radiophone where I was
going and we started out. On the way, she told me that she
was picking up a kid at the convent school and when she
got out I was to drive them to the Katz Drug Store parking
lot at 39th and Main.

“T Jet her out at the school, and she went inside. I pulled

_ up in the sie and turned the cab around. Then I sat

there and waited for her to come out. The cab meter ran
up about twenty cents while I waited.

“When she came out with this little kid I started driving
to the drug store like she said. He didn’t cry or anything,
but he didn’t say much. She kept talking to him about how
things were at home and things like that. She asked him
about a couple dogs and something about a parrot he had
at home. I wasn’t giving them any particular mind. When
we got to the store, I pulled up in front of the entrance.
She paid .me and I started to write out my trip ticket. I
noticed they didn’t go into the store. They walked around in
front and started along the driveway into the parking lot.

“They were just about up to the sixth or seventh car up
there, when some guy behind me honked his horn. I had to
pull up to get out of his way and I drove past where I
couldn’t see the woman and kid any more.’

Creech said he believed the pair were standing behind
a blue Ford car, either a 1952 or 1953 model. He said he
was pretty certain that the automobile had a Kansas license
plate and “pretty sure” it was a Johnson County number.

Before the Kansas City police could act on the informa-
tion given them by the cab driver, Mr. and Mrs, Greenlease,
through a close friend of the family, Robert Ledterman,
asked Chief Brannon to suspend, temporarily, their in-
vestigation of the abduction, Ledterman, a business partner

of the elde
the family’:
contact wit
probability
a quick rar
This, de
ever, was
Greenleas«
few hours
and contai:
kidnaper. |:
taining the
would be r¢
set of instr:
tion had to
Greenlea:
duffel bag :
then to be «
Streets. Th
white rag ti
kidnaper r¢
was to be 11
of America
money was
classified a
“Will meet

Bob L:
Eisenhowe
of the Con
hower, why
ticipated su:
counting ou
the actual
promised t
by 9:30 the
accomplish
schedule wi:
manded by «

On the ni
waiting for
parents of
call from t!
phone was :
enough to
year-old cl
promised t!
terms were

The seclude
in Kansas (


cated the cab driver
French Institute. He
‘fore 11 that morning,
uan Taxi parking lot
nobtrusively dressed
driven to the French

»phone where I was
, she told me that she
school and when she
tz Drug Store parking

: went inside. I pulled
.b around. Then I sat
it. The cab meter ran

e kid I started driving
idn’t cry or anything,
<ing to him about how
- that. She asked him
_bout a parrot he had
varticular mind. When
front of the entrance.
out my trip ticket. I
They walked around in
y into the parking lot.
ixth or seventh car up
iked his horn, I had to
! drove past where I
nore,”
were standing behind
53 model. He said he
e had a Kansas license
inson County number.
iid act on the informa-
*,and Mrs. Greenlease,
ly, Robert Ledterman,
temporarily, their in-
ian, a business partner

of the elder Greenlease, told the authorities that it was
the family’s express wish to avoid any obstacle to an aged
contact with the kidnapers. The police realized that—in all

probability—the snatehers had already sent out feelers for -

a quick ransom deal.

This, despite the fact that it received no publicity what-
ever, was actually the case. A letter was received by the
Greenlease family in the afternoon post. It‘arrived only a
few hours after the public announcement of the kidnaping,
and contained details which could be known only to the
kidnaper. It convinced the parents that the writer was de-
taining the boy. This note promised that a telephone call
would be received by the family that night. There were a
set of instructions and a grim warning that every stipula-
tion had to be followed to the letter.

Greenlease was directed to pack $600,000 in an army
duffel bag and to stow it in the trunk of his car which was
then to be driven along Main Street between 29th and 39th
Streets. The car was to be made easily identifiable by a

white rag tied to the radio antenna. The money, which the

kidnaper realized might take a day or two to assemble,
was to be in ten- and twenty-dollar bills garnered from all
of America’s twelve Federal Reserve districts. When the
money was ready for delivery, Greenlease was to innate
classified ad in the Kansas City Star. The ad was to read:
“Will meet you this week in Chicago. G.”

Bob Ledterman went at once to his friend, Arthur B.
Eisenhower, brother of the President, and vice-president
of the Commerce Trust Company in Kansas City. Eisen-
hower, who had already heard of the kidnaping, had an-
ticipated such a visit and had eighty of the bank’s employes
counting out the sum of $100,000, When Ledterman named
the actual sum demanded as ransom, the vice-president
promised to have the cash in the required denominations
by 9:30 the next morning. His staff worked all night to
accomplish this Herculean chore and were ready gn
schedule with the largest amount of ransom ever to be de-
manded by extortionists in the United States.

On the night of the 28th, when the nation held its breath,

waiting for news of the kidnaped child, the grief-numbed -

parents of little Bobby received their promised telephone
call from the snatcher. The man who talked to them on the
phone was nervous and jittery and suspicious, but he said
enough to definitely establish that he was holding the six-
year-old child. He reiterated his demand for $600,000 and:
promised that no harm would befall the youngster if his
terms were scrupulously met.

The secluded tranquility of the stately Greenlease home
in Kansas City was pierced by terror and sudden death.

y
s

Before the anxious family could comply with the direc-
tions about the classified ad, another written communica-
tion was received from the snatchers. This second letter
amended the wording of the proposed advertisement which
now was to read: ““M. will meet you in Chicago Sunday. G.”
This note nullified the previous instructions and directed
Greenlease not to drive along Main Street with the money-
filled duffel bag, but, instead, to wait for further orders. As
proof that the writer was indeed the actual kidnaper, he
enclosed the small religious medal, a bronze Maltese cross,
which Bobby had been wearing when he left the French
Institute on Monday morning.

In response to an aroused citizenry’s demand for action,
Police Chief Brannon explained the hands-tied position of
the local authorities.

“We are cooperating in every way possible with Mr.
Greenlease,” he announced, “The entire department is ready
to start a hard-hitting investigation the second he gives the
word, But right now, a boy’s life is at stake and we
ea want to do anything that might possibly endanger

im,”

At the Kansas City office of the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation, Wesley Grapp, the assistant special agent in
charge, explained his own peculiar position. He was main-
taining the closest liaison possible with the local police, but
until it could be demonstrated that the kidnapers had taken
the boy across the state line or in any other way violated
the federal Lindbergh Law, he was powerless to act.

The public speculated on how the plump redhead who had
fronted for the snatchers could have gained such intimate
knowledge of the Greenlease family’s background. The car
dealer, a man of 71, lived with his wife and their two chil-
dren in almost cloistered seclusion in a three-story brick
and stone tudor type mansion in Mission Hills. Only trusted
servants and a few intimate friends had any contact with
the family. How could the chunky abductress have known
about Bobby’s pets and school schedule ?

It was announced by Captain of Detectives Harry Nes-
bitt that ten days prior to the kidnaping, a woman had tele-
phoned the Greenlease home and had spoken with a maid
under the pretext of conducting a survey for the Kansas
City Board of Education. She asked whatschools the Green-
lease children attended, and inquired what pets and special
activities occupied them at home. The maid had given the
caller this information.

Harold Dent, Superintendent of Schools in the Prairie
District, vouched for the fact that no such survey had been
conducted either by the school district or the parent-

Using a ruse that the child’s mother was sick, a woman
succeeded in spiriting Bobby from private school, below.


inane ly

The infamous pair in hand
below, perpetrated one of
most vicious of recent crin

Be

att Se Set ies Sa a

ae

Detectives gather before pleasant, well-kept cottage in
St. Joseph, Mo., behind which lay horrible evidence. ,

histo:
fami!
The
Nati
pants
that |e
_and |}
Was \
millio
The
Kans:
Matte:
what
search
of so
progre
with
them
on our
they ir
Or
Bobt
pupil
Conve
de Si
o'clock
poster:
in fror
got our

The body of
his head, is «

well-kept cottage in

y horrible evidence. ,

One of the most vicious and coldblooded crimes in dumpy woman, about 40 years of age. She had a some-
history recently brought the anguish of a Kansas City what bloated face under piled reddish hair. She wore a

family across the threshold of every American home. black hat, a white blouse, a brown skirt and black suede
The central character in what has become a great shoes, All these details were noted by the nun on duty
national tragedy was a defenseless little boy with short. as ostiary at the door. |

pants, a cowlick tuft of hair, and a missing front tooth “T’ve come for my nephew, Bobby Greenlease,” the

that lent a note of poignance to his smile. He was loved chunky woman said. “His mother and I were shopping
.and happy—unspoiled despite the fact that his father on the Plaza and she had a sudden heart attack. We

was wealthy enough to write out a check for several thought it would be a good idea if she could see Bobby
million dollars. for a little while.”

The terrible crime which took place down in the The nun on door duty was shocked. She led the visitor
Kansas City corner of Missouri did not have to be. No into the quiet, lace curtained reception room which
matter how much we try to shift the responsibility for opened into a small chapel. “TI’ll get the boy,” she said
what happened, we have to admit finally in the soul- softly, ‘“‘Perhaps you would like to pray?”
searching honesty of despair that perhaps it is the fault The woman nodded and went into the chapel where

of society. In our misguided concepts of humane and she knelt. The nun moved swiftly up the hall and climbed
progressive penology, we are inclined to be too lenient) the stairs to Bobby’s second floor classroom. The boy
with incorrigible enemies of society. We literally push was happily at work, coloring a drawing with bright

them out of jail and into the world to prowl like beasts crayons. He was told that perhaps he might return to
on our streets, to plot against us in the foul dens which finish it, but that just now his aunt was waiting for him
they infest. f downstairs,

On the morning of September 28, 1953, six-year-old As the nun returned to the reception room with her
Bobby Greenlease was in school. He was a first grade small charge, the kneeling woman in the chapel rose to
pupil at what Kansas City residents call the French her feet and advanced to meet them. Bobby did not greet
Convent, actually the French Institute of Notre Dame her but offered no protest when she took his hand.
de Sion at 3823 Locust Street. It was shortly after 11 “I’m not a Catholic,” the woman said to the nun, “but
o’clock when a Toedman taxicab drove through the I hope He heard my prayers.”
postern, threaded along the winding drive and drew up° The nun pressed her fingertips together. “I’m sure
in front of the main entrance of the school. A woman He heard them,” she said.
got out of this cab and started up the steps. She was a The woman started for the door. “Forgive me for

Bobby Greenlease is every child, and his

parents are all parents, and the staggeringly cruel fate which

overtook them is a cross for each of us to bear

The dreams of a proud father for
his son were forever shattered.

The body of the child, a bullet through Sandy O’Day regrets the night she
his head, is exhumed from hiding place. spent in a motel with a stranger.


*

lion bucks—and it’s all

-r client, Hoag wouldn’t
.d known him since he
other
od family, the kind of
i made Kansas a great
was the only survivor
at Trading Post, Kan.,
s. A monument com-
iding Post, not far from
and Hoag.
~ ost outstanding law-
nown throughout the
y, and later devoted
orporation matters. He
cs, and helped write the

| ;
|

o
The grave had been dug, the lime bought even
before Bobby was kidnaped from the classroom.

laws under which the Kansas highway department was
created. In doing this, he saw to it that a major highway
went through Pleasanton, a town of 1200.

Hoag recalled Hall’s mother, Mrs. Zella C. Hall, an ar-
dent worker in the Presbyterian churgh, an eager par-
ticipant in civic and charitable projects. She was the
daughter of Circuit Judge John Cannon, a judicial pillar in
Kansas. -

go WHEN Mrs. Hall gave birth to a son, Carl, on July 1,
1918, it looked as though the child would have everything
in his favor to develop into an outstanding member of so-

ciety. The parents planned big things for Carl, and even

bigger things when their only other child, Carl’s older broth-
er, died.

But Carl was still in grammar school when it looked as
though even the best laid plans might go awry. His teachers
complained that although he was making average grades,

“ vidence,
63. of] kinds. DW, 7482.

A man’s voice came over the phone. “Change
the ‘C’ to an ‘M’ in that advertisement.”

Arthur Eisenhower

he was unruly, very hard to get along with, a trouble maker.

Carl seemed to dislike people, did not associate much with
the other boys. When he was nine years old he began to talk
about making a lot of money and doing things in a big way
and fast. It was disturbing talk from.a child.

Mrs. Hall sensed her son was getting out of hand. When
he was 11, she talked to Samuel Tucker, president of the
Pleasanton telephone company, and a close family friend,
and asked his help. School vacation had just started and
she wanted to instill into Carl a sense of responsibility. She
asked Tucker to put Carl to work on a line crew.

“But he’s just a boy,” Tucker ‘said. “He would only be
in the way—and he couldn’t be any help.”

“T know,” Mrs. Hall said. “But we’ve got to do some-
thing.”

She arranged to pay the telephone company to let her
son work, but Carl. was not to know that. He was. to be

‘given a job, and led to understand that he was doing honest

continued on next page

(right): The

money will be ready to go any time.


in my belly

where Mrs.
ed about the
h, an accom-
ard.

nd I know he

inclothesmen
ly. She made
When taken,
) and a pearl-
bag. Bonnie’s
‘rom a recent
i given hera

publicity on
zht it best to
1s possible to
ih O'Connell
ge of the St.
ver in Wash-
minutes later.
vest were im-
{own all the
and Kansas
: Tom Marsh

is well known
the very first
at he was in
he case. He
set, a conven-
Jonnie Heady
1 of what had

bby.

1 his adult

. weakling,
yvno had been
i degenerate.
iolesting little
i for larceny.
to continuous
<nown tqabea
sponsible. The
te forty-eight
t and began a
te him in the

iprisoned pair,

idy, had made
“BI announced
it the boy was
incement was
supervision of
und the child’s
; home in that
iried under a

es were found
ere was also a
yost-hole type,
ome. It became

to discover
1 bought, when
grave had been
»wers had been
g. The answers
well establish
the truth with
es of the boy’s

irs. Heady, the
to Tom Marsh
ping. The con-
ter arranging a
y's St. Joseph
hen he arrived
the boy’s body,
head, in the
aliber revolver
ve lent to Tom
the body—ac-
It was the
jieutenant
itel room at

- child was dead,
, ahead with the

ransom negotiations. He unpinned the re-
ligious medal from the dead child’s shirt
and sent it to the parents as proof that he
actually held the boy. He claimed that

- Bonnie knew nothing of the deal—not

even the fact that the boy was to be kid-

* naped.

“She loves me,” he said, “she’d have
done anything I told her. She was under
the impression that the boy was mine, my
son by a former marriage. I told her I

wanted the kid, so she went to that school

to get him. She never knew he was mur-
dered. I gave her some bull about being
interested in gardening and sent her to
buy some potted plants. I put these on the
grave that I dug myself.”

Thus the nation grieved with the
Greenlease family over a tragedy which
struck at the heart of every home, and
which chilled parents all over the world.
Feeling, which had already run high,
flared into open threats of violence as
mobs gathered at the jail where the pris-
oners were held. On Wednesday, October
7, Hall and his redheaded paramour were
arraigned before United States Commis-
sioner Edward Bean in St. Louis.

It was at this point that the FBI began
to probe the cracks in the stories which
had been related by the prisoners. They
felt sure that Tom Marsh was in no way
implicated in the crime. They even
doubted that Tom Marsh was still alive,
since a nationwide alert for the degener-
ate had turned up no trace of him. They
knew the background of the pervert and
they could not credit him with sufficient
sense to successfully elude the national
dragnet which had been spread out for
him. Grudgingly, and only because of the
weight of public opinion, a federal war-
rant was issued for the suspect by the
G-men. :

The ransom notes and all other clues in
the case were given meticulous scientific
examinations and it was soon seen that
Bonnie Heady’s fingerprints appeared on
every one of the kidnap notes. Mulling
over the facts, and the ease with which
Hall had led the police to his guilty door-
step by his follies and profligate spend-
ing, and examining the none too brilliant
criminal background of the playboy ex-
tortionist, the police began to wonder
if Hall was in fact the mastermind of the
vicious kidnap plot.

Their surveillance of the two prisoners
strengthened this doubt. Someone had
masterminded the plot, but Hall just
didn’t measure up. Mrs. Heady, on the
other hand, seemed to walk around in a
perpetual stupor consistent with her gen-
eral appearance and her claim that she
knew nothing of the conspiracy. In-the
meantime, the FBI began to put the life
of the redheaded abductress through the
mesh of a fine sieve. They discovered that
she was an alcoholic and that on more
than one occasion the police had visited
her home.

She had been involved in a shooting
spree on May 20. But, no charges were
filed by the man, who was wounded in a
scuffle for a gun in Mrs. Heady’s home.

The redhead had become promiscuous
upon her release from marriage in 1952.
She was always involved with one man or
another, and these affairs made her no-
torious in the community ‘where she had
once been respected.

But the FBI was not so much inter-
ested in the character of the prisoner as
they were in the extent of her complicity
in the crime. The station wagon in which
Bobby had been transported from the
Katz parking lot was registered in Bon-
nie’s name. This vehicle, bearing blood-
stains, was found abandoned on the

}

Kansas City outskirts. A .38 revolver bul-
let was imbedded in the framing. This,
ballistics showed, had been fired from

Hall’s gun. Both prisoners had admitted |

being with the boy when he was driven
from the parking lot in this automobile.
The indications were that the boy had
been killed in this car. It was hard to be-
lieve that Bonnie knew nothing about it.

Piece by piece the damning evidence
was put together. The FBI determined
that the boy’s grave had been dug by both
prisoners BEFORE the adbuction. The
lime had been purchased by Hall before
that time. Bonnie got the flowers and the
shovel. Everything indicated that the red-
head and her dope-fiend boyfriend had
planned the murder even before the kid-
naping took place.

The actual clincher came when the
murder site itself was discovered, Bobby
had been shot. to death in Bonnie's pres-
ence by Carl Hall in a wheat stubbled field
less than twelve miles from Kansas City
and across the Missouri state line in Kansas.

The final sordid details of the horrible
cold-blooded crime were wrung from the
prisoners on the night of October 11.
Bobby’s mechanical pencil, bearing the
firm name of his father’s car agency, was
found in that mowed-over wheat field by
searchers who raked the entire area dur-
ing Sunday afternoon, Bonnie and Hall
confessed, this time to mutual complicity
in both the snatch and the murder. Bon-
nie, not Hall, was the “brain” behind the
entire plot.

Rushed secretly to the Kansas City jail
on October 12, Bonnie occupied a cell on
the thirteenth floor which had been com-
pletely cleared of other occupants, Hall
had the solitary confinement penthouse
cell on the roof. Both cubicles are escape
proof, top security cages, Other prisoners
in. the jail had threatened the pair with
violence if the opportunity was ‘ever
offered.

The FBI has withdrawn its warrant for
Tom Marsh, according to J. Edgar
Hoover. The wino has been completely
cleared by the new confessions, Actually,
no one is quite sure that Marsh is still
alive. If Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady
know the answer to this one, they afe not
talking.

Only $295,000 of the $600,000 ransom
has been recovered, and an investigation
is under way to recover the rest.

On November 3, the kidnap-killers
pleaded guilty before U. S. District Judge
Albert L. Reeves, after other jurisdic-
tions had agreed to let the federal govern-
ment prosecute under the Lindbergh
Law. Under this law, the death penalty
can be imposed only upon recommenda-
tion of a jury. Judge Reeves could only
have sentenced the slayers to life or less,
and therefore ordered the necessary jury
to be empaneled November ‘16.

On that date a jury began listening to
the testimony of witnesses, and to the
confessions of the revolting crime, read
by an FBI man. On Thursday, November
19, 1953, after deliberating for one hour
‘and seven minutes, the jury recommended
the supreme penalty. Thereupon, Judge
Reeves immediately sentenced the kid-
nap-murderers to death in the gas

chambtr in the Missouri State Peniten- .

etd death to be imposed on December
th, A

As he left the courtroom, Robert’ C.
Greenlease, father of the kidnaped boy,
expressed hi§ feelings, shared by many
throughout the nation; “It’s too good for
i but it’s all the law provides,” he
said,

HOW TOFIX
ANY PART
OF ANY CAR

QUICKLY --EASUY--RIGHT /

WHETHER you’re a be-
ginner or an expert me-
chanic—now you can ‘‘breeze
through” any “fix-it” job
from simple carburetor ad-
j t to complete over-
haul. Just look up job in
index of MOTOR’S New,
Revised Auto Repair Manual.
Follow simple step-by-step
directions, clear pictures.
Presto—the job is done!

No guesswork! MOTOR’S
MANUAL takes you from
"scratch”"—shows WHERE
to start, WHAT tools to use.
Covers EVERY job on
EVERY car built from 1935
thru 1953!

Everything You Need to
Know ''Bolled Down'’ from

189 Official Shop Pee te
Manuals Covers 872 Models
ISED, ENLARGED, : All These Makes

NEW, REV: >;
Edition contains all the ‘‘meat'
from over 189 OFFICIAL | fac- Buick La Satie
tory. manuals—simplified for YOU. Cadillac Li in

a repa specifi-
cations on 872 car models. Over ) Chevrolet Mercury
850 big pages. More than 2500 Chrysler Nash
“this-is-how’’ pictures. 227,000 Crosley Nash
service and repair facts. Leads De Soto Rambler

beginners eve! step of the way

Time-saving factory repair pro- Dodge Oldemobile
cedures for experts. Instructions Ford Packard
and plesaree (50, Clear os bay oo 8 Frazer Plymouth
go wrong. Used by U. 8. :

and Navy. 2 Henry.J Pontiac

Hudson Studebaker
Try Book FREE 7 Days Kaiser © Terraplane

Lafi tte Will:
SEND NO MONEY! Pay post- act we
man nothing. Make ———————

Manual show Ou
, . Same FREE Offer On
wit ieee Ue MOTOR's Truck and

PT eS Spar Bhs Tractor Manual
you've ever seen— Covers, EVERY job on EVERY
return book in 7 popular ma
days and Rey, noth. eanollbs truck,
ing. Ma coupon ractor made
Hook Dept Dek | 1983 3 REE
22c, 250 W. 55th | 7-Day” Trial.
r 19, Check

St., New York proper
N. Y. box In coupon.

MAIL COUPON NOW FOR 7-DAY FREE TRIAL

MOTOR BOOK DEPT.
Desk 22C, 250 W. 55th St., New York 19, N.Y.
im me at once (check box opposite book you -

O ath ol New AUTO REPAIR MANUAL. If O.K.

7 days. $2 monthly for 2
months and a final payment @5c c¢plus 35¢
delivery bog, ig one month after that. Otherwise
will return the book postpaid in 7 days. (Foreign
price, remit $8 cash with order.)

oO MOTOR's es TRUCK & TRACTOR REPAIR

2

>

z

c

>

r

x

2

3

a

2

bd

ww

v
0238
af ~

itticaindinwdmanmenitarts

Check box and save 38c delivery charge en-

closi WITH coupon entire ment of $5.95
‘or Auto Repair Manual (or $8 for Truck & Tractor
Repair Manual.) Same return-refund privilege. 1

a

ee ee
se
A
3
3
£
BS
z
oF
a
2
J
oe
2
g
3
FI
é
3
g
3

> 57


©

HALL, Carl Austin & HEADY, Bonnie Brown, whs, gassed MO (Fed) December 18, 33K%

| FRONT PAGE DETE@TIVE, January,

. er little presents of fruit,
poetry, began inviting

n to dinner, her ex-nurse
many times that Mrs.

ick again. But Mrs. Davis
Plymouth Rock and either
fesperate or else she
hour had come for her

staving at her summer
Mass. Visiting with her
vere their two married
Davis decided that the
eased to five. “We must
e with us,” she said one
noon, she travelled back
ade her one-time nurse

a |

happily on in Jane’s sit-
ver husband, her daugh-
ers’ husbands, when sud-
herself. A moment later,
rrving a syringe in which
e of poisons.

is screamed. “Jane!” But
e had plunged the hypo-
the woman’s arm, before
~w what had happened to

ow, you'll see. You'll feel
collapsed and Jane re-
vn bed. She wrote to Mr.
‘ing that his wife had

he was not to. be
would take care that

his dearly beloved wife.
\irs. Davis was dead and
Cautaumet to convey the
vis family. Destiny begged
Virs. Davis had had a bad
<pect her to die suddenly.
1e too strong himself. In
wife’s death came as such
vad heart or no, he was
is bed. He could not even
funeral services. Nor, of
Toppan, for she was called
ived old man. She would
help the Davis family out
Alden Davis had joined
netery on the main road
ne did attend that funeral.
» many flowers for him,”
‘ial, “because Mr. Davis
I liked him very much
wanted to tell all those
hould have waited a bit. |
have another funeral for
ve them a trip out to the

nad she so desired, could | DNAP
i people of Cautaumet and

) the cemetery. Four days
chter, Mrs. Mary Gibbs

$ Atter a delay of almost | - * by EDDIE KRELL
é is followed to the family |
Mrs. Genevieve Gordon | F ; : er : ice “ipo 0?
. | His passion was money ; " Carl Austin Hall paced the law- It’s a big responsibility, Carl,
| yer’s office. His small cold eyes Hoag said. “I hope you try and live
Gibbs’ insistence that the | : gleamed with excitement. He rubbed up to it.”
the four deaths was be- | a passion that ate his palms together and ran‘his tongue Hall stopped pacing and stared at
‘yn for that shocked, angry nervously over his lips. the attorney. Then he burst out

jower, and his vehement
is told that Miss Toppan

Behind the large mahogany desk laughing. It was a wild laugh that
; sat Marshall K. Hoag, veteran attor- Hoag found completely out of keep-
Jane might have gone | ney. Carefully, he observed Hall’s ing with the seriousness of the occa-

ition of New England that he knew or touched movements, the look in his eyes. sion. He glared at his young client.
han she had already

like a canker. through all

continued on next page
(Continued on page 83)


18

Bobby’s mother: Ask him what he
built on the last night he was here.

MAN BEHIND THE KIDNAP

continued

Bobby and his father: An extended trip through Europe last
summer before the boy was enrolled in an exclusive school.

“Responsibility, hell,” Hall snapped. “I’m getting a
quarter of a million bucks, and you talk about responsibil-
ity.”

“The money and stocks come tq only $200,000,” Hoag
said. “The rest of the estate includes your home and 1170
acres of good farm land.”

Hall sneered. “It ‘won’t take’ long to turn those farms
into cash,”

The lawyer rose: to his feet. “But, Carl, those farms
were very dear to your father. I know he’d want you to
keep them. After all, you’re getting plenty of money. I
thought-maybe you . : .”

Hall cut him off. “Never mind what you thought. Senti-
ment doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. I want cash. Sell
those farms and sell them fast. I’m going to show people
in this town how brains and money can operate.”

Hall’s smile was more like a leer. His fat jowls spread.
His eyes had a dreamy, far-away look, but his voice was a

harsh whisper. “A quarter of a million bucks—and it’s all
mine.”

Then Hall left the lawyer’s office.

If Carl Hall had been just another client, Hoag wouldn’t
have been so concerned. But he had known him since he
was a boy; known his father, his mother.

