During his Kansas City story, Kennamer, from the witness chair, once again portrayed his victim as the well-armed crime boss of a gang looking to graduate from petty robberies to kidnapping. In spite of Gorrell’s determination to go through with it, Kennamer was able to talk him out of it, and into an extortion plot. After a night of drinking, Gorrell spent the night in Kennamer’s hotel room. Excited by the prospect of making twenty thousand dollars, Gorrell woke up early, put the rubber gloves on without any suggestion from him, and immediately started writing the note—all while he was still asleep.
“Did he compose that note by himself without any suggestion from you?” Stuart asked.
“Yes sir.”
“He completed it by himself?” Stuart asked one more time.
“Yes.”
“Now, Phil, you got that extortion note, what was your purpose in getting this note and appearing to be in with John Gorrell in this scheme?”
“My purpose was to forestall Gorrell. I figured if he knew the note was in my possession, he would make no effort to go through with the scheme,” Kennamer replied. He then claimed he only showed the note to four or five people, not the ten who reported to police he was shoving it in their faces to read.
“What did you tell them you were going to do with it?”
“I was going to see Gorrell when he returned and tell him the note was in my possession and I would turn it over to the authorities,” Kennamer smugly declared.
It sounded good, but it wasn’t what he’d told Floyd Huff who told Chief Higgins back on December 1: “He said he was undecided just what he would do with it. He was very positive in saying he did not intend to turn it over to police.”
“Now, we come to the night of the tragedy,” Stuart began. Like Moss, he was not using the words killed or murdered. “When did you get into communication with him?”
“About a quarter to six or seven Thanksgiving night,” Kennamer said. “Gorrell called me.”
“Did Gorrell arrange a meeting place with you that night?”
“Yes sir. A drug store directly across the street from St. John’s Hospital.”
“He told you he would meet you there at what time?” Stuart probed.
“7:30.”
“I arrived there a little before 7:30 and two girls were there in the store. One of them, I think was Eunice Word, who testified here. They got up and asked the clerk if he knew John Gorrell. He said that he did. They asked him to tell Gorrell that they had to return to the hospital and for him to pick them up there. Possibly five minutes after they left, Gorrell came to the door, and I got up and met him at the door and told him that the girls had gone back to the hospital.
“We stepped outside and he said, ‘How is this thing coming along?’ and I said, ‘You are busy now and I will see you tomorrow.’
“He said, ‘I will be through early tonight,’ and I said I wanted to get home early.
“He said, ‘I’ll have these girls in at eleven o’clock,’ and I said, ‘If you are through at eleven, I will meet you then.’ I don’t know whether he returned to his car or went across to the hospital.”
His explanation was incredible. “These girls” established Gorrell as having a date with two women that night. But if the second girl was supposed to be Hazel Williams, Charlie Bard’s date, she wasn’t a nurse, and she didn’t even work at the hospital. And although Phil telephoned four times that day looking for John, and once the day before, he portrayed himself to the jury as indifferent to when the two would meet up.
“Now, after he left to fulfill his mission with this girl at the hospital, what did you do?”
“I called a cab and went to the Owl Tavern,” Kennamer answered. After a long discussion about the knife, who took the knife, how he got it back, and how it was taken again, he created completely new dialogue for Morton and Snedden.
“‘What are you going to do?’” Morton asked him.
“I said, ‘I am going to have a showdown with Gorrell.’”
“He said, ‘You are going to kill him, aren’t you?’ and I said, ‘No.’
“He said, ‘I think you are,’ and I said, ‘No, you are wrong, I wouldn’t get into anything like that.’
“He said, ‘If there is any trouble I am going to take a hand in it.’ I said, ‘No, in the first place there will not be any trouble and the best way to start trouble would be for you and Snedden to go along.’”
Kennamer then declared that the only reason he had the knife was for self-defense. “I thought that if Gorrell anticipated that I was not going through with this, he would have someone else with him and they would beat me up or something.”
After he finished his story about the knife, Kennamer explained to the jury how he then walked a few doors down to the Quaker Drug Store where he found Sidney Born at eleven o’clock that night eating a sandwich and drinking a Coca-Cola. He needed Sidney to give him a ride, but his friend tried to hand over his keys so Phil could take his car.
“No, you come on and take me,” Kennamer said he told Born.
“What time did you leave to go to the hospital?” Stuart asked.
“Seven minutes after eleven o’clock,” Kennamer answered.
“Did you see his car?”
“Yes.”
“Did Sidney say anything about who was in it?” Stuart led.
“Yes, I told him what I was doing when he parked. Sidney said, ‘He’s there alright.’ He said, ‘Be careful,’ and drove away.”
“You got in the car with Gorrell?” Stuart asked.
“Yes sir.”
“I will ask you whether or not, when you first got in there, you saw any gun on Gorrell?”
“No sir.”
“Do you know that he had one?”
“No sir.”
