“YOU’RE A LYING DOG!” Kennamer shouted. “You don’t remember what happened at the Owl Tavern Thanksgiving night! I don’t think you can remember!”
Snedden grinned and walked away. He had told the jury that Kennamer had said he was going out to meet Gorrell that night to kill him. That was premeditation, not the actions of a hero, and Kennamer’s anger for Snedden’s testimony would last forever.
Back in the courtroom, Moss continued his cross-examination with a yardstick that he swung up and down and back and forth as he emphasized his points.
“Now, JACK, how many times did he tell you he was in love with Virginia Wilcox?” Moss asked as he pointed the stick at his own client.
“I did not count them.”
“Now then, JACK, did he ever tell you there was no use of him living because Virginia didn’t care for him?”
“Yes, he did.”
“How many times did he tell you things like that, JACK?”
“Not more than two or three times,” Snedden answered, seemingly unperturbed by the countless number of times Moss was enunciating his name.
“Did he tell you, JACK, that because Virginia would not care for him as he desired, that he thought he would commit suicide by taking poison?”
“He did not tell me he had done it. I took him to his home to do it!” Snedden blurted. However, when they got there, for some vague reason, Kennamer never went through with it while Snedden was there. Kennamer later told his friend that he did take poison that night, but that he had taken an overdose, and the poison did not work in that large of a quantity, and that was the reason he had not died.
After he carried Snedden through more of Kennamer’s overly dramatic talk of suicide, Moss brought the boy around to the Hy-Hat Club, of which the witness and his client were once both members. The Hy-Hat Club was high on the list of salacious angles to the story that out-of-state newspaper reporters were hoping would be revealed. If drugs or sex or orgies or naked pictures or even petty crimes carried out by overprivileged brats were to come out of this trial, it would come by way of the Hy-Hat Club, and their ears perked up when they heard the club mentioned.
“Now, when the Hy-Hat Club gave a dance, how was it decided which boy would go with which girl?”
“A list was sent around to each sorority and the girls would write down the name of the boy they wanted to go with. Then, the club officers would meet and determine who was to go with who to the dance, [and] then pair them off,” Snedden explained.
Okay, not yet, but it was coming . . .
“Now, JACK, do you know of any instances when Phil attempted to influence the Hy-Hat Club to let him go with Virginia?” Moss asked as he raised and lowered the yardstick that was getting on Anderson’s nerves.
“He usually asked Virginia to go with him and she would usually tell him she had another date, that is, if she had one.”
Hmmm, still nothing. Get to the good stuff . . .
“You do know that Phil did all he could within the Hy-Hat Club to arrange it so that he would be Virginia’s escort to the dance.”
“Every time I know of but once,” Snedden recounted before being dismissed for the day.
That was it? Damn Hy-Hat Club.
Both sides had scored that day, but after the Mrs. Harman fiasco, the prosecution’s case had lost its edge. In tomorrow’s newspapers, writers would proclaim the state would likely rest its case later that day. But the big story that day wasn’t Mrs. Harman or the scandalous revelations of any witnesses on the stand. Instead, it was the Bruno Hauptmann trial. The jury had found him guilty and sentenced him to die in the electric chair.
Was it a bad omen for Phil Kennamer?
Chapter Eighteen
Thursday, February 14, 1935
PHIL KENNAMER WASN’T THE ONLY crazy person before the court that Thursday morning. The first order of business Judge Hurst attended to was a plea hearing for Edna Harman. Charged with contempt of court, her bond was set at $1,000, and her trial was scheduled for March 11. Instead of making money as a witness, she lost money as a prisoner. When Harmon Phillips tried to interview her again as she was being led back to jail, Edna Harman wasn’t so talkative anymore.
“Although having discussed her appearance here and [her] reluctance to testify without hesitancy when she first appeared Wednesday morning, after the court ordered her held, she refused to discuss the matter with anyone.”
