by Philip Jett
“Oh yeah?” asked Gunn. “What kind of car was it?”
There was a long pause. He didn’t answer.
“Did you live in Denver earlier this year? Did you ever live in Denver?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“While you were in Denver, did you order a .32-caliber revolver from the state of Maine?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why did you burn your 1951 Mercury near Atlantic City, New Jersey, on February 17, 1960?”
Corbett simply stared at the agents.
“Where is the brown hat you wore while you were in Denver?”
Again, Corbett didn’t answer. He crossed his legs and twisted to one side away from the agents.
“What information are you willing to furnish about the old automobile you used to move some of your personal property from your apartment at 1435 Pearl on the morning of February 10, 1960?”
Corbett didn’t turn around.
“Where were you at about 8:00 a.m. on February 9, 1960?”
Again there was silence before Corbett said, “This is the end of the questions. I want a lawyer.”
“You sure about that?” asked Gunn.
“Yes. You know all the answers anyway. Lock me up. You’re just trying to build a case.”
“It will go easier on you if you cooperate.”
“Easier for you. I got nothing more to say. Take me to my cell.”
CHAPTER 18
CORBETT CAUGHT! Large letters jubilantly proclaimed across the front page of Rocky Mountain News—COORS SUSPECT SEIZED IN CANADA.
It was over. A long 263 days had passed since Ad Coors drew his last breath. A long 263 days of sadness and worry for Mary and the Coors family. Far too many days for a family wanting answers to the disappearance of a husband, father, son, and brother.
The loud clang of iron doors echoed throughout the block as visitors entered the fifth floor of the Vancouver jail.
“Hello, son,” said Corbett’s father as he entered with his fourth wife, Helen, who was fifteen years his junior. They’d flown from Seattle the day after his arrest.
Corbett stood and hugged his father. “Hello, Dad.”
The three talked for almost an hour. Only they knew what was said.
When Mr. Corbett and his wife stepped off the elevator that had taken them from the fifth-floor cell to the main floor, Mr. Corbett told reporters he had not discussed the case. “We only talked as father and son.”
When asked how his son was, the forlorn-looking father replied, “He appears happy and relieved that it’s all over. You must remember this is the first time he’s seen me in more than five years … since I visited him in Chino the day before his escape.”
“Thank God, he didn’t resist,” added Corbett’s stepmother.
Corbett’s father, a linotype operator for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said, “I’m a newspaperman myself, and I know what you’re up against. He—”
Mr. Corbett’s wife tugged on his coat sleeve, shaking her head.
“We have nothing more to say,” said Mr. Corbett, “only that my son is thirty-two, not thirty-five like he sometimes says.”
The news of Corbett’s capture hit Colorado like a blizzard in October. Folks snatched up every newspaper and tuned their radios and televisions to catch the breaking bulletins as news agencies exploded with a barrage of reports of the arrest, drowning out coverage of the 1960 presidential election, only a week away.
Reporters interviewed anyone who had anything to say about the case—the Coors family, Corbett’s neighbors, landladies, coworkers, gas station attendants, store owners, laundry operators, used car dealers, and even passersby. However, no one’s opinion mattered more than that of the victim’s widow. Mary’s quote in the newspaper summed up her pain and hatred: “I think he should get the gas chamber. There is no excuse for anyone like that going around alive.”
Mary wasn’t simply being macabre out of her hatred for her husband’s killer. Colorado had executed an inmate in the gas chamber two weeks before Ad’s disappearance, and four more were scheduled for execution, three of which would be carried out within the upcoming eighteen months.
Readers understood Mary’s hardness. Many felt the same, and Ad had not been their husband or the father of their children. Others would have been more than happy to execute Corbett themselves.
Mary despised Corbett. To her, he was filth. As she stood with three of her children in the living room of her Denver home, informing them of the capture of their father’s murderer, she may have gotten some satisfaction out of dropping the cyanide pellets herself. No one would blame her. She and her children had grown weary of such family meetings about the disappearance. All they wanted was their husband and father back home, alive and well, the way it used to be. They’d have to settle for the hope of legal justice.
