Henkel put together an experienced crew to pull off his high-risk, high-stakes gamble: Henry Ford, Gary Small, Glenn Scott, Jack Siggson, and Roy Travis. Gary Small was a Pittsburgh police officer, with obvious advantages as far as access and maneuverability were concerned, but Roy Travis was the key player. A former Marion inmate originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Travis was an electronics expert with an impressive technical portfolio, including superb bomb-making capabilities.
There was one additional member of the team—Louis Kripplebauer, Jr. Recognizing Junior’s steadiness under pressure, relentless work ethic, aversion to snitching, and ever-present desire for the big score, Henkel asked him if he wanted in on the dicey venture.
“I was skeptical,” says Junior. “I thought to myself, this isn’t stealing someone’s property any more. This isn’t production work; this is some serious shit. Besides that, I thought, who has the ability to lay out five million bucks? I said, who are we talking about here? Where and how are we gonna do something like this? I told him what I thought, and he said don’t worry, he had it all figured out. Henkel then laid out his plan. He said the target would be Art Rooney and explained how we were gonna pull it off. When he mentioned Art Rooney, I backed up. Wow, I thought to myself, he isn’t messing around. The Rooney family certainly had the money, but I knew it was gonna cause a lot of shit.”
Henkel wanted Kripplebauer on board and presented his plan in considerable detail. He also made mention of his assistance to the Philly fugitive on his arrival in the Pittsburgh area, putting him up at a relative’s house and introducing him to his Ohio and Pittsburgh friends. Appreciative of all Henkel had done for him, Junior listened carefully to the sales pitch and then said okay, he was in.
Such an inherently violent and dangerous undertaking was a radical departure for a professional thief. His willingness to buy in was symptomatic of his desperation. Junior was now a hunted man—an escaped convict on the run. As a career criminal facing many years—possibly decades—of imprisonment in Texas, North Carolina, and the federal prison system, with a loyal wife who was about to be hauled back to jail, and the expectation of a rendezvous in the near future with a former friend turned rat, Junior was prepared to go for broke. Hell, he thought to himself, what did he have to lose?
Henkel’s intricate extortion plan impressed his co-conspirators. According to Junior, Henkel examined every aspect of the undertaking, even going so far as to calculate how much $5 million in one hundred dollar bills would weigh and how many bags would be needed to hold the alluring bundles of cash. Additionally, he had a lead-lined box built into the van to disable any tracking devices the FBI might try to conceal in the money. He even planned to notify the Army Corps of Engineers to stand ready to take directions for the removal of the bomb around Rooney’s neck after the exchange took place.
For some time Henkel and members of the team practiced detonating various devices in the Pennsylvania countryside. As the target date neared, however, Henkel surprised his associates by informing them that he was having second thoughts about Rooney. The old man was too high-profile, too respected by Steeler fans in the area. Henkel substituted the name of another racetrack aficionado, Edward M. Ryan, as their target. A prominent homebuilder, Ryan had recently sold his business, Ryan Homes, Inc., for one billion dollars. Henkel seemed to know a good bit about the builder, including where he lived.
The switch in targets had little impact on Henkel’s confederates. The less notoriety, the better the chance of success, they rationalized, as long as the family of the kidnap victim had the money. Some might suspect that Henkel was getting anxious. In fact, he was not the kind to come down with a case of nerves: as would soon be discovered, Henkel was quite comfortable pulling off risky ventures and terminating the lives of those who got in his way. Bruce Agnew, Kripplebauer’s long-time partner, had gone missing and was presumed dead by those in the know. And Deborah Gentile, Henkel’s girlfriend, was found murdered in Room 239 of the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport Hotel soon after she had taken out a $750,000 insurance policy on herself with Henkel’s mother as the beneficiary. Sasha Scott, a buxom barmaid, also met a violent end, as did her husband, who had made the mistake of offending Henkel one day.
A host of Henkel’s former friends and associates would turn up dead. Some were blown up by bombs; others were repeatedly shot and stabbed to death. At the time, however, not only Kripplebauer, but Pittsburgh media outlets as well, attributed the escalating death toll to organized crime factions competing for control of Pittsburgh’s lucrative massage parlor industry.