The courtroom started filling rapidly as soon as the doors opened at 8:00 a.m., and the day began with Flint Moss recalling JACK Snedden to the stand. Many in the crowd that day were Tulsans attracted by all the Edna Harman drama and testimony summarized the night before in a remote broadcast by radio station KTUL.
Ever since he’d arrived in Pawnee, Moss had lived up to his reputation as “the smoothest man in the courtroom.” His gabardine wool suits were tailor-made to fit, and he preferred dark colors with flashy silk ties and white pocket squares that shimmered. His deep-toned leather shoes were custom-made by a Tulsa shoemaker. Moss kept them clean by wiping them down as soon as he got into the building. As much as he wanted the jurors to think of him as one of them, he wasn’t about to walk around in front of the jury box with red dirt on his shoes.
Despite some minor setbacks the morning before, he’d scored big with the Harman fiasco, and the momentum was on his side. The state would likely rest its case that day, and he looked forward to pushing the defense’s double-pronged strategy before the jurors. But first he had to chip away some more from Anderson’s witnesses. He began by introducing the most damning piece of evidence the defense had: that Gorrell was the mastermind of the extortion plot.
“Now Jack,” he dropped the enunciation, “tell the court whether exhibit two is the handwriting of Phil Kennamer?” Defense exhibit two was the extortion note. Although Moss was showing it to Jack Snedden, a prosecution witness, he wasn’t going to introduce it into evidence until the defense was allowed to present their case with their handwriting expert.
“This is not Phil’s writing,” Snedden said as he examined the note he’d first seen at the Quaker Drug Store.
“Jack, did the defendant ever tell you before he went to Kansas City that John Gorrell intended to kidnap Virginia Wilcox?”
“Yes sir.”
“What did he tell you?”
“About this gang in Kansas City that was going to kidnap Virginia.” It was the answer Moss wanted.
“Did he tell you what connection Gorrell had with the gang?”
“Gorrell,” he said, “was the leader of the gang.”
ANDERSON AND MOSS EXAMINED AND cross-examined six of the last seven prosecution witnesses in less than ninety minutes. The state’s case had been reduced to the short-story version of what happened: Kennamer said he would kill Gorrell, then he shot him twice in the head, and then he confessed to it, claiming self-defense.
Anderson’s next witness was Randal “Beebe” Morton, who testified about meeting Kennamer the night of the murder, and specifically, how he had relieved Kennamer of the knife—not once, but twice.
Hoping to show that his client surrendered the knife because he had no harmful intent, Moss asked him, “Now then, when you went to take it from Phil, he didn’t protest or even resist you, did he?”
“No, not a bit,” Morton said.
But there was a good reason for that. Beebe Morton was a very big boy—bigger than Kennamer. And when he took the knife away from him, it was not the first time he’d disarmed a killer. When Morton was just fourteen years old, he watched his neighbor Roy Freeman barge into his house and shoot both of his parents to death. Morton then attacked the crazed man, took the gun away, and called police. Freeman was sentenced to life in prison, and Morton and his brother inherited from their Osage Indian parents their oil-well rights granted by the federal government.
No, Phil Kennamer wasn’t going to mess with Beebe Morton, who then tried to talk him out of murder.
“[Kennamer] said ‘Gorrell is going to
kidnap Virginia Wilcox. I am going to stop it. I am going to kill John Gorrell tonight.’ And I said, ‘With this knife?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ And I asked him if he was really going to, and he said ‘Yes.’ I said ‘Phil, do you think it is worth it?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I am terribly in love with Virginia Wilcox and I am going to protect her in every way I can.’”
Anderson then called two witnesses who quickly testified that they saw the defendant come into the drugstore between 10:30 and 10:45 that night, about the same time Snedden said Kennamer left the Owl Tavern, which was just a few doors down. However, what jurors didn’t hear was that Sidney Born had told police in December that he and Kennamer left the drugstore at approximately 10:45. Since it was only one mile to the hospital, his testimony could have placed Phil at Gorrell’s car while John was escorting his date back to the sign-in desk.
