Over the course of the next couple of days, Barth sent emails to several of those eBay buyers, one of whom was Middlebury’s Christopher Watters. He had bought The Navigator, in February, for $810. Barth explained the situation and said that Kenyon was interested in buying the book back. Watters agreed, and sold it to them for what he paid, plus postage, and Barth sent him a check for $833.95. As an afterthought, Barth asked about the possibility of there still being a bookplate in it, and Watters confirmed that one from Nu Pi Kappa was still right there where it belonged.
It would not be entirely accurate to say that bookplates were Breithaupt and Hupp’s downfall—that seemingly inevitable event had many antecedents—but these ornamental slips of paper did more than their fair share to frustrate them. They either tore them out, leaving a mark, or they left them in. But the presence of book plates in so many of the books they were selling directly contradicted their later claim that they thought these were worthless things that the college was throwing away. Usually the only books to get bookplates are the sort that are never de-accessioned. Of course, to counteract these bookplates, Breithaupt had stolen a “withdrawn” stamp from Kenyon and used it on some of their books. Unfortunately, he didn’t steal an ink pad to go with it. So he used his own, and stamped “withdrawn” on Kenyon books with green ink, when actual Kenyon withdrawn books were stamped with black.
But compared with his other bookplate excuse, the “withdrawn” stamp gambit was a work of genius. When later asked to explain why so many books in his possession had Kenyon bookplates, he told authorities that when he ran out of his own bookplates, he merely took some from Kenyon and had authors sign those. The books, he explained, were his—it was just the bookplates inside them that belonged to Kenyon. There is a terrific irony to the fact that the only time he admitted stealing something from Kenyon—the bookplates—he was lying.
Barth continued his investigation for the next couple of days and it proved conclusively that Breithaupt had been selling Kenyon books on eBay. On Monday, May 1, Temple called the Knox County Sheriff’s office and scheduled a time to talk to an officer the next day. Then he suspended Breithaupt without pay. As soon as this happened, Breithaupt began telling anyone who would listen that he found the books and items he sold on eBay in the trash behind the library. This included, again, Temple, to whom he promised to make, and bring in, a list of these books. Instead, at Hupp’s insistence, Breithaupt hired local attorney William Kepko.
Still, Caves Curve Books was not out of business. There were several auctions of Kenyon books continuing on eBay, and a little thing like getting exposed as a thief and a liar was not going to discourage Breithaupt from continuing to make money. On April 29, after a week of bidding, the auction ended for the first volume of Commodore Perry’s narrative of his expedition to the China seas and Japan. Along with the narrative aspect, the first volume of the set of three included—famously, for collectors—seventy-nine tinted lithographs, another seventy-nine woodcuts interspersed within the text, and five maps. One of these lithos was an at-one-point-scandalous image of nude bathers. This book was sold to a Japanese man for $200, a steep discount.
Despite all his pleas, excuses, and claims of ignorance—the ones he had made in the first days after getting caught, and the ones he would make forever after—that he did not know he was selling books owned by Kenyon, by the time of this sale, Breithaupt knew for sure that he was selling the college’s books, and that they wanted them back. Nevertheless, at the conclusion of the sale he packaged this book without missing a beat and sent it to the man who had bought it, exactly like he and Hupp had done so many times before. The Japanese man, as it happened, was not interested in the book itself, only the lithos that he could sell individually. So he took a razor blade to the 150-year-old binding, cut out the plates, and threw the rest of the book away. Unlike the one the school bought back from the man at Middlebury, this book, like so many others, was simply gone forever. And with it, any real sense that Breithaupt’s side of the story could be believed.
