Bobby Greenlease
| Bobby Greenlease | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Robert Cosgrove Greenlease, Jr. February 3, 1947 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died |
(aged 6) Lenexa, Kansas, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Homicide by handgun |
| Resting place | Forest Hill Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Known for | Murder victim |
Robert Cosgrove "Bobby" Greenlease Jr. (February 3, 1947 – September 28, 1953) was the 6-year-old son of multi-millionaire automobile dealer Robert Cosgrove Greenlease Sr., of Kansas City, Missouri.
Bobby was the victim of a kidnapping on September 28, 1953, that led to the largest ransom payment in American history (at the time). His kidnappers, however, had no intention of returning him to his family. Before the ransom demand was even issued, he had been murdered by Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Brown Heady.
The case was the subject of a 2014 episode of Investigation Discovery's series A Crime to Remember (Season 2, Episode 8, "Baby Come Home").
Multi-millionaire Robert Greenlease made his fortune by introducing General Motors vehicles to the Great Plains in the early 20th century. He owned dealerships from Texas to South Dakota. He was 65 years old when Bobby was born in 1947, and the Greenleases doted upon him.
Bobby was said to be a trusting boy. According to author John Heidenry, whose book Zero at the Bone: The Playboy, the Prostitute, and the Murder of Bobby Greenlease is an account of the case, kidnapper Bonnie Heady said that from the moment she appeared at his school posing as his aunt to take him to his sick mother, Bobby just took her hand and did anything he was told to do.
In September 1953, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Emily Brown Heady kidnapped Bobby from Notre Dame de Sion, an exclusive Catholic school located in Kansas City, Missouri.
The kidnappers were drug-addicted alcoholics then living together in nearby St. Joseph, Missouri. In the early 1930s, Hall had attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, with Paul Robert Greenlease, Bobby's adopted older brother. Hall had planned for years to victimize his former classmate's wealthy family.
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