The Death of an Heir

by Philip Jett

  Ranch hand Bill Hosler and Mary Coors’s maid told the FBI they’d seen an older-model green Dodge with red-and-white license plates parked near the ranch on Monday. Both said they saw at least two men in the car that appeared to be watching the ranch for at least an hour. One was tall and thin, and the other was short and stocky with a dark complexion. Hosler said the same car had been there the week before. They also stated they’d seen a yellow car there on more than one occasion.

  Hilton Pace, who leased and worked a uranium mine near Turkey Creek Bridge, said he’d seen a man driving a white-over-gray Ford in the area a few times. He’d even spoken with him one day.

  Janette Erickson, who lived less than a mile and a half from the bridge, said she’d seen a yellow car near the bridge on that Sunday. Viola Ranch said the same thing. Other witnesses said they saw a car resembling a 1951 Mercury in the vicinity. Three said it was yellow; one said cream. Two said it was a solid color; two said it had a black top. Viola Ranch said it had a green cloth top.

  Former Morrison town constable James Cable, a caretaker at the uranium mine leased by Hilton Pace, said he and his wife, Margaret, saw a yellow 1951 or ’52 Mercury near the bridge several times, including at eight o’clock Monday, the morning before the disappearance, about a hundred feet from the bridge. That was the morning Ad took a different route, driving to Denver before going to the brewery.

  Miss Nadene Carder said she’d seen a yellow car parked near the bridge three consecutive days when she was on her way to work at the Colorado School of Mines the week before the disappearance. That was while Ad was in Miami.

  Jim Massey said he often saw a yellow Mercury near the bridge. He told the FBI he’d seen it around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, with a man standing beside it wearing a brown hat and eyeglasses. His wife said she’d seen the car around 1:00 p.m. on Monday, a mere nineteen hours before the disappearance.

  The one thing all eyewitnesses did agree on was that none had seen any of the cars since the disappearance.

  But James Cable saw something no one else had. When interviewed, he gave the FBI a clue so important that without it the case may never have been solved. He had a partial license plate number. “It was a 1960 Colorado-style plate. Read AT-62,” he said. “It may have been AT-6205. I’m not a hundred percent sure about the last two numbers.” A was the county designation for Denver.

  Agents hoped the plates weren’t stolen.

  When newspapermen asked about rumors of car sightings the evening after Ad’s disappearance, FBI agents said, “Refer all questions to Special Agent in Charge Scott Werner at the Denver office.” When Bill was asked what he knew, he replied, “The FBI has requested that we make no further statements.” Sheriff Wermuth, however, was happy to oblige.

  “We’re looking for two, possibly three assailants in a green Dodge that’s been seen parked near Ad Coors’s home,” the sheriff said to reporters. “That’s the strongest lead we’ve got in the case at the present time.… I believe we’ll have a break in the case by noon Saturday.… I’m basing that on studies of other kidnap cases. The crucial time in other reported cases is thirty-six hours to four and a half days after the abduction is made.… Yes, it’s my belief that Ad Coors is alive and held somewhere in the state.… According to a witness, the green Dodge had red-and-white license plates, which means it’s an out-of-state car, possibly Utah, Florida, or Ohio.… We believe they’ve split up. One of the three men is a good suspect centered around Denver. We’re anxious to check his movements.… I can’t tell you that right now. The other two are believed to be somewhere southeast of Golden.”

  Reporters continued barking out their questions to the sheriff.

  “No, I haven’t positively identified the blood yet. Lew Hawley telephoned me from Washington to tell me the blood found on the bridge is group A, but we haven’t located any medical records that show Ad Coors’s blood type.… No, the blood on Kipling Street was canine. That’s right, just a dog hit by a car. No connection there.… The tan cap and eyeglasses have been identified as belonging to Ad Coors.… No, we’ll keep the mounted posse and jeep patrol out there through tomorrow and then I’ll decide whether to suspend the search depending on the snowstorm they’re calling for late Thursday.… Yes, group A. Okay, that’s all I got for now, fellas.”

