Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland (29 page)

Of the two .22-caliber bullets removed from
victim, only one of them was capable of being compared to test bullets fired from
the same gun. Although it matched, the shell casings left some doubt. The
primer marks may have been the same, but the secondary markings from one shell
casing to the other were different. When Gilmer sent the fatal bullets and the
gun to the state crime bureau to be tested, the difference in the secondary
marks to the shell casings was enough to stump the examiner, who issued a
purposefully confusing statement.

“No identification. Bullets with test bullets are
each other. Fatal shell identical with test shell,” his telegram read.

The state examiner’s muddled statement raised
enough doubt with Gilmer that he called for the pistols of two key witnesses in
the case whose names featured heavily in local rumors—Homer Wilcox Jr. and Jack
Snedden. Both of their weapons were sent, along with Gorrell’s gun, to the
Bureau of Investigation in Washington, DC. After several false starts and
communication with J. Edgar Hoover himself, the examiner there concluded that the
fatal bullets and shells all came from Gorrell’s gun—five weeks after Sgt.
Maddux started the rumor.

The entire two-gun saga was a false controversy
that never would have happened if common sense had prevailed. The morning after
the murder, Charles Bard told investigators that Gorrell had asked for more
bullets, and then showed him the three bullets he had in the nine-shot cylinder.
Two empty shell casings and one live round were later found in his weapon, and
two bullets were retrieved from his head. If he was shot with two different .22-caliber
pistols by two different killers, there should have only been one empty shell
casing in the revolver.

For the two-gun theory to be believed, the killer
or killers would have had to remove one unfired bullet from the chamber of
Gorrell’s gun and replace it with the fired shell from the second gun.

A side-effect of the two-gun drama was the suspicion
by Gilmer that the police department was withholding evidence, preferring to
bring it out during the grand jury. When he called for more information about the
purported bribe offer, both Maddux and Hoop were slow in giving it to him.
During an interview with the
World
that was published on March 10, the
assistant county attorney lost his temper.

“If [Commissioner] Hoop has information and will
not give it to the county attorney’s office, we think he is deliberately
obstructing justice,” Gilmer snapped.

It was an audacious statement, and
interdepartmental gossip against Sgt. Maddux was building. He had finally gone
too far, and he wasn’t the only one who could sense a backlash was coming—Hoop
saw it too. He had unwittingly hitched his wagon to Maddux when he made the
bribery claim. Now, he couldn’t distance himself fast enough from the criminologist
who had a target on his back.

“All I know about [the bribe] is what Sergeant
Maddux told me three months ago,” Hoop told the
World
in the same
article. “Insofar as my own personal knowledge of the bribe offer is concerned,
all I know is what Maddux told me.”

To save himself, Sgt. Maddux released a prepared statement,
before the federal ballistics examiner’s report was released, in which he tried
to explain the rumors and proclamations attributed to him regarding the
bullets, the bribe offer, the obscene photographs, rumors that Homer Junior was
involved, and perceived slights on his part against the character of Flint Moss
or Judge Kennamer, whom he now praised as “ethical” men he held in high regard.
It was a verbose document fraught with denials, self-justifications, claims of
integrity, and the confidence that he had the full support of Oscar Hoop and
Chief Carr. It did not address, however, the widely held belief that he had ended
the Born investigation too soon.

But Tulsa County wasn’t content to let Sgt. Maddux
have the last word on anything; that was the job of the most ambitious grand-jury
investigation yet called in the city’s history. Only eighteen of the
prosecution’s fifty-seven witnesses testified during Kennamer’s trial, which,
to everyone’s dismay, only established the boy’s guilt in the slaying of John
Gorrell Jr. The trial did nothing to stamp out, once and for all, the
persistent rumors regarding Kennamer’s unknown accomplice, as well as who murdered
Sidney Born, and who offered Sgt. Maddux the $25,000 bribe. Those criminals
were still out there, and they needed to be brought to justice. The public also
wanted to know who was behind the local vice gangs, which had corrupted the
youth of well-to-do families with gambling, liquor, and Mexican weed that, when
combined together, probably led to those blackmail photographs that Sgt. Maddux
said were in a bank vault.

