The Year of Fear

by Joe Urschel

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  To Donna,

  Liz and Eric

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  In 1982, shortly after I’d moved to Washington, DC, I went to visit the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building, one of the city’s most gorgeous landmarks, which contains, it is said, the greatest collection of knowledge in the world. The LOC had just recently converted its famed collection cataloging system (the one J. Edgar Hoover had learned during his brief stint there as a clerk early in his career) into a searchable, computerized database, something that was quite novel and innovative at the time. Out of curiosity, I went to the keyboard and typed in my last name. A simple Google search today would now reveal hundreds of hits, but back then, in the early days of the digital revolution, the LOC’s computer index turned up only one: Charles Urschel, kidnapping victim. And there was one book in which he was noted prominently. It was E. E. Kirkpatrick’s firsthand account, Crime’s Paradise: The Authentic Inside Story of the Urschel Kidnapping published in 1934. I immediately requested the book, and when the librarian pulled it from the stacks, I sat in the LOC’s stately reading room and read it cover to cover. (Only members of Congress and staff can actually check a book out of the LOC.)

  I was, of course, transfixed by Kirkpatrick’s rendering of a story that could have been the blueprint for a Dashiell Hammett novel. But I was also bewildered that I—and most other Americans—had never heard of the main character. This was especially embarrassing for me in that I shared his rather uncommon last name, and I’d believed all the Urschels in the United States were related. Everyone seemed familiar with the name of Urschel’s kidnapper, the notorious George “Machine Gun” Kelly even if they knew nothing about his biggest crime.

  My research ultimately found no American familial connection with Charles Urschel. Our relationship dates back centuries to Germany. My interest in his story, however, continued to grow as the years passed and the historical exploration into the crime wave of the ’30s shed more and more light on the period and the fascinating men and women who made it so infamous.

  The year of the crime, 1933, saw an extraordinary confluence of events in the country. With unprecedented dust storms inflicting further misery on a population mired in the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt swept into office warily eyeing the almost simultaneous election of Adolf Hitler in Germany while telling his fellow Americans they had nothing to fear, but “fear itself.” And while he was constructing a big, activist federal government to address the nation’s ills, another national industry was being launched to celebrate it. With national radio news networks starting up and wire services and huge regional daily newspapers growing, the “mass media” as we know it today were bringing the sprawling, unwieldy country together in ways it had not experienced earlier.

  The Urschel kidnapping provided a captivating scenario that dominated the headlines and airwaves from New York City to San Francisco. There were those, like Roosevelt and J. Edgar Hoover, who quickly learned how to use and exploit this pervasive new national megaphone to their own great benefit.

  There were others, like Charles Urschel, who shunned and reviled it. Nevertheless, the decisions Urschel made, and the actions he took, had a profound effect on the course of history, just like the other, more famous and infamous men of his time. Had he not chosen the course of action he did—standing up to the threats of his captors and cooperating with the federal authorities—J. Edgar Hoover would have been denied the spectacular trial on which he launched his career, and George Kelly most likely would have remained in anonymity as a relative bit player in the saga of America’s gangland.

  But that is not the way it happened. It happened like this …

  INTRODUCTION

  THE CALL

  As J. Edgar Hoover lay asleep in his home in the early morning hours of July 22, 1933, he was fitfully aware of the tentative hold he had on the job he had come to know and love. He was Director of the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation. At age thirty-six, he was thought by most to be too young, too inexperienced and too politically unconnected for the job most people in government considered to be barely more than a political patronage appointment. And, lately, he’d been proving them right.

  His team’s investigation of the Charles Lindbergh baby kidnapping had been a laughable failure. The case had dragged on with no resolution or notable progress in the sixteen months since then-President Herbert Hoover had tapped him to lead the federal efforts to solve the case and find the kidnappers. His initial efforts to get involved in the investigation had been rebuffed by the New Jersey State Police, who flat out refused to share information, and dismissed his men as inept federal glory hunters. Lindbergh himself was barely cooperative.

  His overreaching in the capture and arrest of an escaped federal prisoner had resulted in the mass murder of four law enforcement officers, including one from his bureau, and the prisoner himself. The machine gun assault had taken place in the parking lot of Kansas City’s busy Union Station in full view of the train station’s bustling crowds.

  Not only was his competence being called into question by the national press, but his masculinity was, as well. The new president’s wife was said to loathe him, and he’d just barely escaped a sacking by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first choice for attorney general.

  But Hoover was about to receive a phone call that would turn his fortunes around. The call would deliver to Hoover the most effective and cooperative witness in the history of the agency’s war against crime. It would set into motion the biggest manhunt in the nation’s history and lead to a spectacular trial that would transfix the country and transform the Bureau.