Carl Austin Hall came from a good family, the kind of
people that pioneered the West and made Kansas a great
state. His grandfather, Austin’ Hall, was the only survivor
in the Marais Des Cygnes massacre at Trading Post, Kan.,

during the war between the states. A monument com-

memorating the evént stands at Trading Post, not far from
Pleasanton, the.home of the Halls and Hoag.

Carl’s father was John A. Hall, the most outstanding law-
yer in the Pleasanton area. He was known throughout the
state as a top notch criminal attorney, and later devoted
most of his practice to civil and corporation matters. He
was also a vigorous worker in politics, and helped write the

laws under whic
created. In doin
went through Ple

Hoag recalled
dent worker in
ticipant in civic
daughter of Circu
Kansas.

So WHEN Mrs
1918, it looked
in his favor to dé
ciety. The paren
bigger things wher
er, died.
But Carl was s
though even the b:
complained that ;

HALL and HEADY

OFFICIAL DETECTIVE, November, 1959

DETECTIVE STORIES

LOUIS SHOULDERS
STORY

By the “GREENLEASE RANSOM”
Ex-Police Lieutenant

ERHAPS the most perplexing mystery of the past decade is the question of what hap-
pened to the Greenlease ransom money—to the $300,003 of it that disappeared during a
climactic, action-filled 24 hours. Many people believe that Lieutenant Louis Shoulders of the
St. Louis police department—the man who arrested the kidnap-killers—could answer that
question. Until now he has refused to talk. Here is his first full and frank discussion of the
case.

Here, too, in Lieutenant Shoulders’ story, is much more than a discussion of the Green-
lease case. Here is an amazing human document giving readers a revealing insight into the
life and the problems of a policeman, his ambitions, his disillusionment, finally, his years in
prison. We believe it is one of the best police stories yet to be published.—The Editor.

HE Greenlease kidnaping case was once describee¢ by a newspaperman as a grand opera

in which all the bodies cluttered the stage at the end of the second act, leaving nothing for
the finale.

At the time I read*that description I was close to death myself—either at the hands of
fellow prisoners or from a heart attack induced by anxiety.

. That would have left four bodies on stage. Mine—Louis Shoulders, former St. Louis,
Missouri, police lieutenant, and now ex-convict—as well as those of little Bobby Greenlease,
the six-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, boy who was kidnaped and slain on September 28,
1953, and Carl Austin Hall and Mrs. Bonnie Brown Heady, who were executed for the kid-


‘demand.

trace the money. The letter bore instructions
to package the money in an army duffle bag.
When the ransom package had been prepared,
Greenlease was to insert a classified ad in the
personal column of the Kansas City Star ‘to
read: “C. Will meet you this week in Chicago.
G.”

The letter stated that Greenlease then was
to drive in his car along Main Street, from

Twenty-ninth to Thirty-ninth street with a ~

white rag tied to the radio aerial.

Mrs. Greenlease was confined to bed under
a doctor’s care, and friends expressed concern
over the health of the father. He was a man
of good physical condition for 71, but they
all realized that this tremendous shock might
effect him dangerously.

Greenlease had been a man of deep determi-
nation all his life. When he was only 20
years old, he started in the automobile manu-
facturing business in Kansas City, he and his
partner building a car they called the Kansas
City Hummer. They built four cars before
closing their small factory. Greenlease then
started in the sales end of the business, becom-
ing associated with the fledgling Cadillac Mo-

tor Car Company. Through his 45 years with

Cadillac, he spread his motor empire across
four states, owning several agencies himself
and being distributor to 58 other dealers. ‘ He
also owned a number of Oldsmobile dealer-
ships. His fortune, built up through half a
century in the automobile business and
through careful investments, was estimated at
between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000.

Life had taken on new verve for Green-

lease, when at 65, his wife presented him with -°

his first son. It was his second marriage.
His first marriage was childless, during which
time: Paul was adopted. .Five years before
Bobby was.born, Greenlease’s second wife .had
presented him with a daughter, Virginia Sue.
- It was understandable that the aging Green-

lease would show deep affection for his son.:
Just that summer he had taken the boy. for-

a trip through Europe, before enrolling him
at the exclusive school.

Greenlease’s friends and business associates,
some from distant cities, rushed to his home
to help in any way they could. It was decided

that Robert Ledterman of Tulsa,- long-time.

business associate of Greenlease, would act as
intermediary and as family spokesman to’ the
press,

Arthur B. Eisenhower, brother of President
Eisenhower, a friend of Greenlease for 40
years, was at his office at the Commerce Trust

Company .that afternoon when his wife.
phoned him and told-him about the announce-

ment of the’ kidnaping that had come over
the radio.

Eisenhower,. executive: vice president of the
bank, immediately got $100,000 out of the
vault and had it packaged in the event. Green-
lease needed it at a moment’s notice.

The next-day Greenlease and Ledterman ~

visited Eisehhower:at the- bank.

“I’ve got $100,000 ready for you,” Eisen-
hower said. “I figured you might need it in-
a hurry.”

- “They want $600,000,” Greenlease said '

grimly.
Eisenhower. expressed his amazement at the

amount in proper denominations was placed in
an armored car and driven to the Commerce
Trust. Company.

The money was split up. between 80 em-
ployes for counting, so none of the counters

would know the significance of it. -A bank .

employe .purchased a duffle bag at-an army
surplus store. The employes worked several

‘ hours overtime. When the counting was com-
pleted, Eisenhower certified that the duffle -

bag ‘contained $600,000. It was placed in a
vault that did not have a time lock, and spe-
cial guards were assigned to the vault.

On that afternoon, another letter was re-
ceived ‘from the kidnaper, instructing Green-
lease to change the form of the ad to read: -

“M, Will. so you ‘in Chicago Sunday.
G. Aha

The Gave saatafhed small red medal
that little Bobby wore, bearing a’ Maltese
Cross,

_ Along with the new instructions, came; a

in the plan for Greenlease ,to drive
along Main Street, The kidnaper wrote that
further instructions would be given. piece ge

The advertisement was inserted in Wednes-

day afternoon’s edition of the Kansas City

Star, and ‘Thursday morning’ edition of the
Kansas City Times.

~

WHEN the news of the kidnaping spread, a

number of phone calls from cranks were
‘received at the Greenlease home.. But on
Thursday, the day after the ad first appeared.

_ in the paper, one of the callers identified him-

self as the “man who sent the medal.”

He had a harsh low voice, and instructed |

Greenlease to write a letter and leave it in a
certain church window in Kansas City.

* The anxious father hurriedly wrote the let-
ter and drove alone to the church that night.

The street was dark and quiet. He placed the -

letter in the window, then drove home;
Shortly after, his arrival, the man with the-
harsh voice, identifying ‘himself as “M,” called.
and said he received the letter, and that in-'
structions on where-and when to deliver the

"ransom money would’ be. forthcoming:

Then a. strange thing happened. . A man
passing by the church that night saw the en-

velope in the window. ‘He opened the en- ”

- yelope, realized the letter had something to do
-with the kidnaping, and took it to police. It

' was ‘considered likely that the kidnaper had

merely put. Greenlease to this test to see if

he would come alone, and that having seen .

Greenlease when_he placed the letter in the
window, he -no longer cared abou, the mes-
ao ‘
I icestalaten Remas' was a scene : of
pawl and grief. Mrs. Greenlease remained
under a doctor’s care’ Several priests visited
the -house regularly to comfort, her. Two
nurses were kept on duty at all times. Green-
lease, his eyes “brimmed with tears and his
voice choked with emotion, remained by the
telephone © with. Ledterman,

Outside, a large group of newsmen waited.
‘ Occasionally Ledterman talked to them, and
“ believing it was the wisest course to follow,
stated that no contact had or made with :
the. kidnapers. © ‘

The next day “M” called again, and said to

“The money means nothing to me,” Green-
lease said. “How soon can you get $600,000
in tens and twenties, and from each of the 12
federal reserve districts?” bs

The three men went to the federal reserve

bank in Kansas city, and the necessarv_

his detection and to show good faith on the
part of Greenlease. Ledterman was told. to
~ pick up a letter.at a certain mailbox; the letter
would direct him to a location where he was
to change cars; then he was to drive to a
desolate spot and dump the money. —
- Mrs. Greenlease, hearing Ledterman talking
on the phone, got out of bed and went to the
phone.
“Let me talk to him,” she told Ledterman.
Trembling, the mother told the kidnaper she
wanted assurance that he had: Bobby and the
boy was unharmed.
“I got him all right,” the harsh voice. said.
“And he’s okay.”
Mrs. Greenlease told the kidnaper she

“wanted some proof. She told him to ask’.

Bobby two questions, then to call back with
the answers. The questions. were: “What was
the name of the driver who drove the Green-
- lease family on their tour of Europe. last
summer ?” and “What did you (Bobby) build
in. your playroom the last night you were
-home?”: ,

‘The kidnaper said he would try to get ean
* answers and call back.

The sobbing mother went to the stiicei:
Bobby had built a model of the Eiffel tower

_ with’ play blocks his last night home. An hour

later “M” called: again. “The boy won't co-.

operate, he won’t answer questions,” he said,

“Just do what you’re told tonight and you'll
‘ get him back all right.”

That night Ledterman and Norbert O’Neill,
another friend and business associate of Green-
lease, carried the 85 pound bag of money to

‘the car and drove off. They had difficulty
following the complex instructions of the kid-.
naper and returned home shortly after dawn”
with the money.

_ Right after they arrived “M” called. “You

didn’t do it,” he snapped angrily. Ledterman
explained the instructions were impossible to
follow. The caller gave new\instructions. The
money was delivered to the specified- point and
the men returned home.

. The. kidnaper called again and ‘ala he
didn’t get the money. Ledterman said it was
left at the specified place.- The kidnaper in-
Structed him to pick. it up and await further
‘instructions. The men drove out and returned -
the money to the Greenlease house. »

On Saturday morning “M” ¢alled and said —

‘he would call at 11 a.m, He called at that time

and said he -would call again at 8 pw. He-

called at that time and instructed -Ledterman
_to go to a telephone booth at a Kansas City
hotel and await ‘another call.:

Ledterman followed the instructions. He got
the call in the phone booth at 11:30 pw. “M”
sounded jittery, and told Ledterman to drop
the ‘money off a certain bridge a few miles
east of Kansas City. ;

Ledterman and O'Neill dropped the money_
off at 12:05 a.at,, then-drove to the Greenlease

‘home. It took then 40 minutes to return, and
almost immediately upon their entering the
house, “M” called Ledterman and said he had
received the money. . ’

He instructed Ledterman to go to Pitts-
burg, Kan., and wait for..a- telegram telling

* + where to pick up the boy. He said the tele-
"gram would be delivered by 11 a.m. Monday.

Ledterman. “Deliver the dough ton
you'll get the kid back.” %
* Ledterman, his voice choked with rage, said:

“Yd like to meet. you some day.” .

~The caller. laughed,
‘won't, Now listen. carefully,” he’ snapped, He
gave a ‘list of instructions, to Drevent

night and ~

Ledterman and O'Neill “drove to Pittsburg,

registered at a hotel, and waited. At the Green-
lease home the anxious’ family waited, the

. ‘seconds ticking by like-small Pieces of eternity.
“Don't. worry, , you ;

The developments in the case were kept
from newsmen, but when Ledterman failed to
qiaes his appearance. in. front of the house,

speculation rose t!
made.

While Ledterman
in Pittsburg,
at home, Ca
were speedir
with a load of mon

Upon their arri\
took an apartment
mediately became i_
The next afternoo
full of money and
cab driver to get h
to a downtown ho!
John Hager, that }

. Hager transferre:
cases into his cab a
of Sandy O’Day. 7
blonde to a bar w
paid for them wit!
$18 change to the *
name was Steve. |
to a fancy motel o1
Hall gave the drive
account,” he said. ’

ON the way to
stop the cab.

other cab driver

Esther Grant” at 2

They stopped ag

‘and Hall instructe

drugstore and bu
When he came out
over to the cab, :
illegal parking.
Hall slid down }
but relaxed. when
moved on.
” At the motor co
an into ‘a cabin «
metal suitcases in
out for some beer
bed -was covered v
driver $2500 to re
a suitcase and brie
Hager rei |
articles and
a madman
Sandy in the rent
could get a cab,
When Hager and ‘
the blonde told hi
“Steve’ 's” suitcases

Sandy, showing
she said “Steve” |
tions to fly to Cal

They opened th
a St. Joseph, Mc
are not going as g
to leave the coun
letter was signed ‘

Hager ‘became ;
blonde off, he ret:
said: “John, I’m
confidence. I’m a
vestigators are loc

He said he wan
ment. Hager lugg
to the cab, and
finest apartment
to register for I
Hager carried the
* Hager had dro) .
store, leaving him
went to the apari
cab.


aith on the

vas told. to

x; the letter

here he was’
« drive to a

y.
‘man talking

went to the §
* _ Ledterman.
kidnaper she
‘bby and the a

h voice, said. 4

idnaper she
him to ask’.
dl back with
“What was
‘e the Green-
Europe . last
Bobby) build
ht you were

ry to get the
the playroom.
> Eiffel tower
ome. An hour
oy -won’t co-.
ane” he said.
nd you'll

nowt O'Neill,
jate of Green-
of’ money to
had difficulty
ns of the kid-.
ly after dawn”

” called. “You
ily. Ledterman
impossible to
structions. The
ified- point and

and said he
an said it was
e kidnaper in- i
| await further ™
it and returned -
1ouse. a
called and said —
led at that time
at 8 p.m. He-
cted Ledterman
a Kansas City

ructions. He got
11:30 p.m. “M”
terman to drop
ge a few miles

sped the money
o the Greenlease
‘s to return, and

, eir entering the

and said he had

to go to Pitts-
telegram telling .
Ie said the tele-
11 am. Monday.
"to Pittsburg, —
it the Green-
waited, the
nicucs of eternity.
case were kept
jterman failed to
nt of the house,

‘ with a load of money.

“moved on:

' “Steve's” suitcases and it was-filled

speculation rose that a “contact was being
thade: a ies oo Wowace
While Ledterman and O’Neill were waiting -

in Pittsburg,-and the Greenlease family waited Louis Shoulders of.the Newstead ‘Station and ’

at home, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie. Heady.

were speeding to St. Louis in an automobile;

Pe OReRS oe pes ae “A .

Upon their: arrival at St. Louis, the’ pait”

took an apartment on Arsenal Street: and im- -

mediately became involved in a drunken fight.
The next afternoon’ Hall took two. suitcases

full of money and got into‘a cab. He told the ~

cab driver to get him a girl. The driver.drove

- to a downtown hotel and told another driver;
John Hager, that his fare ‘wanted a girl. -

Hager transferred the two large metal suit-
cases into his cab and drove Hall to the home,
of Sandy O'Day. Then he drove Hall and the.
blonde toa bar where they had drinks. Hall:
paid for them with a $20 bill, and gave the
$18 change to the cabbie. Hall told them. his
name was Steve. Later e
to a fancy motel on Watson road. On the way,
Hall gave the driver. five $20 bills. “This is on
account,” he said. “Just stick with me.”

ON the way to the motel, Hall had Hager .
stop the cab. He gave an envelope to an-
other cab driver to be delivered to “Mrs.
Esther Grant” at an Arsenal’ Street apartment.
They stopped again on the way to-a motel,

‘and Hall instructed. the driver to go into a

drugstore and buy him some shaving gear.
When he came out’ a motorcycle officer pulled
over to the cab, and cautioned Hager about
Hall slid down in the back seat of the ¢ab,
but’ relaxed, when the officer left and the cab,

” At the motor court, Hall escorted the wom-
an into ‘a cabin and: Hager carried the two .
metal suitcases inside. Hall then sent Hager
out for some beer. When Hager. returned, the
bed -was covered with $20 bills. Hall gave the
driver $2500 to rent him a car and buy him:
a suitcase and brief case to match. - Rare: is

Hager returned the next morning with the
articles and found Hall pacing the room like

a madman. He instructed Hager to drive
Sandy in the rented car, drop her where she
could get a cab, then come back. for him.
When Hager and Sandy were alone in the ar,
the blonde told him she-had looked in one of .

with $20

bills. Bees eee
Hager laughed. “You’ve had too much; to

drink,” he said. : .

Sandy,. showing fright, gave Hager a letter -

she said “Steve”. had given: her, with instruc-
tions to fly to California and mail it.

They opened the letter. It was addressed’ to -
a St. Joseph, Mo., man, and read: “Things
are not going as good as they seem. May have
to leave the country by: ship or plane.” The
letter was signed “Carl.” sind

Hager -became alarmed. After dropping the
blonde off, he returned to the motel and Hall.

said: “John, I’m going to take you into my | ~
gallon garbage cans, a shovel, two plastic bags -

confidence. Pm an ex-con, and insurance’ in-
vestigators are looking for me.”

He said he wanted to move to a good .apart-
ment. Hager lugged the heavy: suitcases back
to the cab, and drove to one of St. Louis’s
finest apartment hotels:"Hall requested Hager,
to register for him in Hager’s name, then
Hager. carried the suitcases into the apartment.
~ Hager had dropped Hall off at a hardware
store, leaving him the rented car, while ‘Hager

went to the apartment with the suitcases ina

cab. |

“By .this time Hager, wht

Hager drove the pair . not know his plans,

job: up until then i
had. been to cater. to ‘his ‘customer. and’ say
nothing,: was-alarmed, “He called Lieutenant

} with four other women prisoners, but a spot-
© jight’ was’ played .on ‘her bed throughout every

* night so she could be kept under constant
‘surveillance. ;

led officers to “Steve’s”” apartment. ‘ . > Hall’s story about Marsh’s participation in

The officers arrested Hall without resistance.
They found $293,000 ‘in’ the ‘suitcases and’ a
38-caliber pistol" pete!
After a lengthy. grilling at’ police headquar- .

‘ters, Hall admitted his ‘identity and. said he

was in on the kidnaping. “But I' didn’t kill: the

pick up Bonnie, and officers’ fourtd her in a
deep drunk: ya rt Pie : bye

* After an all night interrogation, during.
- which time Kansas City police officials flew in”
to take part.along with: federal: officers, Hall

and Bonnie admitted burying little Bobby .

Greenlease in Bonnie’s backyard. >. °

vi

-.Hlall’s story was that He had planned the
kidnaping for two years. He said Bonnie‘did
that he told her Bobby

‘Greenlease was his soni by a previous marriage,

and that his wife wouldn’t'let him see the boy -

A

“and he asked Bonnie to help him see him.
He said after Bonhie, brought the boy to
him, he let her. off to ‘shop, then turned
the: boy over to a Thomas Joseph Marsh, an
ex-convict. He sid Marsh was to take the boy

to the Heady home in St, Joseph. Hall: said he~

went back. to the Plaza” shopping . district,
picked up Bonnie ang they drove to her home.
He said. when’ they arrived, they found: the
boy shot to death in the basement, and a 38-
caliber pistol, which: Hall said he- had turned
oyer to Marsh, was lying nearby. ‘The boy was

Me 4

shot through the head.” ia

- Hall said:they buried the boy

under two feet

_ of ground and’ one fogt of lime, then put
flowers on the grave. He said he -hadn’t seen’.

Marsh since ‘he. turned the: boy. over to him.

. Hall said he went through with his ransom

plan and, that Mrs. Heady-had nothing to dé
with it.’ SSE BU St at pe at ae
Bonnie insisted she knew nothing about’
Hall’s plans for the kidnaping, the ransom plan
or anything else connected with the crime. She.
said she had never seen or heard of Marsh.
At 10 Am. that morning, Wednesday, Octo-

ber: 7, officers found the, body of little Bobby ~”
|. »-kidnapers. as their confessions were announced

in the crudé grave in Mrs. Heady’s yard.”
Hall said’ he spent: about $7000 since he -got
the money. > |’ Pas Bei ees

I ’ ks FAR Lena Nes
«Sandy O’Day was arrested in a Kansas City
hotel ike Pi? eroAete

A. Mrs, Heady and Marsh were charged

with first. degree murder in St. Joseph.

Hall and Mrs. Heady were charged with kid- °

raping in Kansas City. Both offenses are pun-

_jshable by the gas chamber in Missouri. Fed-
eral authorities also ‘lodged. extortion charges
against Hall and Mrs. Heady. |

"As for the other $300,000, Hall told several:

onflicting stories. He said he was drunk and
couldn’t remember what happened to it, that
somebody, stole it from him...

- Police learned that Hall purchased two 16

and some plastic spray for preserving ‘paper
‘during his stop at'the St. Louis hardware store.
On the theory that he buried the money, offi-

cers searched the Meramec River bank outside -

of St. Louis. ie 3

_ While: angry ‘mobs gathered to’ mete out
their own’ type of justice for the monstrous

crime, Hall was rushed to St. Louis city jail :

and kept under day and night guard, away
from: other prisoners for his own ‘safety.. Mrs.
Heady: was placed in another part of the jail

a 4 ‘ . - ‘ vf vd

ki

kid,” he cried. He told police where.they could |

“the ghastly crime was not acceptable to the
police. Marsh could. not be found and he was
-a man easily traceable through facial and body

* scars and tattooes. Dissatisfied with Hall’s ac-

count; officials continued to hammer away at

’* thé balding kidnaper. Jah,

Finally, on October 12, the flabby no-

“account who had brought nothing but misery

to everyone ~whose’ lives he had touched,

_ changed his story and admitted that it was he,
< not Marsh, who had shot the boy. Moreover
he had-planned from the beginning to kill the
youngster. The grave had been. dug for the
_- body and the lime purchased for its disin-
tegration, even before the boy was abducted

. from school. —

TBE murder had taken place not in. Mis-
souri, "but 12 miles from Kansas’ City,
‘across the state line in Kansas, a few hours
~ after the kidnap. Here police found a mechan- °
ical pencil like the one Bobby had been carry-"
ing before his death, a souvenir pencil put out
? by the Greenlease Motor Company as an ad-
--vertisement.. The pencil, the bloodstained sta-
tion wagon. which police found abandoned in
. Kansas City, and a 38-caliber gun, found on
. Hall at the time of his arrest, all attested to
the fact ‘that this time Hall was telling the
truth. . ~ ,
- It was: considered possible that Hall ‘had
, murdered Marsh before. the kidnaping, plan-
"ning td pin the actual murder of the boy en
_. him, knowing that Marsh coufd never deny it.
Authorities agreed that this was pure specu-
lation, but they were going ahead witha
search for Marsh’s body and it was hinted the-
search extended up into Nodaway County,
Mo., where Mrs. Heady owned a farm. ;
After Hall had made and signed his confes-
sion, Bonnie. Heady admitted she had known
of the intended crime from the start and had
» been present when Bobby was shot. She, too,
signed the confession.
Concern mounted for the safety of the two

and they were removed to special cells in the
* Jackson County jail. There are three ways in
which the death penalty could attach to this
heinous crime. The death sentence could be
demanded by Johnson. County, .Kan., in which
the actual murder was committed. It could be
asked by the state under the state kidnap law
and it could be demanded by the federal gov-
ernment under the Lindbergh kidnap law.
- Meanwhile the pair was being held in lieu
of $100,000 bond each on federal extortion
charges, although, at, this writing, United
States District Attorney Edward Scheufler said
‘ he would ask the court to hold them without
bond.
-- While a whole nation shuddered at the
_ atrocity, the people of Pleasanton were left
‘completely numb. One of their own sons, John
Hall’s boy, had perpetrated this crime; a man
who had every advantage in childhood and a.
fortune when he reached man’s estate. Per-
haps one person who felt this most keenly was
Lawyer Hoag; .the lawyer who had turried
‘over'a fortune to Carl. Hall many years ago
and seen it dissipated in less than ‘two years.
‘Lawyer Hoag said. he would defend Hall if
Hall asked him. He said he would plead in-
_ sanity. “I always thought there was something
. the matter with Carl,” Hoag said. —

ce encanto


New Greaseless Way To
Keep Your Hair Neat All Day —
VITALIS With V-7

Py ee hers
Wes

Makes evendry, unruly hair easy
to manage. Keeps hair neat with
V-7, new greaseless grooming dis-
covery that outdates messy oils. Nev-
er a gummy film or “‘oil-slick”’ look!

: 53 i
PRODUCT OF BRISTOL-MYERS |

- ee

Prevents dryness. New Vitalis
maintains your hair's natural mois-
ture: balance’ better than any other
leading tonic. Try new Vitalis with
V-7, You'll like it! s

4 MY WIFE, ELEANOR—Frank David
: Weiman, 29-year-old San Francisco news-
paper editor, was’ given five years to life

as

CREATOR RENE RIE

pee

Weiman weeps over the body of his wife.

Eleanor (Picture of the Month, December:

FRONT PAGE,- 1953). Weiman confessed that

he strangled his wife’ after a violent, quar-

¢ 4 rel just four days after they were married.
*

DISHONEST BUCKS—The United

States Supreme court denied a hearing to

7 John’ Louis Vaszorich. of gOcean Grove,

in San Quentin for the slaying of his wife,

The cleanup spot

N. J.; sentenced to death for the murder

of Jeremiah Delhagen (A Couple of Dis-

honest Bucks, January FRONT PAGE, 1952).
Vaszorich’s two 17-year-old companions in
the robbery-killing have both been given
life sentences. :

ee

SINNER’S .DEBTS—Gambler Benny
Binion (Sgint’ Or Sinner? August FRONT
PAGE, 1953):surrendered 50 per cent inter-
est in his\Las Vegas gambling emporium, in
an attempt’ to.raise money to pay off the
$800,000: he owes the United States govern-
ment, At.,the ‘same time, U.. S. District
Judge ‘Edward. ‘Murphy of Los Angeles
took undem-advisement the former Dallas,
ambler’s: plea for reduction of his
probated: five “year sentence on conviction

in Nevada “federal court for income tax -

evasion. <<.”

FLIRTY-FLIRTY—Ferman Sanchez

Espinosa was found. guilty by a Denver, -

Colo., district court of the “trunk slaying”
of his 15-year-old common-law wife, Irene
Reyes (Those Flirty-Flirty Eyes, October
FRONT PAGE, 1953). The first degree murder
conviction :carries with it a life sentence.

NIGHTMARE’S. END—The State of
Arizona’ suspended the sentences of 26
Short Creek polygamists- (Census -Taker’s
Nightmare, November FRONT PAGE, 1953),

preventing them, at the same time, from
returning to any of their 63 wives except
the “legal ones.” If any one of the men
seeks to live with one of his plural wives,
he will face a year’s imprisonment or $1000
fine. The suspended sentences left the 26
men with only one wife. each—the one
married in a civil ceremony. All others
-married in church ceremonies are “plural”
wives and living with them would constitute
violation of conditions of the suspended
sentences.

