More than a half-century after 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease was kidnapped and murdered, the story still is recalled in the Missouri cities and towns where the chilling crime left a lasting impact.
The son of a millionaire Cadillac dealer in Kansas City was snatched from a Roman Catholic elementary school by Bonnie Heady, a disguised prostitute playing the convincing role of a Greenlease relative on a mission of mercy for the family.
Heady had told a nun at the school that the boy’s mother had been hospitalized with a heart attack and that she desperately wanted to see her son. The scheme worked for Heady and her slick accomplice, Carl Austin Hall, recently discharged from the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City.
Actually, Hall had dreamed up the entire plot as he whiled away time in his cell.
In return for the $600,000 ransom, the couple promised that boy would be swiftly returned. In fact, he was dead and buried in a shallow backyard grave before the kidnappers even contacted the distraught family.
John Heidenry, founding editor of St. Louis Magazine, has written a riveting account of that infamous crime that initially shocked much of the heartland and, eventually, captured attention across the nation.
Dozens of books were produced in the wake of the killing and the massive hunt for the kidnappers and more than $200,000 of the ransom money that mysteriously disappeared within hours of the arrests.
Aside from the conniving couple, this bizarre case involved a motley crew, from a roguish St. Louis police lieutenant and the mobsters that controlled crime in that city to pimps, prostitutes and a cross-section of unsavory characters.
Heidenry’s account answers virtually all the puzzling questions, except, “Where did all the money go?” To this day, many familiar with the case believe the police officer, Louis A. Shoulders, stuffed his own pickets shortly after arriving on the scene.
In retrospect, such a case is unlikely to ever surface again. The odds are staggering, especially in this ultra-security-conscious age, that anyone in charge of a school — public or private — would release a child to a “distant relative” because of illness in the family.
In the end, Heady and Hall, quickly apprehended and convicted, died within minutes of each other in a double execution at the Jefferson City penitentiary. Their lives were snuffed out shortly before Christmas, just 81 days after the brutal slaying.
Contact Don Glynn at 282-2311, Ext. 2246.
IF YOU READ
• WHAT: “Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, The Prostitute and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease.”
• BY: John Heidenry
• DETAILS: Published by St. Martin’s Press, New York, 230 pages
• GRADE: A-
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BOOK REVIEW: Book recounts fascination with Greenlease kidnapping
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