J. J. Maloney

by J.J. Maloney

On January 17, 1950, at 7:30 p.m., a group of armed robbers walked away from the Brinks Building, at 165 Prince Street in Boston, with $1,218,211.19 in cash and more than $1.5-million in checks, money orders and other securities.

It was a textbook robbery – the largest in U.S. history at the time. There had been seven robbers – all wearing Navy P-coats, gloves and caps, and Halloween masks. They wore rubbers and crepe-soled shoes.

The robbers said little and knew exactly what they were doing. They'd come through a series of locked doors to reach the second floor, where Brinks employees were counting and storing money.

The only evidence was a chauffeur's cap one of the robbers left behind, and the tape and rope they'd used to gag and tie up the employees. They also took four revolvers from the employees.

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.

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.

by J. J. Maloney

In 1960 Sharon Kinne was an attractive 20-year-old Jackson County, Mo., housewife with two children, and was having an affair with John Boldizs, a friend from high-school.

She and her husband, James, 25, were having frequent arguments.  Sharon wanted a new Thunderbird, and she wanted a vacation trip.  She often lied about having paid bills.  The Kinnes were deeply in debt.

On March 19, 1960 -- a Saturday afternoon – James, who – his relatives say -- knew she was cheating on him, reportedly told Sharon he would file for divorce the following Monday.

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.

by J.J. Maloney

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.

DNA Exonerations:   Part One

DNA Exonerations:   Part Two

DNA Exonerations:  The Actual Cases

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.

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.

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.

In January, 1980, I had never heard of The Orange County Register. I had heard of smaller papers and larger papers, but The Register remained anonymous beyond the boundaries of Orange County.

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.

It is in this context that River Quay must be seen. River Quay was a light industrial area at the north edge of the city. In the early 1970s a movement began to convert River Quay into a "family entertainment area" filled with rustic restaurants, shops, nightclubs and artists—-a miniature Greenwich Village.