Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland

by Morrow, Jason Lucky

  Chapter Two

  LATER THAT FRIDAY MORNING, NEWSPAPERS throughout Oklahoma showed little interest in the Gorrell murder. The dailies of adjacent states—Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri—only had a three-column-inch stub from United Press, or two inches from Associated Press, each with conflicting information. Nobody had bothered to wake the Tulsa stringer for Oklahoma City’s Daily Oklahoman, and even the Tulsa Daily World’s front-page story seemed inadequate and stoked the mystery with more questions than answers. The World’s staff had worked all night and crammed into the report everything they knew while the printing press was warming up. The story revealed they had followed Maddux and his detectives back to headquarters and the coroner’s office, where the preliminary findings indicated Gorrell had most likely been killed with his own gun. Two fired shell casings and one bullet were removed from the cylinder, and powder burns on the victim’s head indicated the barrel was approximately twelve inches away when it was fired.

  Maddux and Reif roused Charlie Bard out of bed at six in the morning and noted that the eighteen-year-old seemed genuinely distraught and deeply affected upon learning of his friend’s death. He was anxious to tell all he knew, and, step-by-step, Bard went over everything that had happened the day before.

  The detectives had already learned from the boy’s mother that her son had arrived in Tulsa around three o’clock in the morning in a used car he and Richard Oliver had recently purchased. When he got home, John went to bed, slept until midmorning, and ate lunch. He then picked up Charlie, and the two had gone to a football match to watch the University of Tulsa Hurricanes play the University of Arkansas Razorbacks. John was in high spirits as he followed the tight game, which ended 7-7, Bard said.

  As Maddux already knew, the boys then ate Thanksgiving dinner at the Gorrell home, where John received the mysterious telephone call, but he never told his friend anything about it. After they were excused from the table, they went upstairs so that John could change clothes for his date that night. He was still wearing the knee-high leather boots and riding-crop pants of a dashing pilot, an outfit he had chosen to wear to the game. Charlie had to help him pull off the boots.

  The phone call he had made before leaving turned out to be no mystery at all. It was to his date that night, Eunice “Alabama” Word, a student nurse who lived, worked, and trained at St. John’s Hospital. He would pick her up at 7:30 p.m., he told her. Then, Gorrell did something strange, Bard said. Instead of taking him along to go pick up Eunice, John went alone to the hospital, at 21st Street and Utica. John insisted that Bard stay behind, saying he had to do something first. Bard didn’t know what that was, but he waited by the front door for his friend to return. Twenty to thirty minutes later, John arrived with Eunice, and the young trio then drove to Charlie’s house, where he placed a call to his date, Hazel Williams. And it was here, while he was getting ready for his date, that Charlie said he saw something that might be helpful to detectives.

  “John showed me a revolver,” he said with a dramatic pause. He could see the detectives’ eyebrows go up. “It was a .22-caliber. He asked me if I had any cartridges to fit it. I told him that I had none. He put the pistol back in a holster at his right side, after showing me that there were three cartridges in the cylinder.”

  He was right about the three cartridges; Maddux had only found two empty shells and one unfired round in the cylinder.

  After fifteen minutes, by Charlie’s estimation, the boys then went to Hazel’s house. There, John showed off his revolver again and laughingly remarked that he was prepared for bandits, Bard said. The group then drove back to Charlie’s house. They were only there ten minutes when John suddenly announced he had to leave.

  “I’ve got to see a friend,” he had told Charlie. “If I don’t see him tonight, I will miss the contact. I’ll be back soon.”

  And then he left with Eunice Word. Charlie never saw him after that, and he had no idea whom John was supposed to meet.

  The trail was clear to Maddux and Reif; they needed to follow up with the two girls and learn what they could about the man he was supposed to meet. However, the job of tracking down alibi witnesses and double-checking stories was going to grow exponentially as the case moved forward. From here on out, Maddux would need his seasoned team of investigators to help manage this case. He needed reinforcements, and detectives Leslie Kern, Isaac Fisher, and Louis Boyd were called into a meeting back at the detective bureau that Friday morning.