Still, business continued. On April 24, Hupp had listed for sale Kenyon’s copy of John Frost’s Pictorial History of California. Described on eBay as “Ex-fraternity library copy”—an interesting bit of descriptive legerdemain—and with “two torn upper edges, one slightly effecting text; end papers toned with gift inscription on ffe and signs where library pocket, borrowers’ slip or bookplates have been removed,” it had ten bids, and sold on the first day of May—the same day Breithaupt was suspended. It had been nearly a week since Breithaupt had been exposed, but he was still selling Kenyon books—in this case, obviously a Kenyon book, based on the description—on eBay. He wrote to the man in California who won the bid, and explained that, with shipping and insurance, the total cost would come to $75.98. After they received his payment in the mail, they would send the book. The man wrote back to say that he was sending the payment immediately—but had they ever considered using PayPal?
This was quite a good question. PayPal was by far the easiest and most convenient way to collect money on eBay transactions, and most serious businesses used it. Of course, it created an electronic payment record that might have been inconvenient for tax purposes—and worse than inconvenient for Hupp, who was getting paper checks sent to two locations. To the buyer Breithaupt said they would consider it, but they “are so-o-o-o small time, just selling books we’ve bought and had for years waiting for shelf space or a book shop…Well, tuition for two daughters won the race and we started selling on the Internet.” A jaunty little note indeed, for a man who was just caught with his hand in the cookie jar. In any event, Breithaupt promised he would get the book ready to ship.
But a few days later, after talking to his lawyer, Breithaupt withdrew the sale. He wrote a terse note to the California buyer, whose check had arrived, saying that “there has been a question about the previous ownership of the California book you won on eBay.” They would keep the buyer in mind if it turned out that the book came up for sale again, but for now, he could not send it. The buyer wrote back to say that that explanation was not good enough. “As I’m sure you are aware, the closing of the auction constitutes a binding contract. As far as I understand it, I own the book.” He asked for a more fulsome explanation, but he was not going to get one. Breithaupt wrote back to say that he was sorry for having been unclear, the “problem with the book is that there is a question about whether or not the book is mine to sell. Obviously I thought it was or I wouldn’t have listed it.”
When the California man wrote back again, he crafted a long email noting that he had hoped for a good explanation of why they could not sell the book, “not just a restatement of the situation.” He then went on to detail the consequences of their lack of ability to make good on their promise to send him the book—most of which amounted to a bad review on their eBay account. “Both you and your wife(?), with whom I’ve had earlier communication, sound like honest, decent people who are embarrassed by an unexpected situation not necessarily of their making.” Few sentences could be, in total, less true than that one.
In any event, the California man followed through on his promise. The very last piece of feedback on Christa Hupp’s eBay account was a negative one. Going back to the time they started selling on the site, almost exactly a year earlier, a total of sixty-three of the people with whom they had done business left feedback. Only this last one was negative: “Did not complete transaction. Said book wasn’t his to sell. V. disappointing!”
The second-to-last transaction, on the other hand, was positive. “perfect overseas deal. book well packed, hope to do business again.”
It Did Begin and Must Also End
At 11:15 on May 2, Dan Werner called Captain Dennis Foster of the Knox County Sheriff Department to make a formal complaint. Werner filled Foster in on what details he knew and scheduled a meeting where the officer could meet with Temple and Barth. In a way that would be somewhat different from the larger and continuing investigation, Captain F
oster’s efforts began immediately. That afternoon he phoned Chris Watters and had him overnight the copy of The Navigator to the Sheriff’s department. The next day, book in hand, he met with Barth to confirm that it was Kenyon’s, then he went to Caves Curve to get the other side of the story. Breithaupt, nothing if not consistent, told Captain Foster that he had found The Navigator, like the other Kenyon items in his possession, in the trash. By 1:30pm, back in his office, Foster contacted Stoney Burke at eBay to tell him of the investigation. (Bill Richards, in Georgia, had already informed eBay they had a stolen letter up for sale, but they responded that they could not do anything about it until contacted by law enforcement.) By 9:30 the next morning, Foster had the eBay listings from Christa Hupp’s account in his hands; he drove to the Olin and Chalmers Library and delivered them to Barth so that he could start making positive IDs.