THE KIDNAP—Carl Austin Hall and
is _ alcoholic mistress, Bonnie Brown
Heady, were. executed in the lethal gas

Hall and Heady: “Had a better chance.”

chamber in the Kansas City Prison for the
kidnap-murder of 6-year-old Bobby Green-.
lease (Man Behind-The Kidnap, January
_ FRONT PAGE, 1954). “We feel that they. had
a better chance than they gave Bobby,”
Bobby’s father said. “There isn’t any
death comparable to the suffering my hus-
band and I have endured since Bobby was
taken,” Mrs. Greenlease commented. _

*“Doy,” she said. “I want to: help him’®*-
only wish I could afford more.” :

baie

‘THE WAY OUT—George Compo was *
sentenced to 7 to ten years in the Bor-
dentown Reformatory on charges-of par-
ticipating with 12 other youths in~ the
‘bludgeon slaying of. Ross Midgette (This
Way Out, December FRONT PAGE, 1953).
Superior Court Judge Donald M. Waesche
sentenced Compo, a Denville, N. J., resi-
dent, after the defendant pleaded no de--
fénse to second degree murder. Four other
youths allegedly involved in the fatal beat-
ing received suspended sentences and were
placed on probation. Charges against an-
other eight’ accused of being involved. were
referred to the juvenile court. ‘

Michael Silich. “I feel sorry for that» «_

PC
Dins

suspi
killec
In tl]
othe

Stat
a co
of t
the

old

said
Roc

T
SPE
burg
got
close

|
}
i}
|

"The. FBI

| can tell what

thinks

happened to the

Greenlease _ran-

som money...

maybe I could have found them. But if
I had taken the time to do that, I too
would have been killed.

The most vivid recollection of this
long-ago period was after I was as-
signed as a beat patrolman in the
ninth district in North St. Louis. I was
barely familiar with the area when two
large payroll holdups were committed.
They did not occur when I was on duty
but on a different watch. On two widely
separated days an armed thief had
waited at the side entrance to the Jef-
ferson Bank at Jefferson and Franklin
Avenues and relieved the paymasters of
two different companies of $2,800 and
$4,200. His method was to step into the
Ppaymaster’s car with him and then
drive away, later abandoning car and
driver as he made off with the cash.

I sought out one of these paymasters
after I realized that I, as a patrolman,
was just as responsible for solving the
holdups as the robbery detail at head-
quarters. As the paymaster talked I at-
temped to draw a mental image of the
bandit. Either this man had great pow-
ers of description or I was an especially
imaginative cop; I saw the face of the

bandit in my mind. An annoying famili-°

arity crept in. I had seen such a man
before. This puzzled me for several
days. It was like trying to remember
the name of a song or a movie star.

I was leaning over the desk to ask a
question of the telephone operator at
the ninth district station one morn-
ing when the description and the man
clicked. Billy Hunter, I said. Impos-
sible, was my next thought. Hunter
had been a telephone switchboard boy
at this very police station.

I kept the idea to myself, fearful of
being laughed at. Then something else
was dredged out of my subconscious.
Hunter once had said he had worked at
a bank, and I was almost certain it was
the Jefferson Bank.

FROM that point on, my steps were

directed with a little more certainty.
I traced Hunter. He pulled up in my
district one day with a brand new auto-
mobile. I waved at him; I was surprised
to find that I was somewhat of an
actor.

“Where did you get the car?” I asked,
again surprised, because of the tone of
admiration that creeped into my voice.
“Is it yours?”

“No. But I sure wish it was.” ;

He explained that it was a demon-
strator and he now was an automobile
salesman. After joking with me about
buying one, he left.

I had committed the license number
of the car to my memory. When I got
off duty, I ran a check of it and found
that the license was issued to him and
not to any sales agency.

From that moment, in that bit of
triumph when my pulse quickened at
this discovery, Leu Shoulders was a
policeman. The thfill of catching some-
one in a falsehood and thus making
him a suspect was always to remain an
unmatched satisfaction to me.

Excitedly, I called the sales manager
of the firm for which Hunter said he
worked. He was employed there, but it
was an unusual deal, the sales manager
said. Hunter had come to him and
asked if he bought a car would he put
-him on the sales force. .The manager
agreed. Hunter had paid cash for the
automobile. f

I was on the three to eleven p. m.
watch. When I returned to duty that
day I told my walking partner what I

had discovered. We went to our ser- .

geant and reported. The three of us
drove to Hunter’s house, which I had
traced through his employment appli-
cation at the automobile agency. He
was home, and we arrested him. With
the evidence piled up against him, the
former police employee went to trial
and was convicted, getting a five-year
sentence.

I was exuberant. I had “made” the
case, and it had resulted in a convic-
tion and a five-year sentence. In those
days I wasn’t so aware of what five years
in prison could mean to a man. I am
now, far too aware. That’s one reason
why I haven't used his right name here;
Billy Hunter is a fictitious name. For
all I know, he is an eminently respect-
able man now. :

When I entered the police force I had
promised my mother that I never would
take a life. This was a foolish promise
and one that I could not keep unless I
wanted to die young. As it was, I almost
died along with my first victim.

After my success in the paymaster
case I was made a special officer, which
meant I wore plain clothes. This was
and still is one of the best jobs in the
police department. The hours were
much better than in the detective: bu-
reau, where I eventually landed.

One of the first cases to come my way
was the investigation of a feed-store
holdup on the north side. Other officers
had dug up leads that pointed to a par-

ticular suspect. Frank Pugh was my ’

partner on the case. He and our cap-
tain, William Tierney, and I went to a
furniture store where this man was

.employed. Captain Tierney stationed

Pugh in the rear of the store and told
me to stay near the police car.

As the captain later told the story,
when he entered the store it was to find
the manager being held up by two gun-
men. Tierney, realizing what was going
on, drew his gun and ordered the men
to drop their weapons The shooting
started. The store manager was killed
in the first blast from one of the guns
of a bandit.

The other ran out of the door just

as I was leaving the car and drawing
my gun. He fired a quick shot at me
as I emerged from the car. The bullet
went through my clothing between my
upper arm and chest. Then he drew a
bead on Captain Tierney, who had
chased him out of the store.
' This was no time to think of any
promises I had made to my mother. I
fired at the man and he fell. Then he
got to his feet, his gun raised again in
Captain Tierney’s direction. I took bet-
ter aim this time and shot him through
the left ear. He died instantly.

The second bandit meanwhile had
escaped because Pugh, naturally, had
run around to the front of the store to
help in the gun battle. He was caught
later and hanged for the crime, the last
person to go to the gallows at the old
St. Louis jail. Since then all executions
have taken place at the state capital,
Jefferson City. ~” .

The man originally suspected in the
case also was caught. Through admis-
sions, we learned that he had been the
lookout the day that the two others
were holding up the furniture store.
When he saw Captain Tierney, Pugh
and me approach, he fled, leaving his
accomplices in the store unwarned.° He
was given a long prison sentence.

. My experience in that gun battle

‘proved the first test of what I had been

learning about weapons since I joined
the department. All the hours on the
target range were a preparation for
such wild minutes as those.

I was advised, in this series, to tell
the better things that happened to me
in my police life. I can see the sense of
that because my final act as a police
officer made of me such a complete fail-
ure in the eyes of so many that what-
ever I accomplished before would seem
small in comparison.

It is impossible, when re-living the
terrible accusations that followed the
breaking of the Greenlease case, for me
not to point to my record in the depart-
ment and say, “If I am capable of steal-
ing money in the line of duty, why
didn’t I take it when this happened, or
that, or this, many years ago?” I can
tick off many such cases.

O@= that is vivid in my mind con-
cerns the recovery of much of the
loot from a Baltimore, Maryland, bank
robbery in 1929. My partner at that
time was Adolph Karrash. He and I
were at the station one day waiting, I
believe, for an irate citizen to come in
and chew us out for something—a not

“uncommon occurrence in police work.

Being special officers and in plain
clothes, we were hardly noticed by two
men who were brought in by a motor-
cycle policeman for speeding. We were
spectators as the officer charged the
driver and told his companion he could

-wait around because as soon as bond

was provided, his friend would be free

Behind the counter, my attention was
caught by the young telephone oper-
ator. He signaled to me and I leaned
down, as his manner indicated that he
did not want to speak loudly.

“I saw the driver slip this other fel-
low something,” the young man said..

I tapped him on the shoulder as a
sign of thanks. Then I went over to
Karrash and told him that we should
have a talk with these fellows. The men
were good actors and showed surprise
at the attention they were getting. “Is
this usual in a traffic case in St. Louis?”
one of them asked.

I told him it was a routine we had
worked out to compile traffic statistics
sO we would get a general picture of the
type of motorists who speed and break
other traffic laws. I don’t know if he

- swallowed that or not but it permitted

us to get them out of the lobby.

Surprisingly, they told good stories
that matched pretty well.

But when I asked them to empty
their pockets, the score did not add. The
driver of the car had little on him, but
the other fellow pulled out a roll of bills
from his trouser pocket—$3,500. A bill-
fold in his inside coat pocket had more
than $2,000.

I asked them where they got all that
money, and they said they were auto-
mobile salesmen and had made a couple
of sales. They gave the‘name of the
agency after I requested it. Telling

h to keep an eye on them, I went
to a telephone and called the sales
manager at the place.

The manager said that the men in-
deed worked for him but only for the
past two weeks and they had not sold
any cars in that time. With that infor-
mation, I booked the pair. I told Kar-
rash that we were going to take a look
at their living quarters. They had given
identical addresses to the motorcycle
policeman who had brought them in.

I took all the keys they had in their
possession after they were lodged in a
cell and went to their quarters, which
were in a north side rooming house.

Night had fallen by the time we
reached the place. We searched the
room and almost immediately found
two pistols. Then under the bed we dis-
covered two suitcases—just as I found
two suitcases later when I arrested Hall.

This could have been a dress rehear-
sal for the Greenlease investigation.
The two suitcases were filled with cur-
rency and five-dollar gold pieces.

We each took a suitcase and tossed it
into the back of the police car. I knew
an awful lot of money was there, and if
my detractors want some ammunition,
here it is: The thought crossed my mind
as Karrash and I started the long ride
to the police station that it would be

"| have my own
ideas about that
and I'll let the

FBI in on them—

in this series...’

easy to put several packets of that cash
in our pockets.

This was not a question put to myself
for consideration before acting. It was
an idle one—a kind of comment on all
the temptations that come the way of a
policeman. I am not naive, nor do I
underestimate the intelligence of the
reader by inferring that no policeman
has ever submitted to such temptations.
But here I was, young Lou Shoulders,
with more money than I had ever seen
at one time in my life. My final report
showed more than $66,000 in those bags
and on the persons of the pair. Karrash
and I were close friends. Could we
have kept out, say, $10,000 without sus-
Picion? Maybe. But my thinking about
it did not carry to those lengths. I use
the circumstance now only to show the
many opportunities I had in all my
years as a policeman to steal loot be-
fore it was turned over to my superiors.

The laws and the resultant punish-
ment make being dishonest a heavy
risk with the policeman who steals
under the circumstances I described.
Besides his natural honesty to keep him
straight, he also runs the risk of ex-
posure. I have never been a fool. If
the original loot does not add fairly
close to what is turned in to the people
who were robbed, they are going to at-
tempt to find an answer. In those days
the Pinkerton agency investigated such
matters; this was before the increased
scope of the FBI.

‘DOES anyone think that I would have

risked participating in the theft of
the Greenlease money even if I were
dishonest? I am an experienced police-
man, and I have seen many cases that
have ended in disgrace for officers in
similar situations—in one it ended in
suicide. I could have anticipated every-
thing to follow the announcement that
half of the Greenlease ransom was
missing. I knew the police power that
could be put into play, the cry that
would be set up against anyone taking
such blood money, paid for the return
of a boy already dead. That, if my de-
tractors want to discount everything
else, would have been enough to make
me back off from any deals with the
underworld or from taking the money
myself.

When the loot was taken from the
rooms of those men back there in 1929
and shown to them, they knew they
were trapped. The money was traced
to the Farmers and Merchant Bank in
Baltimore, which had been held up sev-
eral weeks before by three men. All of
the bank’s money was returned.

Not so in the Greenlease case.

What did happen in the Greenlease
case? Who made off with the missing
$300,003, and. how did Lieutenant
Shoulders find the kidnapers? For Part
II of this amazing inside story, giving
facts never before revealed, order now
your copy of the December OrricraL
DETECTIVE STorIEs, on sale Thursday,
October 29. :

53

HALL, Carl Austin & HEADY, Bonnie Brown, whs, gassed MO (Fed) December 18, 1953

(Official Detective Magazine, December, 1959

oe — —

3A1L9391390 IWIDIGHO

3AILD3130 WVIDISIO

JAILD3L3O WWIDISIO

ZAILDILIG IWIDISIO

THE LOUIS SHOULDERS STORY

PART II—THE NIGHT THE
RANSOM MONEY VANISHED

By hss Me tle’

N 1953 every policeman in the. United States was looking for the two
| persons who had stolen little Bobby Greenlease from school in
Kansas City and collected $600,000 ransom from his parents.

Lieutenant Louis Shoulders of St. Louis found those kidnapers,
got confessions from them and solved the case. As a result—Lieutenant
Shoulders went to prison.

Here is the astounding story of that situation told by the one man
who knows it best, Lieutenant Shoulders himself. Here, besides reveal-
ing for the first time the inside story of the Greenlease case and the
Greenlease ransom, Louis Shoulders gives us an astounding human
document revealing, as few stories have before, the life and times of a
police officer; his thoughts, his problems both in his career and in his
- personal conduct.

Last month Lieutenant Shoulders traced his story from his child-
hood in St. Louis’ Kerry Patch, his first job in a canning factory, his

rm # é

"| saw the money; | knew | had one of the Greenlease kidnapers"


Heroes for a day—Shoulders
and Elmer Dolan the big night

two very young sisters after the death
of their parents. Florence and I began
a courtship which ended in our mar-
riage. We had a ready-made family
with her two sisters and my son, Bruce.
Later three other children were born
to us.

W HEN my first service pistol was
turned over to me, I began a dedi-
cated study of it and its uses as I have
everything else that was part of any
job I had ever held. I found that I had
a natural talent with guns which took
only a little training to develop to high
skill.

To this day I could qualify as an
expert with a pistol even if I turned
upside down and pulled the trigger with
my little finger. I was a member of sev-
eral police championship pistol teams
and the only man in the city depart-
ment who could beat my score was
Oliver Yanick, in his day one of the
best police pistol shots in the country.

I don’t say this boastfully, but only
to illustrate a point I already have
made. My lack of formal education had
put a drive in me which made it com-
pulsive that I try with all my resources
to do everything a little better than the
man who stood next to me. Of course,
I was not always successful. But I was
advised, in this series, to tell the better
things that happened to me in my po-
lice life. I can see the sense of that be-
cause my final act as a police officer
made of me such a complete failure in
the eyes of so many that whatever I
accomplished before would seem small
in comparison.

Shortly after my marriage I went
into the detective bureau. In those
days a system of rotation was in effect.
No officer stayed in one district longer

marriage at the very early age of fif-
teen, the birth of a son, his divorce.
He left the canning factory to become
a cab driver, quit driving a cab to en-
list with the St. Louis police depart-
ment. He described his first big arrest
and the shooting incident in which he
killed a holdup man—the first of three
he was to kill as a police officer.
Now go on with his story:

OU can’t always go back in your life
and say, here, this is the turning

point. At least, I’m not able to. I can’t
say that because of any one thing. I
just happened to be on the spot when
the Greenlease case broke. Everything
in my life seemed to build up to that .
one climactic night—the night when I
did my best work as a police officer and
incidentally set myself up for the per-
secution that brought me a prison term.

The rotation system in the St. Louis
police department was one incidental
cause, since because of it I went into
the detective bureau. My domestic sit-
uation was another incidental cause.

When my mother moved to Hokpins-
ville, Kentucky, her home, taking with
her my two young brothers, I placed
my son, Bruce, in care of a housekeeper
while I was at work. This did not pan
out satisfactorily, and the thought of
Marriage again entered my mind.
wa oe ay ve at the ge hs

ric ame acquainted with a : eee ;

young woman who lived across. the The Town Hall apartments, where a tip led Lieutenant Shoulders, and at right, John Hager, holding hat,
street from the station. She was raising , who waited outside the building, crouching in fear, while Shoulders went into the kidnaper's apartment

EAP RO pane SEAS RIES C4

ae


than five years. I went to the twelfth

district. Before my move, Lieutenant
John J. Carroll of the detective bureau
had told me that if I ever got tired of
my special officer assignment I should
let him know. He had been watching
my work and thought he could find a
place for me in the bureau.

Because of my work in plain clothes,
a special order went with me from Po-
lice Chief Joseph A. Gerk when I moved
to the twelfth district. Ordinarily it
was up to the captain of each district to
decide who would be in plain clothes
and who in uniform. Chief Gerk told
my new captain, Robert E. Hannegan,
that I was to remain as a special officer
in the twelfth. I can understand that
Hannegan became miffed at this inter-
ference from the top with what usually
was a captain’s prerogative. With this
start, my relations at the station
were never the best with my superior.
Finally, one afternoon in 1931, I asked
for a couple of hours off, went: to see
Carroll and told him I was ready to
move into the detecive bureau.

He took me to Chief of Detectives
Robert Keiser, and then we went to see
Chief Gerk. That afternoon I became
a detective. Hannegan and I parted
friends. It was unfortunate that we got
off on the wrong foot.

My life as a detective brought out all
the instincts I had for investigative
work. I stayed in the bureau from 1931
until 1943, making detective sergeant
in 1937.

In February, 1936, I shot and killed a
second man.

A series of theater box office holdups
had been going on in St. Louis, and we
had reason to believe that two escapees
from a Michigan prison might have
been responsible. We had pictures of
them, and police details were sent out
to hotels and rooming, houses in hope
that somebody might identify them.

Detective Sergeant Thomas Sullivan
found a woman desk clerk in a small
mid-town hotel who believed that the

men..were staying there. The woman
went with Sullivan and his partner to
the third-floor room. She knocked and
then called out, “Two men want to see
you.”

This, of course, was a tip-off to the
bandits. They were not known in St.
Louis, and the only men who would
want to see them would be the police.
When Sullivan heard the girl’s startling
call, he kicked in the door, knowing he
had to. face those gunmen one way or
the other. He burst through the door,
and one of the men shot him five times
in the abdomen. Sullivan’s partner,
Raymond Roessler, shot and killed the
second bandit. Sullivan’s killer, how-
ever, jumped from the window in the
adjoining room to a roof and escaped
into the alley.

William Drewes, William Heffren and
I were returning from an investigation
of a burglary when we heard the alarm
on the radio. We sped to the hotel and
quickly learned what had happened.
Drewes and I ran to the alley, where we
found a man who said he had been
forced out of his automobile by a shirt-
sleeved gunman. _

WE GOT into the police car, taking
the auto-theft victim with us. so
he could identify his car, Luckily, we
spotted it and managed to get abreast
of it as it came to a halt at a stop sign.

I leaped out, pistol in my hand, ran
to the side of the car and tapped with
the barrel on the closed window.

“Don’t reach for that gun, son!” I
called. :

He had a pistol in his belt and Sulli-
van’s pistol on the seat beside him. In
a move that was almost too quick for
me, he reached for the gun on the seat
and was bringing it into line when I
shot through the glass. The bullet
struck him in the head.

An odd thing happened. The foot of
the fatally wounded boy slipped off the
clutch-of the car, and the other foot
jammed on the gas pedal. The car shot

across the busy intersection, and I ran
after it. It struck a machine on the far
side of the street, and the motor died.
The car bounced back from the impact,
and I had to use my full strength and
weight to stop it. Inside, I could see,
the gunman was not dead yet and still
clutched the gun. Drewes was going
around to the other side of the car to
open the door when I called to him to
stay away. The badly wounded man
still might be dangerous.

I went to the passenger side, opened
the door and pulled the gun from his
hand. He fell out into the street. I
looked at his young face, and my stom-
ach turned. He reminded me of my son,
Bruce. ;

The man who owned the car that had
been parked at the curb and which had
been struck by the other machine
rushed into the street and upbraided
me for the damage that had been done
to his automobile. I was heartsick. The
citizen had glanced only once at the
dying youth,

mind was bad on the night when the case broke"

In this luggage was an illegal fortune. Who had possession of it the
night when half of that fortune vanished, apparently forever?

This was a killing that affected me. I

thought for days after: Why didn’t that:

boy surrender? I would tell myself that
he had killed Sullivan, a family man
and a friend. But it did no good. I was
depressed. What anger I felt was di-
rected at the woman at the hotel who
virtually had written Sullivan’s death
warrant as she stood before that door.
I believe that the first seeds of discon-
tent and seeking of release from the
hard and tough work of the detective
bureau were planted the day I killed
that youth.

Thus the years rolled by. Death was
always lurking. Every day I faced a
challenge from some hoodlum who
thought he’ could take me with his fists.
Reporters, always dramatic, dubbed”’me
“The Shadow” because I acquired the
habit of getting out of a police car and
prowling alleys and dark streets in
search of trouble in the making. I ran
into many a hard fist and kick on these
excursions, but I survived.

My next encounter with death could
have happened only to a policeman
gone momentarily careless or a recruit.

. J owe my life to my daughter, Rita, who

was in her teens when this happened.

A thief was operating in 1938 in St.
Louis who was called the “wash-day
burglar.” His practice was to prowl
neighborhoods until he saw a woman
hanging wash in the back yard. Then
he would go to the front door, knock
and, if nobody answered, would break
in and loot the place.

Bobby Greenlease, innocen:
victim, at left, and Car
Hall, drunken killer, above

Only by coincidence, and not b:
choice, this thief chose my house on
day when my wife Florence was hang
ing wash in the back yard. I was in th:
bathroom and did not hear his knoc}
or his entry. When I opened the door
was startled to see the man standin:
in our dining room. He had two purse:
on his arm and was stuffing some jew
elry into his pocket.

My detective pistol had been on th:
sideboard. The thief had picked it uw
and stuck it: under his belt. A pictur:
hung behind the sideboard, and in bac}
of the picture, I knew, was my .38-cali
ber Colt automatic. Strangely, th:
thief did not see me until I leaped fo:
it. He was taken off guard because h:
thought I was trying to run away. A
I passed the sideboard, I took a quic}
side step and reached behind the pic
ture. The quickness of my hands paic
off. If I had fumbled the pistol, I woul
have been shot down. But I grasped i
perfectly and spun around.

“I’m a police officer; you move and I’)
shoot your head off!” I said.

The man took a step back and
reached over and snatched my gu:
from his belt.

From that point on I was making :
mistake.

TOLD him to walk to the telephon:

that was in the living room, so tha
I could call the station. He obeyed for :«
moment and then broke into a run
I did not want to kill him, so I shot hin
in the leg, and he fell.

The sound of the heavy super .3:
brought my wife screaming from th:
yard. My daughter, Rita, who had beer
sleeping upstairs, came running down
My wife, Florence, was not cut out to br
the wife of a policeman. When she sav
the wounded man in the living roon
and me standing nearby with a gun, sh+
fainted, a reaction of hers that oc
curred frequently in our 26 years o
married life, whenever danger threat
ened a member of the family.

The thief had struggled to a standin:
position. I reached down with one arn
to revive my wife and get her to he
feet, taking my eyes off the man.

My daughter Rita suddenly yelled
“Look out, Papa, he has a knife!"

The thief was trying to wrest some
thing shiny from his pocket. It was no

(Continued on page 53)

23


16

As Creech nosed his cab out of the parking lot, back
into the rush of traffic at Thirty-ninth and Main Streets
in Kansas City, Missouri, a black-gowned nun moved
silently through a cool, shadowy corridor in the ivy-
mantled brick building, housing the French Institute of
Notre Dame de Sion at 3823 Locust Street, barely half.a
mile to the east.

She hesitated at the threshold of the office of the mother
superior, who glanced up and instantly noted the look of
distress on Sister Morand’s face.

“There is bad news, Mere Marthanna,” the nun re-
ported. She spoke in rapid French, the language used
not only by the teachers in the exclusive school, most of
whom were from France, but also by the 250 children of
rich or well-to-do Kansas City families who attended
the institute.

“Of what may this bad news be?”

“The mother of little Bobby Greenlease. She has been
taken suddenly ill, or so reported the aunt who came to
take the child to the mother’s bedside in the hospital.”

“An aunt? I know of no such one. ‘Perhaps we should
make further inquiry.” .

“But they have already gone, the aunt and the child.
She said it was most urgent, Mere Marthanna. A heart
attack, while she and Mrs. Greenlease were shopping.”

Sister Morand quickly explained how the woman had
come,to the door, over which the nun presided, had intro-
duced herself as the sister of Mrs. Robert Greenlease, had
said that Bobby must be taken at once to his mother.
While Sister Morand went for the boy, the aunt said a
prayer in the school’s chapel. Bobby had gone off with
the aunt quite willingly. ,

“Put up a notice on the bulletin board, Sister,” “Mere
Marthanna said softly. “A request for prayers for Bobby’s
mother. I shall telephone to learn how serious her condi-
tion may be.”

To Mere Marthanna’s consternation, it was Mrs. Green-
lease herself who answered the telephone in the red brick
family mansion at 2920 Verbona Drive in Mission Hills, a
fashionable community in the country club district across
the state line in Kansas City, Kansas.

“You—you are not ill?” Her temporary burden as
head of the school during the
absence of Mere Marie Irene
de Sion, away on business, be-
came suddenly all but insup-
portable to Mere Marthanna.

“Why, no, I’m just fine,” Mrs.
Greenlease replied. “Why do
you ask?” :

“You did not send for
Bobby to be brought to your
bedside at once?” - Mere
Marthanna’s foreboding -was
now a paralyzing dread.

“Of course not. Did some-
one—Bobby’s still at school,

isn't he? Tell me quickly,
Mere Marthanna, Bobby wasn’t
sent away?” ,

There was no way for the
remorseful nun to soften the
blow. Nor could Bobby’s love-
ly mother, 27 years her -hus-
band’s junior, cushion the
shock she feared might kill
Robert C. Greenlease Sr., who

Asst. U.S. District Attorney
W. Russell inspects evidence:
sack which held quicklime, hat
found at death scene, murder
gun, shovel used to dig grave

adored his only son above all measure of affection.

She had to call him, at his office in the Greenlease-
O'Neill Motors Company in downtown Kansas City. No
one, she realized instantly, would know better what to
do in this black hour of terror than the tall, graying man,
still vigorous and powerful despite his 72 years, who had
pioneered: the automobile industry in the Middle West
and who had climbed from an impoverished boyhood to
wealth and influence that ranked him high among Kansas
City’s leaders in business and commerce. .

It was barely half an hour after lively, handsome little
Bobby had gone off trustingly with his “aunt,” that
Greenlease learned from his wife of the crime that
shocked the civilized world.

At first Robert Greenlease could not believe that his
son, whom he had fathered at the age of 65, had been
kidnaped. Then, slowly accepting the fact, he phonéd
Police Chief Bernard C. Brarinon and shortly thereafter
met Chief Brannon secretly at the Greenlease Cadillac
agency, out on the south side, not far from Bobby’s
school. : eS

Brannon offered this consolation—that since it had been
a woman who took Bobby away, there was a good chance
that the motive for the abduction was merely a patho-
logical urge for a vicarious motherhood. In such cases,
the chief counseled, the victim was invariably well cared
for and eventually recovered unharmed.

Greenlease took little solace in this conjecture. He

could think only of the Lindbergh infant, snatched two :

. decades ago and brutally slain even before Bruno Haupt-
mann opened ransom negotiations with the famous an
wealthy flier. And then he recalled, too, other tragic

_ecases—little Charles Mattson, snatched and butchered
near Tacoma, and 12-year-old Peter Levine, murdered
after his abduction in a suburb of New York City.

