The Death of an Heir

by Philip Jett

  “It was close to three weeks.”

  “During this three-week period that the newspaper ad was in the paper, what did you do?”

  Mary hesitated and cleared her throat. “I waited for the telephone to ring. That’s all I waited for,” she said softly.

  “How many phone calls did you receive during this period?”

  “Well, we told all of our friends not to call because we wanted to keep the line open. I would say during the three-week period that we had a few calls that were not…” Mary’s memory flashed to all the crank calls, the extortionists, and the nosy people. “Just people interfering. I would say probably three or four a day. But we never got the one we were waiting for.”

  At this point, Mary believed she could no longer hold back the tears. She’d read the questions and talked to the corporate lawyer about the answers, and she’d testified three days earlier, but something about saying the answers out loud before people in the court this day caused her stomach and head to ache. She thought she’d break into tears any moment or, worse, vomit. Just as quickly, she remembered her promise to herself: Don’t give them the satisfaction. They won’t get their money’s worth today.

  Mary heard the assistant district attorney’s voice again.

  “Mrs. Coors? Do you need a break?”

  “No. Sorry. I’m fine. Please continue.”

  “Okay. On what times of the day would these calls come in?”

  “Any time, at night sometimes, in the middle of the night.”

  “Did you always answer the phone?”

  “I answered the phone every time that I was awake, and if I was asleep and anybody asked for me, I was brought to the telephone.”

  “During this three-week waiting period, did any other events occur?”

  “Well, I can remember the snow very well. It began to snow hard and steadily, and that again gave us a little hope that possibly whoever had taken Ad was not able to contact us. And it gave us hope, and yet again, it was bad because we knew that he had been hurt and possibly he was somewhere where he could not get medical attention. I just remember snow and wind and very bad roads. There were days when we couldn’t get out of the house at all.”

  “You couldn’t see your children on these days you couldn’t get out of the house?”

  “No, we lived on a hill. The road is very difficult to go down. And without a snowplow, we couldn’t.”

  “Did you observe anyone in the vicinity of your home during this waiting period?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “During this three-week waiting period, did you receive any indications of any nature that your husband was still alive?”

  “No.”

  “Is your phone number listed in the phone book?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same number that appears in the ransom note?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you conclude that three weeks of waiting was a sufficient period of time?”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Erickson said as he stood.

  “The objection is good.”

  “Mrs. Coors, when was the last time you saw your husband alive?”

  “The morning of February 9, 1960.”

  Some people in the courtroom shook their heads. “We all felt sorry for her,” said one juror after the trial.

  * * *

  There may have been some who also felt sorry for Corbett’s father, though no one saw him in the courtroom. Before and during the trial, Joe Corbett Sr. and his wife, Helen, stayed away, at the request of their defendant son. He’d written them occasional letters after his arrest and during the trial, such as when he wrote, “The trial is going well as can be expected … Messrs. Mackay and Erickson, both keen-minded and experienced, are handling things very capably.… I wouldn’t become unduly optimistic, since the odds against us are tremendous.”

  Still, his father never visited. It was difficult for Mr. Corbett. The sins of the son aren’t necessarily visited upon the father, but in this case, many considered the father must have borne some blame. Perhaps his son’s waywardness was due to the father’s drinking, his selfishness, or his four wives.

  The Seattle Times and the newspaper for which Mr. Corbett worked, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, printed articles about his son continually for a year—the FBI search, the capture, and now the trial. Mr. Corbett’s boss, coworkers, neighbors, and friends read all about his son as the suspected killer of Adolph Coors III and his murder conviction in California a decade earlier almost to the day, on March 16, 1951.

  The last time Mr. Corbett saw his son was at the Vancouver jail, and it appears that it may have been the last time he’d ever see him. Mr. Corbett wouldn’t attend the trial and wouldn’t be present for the verdict. He’d never visit his son at another jail or prison or, in all likelihood, at his home or workplace. It’s not clear if that was by instruction from his son or if he’d simply had enough.