* * *
A tired Corbett stood before Vancouver police magistrate Oscar Orr inside the wire-fenced dock, wearing the same green gabardine shirt and trousers he’d been arrested in Saturday. It was ten o’clock, Monday morning, October 31. He was charged with possession of an unregistered firearm, punishable by a two-year prison term in Canada. Bail had been denied. All of this was mere legal maneuvering to hold Corbett for extradition to the United States.
“This man is wanted in the United States on more serious charges, including a Jefferson County, Colorado, District Court warrant charging murder,” said the Vancouver city prosecutor to the magistrate in a sparsely attended courtroom.
The judge, wearing black robes like judges in the United States, though with a starched white collar, peered down on Corbett standing with hands folded in front of him.
“I have a police arrest warrant for murder,” said the magistrate. “I do not want you to feel bound to accept this warrant without reservation. Do you understand what you are doing?”
Corbett nodded without speaking.
“You have the right to a formal extradition hearing. Are you willing to return to the United States and waive the extradition hearing, knowing the charges you face?”
Corbett’s lips twisted, like a faint smile. He didn’t have a lawyer, but he was no dummy. He had told the FBI he was familiar with the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947 and intended to resist extradition at the hearing. If Corbett stuck to his position, he would be entitled to an extradition hearing for which counsel would be appointed and time given to prepare, and even then, Canada might not extradite if there was a chance of the death penalty in the States. FBI agents listened, anxiously awaiting Corbett’s answer.
“Yes, sir. I want them to take me right away.” Corbett had either been bluffing or simply believed any further delay would be pointless.
“I will continue this matter until next Monday,” said the magistrate. “If there is no action taken by Canadian and American officials on the matter of extradition by then, we will rearraign the prisoner.”
That was the end of the first hearing. Corbett was removed from the dock and taken directly to another courtroom down the hall. “I understand you are here before me to formally waive your right to an extradition hearing,” said Judge Stanley Remnant.
“Yes, sir,” replied Corbett, once again standing in a Canadian dock near the center of the courtroom.
“You are entitled to a further hearing on this matter if you so desire,” instructed the judge, giving Corbett another opportunity to object.
“No, sir. I wish to return to the United States.”
“Do you understand your rights and waive them freely without threat or coercion?” continued the judge, realizing that Corbett could be executed if returned to the United States.
“Yes, sir.”
The judge directed Corbett to lean across the dock’s wooden rail to sign extradition papers placed on a table. He did as instructed and shortly thereafter was driven by Canadian officials forty miles to Blaine, Washington. Corbett said nothing during the hour-long ride, and his Canadian escorts asked him nothing about the Coors
case.
Corbett was removed from the Canadian police car and handed over to FBI and US Immigration officials at Peace Arch Park on the US-Canadian border, a lovely two-park point of entry that allows visitors to stroll between countries amid flowers, ponds, and various works of art. The beauty was lost on Corbett, who was exhausted from the questioning and hearings and being shuffled about in heavy, uncomfortable shackles. He’d been on the run for eight months, eluding authorities on his trail in an effort to abscond to another country. Yet now he calmly waited as though for a bus back to Denver, where he could rest on a comfortable cot in a quiet cell.
Mounted Police removed Corbett from Canadian handcuffs and leg irons as FBI agents immediately placed Corbett in federal handcuffs and shackles. The hand-off process between countries, with the sound of the metal restraints clacking and clicking as Corbett was twisted and turned by agents, annoyed the prodigal fugitive. Agents then placed Corbett in their sedan and whisked him away to the nearest federal court for a hearing before US commissioner Richard Fleeson in Seattle. Now physically in the state of Washington, Corbett waived a preliminary hearing and signed a waiver for extradition to Colorado. He was taken before US district court judge William Lindberg, who set Corbett’s bail at $100,000. It was almost five o’clock. From there, a US marshal escorted Corbett to the King County jail in Tacoma, thirty miles south of Seattle, where he would wait until transported to Denver by Sheriff Wermuth, Captain Bray, and District Attorney O’Kane, who held the Colorado warrant for his arrest.