“It’s common knowledge that I have money,” he sai
to Chief Brannon. “That’s the reason behind this. I’m
sure of that. Promise me one thing, Barney. Hold your
men off, get the FBI to cooperate, don’t do a thing that
might jeopardize Bobby’s safe return. I'll pay. Ill pay
any amount I can possibly raise to get my son back, safe
and sound,”

Bran
but, he
week, .
a state

“The
abductc
the crin

“we will
; Robe:
to his fr
parents
Paul (
lease’s 1
of Bobb:
Norbe
Stewart
the beau
take on .
Robert
dropped
City to s
associate
James
was info:


Jnder the’ date
953, he wrote:
‘\ To French

iently. Creech
ears and move
‘hile passengers

Indeed, if he
ue again, Creech
-r little charge,

7a lets

THE GREENLEASE CASE:
COMPLETE IN A SPECIAL

DOUBLE-LENGTH FEATURE

Witnesses will view execution from chamber at right;
killers will pass cross in walk, go to left and die

Officers who arrested cold-blooded
killers, Elmer Dolan (holding the
murder gun) and Louis Shoulders,
confront pair who shocked a nation

mea

whe hed»


_ Spares Gt ae

EE TTA TTA bi REP HS SAS aS TB

Washington, then moved immediately to obtain Green-
lease’s permission to intercept all mail addressed to the
wealthy car distributor. :

“Fingerprints on any ransom message would be invalu-
able,” Robey pointed out. “They doubtless would be
destroyed in regular handling of the mails.”

From Sister Morand and from cabman Creech, Kansas
City detectives, working discreetly under the personal
supervision of Major Eugene Pond, their chief, obtained
an excellent description of the woman who had posed as
Bobby’s aunt.

She was around 35 or 40 years of age, about five feet,
five inches tall, and weighed about 135 pounds. Her
attire was carefully detailed, even tothe black leather
strap bag she wore.

“She seemed a person of some culture,” Sister Morand
reported. “Her speech was good, her manner pleasant.
When I suggested that she say a prayer in our chapel for
Mrs. Greenlease’s recovery, she explained that she was
not a Catholic, but added, quite reverently, ‘Perhaps God
will hear my prayers in there, anyway.’ I think it was
that, her show of piety, more than anything, that left me
so completely unsuspicious that anything could be wrong.”

Creech had overheard snatches of conversation between
Bobby and the woman on the short taxi ride from the
school to the parking lot.

“She seemed to know quite a bit about him,” the hack
driver said. “Talked about his two dogs. He wasn’t ery-
ing, didn’t seem to be afraid at all. Told her about a
parrot he had that could talk. Appeared right pleased
when she said she’d buy him some ice cream. The woman
had class. No raving beauty. A little too plump for that,
maybe. But she sure had class.”

Late that Monday afternoon, the ransom letter—
dropped in a mailbox at Thirty-ninth Street and Broad-
way, only four blocks from where the woman left the
taxicab with Bobby—was intercepted at the main Kansas

City post office.

Greenlease opened the plain white envelope in the
presence of Major Pond, FBI agents and a postal inspector.

“Your boy been kidnaped get $600,000 in 20’s & $10’s—
Fed. Res. Notes from all twelve districts. We realize it
takes a few days to get that amount,” the message ran.
“Boy will be in good hands—when you have money ready
put ad in K. C. Star—M—Will meet you in Chicago Next
Sunday—Mr. G. ,

“Do not call police or try to use chemicals on bills or
take numbers,” the note further instructed. “Do not use
any radio to catch or trap us or boy dies. If you try to
catch us your wife your other child and yourself will be
killed. You will be watched all the time. You will be
told later how to contact us with money. When you get

this note let us know by driving up and down Main st.

pi 39 and 29 for 20 minutes with white rag on car
aeriel.
“If do exactly as we say and try no tricks, your boy
will be back safe. within 24 hrs. after we check money..
“Deliver money in Army Deufel bag. Be ready to
Deliver at once on contact.” ‘
As a signature, a large “M” was scrawled near the
bottom of the single page of. cheap stationery. Below
this was a postscript. “$400,000 in 20’s $200,000 in 10’s.”

The letter, in pencil, was hand-printed. From the im- .

mature formation of the letters, Bobby’s parents guessed
at first that the lad himself had scrawled the message at
the dictation of his abductors, a stunt they might con-
ceivably use to prevent later ‘identification of the pen-
manship of one of the kidnapers. An FBI study of some
of the missing boy’s homework, however, dissipated this

theory.

“Now, at least, we know what we’re up against,” Bob- ©

by’s father said, handing over the notes and. the envelope

to Wesley Grapp, assistant FBI agent in charge at Kan--

sas City, for delivery by chartered plane to the Identifica-

tion Bureau in Washington.
“Six hundred thousand dollars!” Major Pond exclaimed.

Tips given John Hagen (r.), cabbie, were so big they led
him to “tip”? cops—who hauled in killer, plus evidence (I.)

——

“Threr
made i
“I ce
men, |
too h:
mothe
off. }
slim y
alive a
The
as exp:
scarce]:
Bob G;
his ricl,
they w
though

of mon:

should
They
dead; ;
the rez!
he was
chance-
enough
on the:
“T do:
his sup:
woman
work o!
about t!
federal :
numbe::
widely-
once th«


ke

Police recover corpse of 6-year-old boy from shallow grave in back yard of

the neatly-kept home in St. Joseph, Missouri, where Bonnie Heady lived

Brannon gave his promise. The FBI would have to be notified at once

but, he explained, the federal agents would not move into the case for a

week, unless there was proof that the kidnaper had taken Bobby across

a state line. |

“There’s quite a lot that can be done without the knowledge of the
abductors,” Brannon said. “We will take such steps as we can. to identify
_ the criminals, so that we can move in fast once Bobby is back home. But
we will do nothing to endanger the boy.”

_ Robert Greenlease’s tear-brimming eyes spoke his wordless gratitude
to his friend. Other friends, too, came speedily to the aid of the stricken
parents. .

Paul Greenlease, adopted by the auto magnate before Robert Green-
lease’s marriage in 1939, brought Virginia Sue, the 11-year-old sister
of Bobby, hurriedly from her own school to the safety of her home.

Norbert O’Neill, a partner in one of the Greenlease auto agencies, an
Stewart M. Johnson, general manager of another, gathered promptly at
the beautiful house on Verbona Drive, to console Bobby’s parents and to
take on such chores as might present themselves as the case developed.

Robert Ledterman, partner with Greenlease in a Cadillac agency,
dropped everything when he heard the tragic news and sped to Kansas
City to stand by the man who was his long-time friend as well as his
associate in business.

James A. Robey, special agent in charge of the FBI in Kansas City,
was informed of the kidnaping. Robey reported to FBI headquarters in

17

ep i eee
a = &


“Gy 10 mh tou AE
mY

ave

THE MAN WHO HAD NO FINGERPRINTS

i CRIMINAL circles, Alcatraz, famed
island prison in San Francisco Bay, is
best known as an institution where small-
time criminals can receive “higher” educa-
tion. In 1936, Robert James Pitts, 26-year-
old native of Charlotte, North Carolina,
came under the tutorial wing of a fellow
convict with a nationwide reputation
as a hoodlum: Ludwig Schmidt. To his
teacher, Pitts confided his main prob-
lem: he was always getting arrested be-
cause he left his fingerprints behind at
various theft jobs he had pulled in the
South.

“There’s just one thing to do,” Ludwig
advised. “Get rid of your fingerprints.
There’s a doctor in Jersey who can do it
by special surgery.”

This trick had been tried by John Dil-
linger and some of his gang, but it hadn’t
worked. Surface operations on the finger-
tips couldn’t baffle the police, Schmidt ad-
mitted, but this doctor had a sure-fire
method that couldn’t fail. Pitts deter-
mined to give it a try.

When he got out of Alcatraz, Pitts took
his fingers to the Jersey medic—who pared
the flesh on each of them clear to the bone.
Then he cut pockets on each side of Pitts’
chest, stitched each fingertip into a sepa-
rate chest pocket. Two weeks later, he cut
loose the fingers. They were filled out with
regenerated tissue from the chest.

This tissue, like the chest skin, was
completely smooth.

Small-timer Pitts was now the only man
in America who had fingertips that left no
prints. He could commit crime after crime
and the cops would never be able to trace
him!

Late in 1941, however, Pitts made the
mistake of traveling through Texas with-
out a Selective Service card and under the
alias of “Robert Phillips.” He was picked
up as a matter of routine and a fingerprint
check was taken—or started. Only blots
appeared on the print card.

“Why—there are no prints!” the police
exclaimed, studying Pitts’ inky fingers.

“Phillips” explained he’d been badly

burned in a fire, but the Texas police en-
listed the FBI to check Phillips’ facial
characteristics and physical measurements
with those of every known criminal in the
country. When the results were in, “Phil-
lips” was unmasked as Robert Pitts, ex-
con wanted for theft.

His doctor was brought to trial on charges
of concealing a fugitive from justice, but
got off on a legal technicality. Pitts served
time on an old, unpunished robbery and
when he got out he married and settled
down—for a few years. Then he hit on a
plan for another robbery scheme. He
moseyed down to South Carolina, and
found in the little town of Salem Cross-
roads, a general store where the owner
kept all his money hidden in a tin box.
Face covered with a mask, Pitts raided the
store one night, tied up the proprietor and
got away with the unexpected total of
$41,350.

It was foolproof, Pitts assured himself.
He’d operated in a section where the police
didn’t know him, the victim couldn’t
identify his facial characteristics, and of
course, there were no fingerprints. He was
still assuring himself of his safety when
the police swooped down on him in a
North Carolina hideout, caught him with
the goods and had him sent off for a 21-
year jail sentence. Robert Pitts was be-
wildered.

What had gone wrong?

Simply this: ever since Pitts’ release, he
had been the Number One suspect in
virtually every criminal case in the South
where there were no fingerprints left be-
hind. His whereabouts was constantly be-
ing checked, even when no arrest resulted.
It was inevitable that following the one
crime he actually did commit, his known
hangouts should be instantly checked.

“He got rid of his fingerprints to hide
his identity,” says Police Chief F. N. Little-
john, of Charlotte. “As a result, he was no
longer a small-time crook, but just about
the best known and easiest to find crook
in the entire country.”

—Martin Abramson

Death in the gas chamber for both. Judge

Reeves sentenced them to die, side.-by side

in the two-seated chamber, on December

18th. There was no appeal. Both said they

wanted to die in atonement for their crime.

“Death by gas is too good for them,”

Bobby’s father said. “But it’s the best the
law allows.”

Carl Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady were
dressed in at the state prison in Jefferson
City and assigned cells in the basement
death row, cells widely separated, with
four husband-wife teams of guards to
watch them each hour until they were exe-
cuted.

Special precautions were taken to. insure
their being on hand to inhale the ‘deadly
gas. They were fed from the officers’ mess,
with no other inmate permitted near their
food. Warden Ralph Eidson feared that
other convicts might poison the pair, for
hatred against them was fierce among the
other inmates of the prison.

Their crime was enough to revolt even
the most hardened cases in the pen. In ad-
dition, many of the cons feared that Hall, a
parolee when he killed little Bobby Green-
lease, had inflamed prejudices which might
ps cong their own chances for freedom on pa-
role.

From their death row cells, both Hall
and Mrs. Heady wrote letters to Robert
Greenlease, begging what forgiveness he
and his wife could find it within themselves
to grant.

In his letter, Hall repeated again that the
missing $300,000 of the ransom money was
in his apartment when he was arrested.

Hall predicted that the money would be
found “because the FBI is a thorough or-
ganization and will not relent.”

“With certain execution facing him,”
Greenlease said after receiving Hall’s mis-
sive, “he has no reason to lie. I no longer
wonder if Hall buried the money before his
arrest.”

Ex-Lieutenant Shoulders remained un-
perturbed by the implications in Hall’s
formal confession, made to FBI agents.

“My conscience is clear about that
money,” the husky former detective said.
He made it boomingly clear that he would
welcome any investigation into his part*in
the arrest of Carl Hall and his handling of
what money there was in Hall’s possession
at that time.

Some day the puzzle of the $300,000 may
be unraveled, but the kidnapers will never
play a part in that solution.

Doomed by the jury, they begged to be
allowed to marry, even though stout bars
and, eventually, death, would keep them
apart from the moment their vows were
spoken. To this mockery of the solemn
wedding rites, the government rendered
only stern refusal.

The condemned couple was taken from
their cells at 11:32 p.m., December 17th, 1953,
and driven, heavily shackled, to the death
house, where they spent ten minutes to-
gether in a detention room before being
led, blindfolded, to the gas chamber.

Bonnie’s last kisses a red lipstick smear
on Hall’s face, he was strapped into the
righthand chair. Bonnie Heady, calm to
the end, took the seat to the left. She com-
plained that she couldn't see, that the
straps were too tight, then asked Hall, “Do
you have plenty of room, honey?”

“Yes, Momma,” he replied.

He licked his lips, breathed heavily. The
guards left the chamber, sealed the door.
Warden Eidson pressed a lever and pow-
dered cyanide dropped into vats .of sul-
phuric acid beneath the kidnapers’ :chairs.

At 12:12 a.m., December 18th, Carl Aus-
tin Hall was pronounced dead. Two min-
utes and ten seconds later, Bonnie Heady,
his accomplice, paid the penalty ‘of death.

Their weird romance was ended, having
run its tragic course from bar-room

stools to gas-chamber chairs. THE Enp

cnn xiii ii iii a i i aa, ts

COR

(Contin

or mayb:
low or p
thing. He
taught m
Pat wa
untouche:
father a:
that: “Mc
she’s had
least, Bei
ent high ¢
and stepf:
Meanw!
with a lis:
prehended
Drive nei
muggings.
although <
on other
tive Edwa
out if any
quainted \
Martin,
backgrour
from scan
charity, s«
had the 1
directed a
position, |
married (
young; ov
apparent},
But wit!
up with
picked up
been a 53.
named Ge
arrested, ¢
ment agen
Checking

BU
BO

ner was n
ducer’s ho:
Six years |.
a butler at
had been pi
found wand
houses awa

With Hie
called Bear
possible int

tion. “It mi

at the time

Faulkner’s

without a ;

venge.”
Davis pic}
the employ:

was noted o
a few quest:
Bean. “The
quarters in
got the alte:
Mariposa, s:
ever we nec
at the Groga:
without a ;
why. They
his police 1
butler, comp,

“Just the

The telep}
up the recei:
said.

He looke:
Dr. Young a
first came in
ing—after ty:

iety to
sntitled
; elder
ly de-
if 9—to
t of the
che boy
hing of

that he
herself
» work

‘oman,”
m Carl
.d when
ner she
hardest-

es. His
hem. In-
es were
down to

friend to
“to keep
back his
company

ry acad-
turn him
rraduated
ji, and he
» class.

uble with
nt nurse

.e Marine
He was
,e he was
for going
time and
got it.
her, writ-
-ed illum-

jemanding
y mind for
{ my class

ight years
months of
rst Marine
as high as
ven a dis-

. of his bad

was being
sy studying
of the sail-
g he wanted
would some

s before she
her son had

, from Oki-
00 fortune,
room family
y§ some 1300
nd bonds.
id head of a
family friend
for a father
n parent died,
» yeteran that
te comfortably
the rest of his

smediate head-
_ of the estate.

the telephone
- check without
nuch the stock

Kansas City,
s, began gam~
ind it easy to

underworl
- to Pleasanton
ays, his business
podyguards.

He cashed in on more and more of his
property, fending off well-meant advice
with talk of deals in millions of dollars.

“)’}] never work another day in my life,”
he bragged.

He sold om? farm for $10 an acre, a price
so ridiculously low that the buyer earned
it back on his first wheat crop.

He peddled the $75,000 home for a paltry
$8000.

He set up two liquor stores, and lost
both. It was said that his own patronage
bankrupted both these ventures.

He dropped $4000 in an airplane crop~-
dusting venture, and finally ran out of
capital.

He bought a gun and began robbing
cabs in Kansas City, never once reaping,
in one of these insane sorties, as much as
the $100 tips he formerly had lavished on
hackies such as these.

Hall was caught, convicted of robbery
and sentenced to five years in prison. He
served 15 months and, on April 24th, 1953,
was freed on parole.

‘A month later, in the Pony Express Bar
in the Hotel Robidoux in St. Joseph, he
and Bonnie Brown Heady lifted their
glasses together in a toast to their mutual
hangovers, and their fateful alliance was
begun.

Mrs. Heady was a native of northwestern
Missouri, having grown up on her grand-
parents’ farm near Clearmont, after her
mother died when she was but 2 years

old.

Her childhood was a happy one. She
grew into a lovely girl, high-spirited, pop-
ular, an excellent horsewoman. She at-
tended a state teachers’ college for two and
one-half years, took a course as a beau-
tician, then married V. E. Heady, a prosp~
erous commission man in the St. Joseph
livestock yards.

The Headys had many friends. Their
new home was a center of gay social ac-
tivity until, as the years passed, Bonnie’s
habit of draining one too many cocktails
became a consistent repetition of taking
one too many drinks, and the friends
gradually diminished until, like the ten
little Indians, there were none.

No one in St. Joseph could understand
Bonnie’s decline into the sordid depths of
chronic alcoholism. In December of 1952
she got a divorce from Heady, kept the
house, car, her riding horse and the 360-
acre farm she had inherited from her
grandfather—and settled down then into
a pattern of serious and morose drunken-
ness. She drank up to two bottles of
bourbon a day.

Bonnie rarely frequented taverns. She
had spent $5000 to build a recreation room
in the attic of her expensively furnished

home—and the primary recreation for |

which this hideaway was designed was |
boozing. There was a slot machine in the |
attic bar, always stocked with cases of
whiskey, apparently intended to mulct ex-
pense money from the many men friends
who enjoyed the hospitality of the plump
hostess.

She did go to the hotel bar, however,
that day in May when Hall was there,
curing the hangover resultant from the
celebration of his having just been fired
from an automobile agency sales job in
the city.

He moved into Bonnie’s home. There
were many riotous parties in the attic
thereafter. Deputy sheriffs were called
twice, but took no action.

Hall was seen around town, driving
Bonnie’s blue station wagon. In the bars
he sneered at her as “an old haybag,” and
he told a waitress he was only hanging
around because she had money, liquor, 2
car, a nice home and was a good cook.

There was a_ strange facet to Mrs.
Heady’s character. Much as she saturated
herself with booze, she regularly visited
her beautician. She kept her ward-
robe more than bountifully stocked with
fine clothing, she saw to it that her house
and grounds were carefully tended and she
lavished a mother’s care for an infant on
her huge, surly boxer dog.

As their association continued through
the summer, Bonnie listened with more
and more interest to Carl Hall’s expansive
scheme to get a large amount of money
quickly, and without working for it.

In his year at the military academy he
had known Paul Greenlease, the adopted
son of the rich auto distributor. He had
learned about the birth of two children
to Paul’s foster father, and he figured
Greenlease would be “good for maybe a
million.” A bit of calculation settled Hall
on $600,000 as the largest sum he could
handle physically by himself.

One abortive attempt was made, in Sep-
tember, to snatch Virginia Sue, Bobby’s
sister, but the little girl escaped without
even suspecting how closely danger had
approached her as she sat alone in her
mother’s car while Mrs. Greenlease went
into a store.

Then the plan was laid
Bobby. The week end before the ab-
duction was carried out, Carl and Bonnie
agreed they would have to kill the child,
because he was old enough to identify
them, perhaps to tell police where he had
been held awaiting delivery of the ran-

to kidnap

som.

Hall worked all day on
the grave. On Monday
drove to Kansas City.

Sunday to dig
he and Bonnie

Be sure to read
Corpse Could Swim'"—an exciting headline case—in TRUE DETECTIVE |

magazine on sale at newsstands now. |

_.. is offered for information leading
to the arrest of dangerous ‘

criminals. Hear details about the
$1,000.00 reward on..- |

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES

Every Sunday

that TD Special—a double-length feature—''The

"wanted"

Afternoon on M UTUAL |

Stations |

WHAT SECRET POWFR
51D. THIS MAN POSSESS?

Benjamin Franklin

(A Rosicrucian 4

WHY was this man great? How does
anyone—man of woman—achieve great-
ness? Is it not by mastery of the powers

within ourselves?

Know the mysterious world within
the

ower ofyour mind!
ull and peaceful life!

Attune yourself to the wisdom 0
ages! Grasp the inner
Learn the secrets of a
Benjamin Franklin—like many
other learned and great men
and women—was 4 Rosicru-
cian. The Rosicrucians (NOT
a religious organization) first
came to America in 1694. To-
day, headquarters of the Rosi-
crucians send over seven mil-
lion pieces of mail annually to

THIS BOOK
FREE!

see
MASTERY OF UHFE
- 3

all parts of the world. Write
for YOUR FREE COPY of

“The Mastery of Life"-TODAY. No obliga-
tion. No salesmen. A non-profit organization.

Address: Scribe. C.X.T.
The RO SICRUCIANS

SAN JOSE * (AMORC) * CALIFORNIA

SEND THIS COUPON

Scribe C.X.T. |
The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC)
San Jose, California

r

|

|

| Please send me the free book, The Mastery of Life,
which explains how I may learn to use my facul-
| ties and powers of mind.

|

l

L

BECOME A DETECTIVE

Men, women, learn seeret service,
work at home jn spare time and earn
learn. Write Associated Special

Nox 434, Saint John, N. B., Canada,

FISTULA

faerprint
while you
Investinators,

FREE BOOK—Explains Dangers of
Associated Ailments

Piles, Fissures and Rectal Abscess are com:
mon ailments that may also be associated
with neglected Fistula. Our new 140-page
illustrated book sent FREE, today—
McCleary Clinic & Hospital, C324 Ehns Blvd.,
Excelsior Springs, Mo.

ee

—

17


On October 30th, after hearing several
witnesses, a federal grand jury indicted
Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady
for the interstate kidnaping of Bobby
Greenlease, who had not been, so the
charge went, “returned unharmed.”

Over the week end, after appearing be-
fore the grand jury, Lieutenant Shoul-
ders flew to Hawaii with his landlady
from St. Louis, announcing upon his ar-
rival in the Islands, where his son was liv-
ing, that ke and the landlady would wed
as soon as the 55-year-old ex-cop could
get a divorce from the wife from whom he
was estranged.

On November 3rd, with Attorney Mar-
shall Hoag of Pleasanton representing Hall,
and Attorney Harold Hull of St. Joseph,
her lawyer in several civil matters, ap-
pearing for Mrs. Heady, the pair was
arraigned before United States District
Judge Aibert L. Reeves in Kansas City.

Both pleaded guilty. It was, they rea-
soned, their one chance to escape the
death penalty. If Judge Reeves accepted
their pleas and pronounced sentence, the
worst they could get would be life, for

under the Lindbergh law the death penalty
could be imposed only upon recommenda-
tion of a jury.

Judge Reeves did admit the guilty pleas,
but he set a trial date for November 16th,
when a jury would be impaneled to hear
the evidence in the case.

Attorney Hoag had said he would not
represent Hall at future proceedings. To
safeguard the accused man’s rights as an
American under the Constitution, Judge
Reeves persuaded Attorney Roy K. Diet-
rich, president of the Kansas City Lawyers
Association, to represent Carl Austin
Hall. Attorney Hull remained as counsel
for Mrs. Heady.

Meanwhile the search for the missing
$300,000 of the ransom money was still

being pressed.
one $20 bill

Early in) November was

turned up in Petoskey, Michigan, by a
rooming-house keeper. It was traced
through a mailman to one of two service
stations in which the mailman had cashed
checks. At one of the gas stations FBI
men were informed that the bill probably
was taken in from a party in a sedan, bear-
ing a Missouri registration, around the
middle of October.

Whether this bill was from the $300,000
which Hall claimed he could not account
for, or whether it had been part of the
money that he spent, there was no way
of determining.

A second piece of the ransom currency,
a $10 note, was found in Detroit, and an-
other $20 bill discovered in Petersburg,
Indiana. None could be traced to any
source of value in the probe.

There were several rumors widely cir-
culated about the money. The underworld
was reported to have bought the $300,000
—from whom no one would say—for from
25 to 50 cents on the dollar, and to have
spread it from coast to coast for distribu-
tion,

There was a tale, too, that Hall had
managed to bury half of the $600,000 for-
tune.

But the strangest account of all was to
come out at the trial of Carl Hall and
Bonnie Heady.

No other ransom bills were reported, but
the tentative identification of a penniless
hitch-hiking auto crash victim in Ken-
tucky, the night of November 17th, as the
long missing Tom Marsh stirred a ripple
of excitement in the case.

The body of the hiker, however, was
indisputably identified through finger-
prints, and it was not that of Marsh. Where
this man was the FBI cared little. Its
agents were certain that Marsh had never
had any part in the Greenlease crime.

On Monday, March 16th, Carl Austin
Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady were con-
ducted, handcuffed and chained and un-

“Hello, Sarge? | just called up to say goodbye."

der extra guard, into Judge Reeves’ court-
room on the fourth floor of the Kansas
City federal building. Some 500 specta-
tors, the vast majority of them women
who had come from near and far to
glimpse the notorious pair, clamored for
the 200 seats in the trial chamber.

Bonnie was fashionably attired in black,
a color which contrasted with her lively
mood. Hall, the man who once had been
the joy of expensive tailors, wore a $55
tan gabardine suit, a ready-made model
fitted and altered in his county jail cell,
where he scorned the second pair of trous-
ers because “I’m not going anywhere.”

Bonnie’s raiment came from her plenti-
ful store in her home, brought to her cell
by her aunt from Chicago, to whom she
deeded the 360-acre farm with the proviso
that it go to Attorney Hull upon the death
of the aunt.

Bonnie changed her garb daily, wearing
brown after the black, and a jaunty light
gray ensemble to follow the brown. Her
mood—she_ snickered when the _ bailiff
opened court with the traditional intona-
tion, “God save the United States and this
Honorable Court”—deepened as U. S.
District Attorney Sheufler rose to read her
long confession to the jury of twelve men,
and the two alternates.

It took Scheufler 45 minutes to read the
document to the hushed assembly. He
went through her recital of her meeting
with Hall, their life together through the
summer, the hatching of the kidnap plot,
their preparations, their decision to mur-
der Bobby, and her story of the actual ab-
duction itself.

At last Scheufler came to the passage
that had every listener on the edge of his
or her seat, the weird recital that stunned
the spectators, the jurors, the court at-
tendants and the judge himself.

“Carl drove down this lane. Here
Bobby noticed some large, green hedge
balls and made some remark about them.
I knew this was the place where Carl
was going to murder the victim. I did not
want to be present to witness the actual
murdering, so I told Bobby I would get
him one of the hedge balls.

“Carl had got out of the station wagon
and spread the blue plastic sheet behind
it. As soon as he let the tailgate down, my
boxer dog, Doc, jumped out. I became
afraid he might run off. I got my dog,
quieted him, and then walked maybe as
far as 75 or 100 feet when I heard two
shots.

