Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease [Hardcover]

John Heidenry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2009

In 1953, six-year-old Bobby Greenlease, the son of a wealthy Kansas City automobile dealer and his wife, was kidnapped from his Roman Catholic elementary school by a woman named Bonnie Heady, a well-scrubbed prostitute who was posing as one of his distant aunts.  Her accomplice, Carl Austin Hall, a former playboy who had run through his inheritance and was just out of the Missouri State Penitentiary, was waiting in the getaway car with a gun, a length of rope and a plastic tarp.  The two grifters thought they had a plan that would put them on the road to Easy Street; but, actually, they were on a fast-track to the gas chamber.  Shortly after they snatched the little boy, the two demanded a ransom of $600,000.00 from the Greenlease family and it was paid; but, Bobby was already dead, shot in the head by Hall and buried in a flower garden behind the couple’s house, exactly where his body was found by police shortly thereafter.  The Greenlease ransom was the highest ransom ever paid in the US to that date and the case held the US transfixed in the same way the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby had done decades earlier.  In a bone-chilling account of kidnapping, murder and the dogged pursuit of a child’s killers, John Heidenry crafts a haunting narrative that involves mob boss Joe Costello, a cast of unsavory grifters, hardboiled detectives and a room at the legendary, but now razed, Coral Court Motel on Route 66. Heady and Hall were apprehended quickly, convicted and executed in a rare double execution in the State of Missouri’s gas chamber on a cold December night not long before Christmas.  By that time, little Bobby Greenlease was stone cold in his grave and a fickle America had turned back to its Post-War boom. However, one question has never been solved: as Hall was being pursued around Kansas City and St. Louis, half of the ransom was lost and never recovered.  Did it end up with the mob via Joe Costello?  To this day, no one knows and dead mob bosses tell no tales.  In a book that brings to mind films like “Chinatown” and “Double Indemnity”, John Heidenry has written a compelling work that blends true crime and American history to take a close look at one of the United States’ most notorious murders.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This true crime caper by Heidenry (The Gashouse Gang) of a 1953 Kansas child kidnapping gone bad carries a solid punch. The young victim, Bobby Greenlease, the six-year-old heir of wealthy businessman Robert Greenlease, never had a chance when Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Heady—both formerly wealthy ne'er-do-wells making one last stab at making their fortune—botched the snatch and demanded a ransom of $600,000, the largest ever in U.S. history up to that time. Heady took Bobby from his Catholic school, claiming to be his aunt and that his mother had had a heart attack. Bobby inexplicably went quietly with the strange woman and met his violent end. Heidenry, a contributing editor to the Week, aptly describes Hall, the down-on-his-luck playboy; Heady, the former horsewoman turned prostitute; Robert Greenlease, the woeful car magnate; and a sordid cast of supporting players, including coldhearted mobster Joe Costello and the two corrupt cops who stole much of the ransom. Heidenry neatly tells this harrowing tale and its impact on all involved. 8 pages of b&w photos.
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Review

“Heidenry delivers a lean, mean account of an infamous 1953 kidnapping and murder. . . .  Harsh, chilling, lurid, and gripping.”--Kirkus Reviews

"This true crime caper by Heidenry (The Gashouse Gang) of a 1953 Kansas child kidnapping gone bad carries a solid punch. The young victim, Bobby Greenlease, the six-year-old heir of wealthy businessman Robert Greenlease, never had a chance when Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Heady—both formerly wealthy ne'er-do-wells making one last stab at making their fortune—botched the snatch and demanded a ransom of $600,000, the largest ever in U.S. history up to that time. Heady took Bobby from his Catholic school, claiming to be his aunt and that his mother had had a heart attack. Bobby inexplicably went quietly with the strange woman and met his violent end. Heidenry, a contributing editor to the Week, aptly describes Hall, the down-on-his-luck playboy; Heady, the former horsewoman turned prostitute; Robert Greenlease, the woeful car magnate; and a sordid cast of supporting players, including coldhearted mobster Joe Costello and the two corrupt cops who stole much of the ransom. Heidenry neatly tells this harrowing tale and its impact on all involved."--Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition first Printing edition (July 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312376790
• ISBN-13: 978-0312376796
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #794,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Imbecile Chronicles, September 22, 2010

By 

Dan Bogaty "Mr. Congeniality" - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease (Paperback)

In ZERO AT THE BONE, author John Heidenry has produced a well researched and densely written account of a notorious crime, the September 1953 kidnapping and murder in Kansas City MO, of 6 year old Bobby Greenlease by a pair of morons named Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady. There is considerable background on both of the perps, particularly on Hall, so that the reader gets a feel for the kind of people they were. Both came from seemingly normal childhoods and neither was raised in poverty, but by the time of the kidnapping, Hall in his middle 30s and Heady her early 40s were severely alcoholic and stayed drunk all day every day, with Hall adding as well to his repertoire a little drug habit.

