Nevada Myths and Legends by Richard Moreno

Author:Richard Moreno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2019-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

The Unknown Fate of Roy Frisch

On the evening of Friday, March 22, 1934, Mrs. Frisch had invited a few friends over for a game of bridge. Her son, Roy, who lived with her (and his two sisters) in a spacious 3,091-square-foot bungalow at 247 Court Street, decided to get out of the house and catch a film, Gallant Lady, at the Majestic Theater, which was located about four blocks northeast. At the time, Roy J. Frisch was forty-one years old and working as the chief cashier at the Riverside Bank in Reno, which was owned by George Wingfield, often described as the wealthiest and most powerful man in the state of Nevada. The bank was actually tucked inside Wingfield’s Riverside Hotel.

At about 7:45 p.m., Frisch, who had also served as a member of the Reno City Council, said goodbye to his mother and her friends and walked out the front door. According to Nevada historian Phillip I. Earl, who has researched Frisch, the banker headed two blocks east on Court Street and turned north at the Washoe County Courthouse (on the corner of Court and Virginia streets). He crossed the Virginia Street Bridge, which spans the Truckee River, and turned east on First Street. From there he walked two more blocks to the theater.

Frisch bought a ticket and entered the theater to watch the 84-minute melodrama. At about 9:30 p.m., after the movie ended, Frisch began the return journey home. This time, he chose to walk back via First Street to Sierra Street, and then followed Sierra to Court. Sometime between 9:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., he encountered a friend at the corner of Sierra and Court Streets and exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes. From there, he walked west on Court Street toward his house, which was about two blocks away.

He was never seen again.

The following morning, his mother went to awaken him for work and discovered he had not slept in his bed. Concerned that something might have happened to him, she called the bank and several of his friends—but no one had seen him—before contacting the Reno Police Department. The police interviewed anyone who might have encountered him that night and when nothing came of that, alerted federal authorities, who began a nationwide manhunt. Local papers printed notices asking anyone who might have information about Frisch to step forward and offered a $1,000 reward.

Of course, part of the reason for all the attention to the disappearance of a middle-age, bespectacled banker who lived with his mother was that several months earlier Frisch had testified before a grand jury investigating whether the Riverside Bank was involved in a scam perpetrated by two well-known Reno gamblers/pimps/organized-crime figures named William J. Graham and James C. McKay. In the 1920s and ’30s, Graham and McKay were involved in just about anything illegal (or immoral) in the Biggest Little City. Before and after gambling was legalized in 1935, the two owned the Bank Club, off Douglas Alley in downtown Reno, at the time reportedly the biggest casino in the world.

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