The Year of Fear

by Joe Urschel

  Weatherford passed his information to agent Frank Blake in the Bureau’s Dallas office, who moved it along to Jones in Kansas City, noting that George Kelly was reputed to be an expert machine gunner, who could “write his name with bullets discharged from such a gun.”

  Harvey Bailey, it turned out, was right. Kathryn’s loose lips had just put her husband’s name on the list of the most wanted men in the country.

  3

  THE KIDNAPPING SCOURGE

  Organized crime in the major cities of the country had used kidnapping for decades as they built their empires. They did it to filch money from rival gangs. They did it to get inconvenient characters off the street at appropriate times. They used it to threaten or intimidate balky cops and politicians who might not otherwise play along with the racketeers who needed their protection and cooperation. But as long as the kidnappings, payoffs and murders were confined to the underworld, few really cared. But in the ’30s, it was happening to good citizens and national heroes. Anybody with money was growing uneasy, especially as the national press reported stories of “kidnapping syndicates” that were operating around the nation and compiling lists of prospective victims and their families.

  When they took office in the spring of 1933, President Roosevelt and Attorney General Homer Cummings inherited the kidnapping case that newspaper columnists were calling the greatest story “since the resurrection”: the Lindbergh case. For more than a year it had lingered on, with no end in sight and no good leads to pursue.

  In the ’30s, Charles Lindbergh was about the most famous and revered American in the nation, and perhaps around the world.

  On May 20, 1927, when Lindbergh took off from New York and landed thirty-three and a half hours later in France, he had successfully set the record for sustained flight by flying over the Atlantic Ocean and winning the $25,000 Orteig Prize after six other better-known aviators had died trying.

  His accomplishment transformed the nation—and the very idea of winged flight. When Lindbergh boarded his plane that rainy morning, much of the nation thought the very idea of flying was an affront to the Almighty. In that year, European airlines were flying hundreds of thousands of passengers. The United States had virtually none. But after Lucky Lindy set down in Paris, greeted by a crowd of 150,000 joyous fans, the irreligiosity of aviation melted away. Superiority in the sky became a national aspiration as an industry was launched on Lindy’s accomplishments, and the nation became transfixed by the possibilities of flying. It was the ’20s equivalent of “Man Walks on Moon,” and Lindbergh became its standard-bearer.

  President Herbert Hoover awarded Lindbergh the Medal of Honor, and New York went wild with ticker-tape parades. The previously unknown U.S. Air Mail pilot had, in a matter of hours, become arguably the biggest celebrity in the world.

  Lindbergh flew the Spirit of Saint Louis around Europe, mesmerizing crowds and promoting the idea of air travel.

  Back in the States, he took to the air and the lectern to add his promotional gravitas to the infant aviation industry, which was trying to launch itself in the sparsely populated, wide-open spaces Lindy called home.

  President Hoover appointed Lindbergh to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and he embarked on a cross-country tour paid for by the Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. The 1927 “Lindbergh Tour” was the country’s first truly national celebrity tour—bigger and bolder than even those of men campaigning for president. It hit every state and virtually every major city. Lindbergh delivered speech after speech and rode in hundreds of parades. At the conclusion of the tour, Lindbergh spent a month penning a book about his transatlantic flight titled We, and it became an instant bestseller.

  The massive publicity surrounding him and his flight boosted the aviation industry and made a skeptical public take air travel seriously. Within a year of his flight, an estimated 30 million Americans personally saw Lindbergh and the Spirit of Saint Louis as he and his flying machine toured the country. The effects of his accomplishments were transformative. Over the remainder of 1927, the number of licensed aircraft quadrupled. The number of U.S. airline passengers grew by an estimated 1,000 percent per year for the next three years, and investment in American aviation topped $100 million. Air travel was beginning to shrink the vast nation, pulling it together like nothing since the final spike was pounded into the transcontinental railroad. Lindbergh’s exploits spawned an explosion in the number of daredevil pilots trying to set new records for distances traveled and heights achieved. Their exploits gave the national media one of the few upbeat stories to follow to leaven their coverage of crime, Depression and loss.

