Deadly Hero: The High Society Murder that Created Hysteria in the Heartland (28 page)

In truth, there was nothing wise about it. Even
after all that Phil had put them through, Judge Kennamer had indulged his
youngest son his entire life, and he wasn’t about to stop now. He just needed
more time to solicit wealthy, influential friends to pledge property to secure
the bond. Phil took the news well and expected as much when reporters asked him
about getting out on bail. But there was another, more important question
reporters wanted to ask him.

“Have you read of the statement attributed to Sgt.
Maddux to the effect that two guns fired the two shots into Gorrell?”

“Yes, I read it,” Kennamer said with a frown. “It’s
a damnable falsehood! It’s just another of his efforts to attempt to drag in
someone else in this matter. Now that they have me, they will try and get
someone else involved—one of my friends. There’s absolutely nothing to it.”

Kennamer may have told a lot of lies, but he was
certainly telling the truth now. When the knight needs to slay the dragon to
win the heart of the princess and the confidence of the wealthy king, there
can’t be two knights in that story. There could only be one, and that was him.

“Personally, I don’t believe in ballistic
science,” he went on. “And anyway, I don’t think Maddux is a ballistics expert or
ever could be!”

March 4, 1935

SINCE HE WAS GIVEN TEN DAYS to come up with
$25,000, Kennamer was obligated to wait out those days in the Pawnee Jail. As he
left the jail for the last time, he gave photographers his customary glare. It
was the same scowl he’d given them for more than two weeks. They were only
doing their jobs and, as much as he disliked them, they were thoroughly tired
of him.

But they still had one more photograph that their
editors were demanding: a picture of him as he entered the state prison. To get
it, they had to follow in their cars behind Sheriff Burkdoll, who was
accompanied by “Pawnee Bill,” who toured the world with his “Pawnee Bill’s
Historic Wild West Show” that he’d founded in 1888. As the three climbed the one
hundred steps to the outer door of the administration building, Kennamer
indulged the photographers with a cheerful smile to show how brave he was.

It was just for show. When he got inside, he lost the
cool air of indifference he had perfected during his trial. Inside the deputy
warden’s office, he looked around with apprehension. He was relieved to learn
that his head of curly hair would not be shaved. In a time when men and boys
always wore hats outside, Kennamer’s vanity kept him from covering up his
crowning glory.

Inside, he was given a rule book and told to
familiarize himself with it. From then on, he was prisoner 31-420. As the
photographers turned to leave, he gave them one last Phil Kennamer quote.

“I’ll make a good prisoner and don’t intend to
break any of the rules,” he declared with bravado. “If all the walls should
fall down, I wouldn’t try to escape. I’m going to do my time the right way.”

With celebrity criminal Phil Kennamer, the son of
a federal judge, tucked away in prison, prosecutors could now turn their
attention to two more people who needed to atone for their sins: Edna Mae Harman
and Sergeant Henry Bailess Maddux.

It is doubtful if any more official,
legal, social, or political pressure has ever been used in this country to
circumvent justice. There has not been a month since the night of the shooting
that powerful friends have not been active, at many times under coercion, in
the intercessions for young Kennamer. These consistent efforts were directed
toward anyone who in any way might be helpful.

— Tulsa Daily
World
Editorial

THE COURT ACTION AGAINST
EDNA Harman went from a trial to a hearing in ten minutes. Two days after she
was arrested for contempt of court, her husband posted bond, and her trial was
set for March 11 in Pawnee. When court opened that Monday morning, her lawyer
was given the opportunity to plead his client not guilty. William Chase then
told the court he intended to prove that Mrs. Harman was not a professional
witness, and that she was in genuine fear for her life if she testified. But to
Judge Hurst, none of that mattered. He was there. He saw her outburst. She
violated the subpoena requiring her to testify, disrupted the proceedings, and
nearly caused a mistrial with her behavior.

When Chase was finished, Judge Hurst released a
formal finding of fact which established Edna Harman’s guilt. Trial over. The
proceedings then became a hearing to determine her punishment, which could
include one year in jail and a fine of $1,000.

The story of when Edna Harman first approached the
Kennamers, and then the Gorrells, plotted to benefit financially, who she did
it with, and how she planned to do it, was one of the most confusing aspects of
the entire case. No single newspaper reporter was able to outline her entire
saga from beginning to end with enough clarity for it to be entirely
understood. Like most unstable individuals who are backed into a corner from a
controversy of their own making, Edna Harman sought to free herself from the
forces closing in on her by playing the victim to garner sympathy, and
obfuscating the truth in order to create confusion.

She first inserted herself into Tulsa’s most
sensational murder case in late December when she telephoned the Kennamer home
with a claim that she knew some “valuable information” concerning Phil. But
when his sister visited with Edna at the apartment building she managed on
South Quaker Avenue in Tulsa, Opal Kennamer discovered what Harmon Phillips
would later learn—that something wasn’t quite right with Mrs. Harman.