* * *
“Mr. Coors! What do you think about the arrest of your son’s suspected killer?” asked one of a gaggle of reporters assembled in the hallway of the brewery.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” said Mr. Coors in his dark suit and bow tie. “There’s a person who shouldn’t be on the streets for the general good.”
No photographs were allowed. That was one of the elder Coors’s stipulations for permitting reporters access inside the brewery.
“Are you relieved now that your son’s killer has been jailed? Were you afraid—”
“I’m happy about it. I can say that.”
“Did you think he might get away?”
“I never had any doubt he’d be apprehended. The FBI gets their man. The percentages were against him.”
“Do you think a jury will find him guilty of murder?”
“Yes. There’s no question in the world this man is guilty of kidnapping and murdering my son.”
Mr. Coors rarely was generous with words.
“You think he should be executed?”
The father hesitated. He was not a religious man; however, he believed strongly in good morals and that every person’s life is sacred, given by God.
“This is one of the instances when capital punishment, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, should apply.”
“Do you plan to attend the trial?”
Mr. Coors placed a hand on Bill’s shoulder to move him forward, signifying to reporters he was finished answering questions.
Rather than a visit from reporters, Mary received a telephone call from a reporter with The Denver Post. She’d stopped speaking to the press months earlier, refusing their calls in an attempt to reclaim some of the family’s privacy. This time she spoke.
“Have you heard the FBI captured Joe Corbett?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Were you notified by the FBI?”
“No. Actually, a friend called who’d heard it on the radio.”
“How do you feel, Mrs. Coors, with word of Joe Corbett’s capture?”
“I am naturally very glad and relieved. I was sure he would be caught. The FBI is infallible at this.”
“Do you think he did it? Killed your husband?”
“I’m sure he did it.”
Mary could not share law enforcement’s exultation over the arrest. Corbett had beaten her husband and then cowardly shot him in the back, twice. Ad had suffered in the cold. Then he died, and his body was dumped like a piece of garbage in a scrap heap for animals to devour. She wanted to say the gas chamber was too humane for that cold-blooded killer. He deserved to die slowly and painfully—not only for Ad’s terrible death but for what he’d done to her and her children.
* * *
Just before leaving for Vancouver to serve an arrest warrant on Corbett, Sheriff Wermuth had posed for a newspaper photograph snapped in front of the sheriff’s bulletin board that displayed a large red X across Corbett’s FBI Ten Most Wanted poster, even though he’d had nothing to do with Corbett’s capture. Wermuth always craved the publicity, but it also was an election year for Barney O’Kane. O’Kane was running for reelection as the district attorney for the First Judicial District, which included Jefferson County. The election was in ten days, and his Republican opponent, Ronald Hardesty, had made it a close race. Wermuth had been elected in ’58, and his bid for reelection wouldn’t be for another four years. The Republican Wermuth had crossed party lines to support the Democrat O’Kane rather than his own party’s challenger, Ron Hardesty, a decision that made him few friends in the local GOP.
On Monday afternoon, having chartered a plane after missing their scheduled flight, Wermuth, accompanied by his new wife, Julia, along with Captain Bray and O’Kane, landed in Vancouver. They talked to Corbett briefly before he was transported to the nearest FBI office, which was in Seattle. Once Corbett was in Seattle, the Coloradans wasted little time meeting with FBI Special Agent in Charge Earl Milnes and the city prosecutor.
“We’ll take it from here,” Wermuth told the FBI chief. “This is a local matter now.”
“We’re in the state of Washington, and you are a county sheriff in Colorado with a local arrest warrant,” Milnes pointed out.
