The Bobby Greenlease kidnapping and murder sites then and now!

[Music] today I'm in Missouri and I'm going to visit the site of a crime that took place in 1953 it was a kidnapping that was basically about as as remembered as the Lindbergh kidnapping involved a large amount of money for that time and the fun thing about it there's going to be a lot of stuff to see that's still around a lot of times when you have these crimes that happened so long ago nothing still exists but there are tons of things related to this crime that I'm going to visit today so come along with me I'm going to go to Clermont Missouri I'm going to go to st. Joseph Missouri gonna go to Kansas City Missouri and Pleasanton Kansas and we're gonna see a lot of really historic kind of spots that are related to this crime now this is the bobby greenlease kidnapping that happened in 1953 and at beginning of this film I'm going to show you a news clip that's about 50 seconds long it was done at the time of the kidnapping so if you can kind of just watch that that'll give you an overview of the kidnapping and then I'll try to update you as we look at all the different places there's probably 10 or 12 different locations we're going to go to today that are related to this kidnapping and it doesn't end well for little bobby greenlease so come along with me it's convict and his woman partner in crime a brutal kidnapping that is scarred forever the Greenlees home in Kansas City a crime that whisks six-year-old bobby greenlease from this school and by taxi to a plain white frame house in st. Joseph Missouri 40 miles away we're beaten and shot through the head he was buried in a shallow grave covered with freshly planted flowers we're under a layer of lime and three feet of dirt he lay dead while the kidnappers collected a $600,000 ransom for his safe return the kidnappers Carl Hall and mrs. Bonnie brown heading all confessed planning the crime implicated another ex-convict John marsh and said mrs. heady had spirited the boy from school an American home shrouded in sorrow okay this is where the kidnapping plans for bobby greenlease originated at this intersection of Francis Street and Fifth Street in st. Joe Missouri there stood a hotel called the Rubidoux and it stood right here until I don't know like 20 years ago I think and they imploded it and put this u.s. bank building here but in the the lobby area of the Rubidoux hotel they had a a bar called the Pony Express and Carl Hall met Bonnie heady in this bar and they became fast buddies and Carl ended up moving in with Bonnie in her house which is her house is probably two miles from here but this is where the the whole plan was kind of hatched out or it it actually wasn't hatched out from here but it's where they met and I mean because part of that they didn't know each other and Carl Hall was trying to find somebody that he could use to assist him in this kidnapping so this is where it all began at this is where he was kidnapped from it's Catholic school here in Kansas City it's it's been a bustling little area beautiful building on that morning in 1953 Bonnie heady took a taxi into this drive and to the Catholic school right here and walked in and kidnapped little bobby greenlease from the school this is the old cats rug in Kansas City I think it was kind of a a longtime drugstore that said on a corner and was one of the larger drugstores in Kansas City this is where the Bonnie had had the cabdriver drop her off after she had gotten bobby greenlease out of school posing as the sister to Bobby's little Bobby's mother and she went in and said that that something had happened to Bobby's mother and that she needed to take him out of school and the last they saw was Bobby and Bonnie getting into the cab and the cab then drove them to this Katz drugstore and they met up with Carl Hall who had a rented station wagon and that's when they put Bobby in the rented station wagon and took him off and within 30 minutes had killed him this parking lot is right where they drove in I'll show you that here in a second is where they drove in this is the entrance they drove into and the cab driver would have dropped Bobby and Bonnie off right in this parking lot here this is a big drug store and I'm sure this is kind of a busy central location it's only about a half a mile from the school that she kidnapping from I didn't want to stay at the school very long I just kind of drove through there real quick because there's it's an active school and and they were giving me some funny looks by just driving through with a camera up so I kind of backed off a little bit I didn't Warren think I was taking pictures of kids anyway this is where the exchange took place between the cab driver cab drivers name was his last name was Creech and he identified the type car that they ran [Music] you can if you look online I'll try to post some links in there about it you can actually read the FBI transcripts which are super interesting they it details the entire interrogation that they went through and it really it lists all the addresses and dates and and different things that that happened during the whole process of this after Carl and Bonnie kidnapped little bobby greenlease about 30 minutes after they they kidnapped him they killed him or at least Carl did shot him in the back a station wagon that they had rented and then they took him to Bonnie's house in st. Joe Missouri and that's that's where I'm at now is the location the house basically looks the same as it did they they drove into the garage the garage is underneath the house and they took his body out and they buried it in a flowerbed in the back kind of by the patio of the house and covered him or the line and that's where they left him and then they started sending ransom notes after that knowing full well that they had already killed the little boy okay I'm pulling up on where Bonnie heady house was and where they actually buried little bobby greenlease and it the house looks just about the same this is it right where you see that tree in the corner there is where they buried him and I'll post some pictures of the house and everything so that you can see it but right where that tree isn't where that little squirrel is digging around is is where his body was they lived here for about two months before they got the kidnapping plan going in front of the house still looks basically the same - there's not a whole lot that has changed and there should be a garage here on the side that you drive up underneath yep you can see it right there and that's where they drove into to get his body out of the the station wagon I guess Bonnie ended up getting that house after her I think her husband died and that's how she ended up with it but she was drunk most of the time and actually used that house to prostitute herself this is the location of one of the first ransom notes drops that was left it's been boarded up but there's there was a window right here and there was a note that was left there it was directions on on how to get to you know where they needed to be to drop the $600,000 this is at a church in Kansas City all these locations are real close together the school he was kidnapped from the green leaves Cadillac where his dad worked or that he owned and the cats drugged where the exchange was made it's all kind of clustered together you know within probably a mile and a half of each other all