Deep in the Woods by Bryan Johnston

Author:Bryan Johnston [Johnston, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: N/A
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2021-07-17T07:00:00+00:00

Of the two hundred suspects being investigated by the FBI, the Karpis gang was still at the top of the list. In an astonishing lack of ethical reporting—or legal due process, for that matter—the Times ran an article that basically acted as judge and jury to the Karpis gang, boldly accusing them of perpetrating the crime, and describing the planning process in detail. The word “allegedly” never showed up once. The article is riddled with wholesale speculation, but evidently leaping to conclusions was an accepted norm of the era.

The article stated that the plans for the kidnapping were made in part at the Hungerford Hotel in Seattle. It referred to the hotel as a “workshop” for the Karpis gang where they plotted the trap for George.

The author of the piece stated flatly that, at that very hour, Alvin Karpis and his goons were already hundreds of miles away, speeding for a hideout in the desert Southwest. He then went on to say that the previous day, the Times published exclusively the identification of Volney Davis by a University of Washington student who rode with him on a bus from Seattle to Tacoma at precisely the hour the Weyerhaeusers received the ransom note. The article also said that Davis and his woman companion, “a notorious moll” of other master criminal Fred Barker, had shacked up in a local boarding house for a month earlier that spring, and that when they left they moved away several boxes, supposedly containing guns and ammo. (Operative word: supposedly.)

It said the woman, now traveling with a man who was identified as Harry Campbell, another Karpis gangster, then stayed at the Winthrop Hotel where a maid gave the Feds a tip that confirmed the Justice Department’s suspicions that the Karpis gang had pulled the kidnapping. Evidently the maid’s mind regularly ran to the sort of thing that “picks out criminals by their looks and actions.” It was then mentioned that, incidentally, the maid had just seen the movie “G” Men, and that was what confirmed her suspicions about the couple in the hotel.

But, according to the article, she knew more. Lots more.

She began tracking the couple’s movements. Every morning they would cross the street from the hotel to a garage and meet another man—Volney Davis. The two men would leave for Seattle, then return around twelve thirty every day, when the “moll” would call them at the Hungerford Hotel. Evidently, in that room was the evil genius of the Weyerhaeuser plot—Alvin Karpis.

The article said that after six days at the hotel, Campbell and the woman checked out and headed to the Broadmoor Apartments where the final plans were made for the snatch.

The police were called and told of the developments, after which the apartment was locked up and the G-men took it from there.

The reporter said, “The Karpis gang stood fully exposed.”50

If only there was any truth or confirmation to any of these allegations. But more on that later.

This wasn’t the only article that, for all intents and purposes, flat out claimed the Karpis gang were the kidnappers.

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