The Story of Bobby Greenlease’s Kidnapping

Bobby Greenlease. Courtesy Kansas City Star

On the morning of September 28, 1953, a woman arrived at the French Institute of Notre Dame de Sion in Kansas City, Missouri, and told a nun she was the aunt of six-year-old student Robert “Bobby” Greenlease. Claiming Bobby’s mother had suffered a heart attack, the woman—Bonnie Heady—left with the boy, who walked to her without hesitation. By late morning, a call from the school to the Greenlease home exposed the ruse. Bobby’s father, auto magnate Robert Greenlease Sr., contacted police; the FBI was notified soon after.

Heady and her partner, Carl Austin Hall, had planned a kidnap-for-ransom scheme targeting the wealthy family. Within hours, the Greenleases began receiving ransom letters and calls demanding $600,000 in small bills—then the largest ransom in U.S. history. A medal Bobby wore was mailed as proof of custody, and the kidnappers repeatedly assured the family he was alive. Unknown to the Greenleases, Hall had driven the child across the state line to Overland Park, Kansas, and fatally shot him shortly after the abduction. The body was taken to St. Joseph, Missouri, and buried in Heady’s yard beneath a trellis dusted with lime.

Bobby Greenlease and his father, Robert Greenlease Sr.

On October 5, following detailed instructions, the Greenlease representatives delivered the $600,000 in a duffel bag at a designated spot in eastern Jackson County. Hall retrieved the money and, with Heady, fled roughly 380 miles to St. Louis. There he bought metal suitcases, transferred the cash, and abandoned the duffel in an ash pit. Heady, intoxicated, fell asleep in a rented apartment while Hall, carrying the suitcases, moved between motels and briefly considered burying the money along the Meramec River.

The break came the afternoon of October 6, when a St. Louis cab driver reported a suspicious fare flashing large sums of cash. Police arrested Hall that evening at the Townhouse Hotel; he first gave a false name, then implicated Heady, who was arrested the same night. Under questioning, Hall admitted planning the crime and led investigators to Heady’s property, where FBI agents recovered Bobby’s body on October 7. Forensic work tied Hall’s .38-caliber revolver to evidence found in Heady’s station wagon and home.

Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady

Both defendants pleaded guilty in federal court. After a brief penalty hearing, a jury recommended death; Judge Albert L. Reeves imposed sentences carried out in Missouri’s gas chamber on December 18, 1953—less than three months after the kidnapping. The case did not end there: only $288,000 of the ransom was recovered. Two St. Louis officers who arrested Hall were later convicted of perjury amid evidence that money had gone missing in their custody, fueling a long-running mystery about the unrecovered cash that has never been fully resolved.