The grand jury would put an end to the mystery.
The grand jury would stamp out, once and for all, those persistent rumors. The
grand jury would shine the light of truth and justice on the guilty, who would
then be indicted and held accountable by the grace of God and all that is holy.

When the twelve jurors were selected, Judge Hurst
impressed upon them the seriousness of their duties as well as the wide-ranging
mandate which also called upon them to explore public corruption and to inspect
the jail facilities with regard to prisoners being held without due process. He
pointed out to them that the hearing, which would be held in a jury
deliberation room on the third floor of the courthouse, was off-limits to the
public. The press was barred from photographing or talking to any of the
witnesses after they had testified, and no transcript would be made. While the
proceedings were under the supervision of Anderson and Assistant State Attorney
General Owen Watts, it was the jury’s job to question witnesses and then make
their recommendation.

“Regardless of who may present matters to you, you
should investigate them if there seems to be a basis,” Judge Hurst told the
twelve men. “You are an independent body, you are not a grand jury of the
court, county, nor the petitioners, and it [is] your duty to act
independently.”

The grand jury began calling witnesses on April 9,
and over the next twelve business days, 165 people offered up what they knew and
answered questions. Reporters for both the
Tribune
and the
World
took up positions in the corridor and, although they were careful not to ask
questions or take photographs, they were able to correctly surmise some of the
elements under consideration by identifying the people who sat outside waiting
to be called. The death of Sidney Born was obviously explored by calling in
those who found him, the doctor who attended him, high-ranking police officials,
and a squad of detectives familiar with the case. They also called in, several
times, Dr. Sidney Born Sr., who had hired two private investigators to find his
son’s killers. During the trial, he had made the announcement that two young
local men would soon be arrested for his son’s murder. Although it never happened,
there was speculation that it could happen at any moment. The jury even
subpoenaed Phil Kennamer to seek information regarding Born’s death but were
disappointed when he “left behind him a maze of theories, uncorroborated
allegations and personal opinions,” the
World
reported.

Besides calling Sgt. Maddux, the jury listened
long and hard to Oscar Hoop, who testified on several different occasions. He
turned over to them the affidavit Maddux had given him regarding the alleged
bribe offer. The jurors also heard from nearly all of Maddux’s superiors, and
most of the other detectives, who told the grand jury everything they knew
about the case and their colleague, Sgt. Maddux.

On April 19, the eighth day of the proceedings,
the grand jury requested a meeting with all four of the city’s commissioners.
When it was over, Oscar Hoop spoke with Chief Carr in his office before the two
of them demanded that Sgt. Maddux meet with them at once. What happened next
became front-page news throughout the state that weekend.

“When I walked into Chief Carr’s office Friday
morning, Chief Carr and Commissioner Hoop were seated. Hoop immediately told me
that I was going to be indicted by the grand jury for concealing evidence from
the grand jury,” Maddux told a
Tulsa World
reporter. “Commissioner Hoop
said that my testimony before the grand jury was not the same as his in regard
to the bribe offers and that the members of the grand jury had told him that
unless I left the department, I would be indicted. He gave me thirty minutes to
resign or be fired.”

Maddux then said he told Hoop and Chief Carr that
he didn’t want to embarrass the department, but he explained that he was broke
and wanted time to look for a new job. He asked for and received permission to
date his resignation for May 15.

“I brought the resignation back into Chief Carr’s
office,” Maddux continued, but Commissioner Hoop was not there. He returned in
about ten minutes, and read my resignation. He took his pencil out and marked
the date [May 15] out, substituted April 19, and had me approve the change by
initialing it.”

