Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland (22 page)

“You don’t know of anyone else?”

“I don’t.”

Moss turned to face the sixty-two newspaper
employees in the room. “Do you know which industrious newspaper reporter it was
who obtained it?”

“I would like to know!” Maddux thundered.

“Sorry I asked you. Was the reproduction in both papers?”

“I only saw one.”

“Which one?” Moss asked with his hands out wide,
palms up.

“I don’t remember.”

“Mr. Maddux, first in the development of the film,
and from one in the newspaper, you became familiar with the details of the
photographs, state’s exhibit number six?”

“Yes sir.”

“Was this picture in the newspapers made from the
same negative?” Moss already asked that question, but he wanted to back the car
up and run over Maddux again.

“I imagine it was the same,” Maddux answered
calmly. He wanted to appear nonchalant in order to downplay the beating he was
taking.

“As far as you know, it was?”

“Yes sir.”

And again. “As far as you know there is no
difference between the exhibit number six and the newspapers?”

“Yes sir,” replied the criminologist who had said
earlier that it was his job to “preserve evidence.”

The king of courtroom sarcasm rolled over the top
of Maddux one last time. “And you came to the conclusion that one or both of
the newspaper boys got hold of the photographs?”

“Yes sir.”

The state rests.

THE STATE’S CASE WAS A mere
skeleton of what many hoped it would be. Only fourteen of the fifty-seven
witnesses subpoenaed had testified, while the rest were held in reserve for the
rebuttal. Although few people felt it was weak, there was the general impression
that it could have been stronger—with or without the Edna Harman fiasco. When
reporters later pushed Anderson for an explanation, it put him on the
defensive.

“We have made out a murder case against Kennamer. We
didn’t take long to do it and we perhaps didn’t make it as dramatic as many [had]
expected. We didn’t need to. It was just a prosaic case. We didn’t need to show
a motive because it wasn’t necessary. We proved that Kennamer killed Gorrell
and that he had previously threatened his life,” Anderson declared. “We also
proved that the love Phil Kennamer claimed for Virginia Wilcox was ‘dead’ by
his admission in a letter to her,” he added, referring to the letter given to
Snedden but never mailed.

Disappointment was felt in Kansas City, Oklahoma
City, Chicago, and New York City newsrooms when editors learned that half their
chance to get a hot story of scandal-plagued Tulsa youth had evaporated. Their
hopes shifted to the defense.

With two hours left to go in Thursday’s court
session, Moss’s opening statement was a fifty-five minute overview of his case,
which gave a detailed picture of a tempestuous boy who was almost a genius but
was driven to insanity by the rejection of the woman he loved and his need to
protect her from the likes of John Gorrell. Walter Biscup noted that during the
long, impassioned speech, eighty percent of it built the foundation for the
insanity angle. It was the biography of a ne’er-do-well, as his defense
attorney specified in detail all of his client’s shortcomings and failures in
life. As Moss carried on, Phil Kennamer’s ego took a beating. His body language
betrayed his humiliation when he slouched low in his chair, leaning forward,
eyes on the floor, as if he were trying to crawl under the table and hide.

Moss recounted for the jury how the boy had
dropped out of high school, military school, boarding school, Catholic school,
and a private school in San Angelo, Texas, where he abandoned his mother. That
was the time he was later found on a fishing boat, trying to sail to Rio de
Janeiro to join a revolution. When he was brought back to Oklahoma, Kennamer held
onto this ambition and often spoke of joining revolutions in Mexico, China, and
Cuba, where his superior intelligence over nonwhite races would garner him a
leadership position. He imagined himself an expert at military tactics because
he’d once read a book on the subject that he borrowed from the local library.

When his parents realized their boy could not be
kept in school, his father used his influence to get him job after job, none of
which Phil kept for very long. “His father would pay his wages through his
employers without Phil knowing,” Moss informed the jurors. He burned through
jobs as a gas station attendant, cub reporter at two newspapers, a driver for
an oil company, and president of a semi-fictional advertising agency. He was
working as an insurance salesman for a reputable company when he killed John
Gorrell.

“Never has Phil been able, mentally, to content himself
in a single character of employment for two months.”

Moss’s speech then chartered a course through the
psychology of his client’s “mental weaknesses” before moving on to how the
“tragedy” was all John Gorrell’s fault, and Phil Kennamer was Virginia Wilcox’s
righteous savior.

“Now then, gentlemen of the jury, you are
wondering if this plan to kidnap Virginia was conceived by John Gorrell, or
Phil Kennamer,” Moss said. “Upon that issue we will satisfy you beyond any
question. That is one of the links of the state’s case which the state proposed
to put forward by Mrs. Harman.”