  Amid the barrage of questions, Wermuth told reporters that Mr. and Mrs. Coors were due to land at Denver’s Stapleton Airfield that night. They had boarded a plane very early that morning to make the long flight home. Despite the earliness, reporters were waiting for them as they boarded.

  “Mr. Coors! A few words about your son, sir! Please!” one of the correspondents asked, holding a pad and pencil.

  The Hawaiian sun beamed on the tarmac at the Honolulu airport. Mr. Coors had telephoned FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who assured Mr. Coors he would personally oversee the investigation into catching the kidnappers and bringing Ad home safely.

  “I am dealing with crooks who are in business,” Mr. Coors replied. A hot gust of wind almost blew the gray fedora from his head. “They have something I want to buy—my son. The price is secondary.”

  “So you’ve been told your son’s definitely kidnapped?”

  “No, but logic tells me he has been kidnapped. It’s a matter of now waiting for an offer. It’s like any other business transaction at this point.”

  “You’re treating the kidnapping of your son like a business deal?”

  “That’s what it is. Besides, I cannot be emotional about this.”

  “Any idea who’d want to kidnap your son?” asked a different reporter.

  “The union?” asked another.

  “I don’t know. No, we don’t have any enemies in Golden. Excuse us, we have to board now.”

  “Good luck, sir!”

  FBI agents assigned to coordinate the exchange of evidence with local law enforcement were about to finish up around the bridge site. They’d walked the creek bank on both sides and in the middle. They’d scoped the typography and investigated a pit silo and a cave directly across the state road from the bridge. They dusted for prints, including inside and outside the Travelall, took additional soil samples and bridge scrapings, and reviewed the deputies’ reports. Dale Ryder had shown the agents where the Travelall was found by the milkman and where the cap and hat, eyeglasses, and blood had been discovered. He showed them sketches that county detectives had etched out using precise measurements that revealed the exact locations of the cap, hat, blood, scuff marks, and tire tracks. The last thing was to view the crime-scene photos. The two agents leaned on the hood of their sedan and observed as Dale Ryder flipped through the crisp black-and-white photos he’d taken the day before, one by one.

  “The splash pattern was in that direction? Toward the southeast?” The agent nodded in a southeasterly direction as he asked about the blood spray.

  “That’s correct,” said Ryder.

  “I don’t know. That’s a—” The agent stopped as he spotted Bill walking up to the bridge. He was on his way back to Mary’s after work and saw the officers standing round and decided to stop.

  “Go ahead,” said Bill. “Go ahead with what you were saying. I don’t want to interrupt.”

  The agent introduced himself. “Now this is just my opinion, you understand, not the official FBI position.” The agent paused.

  “Go on,” said Bill.

  * * *

  Mary held a ransom note in her hands. She put on her glasses, fearful of what the letter might say, but grateful to have it at all. She began to read:

  Sitting in her chair in the den she enjoyed so much, Mary rested the letter in her lap, removed her glasses, and looked up at the FBI agents standing round. Her eyes were weak from lack of sleep and the dulling effects of sedatives. “Ad’s still alive,” Mary said. “He’s alive. All they want’s the money.”

  FBI agents in their dark suits and ties said nothing. It was Wednesday. Ad had been missing almost two days.

  Mary didn’t appreciate th
eir silence. “It says right here,” she said forcefully, holding up the note. “‘We have no desire to commit murder.’”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Bill spoke up. “Sure he’s alive. That’s the only way the lousy kidnappers collect.”

  “Of course he is,” said Gerald Phipps, who’d joined Mary with his wife, Janet, to provide comfort and support on that terrible day. Gerald and Janet were close friends with Ad and Mary. They had hosted a wedding shower for Ad and Mary twenty years earlier, and they traveled in the same elevated circle of affluent Coloradans. Gerald Phipps’s father had been a US senator and an executive at Carnegie Steel. Janet’s father was the head of US Rubber. Also visiting were the elder Mrs. Coors’s brother, Erle Kistler, and the well-to-do Kenneth and Sheilagh Malo.

  Mary reached for her gin and tonic on the side table and rose from her chair. “We’ve got to get the money ready. Bill? Joe? How do we do that?” Mary said, ignoring the agents. “Will you two deliver it?”