  Mr. Corbett’s obituary in The Seattle Times on February 3, 1980 (six days shy of the twentieth anniversary of Ad Coors’s murder), may have stated it best:

  Joseph CORBETT 84. Beloved husband to Helen M. Corbett. Father of Walter Corbett, of Downers Grove, Ill. Two cousins: Maurice Corbett, Victoria, B.C. and Gwen Moors, of Transcoma, Manitoba, Canada. Prior to his retirement in 1963, he served as the Wire News Editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. At his request, there will be no services.

  Mr. Corbett’s son, the first Joseph R. Corbett Jr., died at the age of six in 1927 when he was hit in the street by a passing car. Based on the obituary, it seems the second Joseph R. Corbett Jr., his only living biological son (Walter was a stepson), died at the Coors murder trial in Jefferson County in 1960 at the age of thirty-two.

  * * *

  On the last day of the trial, the final prosecution witnesses called by District Attorney Hardesty were FBI agents who recounted Joe Corbett’s surrender and arrest in Vancouver. Hardesty concluded the prosecution’s presentation of evidence after five weekdays and two half Saturdays, plus an hour and twenty-five minutes on that Monday. It was 9:55 a.m., March 27, 1961.

  More than 150 spectators crowded the courtroom pews dressed in their best Sunday clothes, expecting to hear Joe Corbett’s side of the story. Another forty stood in the hallway, hoping to grab a seat abandoned by a tired onlooker.

  The defense lawyers’ backs were against the wall. They were embroiled in a legal battle with terribly damning facts. Their client had been convicted and imprisoned in California for murder, escaped from prison and lived in Denver using an alias, and behaved suspiciously before and after Ad Coors’s disappearance, including fleeing Denver the morning after, burning his car, and hiding out in Canada for months. He offered, “I’m your man,” upon arrest.

  He had said very little to defense attorneys other than deny his guilt without any facts to support his innocence. That’s why defense attorneys had relied principally on procedural attacks before and during the trial. Most of their motions had been denied. They also had not been granted access to most of the state’s witnesses or evidence, including the copious FBI report that assembled and analyzed the evidence gathered by the agency. The defense was left with attacking only the evidence presented by the prosecution. Evidence mentioned in the newspapers and read by jurors before the trial, but not presented by the prosecution, could not be addressed by defense attorneys, regardless of biases the news reports may have created in the jurors’ minds.

  Burdened with these handicaps, Bill Erickson stood to present the defense’s case and asked the judge permission to make a motion outside the presence of the jury. The judge dismissed the jurors to the jury room.

  “Your Honor, the prosecution has not presented any evidence that the defendant murdered Adolph Coors III. The State has failed to show that a death even occurred in Jefferson County, and therefore this court is without jurisdiction. No evidence was presented to show the blood retrieved on Turkey Creek Bridge belonged to Adolph Coors III. And there is no evidence t
o show the defendant was connected with the cause of death or the murder of Adolph Coors III.… Therefore, I move that the defendant is entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal.” Erickson had unsuccessfully made the same motion following the prosecution’s opening statement at the beginning of the trial. This time, the defense hoped for a different outcome. It would be Erickson’s last procedural attack before closing arguments.

  “The prosecution’s evidence establishes that Adolph Coors III met his death either by accidental means or by criminal agency not connected with the defendant,” explained Erickson, trying to support his motion with his version of the prosecution’s evidence. “There is only some evidence circumstantial in character relating to the crime of kidnapping, which is not a crime before the court. There has been some evidence which might show that Adolph Coors III at some time suffered some type of a wound in the shoulder. It has not been established that these holes were caused by any type of missile. There is no evidence whatsoever that the defendant was at the scene of the crime. There’s nothing that would even establish Mr. Coors’s death at Turkey Creek Bridge. The prosecution has blood spots on the bridge, but it hasn’t been shown to be the blood of Adolph Coors III.