  “I don’t have to tell you how important this case is,” Maddux reportedly told his detectives. “We’re going to work twenty-four hours a day until it is cracked.”

  In the office of the nursing supervisor at St. John’s, Eunice told the detectives that from Charlie’s house, the two went to a motel on the outskirts of town called Cook’s Camp. After spending a few hours in one of the tiny bungalows frequented by travelers, Gorrell took her to a roadside food stand, where John bought pork sandwiches for both of them. While there, he recognized another young man and waved to him, but he never told her who it was.

  Yes, John did say he had an appointment to meet someone, but he never made that meeting while she was with him, she told detectives.

  “We returned to the hospital before 11:00 p.m.,” Eunice declared. “I think it was 10:50. John walked up the steps to the front entrance with me. We stopped only a few seconds while we said good-night. I went inside. That was the last I saw him.”

  When Maddux asked the young woman if she had seen the revolver Gorrell was carrying, she gave the detective an important clue.

  “I saw John put a pistol in the door pocket [driver’s side] as we came back to the hospital,” she told him. “John parked his car in front of the hospital and left the car door open and the motor running.”

  If Gorrell was indeed killed with his own pistol, Maddux realized, then that little mistake may have cost him his life. Based on his examination of Gorrell at the scene, the young man was likely murdered thirty to forty-five minutes before he was found, and shortly after he left Eunice, the last known person to see him alive. He was supposed to meet someone that night—but the killer may have found him first.

  The young woman told her story in a frank, direct manner. There was no reason to doubt anything she said, but Maddux needed to be certain about the time frame for everything. Sister Gratiana, who was in charge of the front desk that night, checked her log book and confirmed she had signed Eunice back in at 10:50 p.m.

  Back at headquarters, Det. Reif was going through Gorrell’s pockets and found he only had one dollar and thirty cents on him when he was killed. John had left home with about two dollars that his father had given him on his way out. They knew Charlie had loaned his friend fifty cents after he had asked for spare bullets. Two dollars and fifty cents wasn’t much of a motive, but maybe the killer didn’t know that before he shot Gorrell.

  By noon, the autopsy report from the coroner was ready. The two bullets had traveled in a horizontal line and shattered the skull plate, where the coroner found them just below the scalp on the left side.

  “One bullet entered the right temple and was fired at a distance of ten or twelve inches,” Maddux would later tell reporters, who were always swarming around police headquarters. “The head had fallen and the blood ran down toward the upper part of the jaw.

  “The second shot entered above the right ear and was fired with the muzzle pressed close, as indicated by the scorched hair. The head was then thrown forward in some way, for the stream of blood ran down toward the front of the face, crossing the first stream of blood.”

  The reporters lapped up everything Maddux had to say, and he was making sure he told them just about everything he could. An impression needed to be made to everyone in Tulsa that his department was doing all it could to solve this case.

  “Gorrell must have been killed while the car was in motion by someone who sat in the front seat beside him while Gorrell was driving,” he continued. “This person must have been some
one he knew and trusted.”

  The gun, he added, had been wiped clean.

  He then turned his attention to performing a ballistics test. After firing test bullets into cotton, Maddux placed a clean round next to one of the death bullets in a Gravelle comparison microscope. Despite heavy damage to one of the bullets retrieved from the young man’s skull, the lands and grooves of the other bullet confirmed it; Gorrell was killed by his own gun.

  While Maddux was working in his lab, the city’s grapevine was on fire. News that a young man from a prominent family was found murdered in his car in the rich part of town ignited the imaginations of 150,000 Tulsans, and switchboard operators struggled to keep up with all the calls. Radio Station KVOO blasted out the story with their morning news broadcast and ran updates throughout the day.

