J. J. Maloney

Robert Cosgrove "Bobby" Greenlease, Jr

A sensation of 1953, $300,000 of the $600,000 paid in ransom has never been recovered.  Two police officers and a gangster are commonly thought to have stolen the money -- but did they?  

by J. J. Maloney

One of the more tragic and fascinating crimes of the mid 20^th century was the kidnapping and murder of 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease in 1953, and the subsequent disappearance of half the $600,000 ransom his family futilely paid for his release.

Bobby was the son of Robert C. and Virginia Greenlease. His 71-year-old father was one of the largest Cadillac dealers in the nation. The Greenleases lived in Mission Hills, Kan., the most elite suburb in the Kansas City area.

The kidnappers – Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady – had both known privilege earlier in their lives. In fact, it was at military school that Hall met Paul Greenlease, the older, adopted brother of Bobby Greenlease. Hall later inherited a substantial amount of money from his father, but blew it failing at a number of business ventures. For robbing a number of cab drivers – his total take was $38 -- Hall was sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary. In prison he dreamed of making "the big score" – a score that would allow him to once again live in luxury.

He later said that kidnapping was the only crime where he could strike once and retire for life.

Truman Capote's ground-breaking "non-fiction" novel about the murder of a Kansas farm family.  We take the position that the book is not only flawed, but dishonest.

by J.J. Maloney

The publication of In Cold Blood, in 1966, launched Truman Capote firmly into the top rank of American writers. It was – and is – widely heralded as a masterpiece -- not only a masterpiece of writing, but as a brilliant insight into the criminal mind.

After publication of the book, Capote told George Plimpton, in an interview for the New York Times published in January, 1966, that he had been watching for an event that would allow him to write a "non-fiction" novel – in his definition, a factual book written using the literary skills of an accomplished novelist.

The murder of the Herbert Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, on Nov. 15, 1959, caught Capote’s eye. The case received a blurb in the New York Times because Herbert Clutter, during the Eisenhower administration, had been a member of the Farm Credit Board, and was founder of the Kansas Wheat Growers Association.

The murders were brutal, unsolved, and apparently without motivation, since nothing appeared to be missing from the house.

An overview of the evolution of crime films, their authenticity, the issue of using films to change public behavior and whether crime films, in the last two decades, have influenced public thinking about such matters as crime, prisons and capital punishment.

 by J.J. Maloney

Motion pictures have a way of creating their own reality. It is only through the strange power of film that one finds an audience of ordinary people cheering Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lector, at the end of Silence of the Lambs, because Lector has not only gotten away, but plans to kill and eat the superintendent of the mental hospital Lector had been confined in.

Or "caper" films, in which the audience roots for the criminals who pull off a big job and get away (of course they often do this in real life, as anyone who remembers the Brink's Job will recall).

Or "Death Wish" philosophy films wherein rogue (but good) cops indiscriminately kill the bad guys because the "system" doesn't work anymore.

Because of a motion picture's power to capture the imagination, there have always been those who would harness this power to try to achieve one purpose or another.

The structure of part of a DNA double helix

A stunning report was issued by the Department of Justice in 1996, reporting on 28 cases of men who'd been convicted of violent sex crimes, including murder, and were then freed from prison based on DNA tests.

by J.J. Maloney

These 28 cases could be the tip of an iceberg -- since the report points out there are still states that do not accept DNA evidence.  Additionally, many convicted men cannot find an attorney to go to bat for them, or the resources to pay for testing.  There also is no codified method for routine DNA testing for cases that have been long resolved.  Finally, many jurisdictions routinely destroy all evidence after appeals have been exhausted.

The importance of this report, however, is that it challenges society's underlying assumptions about criminal law.

The first, and most important, assumption to be challenged is the credibility of eye-witness testimony.  In case after case, the rape victim made a firm identification of the assailant  -- the government's evidence seemed bulletproof.  Yet DNA testing resulted in that defendant not only being freed from prison, but in some cases successfully suing for wrongful imprisonment.

One of the more startling findings of the study is that 20 percent of the DNA tests conducted reveal that the person charged with the crime was "excluded" by the test -- meaning the blood of the defendant did not match with the semen, blood, hair or other body cells found on the victim or at the scene of the crime..  This was based on more than 20,000 tests conducted at the time of this study, with half of those coming from the FBI's laboratory.  An additional 20 percent of tests are "inconclusive."

Randy Kraft

The reporter who coined the phrase "Freeway Killer," sets the record straight about why serial-killer Randy Kraft should not be confused with William Bonin.

by J. J. Maloney

There are those who call Randy Kraft the ''Freeway Killer'' and they are wrong. William Bonin, executed at San Quentin in 1996, was the Freeway Killer.