Barth spent the weekend with those terrible eBay records. With their bold lettering, exclamation points, and Hupp’s cheerful descriptions—the listing for Theses and Statutes of the Third (Communist) International was titled, without irony, “Workers of the World Unite!”—it seemed like reading a gleeful auctioning of one’s own organs. Page by page, Barth recognized some of the important and singular items in the Kenyon collection, totted up as commodities, by a woman he could not pick out of a lineup. On a personal level, it was a nightmare; on a practical level, Barth’s work allowed Captain Foster, on Monday morning, to request a search warrant for the Caves Curve Farm. On Monday, May 9, 2000, Judge Paul Sturgeon read his affidavit and signed the warrant commissioning him to search for “a computer, printer, all diskettes, letters written by Flannery O’Connor, any and all books, letters, paintings, magazines or other materials belonging to Kenyon College.”
That afternoon—exactly two weeks after the discovery of the thefts—Captain Foster, Chris Barth, Dan Temple, and several members of local law enforcement executed the search warrant. The Kenyon folks almost did not make the trip—the sheriff called Barth about fifteen minutes before they left and asked if he would like to go. This is typical of the way library personnel are treated in the criminal investigation, even one as prompt and satisfying as that done by the Knox County Sheriff. Unless they continually badger authorities, librarians almost never know what is going on. When they are informed, it is often as an afterthought or part of an exchange of information. For library personnel, the aftermath of a major theft is usually a long stretch of complete ignorance punctuated by a few episodes of disbelief ending in disappointment.
The group was met at the farm by Breithaupt and his attorney, William Kepko (Hupp was elsewhere, still recovering from cancer surgery). What they found was the disheveled mess of a hoarder’s house. Every horizontal surface was covered in books. There was no order, and nothing that resembled the sales space of a supposedly working book dealer. It was just a big jumble of books—piled and stacked on tables, chairs, counters, closet shelves, and, inevitably, the floor—and for Barth and Temple, a daunting task. The two set about trying to identify Kenyon books. It was a job that, to be done right, would need weeks of time during which Barth had access to both the books and the Kenyon catalog. As he was dismayed to discover, he had only until the afternoon quitting time of the local law enforcement. Their job was to get enough for an indictment. Once he identified enough Kenyon books to implicate Breithaupt, the sheriffs were ready to go. So Barth was only able to gather sixty-five Kenyon books that day, knowing full well there were a great many more still in that house.
Right from the beginning the attitude of Barth, Temple, and the powers that be at Kenyon College was to get their books and material back. A prosecution of Breithaupt would be nice, but that was secondary to re-collecting their stolen items. Because Barth knew that he and Temple had barely scratched the surface with the books they had brought back from the first visit, his main idea was to get back there as soon as possible. With that in mind, they were able to convince Kepko, Breithaupt’s attorney, that it would look much better for Breithaupt in the pending criminal prosecution if he cooperated with the college in helping repatriate their books. Kepko concurred. (The influence of Christa Hupp, still on the mend from surgery, was absent from any of these negotiations.)
On Tuesday, May 23, 2000, Kenyon formalized an “agreement” with Breithaupt and his attorney. It would allow Barth and two other Kenyons—Thomas House and Dan Werner—to revisit the farm and do a closer inspection of the books scattered throughout. They would keep an accurate inventory of what they took, then they would take the books back to the library where Barth could compare them with catalog records. Any books or materials not found to belong to Kenyon would be returned to Breithaupt.
Given the obstinacy with which Breithaupt—after Hupp returned to the fold—would later interact with Kenyon’s representatives, it is amazing that any such agreement was ever made. The only concession Breithaupt asked for was that none of the men remove any materials written by Allen Ginsberg. It was a reminder that Breithaupt had spent several years working at the Ginsberg archive in New York—and had apparently brought with him to Ohio some fruits of that job.