Shortly after eleven o’clock that morning, the city coroner, and Deputy Nathan Martin, were also rapidly questioned and dismissed. Although there was never any doubt, Anderson established cause of death, and that Phil Kennamer told Martin, “I shot Gorrell.”
But there was one prosecution witness called to testify whom Moss did not want to rush. No, he was going drag this one out. He was going to make it hurt. This witness was special.
The State calls Sgt. Henry B. Maddux to the stand.
Moss’s contempt for Sgt. Maddux stretched back before his claims of turning down a $25,000 bribe, as well as his contrived bravery to soldier on with his investigation despite an insinuation of bodily harm. He wanted to know about the photos Maddux took of a dead John Gorrell in the front seat of his Ford sedan. If he had custody of the negatives, which were police evidence, how did they get published in both of the Tulsa newspapers?
Maddux had crossed the ethical line when it came to damning his client in the press, and now it was time to get a little payback. But first, Gilmer had to take him back through the night Gorrell was killed.
“Approximately at what time, Mr. Maddux, did you see the body of John Gorrell Jr?” Dixie Gilmer began.
“About 12:30 on the morning of November 30, I believe,” Maddux answered.
“I ask you if, at that time, you photographed either the automobile or the body inside of the automobile?”
“I did.”
“Later, did you take a photograph of the head and face of John Gorrell at the mortuary?”
“I did.”
It was a line of questioning designed to introduce two enlarged photographs of the dead victim. Moss ignored the death-scene photo, which he sorely wanted to talk about, but loudly objected to the head shot taken at the morgue, sometime after the murder. While the photographs were being examined by defense attorneys during their objection, Phil Kennamer noticeably leaned in and craned his neck to see the gory results. He was a little too obvious about it for reporters, and when he smirked and grinned at his handiwork, they took note of it.
Others observed the opposite reaction from the victim’s parents. Doctor Gorrell buried his face in his hands as his wife ran from the courtroom in tears.
While the jurors studied the photographs carefully, Moss interrupted Gilmer to question Maddux on the minute details of photographing the victim in the car.
“When you took state’s exhibit number six, did you open any of the car doors?” Moss began.
“Yes sir.”
“What door?”
“Right door. Right front door,” Maddux answered.
“Right front door,” Moss repeated. “Where did you place the camera in order to take plaintiff’s exhibit number six?” The answer to Moss’s questions was obvious just by looking at the photographs, so why bother asking them, some wondered. But Moss had his reasons. He wanted his detailed questions burned into the memories of the jurors when it came time to confront Maddux later.
“In front of the right front door. Right door to Mr. Gorrell’s right side,” Maddux answered.
What made the photo most interesting to observers in the room is what it didn’t show. “Kennamer has contended that he engaged in a violent death-struggle with Gorrell before he killed him,” Walter Biscup wrote for Tulsa World readers. “The photograph showed there had been no struggle, that Gorrell’s body was upright, and that his clothes were in no way disarranged.”
Resuming his questions, the young prosecutor then led Maddux to note there was a small bump with a dark discoloration below Gorrell’s right eye in the photograph. When Kennamer surrendered, he had no bruises or marks that would indicate Gorrell had fought back.
Gilmer then qualified for the court that the witness was a criminologist, and Maddux explained to the jurors that meant “the scientific detection of crime,” and one of his duties for the police department was to “preserve physical evidence.” But when Gilmer attempted to elicit from the police sergeant his opinion regarding which bullet wound came first, and the distance from which it came, Moss successfully objected.
“If he’s testifying as an expert, I want to show he’s not one,” Moss demanded. “The only way you could tell that answer, to how far away the shots were fired, would be by actual demonstration.”