  Donald Hostetter, special agent in charge of the Detroit field office and head of the Western Kidnap Squad, interrupted. “May I please have the letter, Mrs. Coors? Thank you.” He handed it to another agent. It was a copy. The original was on its way to the FBI Laboratory. “You’re correct, Mrs. Coors. Your family should begin making arrangements to obtain the money immediately. We will assist you and your bank in coordinating the selection of denominations and recording the serial numbers. I’ll have two agents make the delivery. We don’t want anyone else in harm’s way.”

  “But the letter,” said Mary. “It says if we call the police or FBI, or if you mark the money, they’ll hurt Ad. I’m sure we can find some friends or someone at the brewery to deliver the ransom.”

  “The kidnappers already know the sheriff and FBI are involved,” Joe said. “It was in the papers this morning.”

  “But…” Mary placed her drink on the table. “Oh, I don’t know what to do.” She lowered her head and shielded her face with one hand.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Coors. That’s why we’re here. We do know what to do,” said Hostetter. “All kidnappers say don’t contact the authorities. Most victims’ families do because it’s the proper thing to do. The kidnappers had to have known that by leaving your husband’s car on the bridge, law enforcement would become involved. And there’s no way they’ll know we’ve recorded the serial numbers. It’s scare tactics.”

  “That’s right,” said Joe. “How would they know something like that?”

  “Not possible,” replied Hostetter. “Now, when the time comes, my agents will handle the drop-off. We’ll dress them like ranchers or choose men who resemble your husband’s brothers. I haven’t exactly decided yet, but believe me, we’ll do whatever it takes to procure your husband’s safe return. That’s priority number one. Apprehension is always secondary in these cases.”

  “I don’t know. I know you men are professionals at what you do,” began Mary, “but to tell you the truth, I don’t care about the money or if they’re caught. I just want Ad back. What do you think, Bill?”

  “I think you have to trust the FBI,” replied Bill. “But I will say this: I agree with Mary that the main thing is getting Ad back. The family doesn’t want anyone, and that includes the FBI, doing anything that jeopardizes Ad’s safe return.”

  “We don’t either,” said Hostetter.

  Jefferson County investigator William Flint had intercepted the ransom note at the Morrison post office that Wednesday at 9:40 a.m. and immediately turned it over to the FBI, which dusted the envelope and letter for prints and made copies. Postal employee Joe Murphy said, “With the 3:00 p.m. Denver postmark on the envelope, the letter had to have been mailed in Denver on Tuesday, between 1:45 and 2:15 p.m.”

  Agents were pleased to have the letter. It represented the first piece of physical evidence, other than the brown felt hat, belonging to the kidnappers. Agents in Denver would receive a report from the FBI Laboratory in Washington two days later detailing the lab’s findings:

  In the lower left-hand corner of the envelope was typed the word “PERSONAL”; in the center of the envelope the words “Mrs. Adolph Coors III, Morrison, Colorado,” and on the upper right-hand corner of the envelope were typed the words “SPECIAL DELIVERY.” The envelope bore a postmark “Denver, Colo, 2 1960” on the outer circumference of the circular postmark and in the center of the postmark the letters and numbers “FE 9 3 PM” …

  The envelope and note were treated for fingerprints by the use of triketohydrindene hydrate and silver nitrate. No latent impressions of value were found …

  The typist is experienced and made no errors in punctuation or spelling; double spaces after a period, which is taught in typing schools; but does overuse colons and uses only one space after a colon rather than two as is the approved practice in typing.

