The Disappearing Parrot: A True-Crime-Noir Murder Mystery

0:00 Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now. True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic. I'm zevan Odeleberg, host of kind of Murdery, a podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long as it's kind of Murdery.

0:43 My sincere thanks again to Kelsey Childs and Pamela j from Haunted Detective for filling in last week. Please do check out Haunted Detective wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe. It's a great show. The ladies from Haunted Detective were kind enough to fill in for me while I was recovering from throwing out my back. But my back is better and I am back, and I am zevn Odelberg, and this is kind of Murdery. I found the story you're about to hear in the January nineteen twenty nine issue of True Detective magazine.

1:16 My sources are in the show notes, and boy, this is a hum dinger of a whodunn at, folks, It's a heck of a story, a real, really happened, first person true crime noir detective story, as told by the Burlington County, New Jersey Chief of Detectives, Lish Parker. I gotta tell you, lsh. Parker, sure sounds like the name of a Bogart private eye if I've ever heard one. And this what you're about to hear is Detective Parker's story, as told to Alan Hind formerly of The Boston Post. Here's the hook. When forty seven year old wealthy showman and circus owner John Brunnan was murdered in his own home, shotgunned in the back of the head before he even had a chance to draw the pistol he always carried, I'm talking, had his head blown off from behind in his own home while his wife, Doris, a former Broadway chorus girl, was upstairs.

2:06 When that happened, Famous New Jersey sleuth Ellis Parker swore to get the murderer. But Parker never guessed that he would check up on six hundred possible suspects without finding a single clue. He'd hit a stone wall. Where would he turn next? Well, if you're ready to find out, please join me as we uncover what truths we can and solve what mysteries we may, kind of murderies. The Disappearing Parrot. That's right, like where pollywanacracker. The Disappearing Parrot starts now. Between seven forty five and eight o'clock on the evening of March tenth, nineteen twenty two, the telephone in my office rang.

2:57 I was lying down at the time. Last two nights rest were working on an important case, and I did not much relish the idea of getting up to answer a call. However, something told me the call was for me, and that it might be official business. Call it an instinct, call it gut, whatever you like. But during the few seconds that elapsed between the time that the idea first occurred to me and the time that my secretary, Miss Anna Use, answered the phone, I became thoroughly convinced that something was in the wind.

3:27 I was right that you, Parker, were the words that greeted me when I answered, Miss Hughes, having told me that the call was personal and an important one. The voice on the other end of the wire was a Chief Vocal, that's Chief of Police, William Vochel of a Riverside, New Jersey, just a few miles from Mount Holly, the county seat of Burlington County, where I made my home for the last thirty five years. I replied to Vocal in the affirmative and was greeted with that circus guy, you know, honest John Brunan.

3:54 Somebody killed him in his own home, where I achieved. I queried, the brute home. I'll be there as quick as possible, I said, don't let anyone touch anything. A queer feeling passed through me, no wonder, for I was a warm friend of John Brunan. I've known him for years. Hell, we'd been talking only a few days before. We was discussing as carnival the Mighty Doors shows, which I was going to take to the road shortly misused and another one of my assistants, Clifford Kane, donned their coachs for the automobile trip to Riverside, and just as we were getting in the car, along come State Trooper Herman Baiting, who'd been doing some work in connection with my office so herman joins us and we're off.

4:31 Within two minutes of the phone call, little did we realize that we were about to work on what proved to be one of the most brutal, as well as one of the most complex and baffling crimes that's ever come to my attention in the thirty five years that I've been tracking down well criminals. As we drove along the quiet road the Riverside, I couldn't help but think of what some might call the irony of fate. You see, John Brunnan had often asked me how I went about the thrilling business of solvent murder and miss In spite of the fact that I hadn't even reached the scene of the crime, I instinctively began speculating on possible motives.

5:06 Had honest John been killed by some disgruntled, discharged employee. I couldn't recall brunanever having told me that anyone was out to get him. But uh, he was wealthy, and he was known in Riverside as a quote big theatrical man unquote. I wondered, therefore, if robbery could have been behind the killing. But these speculations were neither here nor there, so I stopped quizzing myself. As we drew up to the Brunean home, I was immediately impressed by the fact that it was an excellent spot for a killer to you know, kill.

