AP Photo
According to the FBI, the first letter demanded $600,000, which the captors wanted in $20 and $10 bills. (This amount of money is equivalent to nearly$7 millionin 2023.) The Greenlease family received numerous ransom notes regarding their son and more than a dozen phone calls between September 28 and October 5.
Although Hall came from a well-to-do family, he blew throughhis inheritanceafter the death of his parents and viewed the kidnapping plan as a get-rich-quick scheme after he dedicated himself to a life of crime. Hall met Heady — who also came from a well-off family — after he was released from prison for robbery,TIMEreported in 1953.
Bonnie Heady and Carl Hall.AP Photo
“I think the verdict fits the evidence,” Judge Albert L. Reeves, who was overseeing the case, said, according to the FBI. “It is the most coldblooded, brutal murder I have ever tried.”
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Although the horrifying case was closed rather quickly, one question still remains: Where is the ransom money? Only half of the money has been recovered. Two St. Louis officers, Lieutenant Louis Ira Shoulders and Patrolman Elmer Dolan, were charged in connection with lying about the money during testimony, according to the FBI.
Charged and convicted of perjury, Shoulders was sentenced to three years in prison and Dolan was sentenced to two years. After their prison releases, they both returned to St. Louis. However, in 1965 after Shoulders passed away, President Lyndon B. Johnson pardoned Dolan after he admitted to perjuring himself out of fear of Shoulders, according toSt. Louis True Crime Report. But still, to this day, the $300,000 (equal to nearly $3.5 million dollars in 2023) has never been found.
source: people.com