The immediate act of the kidnapping itself was actually reasonably well planned and effectuated, but due to a combination of stupidity and alcoholism, Hall and Heady had no real plans after the almost immediate murder of Bobby. What followed were a series of ludicrously incompetent attempts to the take delivery of the money. Hall would require that Greenlease's representatives go to various locations, but he'd get the addresses wrong. Or on several occasions he couldn't find drop-off locations he himself had selected .On one occasion he instructed the representatives by phone to make a call from a specific hotel pay phone. But while he had the pay phone's number for them, he couldn't remember the name of the hotel. If the situation weren't so tragic, it would have been funny, and one of the Greenlease representatives is finally quoted as telling Hall, "This idea of climbing the tree and looking in a bird's nest for a note, then climbing on your belly somewhere looking under a rock with a red, white, and blue ribbon around it - that's getting tiresome." But eventually and amazingly Hall got the money - $600,000, a fortune by 1953 standards, and, any semblance of forethought officially ended, randomly drove with Heady to St. Louis. There, after depositing a passed out Heady in a rented apartment, Hall spent two profligate days in the Coral Courts Motel with the money, a hooker, and an underworld-connected cabdriver. The cabbie, figuring that the befogged Hall would be an easy mark, contacted his boss, cab company owner and small time mobster, Joseph Costello. Costello in turn contacted his friend, corrupt St. Louis detective Louis Shoulders, and the robbery of the kidnapper was on.

Except for the background material on Hall, a man who didn't like to work and ludicrously considered himself smarter than the common man and to a lesser extent on the remarkably shallow Heady, ZATB covers a 3-month period from September to December 1953. A large portion of the book relates in minute detail the movements of Hall in St. Louis over a three-day period. This was my favorite part of the book, partly due to the fact that I live in St. Louis and am familiar with the locations mentioned, but also because I found fascinating the presentation of the extreme and continuing stupidity of a not very bright man, who had somehow managed obtain a large amount of money, attempting to operate while in a drug and alcohol induced haze.

Heidenry writes very well, and while there are a few quotes that I think must have been made up, he has delivered a fast paced story that has a feel of immediacy throughout.
The book contains no filler, little repetition, and Heidenry is thankfully too good to have resorted to the all too frequent lame attempt at "creative writing." And he does a fine job of presenting the tenor of the Midwest in the early 1950s.
A reviewer on this site whom I respect, MJS, found fault with the book in that, "Hall and Heady are not criminal masterminds. They are monumentally stupid. They are not sympathetic." She is absolutely 100% right. But she then writes, "They are not even interesting."
And that's where my taste differs from hers. I find the behavior of impaired low-life idiots who try to implement extraordinary plans far in excess of their capabilities to be as interesting as it gets.
So to each his own, but I really enjoyed reading ZERO AT THE BONE

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Zero in the Brain, March 13, 2010

By 

MJS "Constant Reader" (New York, United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bob (Kindle Edition)

Once upon a time, the kidnapping of young Bobby Greenlease was second only to the Lindbergh case in terms of publicity and general outrage. The boy was murdered, as planned, before the first ransom demand was sent. The kidnappers, unlike Leopold and Loeb, got their ransom and left town, seemingly on their way to escaping without a trace. Instead epic inebriates Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady go off the deep end, lose the ransom and end up in an electric chair built for two.

This is dark material. John Heidenry does a good job of depicting the crime and the abysmal human beings who committed it. For my taste, he over does the details on the stealing of the ransom money. Certainly it takes a rare specimen to steal the proceeds from a child murder but other than being a proof point for utter corruption of the St Louis police I couldn't bring myself to care who had the money. It's return wouldn't bring the Greenleases' any comfort nor would it make Hall and Heady any less guilty.

There's something vaguely Coen Brothers about this case. From the French-speaking nuns in the Midwest to the motel with a national reputation for shady business to the moronic drunks to the "Who's Got the Ransom?" antics, the whole thing plays like a grimmer, entirely laugh-free version of Fargo at times. Hall and Heady are not criminal masterminds. They are monumentally stupid. They are not sympathetic. They aren't even interesting.

That may be the biggest obstacle for this book - other than telling the story, there isn't a whole lot to be gained from this exercise. Unlike the Lindbergh case the Greenlease case is not a microcosm of the times. It's the venal, depraved act of a couple of drunks. The end. Society's reaction to the crime and the criminals isn't especially illuminating either. Even as a tale of the dangers of demon alcohol it isn't much. If you're interested in the case then you likely won't be disappointed by this book. Otherwise this isn't a must-read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough Story Of A Long Forgotten Crime And Its Aftermath, August 28, 2010

By 

Gail K. Powers "Abra" (Harbor Country, Mi,N. Naples, FL, Chicago area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease (Paperback)

My first recollection of hearing about the child abduction and murder of Bobby Greenlease was about 12 years ago when I was visiting Kansas City. Considering the time we live in, I thought it strange that such a long forgotten crime was so notoriously remembered even in the city where it took place. Unfortunately, child abductions and murders have become far too commonplace.
This book revisits not only the crime, but thoroughly recreates the time in which it took place and the media frenzy it generated. It very deliberately looks at murderers and their blundering attempts to extort money and cover their tracks to divert detection and also looks at the involvement of organized crime and law enforcement in the obstruction of justice.
This book is true crime at its absolute best.