After driving slowly toward Forest Hills, a sparsely populated area at the time, where there were only two houses near the triangular median, Kennamer said he told Gorrell, “I never had any intention of mailing the letter. I told him that if ever at any time he considered going through with a proposition of that nature in regard to the Wilcox family, or another of my friends, that I would turn the letter over to the authorities.”
Gorrell responded by pulling the gun out and screaming: “‘By God, you will never do anything with that letter!’ I couldn’t say whether it was in the pocket or between the seat and the door. It was on the left side. He reached over to the left-hand side with his right hand and secured the pistol and brought it over with an upward and downward movement.”
“When he made the downward movement, where was the gun pointing?”
“The pistol was directly in my face,” Kennamer replied.
The courtroom grew quiet as Kennamer told this part of the story. The jurors watched intently as he mimicked with his hands how Gorrell tried to shoot him in the face. It looked awkward on many different levels. First, if Gorrell was steering the car with his left hand, going underneath his left arm with his right hand to retrieve the gun appeared to be the longest, most cumbersome way of going about it. Second, if Kennamer was sitting less than two feet away, it would have been problematic for Gorrell to extend his right arm out in order to level the gun at Kennamer’s head. If Gorrell had done so, the barrel would go past Kennamer’s head and would be hitting the passenger’s side window because of how small the front seat was in Gorrell’s Ford.
“What did he do then?”
“He pulled the trigger.”
“Did the gun go off?” Stuart asked.
“No sir.”
“It snapped?”
“Yes sir. There was a brief struggle. I secured the pistol in my hand. With my left hand I was pushing him in the face. He still had a hand on the gun. I was attempting to and did turn the pistol toward him and away from my face, and there was one explosion. I presume I pulled the trigger, though I couldn’t swear to that. There was another explosion simultaneously with the car striking the curb.”
This is the explanation that had a prob
lem. If he was pushing John in the face with his left hand when the gun fired, how did the bullet miss his own hand? If it happened the way he described, it was a miracle that the bullet didn’t plow through his left forearm or hand.
After the “tragedy,” Kennamer said he wiped the pistol clean and walked back to the Owl Tavern, where he told Robert Thomas what he had done.
“I called him over and told him I was in an awful jam,” Kennamer said. “He said, ‘What?’ and I said, ‘I have just killed John Gorrell.’ And he said, ‘In a wreck?’ and I said, ‘No, I shot him.’
“He laughed and said, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘I had to do it.’ And he said, ‘Take me out and show me the body,’ and he was laughing, and I said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t laugh, this is serious!’”
Stuart then guided him back to the woman all of this was for with questions meant to play to the jury’s softer side. “Now, Phil, I am compelled to ask you a personal and very delicate question. When did you first meet Virginia Wilcox?”
“Sometime in October 1931.”
“And was that her first date with you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Did you actually fall sincerely in love with that girl?”
Everyone in the courtroom was staring at him. They wanted to hear him say it. This was the romantic angle to the story that helped pushed it into the national spotlight.
“Yes sir,” Kennamer whispered.
“Do you love her now?”
Kennamer nodded, and his voice cracked when he mumbled, “Yes.”
“And from the time you got this extortion note until the time of this tragedy, were you constantly thinking of your meeting with Gorrell and how you could prevent this tragedy?” Stuart asked.
“Yes sir.”
“And was that your purpose in your mind from the time you reached Tulsa with that extortion letter until the night of the killing?”
“Yes sir.”
He was doing it all for the woman he loved. It was a sentimental story of a brave knight going into battle, unarmed and disadvantaged, to save the beautiful princess from the dark and powerful antagonist. It was a clichéd plot that never grew old and should have ended with “and they all lived happily ever after.”
In Kennamer’s mind, that’s how it was supposed to end. But since it didn’t, the fairy tale of the knight and the princess was the version his defense attorneys needed to sell to the jury to get an acquittal.
Chapter Twenty-One
INSTEAD OF POUNDING KENNAMER TO DUST, King’s cross-examination was weak. It began strongly but then waned into a conversation with the special prosecutor probing him with questions in which King didn’t already know the answers. Even so, he was able to get Kennamer on the record with statements he knew would be contradicted later by rebuttal witnesses.
“Do you know right from wrong?” he began.
“I think so,” Kennamer replied.
“Have you always known right from wrong?”
“I think so.”
“If you have made any wrong statements in your testimony, if you have made statements that are not true, that contradict with statements of other witnesses who have testified, do you still think those statements were true?” King grilled.
“No. I would think they were wrong.”
King tried again. “You do not understand me. If your answers have been contrary to the answers of other witnesses, you still think you were right in making your answers?”
“Yes sir. I know I was right,” Kennamer countered.
The boy’s answer was as expected—egotistical—and it confirmed what Dr. Menninger had told the jury earlier that day.
King wanted the jury to hear it again. “You are certain?”
“Yes sir.”
“This is not the first statement you have made as to the facts in this case, is it?”
“No sir.”
“As a matter of fact, you have made several?”
“Yes sir.”