J. Berry King nearly came out of his chair as if
he wanted to object.
After the threats of mistrial and trouble they had
gone through to get her name out of the trial, the lead defense attorney had just
slipped it back in when it suited his purposes.

By now, the pitch in Moss’s voice was rising, and his
hands gestured defiantly as he built up to a proclamation he wanted these
jurors to take with them to their deathbeds. “Every statement that comes from a
reputable or a reliable person upon the subject of this kidnapping places Phil
Kennamer—uncompromisingly, courageously, single-handed and alone—in the
position where he proposed [to take] a human life rather than let it take place.

“TRUTHFUL WITNESS,” Moss shouted, “shall come into
your presence and assert the fact to be—Phil would dare any danger—defy any
hazard—take any chance—and go to any length, foolish and foolhardy as he was—Phil
Kennamer always opposed—with all that he possessed—the carrying out of this
plot against Miss Virginia Wilcox.”

WHEN THE KENNAMER JURORS RETURNED to the rented house
that evening, they found the one daily newspaper they were allowed had gigantic
blocks cut out of it. Besides the Kennamer trial coverage, Judge Hurst ordered the
Hauptmann death-penalty story also be removed. His trial may have been over,
but the baby killer would remain above-the-fold news for weeks. Although national
attention had shifted more to Phil Kennamer, he still played second fiddle to
Bruno Hauptmann.

But it didn’t seem that way in Pawnee, Oklahoma,
where sixty-two newspaper reporters, photographers, stenographers, telex
operators, and a radio station crew, representing more than a dozen news
organizations, appropriated the entire courthouse. It was their job to get the
story out, which they couldn’t do without advanced technology.

“No one seems to notice the faint ticking of the
telegraph instruments in the courtroom,”
Tribune
feature reporter Ruth
Sheldon wrote. But they weren’t the old-style, Morse-code-sending units; these
were teletypewriters, capable of transmitting sixty words a minute over a
special cable installed and leased just for the trial. “There are eight of
these sending keys, all of them the ‘noiseless’ type. They are not noiseless,
but what sound does come from them is of such character that one would scarcely
realize they are transmitting thousands of words.”

Every day, photographers would lie in wait on the
second floor, where they would ambush key witnesses going up or coming down
from the third floor. When the flashbulbs popped, it would send an eerie light
that seemed to penetrate every floor of the courthouse. The photographers scanned
each new arrival and snapped photographs, not knowing if the role they played
that day would be tomorrow’s front-page news. Twenty-year-old Betty Watson found
this out one morning when she came to the courthouse with her mother. She had
been subpoenaed by the defense but was dropped from consideration at the last
minute under mysterious circumstances, which sent reporters digging to learn
more. Despite the fact that she would not take the stand, newspapers ran her
photograph anyway because “she was strikingly attractive.” Her photo became a
substitute for the scandalous stories promised but never delivered.

She wasn’t the only attractive individual involved
in the trial.
New York Evening Journal
cub reporter Dorothy Kilgallen,
[38]
daughter of famed
reporter James Kilgallen, had just arrived in Pawnee from Flemington. In another
Ruth Sheldon feature story, the young woman proclaimed Phil Kennamer “more
cute” than Bruno Hauptmann. “He is quite colorful. Seems to be a pretty nice
fellow, young, good-looking,” Kilgallen said. But she may have been attracted
to his bad-boy image. “He looks to me like he’s the kind who would get real
drunk, drive a car real fast and do all those things.”

The lawyers also fascinated her, especially Flint
Moss. “That Moss—he’s so colorful!” the twenty-one-year-old exclaimed. “I got a
big kick out of the way he leaned against the rail with his feet crossed next
to the jury and the way he played his smile on the jury. In Flemington, that
wouldn’t be allowed for five seconds.”

Flemington also didn’t have a dozen lawyers in the
courtroom, bickering like children. So far, J. Berry King had kept his
professional demeanor. But most of them, at one time or another, verbally
attacked each other with caustic remarks, whispered insults, insinuations of
incompetence and criminally liable behavior. Although Anderson couldn’t seem to
contain his bitterness, Flint Moss remained “the smoothest man in the
courtroom,” as Harmon Phillips wrote. He moved through the crowded corridors
with cheerful greetings that were individualized to each recipient. His
nickname for Deputy Nate Tucker was too racy to be repeated, but it always made
Tucker smile. State hospital psychiatrist Floyd Adams was always acknowledged
with a “there goes Doc Adams!” Moss could backslap and shake hands like a man
running for office, and nearly everyone in Pawnee loved him.