“During this time I had lost my hat, but
I did not realize at the time I had lost it.
I realized Carl had killed the victim by
shooting him, although it was originally
planned he would strangle him with a
small piece of rope.”

She helped Hall lift the body, wrapped
in the plastic sheet, into the station wagon.
Hall told her he had tried to strangle
Bobby with the 12-inch piece of clothes-
line he had brought for the purpose, but
the child struggled, and the rope was not
long enough, so Hall finally held the
youngster and shot him.

Bonnie said she wiped the boy’s blood
from Hall’s face, hands and arms with
tissue. She whistled her dog into the
car and they drove to a tavern in North
Kansas City, where she entered to fortify
her quivering nerves with a few shots of
whiskey.

Carl dared not go in, because his blue
sharkskin suit was stained with little
Bobby’s blood, but she brought a couple
of drinks out to him. He took advantage
of this pause to replace a set of stolen
license plates on the station wagon with
the tags which belonged on it.

When Bonnie came out with a shot of
bourbon for her paramour, she found him
at the rear of the vehicle, “observing
whether there was any blood dripping

from the s
Back in
quicklime
pathetic li:
a small an
handed _ thi
been at the
“He told
Kansas Cit
instructed |
took the sh:
in six inch:
tering down
ing it with ;
Bonnie s;
ing the nex
negotiations
“The reas
ebriated cor
the horrible
trated, and ]
my conscien
She relate:
member of th,
taining a fa;

Was to have

herself and

spending the
cluded, they }
in California,

After the ;
fession, Dist;
his witnesses.
who identified
woman who |

Robert Gree;

who’ now saw

for the first tir.

Hager, and a

Police officers,

In a voice sh.
told of taking
morning in his
pencil which }:.
scene, and des
hedge-apples,
around the ya:
had waited’ u:
crept upon hin
is hands,

Carl Hall’s ¢«
the jury. It wa:
ment than that
running to wel!

It generally {,
recital,

“TI placéd this ;

FOI ok

MAILI!
THAT \

] Address Acc:
ty-two milli
turn addres:
letter office,
thousand co;
$256,000. Alvw:.
address,

2 Address Ful):
ees have to |
apartment nu
layed as muc:
prevent mist:
dress fully,

3 CASH in the
rder is safe.

4 Unordered ¢
mailing of un
COD is illeg
postmaster ;
Sending uno:
ordinary mai!
addressee js ;
or to pay for j
it beyond a ;
in doubt, cal!
Business Buy,

FOI Ik tks


ourt-
cansas
vecta-
»men
ir to
i for

slack,
lively
i been
a $55
model
il cell,

sroviso
» death

vearing

cy light

1. Her
bailiff
intona-
nd this
U. S.
ead her
ve men,

passage
» of his
stunned
urt at-

Here

hedge
t them.
re Carl
did not
e actual
nuld get

a wagon
behind
own, my
became
my dog,
vaybe as
‘ard two

hat, but
id lost it.
victim by
originally
n with a

, wrapped
on wagon.
) strangle
if clothes-
rpose, but
e was not
held the

oy’s blood
rms with
into the
in North
to fortify
vy shots of

» his blue
vith little
a couple
advantage
of stolen
igon with

a shot of
found him
observing

dripping

LL

from the station wagon on the ground.”

Back in St. Joseph, Carl got out the
quicklime and the shovel, dumped the
pathetic little corpse into the grave, pushed
a small amount of dirt on top of it, then
handed the shovel to Bonnie, who had
been at the bottle again.

“He told me he had to hurry back to
Kansas City to mail the ransom note. He
instructed me to finish filling the grave. I
took the shovel and filled the hole to with-
in six inches of the top, continuously wa-
tering down the dirt with a hose, and tamp-
ing it with an axe and a shovel.”

Bonnie said she drank a great deal dur-
ing the next week while Hall conducted
negotiations for payment of the ransom.

“The reason for my staying in this in-
ebriated condition was the realization of
the horrible crime which had been perpe-
trated, and I wanted to stay drunk so that
my conscience would not bother me.”

She related in detail what she did re-
member of that hazy week, and told of ob-
taining a large bank loan, part of which
was to have paid the living expenses of
herself and Hall until they could begin
spending the $600,000. After that, she con-
cluded, they had planned to live in Mexico,
in California, in Europe, in the Caribbean.

After the reading of Mrs. Heady’s con-
fession, District Attorney Scheufler called
his witnesses, among them Sister Morand,
who identified Bonnie Brown Heady as the
woman who had posed as Bobby’s aunt;
Robert Greenlease and Mrs. Greenlease,
who now saw the murderers of their son
for the first time; taxi driver Creech; John
Hager, and a number of FBI agents and
police officers.

In a voice shaken with grief, Greenlease
told of taking Bobby to school that last
morning in his own Cadillac, identified the
pencil which had been found at the murder
scene, and described the boy’s fondness for
hedge-apples, which he liked to kick
around the yard—and for one of which he
had waited unsuspectingly as Carl Hall
crept upon him with a strangling rope in
his hands.

Carl Hall’s confession, too, was read to
the jury. It was a somewhat longer docu-
ment than that which Bonnie had signed,
running to well over 10,000 words.

It generally followed Mrs, Heady’s grisly
recital,

“T placed this rope around Bobby’s neck,”

FOO III III OO III AIO bk

MAILING PRACTICES
THAT WASTE MONEY

‘| Address Accurately. Last year twen-
ty-two million letters—with no re-
turn address—landed in the dead
letter office. Nearly one hundred
thousand contained money totaling
$256,000. Always use a legible return
address.

2 Address Fully. When postal employ-
ees have to look up zone, office or
apartment numbers, your mail is de-
layed as much as 12 to 24 hours. You
prevent mistakes too when you ad-
dress fully.

3 CASH in the Mails. Check or Money
Order is safest.

4 Unordered COD Merchandise, The
mailing of unordered merchandise by
COD is illegal. Please notify your
postmaster if it happens to you.
Sending unordered merchandise by
ordinary mail is not illegal, but the
addressee is not obliged to return it
or to pay for it if not used or to keep
it beyond a reasonable time. When
in doubt, call or write your Better
Business Bureau.

FOI III III IIS A a IK IK

his statement revealed, “and endeavored to

strangle him. The rope was too short for

me to hold in my hand and get a good
twist.

“Bobby was struggling and kicking, so
I took my .38-caliber revolver and fired
what I believe to be two shots at Bobby’s
head at close range. I missed on the first
shot, but the second one entered his head.”

Hall told of taking morphine during the
nerve-racking conduct of the ransom ne-
gotiations. He had begun taking dope, he
said, in Kansas City when he was flinging
his inheritance to the winds and, while he
had not become a slave to narcotics, he still
used them at times of great stress.

It was near the end of his confession, as
he told of his arrest in St. Louis, that Hall
set the courtroom agog.

He described the two arresting officers
who entered his suite as a uniformed po-
liceman and a large plainclothesman, ob-
viously Lieutenant Shoulders.

The plainclothesman, he said, took the
keys to his two suitcases. Hall said he
heard one of them being opened, but did
not see this, as the uniformed officer was
standing in front of him, counting about
$22,000 in bills in the briefcase.

“Just prior to the arrival of the arrest-
ing officers,” his statement said, “I had
taken inventory of the money in my pos-
session and made some notations on an en-
velope.

“T finally estimated that I had between
$560,000 and $570,000 in the two suitcases
in the closet.

“On leaving the apartment, I closed the
door myself, and as I closed the door I no-
ticed two brass keys for the big suitcase on
the nearest corner of the dresser, I ob-
served only two brass keys to the one suit-
case and did not observe the black key
to the other suitcase.

“As I stepped out the door, both officers
were there, and one of them made a remark
about how to emerge from the apartment.
The large officer stayed at the door and the
uniformed officer and I walked the entire
length of the building looking for the rear
steps leading from the third floor.

“We were unable to locate any steps, and
as we turned to go back down the hallway,
T noticed a man standing at the end of the
hallway facing my room. I am not positive,
but this man appeared to be talking to
someone in the direction of my room, but I
was not able to hear any of this conversa-
tion.

“This individual was wearing: a light tan,
snap-brim hat, a pair of rust-colored slacks

I'll Send You This Handsome

as FREE

MAKE UP TO

| $1590 X DAY!

You can make reat! of EXTRA CASH for yourseli,
in spare time or full time, with this big, valuable,
FRIEE tailoring Sample Case packed with 150 beau.
tiful, big-value suit and overcoat samples. Just show
the samples and last-minute styles to friends, fellow-
workers, others. Take their orders for fine made-to-
measure clothes—and pocket BIG CASH PROFI'l's
in advance. No experience, no tailoring knowledy::
needed—and no money needed, ever. We supply every-
thing FREE—sample case, sample suitings, equip-
ment, instructions, Start making money first day!

Your Personal Suits without 1¢ Cost!
When men see the fine fit, quality and value of our suits—
THEY ORDER! So we make it easy for you to get your
own personal suits and overcoats without paying even
one penny. Don't wait! Rush the coupon below with your
name, address, and age for your FREE SAMPLI:
CASE—Today!

| STONE-FIELD CORPORATION, Dept. H-936 }
532 S. Throop Street, Chicago 7, Mlinois \

j Llease rush ABSOLUTELY FREE the valuable Sample,
Case with suit fabrics and style display. Include in-
structions, money-making plans and details for getting t

Imy own suits without paying one cent. t

MONEY FOR YOU

We pay $10.00 each for certain Lincoln
pennies, $50.00 for certain Indianheads. Hun-
dreds of other rare coins wanted. You may
have what we need. Our New Booklet lists doz-
ens and dozens of coins we want to buy, plus
other coin information. Don’t delay! Send 10
cents for your copy today.

LINCOLN COIN CO., Dept. 72, Glendale, Ariz.

RUPTURED?

with matching jacket, which was a short
jacket gathered at the belt linc. This man H
was about medium height and decidedly |
slender. I can give no further deseription
of him as I observed only his profile.

“The two officers and I proceeded to the
police car.

“Up to this time there had been no con- |
versation about the money in the suitcases.
Neither the money nor the suitcases were
brought to the station with me.”

Hall insisted that he was neither drunk
nor under the influence of drugs at the
time of his arrest, and that he remem-
bered quite clearly what he had done and |
seen and said.

“I am certain,” his statement concluded,
“that at the time of my arrest I had about
$570,000 in the two suitcases, and about
$22,000 in my briefcase.”

Defense counsel summoned to the stand |
several long-time acquaintances of Carl
Hall, and Bonnie’s aunt testified briefly
about Mrs. Heady’s girlhood and upbring-
ing.

Before he gave the case into the hands of
the jury, Judge Reeves had this to say:
“They committed cold-blooded, heartless,
first-degree murder. I fail to find one line
of mitigating circumstances.”

The jury promptly reported its verdict.

| simplified 80 you can

Get Relief This Proven Way

Why try to worry along with trusses that gouge
your flesh—press heavily on hips and spine-~eu-
large opening—-fail to hold rupture? You need the

Clathe. No leg-straps or cutting belts. Automeati
adjustable pad holds at real opening—follows ever
body movement with instant inereased support in
case of strain, Cannot slip whether at work of play.
Light. Waterproof. Can be worn in bath, Send tes

amazing FREE book, “Advice to Ruptured,” ani!
details of liberal truthful 60-day trial offer. Also
endorsements from grateful users in your neighbor-
hood, Write today to:

Cluthe Sons, Dept. 16, Bloomfield, New Jersey

SEA DETECTIVE

PAYS OFF BIG! §& mea
THRILLING WORK! #

URGENT DEMAND | for
trained = Detectives, — Sclen-
tite Crime Detection now

quickly master proven
basic fundamentals — every
professionall nvestigator oe eb
should Know, OLDEST
Detective School in the NATION'S CAPITAL, cen-
ter of law enforcement teaches sclentific detection
of clues by a course on HOW criminals operate!
Facts, not fletiont Learn in your spare time
Write for Bree Book and Lemon Sample ‘hODAY
International Detective Training School
1701 Monroe St., NE, Dept. $-43. Washington 18, D.C.


By E. B. Upshaw
Special Investigator for
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

stop me from dealing with them. You
Robert C. Greenlease, millionaire can’

t possibly realize what all this feels

i e.”” -

sreement was made then. No
Policeman would care to make a deci-

reenlease was 71 years old, gray- sion otherwise. If a chance existed to

ed, medium-sized and usually dig- get the boy. ba

d and reserved, But when Bran-'

pulled his private car to a stop in But Brannon couldn’t stop being a

: of him, he was obviously excited. policeman by turning a Switch.

ards tumbled out of his mouth “What are we crying about so soon?”

‘ Brannon got out of his car. “It he asked.

‘woman, a woman that neither of

‘ow. She came into the school and Pens all th

him but she didn’t say where, -just identity,”

my wife was sick. My wife isn’t But he didn’t believe this himself,

she’s in good health.” Nor did the father,

‘nnon grasped him by the arm

he physical action seemed to calm WHEN Brannon

lease. “We can’t go rushing fice he called in two of his top

lell into this thing,” the Police men, Detective Capt.

Said. “Settle down,” and Richard Bennett. He explained in

enlease hesitated and then stared detail what was expected of them and

y into Brannon’s eyes. “If it i i

mistake, I don’t want the papers mind that'he had p
hold of this. y want to give them Public immediately the Strange story
chance to get Bobby back to us. of the boy’s disa’

» On the floor was a faded but Scrupulous-
¢ a chance to get him back!
aterfere!” Plained their mission
lat why you called me?”
d

had answered the bell. She left them
ly. An because you are a and in a mo

vho knows about these things.” dignified woman, appeared from a side
jot to call in some of my men,”
‘f said.

parlor, where she closed the door softly
aw, I know. But don’t try to behind her, a

inv

Bobby and his father and at left the classified
ad supposedly the first step to his’ safe return

F yao wpeeepens P see a 9
as sa dal cay ae
wr "y « ” ‘%

She spoke first by asking the Officers
if they wished to question her.

“Yes,” Nesbitt said. “Were you the
one who saw this woman come in to
get the Greenlease boy?”

Mother Marthana answered that she
was not. However, she was in charge
of the school in the absence of Mother

9

x |

tae


a

Marie Irene, who was attending a
teachers’ convention in Columbia,
} ; : Missouri. a
2 ots 1 Latest aks ‘is “We would appreciate it if you do not
; . tebe v\ talk to the sister who released the boy,”
Mother Marthana said. “She is upset
and, believe me, she has recited to me
each incident, each detail of what has
occurred and I will tell you faithfully
if you wish.” She paused. “But I am
the one who talked by telephone to
Poor Mrs. Greenlease.”
* “Had this nun ever seen this woman
before?”

“Most certainly not. She was a
stranger. We were so badly tricked.”

“Did the boy seem to recognize her?”
: “One cannot tell with a child. They

. are so accustomed to taking the adult
world at its face value and sometimes
their’ actions toward those they love
and know best are not what a grown-
up would expect.”

“We don’t wish to criticize anyone,”
Nesbitt said. “But is it not unusual for
&@ stranger to come into this convent
and get a pupil?”

JR nun considered. “In this convent,

no. Nor in any similar school, I
think. Servants and chauffeurs of our
children’s families frequently pick them
up. We do not always know these
servants so well.”

“You mean in a public school if
anyone picked a child up it would be
a member of the family the teachers
would be likely to know.”

“Exactly. But even at that we take
precautions. You have noted that the
door was locked when you came in. It
is always locked. We do have someone
in attendance and I am sure the sister
this time would have been more
cautious if it had not been for the
incident of the chapel.”

“What about the chapel?” Nesbitt
asked. He had noticed the phrasing
. used by the nun, which although in

Thomas Marsh, ex-con “friend” of an ex-
con, who gave the plotters their scapegoat

* Sis 2 Lendl ett atin ee inne ime i ne mn rer

flawless English, bore a faint trace of

French structure. The convent is one ~

of only a few schools in America where
French is spoken more often than
English, even among the students.

“Well, this woman who said she was
Mrs. Greenlease's sister had to wait for
Bobby, of course. Knowing. this, the
sister asked if she would like to enter
the chapel and pray for the recovery
of Mrs. Greenlease.” .

“Did she?” Nesbitt asked. f

“Yes. When she came out anothe
sister was passing and asked her if she
felt better, She said she did and she
was not ‘a Catholic but the praying had
helped.”

“What time did the woman arrive
here?”

“I can tell you almost exactly,” Mere

John Hager: “She
bucks back there’. .

said, ‘There mut be a million

. That's when | got scared...”

Marthana answered. “I was looking
out of the upstairs window when the
taxi pulled up, and it was eleven
o'clock.”

“The taxi?”

“Yes, she came in a taxi. A Toedman,

I believe.” {
Toedman Cabs is .one of the largest

operators in the city. This was the.
hint of progress that the detective had
came across.

“What was Bobby doing when the
sister took him from his class?”

“He is in the first grade, you know.
He was doing some classwork that he
particularly enjoys and he was reluctant
to leave it. Finally, when he was con-
vinced, he left without taking the red
school emblem from his shirt, where
it was pinned on.”

“And what happened when the boy]
met the woman?” :

“Nothing. .The sister told Bobby it
was his ‘auntie’ come to take him to
his mother. He said nothing and he

Willard Creech: He heard the
story about the black parrot

didn't object to going with her. The
sister told this woman that she hoped
God had heard her prayers in the
chapel. And the woman said that she
hoped He did too. The sister then |
oe that she was sure He heard
them.” :

What had the woman been praying
for, the detectives wondered.

é

THE woman and the child went to
the door,” Mere Marthana con-
tinued. “The woman said she was
sorry for her extreme haste and nerv-
ousness but she was anxious about Mrs. .
Greenlease. Then they left, that’s all.
A few minutes later I posted a notice
on the bulletin board about Mrs. Green-
lease’s illness and calling for prayers
for her recovery.” As Mere Marthana


Full Truth Behind —

Arthur Eisenhower, the President's
brother: He assembled the ransom

The lovely Greenlease home, changed

in one instant to a house of sorrow

‘

\

-. ~The Kidnap-Slaying
ot Bobb

What Really Went on Behind Scenes
’ During the Intense, Cautious, All-Out
Police Search for the Kansas City-
Saint Louis Kidnaper-Killers of This
Little Boy? Here Are All the Facts

HE discovery that little Bobby

Greenlease of Kansas City, Mis-

souri, had been kidnaped came
bout in a Startling, frightening way.
It started with a telephone ring in
le palatial home of the six-year-old
oy’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert C,
Teenlease, at exactly 12:05 p. m. on
le Monday of September 28, 1953.
he telephone sounded

ys—nine turbulent and heart-rend-

prelude
tragedy were to
atinue

one, also, was Sounding an alarm to
of the nation, who would be
dreadful pace
Their brains, re-
above all their.
receive an absolute

ring the telephone
Sound on the other
like

rcefulness,
ience, were to

fter the fourth

@ woman’s voice

Yes?” the answer came.
This is Mere Marthana at the con-
t.”

OF FICTAE

b)

Greenlease
“How are you feeling?”

._.The attractive, middle-aged Mrs.
Greenlease laughed. “Never better, my
dear,” she said.

r several seconds the Phone was
silent. The convent across from Gill-

of the mansion.
“What is it, Mother?”

lease asked,

Mrs. Green-
@ note of alarm rising in
her voice.

Then the answer came. “Bobby is
not here. A woman who said she was
your sister—” the voice faltered. “She
said you were ill; you had a heart at-
tack. She took Bobby with her.”

minutes later the assistant to the
Chief of Police in City
knocked lightly on the Chief’s door and

opened it. 5
the assistant said. “It

“On six, Sir,”
sdunds urgent.”
Telephone calls are not allowed to

’

Se ay ent ene Sent Myr

. Lever TIDE

break into the executive duties of Chief
of Police Bernard C. B

Brannon answered
his name. He listened
utes, then said,
some mix-up,”

i ee i GESC /7S 3

back on its cradle.
reached for

<?.

acts Reka

a


| her voice trailed off until at the
was only a whisper. “Then later

bitt and Bennett waited for the
‘0 talk herself out, When she
‘d they knew they could learn
‘8 more from her except a de-

on. This, Mere Marthana gave

woman was about 35 or 40 years
out five feet five inches tall, of
iky build, reddish hair, wearing
e blouse, dark brown skirt and-
hat possibly black.
officers left then, Mere Marthana
‘ them to the door. There she
ed momentarily, “There was
; to make us suspicious about
he said. “One does not look for
.” Then she added, “The world
h closer to falling apart than
etimes realize,”
ise this was an investigation
\d been ordered to keep secret
and Bennett reported immedi-
» Chief Brannon and he gave
‘mission to attempt to trace the
{ the cab who had brought the.
to the convent. By now,
1 declared, he’d decided to re-
e news of the missing boy to
ic. He could hold off no longer.
‘ours had passed since Bobby
ise had left the convent and‘
had attempted yet to get in
vith the Greenleases. Wide
would help now. Not hurt,
oon as the people of Kansas
rd of the case they would be
‘ for the boy.
ews, when it struck the city
annon released the story to
S, was like the first whisper

No innocent traveler owned
these—death gun and suit.

cases, one holding $300,000,
‘ N

of breeze that precedes a hurricane,
Radio bulletins for sometime were
lacking in detail and all anyone knew
was that the boy was missing. News-
men seemed to dread labeling the crime
a “kidnaping”. :
This hesitancy was understandable
use the word had been all but
dropped from newspaper vocabulary
for thirteen years. Even the most
foolhardy of the criminal element have
been shown by the FBI and other law-
enforcement agencies that kidnaping
is not profitable. Kidnapers have been
tracked down relentlessly and sent to
their execution or to Prison, few of
them ever collecting ransoms, and
those who did, not able to enjoy their
wealth very long.
Since enactment of the Lindbergh
law in 1932 the rate of kidnaping for
ransom has gone down Steadily until
by 1940 it was almost out of existence.
The crime inspiring | that Federal

Greenlease had told Brannon he would
pay anything for the r
he had meant what he

FBI into the case as advisors. Federal
agents could not enter formally because
they had no proof that the child had
been taken across a state line, which
is a_requisite to Prosecution under the
Federal law. With their cooperation,

\
'

Sandra O'Day: The gun she handled

So casually and unknowingly
ad been used in one of the nati

on’s most inhuman slayings

law was the kidnaping of Charles A.
Lindbergh,. Junior, nineteen-month-
old son of the noted flyer. The infant
was seized March 1, 1932, and his body
recovered May 12 after his parents
had paid a $50,000 ransom. Bruno
Richard Hauptmann was executed for
the crime.

Kansas City was the Scene of one of
the exceptions to the usual fate of kid-
napers. In 1930 Michael Katz was kid-
naped and returned the following day
after ransom of $200,000 was paid.
The case never has been solved.

As the hours went by, newspaper
writers dug into their files to fill out
the meager details. The elements of
tragedy were all present. Mr. and Mrs.
Greenlease were wealthy. They were

daughter,
eleven, and an adopted son, Paul R.
Greenlease, who had three children of
is own and was associated with his
father in the automobile business,
The children and the parents were all

however, Brannon established a net-
work of informers and listening-posts
throughout the city, making every
effort not to cross the Path too closely
of any person who might wish to get
in touch with the Greenleases. He did
not want to frighten the kidnapers
into killing the child and fleeing.

However, he did notify the telephone

company that he wanted instant sery-
ice to the Greenlease home and also
that operators should be ready to trace
any call to that home on request of
the police with the greatest speed.
ctives were placed at the post-
office to intercept any letters addressed
to the Greenleases which might pre-
sumably bear a demand for ransom.

This was necessary so that any
finger-prints or other clues on the
ransom letters would not be uninten-
tionally destroyed by a member of the
family.

Chief Brannon also assembled a crew
of detectives and patrolmen who were
to work the clock around investigating
the inevitable tips he knew would flood
his office. And he had special men
Stationed in the hangouts of known
gangsters. The operations of the kid-

napers were not clear enough yet to
determine if i

they were not pampered. To reach the
heart of such People, as with the Lind-

eturn of his child
said.
Chief Brannon meanwhile called the

‘


followed the pattern he would toss it
around in bundles. Tt had happened
that way no many Limes before,

On Friday M telephoned the Green-
lease home again. His news was bad.
Bobby would not Cooperate and had be
come stubborn, he said, and refused
to answer the questions.

Tracing the telephone calls contin-
ued. In all, M made ten of them. Every
one came from a ten-block area sur-
rounding the drug store.

A few hours after this fourth call, M
phoned back. He told Ledterman to go
to a mailbox on 29th Street and lift the
lid. Further instructions would be
pasted on the inside of the lid.

“And be sure to bring the money,” M
said.

Ledterman and O'Neill left the house
immediately and drove to the bank,
where they picked up the duffel bag
containing the ransom. The letter was
stuck to the inside of the mailbox, as M
had said it would be. It directed the
men to a point near the outskirts of
the city where they were to change cars
and then drive out U. S. Highway No.
40 until they were four miles east of
the city. They would be met there. The
letter warned the reader not to come
during daylight.

These complicated instructions, espe-
cially the changing of automobiles, re-
quired some thought. Several hours
passed before the two men could com-
plete a rlan and as they drove to the
point of contact dawn came. They met
no one.

They returned home and within an
hour M was on the line, angry because,
“You didn’t do it”. :

Ledterman explained why and. im-
patiently, M instructed him to drive to
the Muelbach Hotel and await a call
there. Ledterman and O'Neill did as
instructed. An hour later they got the
call. This time M told them to repeat
the operation of the night before only
to forget about changing cars. They
were to vick up a letter with further
instructions from another mailbox a
dozen blocks from the first one.

That night, which was Saturday, the
two men drove to the mailbox and
found the note. It told them to drive
west on Southwest Road to Antoine
Road and then go north to near Shaw-
nee Road where they were to dro the
money off a bridge which spans a dry
creek about 100 yards south of the in-
tersection.

This they did, seeing no one, hearing
nothing, grimly tossing $600,000 over a
railing.

They were back in the Greenlease
house only a few minutes when M called
again. He accused them of failing to
leave the money. Ledterman told him
that they had followed instructions
carefully and that the money was exact-
ly where it was supposed to be. This
lid not seem to convince M. He told
‘them to drive back and pick up the
noney and they would hear from him.

|NFORMED of this latest move, Bran-
non believed that it was no more
han a ruse to test the sincerity of
Neill and Ledterman, Other police
dded that they doubted the money
ould have been picked up on the very
irst trip even if the two men had
eached the spot before daylight. This
ian was super cautious.
On Sunday morning M called again.
‘his time he seemed more nervous than
sual. The cat-and-mouse game for
1e high stakes, a boy's life and more
ian half a million dollars, was begin-
ing to show the strain on everyone.
Mrs. Greenlease was in the constant
\re of a physician and she spent most
‘her time in bed under a sedative.
reenlease had become haggard from
1e long, sleepless nights and the rise
id fall of his hopes as each call from
came in and nothing concrete devel-
ed. The police were convinced that
mething was wrong. M was being so
utious they were certain that his
nazing aplomb in the first contacts
\s being torn to shreds.
He was becoming worried, which
eant that he was turning dangerous,
rd to figure and if his nerves gave
t he would strike viciously and de-
‘oy everything to escape.
)

The knot of newsmen who clustered
wan be

ground the Greenlense home

coming as gaunt as the occupants of the
mansion. Each day Ledterman. or
O'Neill came out and talked lo the re

Porlers, As the days passed these inter-
views became briefer, Ledterman’s an-
swers to the questions sharper, the
newsmen’s comments more caustic.

