On the morning of February 9, 1960, Adolph Coors III, the 45-year-old male heir to the Coors brewing empire, left his home in Morrison, Colorado, for the brewery in Golden, but he would never arrive. A milkman later discovered Coors' station wagon abandoned on Turkey Creek Bridge with the engine still running and the radio on. Nearby, police found Coors' hat and glasses, along with bloodstains on the bridge, signaling a violent encounter.
The following day, the gravity of the situation became clear when his wife, Mary, received a typewritten ransom note demanding $500,000 for his safe return. This initiated one of the most extensive manhunts in FBI history, second only to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
The investigation quickly centered on a suspicious canary yellow 1951 Mercury that had been seen in the area. Investigators traced the car to a man using the alias Walter Osborne, who had suspiciously moved out of his Denver apartment the day after Coors' disappearance. This alias was soon revealed to belong to Joseph Corbett Jr., an escaped convict with a prior murder conviction. Having previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 1951, Corbett had escaped from a minimum-security prison in California in 1955. With Corbett identified as the primary suspect, the FBI added him to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in March 1960, sparking a search that spanned the continent from New Jersey to California.
For seven months, the fate of Adolph Coors III remained a mystery. The search came to a grim conclusion on September 11, 1960, when hikers discovered a pair of trousers containing a penknife with the initials 'ACIII' in a remote forest area. A few days later, Coors' skull and other skeletal remains were found nearby, confirming he had been murdered. An examination of his remains, including a jacket and shirt, revealed he had been shot twice in the back. The manhunt for Corbett intensified, and his image was circulated in publications. On October 29, 1960, he was recognized in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Canadian citizens who had seen his picture in a Reader's Digest article. Canadian police located his car and arrested him without incident.
Extradited back to Colorado, Joseph Corbett Jr. stood trial for the murder of Adolph Coors III. The prosecution built a powerful case based on circumstantial and forensic evidence. The typeface on the ransom note was traced back to Corbett's typewriter, and rare pink feldspar and granite minerals found in the soil under his car matched the area where Coors' body was discovered. On March 29, 1961, Corbett was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 1980 after serving 19 years. Corbett always maintained his innocence, giving only one interview in 1996 to deny his guilt. On August 24, 2009, at the age of 80 and suffering from cancer, Joseph Corbett Jr. died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