Friday, February 15, 1935

A COLD FEBRUARY MORNING DID little to curb the
enthusiasm that Friday as spectators and newsmen eagerly anticipated all the
sensations that would come from defense witnesses. Famed reporter Copeland Burg,
working for the William Randolph Hearst–founded International News Service
,
caught up with the defendant as he was getting a haircut at a barbershop across
from the courthouse. Under the watchful eyes of Sheriff Burkdoll, Kennamer
laughed and joked with three of his pals who’d be coming to his aid as defense
witnesses later that day.

“Just wait until I get on the stand,” Kennamer teased
Robert Thomas, Allen Mayo, and Claude Wright. “I’ll tell the world something
they never heard about you guys before and believe me I know a lot about each
of you!”

When the laughter died down, Kennamer added, “But
don’t worry. Never mind. Everyone says
I’M CRAZY
.” It was a shot at his
defense attorney’s strategy, which he resented, but in that rare moment, he had
what he’d always relished: an audience fixated on his every word. He was the
center of attention. As witty as his jokes were, there was always a thread of
self-pity woven into each one of them.

“Say, this guy Jack Snedden is sure my pal,” he
continued. “First he steals my girl. And I wrote Virginia a letter last August
and gave it to Jack to mail and he just keeps it until now and then turns it
over to the prosecution.”

“Are you sore at Jack, Phil?” Claude Wright asked
him.

“No, not sore. He is just a nut—like me—but he can
go around and make trouble—my pal Jack.”

This brought another round of laughter, and Burg
noted the barber couldn’t keep the shaving lather out of Phil’s mouth as the
boy jabbered on.

“I wish I had my school books with me and you
could help me with my studies,” Wright offered.

“No, no,” Phil countered, “I’m
crazy now
and couldn’t help you a bit.” As Phil and everyone else chuckled, it nearly
caused the barber to nick him with the straight razor. But his ego couldn’t
help itself, and he had to call out one of his friends as a liar.

“Say Tommie, you had a nerve saying I told you to
come along and I would show you Gorrell’s body. You know I didn’t say that,”
Phil said in a dark tone.

Robert Thomas answered him with a nervous grin. He
didn’t know what to say to someone whose version of that night was different
from all the other witnesses. Arguing with Phil Kennamer was pointless.

“Never before has there been a defendant like Phil
Kennamer,” Burg relayed to a national audience in his article.

JUST AS FLINT MOSS WAS set to call his first
witness, he was interrupted by an unlikely source. Cartoon-faced J. Berry King,
with his round cheeks, big nose, pointy chin, and coffee-cup-handle-shaped
ears, had something to say. It was the first time he had had anything to say, and
it caught Moss off guard.

“Your Honor, I am always inclined to be tolerant
of any opening statement, entertaining and enlightening as the defense’s was,
but as counsel for the state I understood Mrs. Harman’s former statement was
not to come into the case,” King said as he turned to face Moss. “I request the
defendant to withdraw her name from the record.”

“I refuse,” Moss pouted.

“Then I ask the court to strike it from the
record.”

It was stricken. King one, Moss zero.

The first day of the defense’s case unraveled slowly
but would end with what Moss anticipated would be powerful and emotion-laden
testimony for the twelve jurors, who were beginning to impress him as the
no-nonsense type. With his first three witnesses called and dismissed in thirty
minutes, the defense attorney introduced into evidence twelve Spartan School of
Aeronautics flying reports as specimens of John Gorrell’s handwriting. Moss
then called Judge Franklin Kennamer to identify a letter his son had written, after
admitting that he himself, Moss, had not read the letter. Next, he formally
introduced the actual extortion note, which Judge Kennamer declared was not in his
son’s handwriting.

When Gilmer passed on cross-examination, King
jumped to his feet and shouted to Moss, “Do you mean you are offering evidence
you haven’t even read?” he asked, referring to the letter the defendant had
written. Again, King was able to catch Moss off guard.

“Don’t be surprised at anything I do,” he answered
quietly.

King two, Moss zero.

But Moss was too experienced to let anything in
the courtroom affect him, and he moved on to Wichita, Kansas, handwriting
expert Jesse Sherman, a veteran of more than 750 trials. While Moss reviewed
Sherman’s qualifications, the extortion note was handed over to the prosecution,
where Dr. Gorrell had his first opportunity to inspect it himself. It was not
as he had hoped. It was his son’s handwriting after all.