It was a silent, horrible vigil and the
end of those nine days depended on M.
The money was there but he was afraid
to touch it.

Whatever his thoughts, the call Sun-
day morning showed that he had de-
cided not to run. He would call back
later, he said, with specific instructions
which were to be followed to the letter.
At eight o'clock that Sunday night he
did, identifying himself in the usual
way. He directed O'Neill, who an-
swered, to go to the hotel again and
wait near a public phone booth.

O'Neill and Ledterman drove there
once more, weary and taut, taking the
duffel bag with the ransom money. At
11:30 they received the latest word.
This time M was highly nervous. He
did not use. the previously established
method of first directing the men to a
note which carried further instructions.
Instead he told them over the tele-
phone what they must do. They were
to drive east on U. S. Highway No. 40
to a point eight miles from the city,
arriving there as close to midnight as
Possible. The spot was on a bridge
which crosses a railroad track and they
should throw the duffel bag from this
bridge. M promised to call as soon as
he had the money and give them the
information they sought, about Bobby.

O'Neill and Ledterman drove to the
rendezvous with police knowledge. If
this try failed, Brannon was prepared
to launch a full-scale investigation in
the belief that M was too frightened to
touch the money and that Bobby
Greenlease already was dead,

At the designated point Ledterman
and O'Neill stopped on the highway.
Ledterman got out of the car carrying
the 85-pound duffel bag. Slowly, he
dragged it to the west end of the bridge
and shoved it off, making sure it would
not land on the railroad tracks, keeping
his head down and making no effort to
look around for signs of the boy’s ab-
ductors. Finished, he got back into the
car, it was wheeled around and the men
were at the Greenlease home again 40
minutes later.

Almost as soon as they entered, the
telephone rang. Once more it was M.
He had the money, he said. Ledterman
and “that man in the car with you”
should go to Pittsburg, Kansas, where
they would receive a telegram telling
them how to pick up Bobby Greenlease.

For the first time in his many con-
versations with M, Ledterman allowed
his emotions to well up.

“I would like to meet you some day,”
he said bitterly.

“You never will,” M answered.

This time Ledterman was the one
who hung up, afraid to trust himself
to talk longer with the man.

He, and the members of the Green-
lease family, realized now how helpless
they were. M now had everything—
Bobby and the money. They could de-
pend only on his word that he would
carry out his end of the vicious bargain,
What good was the word of a man who
would wrest an innocent boy from the
care of his mother and father and then
for six days subject them to the torture
of uncertainty?

THE Greenleases had not spent those
days. of anxiety alone, however.
Their tragedy already had become the
burden of the whole nation.
Ledterman and O'Neill left Monday
morning for Pittsburg, Kansas, and a
hopeless vigil. And Police went to work.
With delivery of the money Brannon
knew what to look for. M would make
his next dangerous step when he tried
to use some of it. The many hours of
thought, the attempt to build a match-
stick trap to catch a monster, had ac-
complished something. It had told the
police what type of man they” were
dealing with.
From his conversations they knew he
was educated, and this indicated he had

had advantages a din lite Ile cha not

sound Hke wo very younk man. Such a
man, with more than a half million dol-
lars at his disposal, was likely to make

Mistakes te would hol ft into the
regular pattern of the racketeer who
comes up from the streets and knows
what it is to want money and thereby
understands its power. Brannon and
the police of the area had an idea that
they were dealing with a man who did
not comprehend the meaning of money
because in his youth he had not lacked
it. Such a man would squander what-
ever came his way. The police looked
for that and made plans.

In making their plans they relayed
the information to all police in Missouri
and those in surrounding states, Every-
one for miles around would be waiting
for that money to flow.

The woman who stole the child from
the convent virtually had dropped from
the picture. In his conversations with
the Greenlease home, M not once had
indicated that anyone else was impli-
cated in the plot.

The Greenleases went through a pe-
riod of dread waiting. After the mid-
night call Saturday they received no
further word from M. Ledterman and
O'Neill were in Pittsburg, Kansas, at
every moment expecting the telegram
from the kidnaper. .

But none came and they returned to
Kansas City late Tuesday knowing only
that they had done their best to meet
the extortionist’s every request.

Police were tapping the new channel
of hope opened to them when the
money was paid over. Extra details of
men were assigned to all the gay spots
of Kansas City and_ police of other
near-by cities were doing the same.
A RAPIDLY frowing belief among

police in- Missouri is that the
state’s two largest cities, Saint Louis
and Kansas City, suit ideally the game
of hide-and-seek the criminal element
Plays with peace authorities. In recent
years dozens of cases have broken in
plundering was done in Kan-
sas City and the criminals ran like pack
rats to their nests in Saint Louis, 250
miles directly across the State. The re-
verse of this is true, also. If the loot
is taken from Saint Louis the rats
yrange across the state to Kansas

y.

The police authorities of both cities
have been forced to recognize this tech-
nique whenever a major crime is com-
mitted in one of the cities.

Thus, early in the Bobby Greenlease
case Saint Louis authorities were act-
ing with as much caution and with al-
most as much hope of landing M as
were the Kansas City police.

Chief Jeremiah O'Connell of the
Saint Louis Police Department had is-
sued orders after the payment of the
ransom, about which he had been told
by FBI agents. Like Brannon, O’Con-
nell sent extra men into the town’s
het spots to wait for something to

reak,

At 3:30 p. m. Tuesday the telephone
rang in the Newstead Avenue police
station in Saint Louis and a man asked
to taik to Lieutenant Louis Shoulders,
who was in charge.

This caller was an ex-convict who
had gone straight since his brush with
the Law. He wanted to see the Lieu-
tenant. Could Shoulders make it to

Pershing

noe

the comer of Utrtorn
Avenues that evening?

The caller would not reveal what was
behind this request Knowing of the
Vibrations of fright in the underworld,
Lieutenant Shoulders was perfectly
willing to comply. He could be there
within fifteen minutes. But the caller,
a man named John Hager, could not
get away so soon. He suggested a later
hour.

Tus. at the appointed time Shoul-

ders met Hager on the corner. The
man was a taxi-cab driver and the Lieu-
tenant slid into the back seat of his
cab where it was parked near the in-
tersection.

“What have you got, Hager?” Shoul-
ders asked when he settled back.

The cab driver talked without turn-
ing around.

“It's a guy throwing money around,”
he stated. “I thought when I picked
him up yesterday that he was a good-
time Charlie out on the town but I
don’t think so now. He’s got money,
‘lots of it. A suitcase full of tens and
twenties.”

“Where is he?” Shoulders asked.

“At the Town House.”

The Town House is a fashionable
apartment hotel fl 100 yards from
where the pair sat. It is not a haunt
of criminals, Whatever might be up,
it was not petty, Shoulders knew,

“Is the guy safe where he is now?”
Shoulders asked.

The cabbie nodded. “He'll be there.
I’m supposed to get him a girl.”

Shoulders told him to state the whole
story.

“I met this guy in front of the Jef-
ferson Hotel, downtown, Monday after-
noon while he
cab. He wanted a girl.
fare so I asked the other driver to meet

one up front. Steve Said, ‘No’, and I
got them in the

with a twenty-dollar bill. He shoved
the change, about eighteen bucks,
across the table to me, Saying, ‘You take
this’. I said to myself, ‘What a fare
I've got here’,

“During the

might be a cop,
getting a girl for
vict, and I became Suspicious.

“T told him, ‘I’m doing this asa favor;
are you a cop?’ He laughed and replied,
‘John, if you knew the truth you would
get a kick out of that,’

“We decided to drive out to Coral
Court. On the
five twenty-dollar bills and he said, .
‘That’s some money on account.’ I de-
cided I was going to stick with the guy.

“When we got to the motel I carried
in the two suitcases. They were so
heavy I had to carry them one at a
time,

“After we got inside Steve began
walking around and talking. He said
money was nothing, that all you could
do with it was spend it.

“He said he ‘hated little People’ and
wanted to be ‘big’. I noticed his hands
looked well cared for and I figured that
maybe he was a bank teller who had
run off with some funds.

“I went toa near-by eating place and
returned with three bottles of beer.


I got back I saw ten twenty-dol-
ls on the bed. Steve went to his
nd tossed a fistful of twenties on
d. He asked me to count it. It
venty-four hundred and eighty

pulled another twenty from his
_ handed me the whole twenty-
undred and said, ‘John, I want
) keep this for me.’ Then he
i to a closet and got out a revol-
id he said, ‘Ain't this a beaut?’
ndra took the revolver from
removed the cartridges and
d it back. I left about six and
) return about ten o’clock. I got
ibout half-past. Steve asked me
t an automobile in my name and
im a two-suiter bag and a brief-
o match, using funds from the
y-five hundred. I left about mid-

returned to the motel at half-
ten today, driving the rented
ne. I had the bag and briefcase.
‘ye was nervous, pacing up and
the room. He said there had been
age in plans and asked me to take
a in the rented car to where she
get a cab, then come back for
He seemed scared that I wouldn’t
back.
asked him why he couldn’t ride
is, but he answered he had some-
he had to do.
ndra and I left and when we got
e highway she said she had seen
ff the suitcases open and it was
d’ with ten- and twenty-dollar
‘There must be a million dollars
there,’ she said.
1at's when I got scared. I knew I
have a good-time Charley. I
ed I had something worse, but
't know what, Sandra said Steve
iven her a thousand bucks and a
with instructions to fly to Cali-
1 and mail the letter.
my suggestion Sandra opened the
. It was addressed to a Saint
h, Missouri, attorney and was
d ‘Carl’. As I recall it the letter
Things are not going as good as
seem; may have to leave the coun-
, ship or plane.’ The fact that.the
had been signed ‘Carl’ by a man
w as Steve really aroused my sus-
is.
ayway, I went back and got Steve
vrought him to an apartment here
jecided to call you.”
ien Hager had completed his long
int, Shoulders asked where Sandra
y was. She had left town, Hager
but he had an idea she had not
to California as Steve, or Carl,
sted her to.
ow will I get into his room with-
rouble?” Shoulders asked.
can fix that. He wants another
tonight. I told him that when I

i .
mis
4

come back with the girl I'll knock on
the door and say, ‘Steve, this is John’.”
Hager was sweating now despite the
coolness of the evening. “But it won't
be me he sees on the other side of the
door. It'll be you. I'll be as far away
from this place as I can get.”

HUS the stage was set. At 7:30 that
night Shoulders and Patrolman

Elmer Dolan waited outside Apartment
No. 303, in which Hager had said his
friend Steve would be waiting. They
knocked on the door and Shoulders
said, “Steve, this is John.”

The door swung open. There stood a
man of medium height, his gaze secure-
ly on the officers. He took one step
back and stopped. The officers rushed
in, drawing their guns.

“What gives here?” the man asked
uncertainly.

“Are you Carl?” Shoulders asked.

“No, I'm John James Byrne.”

Dolan made a fast search of the
apartment. He found a briefcase stuck
in a closet and took it out for examina-
tion. In it was a business card that
aroused his interest and he passed it
on to Shoulders. The card bore the
name, Carl Austin Hall.

“Do you mind us taking a look
through your pockets?” Shoulders
asked.

“What for? I haven't done any-
thing.”

However, Dolan went ahead. He
patted his hands on the clothing of
the man and in a moment pulled out
a .32-caliber revolver.

“You know who I think you are?”
Shoulders asked.

Sullenly, the man did not reply.

“I think you are Carl Austin Hall,”
the Lieutenant continued. He showed
him the card. The man’s shoulders
sagged. “I know it’s all up,” he said.
“I got two suitcases under that bed.”

Dolan dived for the spot and pulled
the metal suitcases into view.

The man seemed to lose hold of him-
self. “I know this thing is up. I'm

the kidnaper of the Greenlease boy.”:

After the words were out he looked
from one officer to another as if seek-
ing what effect they would have.

“Sure,” Shoulders said. “Sure. And
you're playing in the World Series
tomorrow.”

They took him, and the suitcases, to
the station. It might be, Shoulders
thought. It might easily be.

In the station Shoulders asked the
question which for eight days had been
in the minds of millions.”

“Where is the boy?”

Hall seemed to gather himself
together before he could reply. He
glanced at the floor and then briefly
at Shoulders and then back at the
floor again.

My | Leos FOUND IN
ASHCAN HERE

“He's in Pittsburg, Kansas, with a
fellow named Tom Marsh who was in
this with me.”

Was this really it? Was the mon-
strous kidnaper trapped this easily?

When Hall would say no more
Shoulders took him to a cell and called
in the officials of the Department.
They would have to investigate this
story thoroughly.

NFORMATION was gathered quickly

about Marsh. His full name was
Thomas John Marsh, he was 37 years
old and he had a police record mostly
because of involvement in_ child-
molestation cases. From a small Mis-
souri town, he spent most of his time
in Kansas City. He was described by
those who knew him as a “wino” who
was drunk most of the time. And he
literally was a marked man. Marsh,
his police records showed, was heavily
tattooed with one inscription on his
right arm bearing the words: “In
Memory of Sister—Tom Marsh.” In
addition, the ring finger of his left hand
was missing to the first joint. And he
had a birthmark on the left side of
his nose.

‘The 34-year-old Hall also had a
police record. His father was John A.
Hall, who had been a successful lawyer
in Pleasanton, Kansas, until his death.
The family had been well-to-do and
Hall was left a $200,000 estate by his
father in 1946. He went through the
fortune in four years, most of it dis-
sipated through high living. His
mother died while Hall was in the
Marines. Subsequently Hall was picked
up and sent to prison for holding up
cab drivers in Kansas City after he
had wasted his father’s fortune. His
mother left him an estate but he could
draw only $50 a month from it.

His voice, his appearance, his refer-
ence to Pittsburg, Kansas, convinced
FBI agents that he indeed was the in-
famous M. And he readily admitted it.

After several hours of questioning by
police Hall named Mrs. Bonnie Brown
Heady, 41 years old, as the woman who
had taken the boy from the convent.
She was picked up in a South Saint
Louis apartment where she was found
in a drunken stupor.

In the statements that followed to
the police and the press, Hall said Mrs.
Heady, a divorcee whom he had met
three months before, was innocent of
what was going on. She thought that
Bobby Greenlease was a son of Hall's,
he said, and that his former wife would
not allow him to see the boy. She took
him, he said, only so Hall might be
with the boy for a little while.

Hall admitted to police that he was
a drug addict. This might account,
police said, for the flashes of brilliance
which the man showed in planning the

Crowds help search for the
missing head of New York's
torso victim. Story on Pg. 3

scheme and at other times his arrogant
stupidity, such as in throwing large
sums of money around incautiously.

Examination of the suitcases found
in Hall’s room disclosed that they con-
tained $293,992. He told several stories
about the disappearance of the re-
mainder of the cash, police said. One
time he said that he had left it by
accident in a cab, another time that
Marsh had it, and still another that
he could not remember because he
was drunk.

Chief O'Connell did not take his word
for any of it and began an intensive
search around Saint Louis for the miss-
ing half of the ransom. Several hours
were not accounted for in Hall's story
and he could have used them to bury
the remainder of the $600,000.

Nor did the FBI immediately send
out a nationwide alarm for the appre-
hension of Marsh. Neither they nor
Brannon were convinced that Marsh
had anything to do with it.

For finger-prints had been found on
the first ransom note mailed to the
Greenleases. They were not Marsh's
nor were they Hall’s. They were Mrs.
Heady’s, the FBI said.

A check revealed that Mrs. Heady
had no previous criminal record. She
was divorced from V. Ellis Heady, a
Saint. Joseph livestock commission man,
in 1952. Like Hall, she had had many
advantages as a child. She attended
Clearmont, Missouri, High School and
Northwest Missouri State Teachers’
College where she was reported to have
made “better than average” grades in
both high school and college.

In 1949 she inherited the $44,000
estate of her father, the late French
P. Brown, including a 316-acre farm
in Nodaway County, Missouri, where
she was reared. The farm is valued
at $31,000. Her mother had died when
Mrs. Heady was two years old.

Her home in Saint Joseph, a white
frame house with blue shutters, set in
a well-kept yard, she obtained through
a property settlement from her former
husband at the time of their divorce.

A relative said a great change had
come over the woman after the divorce.
She began to drink heavily and at the
time of her arrest she was an admitted
alcoholic. Neighbors said that she had
thrown many a wild, noisy party and
indeed one man had been shot and
slightly wounded at such a party
although he had not brought charges
against anyone.

The name Heady was familiar to
FBI agents and at first they thought
she might be a woman who had helped
her husband, a notorious outlaw, escape
from a prison in Oklahoma. This was
a different Mrs. Heady, however.

HE main question, though, still

was unanswered—the all-important
question that had spurred this entire
investigation and for which the entire
nation was waiting.

Where was Bobby Greenlease?

Police and FBI agents in Kansas
throughout Tuesday night searched
every motel in the Pittsburg area. ‘They
could find no trace of the Greenlease
boy nor of Marsh.

Confronted with this information,
Hall at first said vehemently that Marsh
must have become frightened and fled
with the boy.

“Listen, playboy,” Lieutenant Shoul-
ders told him roughly, “what kind of
shuffle are you giving us?” He leaned
over and his face was within inches
of Hall’s. “For the’ last time, where
is Bobby Greenlease?”

The look of stubbornness on Hall’s
face melted. He put his head in his
hands and shuddered.

“He's dead. Marsh killed him, shot
him with my gun.”

There was a silence in the room for
a moment, which was broken only when
Hall whispered, “I didn’t do it! I
wouldn't do a thing like that!”

53


“Schinagle wrote her several letters,”
(Cleveland detective reported. “In one
them, he warned her not to tell any-
ne about her condition.”

“That indicates he knew about the
inborn child,” McAllister said. “We'd
setter find out a lot more about him.”

McAllister again called on Sheriff
‘ravel of Delaware for assistance.
oining the investigation with Fravel
vas Captain J. E. Cornely of the Mar-
mn, Ohio, Police Department.

Fravel went to the Wesleyan campus.
‘he Sheriff was told that Schinagle had
een an honor student in high school
nd planned to enter the ministry after
nishing his undergraduate work.

A serious young man, Schinagle
ankly admitted his love for Miss Pfeil
id that they had planned to marry in
ite of the objections of their parents.
© said the girl had not returned to

hool for the 1953 term because of poor

ades. He had visited her in White
ains on July 4 and August 24 she

‘nt to Cleveland to be near him, ob-

ining a job ata department-store.

Schinagle also stated that he did not
iow who might have wanted to kill

5 attractive girl friend.

The officers doubted that he could be

e killer. He was a good student, went

church each Sunday, loved music

d planned to continue his studies at

erlin College in northern Ohio, the

lowing year.

‘But we've got to make sure,” Fravel

slared.

As a last resort, the Sheriff suggested

it they search Schinagle’s. room.

ere, the officers went through the

young man’s personal belongings but
found nothing that might invelve him
in the slaying.

FRAVEL went next to the student's

desk, with a number of envelopes on
it. One of these was sealed and, al-
though so far unstamped, addressed to
a girl at Wittenberg College in Spring-
field, Ohio.

“What do you think?” Fravel asked,
holding this envelope. “Shall we open
it?”

The officers agreed that the impor-
tance of the case warranted the action.
Pravel opened it, read the letter inside
and then whistled.

“This boy is a two-timer,” he said.
“Apparently, he’s forgetting about Cyn-
thia.”

Fravel pocketed the paper and
turned to the next phase of the inves-
tigation. He questioned the sopho-
more’s fraternity brothers and class-
mates. Schinagle had been seen with
fellow students early in the evening of
September 17, up until nine Pp. m., but
no one could account for his movements
later.

The officers decided to question
Schinagle again. This time they no-
ticed that he was quite nervous.

“We have evidence that you were
tired of Cynthia,” Fravel declared,
holding up the letter written to the
Wittenberg co-ed.

“That girl was just an acquaintance,”
the youth replied. “You wouldn’t ex-
pect me to forget all my friends just
because of Cynthia. Besides, it was part
of the act to hide our relationship.”

“We also know that you were out late
Thursday night,” Fravel continued.
“Where did you go?”

Schinagle stammered, then -blurted
that he had been out for a ride.

“Alone?” the Sheriff inquired. “Not
very likely. Who was the girl?”

This time, no reply.

“What time did you meet Cynthia
Thursday night?” Cornely asked.

Again the young divinity student
didn’t reply.

“Where did she spend the night?”
Fravel demanded. “In a motel or
hotel?”

The student flushed. He had not
taken her anywhere, he insisted,

“But she hid out somewhere so that
no one in town would know she was
here,” Cornely persisted.

Schinagle had lost his calm exterior
and perspiration appeared on his fore-
head.

“I guess you fellows know everything
I did,” he said in a low voice.

“If we don’t know, we soon will,” the
Sheriff declared. “Now tel] us where
you saw Cynthia when she was here.”

Schinagle then told this story, the
officers claimed:

“There's an old shack on the athletic
field. Cynthia spent the night of the
sixteenth there. We met secretly the
next day off campus and she told me
to meet her at the shack again that

‘night. I did.

“We had a fight and I choked her.”
Cynthia, clad in the flannel night-
fown and red shoes, had been waiting
for Schinagle in the small shack ac-
cording to the police. They quarreled

and he strangled her, He left the scene
and returned shortly afterward to find
her unconscious. He then placed the
kirl on the back seat of his car and
drove north out of the city. He stopped
about a half hour later and found her
still breathing. Leaving the car, he
picked up a sharp rock that he found
beside the road.

“She moaned a little and I struck her
again and again on the head and the
face,” officers quoted him as saying. He
kot behind the wheel again and drove
toward Upper Sandusky. Off the main
highway on County Road No. 42, he
removed the dead girl from the car
and, alone, returned to Delaware, where
he attended classes as usual.

In this alleged confession, Schinagle
supposedly denied that the quarrel be-
gan over Cynthia’s insistence that he
marry her, claiming that it originated
because of “the attention shown her by
another man.” The baby she would
have borne was his, he admitted, ac-
cording to authorities.

The slim, blond youth was escorted to
the Wyandot County Jail where he was
turned over to Prosecutor Roth. A spe-
cial grand jury indicted the youth on
October 20, 1953, for first-degree mur-
der. Four days later, on October 24, he
prsces guilty to second-degree murder

d was sentenced to life imprisonment
by Judge Russell H. Kear.

To protect persons innocently in-
volved in this case, the names William
Hayes, Philip Adkins and Ben Fallon
are fictitious. The name of the Way-
farer Motel also is not the real one.

Massacre on the Chester Logging Road (Continued from Page 25)

But you must remember that if she
Ws any hesitation or any ill effects
ing such a trip, we'll call it off im-
liately.””

‘nce again the Sheriff and the Dis-
t Attorney agreed. It was a vague
e and a slim one—placing their
nees of solving this case upon the
nory of a three-yéar-old child. But
as a step they had to take. They
nothing else to do, no other leads
‘pt that involving Nugent.

nd that afternoon Nugent was
id

eputy Sheriff William Driscoll of
shoe County spotted his car a few
's outside Reno and stopped it. Nu-
readily admitted his identity.
asked him about the Young kill-
’ Driscoll told Janes over the tele-
ne, “and he said whoever did it
it to be tarred and.feathered. He
he was in Chester that day, all
‘, but he doesn’t know just where
ho might have seen him. His hand
vratched up, too, his right hand.
‘e's something funny about him.”
‘uppose you try to pin him down to
finite statement about his where-
ts Friday,” Janes said. “Then
look into it from this end and if
ind anything we'll be up there just
ist as we can make it.”
‘t Nugent could offer only a vague
with no one to back it up.
-eep Nugent there,” Janes said to
ity Driscoll. ‘We'll be along in the
\ing to talk to him ourselves. Can’t
it tonight: another matter is
ng up early tomorrow _ that’s
ty important.”

\T other matter was the trip to the
ene of the crime with Sondra. But
sn’t made in the morning. Sondra
rritable and tired and complained
headache and Doctor Greenman
the trip up. j
aybe after she has a nap,” he said.
® slept that afternoon and when
woke, she was more cheerful and
nplaining. With trepidation Doc-
‘reenman agreed to the auto ride.
riff Schooler had set it up care-
They rode in a car that was the
year and model as her father’s
been and the Sheriff even re-
‘ged ash trays and sun visors to

Make it resemble Young’s even more.
Sondra was put in the back seat with
her mother and Doctor Greenman; the
Sheriff and District Attorney Janes,
men with whom she was not so familiar,
rode in the front.

They set out slowly, leisurely, and
entirely through the coincidence caused
by Sondra’s nap, at approximately the
same time she and her father and her
sisters and her little friend had left
Westwood on that fateful Friday.

With, Doctor Greenman and Mrs.
Young doing the questioning and the
Sheriff and District Attorney making
as few suggestions as possible, they
talked to her.

H4> she met anyone the last time
they took this ride?

“Oh, yes,” Sondra said. “The men °

in the shiny car. They stopped Daddy
and one of them got in with us and he
had a gun.”

And then, while the adults held their
breaths, almost afraid to push this any
further:

“They were nice men. They were
good to me.”

What did the men look like? By sug-
gesting comparisons, the officers tried
to get some sort of a description.

One of the men was bigger than the
Doctor, the child said. Bigger than the
Sheriff. Real big. He wore a white
mask. And he didn’t have much hair
on the top of his head.

Michael Nugent, Janes knew, was six
feet two inches tall and balding.

The other man wasn’t very big. He
didn’t wear a mask.

“They made us lie down in the back
of the car,” she said. “Once Michael
got out of the car and they made him
get back in again. They were nice to
us.”

The big man had been wearing
“funny shoes” and blue jeans and a
“pretty” shirt, she said. The little man
had been wearing blue jeans and a
“pretty” shirt, too.

They approached the logging road
down which Young must have turned.
This, Doctor Greenman had said, would
be a critical point. If the child had
any memories of pain or sorrow, she
would balk at this road.

But before they reached it she said,

“The lady had red jeans on.” ;

The lady! What lady? Could a
woman be involved in this? Could any
woman have been so inhuman?

It seemed preposterous,

Then they had reached the mouth
of the road.

“Should we turn down here, Sondra?”
Doctor Greenman asked.

She glanced out the window. Then,
suddenly, without warning, she scram-
bled into her mother’s arms.

“No!” she cried. “No, no, no, no!”
She buried her face on Mrs. Young’s
shoulder. “No!”

Sheriff Schooler was driving. He
passed the road, just as the Chevrolet
supposedly had passed it, and made a
U-turn, approaching it again,

“How about it, Doc?” the Sheriff
asked gently.

“Shall we turn, Sondra?” the Doc-
tor asked.

“No!” she said. Then, “My head
hurts.”

And that was all the questions
they could ask the girl that day. It
was too much for her, and for her brave
mother, too, who just the day before
had buried two of her children.

But it might be vital information.

Wo was the lady in the “red
jeans”? Some third person mixed
up in this ghastly horror?