Surfacing only when he had to and preoccupied with his own problems, Junior was slow to connect the dots. In fact, as part of Henkel’s inner circle, his own life was now at risk. When Henkel told the group that he had decided to scrap the plan and suggested that Siggson return to California and find another kidnapping candidate out there, Junior was perplexed. He wondered why Henkel had pulled the plug on the extortion plot, but his confusion was short lived. Something of greater importance had taken precedence: he got word from friends in Philly that Mickie’s extradition hearing had been scheduled. He had to return home and keep a date with a former friend who had turned government informant.
KRIPPLEBAUER PROMPTLY CAUGHT a flight back to Philadelphia. As usual, there was little in the way of luggage, but now Junior was carrying something he had never hauled around before. He had obtained C-4, a plastic explosive, from Dick Henkel and had Roy Travis show him how to use it. Tommy Seher may have thought things couldn’t get any worse now that he was cooperating with the police, ratting out former partners, and facing years of imprisonment, but he was wrong. Junior planned on giving Tommy a lightning-quick ride to the morgue.
Junior spent his first night back with Mickie at the Sandman Motel in Jersey. They briefly discussed her legal strategy and Steve LaCheen’s suggestion that she file for divorce in order to show her intention to separate herself from her husband’s nefarious influence. Junior approved and tried to reassure her that everything would be okay, but they both knew it was a fiction. He made no mention of the gift he meant to deliver to their former friend. His plan remained the same: get into the courtroom prior to the hearing, plant the bomb, and give Tommy the ride of his life when he took the stand. No easy feat, but Kripplebauer knew the Camden County Courthouse pretty well, especially the sixth floor cell house. He had spent more time in the building than he cared to recall.
The next morning Junior went to Jeanette Donnelly’s house, having planned to meet up with Troy McEntee at a nearby convenience store. Junior walked to the 7-Eleven for coffee and cigarettes and found Troy already in the parking lot, sitting in a brand new Cadillac. Junior had just climbed into the Caddy and gotten a whiff of the rich leather upholstery when two figures wearing blue FBI windbreakers approached the car. Junior immediately had a snubbed-nose.38-caliber revolver pointed in his face. The other agent shoved a sawed-off shotgun through the driver’s side window.
“Shut the goddamn engine off and get out of the car,” screamed the female agent.
Junior, ignoring the command, turned to his friend and asked, “You got your gun?”
Troy was silent.
Both agents were now screaming orders at them. Junior asked Troy again if he had his weapon.
“No” was Troy’s surprising reply.
“I could see on his face that something was wrong,” recalls Kripplebauer. “I had always known Troy to carry a gun and now he’s not packing one. I couldn’t believe it. I’m staring at him, the cops are barking orders, and all of a sudden we’re surrounded by what looked like 37 officers carrying all sorts of artillery. They dragged us out of the car, threw us on the ground, and I’m griping at the bitch who first came running up to me. I’m tellin’ her she should be ashamed of herself, harassing law-abiding citizens and stickin’ guns in their faces. I told her she should be home taking care of her kids. But all the time I’m thinking I was set up, and it doesn’t take a genius to f
igure out who had done it. I can’t believe Troy ratted me out.
“They threw me in the back seat of one of their cars and put Troy in another one, but we’re not going in the same direction. Right away I can tell by the route they’re traveling they’re not taking me to Philly or the Camden County Jail. One agent asks the other where they’re gonna put me, and the guy says the Mercer County Jail just north of Trenton. He said he wanted to be sure I was nice and secure and far away from any of my Philly friends.”
Kripplebauer’s days on the run as a federal fugitive were now over. During the next several weeks he would get reacquainted with the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ diesel therapy program and be abruptly shifted from one penal gem to another: from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City to Lewisburg, on to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, and then back to Lewisburg.
