On the morning of September 28, 1953, in Kansas City, Missouri, a woman approached the Notre Dame de Sion school claiming to be the aunt of a student. She informed the nuns that the boy's mother had suffered a heart attack and that she needed to take him to the hospital immediately. The student was Robert Cosgrove 'Bobby' Greenlease Jr., a six-year-old White male whose father was a wealthy and prominent automobile dealer in the region. The nuns, trusting the woman’s urgent story, released the child into her custody. The woman, Bonnie Brown Heady, led the boy to a waiting taxicab where her partner, Carl Austin Hall, was waiting. Instead of taking him to his mother, the pair drove across the state line into Kansas to a secluded field.
It was in this isolated area that the kidnapping turned into a capital crime before a ransom was even demanded. Hall attempted to strangle the child, but when that failed, he shot the boy to death with a. 38 caliber revolver. The couple then transported the body back to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they buried him in a shallow grave in the backyard of Heady's home near the porch. despite the fact that the child was already dead, Hall and Heady proceeded with their plan to extort the Greenlease family. They sent a series of messages to the boy's parents demanding $600,000 for his safe return, a sum that constituted the largest ransom demand in American history at that time.
Desperate to save their son, the Greenlease family complied with the kidnappers' instructions. The ransom was delivered, but the child was never returned. Flush with cash, Hall and Heady fled to St. Louis, Missouri, where they began to spend the money recklessly. Their suspicious behavior and lavish spending quickly drew the attention of a local cab driver who transported Hall. The driver alerted the St. Louis police, leading to Hall's arrest at a hotel on October 6, 1953. During interrogation, Hall implicated Heady, who was apprehended shortly thereafter at an apartment where she had been staying.
Under questioning, the couple confessed to the kidnapping and murder, directing authorities to the grave site in St. Joseph where the boy's body was recovered. The revelation that the child had been killed almost immediately after the abduction shocked the nation and the Greenlease family, who had held out hope for his survival. The legal process moved with unprecedented speed due to the overwhelming evidence and the confessions provided by the suspects. Both Hall and Heady were charged with federal kidnapping statutes resulting in death.
The pair pleaded guilty to the charges, avoiding a lengthy trial to determine guilt, but a jury was impaneled to determine their punishment. After a brief deliberation lasting only about an hour, the jury recommended the death penalty for both defendants. On December 18, 1953, less than three months after the crime was committed, Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady were executed together in the gas chamber at the Missouri State Penitentiary. The case had a lingering aftermath involving the ransom money; only half of the $600,000 was recovered by authorities. Two police officers who arrested Hall were later investigated, indicted, and convicted of perjury regarding the whereabouts of the missing money, which was never found.