The agreement allowed for two visits, in quick succession, and Barth planned to make the most of them. On the first, unhampered by enforced time constraints, he went as meticulously as possible through the books, trying to identify Kenyon ownership. While Barth examined the books, Dan Werner wrote down on a blank sheet of paper the items they seized. During that first long day of going through the house, Barth managed to take back 164 books and manuscripts. These included an eclectic mix of American first editions, nineteenth century novels, government publications and a few scattered items from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All in all an impressive personal collection for anyone. Werner was able to write down about ten book titles per page. These were the first:
Seven Years Street Preaching in San Francisco, Rev. William S. Taylor, 1856.
North Sea Canal of Holland, Corps of Engineers, 1872.
US Naval Astronomical Expedition, Leut. JM Gillis, 1849-52.
Colorado River of the West, JW Powell, 1875.
Executive Documents/Senate of the US, 1850, Vol. 14.
The Works of William Paley, Vol. IV, Alexander Chalmers, esq. 1819.
See above, Vol. III.
Sammlung Mathematischer Tafelin von Gorgs Freiherrn von Vega, 1849.
Letters to Mothers, LH Sigourney, 1839.
Bridge Architecture, Wilbur J. Matson, 1927.
The twenty-fifth recovered book, published in 1670, was John Swan’s Speculum Mundi, or, a glass representing the face of the world: shewing both that it did begin and must also end. The forty-fifth was Joseph Addison’s Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, from 1731. Memoirs of the Life & Writings of Mr. William Whiston, 1738, was stacked on top of American Poetry at Mid Century by John Crowe Ransom. Aldous Huxley’s Along the Road (1925) was next to Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis (1906) and Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (1971). In a pile on top of all of these was Andrei Codrescu’s In America’s Shoes from 1983. (Codrescu was a literary friend of Breithaupt’s and, in the coming years, would write a syrupy sweet letter in support of the thief.)
Barth also found a stack of Kenyon Review material intermixed with some of Breithaupt’s personal things: a pay stub, a performance review, and an employee survey, all from April 1999. Like many things would in the coming weeks and months, this sparked a memory in Barth—a memory of an event that, at the time, seemed innocuous, but in retrospect felt very much like personal betrayal. In early April 1999, he had been talking to Breithaupt about the Kenyon Review archives. Barth knew of Breithaupt’s interest, having shown him the Pynchon manuscript, and so he thought he would like to hear the good news that a comprehensive effort to catalog the entire collection was in the offing. To anyone interested in finding out what was in there, Barth knew, this would be a boon. But to Breithaupt, of course, it was a disaster. Once the survey had been done, his days of stealing from it were over. So the next ch
ance he had—it happened to be the same night he brought home some work-related papers—he simply walked out with several entire folders full of material. Most of them still sat in piles, more than a year later, waiting to be sold.
After hours and hours of going through books in the cluttered farm house, the three men from Kenyon were ready by consensus to retire for the day. They were going to take the next day off, figure out what they had, and then return. Barth, in particular, was completely drained. The bulk of the detective work fell to him, and after so many days of dealing with the truly prodigious amount of thefts, he was very tired. So while House and Werner finished up a bit of the loading, he ambled a few paces into the back plot of land owned by Hupp, trying to gather his thoughts. The flowers and trees were in full bloom by that point in early summer, and after leaving the crowded house the area there looked like the very best of Ohio.
Barth let his eyes wander around the green land behind the house, not really thinking about much in particular, just trying to relax. There were several buildings on the lot, some in various states of disrepair, none of which interested him at all. But at that moment, as Barth tried to wrap his mind around the idea of another day sorting through books in the refuse-laden house, he looked more closely at the structures. One small building, in particular, caught his attention. It was painted white and no bigger than a garage; with a chimney poking from one side it looked like a small cabin. On a whim, he wandered over, put his hand to one of its dirty windows and took a peek inside. He was stunned. The place looked like a converted chicken coop—and it was simply stuffed with books. It was as if, with all the horizontal surfaces in the main house filled, Breithaupt had begun dumping his books out there. Though he did not know it, Barth had discovered the “book barn,” a building that had housed a whole lot of Kenyon material over the years including, at one time, the Mercator Atlas (1635). And until just then, no one from Kenyon even knew it existed.
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