His brief stopover at Atlanta, the institution he had walked out of eight months earlier, was designed to show the institution’s other malcontents that the Prison Bureau always gets its man. Unexpectedly, however, his fellow captives treated his homecoming like General McArthur’s return to the Philippines. As Junior was escorted down the long Atlanta cellblocks by grinning guards, proud of their catch, admiring inmates lined the tiers and corridors and celebrated the hero’s return. Mafia hit men, long-haired and tattooed bikers, wily drug czars, and seasoned bank robbers leaned over the railings to welcome home a slick, ballsy member of the fraternity who had accomplished what they all dreamed about: getting beyond Atlanta’s fearsome walls for more than a New York minute. Applause and shouts of encouragement and appreciation echoed through Atlanta’s cellblocks. “Hey, J. R., you made them look like fools.” “Yo, Junior, how was the vacation?” “Hey, Junior, nice shot, fella.” “You gave them a nice run, J. R.” “Did you have a drink for me, Junior?”
“I had a drink for everybody,” replied Kripplebauer with a wave of the arm and an appreciative nod. “Glad to see you guys missed me.”
Junior’s escape and unrepentant return added another chapter to the Kripplebauer legend.
The Philly burglar was placed in the hole and sat on for some time by the authorities, but the weeks of isolation and restraint were secondary to his real concern. Mickie had lost her legal battle and had been shipped to North Carolina. She was being held in the Guilford County Jail in Greensboro. Junior knew a trip to the Tar Heel State was in his future as well.
JUNIOR AND MICKIE kept in touch through the mail. “She’d write me all the time,” he says. “We’d often tease each other about our situation. I’d write her, ‘Did you get a daddy or honey in there yet?’ And she’d write back, ‘Did you get a punk yet?’ She did admit that all the dykes were cracking on her and she broke bad on a couple of them. She said she had to straighten a few of them out.”
Many months later, on January 31, 1980, Kripplebauer was transferred to North Carolina and housed in the Guilford County Prison. Though he wasn’t eager to face another legal battle or the prospect of an additional lengthy term of imprisonment, it was an opportunity to be reunited with Mickie, who was being held in the women’s section. It also allowed him to hook up again with friend and former partner Frankie Brewer, another K&A burglar who worked with both Wigerman and Kripplebauer and had recently been brought in from Graterford State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania to face similar burglary charges. Besides their strong bonds of friendship, it was important to formulate a legal strategy that would minimize the damage the prosecution had in store for all three of them.
Media coverage didn’t help. Once again, the trial of the Hallmark Gang drew considerable public interest. The earlier trials of Wigerman crew members had become something of a criminal soap opera. Now it was the Kripplebauer crew that would receive center stage treatment. Bold headlines—“Trial to begin Tuesday” and “Burglars Put Mark on the City”—announced the forthcoming show and recounted the gang’s activity over the years. The Greensboro news media, like the city of Raleigh before them, didn’t have to work hard to build up interest in the trial. Communities from one end of the state to the other had been bedeviled by the Philly burglars for years, and now the final chapter was about to be written. A North Carolina newspaper estimated that over “200 Hallmark burglaries had been committed in the state between 1968 and 1976,” meaning that just about every city and town had a story or two to tell. Greensboro alone had several dozen burglaries during the seventies. Some particularly unlucky families like the LeBruns and the Lavietes had had the misfortune of being hit twice by the Hallmark burglars; they would become centerpieces of the prosecution’s case.
As the trial approached, news articles described the horror of coming home to find your house ransacked and precious items taken. The LeBrun family, for example, “returned home from dinner at the Greensboro Country Club ....o find all the lights on and doors standing open. The cabinets were gaping and the bedroom had been ransacked.” Silverware, crystal decanters, mink coats, and jewelry had been “scooped up” and the house left a disheveled muddle. Even the few objects of value remaining, it seemed to the owners, had been defiled. “You feel like the things are dirty,” Mrs. LeBrun said.
