Kansas City car dealer paid $600,000 in ransom but his son was killed

Q: In 1953, 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease was kidnapped in Kansas City, Mo., and his father paid a huge ransom. My questions: Have there been any leads or tips to the missing money? Also, I lived in K.C. in the ’90s, but the father’s car dealership no longer existed. What happened to it and the family that suffered this tragic loss?

A: It was one of those senselessly horrific acts that easily fits the “Crime of the Century” category.

In 1953, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Brown Heady were two drug-addicted alcoholics living in St. Joseph, Mo. Twenty years before, Hall had attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Mo., with Paul Robert Greenlease, Bobby’s older brother. For years, Hall had been plotting to victimize his former schoolmate’s wealthy family.

On Sept. 28, he made good on his horrendous scheme. Hall and Heady drove to Notre Dame de Sion, an exclusive Catholic school in Kansas City. There, Heady told a nun that she was Bobby’s aunt and that his mother had suffered a heart attack. Without so much as a phone call to either of his parents, the nuns released the trusting young child to Heady’s care. Soon, Hall and Heady sent a message to Bobby’s father, Robert Sr., demanding $600,000 for the return of his son.

It was a sum the multimillionaire Kansas City Cadillac dealer knew he would have no difficulty coming up with. After all, in the 1940s, the elder Greenlease had reportedly loaned General Motors $1 million so the fast-growing company could expand even more, another example of how far this American success story had come.

After spending his early years on a family farm in central Missouri, Greenlease and his family moved to Kansas City, where he became fascinated with the growing love for these newfangled horseless carriages. By the time he was 21, he had opened an auto repair shop and even built an automobile he called the Kansas City Hummer because of the humming sound it made.

Then, in 1908, came the decision that changed his life. Noting the growing popularity of the Cadillac brand in the East, he acquired the first franchise west of the Mississippi. Cadillacs began rolling off his lot faster than the company could ship them.

Ten years later, he would would design and build his landmark Cadillac dealership at McGee Street and Gilham Road, just south of downtown K.C. With more sales than any other other dealership, it became stylish to have the “By Greenlease” silver emblem on your car. Eventually, he became the wholesale Cadillac distributor throughout much of the Midwest and one of GM’s largest stockholders.

So when the kidnappers demanded $600,000, Greenlease didn’t bat an eye to get his young son back. Holding off the police and FBI, Greelease delivered the largest ransom ever paid at the time to the kidnappers, who collected the money and fled.

What Greenlease didn’t know was that long before the kidnappers had issued their demands, they had taken Bobby to Overland Park, Kan., and shot him dead. After burying the boy’s body near Heady’s St. Joseph home, Hall and Heady drove to St. Louis, where Hall abandoned his accomplice.

To throw the law off the track, Hall tried to get a prostitute friend to fly to Los Angeles and mail him a letter, but the police soon learned of the wads of cash he was flaunting and questioned him. He quickly implicated Heady, who was picked up at an apartment at 4504 Arsenal. The boy’s body was uncovered Oct. 7. Justice was swift. On Dec. 18, 1953, less than three months after the kidnapping, they died together 20 seconds apart in the Missouri gas chamber.

According to a Greenlease family biography, the tragedy “left a profound shadow on Robert,” but the 71-year-old continued to do as much as he could to help his family and community. He enabled his son Paul to establish his own Cadillac dealership at 50th and Main Street in Kansas City. In 1956, he became a charter member of the Rockhurst College Board of Regents and began helping finance the education of many young men. He also was a generous donor to Children’s Mercy Hospital and Shriners Hospital in Kansas City.

He died Sept. 17, 1969, at age 87, and was entombed in the same crypt room at Forest Hill Abbey Mausoleum where his young Bobby had been laid to rest 16 years before. His daughter, Virginia, would join them in 1984 at age 43, and so would his second wife, Virginia, on Sept. 17, 2001, at age 91.

After Robert Sr. died, Greenlease Cadillac was sold in 1970 and became Major Cadillac, which, in turn, became Conklin-Fangman Cadillac in 2007 (www.conklinfangman.com). It is still located at 3200 Main St., where reportedly you can find the original terra cotta emblems carved into the upper exterior walls.

According to the FBI case file at www.fbi.gov, about half of the ransom money was recovered while the other half vanished. Theories abound over what happened to the rest. Hall told police he had purchased two trash cans to bury the loot along the Meramec River, but couldn’t find a suitable spot. (The FBI searched the area in vain.)

After Hall’s arrest, his suitcases, thought to hold the money, were never brought to the precinct station. The two arresting officers — Lt. Louis Ira Shoulders and Patrolman Elmer Dolan — were later convicted of perjury and sent to prison, but there was no sign of the missing cash. There were also rumors that Hall hid the money at the iconic Coral Court Motel, but when the old inn was razed in 1995, no cash was found, so your theory is likely as plausible as any other.

For much more on the Greenlease family, you’ll want to visit www.greenleasefamily.com.

Today’s trivia

What name did “queeriosity collector” (his term) Robert Ripley call the small island on which he built a 27-room mansion?

Answer to Wednesday’s trivia: What if they gave a war and it lasted only 38 minutes? That’s what happened on Aug. 27, 1896, between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar. Zanzibar sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini (who was pro-British) had died on Aug. 25, opening up the throne to Khalid bin Barghash. But Barghash had not asked the British, who favored Hamud bin Muhammed, for permission to take over. When Barghash refused to step down by 9 a.m. Aug. 27, two British gunboats opened fire at 9:02, destroying the palace artillery, sinking the Zanzibar royal yacht and shredding the flag. At 9:40, firing ceased, and Barghash fled for his life to German East Africa. About 500 Zanzibaris were killed or injured while one British sailor was wounded. Guinness called it the shortest war in history.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 3:58 AM with the headline "Kansas City car dealer paid $600,000 in ransom but his son was killed."