“You can’t tell,” Doctor Greenman
said. “She didn’t mention any lady
when she first talked about the two
men. It’s quite possible she saw this
woman before the kidnaping, maybe in
the drug store where they got the ice
cream, or maybe in the bank.”

The other interesting point was the
vague description Sondra had given of
a man approximately as tall as Michael
Nugent and without a great deal of
hair, just as Nugent was semi-bald.
District Attorney Janes telephoned the
Washoe County sheriff’s office.

Nugent, he learned, had been wear-
ing blue jeans and a fancy sports shirt
when he was arrested—clothes cor-
responding to those the big killer had
worn.

“We'll be there as fast as we can,”
Janes said into the phone.

They drove to Reno. From Sacra-
mento, State Agents Kenneth Horton

and E. A. Winberg of the CII sped to
help in the investigation if they could.
From Berkeley came Inspector Al Rei-
del, an expert with the lie detector.

With District Attorney Jack Streeter
of Reno, they questioned Nugent closely
and at length and he told them a few
more details of his activities on the
previous Friday.

In Chester officers talked to Mrs.
Young to see what she might know
about the quarrel between her husband
and Nugent.

“I absolutely can not conceive of
Mister Nugent doing anything like
that,” she stated flatly. ‘Yes, he quar-
reled with my husband once but that
was a long time ago and lately they've
been getting along better than ever.”

Besides, she declared, Sondra knew
Nugent and she would have recognized
him most likely, mask or no mask, and
would have mentioned his name to the
officers.

One by one the vague points in Nu-
gent’s alibi were verified.

Completely exonerated by the lie-
detector tests and by the evidence, too,
Nugent was released and immediately
added $100 of his own to the reward
fund. And a weary, exhausted group
of investigators went into another hud-
dle. They had little left to go on now;
exhausted and baffled, they almost
wished they could forget the case. But
they knew they had to keep it up.

THE first flush of the investigation

was over; from now on it would be
dogged and tiring, chasing down one
tip, one angle, one suspect after an-
other, perhaps through weeks or
months. Their best chance to wind it
up fast had vanished. Now would
come the barrage of hard and almost
hopeless work.

It started the very next morning.

In Quincy, the county seat, an ex-
convict named Guy Crocker was seen
flashing a thick roll of $20 bills. The
money stolen from Young had included
$7,000 in twenties: this ex-convict, a
tall, partially bald man,- was arrested
and he shook the bars of his cage in
anger and roared at the police and re-
fused to tell them where the money
came from.

After a short time behind bars he

* a }
KAU Lhos

|

:
Ww nw
|
]

Spy,
pm ay

a Cee GUE

Ransom Kidnapping
In America / 1874-1974

Lhe Creation of a Capital Crime

_ Ernest Kahlar Alix

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS

CARBONDALE AND EDWARDSVILLE

FEFFER&SIMONS, INC.

LONDON AND AMSTERDAM

a’


acomancle ce caerangetor >

aoa.

GREENWOOD

charge that the boy’s mother had suffered a heart attack. It was soon
obvious that the child had been kidnapped, and a ransom note for 600,000
dollars to be paid in ten- and twenty-dollar bills duly arrived, together
with Bobby Greenlease’s school cloth badge. The kidnappers instructed
how the money was to be packed into a duffel-bag and thrown into a
culvert between Kansas City and St Joseph, a small railway town. The
Greenleases complied with these orders, waiting in vain for news of their
son. Two days after the dumping of the ransom money, police in St Louis
two hundred miles away were told of a man spending vast sums of money
around the Congress Hotel: ‘and he doesn’t look the part’. This man,
with 250,000 dollars in his luggage (which also contained a revolver with
three discharged cartridges), was interviewed all night in a hotel room;
the following day, acting on his statements, G-men found a red-haired
woman—and Bobby Greenlease’s grave. The man was Carl Austin Hall,
37-year-old drug addict, the wayward son of a Kansas City lawyer. The
woman was 41-year-old Mrs Bonnie Brown Heady, drink-loving widow
of a bank robber; in her back-yard at St Joseph was found, buried, the
body of Bobby Greenlease with three bullet wounds. Arrested, they
eventually confessed to the crime, even admitting digging the child’s grave
before the kidnapping. They had driven the boy to a lonely spot: ‘Bobby
was struggling and kicking,’ said Hall, ‘so I took my revolver . . . and
fired .. . at close range.’ (Half the ransom money was, and still is, missing.
Carl Hall insisted that the bulk of the ransom was in his luggage at the
time of his capture, and two of the St Louis policemen who arrested Hall
were charged with giving false evidence about the handling of Hall’s
luggage, and imprisoned.)

Both kidnappers showed little remorse in prison. Hall was fidgety
because of his drug addiction, and Mrs Heady looked at True Romance
magazines, interrupting her readings on one occasion to tell a fellow-
prisoner of Hall’s ambition to have a circular bed with silk sheets. Shortly
before their joint gas-chamber execution in December 1953, however,
they wrote letters to the Greenlease family begging their forgiveness.

GREENWOOD, David

A young turner, aged 21, sentenced to death (but later reprieved and
sentenced to penal servitude for life) for the murder of Nellie True, a
16-year-old girl.

On 10 February 1918 Nellie True’s body was found on Eltham Common,
near the Eltham—Woolwich road. Although her knickers were in place, she
was lying on her back in a position indicating rape, and had been strangled
manually. She had been returning from the Plumstead Library, where
she had changed her book. She had evidently been raped and strangled
at about 2 a.m. that morning. A military badge of the Leicestershire

238

RR SRE eB Si.

GREENWOOD

Regiment (the “Tigers’) was found on the scene of the murder, and also
an overcoat button. A photograph of the badge and button was sent to
the newspapers for reproduction.

It was recognized by one of the employees of the Hewson Manufacturing
Company, in Newman Street, off Oxford Street, who showed it to David
Greenwood, commenting, “That looks uncommonly like the badge you
were wearing’. Greenwood admitted that it did, but said that he had sold
his badge over the week-end to a man on a tram. His workmates suggested
that he ‘clear the matter up’ with the police. The button was found to
come from his overcoat. ;

At the trial before Mr Justice Atkin, Sir Travers Humphreys pro-
secuted, and Mr Slesser defended. Sir Bernard Spilsbury was called to give
evidence. It was revealed that Greenwood had an excellent war record,
and had been discharged with neurasthenia from shell-shock and dis-
ordered action of the heart. There were no buttons on his overcoat (they
had been cut off subsequent to the murder) but the button found on the
site of the murder fitted exactly. He was found guilty with a
recommendation to mercy.

GREENWOOD, Harold (Murder Trial)

On 9 November 1920, at Carmarthen Assizes in Wales, Harold Green-
wood, a solicitor aged 45 was found not guilty of the murder by poisoning
of his first wife, Mabel. The case had been closely followed, not only in
Britain, but in Europe and America.

The Greenwoods with their four children and domestic staff lived at
Rumsey House, Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire. In the early hours of Monday
16 June 1919, Mrs Greenwood died of an agonizing bilious-type illness
that had commenced, according to her Husband, at 3.30 p.m. the previous
afternoon. Her health, before this final illness, had not been good and her
medical adviser, Dr Griffiths, certified the death as being due to valvular
disease of the heart. Greenwood, unlike his wife, was not popular in the
district, and even before his marriage (only four months after Mabel
Greenwood’s funeral) to 31-year-old Miss Gladys Jones, daughter of the
part-proprietor of the Llanelly Mercury, there was much gossip about
Mrs Greenwood’s death. This speculation caused the police, in October
1919, to inform Greenwood of their probable intention to exhume the body
of his wife, when Greenwood replied heartily: ‘Just the very thing—I am
quite agreeable.’ Eventually, on 16 April 1920 the remains were exhumed
and examined at Kidwelly Town Hall. No trace of valvular or any other
disease was found, but the body (in a good state of preservation) contained
between a quarter and half a grain of arsenic. After a two-day inquest on
Mabel Greenwood, 15-16 June 1920, the foreman of the jury, George
Jones, amid tremendous applause, handed in the following verdict:

239


F YOU are a murderer who has killed once,

been tried and condemned to death you might,

as you walk that short last mile to the electric

chair, ponder the strange case of Belle Gunness.

Belle killed no less than fifty people and she did

not pay with her life. As a matter of fact she never
paid as much as a five dollar fine.

She was born in Norway, the daughter of a vaudeville ma-
gician who, during his act, created an illusion of decapitating
his wife with a guillotine. This fascinated Belle. As a child
she amused herself by cutting off the heads of her dolls.

When Belle was 15, her family came to America and a
few years after Belle married her first husband, Merrel
Sorenson. She prevailed upon her husband to buy an aband-
oned farm at La Porte, Indiana. She also prevailed on' him

‘to take out every penny of insurance he could afford.

Then one bright morning she laced his coffee with ar-
senic. A naive country doctor attributed the cause of death
to ‘digestive ailments’ and Belle bacame a widow with a
farm and some $8500 in insurance. :

After a decent interval she met and married Peter Gun-
ness, During this union, Belle, for some odd reason, adopted
three young orphans. She pointed out to Gunness that since
there were young children to be brought up it was only
reasonable that he increase his life insurance.

He did so and a.year later-he died. At the coroner’s in-
quest Belle explained that a meat cleaver had _accidentally
fallen on her husband’s skull with such force that it split his
head open.

The authorities found this story rather difficult to believe.
Belle Gunness was arrested and held while an investigation
was conducted. \

However, since there were no eye. witnesses to Gunness’
death and no evidence’ against Belle she was released. The
insurance company paid up without quibbling.

BC THE arrest had taught Belle a lesson. If she intended
to continue her murderous ways she would have to use
more subtle methods. She hired a stone mason and arranged
that he build a smoke house next to the kitchen with.a door
connecting the structure.

32

(Continued on page 47) .

LADIES
OF

LARCENY

LTHOUGH orphaned at 2, Bonnie Brown was
looked upon by her friends and neighbors as one
of the most fortunate girls in northwestern Mis-

souri.
Not only was she the heiress to a rich 360-acre
farm, but the grandparents who reared her were
. comfortably well off, and what they had would
one day be hers. In addition, she grew up a remarkably at-
tractive young lady, an excellent horse-woman, a belle of

_ her place and her time.

She ‘was, however, noticeably restive. After two and a
half years of college, she quit to take a course to become a
beautician. She found farm life dull and lonely, even in an

. age when fast cars and smooth highways had almost wholly

overcome the traditional isolation of the farmer. Bonnie pre-
ferred the excitements of St. Joseph, and of occasional
journeys to Kansas City, over the placid existence of her
own rural community. .

A ripe, brown-eyed lass with gold flecks in her reddish-
brown hair, she married V. E. Heady; a prosperous com-
mission man in St. Joseph’s busy stockyards, and became
one of the most popular young matrons in that city.

Her husband built her a beautiful new Cape Cod home
with spacious grounds inside its bordering hedges, where

Bonnie carefully tended plots of flowers that became the

pride of the neighborhood.

They had*many friends. They entertained and were en-
tertained a great deal. On the surface, Bonnie Heady ap-
peared a happy, well adjusted young housewife. Secretly she
was in a torment of frustration and boredom which even she
herself could not fathom.

She began drinking. A little more than her friends; a little
too much—then much too much. The friends drifted" away,

puzzled by her behavior, — (Continued on page 73)

i : POLICE DRAGNET CASES

Contacting
mulcting an
infamous M
Martha (abx«
Both paid f<


—

ae matter. Betty Jean.

ind.
Speed Tilton; who had
1 consciousness long
) the police, died of his
rch for Betty Jean was
1 news of Tilton’s death
in the newspapers,.
s conscience overcame
ungirl. He drove to the
d told Clancy what had

Motorville Tavern that ,

mony furnished County °

obbins enough evidence
d jury and ask for an
e good-looking blonde.
1 he had the evidence,
he police had the girl.
as, at the moment,. in
g as a B-girl in a Clark
ne afternoon she felt
lonely. She did not dare
h her mother. She was
had a stakeout there.
day a visit to her uncle
rookfield, a suburb of

d a stakeout there, too.
2alize that until she
s of two detectives.

to Champaign.
| room in Chicago was
2r suitcase the officers
iutomatic and a blood-
onfronted with this evi-
said, “All right, so I
‘'d given me the money
day.”
that story on the wit-
being tried for murder.
nt blank,” she said then. .
member anything. Even
the train and founda:
my suitcase, I couldn’t
My mind was just a
whole affair.”
in’t quite believe this. '
ty Jean guilty of second |
Judge Charles E. Kel-;
er to fourteen years in'
State Reformatory at

‘s Betty Jean seemed to

41 down, seemed to have’
iolent and vicious past.
: in the fall of 1953, she ;
low, slugged a guard,
nd escaped.
ed to Cleveland, dyed
ir black. But freedom
1 fun as she thought it
was broke and without
ired not take a job for
me might recognize her. '
after her breakout she
Cleveland police station,
- identity and said, “I

ck and face the music.

inning away.”
She is still there. If
f it is possible that
.we woman before she is
Whether or not she will
ser than she was on the -
i Speed Tilton only time
|

LICE DRAGNET CASES

MAGGIE O’CONNOR

(Continued from page 44)

to her and her henchmen. Trap after
trap had. been set by detectives, but the
wily Queen Maggie had eluded them.all.
So successful were her operations that
the Windy City police promoted her to
the very top spot on their list of most
wanted criminals in the metropolitan
area.
That Maggie had gone into the bank-
ing business first came to the attention
of the authorities when the State Bank
at Poplar Grove, Illinois, was taken for

’ over $5,000 by a woman of Maggie’s

description and a young nervous man
who was obviously taking orders from
his female confederate. This was. three
weeks before the Danforth job.

The FBI had put the search for the
bandit queen on a national basis when
they were called in by the Chicago cops
after the robbery of a drugstore on
Lawrence Avenue, on July 15th. Two
women had pulled off this job, one of
them entering the store with a pistol
and the other remaining at the wheel of
the getaway car. The police managed
to identify the gunwoman as Mrs.
Phyllis Mathews, and she was :picked
up on September 7th. She confessed to
the robbery and named Queen Maggie
as the driver of the getaway automobile,

A federal warrant was obtained, charg- .

ing Maggie with crossing a state line to
avoid prosecution for robbery, and the
G-men threw their resources into the
hunt.

So far, Maggie, who is 29 and the
mother of four children, has been more
than holding her own in her joust, with
the law. Chicago’s Public Enemy No. 1
is still at large. : a

BONNIE BROWN HEADY
(Continued from. page 32)

leaving her more desperately lonely
than ever. In’ December of 1952 she
and her husband were divorced, and
she lived on alone in the attractive
house, increasing her daily booze con-
sumption until she became a real two-
bottle babe. :

Strangely, despite her soddenness,
she kept an immaculate house and her
flower beds in admirable trim. Equally
strangely, she never missed’ her weekly
visit to the beauty parlor and, although
she was putting on weight, she main-
tained an extensive wardrobe. ,

She spent $5,000 on a rumpus room ~
in the house, to attract companions to ©

carouse with her. Some free-loaders
came, of course, but no matter how gay
her revels, Bonnie Heady sank deeper
and deeper into the chronic alcoholic’s
despairing mire of loneliness.

Then in May of 1953, in a downtown
hotel bar, she met Carl Warren Hall.

The ne’er-do-well son of a Kansas
lawyer, Hall had gone through a for-

tune, had dabbled in drugs and crime, .

and was nearly as ardent an aficionado
of the bottle as Bonnie herself. He was
wordly and smooth and seemingly well-
educated, and when he told Bonnie he
loved her, she soared into a boozy sev-

POLICE DRAGNET CASES

/

enth heaven and was his from then on. {.

Hall moved in with Bonnie. His: only
complaint thereafter was that he was
‘broke, and Bonnie’s income was just
ample enough to keep the bar stocked
and insufficient to achieve Hall’s big-
shot dreams.

He began talking of making a haul.
At first Bonnie thought it was just talk,
but as the summer progressed and he
outlined his scheme: more and more
fully, she realized he really meant it.

Robert Greenlease, a wealthy Kan-
sas. City. auto dealer, had a young
daughter and small son to whom, at
72, he was utterly devoted. :

“If somebody snatched one of those
kids,” Hall said, “Bob Greenlease would
fork over a million to get the youngster
back.” A

Shocked and frightened at first, Bon-
nie allowed her heart to overrule her
head and agreed to help Hall in the
abduction of Bobby Greenlease.

On September 28 she took the boy
from an exclusive day school in Kan-
sas City on the pretext that his mother
was ill. She and Hall drove with the
lad to a: lonely road across the line in
Kansas, and there Hall cold-bloodedly
murdered the child.

The pair carried the. body back to
Bonnie’s home, where they buried it in
a flower bed behind the house, and then
began negotiating with Bobby’s father
for $600,000 ransom. ,

Terrified, Bonnie went on a bat while
Hall collected the enormous ransom,
two suitcases full of $10 and $20 bills.
Then he, too, went on a spree in St.
Louis and attracted so much attention
that he was arrested, and the kidnaping
and murder pinned on him and Bonnie.

Both confessed, were convicted of
kidnaping under the federal Lindbergh
law and sentenced to die.

Awaiting execution, Bonnie pleaded
for permission to marry Carl Hall, but
it was not granted. :

All she had of the lover who had
brought her to an igndédminious doom
was ten minutes alone before they were
seated side by side in the gas cell just
before midnight on December 17, 1953.

In her death chair, Bonnie complain-
ed that she could not see Hall because
the straps were too tight. Then she
asked him: “You got plenty of room,
honey?”

“Yes, momma,” he replied.

Then the:deadly fumes reached their
victims, and they died.

The Greenlease case, however, did
not die with Carl and Bonnie.

At the time. of their arrest, $300,000
of the ransom money somehow mysteri-
ously disappeared. ‘

Two St. Louis police officers are
serving prison terms for perjury, as a
result of their denials of ever having
seen this money, the great bulk of
which detectives have been unable to
locate to this day.

_’A few of the ransom banknotes have
turned up in recent months. .But only
a very few, and all the cops know thus
far about how they were passed and
by whom is that neither Hall nor Mrs.
Heady spent them. a

When her boyfriend, Joseph DiRocco
married another girl, jealousy and
grief so tormented Mildred McDonald
(above) of Somerville, Mass., that

she bought a gun, stopped DiRocco on
the street and tried to frighten him,
but failed. A week later she went to
DiRocco’s home, and shot his sister
Mary, 14, and then tried to burn the
body. She then fled to New York where
a cop spotted her and picked her up.

London model Ruth Ellis warned her
lover to stop two-timing her. When
he left her for a new mistress, Ruth
killed him with six revolver shots.
Ruth told police, “When | shot him |
meant to kill him.” A jury found her
guilty of murder and she was hanged.

73


GRAHAM

three days he asked Gordon about his childhood, his ambitions, his inner-
most thoughts—and finally, about the murder: ‘You've been telling the
police lies can’t you possibly speak the truth?’ Gordon, suddenly
co-operative, told how he had met Patricia Curran by accident soon after
she alighted from the Belfast bus on the evening of the 12th, and she
asked him to escort her up the drive. At an ill-lit bend he wanted to kiss
her. ‘. . . she laid her things on the grass . . . she was not keen .. . but
consented in the end. . . I found I could not stop kissing her . . .” Gordon
then stabbed her with a service knife, throwing this afterwards into the
sea. On 8 January a wooden-handled paper-knife similar to one missing
from Gordon’s office was found on the beach at Kilrdot, and Captain
James Lyle, Harbour Master at Carrickfergus, maintained that such an
ebject thrown into the sea at Whiteabbey’at the time of the murder would
be washed ashore two months later in the ‘Kilroot area.

Gordon was tried at Belfast Assize Court on 1 March. The jury returned
a verdict of ‘guilty but insane’. .” me, Se
er : - ‘

*

GRAHAM, John Gilbert

Strands of yellow wire strewn around the eight-mile debris area when
Flight 629 of United Airlinex exploded in mid-air near Denver, Colorado,
in 1955 were among the first signs that sabotage had occurred. G-men,
during their investigation into the lives of the thirty-nine Passengers and
five crew (all of whom were killed), in an attempt to discover some motive
for the crime found their suspicions centred around John Gilbert Graham,
‘whose mother had boarded the plane at Denver eleven minutes before it
became (according to an eye-witness) ‘a haystack on fire in the sky’.
Dissolute and twenty-three, with a police record (forgery and bootlegging),
Graham had taken out a travel insurance orhis mother’s life and was the
beneficiary of her £50,000 estate. Graham eventually confessed; he had
constructed a time-bomb from fourteen pounds of dynamite and an alarm-
clock. fitment.. He was charged only with his mother’s killing. Millions
witnessed his trial, which was a television attraction. Although Graham
retracted his confession he was found guilty of first-degree murder, and
confessed again shortly before his execution by poison-gas in 1957.

‘GREEN BICYCLE” Murder, The

On the night of 5 July 1919 the body of 21-year-old Annie Bella Wright,
a rubber factory worker, was found lying in a pool of blood beside her
bicycle down a country lane near Stoughton, Leicestershire. It was thought
at first to be an accident, until a local.constable named Hall found a
bullet embedded in the roadway seventeen feet from where the body had
lain. The bullet fitted into a wound above the girl’s left cheek-bone, and

236

»

GREENLEASE

although there had been no sexual assault, it was now clearly a case of
murder.

Witnesses spoke of seeing Bella with a man on a green bicycle on the
night of the murder; she had ridden with him into the village of Gaulby
where her uncle lived and he had waited for her outside this relative’s
cottage. The uncle, upon his niece’s departure, heard the man say: ‘Bella,
you were a long time’, before they rode off together. Two Leicester
schoolgirls said they had been accosted by a man wheeling a green bicycle
on the day of the murder, but police investigations proved fruitless until,
on 23 February 1920, the towing rope of a barge on the Leicester Canal
dragged up the frame of a green bicycle. Further dredging brought up
a revolver holster containing live ammunition of the type that killed Bella
Wright. There had been unsuccessful attempts to file off all identification
marks on the machine, and if was traced to 34-year-old Ronald Vivien
Light, a Leicester man who had been invalided out of the army with
shell-shock and who now was emploved as mathematics master at Dean
Close School, Cheltenham. Eventually he admitted that the bicycle was
his and that he had casually met and spoken to Bella Wright on the evening
of 5 July: ‘. . . she asked me if I could lend her a spanner . . . we rode
on together down a steep hill. . . .’ Reading, days later, of the fate of his
chance acquaintance and the search for the man with the green bicycle
had made him panic and resolve to get rid of the bicycle and his old army
holster'and ammunition: *"

In the second week of June 1920, Light was tried at Leicester Castle
Courthouse for the murder of Bella Wright. Sir Gordon Hewart, M.p.,
then Attorney General, led for the Crown and Sir Edward Marshall Hall
was chief defence counsel. The evidence against Light, although over-
whelming, was circumstantial. Marshall Hall, in questioning the two
schoolgirls, noted that théir statements were not made until eight months
after the murder, and therefore, he submitted, unreliable; in questioning
Henry Clarke, gunsmith, he drew attention to the minute bullet hole
above the girl’s left cheek, implying that the bullet could have been fired,
Perhaps accidentally, from a distance.

Light impressed as a witness, repeating that his acquaintance with Bella
Wright was of the briefest type, and that until reading the Papers he had
not known her name; he said that Bella’s uncle had heard him say, ‘Hello,
you were a long time’. Light denied ever meeting the two schoolgirls.

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

GREENLEASE Kidnapping Case

On 28 September 1953, Bobby Greenlease, 6-year-old son of American
Millionaire Robert Greenlease, aged 71, was taken from his convent school

in Kansas City, Missouri, by a red-haired woman who told the nun in

237


EXECUTION or HAWKINS, ¥
ed

His Laet Hours—His Written Confesasion—
Hile Speech and ‘Prayer—The ‘Hanging~
Thé End. é a ,

The execution of Wuutim Henry Hawkins
for thé murder of Capt. 8, on the high seas, was
consummated ravterday of 1% o'clock. ' In Briday’s

last night of Mr. Hawains up to the hour of midnight,
and from that point following narrallve furnishes.
all happenings of public interest :
After writing 2 few letters to his friends io Rhode
Island, he went to his cell, with Rey. Mr. Gagnat, :

reading, praying and conversing. He then went to
bed and slept soundly till 4 o’clock in the morning,
when he walked the corridor for half an hour, and.
then again went to bed and to sleep. About 6%

+ fast, and sald that he must begin to prepare for the
final scene, Rev. Mr, Camp‘ and a colored clergyman
from Rhode Island, whose name escaped us, but who
Temained with him till the dat moment, went to his |
cell, and, after a few moments talk about matters
generally, suggested a redding of the Scriptures and
prayer. At this time Hawams was taken from the:
cell and Placed ia @ larger room connected with the
various “ wailing apartments” of the Tombs, where
he could receive his visitors. more comfortably.
There they held services suitable to the occasion,

Toward 10 o’clock a well-known and highly re-
spected Catholic clergyman called to see him, and
after some religious consolation said to him : “ Haw-

and for a long time engaged in religious exerclees—— |

o’clock he arose, dressed’ himeelf, ate s hearty break- |

issue we detalled the occurrences connected with the |

xine, I feel it my duty to say to you, that unless you .

| NY
yore. (y os | Ny

~—

are baptized you cannot expect to atlain the kingdom |
of} God.”. This started Ha argumentative
bump, and he replied: a How was it with the thief on

the cross? He was converted while being crucified,
sod Christ said ‘This day shalt thou be with me 1:
Paradise.’ * Do you think that thief was damned?
The answer of the Reverend Father is not given, pu,
the reply of Hiwxixe seemed mightily to please not

himse}f, butjall who were in the room withthem,

Lehn ate 9 PE PREP ARASIONS
for the execution were all made under the
‘tendence of United States Marshal Muaziry, who had,
in ‘nodition to the veteran Deputy Tuoxrsox, sixteen
Deputies on duty. The scaffold was the same one on
which Goznon tied, and every external circumstance
was the duplfcate of those attending that occasion.
Hundreds of people eppiied for admittance, but the
| Marshal very properly confined the number te those
demanded by law—the medical jury and the members
of the Press. Ia no way could aught have been bet-
Atnoon, Hawxtns sent for the representative of the
Truss, and stated that gucci sues 3
the

o ‘ °

FINAL INTERVIEW,
whiok were abopt fo take place. Entering the room.
we saw the prisoner standing bys table, dressed tn |
shirt, pants and shoes, im his month was s cigar, and
his band nr ‘one bible. Sitting before him were
five clergymen; Rev. Mr. Cay, Rev. My. Gaagnr, the
gentleman from Rhode Island, aad two strangers, one |
of whom stated that he was a’ converted Jew. With
the last Hawxise.was holding quite an argument,’ and
Bl. code ert sald was well enongh, it barbs hy
‘strange that any one, and particularly a

togt dheahd take such’ ‘an epportuaity.to obirade
"argue opinions, simply for the sake of saving some- |

| thing.
Presently he retired, and Mawarss, adicressing the

thé euperin- 1°

St OO OS

| writer, sald: “I have written these few lines for. you. |

which I hope you will print, ‘The spelling may not

- be all right, but the truth isin it. 1 would have writ’.
tem mere, but heve had te hear eo much fale that I
, nae notime. The following 5 is the"
LETTER ‘FROM ‘mawxine :
Nuw-Yonx, June 27, 1882.