Such personal testimonies combined with the scope of the statewide victimization led to great public interest in the Hallmark story. “The trials of Louis Kripplebauer and the other Philadelphia-area burglars were big news in North Carolina in 1980 and 1981,” says Martha Woodall, now a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer..I wrote a six-part series about the burglars for the Greensboro Record.n the spring of 1981. The tales of the Hallmark Gang, their exploits and eventual capture produced so many letters and requests for additional copies that the Record.eprinted the series in a booklet. Readers from across the state and beyond ordered copies. It was the first time the paper had produced such a reprint.”
Now that the northern invaders were about to get their long-awaited come-uppance, everyone took notice. The law enforcement community had the most invested in the outcome. For more years than they cared to recall, they had felt helpless, even humiliated. The district attorney of Guilford County called the Hallmark Gang “the most sophisticated criminals that the Guilford County district attorney’s office had ever ushered into prison.” Yes, the perpetrators were obviously “very sophisticated” and “the manner in which they handled the stolen property was neat,” but craft aside, they were predatory criminals who needed to be taken off the street and punished.
Their intention was clear. “We were gonna give everybody time,” recalls Judge Harold (Rick) Greeson, who was the Guilford County district attorney’s chief assistant at the time. “We were gonna get ’em. We had receipts from the motel where they stayed, the cars they rented, and the restaurants they ate at. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.”
And, not surprisingly, Skarbek was still lurking around, providing counsel, evidence, and strategy to the North Carolina constabulary. Skarbek, always Skarbek: no matter where they were or what jurisdictional authority was involved, Skarbek would surface. He had become a regular part of Junior’s nightmares.
The situation was looking bleak, and the Kripplebauer team knew it. Junior had his North Carolina attorney, Locke Clifford, file a “motion for change of venue” in early March 1980. Claiming that “the news media (newspapers, radio, and television) in this area and surrounding counties have given very prominent, intense, widespread, and almost continuous publicity” to the alleged break-ins and the “organized, monolithic ring of thieves” that perpetrated the crimes, he contended that it was impossible for any defendant to receive a fair and impartial trial.
Clifford argued in his change-of-venue motion that “the Greensboro Daily News.nd the Greensboro Record,” along with “WFMY-TV in Greensboro, WGHP-TV in High Point, WXII in Winston-Salem, WBIG radio station in Greensboro, WCOG radio station in Greensboro, WGBG radio station in Greensboro, and WFMR radio station in High Point,” among others, had “given similar and prejudicial coverage concerning the so-called Hallmark Gang.”
Not surprisingly, the motion was rejected. Guilford County was determined to give the Yankee burglars their day in court.
The stage was set for the state to exact a heavy penalty, as it had done earlier to Anthony Roche and Pete Logue. Junior, Mickie, and Frankie Brewer were to be tried together. All three were held in the Guilford County Jail to await trial. Each was an old hand at doing time, even Mickie. “Mickie,” as Junior proudly proclaims, “was a tough son-of-a-gun” who handled life behind bars like the professional she was. Husband and wife were not allowed to meet—except at Sunday morning church services—but they communicated on a daily basis by way of the Guilford telegraph: the prison’s air duct system.
“We’d get on the pipe every day and speak to each other for a half-hour or so,” says Junior. “It only worked through the prison’s bathroom air vents, so each of us would have to chase people out of the men’s and women’s bathrooms, then stand on a toilet or sink and stretch our necks up to the vent so we could speak to each other. It wasn’t Ma Bell, but it worked. We’d tell the other inmates to take a shower or whatever they had to do later in the day so we could talk. Sometimes Frankie would chase guys out of the room and tell them I had to speak to my wife about something important.”
As far as courtroom preparation went, Junior tried to “take the weight and relieve Mickie” of as much of the blame as possible. He maintained prior to and during the trial that Mickie was the victim of her husband’s criminal vices and demands. “I said it was me who pushed her into stealing,” says Junior. “She was just a devoted wife who was obeying her husband. It was the marriage that forced her into it. She never would have done anything like this on her own. To further that argument, Steve [LaCheen, her attorney] told her it would look good if she filed for divorce and separated herself from me as much as possible. By the time of the trial, I believe we were legally separated, if not divorced.”
Confessions of a Second Story Man Page 33