“[She] told me she was certain my brother was
insane and contemplated suicide when she saw him one day in the apartment,”
Opal told the Pawnee courtroom. She quickly realized the mother of three had
nothing that would contribute to Phil’s defense and left. But just because she
was done with Edna Harman, that didn’t mean Edna Harman was done with the
Kennamers.

In early January, Judge Kennamer received an
anonymous letter through the mail, requesting a loan of $2,500 in exchange for a
vague promise of something that would benefit his son. It was typed on
stationery that bore the watermark “Executive Bond,” and communicated a
hyper-emotional message that betrayed the sender as a cuckoo bird desperate for
money.

Dear Sir: I and no one else know facts concerning your son,
others involved, and still others in danger of becoming involved.

The good I can do for Phil and everyone connected is
inconceivable, if you will only have confidence in me and lend financial aid that
is imperative to the welfare of us all.

Coming directly to the point, twenty five hundred dollars is
needed. I am corresponding with you because your son is implicated and as a
last resort.

Your helping me will in no way involve you, cause anyone the slightest
harm nor will it impede justice. Quite the contrary, justice will then be
possible.

It is necessary, for the success of my efforts that my identity
remain unknown until this case is concluded at which time I will make myself
known to you and repay the money. Believe me, you would be amply repaid if you
never heard from me again. If I could only explain now—but I dare not.

The fate of more than one now rests on your decision. Your decision
as to my truth and sincerity. I realize you have only this letter on which to
base your decision and that you could so easily have me apprehended, although
it would profit no one and only bring greater and final disaster.

Again, I beg, please have faith in me. Help me to help all.
If you will trust me, make a package as small as possible of packets of fives,
tens and twenties to total twenty five hundred dollars. When package is ready
and to inform me so and that you will help, place this ad in the
Tulsa World’s
“Lets Swap” column:

Electric train for bicycle 9-8763.

I will then get in touch with you to name the time and place
to receive the loan. Act immediately as valuable time has already been lost,
because of my reluctance to ask you for help.

If this ad does not appear within 48 hours I shall consider
your answer, no. But I again beg you to trust me and co-operate.

(Signed) U.R. Good

Judge Kennamer dismissed the letter’s sender as
just another crackpot. Ever since his son was arrested, he had received numerous
anonymous letters from individuals seeking something, promising something, or from
cons and ex-cons who enjoyed the pain he was going through by having a son in
jail accused of murder.

When the “Let’s Swap” ad did not appear, the
sender grew more frustrated but wasn’t willing to give up. A short time later,
James Barnett, described in newspapers as “a negro voodoo doctor,” walked into
Judge Kennamer’s office in the federal building and laid an envelope on his
desk. The anonymous letter, which was later published in the newspapers,
encouraged Judge Kennamer to go to 405½ Latimer Place to seek out a man who had
been able to alter the outcome of another well-known Tulsa murder trial a few
years before. In a conspiratorial tone, the letter promised that if he did, his
son might benefit, but only with a payment of $1,200.

Judge Kennamer then asked Barnett if the sender
intended to tamper with the jury, and that all he wanted was a fair trial for
his son. Barnett, who was given two dollars to deliver the message, replied he
didn’t know the contents of the letter. The judge then grew irate and ordered
him out of the office. Fearing he was in trouble, Barnett, who was more
involved then he let on, quickly gave up the name of the letter’s author as
well as her address; it turned out to be Edna Harman. The second letter was
linked to the first by a similar typeface, an “Executive Bond” watermark on the
stationery, and Barnett—who said Edna had discussed both letters with him and
two other people.

The next day, Opal and an unidentified man went to
the Latimer address, which turned out to be Barnett’s home. Although Jim was
not there at the time, they met a woman who told them a “voodoo doctor” had
gone to see Judge Kennamer about fixing the case with the jury the day before. Several
hours afterward, a woman came around to ask Jim what the judge had to say. She
was later identified as Edna Harman.

Opal then went from Barnett’s home to see Edna,
who told her that her brother and another boy had rented an apartment from her.
However, the description she had of Phil did not match, and the Kennamers, once
again, concluded Mrs. Harman could be of no help. Instead of turning over her
two letters to police, they wrote her off as one of the many attention seekers
who were trying to insert themselves into a nationally known case.

Although she had struck out with the defense, Edna
Harman next saw an opportunity with the Gorrells. Just after the venue change
was announced, she approached Dr. Gorrell with the same story Tom Wallace had
told the jury: that she had rented an apartment to Kennamer and another boy,
spied on them as Kennamer was writing a letter—supposedly
the
letter—and
overheard him remark, “That fellow has got yellow. He has backed out. I am
going to Kansas City and I am going to put the skids under him.”

Gorrell then took this information to Holly
Anderson, who sent his investigator, Jack Bonham, to interview Mrs. Harman, who
told him the same story. But as the doctor would later testify, before Edna
could come to Pawnee to testify, there was just one little thing she needed
first—one hundred dollars.
[39]

“Before Mrs. Harman would consent to come to
Pawnee to testify, [Dr. Gorrell] was to guarantee payment of her expenses up to
$100,” the
Tribune
reported. “She told him she could not afford to come
to Pawnee on the regular witness fee basis of $1 a day and mileage.”