  But on the evening of March 1, 1932, even Lucky Lindy’s story would become part of the nation’s nightmare.

  Around 9:30 p.m., Lindbergh was sitting in his library and thought he heard a noise. Half an hour later, his panicked family nurse told him that his infant son, Charles Jr., was gone.

  Lindbergh grabbed his gun, searched the house and found a white envelope on the windowsill in the baby’s room. It was a ransom note demanding $50,000 for the return of his son.

  On March 3, 1932, two days after the Lindbergh kidnapping, the normally reserved New York Times ran a deck of headlines that would have been right at home on the pages of any of its more sensational rivals.

  KIDNAPPING WAVE SWEEPS THE NATION

  Lindbergh Crime Is Climax of Development of Abductions Into Major Racket

  Ring’s Center in Midwest

  Leading Citizens in Chicago Are Compelled to Band for Self-Protection

  The kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. topping a long list of kidnappings in recent years serves to emphasize the fact that abduction for ransom has become a “big money crime,” taking its place beside the liquor, vice and drug traffic among the prominent “rackets” of the country.

  Authorities pointed out yesterday that there had been a big wave of kidnappings during the past two years, when more than 2,000 persons were abducted for ransom. During these two years kidnapping syndicates have arisen and have extorted millions of dollars from their victims or their relatives and friends by means of torture or terrorization.

  It is estimated that in Illinois alone during 1930 and 1931 there were 400 kidnappings, according to Alexander Jamie, chief investigator for the “Secret Six,” a Chicago organization devoted to fighting organized crime.

  By 1933, the Snatch Racket and the abductions of prominent citizens had grown so widespread that companies began marketing a new product—kidnapping insurance. Wealthy businessmen hired bodyguards and private security details. In Hollywood, celebrities traveled in bulletproof limos with armed guards in the passenger seats. A national paranoia had hatched among the nation’s fragile moneyed class, and it was pressuring its new president to do something about it.

  In June 1932, just weeks after the decomposed body of Lindbergh’s son had been discovered in a field near his house, Congress rushed through an emergency piece of legislation, the Federal Kidnapping Act, which made it a federal felony to take a kidnap victim across state lines. Known as the “Lindbergh Law,” it allowed federal judges, upon conviction, to impose any penalty, up to life in prison—the only federal statute to allow such discretion. J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau had gained relevance overnight. Unlike local law enforcement, his agents, and his agents alone, would have the authority to pursue kidnappers across state lines to bring them to justice. He was eager to put his new power into play at the first opportunity.

  Cummings put Hoover in charge of coordinating all federal and state agencies involved in the investigation. But, despite the law’s authority, Hoover and his men failed to make any inroads, further enhancing their reputation for ineffectiveness and incompetence. From prison, Al Capone offered to solve the case for them in exchange for a reduced sentence. Though there were many in the country who thought that was the only hope for a successful resolution, the Justice Department rejected it.

  The hunt for the Lindbergh kidnapper d
ragged on for nearly a year, and by 1933 Hoover no longer had a convenient excuse for why he had not solved it. In short order, a string of additional kidnappings of prominent Americans would land on his desk, and the Bureau’s response would prove equally inept.

  * * *

  On the snowy night of February 13, Charles Boettcher II, thirty-one, the playboy son of one of Denver’s leading families, was snatched away as he and his glamorous wife were returning to their expansive mansion after a night of partying.

  As Boettcher and his wife got out of their car, a man stepped out of the dark.

  “Come here, Charlie, and stick up your hands. Do what you are told and everything will be all right.”

  He then handed an envelope to Boettcher’s wife, Anna Lou, and hauled Charlie away.