  The author is reasonably well educated; writes well …

  The letter was typed with either a Hermes or Royalite portable typewriter; both are sold extensively in the United States.… The Royalite has been on the market for less than three years. It is an inexpensive machine sold in large drug and department stores. Inquiry was made at the Royal McBee Corporation, manufacturer of Royalite typewriters, to determine retail outlets in the Denver area that sell the Royalite and the serial numbers of typewriters shipped. A representative of the manufacturer advised that two businesses sell the Royalite portable typewriter. They are the Denver Dry Goods Company, 16th & California Streets, and the May-D&F Company, 16th & Tremont.… This particular machine has a defect. The letter “s” is defectively applied. It is struck lower than all other type in the letter.… The typewriting on the envelope and note were compared with those in the Anonymous Letter File and the National Fraudulent Checks File. No matches were realized …

  The envelope measures 4.24 inches in width and 9.37 inches in length. The paper has a substance weight of 20, measures 8.42 inches in width and 10.94 inches in length. Both contain the watermark, “EATON’S DIAMOND WHITE BOND BERKSHIRE COTTON FIBER CONTENT,” and are sold by the Eaton Paper Corporation, 75 South Church Street, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A code mark under the first “E” in “BERKSHIRE” indicates the envelope and paper were manufactured in 1959. A representative from the manufacturer advised subject envelope and paper were shipped in reams and boxes after February 10, 1959, to five businesses in the metropolitan Denver area. Only two stores sell both the paper and the envelopes. These are the Denver Dry Goods Company, 16th & California Streets, and the May-D&F Company, 16th & Tremont. Dates and amounts of purchase have been recorded. Interviews of sales clerks at each store to follow.

  As Agent Hostetter left Ad and Mary’s home, he instructed two of his agents to relieve those who’d manned the recorder the night before. “I want to remind everyone not to say anything to reporters. If pressed, tell them the FBI told you to remain silent. Not only do leaks about our evidence, suspects, and theories compromise the investigation, more importantly, they put Mr. Coors in added jeopardy.” He would relay the same message by telephone to the foremost offender, Sheriff Wermuth.

  More than a year later, Mary testified in a crowded Jefferson County court, “I felt a little bit relieved because the ransom note gave us hope that Ad could still be alive.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Corbett sat on a log beside a small river, stretching his legs. He’d been driving for hours. He unrolled some wax paper and bit into a bologna-and-mustard sandwich he’d picked up at a filling station along with a bottle of Pepsi. The man behind the counter had cut the rag bologna thick like Corbett asked. It was a dime more, but Corbett thought he’d splurge. He was hungry, having missed breakfast and dinner the day before.

  He just sat there, rested, and ate, watching the cold water rush by with dead eyes. Those who knew him in his youth would never have guessed he’d be sitting on that log with little money and even less of a plan, a fugitive from justice soon to be suspected of another crime.

  Corbett’s homelife had been normal eno
ugh, although he had an older brother who died in 1927 at the age of six. The little boy had run into the street, chasing an errant ball, when he was struck and killed by a passing automobile. Corbett, born twenty months later and oddly named Joseph Corbett Jr. after his deceased brother with the same name, was left with a stepbrother and a young Alaskan boy named Russell Mallott that his parents had taken in at nine but later relinquished at age sixteen when his father was released from prison.

  “I knew the family well,” said an elderly woman who lived on the same street as Corbett’s parents. “I’d see the boy playing out on the sidewalk. I remember him as a good boy; never heard of him being involved in any juvenile mischief. I’d talk to his mother when she came out on the back porch. Seemed like a fine woman. I didn’t speak to his father other than to wave or say hello.”

  Yet Corbett would grow up to consider his mother “strange” and his father lacking moral fiber. “He oozes selfishness. He gambles and is an alcoholic. Taken the cure one or two times at AA,” Corbett told friends. Nevertheless, his father was an intelligent man and a stable employee. He’d set type, written columns, and edited at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer almost all his working years. He was well respected by his coworkers and had been elected to the board of trustees of the Seattle Press Club.

  Corbett had been an exemplary student. At Bryant Elementary School in Seattle, he had several friends and earned straight As. Though there were instances when he didn’t focus on his studies at Roosevelt High School, he was in the debate club, German club, and science club, played soccer and softball, and worked after school. At seventeen, he submitted an essay entitled, “Why a Merchant Marine?” in a National Maritime essay contest sponsored by the Propeller Club of the United States. His was the winning entry and earned him a $50 war bond. He graduated eighty-eighth in a class of 455 students. Many thought he could have finished first had he been more interested in his studies.