The Kidnap Years: by David Stout (popular books of all time TXT) 📗

from the O’Connells’ ability to deny liquor licenses to establishments that dared to think about buying beer elsewhere. At least, that was the complaint of the O’Connells’ enemies.

Butch O’Connell died on September 4, 1954, at the age of forty-four, a year after the death of his father. The strapping former football player had suffered a stroke the week before. He and his wife, Mary, had four children. No one suggested a direct link between his death and the ordeal he had undergone in 1933.

As for Manny Strewl, his life served as a reminder that no justice is certain this side of heaven. Released from the Atlanta federal prison in 1958, he lived another four decades, dying in 1998 at the age of ninety-five.

The ransom money in the O’Connell kidnapping was never found.

*The Knickerbocker Press was one of several daily newspapers in Albany during that period. It was merged with another newspaper in 1937, and that combined paper eventually folded.

**In a sad sequel, Diamond’s widow, Alice, was shot to death in her Brooklyn apartment a week before the kidnapping of Butch O’Connell, probably to ensure that she would be forever silent on what she knew about her husband’s dealings. Unfortunately for her, she had a habit of talking too much when she drank.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A BANKER WITH A HEART

Alton, Illinois

Monday, July 10, 1933

On the evening of Monday, July 10, 1933, a wealthy banker named August Luer and his wife of fifty-six years, Helena, were spending a quiet evening at home in Alton, Illinois, a small town on the Mississippi River about fifteen miles north of St. Louis.

The Luers had had a pleasant day, going for a car ride with one of their three grown sons. It was not really late on this Monday night, but the Luers were about to retire. Early to bed, early to rise was their habit. That way of life had served August Luer well in his seventy-seven years. He was president of the Alton Banking and Trust Company. He was also the retired president of a meatpacking company that he had founded.

Unlike some bankers of that time, August Luer was liked and trusted. While other banks in the region were going under, Luer pledged that his would never fail, that his personal wealth was behind the institution. It was just the message the Depression-weary people of Alton needed.

Around 9:00 p.m., the bell rang. Two neatly dressed men and a woman in a flowered dress were standing at the front door.

“We are trying to get in touch with Henry Busse,” one of the men said. “We are strangers here. Can you help us?”

Luer was happy to invite the trio into his house. He knew Henry Busse, who lived just a few blocks away, and he said he’d be glad to phone him.

Luer had just lifted the phone receiver from its hook when one of the men and the woman grabbed him. The second man grabbed Luer’s wife, started to choke her, and shoved her into a hallway, where she fainted. Luer struggled in vain as the two men lifted him and carried him out the front door. His bedroom slippers dropped onto the driveway before he was pushed into a car, where yet another man sat in the driver’s seat. The car raced off.

Helena Luer had revived and run outside, screaming that her husband had been taken. She was terribly worried; her husband was suffering from heart disease and took medication.

The police immediately speculated that the kidnappers might be from a gang that operated out of East St. Louis, Illinois, about twenty-four miles south of Alton on the Mississippi River.

August Luer was blindfolded and exhausted when the car finally stopped. He guessed that he had been in the car, lying on the floor, for three hours. He needed to keep his heart rate as low as he could, for he had no medication with him. Panic was a luxury he could not afford.

Out of the car, he sensed that he was in the country, likely on a farm. The night was so quiet. He was led a short distance before his blindfold was removed. In the dark, he could discern the outlines of a toolshed. The structure was large enough to hold him in relative comfort.

But when the shed door was pulled open and a flashlight trained on the floor, he saw something that would terrify anyone with any tendency to be claustrophobic. In front of him was a freshly dug hole, roughly two feet square and four feet deep. And at the bottom of the hole was a narrow tunnel that led immediately into a pitch-black cave about seven feet long, three feet wide, and three and a half feet high. The walls and top of the cave were reinforced by wooden planks. The cave floor was dirt.

August Luer was given a sack filled with straw and feathers. He tried to tamp down the terror rising in his chest. He knew that the tunnel would be his “room” for as long as he was held captive. But he was not afraid just for himself; his wife was also in delicate health. He wondered if she could endure the ordeal of his absence.

He wondered how long he would be in this dark, awful place. His captors told him he’d be with them for several days as ransom negotiations took place. They told him they would bring him papers to sign. He wouldn’t be able to read them, as he’d be blindfolded, but it didn’t matter.

“Your only chance for freedom is to sign your name,” one kidnapper told him.

On the first day, August Luer was given two ham sandwiches. He ate only part of one.

As time crawled by, he knew that night was becoming day, day was becoming night, night was turning into day, and…

Sleep came in spurts. He dared to ask for a car seat cushion. One was brought to him. He was given more ham sandwiches. They upset his stomach, so he asked for