  “But even if the prosecution has proven the corpus delicti by circumstantial evidence, they must show that the defendant was the criminal agency that caused the death. Now, what evidence do we have that would connect Joseph Corbett Jr. with the crime charged? There is evidence that he was seen in the vicinity of Turkey Creek Bridge on December 9, 1959, by the Paces.… There was a 1951 Mercury seen by Massey and Cable prior to February 9, 1960. There was the departure of Corbett from Denver on February 10, and the discovery of his automobile on the dump at Atlantic City on February 17. There was a purchase of a K-32 in 1957 and apparently the purchase of a 9 mm Llama from Stoger’s Sporting Goods some two years before this. Neither gun has been shown to be connected with the crime charged.

  “The soil samples showed the defendant’s car to have been at the town of Louviers, Colorado, which is at least fifteen miles from the dump and probably an equal distance from Turkey Creek Bridge. And there are unidentified tire tracks.

  “We feel, Your Honor, that the evidence is indeed thin. Therefore, it is the duty of this court to direct a verdict in favor of the defendant.”

  The judge wasted no time in responding. “Let’s hear from the people. The motion is denied.”

  “Then, if the court pleases, the defendant stands on his motion and rests.”

  Noises rose from the gallery as though Erickson had just committed a crime himself. Sounds of surprise, disappointment, and annoyance resonated throughout the courtroom. How dare the defense lawyer rob those in the gallery of their judicial floor show? They’d expected another week of testimony, at least.

  “We believe the State has failed to establish any element upon which to obtain a conviction,” Erickson explained later to Denver Post reporters. “We decided to rely entirely on closing arguments to try to convince jurors that District Attorney Ronald Hardesty failed to connect Joe Corbett in any way with Mr. Coors’s kidnapping and murder on February 9, 1960.”

  Hardesty viewed it differently. When asked why the defense rested without presenting any evidence to rebut the prosecution’s case, the district attorney replied, “Because they didn’t have any evidence.”

  CHAPTER 23

  All that remained were closing arguments, mere biased summations of the weeklong court battle. The commotion in the courtroom quieted as the judge instructed the prosecution to begin. Suffering from a cold, Hardesty asked the assistant prosecutor to make the closing argument.

  Assistant District Attorney Richard Hite, known to friends and the legal community as Dick, a prominent horse owner who’d been appointed by the governor to the Colorado Racing Commission and who would be killed six years later in a car crash, was a tall, thin, distinguished-looking statesman in his fifties, with graying sideburns and a pencil mustache. His presentation sometimes resembled that of a Shakespearean actor, with an excessive touch of melodrama.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” began Hite, nodding to the jurors. “You have listened to the evidence. You are about to embark upon the second part of your important duty—namely, to deliberate on that evidence. But first, Mr. Hardesty and I are very appreciative of the fine manner in which you have served as jurors. And now it is our privilege to draw inferences from the evidence and urge upon you that those inferences are logical and correct.”

  Hite walked around the lectern to stand directly in front of the jury. The jurors sat more erect and looked directly at Mr. Hite.

  “Let me set the scene, if I may,” he said as if he were about to tell a chilling tale around a campfire. “We see an apartment house at 1435 Pearl Street in Denver and in apartment 305 lives a man known as Walter Osborne. We see later that this man worked at Benjamin Moore & Co. and made the acquaintance of two coworkers, David Reigel and Arthur Brynaert. Both coworkers testified that by 1957, this man commenced designing something big; I believe they described it as a ‘big score of a few hundred thousand to a million.’ They also revealed that the man known to them as Walter Osborne was forced to revise his hedonistic plan in the summer of 1958, which just so happens to coincide with when Adolph and Mary Coors relocated from Denver to their ranch in Morrison.…

  “But this man was determined. He continued making preparations for that big score. Mr. Smith of Daking Sporting Goods in Maine testified that on June 8, 1957, Corbett ordered a K-32 Smith & Wesson Combat Masterpiece under the name Walter Osborne and arranged for its delivery to him at #305, Perlmor Apartments.…

  “Then on February 24, 1959, this man purchased four pairs of leg irons from a US Navy surplus mail order company, according to the testimony of Daniel Beisher, the proprietor of Kline’s Prince Enterprises. Two months later”—Hite paused to study his notes before continuing—“on April 25, 1959, he purchased four pairs of handcuffs from Big Three Enterprises Inc. in New York and sinisterly signed the mail order receipt, ‘Walter Osborne.’ Byron Rowland testified to that.”