. feel it my sincere duty to thank the iospectable .

and kind-hearted gentlemen and ladies of the City of
New-York, for the kipdness and sympathy that they
have so much shown toward me, This gives me.

ever

you emnliy

| say that I pwe good will to every ‘ pt dad
_ ome chemy. thas gives me much pain \te

sorry 10 oey that this ie my'youngeet cister. The

counselor, a Sr eerehs nent me kind good-

,, and the \Matron, Mrs.
nodie to mention; their kind-
has attended me from the: moment of my im-
ainent. I have asked nothing from: Mr. Nurres,:
assistant, Mr, Cuxxinemsm, that aed ped have hae

nae
iT Ae
re
ie

he ee xscm bave,.
one and all, treated me as if one of their own fami-
Hea, and I Rave nothing but good to think of them.
Marahal Muzaar would have .saved me if he could.
He was always kind, and I beliave he has fed me at
| his own e on certain luxuries, for I thought,

and so did he, that whoa a man has the affairs of life

soul to look after, it’s no time for him te ‘be troubled

about his body ; that should bave all di craves.

Now, a few words about the


<- s

“ More Great Southern Mysteries %

Terrified by the apparition, Hare ran straight toward the
nearest house, begging to be take: or the night. The last
thing he wanted to do was spend ai:..xer night alone in that
“whispering wilderness, full of strange spirits.”

Meanwhile, the cattle drover was hot on Hare’s trail.

Anxious to get his money back, he had hired a couple of |

ruffians to help him track down the highwayman. Soon they
came to the same farmhouse where Hare had taken refuge.
After sneaking into his bedroom, several men grabbed him,
handcuffed his hands behind him, then hauled him off to jail.

Incredibly, the ‘terror of the Trace’’—the man responsi-
ble for the death of hundreds of innocent human beings—
was tried, convicted and sent to a minimum security facility
for only five years!

It was not until after Hare’s release that Fate finally caught
up with the once-feared beast of the Natchez Trace. For
reasons that remain unclear, Hare went away to the East
Coast, and wound up on the gallows in Maryland. Nobody is
sure of the crime he committed there, but there is some
evidence to suggest he had held up a small mail coach.

Whatever the cause, Joseph Thompson Hare received the
death penalty. And ona cold, rainy afternoon, the man they
called the “terror of the Trace’ was blindfolded and led up a
steep scaffolding toward his own date with the devil.

44

@ — -

“= Notorious Deeds and Unnatural Acts %

Christians, Canniba:s,
and Columbus

In the early part of the sixteenth century, Spanish exp orers
returning from their conquests int) . New World told of
horrifying encounters with strange, man-like beasts lurking
in the pagan wilds of North America and among the remote,
sun-spl«shed islands of the Caribbean.

Some of these monsters were said to have faces like dogs,
and to have barked and growled at the Spanish intruders from
behind bushes. Others had a single eye in the center of their
foreheads and liked to slurp up the blood of comrades who
had fallen in battle. oR

One of the most popular tales circulating in the capitals of
Europ« at the time concerned a mysterious race of “‘fish-
men.’ These creatures supposedly had arms and legs, and
looked like normal men in every way except one—they had
long scaly tails and had to “dig little holes in the ground
whenever they sat down.”

Sometimes these “fish men” were linked to another
bizarre tale—that of the “hunting fish.” According to some
observers, Indians in southern waters were in the habit of
leashing these fish to the sides of their canoes, then releasing
them to capture other fish!

The story that raised the most eyebrows dealt with an
unfortunate tribe of primitives known to history as the
Caribs. According to Christopher Columbus and other early
voyagers, the Caribs were cannibals. Even worse, they were a

45

“ More Great Southern Mysteries

climb aboard. They were going home, back to England. After _

three years of brutal and courageous effort, the Jamestown

colonists were going to give up. Raleigh’s first colony had ©

ended in disaster; so, too, had Jamestown.

Before the ships could set sail, however, a “strange
breeze’’ held them fast—as if some outside power were hold-
ing them back, preventing their escape. Finally, the sails
caught wind and the two tiny ships with their frail and half-
starved cargo of passengers lurched downriver toward the
open sea. eu

As fate would have it, the governor of Virginia, Lord De La

Warr, intercepted the ships moments before they cleared the .

sound. Instead of allowing them to leave, De La Warr ordered
them to return to Jamestown. No one was abandoning the
colony as long as he was in command! It appeared that the
New World was not destined to die after all.

Tinancac faenina Wad Wel henlen nenmises and increas-

ingly aggressive Indian attacks would continue to plague the ~

tiny settlement in the coming years. Of the fourteen thou-
sand colonists who had set out to make Jamestown their
home by the year 1622, thirtecn thousand had died.

No war or plague in history had ever taken a higher
percentage of lives than were lost during the infamous “‘starv-
ing time’ in the fated Virginia colony.

.

“= Notorious Deeds and Unnatural Acts *

Terror on the Natchez Trace

His name was Joseph Thompson Hare, his age «known. No

one knows where he came from, nor does anyone really

know why he was hanged one dreary morning in the autumn
of 1818.

Today, Hare’s mortal remains rest in a lonely graveyard in
Maryland, more than a thousand miles from Natchez, Missis-
VAR pA, VV AAD Ee AYE 444 ed C44HAE HH UOC MUL 1410 LAALALIL Wad ULI UL LiL
most despised and feared along the raw frontier.

In those days—long before brightly colored steamboats |
chugged up and down the winding Mississippi on their way
to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico—Hare was knownas _ .
one « the most notorious outlaw-bandits operating along
the infamous Natchez Trace. Before his wave of terror came
to an end, this blow thirsty villain who claimed to be a mystic
with visionary powers blazed a trail of carnage up and down
the historic path linking colonial Nashville with Natchez.

By his own admission, hundreds of innocent travelers
had met their fate at the end of Hare’s long, gleaming sword,
their bones left to the buzzards and alligators along the silent,
shadow-haunted Trace. The truth is, nobody will ever know
just how many people Hare robbed and murdered and muti-
lated before his unlikely capture about 1810.

Hare, who wore fine clothes and consi. red himself a
gentleman, attributed his remarkable success as a bandit to
the spirit world. Handsome and strong, he believed “‘mysti-
cal forces” had guided him throughout his career as a
highwayman—forces that convinced him he was a modern-

41


«= &

. % More Great Southern Mysteries =

day horseman of the Apocalypse.

While some contemporaries saw him as weird and fantas-
tically religious, others believed he was Satan, sent to punish
a wicked world. The cold, cruel manner in which Hare dealt
with most of his hapless victims convinced law enforcement
officials throughout the moss-choked bayous he was nothing
more than a savage rogue, a blood-lusting butcher without a
soul. ;

Hare’s devilish reputation became his trademark. One of
his favorite tactics was to hide in the bushes along the trail,
then spring out whenever an unarmed stranger approached,
shouting that he was the devil himself ready to drag the
victim down to hell unless he turned over all his money and
valuables at once. The highwayman’s shameless bravura
apparently worked well. Terrified travelers rarely hesitated to
fork over their goods; those who held back were quickly
disnatched bv flashing sword or crackling gunfire. Legend
has it that most of his victims—even those who cooperated—
met similar fates.

On one occasion alone he reportedly took about $10,000
in gold and currency from a group of pilgrims, terrified that
“the devil” was going to snatch their souls any second.

Hare’s greedy exploits were, understandably, the talk of
the Trace. In many ways he became the model romantic

highwayman—handsome, dashing and certainly daring—as |

he galloped down the trail on horseback, cape flowing and
sword flashing. He was well-read, and those who knew him
swore there was a side to the man “‘so soft and sentimental, as
to be almost woman-like.”’

From Nashville to Natchez, and on southward to New
Orleans, the conversation at roadside inns, taverns, brothels,
and churches centered on this marauding mystic, whom
many feared more than the wild Indians, bears, alligators, and
ghosts said to haunt lonely regions along the Trace. In some
frontier quarters he was regarded as a folk hero, a modern-
day Robin Hood who often robbed from the rich to give to
the poor. Others saw him as the dangerous fiend that he
was—a savage killer who would just as soon run his sword

+ *

"= Notorious Deeds and Unnatural Acts &

through a woman’s heart as a man’s. |

For generations now, Hare’s capture and subsequent sen-
tence has been regarded as one of the Deep South’s most
troublesome mysteries. How was it, for example, that this
murderous rogue, who fancied himself a psychic, mystic,
ladies’ man, and dandy, got off with only a five-year prison
sentence? While chicken thieves and pickpockets were sent
to. the gallows elsewhere, Hare always managed to stay clear
of the hangman’s noose. Did he, as some of the old stories
suggest, use spiritual forces to influence law enforcement
officials? Or was it plain luck?

Even more astonishing was the manner in which he was
finally apprehended.

Late one afternoon, while dozing in a cave, Hare was
awakened by the tell-tale clatter of a traveler coming up the
Trace. Grabbing his gun and sword, the outlaw sprang into
tha rlaneing ANA annnwintared 4 Wn eidar A Anta AeAvra-
apparently heading back up to Nashville. With his pistol
cocked and ready, Hare demanded the man’s money—all of
it—which the stranger happily handed over, begging that his
life be spared.

For once in his life, Hare took pity on a victim. Perhaps it
had something to do with the drover’s own shady back-
ground. When Hare heard that the fellow was a profiteer
himself, the bandit roared with uncustomary laughter and
allowed his comrade-in-crime to go on his way unharmed.

As it turned out, that was Hare’s biggest mistake.

Later, while making his getaway, Hare came across a
strange white horse standing in the middle of the Trace. Hare
described it as a “beautiful white horse, as white as snow: his
ears stood straight forward and his figure was very striking.”

But when the bandit approached the curious animal that
seemed to shimmer in the misty gloom, it vanished right
before his eyes. ““When I got within six feet of him, he
disappeared in an instant, which made me very uneasy.” To
his dying day, Hare swore that what he had seen was a spirit, a
warning that he should mend his ways and repent unless he
wanted to spend eternity roasting in the Lake of Fire.

43,


ss

‘Rentantotthe Culprit at the |
Reptcecermary Nerve and Mesifuntiog}
vas : ent eran |

teeny fertivnde and <resignatica, and when ‘ab]
she scold made 4 very neat epeech, in which he
Mareen jeatity hitaatte.. Babsemventty be indulged ia)
_ autores of praing t Preniittat Tscecin ‘and the, ariey

.
Macther al tae aye ul pix years, abd spent tuirteer and a

en ae OR ee Mee eee an ee ee bi

@wo thousand tuns. [have no ovcasjun ty speak of my

Dwa born it) Sth Kingston, R. I., in 1828, 1 left my

deaif yearn at taricing. In this time ] apeut eieven and 4.
halt years will ong man. I tuem commenced guing +.
@en and cooking part of the time in botels, evuk-aters
@ndsieansbuais. During Unis time 1 have been in neis'y
@very port o; the American coast, and ina nuwber of

ports, nud tn vesecia from seventy -#ix tols up io

Sere dnriug ths time, but] may way tbat lbave bud
Bother then sume and worse than vthers, but J: shared an |
everage with iaburing men. [ would ssy a word in be-

Dall.ersheceamen. it ts two bad, Bowever, that | must

' @peek principally of American sips. It is a positive

fact that many captamsare very tvrannews with thar

| mem - Tagg ovmmance Une Ul trestiment 2s scon as they


the THRE Paxramatroms, tSt—=~SS
, wore. wnced st an early hour

peas w
Praskiiu anc Contre streets~eluar “ofall Obstrastion: : ‘Ddetleve me, pervape, and if} ton seamed that I did, there
Sergeant.

OURgZ, Were atso
= wee ar Ring ¥ 9 quettecn. | bold 0 malice

etait

f
EF
i
i

3
F
fi:
FE
H
i
2

i
i
F

ee
[

aT
ee
i
rte
eree :
He

z
E

i

ite
i

i

RY
aay

eee
HE

| oe ported
the heart, but ex-
Of ‘animation wouid |
_ ansined the corges again they pronounced life to be
Ozbiuet. “However, the boty was deft. suspended for Sf.
teen minutes ‘afterwards; so as to gudrd against any
accident. At threo quartern ‘past ove o'cicek the Body
i: wad ont down and placed in a coffin, when the usna!l form

OF nena! Spam the remains was gone through


there
mers assertion; $0

{ bold 30 malice

for: me to go now thea
ted tates Marshal

se

1d say that I feel that! am |
hope aad trust mect you |

far better

I
t

Washingtcn, and doses his. work

.deeyond my
q

cand if I Qomfeamed that I did

wou,

%

them turndd te the Uni

ed
le is the
arts

or Udrty yerrs hesee when [ might be |

galvetion, |

oowks
i
a
The dviprit them

a

perkape

LT did not will Canta 44ams you world not
bo witeenoes

yu
me,
Be
re)
a Wa PRave yor Tae Om08.

and it may de

5g

£5ta

- In:

1ehink,

, Abraham

of me, 'T Delie
best for the

ainat any

af

+ y
ma

here

and his

would

TEE en ee treed artis SRANTepCasayee 4

i bhtae al A |

alin iLD aiid ll GH)
dineiitiriag eval alae eabscad
Ten rH Re

Hu Te | Vagat ie! jai unEE

aH recruit a ete bli i
HHI CRHU A WRG HUT!

ro’

pale a [ "3

rat Toe
i oF | j : ath 3 nu i be + :
ie Ful | i :

a ee

vo
2
3 4

arrived at
building,
the Sixth

Seats
Pei Jowling, Of t
Ot the entrance uf

Ss

THE PROCESSION, ©

woul ne? tes deed” no: Would believe me, | wy then formed follows: 3 em
pet Ae in te same oni and aticaid Marsha Murray 4 € Deputy-Marshal "Phompena. _
: ie Yee they Woud a) Believe: me, Rev, Mr, Garnd—HnwhinesRer: Mee eS
Bis aL Sea eit bal ay ea wave, ha Depatoe Bensice Boni
é ; : Pal, or e ce— ra u _
Om, believe. fePends on what 1 1 wee wheiner” rican Seatac ae

ent: SPORE mat, would be trieg: Or thas crime 7 peed. and others to. whom he bowed fi tell,”
- am he was-net, 1 AP ay toda: napetpeaition lh
te epeuaer ou dad ous caren | bribe anda sae conse, et Me Ben

t t ‘ . ; iivet a

teeter
‘command of Capt. Hkrwarp und Lieuts. Pascun aad
MoKaam, Within that square were div.

people, of. 1% es, . medical jury, Be,
Topamax, ra. Janae R. Woop, Kiuaane. Me 20d and
Acutson; and .a few others ; while under the beam,
witn the Roose about bis neck. sat Hawirs,

red bd srehal het heel ane Deputy. rehaal
fon, Ia fall tegniation dniforra. Ste aars. ¢

_ The Marshal, in 3 most solemn and - impressive
manner,readtohim. ss asa :

MOTE, ew Bua
THE DEATH WARRANT,

“every word of which was heard throughout the yard,
#0 pe was the andience.

ARSHAL Have you anything to Sav, Hawgztns?
whi awks0 *iSdepuppose I have. You wii!
! inke (fave allow (3 unit Trp a,
: ¥ that I have ait furthiin Chet nt. tom o which the M; TEDK! @uye Ase
St post Deeded:of all things. This tg ‘Hawarns theh téde, and tn a lood clear voice made
that know it; Eu and pleasant te those ,
Ne urine of Jeno. ae to meat MADY of vou te 4 DYING sprxcn — rt
e morrow I ieate you font eerie which Occupied perhaps ten minutes, the suostance
bless you and a00d bye,“ . Whi "ne earth, Gog of which, however, is already given in the Tims,
After readin these leite, 7A. HAWKING. partially in the leter which was published on Priday
but H pe CHers, NO person being Preseng morning, ana also in the letter which we sive below,
Aw&ins, the Clergymen, the twe Deputy After that, Rev, Mr. Garnary prayed fervently in be-
_Shals and the Writer, the ‘door was lock ete. | half of tne Prisoner, whio atked the Marshal if he
KINS proposed =. ed and Hay. | might pray also. Consent was given, and Hawk;
4 RELIGIO oe me , ‘ina volén indicative of pe ect seif-possession, offere
Rising he ¢ US SERVICKg. ~ < & praver which was almo identical in longuage, and
ng het the Testament, onen @ $2 at ts can. | thorouahly 60 in idea, with '¢ one which he maie ip
chapter of the Gospel of 8 J “tells at the ten | the room. i aaa
calm and eeep-toned wits ine pent read tn a clear, This done oil was ready, oe
Saviour. From time 1 Une. ag well Words Of the Tho Marsha! bade him farewell, first ‘prom! to

PASSASES peculiarty | Send a quarter and some other property to his c

mented upon them. & oe » he re-read om | tn Rhode Toland: then pee behind ine tere
Le ‘ | e a ct) ®xecutl oner oO

while Hawxins led is et sican : Biiaie me Prevent kneeled Isaace pulled the cap over the prisoner's face, on

HER Siceetaten arti tenerny Tak Shp atts ay ae
Koioea na ahaa Mears, ite phe tw hugord andere oi
iS ditner,as ceo ly j s al} + Kaytee ts
pravey 22 CoMposedy as a New-Enrlant devconthy A dull bound rdeand we bode te OCPpere, 1s ot
OF every thi Po crerybodge puinuics, He pr Baa. me a r ‘ Soc IN ah am : ;
night be reésiah) +, for the ruleta that they minis . Hawarms ; died easily. {Though museular, -full.
wetainod, guided aad p, otected ; for ihe a) '

; Nope ; ' blooded and Well develo he made bet little mo.
os Ste ¢ for biinself, ‘tha as he leh this:life he i ipa. Hei was hanged pee pulsation censed at
He be mretigthened aS he entered the Other <. 1:23, Itfo was extinct at 1:33, and the lifeless corse was
“with Cinigtt be -recetved, pardoned ond madé heppy = cut dowp at 1:47.: "The neck was hot. broken. The

“4 as is in ~. eet a ® friends of Hawxima, who will
Bach ta bis turn thé ree clés age body was given to the nds of '
m™ ge take itto Rhode Island...
Eta mao uch Hareasappected toned ee

and dreeseuttonee Sitered the room about j 'eloch ;
of blue trowsers arg’ 18 & Course cott ‘pate
sD Ue trowsers and - , L ne Lage i
bel of which was a white ene?
Over the Co'lar of which it 4 ec hor, and ‘ ;
i fironn ethos Foca :
5 jen cane bis tag coe wg top of his head, and ; !
of the | areba od the co ¢ Coming . '
» SUTfom here. } i
Ho & Aumber of the To ty Dr.


Tlawhive then? stepd Alp and dellverod an address to the
spectatots. | He Hegdn WY exproseing Lin grace, ide to al! the
officers of the pri orj to tbe Miars}ink ina particn lar, who bad

rT provided every comfdrt # ir him which be, gou'd desire under
EXEcuTIO, OF WM, fT. HA WEINS, AT! phe circumvlances: Net heu uliuded to the psition io which
' bane 4 THE TOMBS, i was placed it wie nt result of thet evil w hich had grown
batt} f pe to terrible qnitadey ato the American merchant naval
Atan oarly hi tine Fr jeertice, No on iw i treated with grouter crueliy than
on Friday motning, Crowds of American ssamep. The fy wae uo redrees for their wrongs,

{They might resort 8 * Consuls in, foreign porte’
‘for aid, but these Consul rh ways sided with: the Captains, and:
the much abused sailor, iiptead of receiving belp, was either:
ordered to prisos or ‘Ppt rt iromaand trouted with wone en
Barbario treatment, | ( THe ‘stories which might be tol

persons beyun 5 Congregate about the City Prison
attracted by th¢ 1 logal tragedy soon to be enacted
| Within its wale, At 9 o'clock, @ ‘squad of
‘marines, in fominand of Capt. ‘Haywood, arrived

at the rison.) Tek et-

the ni in hick et holders, began to poor in about of the experience «of po ul sallore cotild never be presented.
i¢, her ¥ person exceedingly anxious to ao, as to traly depict! a ‘awful truth of the sufforings they :

ascertain how tha} are. compelled. to endiite. Under these circumstances, |

Roomed man had behaved Puring his last

, Men, are, @riven ito: extreaes—good . aaflore will

during the nigh Ks T o'clock he was fr
to the reception rodie of the ptlaon, w!
mainder. of his t{) ri

tly: ast i walked out ¢

oved from hix gel!
rd ho apent the ro
0 the gullows, -Ip the

from the President vaaul
done right in not, taking a 1
terfering ‘to any extent,!

Ze thought the President hed
# notice of bie dese, for by bie in-
i it. Intoreste, estonia the welfare

night on eart]
Upoh esting rk Bate ree om ntcageadiney not stand it if they ¢ th any way pr mode of
ctters. After (bis, xey Cunha any way procure a

se Ne COnve h With the Rev, Mr, Gamet, e oF redrasa, ‘It is far th: eng re iw ne that it {sso hard to © get Crowe
i wil : rea F the night and slept soundly t11 4 o'clock | for.gu ps mericat, oki pa, te reference to bis own » he cald
witta's ‘4 Fup, drexeod himeel!, and proceeded to: od hot go into Net pit he ne ge = those last moments
ite some letta a ihe eapectally to bis sister; He them took pare ‘that ceed ht )he ww net be

| 8 hearty breaks a oked a cigar, and entered tn td bel s yet, before As any sy eriah would have believed
ton with the D H Msrateta whio s she Clsa- bin if be had mecha af id that be did it.) Hebad no footing:
Were In ohargo of hitn of malloe toward Houneoted in maby way with Lis ces

coure ntite
Redan Guha a & lie won virited by Fathor Duronqnes, « ‘ef the country, nigh} ha re wilvted. He cousidere that
The Rev: fia nl Hit who ye Tombs’ prisoners Reverully, President Lincoln’ hed mot ito do—a greater work to
ing iu: reference) to! ; Rete tite oo ea with Hawk- than any President sinop' Y ilnyloa die vHe sald be was
that, in order to beck al vatlon Of bis eenl. He tnsfeted Prepared te ge! now. ae jibe: wae to walt ten or eens
falth ofthe Churdb, fy pice be ‘must be baptized in the years longer, -pértinpai fh might be at the expense
‘pothing but the f fof thous v out: thie-he must e@. ca ‘his, souls. wplvation—j po might bp utteriy lost. He.
‘have donned ered si © know not God, and wha Biacght Abel © ; ugh | 4 bist, bad forgiven. all his, sina,
stions with | . pation babi Mawkine Hatened te tis although eats ‘mote te Imerout than. be could naing or
ha reptiod: kh ow sie eras the clergyman had  Femember, «He: ‘concl if ‘bia address by saying: oo |
f well for you tot ig n 4 tis ep youjeay may be all very'| sem meet you all w ore Fibers shill be'no niore sorrow.
your we eeu a, and fir others. te Bellevd who are of baer prreubling: and the weary are at
tts Ning oe ged H — plate e0 nnch implicit Ah ty Be mals: 4
{ Pot me, ‘1. mtut colt ak mortals like onnelve Mths Rae. Mr. C q fered | en appropriate prayer, ab
| Power than that of rill, wi], my! falth te placed in a lofiier the conclusion of whlok Hd kins ‘eaill to Marshal bare
feelf; a die. Sok bad Br wheats nyertal end sinful Ithe my- f Can I now offer prayer ” at pea ie
Mori of toy sont, ¥ honithn berthat i eee an oF the mlva. |, Upon betyg tpld that be “@itd, be ‘proceeded, prefzieg bhi
to Christ wab amatccil hy to Mt he thief on the arors next’ potitiod aia t the Lord's: 5 vbr. ., He prayed, fervently fore
| would be witli ty a | a inv Lite dying. hour thet he wele entrance foto glory ef hifihitherto guilty soul. Hy offered
‘tution euch us ¢f bat ‘phim peat aid not make any in. ‘an earnest petition io ‘dels of ie country, the armies and
being fuifliled.: 1 big As th . be tion of the promise, ptheit officers, now eng 4 conflict for the Union..
hivs ever fatlea $j id treed es © Savior whore Prowileds also préyed! for : ‘the’. aleve af the slave's muster—thet the
Moving that in Aim: Oe Mhivation us thelr faith ty ape: be- former might be given "ab gcon, and that God weld opeu
““Hawhte sppeured h be quite fa the eyes of the lstterto see th error and fnjustice of lite coa-
ment, nt, and farmed 5G Fith a facility a wie the New Teigi| ‘duct to his fellow-man, san He pred eepeoidily for al) his rela
‘were i thé room ; ou yell rf t¥ wlitch astonished all Iwho [tiveg yet out af the ark of salty, und his dear sister who had
the decideil  advani Se te ety did be quote ns: ty’have parted wlili hiss forthe age ty in the prison oall.. :
y otintinate.” heviced ; farix hihi es ¥ i, who, Sndtig bin, He) then’ shook hands wit it he Marshal) the. Bord
Mr, Drbper visited phat Piven fate, “At oe heur, | groat ded Camp, and othare Who had hia: fn ebuigeleneaen re-
between him.and the Be sate $e Ps : pest “Amid the shakiig da he shouted, | in an ep
: 9 . She ” aM °F
harepeatien The ptt ond elequna of éfhoers tr the eran tl Me om AE long che olg-

But Trectnet Pook,

Jon. its oabe of eee

igtapen = procisery

teception-roons| t Me galiows,: Uikited States Marebal

£ he solemn 3 aun seeed from

a: waa. giver, the: gone
! Hint done in ld if

A few covulal cris
than 'a raikae ene ithe 'w: ile t fell. - ‘The body, howover,

wee suspended for about twenty i dl eninotes, + eee
Ie was cnt, down: at about qh i ter before 2 o'clock: jist
Coroner Gouin: then hgld tk i

Murrey. and D
Bunt fciboired peraty | Bisitea States’ M rehal The) mpson in the: Jur; setvimed a verdict sth ‘by strangulaifon.: The
Mr. Garnet the “Rey i fel hie spiritual advisers, the Rey.: body ) .#then baided over hs (riends for decent burial
Marshals. oy Meat Camp, — * number *« Deputy: |Marsha) Murray'and the Ie “i iMr, Garvet Gndertook the re-
The dove: xs kn ie ipovatbility.and the exper Pibe. funeral.: . The body was
Slates. st | Heat vadst ine Peded: while Vilted ‘taken’ ener and wilt be auf ‘tall reed tu the + ‘Cithtenw. Union:
Wartant, X a y a tone, read. hy death } Wenistery, © : ae ;
:. Bubs venitly re hii rent nie Rta whins was) uslprovided for by
Marka) Murrey, at bis own je ox pee, aa the. United States

Government. doas not : i
dermned, Prisoners, eee tg ae |

1
q ee ; ~ rt * - {
: ;

4

‘on ‘foil, pnd ths Beet

ees

lid] ie ak orer. F Death ‘tesa in ;

juest in the paul: ic 1H, when,

yenire, provision for ‘cou-|

y