  “Rumors and tips began to seep into Headquarters even before the early editions of the newspapers were on the streets,” a high-ranking police official would later write. “Some of that information, at first cast aside as unbelievable, as utterly preposterous, was later to be found of value. In Tulsa’s homes and on the street corners, the death of young Gorrell was the one subject of conversation.

  “The feeling that something terrible and sinister was about to be disclosed swept over the entire city before nightfall. But I know none realized the wake of horror and revulsion that was to be left as the case progressed. While at the time there was nothing tangible, a feeling of apprehension prevailed in official circles.”

  When Sgt. Maddux broke the news of the ballistics test to his colleagues, Police Chief Charles Carr called a meeting of all detectives in his office. It was a private meeting, behind a closed door and a stern secretary. But before it was over, they would have the name of the man who killed John Gorrell.

  Sort of.

  Chapter Three

  Friday afternoon, November 30, 1934

  EDWARD LAWSON WAS A HARD-CHARGING Tulsa oil executive who hated stagnation. He thrived on movement and action, because that meant accomplishment, which meant money in the bank. He had contempt for the bureaucrats of the world who could wrap more red tape around a drilling rig than there was wood to hold it up.

  As a close friend to the Gorrell family, he knew John and his wife were devastated. He didn’t like that. He had to do something about that. And so he did the one smart thing nobody had thought of yet; he called John’s roommate in Kansas City, Richard Oliver. Oliver was from Tulsa. Maybe he knew something about what was going on. And when Lawson spoke to John’s roommate, he struck oil.

  After telling the young man that John may have committed suicide or been murdered, Oliver blurted out, “Impossible! I know John did not kill himself—and I know who killed him.”

  The story, as he told it to Lawson, was that nearly two weeks before, a fella from Tulsa had come up to see John.

  “He was introduced to me as ‘Bob Wilson.’ But before I met Bob Wilson, John told me something. He said: ‘If I am ever killed or wounded, you will know that Wilson did it.’”

  Lawson told him not to move, and to stay close to the phone. His next call was to Chief Carr, who answered his phone while still meeting with his detectives. Carr took immediate action by issuing two orders to his detectives: find out who Bob Wilson was, and contact Oliver and make arrangements to get him here by train as fast as possible. Railroad timetables were consulted and arrangements were made. Oliver’s train from Kansas City would arrive in Tulsa early the next morning on the Frisco line. Lawson and two detectives would meet him at Union Station and escort him to police headquarters.

  A search of arrest records did not uncover anyone with the name Bob Wilson. The city directory showed there were half a dozen Robert Wilsons, but after those who were too young or too old were ruled out, the remainder went by Rob or Robert. Not one police officer from top to bottom had ever heard of Bob Wilson. Blank stares greeted detectives when they made inquiries with the Gorrell family and John’s friends.

  Bob Wilson? Who in tarnation was the Bob Wilson that met with Gorrell?

  The Tulsa grapevine that had been burning up with news of the murder began to work in the detectives’ favor. Their telephones rang constantly with new tips from the public, many of which seemed preposterous and farfetched.

  One confidential source told detectives that Gorrell was linked to an extortion-and-kidnapping plot against one of the richest families in Tulsa. Another lead revealed a scheme Gorrell had allegedly concocted during his time in flying school. It involved “frequent trips to Mexico” that would “make a lot of money.”

  Mexico? Frequent trips? A lot of money? It wasn’t hard for detectives to figure out what that was all about—if it were true. In a department that already had its own narcotics detective, they knew some of the young people were messing around with marijuana. Unheard-of ten years ago, it had first appeared on Tulsa streets in the past four years. It was known to be an import from Mexico and was often referred to as “that Mexican weed.”

  Detectives also learned that Gorrell had had a passenger when he drove home. Lon Lyle was another Tulsa native and a dental student in Kansas City. But when detectives found him, he could shed no light on John’s murder, and he had never met the Bob Wilson who had come to Kansas City two weeks ago.