  The assistant DA walked across the room and stopped in front of the defense table. “Now, the defense wants you to believe the defendant is just a hunter. I ask you, what does he do, take his game prisoner?”

  Laughs scattered about the room, including a chuckle from one of the jurors. Judge Stoner banged his gavel. Hite continued.

  “To carry out his insidious plan for that all-important big score, this man needed an instrument of extortion, a typewriter. But he’s an intelligent man. He already possessed a typewriter but knew his old correspondence could be compared with the ransom note and then the jig would be up, wouldn’t it?” Hite asked as he looked at Corbett and then the jury. “So what did he do? He skulked out on October 8, 1959, and purchased a new one, a Royalite portable typewriter from the May-D&F store. Jerry Davis accurately testified that this man bought the typewriter from the store in Denver for cash rather than on a change account like other buyers. He recognized him despite this man giving him one of his many aliases, the name—excuse me for a moment while I check the exact name, he used so many—”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Inflammatory, prejudicial.”

  “The objection is good,” said the judge, who rarely used the courtroom terminology sustained or overruled.

  “Here’s the alias he gave: William Chiffins.”

  The assistant district attorney walked toward the jury again, raising his hands chest high. “Now, this is important, ladies and gentleman. This typewriter is like a fingerprint because it was a new-model typewriter. According to FBI agent Elvin Barton, in all probability the ransom note was typed on that Royalite typewriter. Other buyers were investigated. They cooperated with the FBI and agreed to hand over their typewriters to the FBI for comparison tests and were cleared. But the man known as William Chiffins, or should I say Walter Osborne, well, he didn’t have his Royalite typewriter when arrested, and he’s still not telling where it is. We did
find his old Underwood about fifty feet off Rampart Range Road in the woods near Castle Rock, which so happens to be only a few short miles from where Ad Coors’s body was discovered. I’m sure the Royalite met a similar fate, though clearly he did a much better job disposing of it.”

  Hite stepped to the lectern and sifted through his notes. “Ah, yes,” he said aloud. “And the typewriter paper. Every kidnapper needs paper for his ransom letter. In this case, Kenneth Haynes, an executive of Eaton Paper Company, identified the ransom note as paper similar to that purchased by the man known as Walter Osborne from the Denver Dry Goods Company on December 9, 1959. Miss Ann Thompson, a young clerk, testified to that.”

  Hite paused as the sound of coughing rose from the prosecution table. District Attorney Hardesty had been coughing throughout the proceedings, frequently raising a handkerchief to cover his mouth. The district attorney drank some water and nodded for Hite to continue.

  “Now, the automobile. Several witnesses testified they saw a yellow 1951 Mercury parked suspiciously near the Coors house and Turkey Creek Bridge again and again for weeks. James Cable, a former constable with an eagle’s eye and an elephant’s memory, did one better. He memorized the yellow Mercury’s license plate, AT-62, he recited to the FBI, perhaps AT-6205, he thought. Turns out the plates of only four Mercurys in all Denver County started with AT-62 and only one of those four Mercurys was yellow and could not be found.”

  Hite took a sip from a glass of water sitting on the lectern. “Moving on. Southwest of Denver, there is another man with a wife and four young children. Adolph Coors III and his wife just returned home from a trip to Florida.… That brings us to the morning of February 9, 1960,” Hite announced with a countenance and tone of impending doom.

  “Adolph Coors III left home that morning, according to his widow, happy and cheerful. He waved goodbye to his ranch manager. Little did he know the sands of time were running out on him because two short miles later he met his death at Turkey Creek Bridge.” Hite paused for a moment as if the thought upset him.