  The events would unleash a cavalcade of publicity that would ultimately put the beleaguered director on course to become not only the most powerful lawman in the nation’s history, but the most admired, as well. Within ninety days, Hoover would go from a man whose head had been on the political chopping block, to the star performer of the new administration’s ambitious plans.

  Hoover could not have realized all of this as his bedside telephone rang on that Sunday at 2:00 a.m. But his life was about to change, and history was about to be made.

  Just weeks earlier, Hoover had established the country’s first national crime hotline, a special telephone number that anyone could call to be put through immediately to the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, DC. It was intended to be used for reporting kidnappings, a heinous crime that was occurring with alarming regularity throughout the country. Hoover hoped his hotline would tip his agents off quickly so they could get on the scene without delay and get control of the investigation before the local authorities could lock things up and freeze them out. So eager was he to get news quickly that he instructed the telephone operators at the Bureau to put calls through to a special line he had installed in his home.

  It was now ringing.

  H
oover roused himself awake and sat in his pajamas on the side of the bed, clearing his head and lifting the receiver from its cradle.

  “National 7-1-1-7,” he intoned.

  “This is Mrs. Charles F. Urschel in Oklahoma City. I wish to report a kidnapping.”

  “This is J. Edgar Hoover, Mrs. Urschel. Give me every detail you can.”

  1

  GEORGE AND KATHRYN GO TO WORK

  On a warm morning in 1932, George and Kathryn Kelly were getting dressed for work in their comfortable Fort Worth home.

  George loved watching his wife get dressed almost as much as he liked watching her undress. She was a stunner with the kind of frame that fine clothes were just made to adorn. She assembled herself into a brown silk blouse that draped off her shoulders and breasts as if it had been constructed specially for her by the finest seamstress in Dallas.

  The gentle friction of the beige wool skirt she pulled up over her silk slip purred slightly as it glided over her hips. When she was finished tucking and smoothing, she snapped the waistband closed with a definitive click, like the sound of a .38 slug sliding into its chamber.

  She plucked a weighty diamond brooch off the dresser and pinned it near her throat. Its sparkle drew George’s eye to the lovely little pool of flesh at the base of her throat, where the exquisite lines of Kathryn’s neck joined the frame of her shoulders. She slipped her arms into the beige suit jacket and tugged gently at it, pulling it into place. She set a smart beige cloche hat atop her head and tilted it ever so slightly to the right. It sat on her auburn hair like the crown on a European monarch and warmed her brown eyes into a deceptive look of coquettishness.

  She turned gently to her husband, seeking the fawning approval that he was always eager to provide.

  George, too, looked sharp. Tall and muscular, he knew how to polish the image with just the right amount of fashion-savvy style and masculine panache. Today he was wearing a custom-made brown English wool suit, with a creamy linen shirt. His tie was a ballet of greens and browns. His shoes, brown wingtips, were polished like brass. When he gazed at Kathryn, his hazel eyes looked as green and seductive as a cat in heat.

  They were in the banking business and they were about to begin their twelve-hour commute to Boulder, Colorado, to go to work.

  They nestled into the warm leather seats of their sixteen-cylinder Cadillac convertible roadster and headed north with smiles on their faces and Lucky Strikes glowing between their fingers.

  George loved his Cadillac almost as much as he loved Kit. The car was the pride of General Motors and the envy of carmakers around the world. When GM introduced it in 1930, the company boasted: “the sixteen-cylinder Cadillac initiates a new trend in motor car design.” It was “designed for enormous acceleration, unheard of hill-climbing ability, and more speed than perhaps any man will care to use.”

  In short, the perfect vehicle for a man in George’s line of work.

  Off the assembly line it could cruise easily at eighty-five miles per hour. But after George’s mechanics got finished customizing it, the car would race along at more than one hundred miles per hour on the paved roads of the nation’s state highway system. They’d also reinforce the suspension to handle the heavy loads of liquor George would haul and the extra cans of gasoline he’d pack in the trunk because the monster engine would barely eke out eight miles a gallon.

  And it looked like a dream, with billowing oval fender skirts, teardrop headlamps, glistening chrome-spoked wheels and whitewall tires. It turned as many heads as Kit.

  They arrived in Denver slightly after 9:00 p.m. and pulled up to the garage next to a small bungalow on the outskirts of the city.

  “Kit, come on baby, move over to the driver’s seat,” said George. “We’ve got to change cars.”

  Albert Bates, who’d rented the bungalow and the garage, walked out of the house and greeted the couple in the yard.

  “You sure took your time getting here, George,” said Al. “It was dark over an hour ago. The coast was clear.”

  George was moving gear from the Cadillac to a nondescript Buick they would use in the morning. “We stopped for a leisurely dinner, Al. You know how Kit likes candlelight and wine. No rush anyway, you’ve got the job all laid out.”