  After Chief Carr’s meeting Friday morning, twenty-two-year-old George Kearney walked into police headquarters on Fourth Street and asked to speak to detectives. He may have seen the killer last night, he told them. Just like Gorrell, Kearney had had a date with one of the student nurses and had escorted her back to the main entrance a few minutes before Gorrell and Eunice arrived.

  “We, my companion and I, were standing near the hospital entrance when John and Miss Word drove up. It was just a few minutes before eleven. I was ready to go home.

  “As John and Miss Word walked up the steps, I turned and walked to my car which was parked north of the hospital on Utica Avenue. I noticed a man standing beside Gorrell’s machine. When I started to drive away the fellow jumped into his own car and followed me.

  “I paid very little attention to him until I slowed down to turn into my home driveway. The man pulled up alongside me and stopped [and] rolled down his window. I thought that he wanted to say something to me. He cut his lights off, but a split second later, turned them on again. Then he jerked back and drove off. I watched as he wheeled his car around at the next intersection. He returned down Utica Avenue, traveling back to the hospital.”

  Kearney knew John, and although his story was interesting, it wouldn’t bring Maddux any closer to the killer. The young man didn’t really get a good look at the driver and couldn’t describe him. He couldn’t even say what the make of the automobile was. Nevertheless, the information filtered out to all patrol officers. Employees of both the Crawford Drug Store, across from the hospital, and the hospital itself were questioned about the strange man and the car he was driving.

  But nobody else had seen him.

  Later that evening, Maddux had another impromptu meeting with his detectives. They had learned a lot over the first twenty hours. They had two possible witnesses to the killer—Kearney and Oliver. And that’s when Maddux started to get nervous. What if the killer had learned of Oliver’s return to Tulsa? There were a lot of print and radio newsmen swarming around, and he couldn’t contain all the information. If the killer knew Oliver was on that train, he might try to silence him when it reached Tulsa.

  Maddux couldn’t risk it. So far, Oliver was the best lead he had. He sent a telegram to the train station in Vinita, Oklahoma, for Oliver, informing him that detectives would meet him in Claremore, thirty miles northeast of Tulsa. Detectives Reif, Kern, and Fisher would escort Oliver off the train and bring him to Tulsa by car.

  Before the Tulsa World went to print the next morning, Maddux enlisted their cooperation. Mixed in with the story tomorrow would be a bold proclamation that two local witnesses knew more than they actually did, and that an arrest was imminent. If the killer kept up with the news, he mig
ht lose hope and surrender.

  “If their story is correct, and if they are able to identify the man they saw, this case will be solved,” Sgt. Maddux was quoted by the Tulsa World. “We believe the trail is growing warmer.”

  As a reward for their assistance, Maddux told those same writers that his men would be in Claremore to pick up Oliver and bring him back to Tulsa. Following the detectives the next morning would be a car with reporters and a photographer. When Oliver’s picture hit the newspapers the following day with a story that he was talking to police, Bob Wilson might come out of the shadows.

  In spite of all the precautions Maddux took, and the safeguard of sending his best men to protect his star witness, he could not have predicted the astonishing coincidence that was about to take place aboard that train.

  Map of Oklahoma showing Tulsa, Claremore, Chelsea, and Vinita. Click to enlarge.

  Chapter Four

  Saturday, December 1, 1934

  AT 5:46 THE FOLLOWING MORNING, the daily southbound Frisco train ground to a halt in front of the Claremore railroad station. Three detectives from Tulsa, followed at some distance by reporters and a photographer, approached the conductor.

  “We are looking for a young fellow, Richard Oliver,” Detective Reif said with a flash of his badge. “He’s on the train and—”

  “I know he’s on my train,” the uniformed conductor interrupted. “That boy is scared to death. He is locked up tight in my compartment.”

  With amazement and near-disbelief, the detectives listened as the conductor tried to explain in a few hasty sentences what had transpired in the past hour. Anxious to get the boy off the train, the conductor excused himself for a moment and returned with a young man who clearly didn’t want to be there.