  When Anna Lou opened the envelope, she discovered a note with odd fill-in-the-blank spaces and misspellings. It read:

  Do not notify the police. If you do, and they start making it hot for us, you will never see ___________ alive again. We are holding ___________ for Sixty Thousand Dollars. We are asking you to get this money in Ten and Twenty dollar bills and they must be old bills only. When you get this money ready and are willig [sic] to pay as above for the safe return of ___________, then insert the following ad in the Denver Post, personal items …

  (please write, I am ready to return) SIGN (Mabel) …

  We will not stand for any stalling thru advice that police may give you. You are smart enough to know what the results will be if you try that. You know what happened to little Charles Lindbergh through his father calling the police. He would be alive today if his father had followed instructions given him. You are to choose one of these to [sic] courses, Either insert add and be prepared to pay ransom, Or forget it all.

  The Boettchers were friends of the Lindberghs, and Charles had stayed at their home in Denver during his victory lap after his historic transatlantic flight.

  Within hours of the abduction, The Denver Post was on the street with a special edition.

  CHARLES BOETTCHER II HELD

  FOR RANSOM OF $60,000

  Charles Boettcher II, 31, prominent broker and scion of one of the west’s wealthiest families, was kidnapped from his fashionable home, 777 Washington Street, late Sunday night by dapper desperadoes who are holding him for $60,000 ransom.

  Young Boettcher and his beautiful wife, Anna Lou Boettcher, an expectant mother, had just driven into the driveway of their home when the abductors suddenly appeared, forced Boettcher into their machine and whisked away after handing Mrs. Boettcher a note demanding the ransom.

  Anna Lou had immediately gone to her father-in-law, Claude Boettcher, who, despite the kidnappers’ warning, called the Denver police, who mobilized immediately, stopping every black sedan that matched Anna Lou’s description, but to no avail.

  With no evidence to go on, Denver Police Chief Albert Clark announced that the prime suspects in the case were a couple of Chicago gangsters who’d recently been seen in Denver: Louis “Diamond Jack” Alterie and Mike “Bon Bon” Allegretti. He boasted that the perpetrators of the crime would be in custody within forty-eight hours.

  But Alterie and Allegretti weren’t even in Denver at the time of the abduction.

  Boettcher had been kidnapped by successful bootlegger and occasional bank robber Verne Sankey. Sankey began his bootlegging career hauling fine Canadian liquor over the border into the Dakotas and St. Paul, Minnesota. Sankey made a fortune in the mid- to late ’20s, most of which he gambled away or lost speculating in the commodities market. He owned a farm in South Dakota that he used as a base for his liquor business and a convenient hideout after bank jobs. With both of his main sources of income getting pinched, he hatched a plan to pull a snatch job with his partner, Gordon Alcorn.

  By researching public records, he had come up with a list of thirty potential victims in and around Denver, the closest city to his Dakota farm with any real wealth. He rented a house in Denver to prepare for the job. He had pared the list down to five top prospects, which included Boettcher and beer brewer Adolf Coors. Sankey and Alcorn were casing the Boettchers when a fortuitous opportunity presented itself and they grabbed Charlie. Because they hadn’t been expecting to execute the kidnapping at that moment, Sankey hadn’t had the chance to fill in the blanks on his ransom note. Nevertheless, the job came off flawlessly, and Boettcher was effortlessly spirited out of Denver to Sankey’s farm 570 miles away in South Dakota.

  Two days later, Sankey sent a letter to Claude Boettcher:

  So far you have not done as I requested. If you are ready to keep this a secret and pay the $60,000 in small bills as I wrote you first then insert this ad in the Post. Charles is very nervous and frightened, he often asks if we will release him if you pay and I keep telling him we will, but he lives in fear of being bumped off.

  But Claude was not willing to pay the ransom unless his son was returned first. He believed that Lindbergh’s son had been killed because Lindbergh complied with the kidnappers’ demands and thus lost his leverage. Meanwhile, Claude conducted his negotiations through the press, and Denver’s newspapers were eating it up. However, Sankey was not about to release his captive without the payment.

  The frustrated Denver police arrested dozens of innocent suspects, who made for a continuous stream of stories for Colorado’s daily papers. With no good leads to go on, the hysteria spread, garnering interest even from the European press, which was fascinated with America’s lawlessness and criminality. At the Post’s suggestion, vigilante groups were forming to hunt down the kidnappers and string them up as they’d done in the town’s not-too-distant past. The state, realizing that the maximum punishment for the crime was a mere seven years in prison, rushed through legislation making kidnapping a capital offense punishable by life in prison. A string of other states did likewise.