After convening from the lunch recess, Moss recalled Maddux to the stand for cross-examination. “Immediately after court adjourned you refused to talk to Mr. Charles Coakley, one of the defense attorneys, about the facts you knew in this case and had not testified to, didn’t you?”
“I told Mr. Coakley I didn’t think it was my place to tell him anything at the time,” Maddux answered. He’d been avoiding the defense attorneys ever since Kennamer was jailed.
“What did Mr. Coakley ask you?”
“He asked me the condition of the gun, if I had the gun in my possession. I told him I thought the proper place for that question was on the witness stand.”
“Isn’t it true that Mr. Coakley went to Mr. Anderson to get a court order to talk to you, and Mr. Anderson objected?”
Anderson loudly objected on the grounds that the question called for a hearsay response. Always eager to provoke the county attorney, Moss responded with a salty remark that was not printed.
“Just a minute, just a minute,” Anderson snapped back. “I want to reiterate my objections to these remarks of defending counsel!”
Judge Hurst once more admonished Moss, who knew he was getting under Anderson’s skin and thoroughly enjoyed it.
“How long have you been on the Tulsa Police force?” Moss asked, as he refocused his attention on his favorite defense witness.
“A year ago last January.”
“Do you have the gun in your possession with which Gorrell was killed?”
But Gilmer objected and said the gun would be produced as soon as they had a chance.
“You’ve had plenty of chance,” Moss replied angrily, which led to another squabble breaking out.
“Another sally from Gilmer brought a comeback from Moss, and once more Anderson jumped to his feet. He and Moss shouted back and forth, bringing sharp raps from the court,” Phillips wrote.
“Mr. Gilmer’s remark was first and improper. So was Mr. Moss’s. Both of you keep quiet,” Judge Hurst admonished. He had become a babysitter to a bunch of oversized children with law degrees.
Moss then took Maddux through a long dialogue on bullets, ballistics, the murder weapon, and the process of fingerprint identification—where he struck oil.
“So, you assert that because of the fact where you found the gun, and the tests you made to reveal fingerprints on any part of it, that some person had not only intentionally but successfully rubbed and obliterated the fingerprints on it?” Moss inquired.
“I don’t know whether intentionally or by accident, but they were removed,” Maddux replied.
Moss then got him to admit he had not dusted the butt of the gun, trigger, or leather holster for fingerprints. “It would be possible to get them off but I didn’t do it,” Maddux confessed.
“How many photographs did you make that night of the Gorrell body?” Moss casu
ally inquired, getting back to the setup he was building.
“Just one.”
“One single photograph and one single negative?”
“Yes sir.”
“Now then, whatever reproduction of the photograph you made that found themselves in the papers of Tulsa were made from state’s exhibit number six?”
“They came from the same negative,” Maddux admitted.
“Did you make any other prints from the same negative and turn them over to the newspapers, from which they produced a likeness of state’s exhibit number six?” Moss asked.
The color drained out of his face. He didn’t like where this was going. “I made three or four prints and I suppose that the newspapers got them.”
“Do you remember seeing the photographs in the Tulsa papers?”
“I believe I saw one of them.”
Moss, who’d been leaning against the railing farthest from the witness, sauntered closer as he continued his questions. He was moving in for the kill. Maddux looked over at Gilmer for support, but there was nothing he could do.
“That photograph that you saw in the newspapers came from the state’s exhibit number six. Nobody else took a photograph that night?”
Maddux shifted in his seat. “I don’t believe they did.”
“You don’t know of anyone else?”
“I don’t.”
Moss turned to face the sixty-two newspaper employees in the room. “Do you know which industrious newspaper reporter it was who obtained it?”
“I would like to know!” Maddux thundered.
“Sorry I asked you. Was the reproduction in both papers?”
“I only saw one.”
“Which one?” Moss asked with his hands out wide, palms up.
“I don’t remember.”
“Mr. Maddux, first in the development of the film, and from one in the newspaper, you became familiar with the details of the photographs, state’s exhibit number six?”
Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland Page 20