“But extradition has been waived,” said O’Kane, sporting a white cowboy hat similar to that of Wermuth’s. “We have the authority to take him.”
“Tell you what. Stop by my office first thing in the morning, and I’ll have all the paperwork ready to release him from the Tacoma jail to your custody.”
It seemed things couldn’t have worked out better for Wermuth. He knew there’d be a crowd of newspaper and television reporters at Stapleton Airfield the following day when they stepped off the plane in Denver with Corbett in shackles. With that kind of press, Wermuth could be sheriff as long as he wanted, he thought.
Wermuth, O’Kane, and Bray arrived at Seattle’s art deco federal office building just before eight o’clock the next morning as planned, ready for the publicity parade to commence. A reporter saw the Coloradan entourage walking down the hallway. Curious, he asked why they were there.
“We’re here to escort the Coors murder suspect back to Colorado,” the sheriff said proudly with O’Kane nodding, both in full regalia, complete with brushed white Stetsons.
The reporter smiled. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but your prisoner left with the FBI on a plane to Denver last night.”
“What?”
“He was booked in the Denver City jail early this morning.”
The sheriff turned and said to O’Kane, “Those goddamn bastards,” and walked away.
As part of a federal and local jurisdictional rivalry that’s frequently stereotyped, the FBI had intentionally flown Corbett out of Seattle in the middle of the night for publicity purposes and hoodwinked the Colorado delegation.
* * *
“My father was violently opposed to the draft,” said Corbett, handcuffed to Special Agent Hostetter on the midnight flight. “He’s Canadian. That’s how they feel. Canadians weren’t drafted during World War I. Dad kept me from being drafted into Korea.”
“Is that right?” muttered Agent Hostetter, who hoped Corbett would slip and say something that would send him to the gas chamber.
“Yeah, but who knows. If my father hadn’t kept me out of the service, I’d probably be a colonel by now. So I guess you could say it’s all my father’s fault for the trouble I’m in.” Corbett was content to babb
le on. “You know why you caught up with me so easy?”
“’Cause you got sloppy?”
“’Cause I’d decided I was done running,” Corbett said arrogantly. “I just wanted to eat a few steaks before turning myself in.”
“Is that why you were hunting for a ship to board in Vancouver? To turn yourself in to the ship’s captain?”
Corbett scowled and gazed out the airplane’s window into the darkness.
* * *
Flashbulbs popped as throngs of newsmen snapped photographs of Corbett stepping off a plane wearing a gray-and-black-checkered fingertip overcoat, clutching a fedora to cover his manacles. Special Agents Hostetter and Gunn escorted Corbett down the concourse ramp and into Werner’s awaiting Plymouth, whisking Corbett not to the Jefferson County jail but to the Denver City jail.
While Wermuth and O’Kane were asleep in Seattle, newspapers developed photographs of the FBI’s airport transfer for print later that morning. The two Coloradans forfeited a front-page photo with their infamous prisoner; instead, a small photo of them retrieving Corbett from the Denver City jail appeared on page five. Wermuth and O’Kane, who’d traveled 1,500 miles to Vancouver and then to Seattle and back, caught up with Corbett a mere fifteen miles from the sheriff’s office. Yet Wermuth made the most of the occasion.
“Joseph Corbett, you are charged with the murder of Adolph Coors III, and you are being turned over to my custody to stand trial in Jefferson County,” Wermuth decreed before reporters. “Here is a copy of the murder charge.” Wermuth attempted to hand the official document to Corbett, whose hands were manacled and linked to a large leather restraining belt around his waist.
Corbett smiled. “I’ll accept it without reading it.”
Wermuth also used the occasion to accuse the FBI of what he called “glory grabbing.”
“They deliberately lied.… They’re trying to grab credit for cracking the case by attempting to get a statement from Corbett,” said Wermuth. “The FBI can expect little welcome cooperation from my county or officers, and I intend to write J. Edgar Hoover advising him of the lack of cooperation and goodwill between local and federal officers.”