  Within forty-eight hours of the news of the kidnapping, Hoover had sent in his Denver agents to assist. He put his favorite special agent, Melvin Purvis, who was heading up the Chicago office, in charge of the case. With so many headlines flying around, Hoover was desperate to grab a few of his own.

  Charlie Boettcher had become the most written about crime victim in the nation. In the words of the Rocky Mountain News, he was hunted by the “police of every city from coast to coast.” But with no results.

  The Denver Post condemned the ineptitude of the local law enforcement:

  Absolutely nothing has been accomplished by the police to restore (Charles Boettcher II) to his distracted family, apprehend his kidnappers and avenge their monstrous crime. They don’t know any more about this case than they did when it was reported to them.

  Ultimately, Claude Boettcher dismissed the police and took charge of the proceedings himself, eventually securing Charles’s release and paying the $60,000 ransom. But even though Claude had tipped the police off to the time and location of the payoff, Sankey and Alcorn slipped away after dropping off their prisoner and headed back to the safety of Sankey’s South Dakota farm.

  The Boettcher kidnapping did not escape the attention of Kathryn Kelly. She liked the big dollar amounts involved and pushed George to get back in the game. Kelly had teamed up with a small-time bank robber named Eddie Doll in January 1932 to snatch the son of an Indiana banker named Howard Woolverton. They grabbed him from his car while he was on the way home from the theater with his wife, Florence. They gave her a note with instructions demanding $50,000 and let her go.

  They kept Woolverton hostage for two days, but when his wife couldn’t raise the money, they let him go, telling him to go home and find some cash or they’d come back and kill him. He couldn’t, and they didn’t and the whole thing just faded away as they went back to robbing banks.

  Back in Fort Worth, George and Kit made plans to kidnap Guy Waggoner, the son of a wealthy local oilman. But two local cops, Ed Weatherford and J. W. Swinney, got wind of the job when Kathryn tried to recruit them to help out if anything went wrong. They tipped off the feds,
and Kelly had to back off because it became obvious that Waggoner was under constant surveillance.

  Undeterred, Kathryn started a list of potential victims. She’d learned her lesson with Woolverton. Never again would she snatch a low-life piker without the wherewithal to meet the ransom demand. Her next victims would have verifiable fortunes and easy access to them. Her plan was to go through them one by one until they had collected a million dollars in ransom. That, she thought, just might be enough to set her up for life in the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed. Four jobs at $250,000 apiece. That ought to do it, she thought. And she had a name at the top of her list.

  She also thought that her charming husband’s reputation needed a little hardening up.

  She bought George a Thompson submachine gun at a Fort Worth pawnshop and began spreading stories about how good he had gotten with it.

  At every bar, speakeasy and dive she frequented—and she frequented plenty—she’d leave behind spent shells and handsome tips and more details about the legend she was building.

  * * *

  The national kidnapping spree continued unabated. At the Green Lantern, Dutch Sawyer was drawing up lists of potential kidnap victims based on their net wealth, their accessibility and the willingness of their companies or families to come to their aid. The perfect victim would be easy to grab, easy to hide and, most importantly, someone too fearful to go to the authorities and pursue his kidnappers in order to seek justice or get his money back. The threat of retribution to the victim and his family needed to be understood and appreciated. Otherwise, the job was too risky. Choosing the victim to be kidnapped was just as important as choosing the bank to be robbed.

  With the Boettcher case still unsolved, the feds were bringing the heat to every known criminal establishment in the Midwest—and that included the Green Lantern. St. Paul’s new “reform-minded” police chief, Thomas Dunhill, announced a “drive against hoodlums” and “gun-toters,” vowing to do “everything in our power to drive them out.” The St. Paul Police Department created a special Kidnap Squad and appointed Detective Tom Brown to head it up.