  Bates poured them all a glass of whiskey, the finest contraband in the country, and spread out a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood on the table. He marked the major streets, the stop signs, the police patrol route. He outlined the best approach to the bank and where Kit would need to park the getaway car. They then went over the layout of the bank’s interior—the teller locations, the vault, the president’s office—and the guard’s routine. He showed them the ideal escape route and several others in case something unexpected should happen.

  “How far away is the police station?” George asked.

  “It’s far enough away to make getting there difficult for the cops. Nine, ten blocks. We can be out of town before anyone can get them on the phone.”

  George had spent a lifetime as a bootlegger. He knew how to elude the law and he knew the roads and highway system as if he had designed them himself. He knew his cars and how to race them around the back roads, avoiding bottlenecks, bridges and areas where a roadblock might slow his escape. Once he was in the car and moving, there was no way he’d get caught from behind. Hell, he’d be out of the county before the cops were done cranking up their pathetic Model As.

  After a few hours’ sleep, George and Al threw on some cheap gray suits and waited impatiently while Kit primped in the house’s single bathroom. She emerged in a silk navy-blue dress and carried a wide-brimmed hat. She also carried a men’s suit that had been tailored to fit over the dress. Al took the wheel of the car and Kit lay across the backseat in case there were any early-morning looky-loos, who’d see only two men heading out for work.

  Along the way, they stopped briefly so Kit could don her masculine garb and take over the driving duties. George looked on admiringly. Best looking wheelman he’d ever worked with.

  She backed expertly into an open parking spot in front of the bank, positioned perfectly for a quick getaway.

  “Good luck, fellas,” she said as she pulled a revolver from under the seat.

  As the two entered the bank and headed toward the tellers, Al pulled a sawed-off shotgun from under his coat.

  “It’s a holdup!” he announced. “Hands to heaven, and no yelling!”

  George tossed a canvas bag over the counter to each teller. “Fill ’em up, girls. And be quick!”

  As he did, the bank’s elderly guard was moving warily in George’s direction. Al yelled out a warning and George turned his .38 in the guard’s direction. The guard was fumbling to remove his sidearm from its holster. George fired off a single round, clipping the guard in the arm and dropping him to the floor as the panicked tellers stuffed stacks of wadded-up bills into the bags.

  “You stupid son of a bitch! I warned you! Do what you’re told!”

  He grabbed the bags from the tellers and the two jogged quickly back to the car and jumped in as Kit sped away.

  “What happened?” she asked. “You scared the hell out of me when I heard that shot.”

  “The old bank guard wanted to be a hero, so George shot him,” said Al. “Nothing serious. He’ll survive.”

  “Could have shot the old guy in the heart,” said George, “but I’ve never killed anyone and don’t intend on starting.”

  Al could not make a similar claim. He’d shot an earlier partner who he thought had been cheating him. He wouldn’t have to worry about that with George, though. George was all business and he played it straight. He had a reputation going all the way back to his bootlegging days as the most honest thief you’d ever meet. But although it was true he’d never killed anyone, the fact was he didn’t need to. There were plenty experienced killers among the members he’d assemble into bank-robbing teams. If he needed a shooter, he could get one with a single phone call.

  Yet another rural weste
rn bank had been relieved of its deposits—$15,000 in this case. The handsome couple in the front seat of the nondescript Buick were heading back to pick up their shiny new Cadillac roadster and were busy making bigger plans.

  First, off to Mexico to lie low and spend some of their recent earnings. George spoke fluent Spanish and, along with his extravagant tips, he was a popular customer at the lavish beach resorts that Kit favored.

  Since his release from Leavenworth Penitentiary in February 1930, Kelly had been on a tear, robbing banks at the rate of nearly one a month. The jobs were getting to be almost routine, but with the Depression dragging on, the take was getting smaller and smaller. Banks had less and less money in their vaults, and some were simply closing up shop and going out of business as panicked customers pulled out their cash. George had a feeling his real good thing was not going to last forever. Worse, the couple’s lucrative sideline—running booze—looked like it would be drying up if the Democrats won the upcoming election and their gin-sipping candidate made good on his promise to bring the era of Prohibition to an end.

  From their R & R vacation spot, they would begin the planning for a series of jobs that would set them up for life—an audacious scheme that Kit had dreamed up. It involved a series of kidnappings of high-net-worth individuals in the lawless Southwest that would—if everything went according to plan—bring them $1 million in cash and set them up for permanent retirement in the luxury lifestyle they had grown so accustomed to. They were about to graduate into the burgeoning Snatch Racket that was about to become the latest calamity to afflict the country.

  * * *

  When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March 1933, he inherited a surreal and almost unimaginable American nightmare. The country had become a cauldron of poverty, starvation and environmental disaster. A pervasive lawlessness infected nearly every city, town and godforsaken outpost in the forty-eight states he would need to rescue.