When asked it about it that same day, Hoop first
tried to deny it, and then later confirmed it when he told an Associated Press
reporter, “Maddux is through. He’s out.”

Unknown to Maddux, when he spoke to Hoop about the
bribe offer in December and in several meetings afterward, the commissioner had
taken notes of what the criminologist had said. Those notes revealed that
Maddux’s claims about the bribe changed each time he told it. Testimony from
his fellow officers and superiors also likely confirmed the revelations brought
out by Hoop.

When the jury concluded their investigation the
following Wednesday, their report eviscerated Sgt. Maddux, whom they blamed for
a good portion of the false rumors that had plagued Tulsa for the last five
months. They also found no evidence regarding Gorrell’s murder that was not
brought out during the trial, and concluded that there was no evidence that
Born was murdered, but only because Maddux had failed in his duties.

At the outset, let us say that the vast amount of purported
evidence turned in has been voluminous and the major portion founded upon
rumor.

Our investigation has failed to disclose any material matter
which was not brought out in the trial of this case. We have accepted the
report of the ballistics expert of the department of justice on the proposition
that both bullets found in John Gorrell’s head were fired from the same gun.

We have been unable to ascertain the existence at any time of
any nude, compromising or obscene pictures involving any people connected with
this case or any citizens of Tulsa, and we are of the opinion that no such
pictures exist.

We found no evidence of a $25,000 bribe having been offered
to any member of the police department.

We have also made what we deem a very thorough, complete, and
exhaustive investigation into the death of Sidney Born Jr. At the present time,
the grand jury is unable to determine whether or not Sidney Born Jr. committed
suicide or was murdered.

We feel that as a result of the Kennamer-Gorrell case and the
Born case, that this community has suffered irreparable damage and injury.
These cases were highly publicized and due to the prominence of the parties
involved, many and various rumors were started and an untold amount of gossip
engaged in. We feel that these matters have been enlarged upon, distorted, and
exaggerated, and our investigation has further disclosed that these rumors were
without foundation.

In this connection, we have spent many hours trying to
ascertain the source from which these rumors emanated. We have reached the
conclusion that former police Sergeant Maddux was in large measure responsible
for a great portion of the inaccurate and unfavorable publicity. We are also of
the opinion that Sergeant Maddux failed to make a complete examination into the
death of Sidney Born Jr. Also, that he was solely responsible for the unfounded
statements and rumor that the bullets found in the head of John Gorrell were
fired from different guns.

This grand jury was considering filing of an accusation and
ouster against Maddux, but prior to the [completion]of action along this line,
the grand jury received information that he had resigned, which meets with the
hearty approval of the grand jury.

The
Tulsa Tribune
was among the many who were
happy to see Sgt. Maddux go, and they reminded readers that in addition to his
many other transgressions, he had tried to play them for fools when he told
them about the Wrightsman note.

During the noon hour [on December 3, 1934] Maddux sent word
to [a
Tribune
reporter] that he had in his possession a $10,000
extortion note which had been mailed and delivered in Tulsa. He would not admit
that it was the letter to Wrightsman he had exhibited, and the announcement was
given wide publicity both in Tulsa and elsewhere.

‘You’d give your right arm to see this letter,’ Maddux said to
the
Tribune
reporter, exhibiting an envelope on which was printed the
name and address of C. J. Wrightsman, Tulsa oil man. Maddux declined to discuss
its contents.

[Later] that afternoon Maddux told reporters the note he had
shown and his announcement referred to the same instrument, but late in the day
he said for the first time that the note was three years old.

In a long editorial, the
Tulsa World
gave high praise
to the grand jury, and commended them on their findings, which the paper confidently
declared would silence, once and for all, the persistent rumors that had
plagued the city for five months.

The grand jury found out that, beyond all question, too many
people had talked too much, and that the big talkers, when time for a showdown
came, didn’t really know anything. This flood of rumors was the real cause of
the convening of the grand jury; its careful work should settle all the talk
and make the rumor mongers subside.