Her request was politely turned down, and she was
handed a subpoena to testify.

When Moss learned Mrs. Harman would testify, he
recalled her name from the time she had approached him some years before with
an offer to sell her testimony to benefit his client who was facing a murder
trial. Besides knowing of the Kennamers’ experience with her, he started asking
around and learned from half a dozen defense attorneys from Tulsa to Oklahoma
City that over the last twelve years, she had approached them with similar
offers and, in two known cases, she had actually testified.

The hearing in Pawnee presented a unique
opportunity for the Kennamer defense and prosecution to work together against a
common foe. Given the nature of the hearing, the defense was allowed to put on
their case first. From the stand, Edna, her three children, and her husband all
told of how they had received threatening phone calls, observed strange men
lurking near their apartment, and were threatened by defense team investigators,
whose shoulder-holstered weapons were displayed a little too obviously for Edna’s
comfort. Mrs. Harman’s strategy was to deny everything, point by point, and to
burst into tears at appropriate moments during her testimony. And just like
Phil Kennamer, everyone else—Opal Kennamer, Flint Moss, his two investigators,
Dr. Gorrell, Dixie Gilmer, Tom Wallace, and star witness Jim Barnett—was lying,
but she was telling the truth.

The hearing lasted two days and, by the end of it,
the witness statements and circumstantial evidence against her were too
overwhelming for Judge Hurst, who branded her a “professional witness.”

“I am convinced this defendant attempted to obtain
money from Judge Kennamer as well as the other side in the trial. A mere fine
is not sufficient punishment in this case,” Judge Hurst declared as he sentenced
Edna Harman to thirty days in jail and a fine of $250.
[40]
Normally, that
would have been the end of it, but this was Edna Mae Harman, and Edna Mae Harman
was too proud to have her reputation sullied with a jail term for contempt of
court. Her lawyer boldly announced they would appeal the judge’s decision. This
action required Judge Hurst to vacate her current bond and set an appeal bond
for $1,000. Like the last time, she was forced to sit it out in jail for a few
days while her family came up with the money.

Seven months later, on October 22, William Chase
argued his client’s case before the criminal court of appeals. Their decision
on the matter came in March 1936, one year after her original conviction. It
was a long time to wait for a judgment that was boiled down to two sentences:

“Orderly trials and proceedings in court are not
to be obstructed and nullified by [the] whims or temperamental outbursts of a witness.
We are satisfied the punishment assessed is not excessive but on the contrary,
is reasonable and humane.”

Normally, that would have been the end of it, but
this was Edna Mae Harman, and Edna Mae Harman, to her credit, was a fighter.
Instead of being carted off to jail, her lawyer requested, and received,
several thirty- and sixty-day extensions for the start of her jail sentence. By
September, the patience of Judge Hurst, Carl McGee, and Holly Anderson had
reached its limit. On Friday, September 18, 1936, both Anderson and Hurst made
it clear to reporters that unless Mrs. Harman surrendered the following day, a
warrant for her arrest would be issued. When asked about serving her time, Edna
told reporters that she “did not intend to stay over there that long.” She
avoided arrest and waited another two days before beginning her sentence on
September 21.

But instead of paying the fine, her husband,
Orlan, would not or could not come up with the $250. Instead of serving thirty
days, she had to suffer the indignity of paying off that fine at the rate of one
dollar for every day in jail. She requested and was denied release in November,
but by January 1937, a pardon-and-parole attorney pleaded on her behalf. Hurst,
who by then was a state supreme court judge, gave his recommendation for her
release. On January 21, 1937, after serving 123 days of a thirty-day sentence, Edna
Harman was paroled from the Pawnee County Jail by Governor Ernest Marland.

WHEN PHIL KENNAMER WENT TO prison, the hysteria
did not go with him. It was forced to linger behind in Tulsa and was amplified
when Maddux’s two-gun theory was leaked to the press. The drama from his attention-seeking
remark would play out for the next five weeks. It also reinforced the public’s demand
that a grand jury be called to reinvestigate the entire case from top to
bottom, including the bribery allegations, the obscene photographs, and Sidney
Born’s death, which led to an investigation that many believed was bungled from
the beginning. The common denominator in all those could be traced back to one
man, who was just now sensing the storm clouds gathering around him. After
waiting for more than twenty-four hours, Maddux denied saying that two
different bullets and guns were used to kill Gorrell.

“I never made such a statement. It is not true,”
Maddux declared Saturday night after Kennamer was sentenced. “As far as I know,
the two bullets were fired from the same gun.”

But it came too late, and the damage was already
done. With Anderson on an out-of-state vacation, Gilmer was forced to reopen
the entire investigation, and he called for all the evidence to be brought to
him. He had grown impatient with the entire case, which was being kept alive by
wild gossip and the latest controversy over the bullets. This spawned new
tensions between the county attorney’s office and the city’s detective bureau,
with Commissioner Hoop thrown into the middle of it.