There are police agencies who say the media were wrong to name Bonin the Freeway Killer – that that 'title' belonged to Kraft, whose murder spree began before Bonin's. They too are wrong.

Dennis McDougal's 1991 book Angel of Darkness touts Kraft's murders as ''...the most heinous murder spree of the century.'' That is wrong. McDougal's book is compelling, shocking, detailed, well written and inaccurate.

You cannot discuss the murders Randy Kraft committed without also discussing the Freeway Killer case.

The story began in 1972 when bodies of young men – often Marines – began to be found in Southern California – specifically from the city of Long Beach, through Orange County and into San Diego County. There were several ''signatures'' to the killings: the victims were frequently burned on their left nipple with an automobile cigarette lighter, some of them had their left testicle cut out while they were alive, some had objects shoved into their rectums (in some cases something on the order of a tree branch, in other cases a single sock). The real link to these cases was the use of drugs, the most common being Valium, ingested with alcohol.

William Bonin

An examination of not only the notorious murders committed by William Bonin, but the role the media played in the case.  Written by J.J. Maloney who, as a reporter for the Orange County Register, first coined the term "Freeway Killer".

by J.J. Maloney

He didn't have a name so we called him the Freeway Killer.

He was a murky presence, cruising up and down the freeways of Orange County and neighboring counties, stalking the dimmed tinsel byways of Hollywood, picking up those sad youngsters who came there in search of a dream and found a nightmare instead.

The police would later find the nude bodies sprawled behind filling stations, or in dumpsters -- cast off the way a child discards a doll that has served its purpose.

The City Market Kansas City, Missouri

A first-hand investigative report of the Kansas City Mafia's attempt to take over a major Kansas City entertainment area in the mid-1970s -- an effort that included bombings, extortion, and a large number of murders.

by J.J. Maloney

Every city dreams of greatness. To achieve an identity it constructs symbols (the Eiffel Tower, the St. Louis Arch), or, like New Orleans, has an area, such as the French Quarter, that assumes an identity of its own.

Traditionally Kansas City has been known as a cowtown. It was famous for its stockyards, and the biggest annual event still is the American Royal, during which journalists shake cow patties from their shoes. Kansas Citians are sensitive about that image, feeling it gives them a "hick" reputation.

They point with pride to the Country Club Plaza or Westport, but neither has ever achieved a national reputation. They promote Kansas City as the birthplace of jazz, a claim other cities dispute. They go so far as to call Kansas City the home of great barbecue; local politicians devote great amounts of space to that subject. Such is the desperation for an identity.

Updated Dec. 19, 2007

Belton Missouri

The story of Jeffrey Gardner, a young man sentenced to prison for shooting an abusive husband who was threatening his wife with a knife. After the printing of this story, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, on March 2, 1999, overturned the conviction of Gardner -- who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the shooting.  Gardner was a boarder in the couple's home at the time of the shooting. On Dec. 7, 1999, the Missouri Supreme Court did overturn the appellate court opinion. Gardner is serving his sentence at the state penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo. Click here to read the Missouri Supreme Court decision.

by J.J. Maloney

Carol Drummond could feel feel the noose tightening around her throat.

For more than five years the 38-year-old Belton resident had been stalked, threatened and vilified by the friends of Phillip Hancock, her late husband.

In August, 1991, Drummond called police after Hancock threatened her with a bayonet. In December, 1991, the 6-foot-2-inch Hancock hurled Drummond to the ground, breaking her collarbone because her dog had urinated on the floor. A judge ordered Hancock to stay away from Drummond.

Hancock then lived with a friend, Mark Lassince, until he made up with Drummond and moved back in with her, in January, 1992. Also living in the house were Jeffrey Wayne Gardner, an attractive, soft-spoken, 28-year-old boarder, and Jackie, the 8 year old daughter of Hancock and Drummond (she kept her own name after the marriage).

In the early afternoon of March 7, 1992, Hancock called the Belton police and talked with the dispatcher. Hancock wanted police to eject Gardner from his house. The dispatcher explained that, since Drummond was half-owner of the house, if she wanted Gardner to stay, there was nothing the police could do. Gardner asked if the police would come over and take Gardner's gun away from him. Hancock said he feared Gardner and Drummond would plant the gun on him, to get his probation revoked. The dispatcher said there was nothing the police could do about Gardner's gun, either. Hancock expressed bitterness, saying he was, "screwed, I don't have any rights."