King then confronted him with an Oklahoma City newspaper story in which he said one of the objectives for his trip to Kansas City was to convince Gorrell to write the extortion note. Since there was never any evidence or supporting testimony that Gorrell was ever going to kidnap anyone, King wisely used Kennamer’s own words against him.
“‘I knew Gorrell would demur in writing this note and one object of my trip to Kansas City was to persuade him,’” King quoted Kennamer from the article.
“Yes sir.”
“You knew, then, Gorrell would demur?”
Kennamer shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His answer was barely audible. “Yes sir.”
“You would use your power of persuasion to have Gorrell write that note?” King pressed.
“There should be more to that article, Mister King. Some qualification.” But there wasn’t. And after Moss pushed King to read the entire article to get the right context, Kennamer was still forced to acknowledge that he’d persuaded Gorrell to write the extortion note.
“Couldn’t you have induced him to write the note without gloves?”
“I don’t think so,” Kennamer replied.
“But you did prevail on him to write it?”
Kennamer paused before conceding with a “Yes.”
King was able to score another point with the jury when he brought up the name of Hanley “Cadillac” Booth. The defense knew Anderson was going to call him as a rebuttal witness.
“Did you have any conversation with this man last July in his Oklahoma City apartment in which the kidnapping of Miss Wilcox was discussed?”
“I did not.”
“To be exact, did you not, at that time, notify this man, Mr. Booth, that you were interested in getting into some ‘bigger money’ and asked him if he was interested in extortion or kidnapping some of the wealthy oil people in Oklahoma and in which conversation you went on to tell him about the Wilcox girl?”
He felt the sting of Virginia’s gaze. “No, I—DID—NOT!” Kennamer shouted. It was exactly what King wanted him to say. When “Cadillac” took the stand tomorrow, his testimony would cast doubt on Phil’s response.
Toward the end of his cross-examination, King questioned him about what happened in Gorrell’s car, where he put Kennamer on the defensive.
“You knew John’s car?”
“Yes.”
“When Sidney delivered you there, you saw Gorrell’s car at the curb, the engine running and either the right-hand or left-hand door was open?”
“I am almost certain neither door was open.”
“You entered the car before John returned?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it a fact, that you got the gun out of the left-hand pocket and had it in your possession when he returned?”
“No, Mr. King, that is NOT the truth.”
“Tell us what happened then,” King offered with a wave of his hand.
“I got in the car from the right side. I am almost certain the door was closed. Gorrell was seated at the wheel. I think the first thing he said was, ‘I’ve been waiting twenty minutes.’ I told him I was sorry I had been delayed. The next conversation was of a trivial nature.”
King grunted. “Any sign of nervousness on the part of either of you?”
“I couldn’t say as to myself. Gorrell seemed morose, restrained and not as cordial as usual,” Kennamer said.
“Who suggested the route to take on leaving the hospital?”
“No one made a suggestion.”
“John Gorrell sought the scene of his own death?”
“He was at least driving in that direction,” Kennamer said in an exasperated tone. His annoyance with the special prosecutor was becoming more noticeable. He then repeated the conversation he and Gorrell had had before the actual killing.
When he was done talking, King again consulted his Oklahoma City newspaper and asked Kennamer if he had not said this: ‘Did you ever hear of the double-cross?’ I asked Gorrell. I told him he was getting the double-cross n
ow.
“It would be impossible for me to say it is accurate, however, it is almost entirely correct so far as the conversation I had with Gorrell.”
“Was that portion ‘double-cross’ used?”
“I think the expression was used,” Kennamer replied.
“And you did give him the ‘double cross’ when you fired two shots into his head, written with his own blood in the letter ‘K,’ which the blood formed on his cheek, your characteristic signature?”
“I DID NOT!”
“Phil, after John had been killed, what did you do with the gun?”
“I either put it on the floor or seat.”
“Were you so excited you don’t recall?”
“Yes.”
He could sense Kennamer was getting frustrated, and King wanted to keep provoking him. “Then, why did you wipe the blood off the handle?”
“I know I didn’t wipe the blood off because there wasn’t any there,” Kennamer replied in a flat tone.
“Did you wipe off the fingerprints?”
“I have a recollection of wiping the gun across my coat.”
“You were certain the gun had been snapped once or twice before it was fired?”
“I know it was snapped once but my memories, thereafter, are incoherent.”
“How long was it before the two shots were fired?”
“One to two seconds.” That was exactly the answer King wanted. While Moss had blocked Maddux from testifying that the wounds indicated the second shot was fired more than a minute later, the prosecution found a new expert—one whom Moss couldn’t get dismissed.
“Do you recall the posture of the body?”
“I couldn’t describe it, but my impression is his head was forward when I left.”
“How did you get back to the drug store?”
“I walked all the way, two miles.” This was disappointing to those hoping he would name his accomplice. For some reason, many people thought his two-mile walk in bad weather was improbable.
As King wrapped up his interrogation, he scored one final point against the nineteen-year-old.
Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland Page 23