these locations are out they just had a mess of a time dealing with Bonnie and Carl because they were drunk all the time and they they sent like five different letters and they were like fifteen different phone calls between them all and they couldn't come up with the right place to to do the drop for the money and plus it took them like four days to get all the money together they had to get it from four Federal Reserve banks because it was a ton of money back then I mean six hundred thousand is a lot of money in 53 here's where it was located I'm at McGee traffic Parkway and Dillon Road in Kansas City this building here used to be greenlease Cadillac this is where robert greenlease had his founding dealership i think he owned a bunch of Cadillac dealerships all over the Midwest but this is where the main one was at this intersection there's a picture online I'll post it with it that shows a poster right in this location right here on this building sits right about will no finger is and it it says that greenly's Cadillac will be closed for a memorial because of little bobby greenlease and you can see a guy on the inside right here the facade are the actual interior this has kind of changed a little bit over time but you can see a guy in there sweeping okay this is where the ransom money was dropped six hundred thousand dollars was put into a duffel bag and it was thrown off this bridge this bridge was only a one lane bridge at the time and it was a dirt road it was on the Lee's Summit in Kansas City where it crossed what was called the Little Blue River and it looks more like a creek but this is where it's at and they some colleagues of mr. Greenlees threw the bag off here and Carl and Bonnie came by and picked it up once they picked the bag up they hightailed it to st. Louis and that eventually was where they ended up getting caught this is where the money changed hands there were six hundred thousand dollars that were paid was paid by the greenlease family they they paid it no problem they were multimillionaires and just it's in today's money it's like six million dollars and they only found three hundred thousand of it and they know that it was dispersed through a guy named Joe Costello which is involved in organized crime and the detective that arrested Carl and Bonnie and the patrolman that drove them out there to the motel where they they had the money stashed they just can't find it J Edgar Hoover put a guy on it for 15 years trying to figure out where the money went to and they couldn't figure it out they know that the the detective and Joe Costello the organized crime guy he actually owned a cab company there but he was involved in organized crime they know that they had something to do with it but and matter of fact they the detective he ended up doing time in the pen so did the patrolman that arrested them they did about two or three years in in prison not for stealing the money but for perjury for lying about what happened that night so it's kind of a point of trivia there it's a crazy case I mean they never found that $300,000 okay we're driving up to where the house was that the Bobby lived when he was kidnapped with it right here with his mother and father quite the house this is where they lived and the very ritzy area of Mission Hills gosh that's a big house okay I'm in Pleasanton Kansas and this is where Carl Hall grew up he came from a wealthy family I'm in the cemetery where he's buried but just to give you a little back story on it he grew up here his his dad was a wealthy attorney he Carl Hall inherited quite a bit of money from his parents when they died and he squandered it I went through oh I want to say it's like $300,000 in that day so which is you know like two or three million he went through that in like five years but he his entire family is buried here his his mom and dad and after his mom died which is this is hers Ella Hall she inherited all this money and here's where Carl is buried he after he was executed for the bobby greenlease murder he was put to death on December 18th 1953 burn mine that was only two months after the murders that happened basically and they didn't waste any time killing him here's where he lays he was he and Bonnie both were just blazing alcoholics they I I saw where they they went through about a fifth of whiskey a day peace and so they were I mean they were slobbering drunks they they couldn't walk about half the time and how they pull this kidnapping off is is beyond everybody because they were drunk all the time and this is where worries buried and actually the town that he grew up in okay I met Bonnie headies graves and Bonnie I think she was about 40 years old when the crime happened bonnie was executed in 1953 and was buried here in december december 18th of 1953 for the kidnapping of bobby greenlease she she had I think three people visited the grave when it was open and when she was buried bonnie was a abused woman in her first marriage and a raging alcoholic she drank about a fifth of whiskey a day came from her first husband was a cattle broker and had pretty good money but he just beat the hell out of her and and I'm not trying to feel sorry for Bonnie at all because she did some really bad things causing the death but boy she she had a rough road for a while and then made some terrible mistakes but by no means am i excusing any of her behavior Jacqueline grew up just right across this valley and and so she's buried just right across from the place that she was originally born and she's all she wanted was to to have somebody lover have a husband that loved her and she picked the wrong guy as far as his Carl Hall and he let her down a path of destruction that ended up costing their her life so this is where she's laid all by herself now her parents are buried here too you can't read the headstones that all her mom died when she was fairly young and her dad died in the mid 40s here's where she lays this is Paul Green Lisa's grave and Paul was the adopted son of robert greenlease senior and he's actually believe it or not by association the reason this kidnapping happened Paul was kind of a trouble kid and his dad sent him to a military academy I forget the name of the town here in Missouri but sent him to a military academy and during that time at that military academy he ended up meeting Carl Hall who was also a troubled kid at that time I was in the same military academy and Carl Hall soon found out that the green leases were full of their pockets were pretty full of money and so he remembered that and when he fell on hard times that's where he cooked up the plan to to kidnap little bobby greenlease so this is where he's buried and he was a big part of the negotiations and stuff that went on with the kidnappers and the delivery of the money and stuff this is where he's buried and this is where little bobby greenlease is laid to rest right here he's the bottom one and then his dad middle one his mom who was much younger this is on the top she she died in 2001 that's real little bobbies laid to rest thank you so much for watching

Channel: LandumC goes there

Views: 19,428

Keywords: Bobby Greenlease, Kidnapping, murder, crimes, kansas city, Bonnie heady, Carl Hall, landumc goes there, where it happened, ransom notes, 1953 major news, organized crime, mob crime

Id: TPPZaL9ZJhU

Length: 26min 44sec (1604 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018