Robert C. "Bobby" Greenlease (1947-1953) was the son of multi-millionaire automobile dealer Robert Cosgrove Greenlease, Sr., of Kansas City, Missouri. The elder Greenlease made his fortune introducing General Motors vehicles to the Great Plains in the early 20th Century. He owned dealerships from Texas to South Dakota.
In September 1953, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Brown Heady kidnapped six-year-old Bobby Greenlease from Notre Dame de Sion, an exclusive Kansas City Catholic school. The kidnappers were drug addicted alcoholics then living together in Saint Joseph, Missouri. In the early 1930s, Hall had attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri with Paul Robert Greenlease, Bobby's adopted older brother, and Hall had planned to victimize his old classmate's wealthy family for some time.
Heady went to the school, persuaded a nun that she was Bobby's aunt, and took him away. Hall and Heady took Bobby across the state line to Johnson County, Kansas, where Hall shot him to death.
Hall and Heady then sent Bobby's father a message demanding a ransom of $600,000. Greenlease, desperately hoping to save his son, held off the police and FBI and paid up. Hall and Heady collected the ransom and got away. It was the largest ransom paid up to that point in U.S. history.
However, Hall then became convinced that police would trace them to St. Joseph, and impulsively decided to drive to St. Louis, instead. There, he and Heady contacted old criminal associates. They flaunted their sudden wealth, and involved one acquaintance in a bizarre plan to cover their tracks. Within a few days they were noticed by St. Louis police officers. Soon they were arrested, but only about half the ransom money was recovered.
The Lindbergh kidnapping-type case so scandalized the nation that it led to federal indictments, trials, and subsequent executions for both Hall and Heady, who died together in the Missouri gas chamber in December 1953. Heady was one of only two women since 1865 to be executed by federal authorities.
United States Attorney General Herbert Brownell followed the case intensely, as undoubtedly did President Eisenhower. Eisenhower's eldest brother, Arthur, was president of Commerce Bank in Kansas City, where the Greenleases kept their money.
Robert C. "Bobby" Greenlease (1947-1953) was the son of multi-millionaire automobile dealer Robert Cosgrove Greenlease, Sr., of Kansas City, Missouri. The elder Greenlease made his fortune introducing General Motors vehicles to the Great Plains in the early 20th Century. He owned dealerships from Texas to South Dakota.
In September 1953, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Brown Heady kidnapped six-year-old Bobby Greenlease from Notre Dame de Sion, an exclusive Kansas City Catholic school. The kidnappers were drug addicted alcoholics then living together in Saint Joseph, Missouri. In the early 1930s, Hall had attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri with Paul Robert Greenlease, Bobby's adopted older brother, and Hall had planned for some time to victimize his old classmate's wealthy family.
Heady went to the school, persuaded a nun that she was Bobby's aunt (and told the false story that Bobby's mother had suffered a heart attack), and took him away. Hall and Heady took Bobby across the state line to Johnson County, Kansas, where Hall shot him to death.
Hall and Heady then sent Bobby's father a message demanding a ransom of $600,000. Greenlease, desperately hoping to save his son, held off the police and FBI and paid up. Hall and Heady collected the ransom and got away. It was the largest ransom paid up to that point in U.S. history.
However, Hall then became convinced that police would trace them to St. Joseph, and impulsively decided to drive to St. Louis, instead. There, he and Heady contacted old criminal associates. They flaunted their sudden wealth, and involved one acquaintance in a bizarre plan to cover their tracks. Within a few days they were noticed by St. Louis police officers. Soon they were arrested, but only about half the ransom money was recovered.
The Lindbergh kidnapping-type case so scandalized the nation that it led to federal indictments, trials, and subsequent executions for both Hall and Heady, who died together in the Missouri gas chamber in December 1953. Heady was one of only two women since 1865 to be executed by federal authorities.
United States Attorney General Herbert Brownell followed the case intensely, as undoubtedly did President Eisenhower. Eisenhower's eldest brother, Arthur, was president of Commerce Bank in Kansas City, where the Greenleases kept their money.
   | Crime Library Article on Greenlease - The notorious murder/kidnap of Bobby Greenlease - Crime Library on truTV.com |
| | Federal Bureau of Investigation's case on Greenlease kidnapping - Federal Bureau of Investigation - FBI History - Famous Cases |
|
|
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