5:37 The night was pitch black and there were no lights nearby. To the right of the Brunan home, which was a huge old fashioned frame dwelling stretched fields fields, big enough to give a dozen secret slayers room to make clean getaways. In the rear of the house was a garage. Beyond that nothing for quite some distance. To the left of the police quite a bit of ground separated it from the next dwelling. Ringing the front doorbell. I was admitted to the house by missus Brunnan. She'd been widowed for less than an hour, her eyes were swollen from crying, and she was in a state bordering on Extremeistheria chief of police vocal upon seeing me, told me where the body was and led me to the kitchen.

6:16 There I found the man I'd talked with only several days before. He was slumped in a chair. Half his head had been blown off by the charge from a shotgun. The floor was literally covered with blood and brains. On the floor near the body was a newspaper which the murdered man had been reading. I found out later that he'd been reading about a murder case in California. What a strange coincidence, huh. Brunan had been sitting in a chair close to and with his back toward, the one window in the kitchen, which of course was in the extreme rear the house.

6:45 There was a hole in the pane about four inches in diameter. Looking more closely, I found that the glass had been blown inward. This was a clear and positive indication that the murderer had fired the death shot as he stood outside the house. Going round the back of the house, I succeeded in finding, with the aid of a flashlight the footprints I expected. There were two sets of him, those of a man and those of a woman. Missus Brunan told me later that she'd made the woman's prince when she went out to put her bulldog in the cellar for the night.

7:15 The other footprints were those of a man of presumably short and slight stature. I arrived at this conclusion because the size of the prince were quite small, and the impression made on the soft ground was not very heavy. I followed the footprints as best I could under the difficulty presented by the extreme darkness, and they led to a lane where I found fresh automobile tracks. The fact that the shotgun had been used convinced me beyond doubt that the crime was not the work of a highed or experienced gunman.

7:45 In the first place, a hired gunman wouldn't risk being detected carrying anything so bulky. Second place, a hired killer usually quote works unquote with a revolver, because in almost every case he's clever enough to get his man with the first shot. A shotgun is, as a rule, used by someone who's not sure of his aim, and who therefore believes that the bigger the weapon, the bigger his chance are hitting his target in the first place. Additionally, the fact that the slayer stood right up against the window to fire the shot, as revealed by the footprints, proved to me that he was more or less of an amateur, an amateur who wanted to make doubly sure that he got Brunan on the first shot.

8:26 The comparatively small hole in the window pane was additional proof that the shot had been fired at close range, that the shotgun pellets hadn't had time to spread out before they hit the window. I decided that to make any further attempt to trace material clues around the grounds was impossible then, on account of the dark night, so I instructed my associates to keep a close god around the grounds all night. I then went back to the kitchen. Here I might pause for a moment to explain to you that the eye of a man trained in the detecting crime will instinctively notice things which are overlooked by the average joe.

9:00 The peculiar arrangement of a bit of furniture, a stop clock, a disarranged curtain. Any one of those things may be the very thing to furnish the solution to the most baffling crime, and yet they seem so unimportant on the surface to most people. Bearing this in mind, as I always do, I was immediately impressed by the fact that a parrot which had been in a cage hanging in the kitchen was missing, not just the bird, but his cage too. You see, Brunan was a friend. I'd been in that room on more than one occasion before, and I'd unconsciously taken a mental photograph of everything in it.

9:34 The parrot, which by the way, was a talking one, had been there for years. That night it was missing. Looking around the house without saying what I was looking for, I soon discovered the parrot in the cellar way. A cloth had been thrown over the cage. I kept this observation to myself, as I have found that a detective invariably makes a blunder whenever he reveals his hand, except when forced to do so. The incident of the p being removed might mean very little, and I won't go as far as to say it was of paramount importance to me just then, but it was something to be taken into consideration.

10:09 It gave me an inkling that the murder might just be an inside job. I then asked missus Brunan for a statement. She said that her husband had arrived home at six o'clock or thereabouts, and that he'd driven to Williamstown, Jersey, early that morning in Hortense the family car. That's what they called the family car. Hortense. Don't ask me. She said. He had to attend to several business matters at the winter quarters of his show. When he arrived home that night, he put the car in the garage as usual.

10:37 Then into the house. He said he was tired and hungry, but he thought he would wash up and put on fresh clothes before eating dinner. When he was done fixing himself up a bit, Brunan came downstairs feeling in good spirits. He joked with his wife say that he said, I'm not such a bad looking guy when I'm cleaned up, am I? Then John and his wife were alone in the house for a while. He ate a hearty dinner. Missus Brunan then washed the dishes, while John sat with her in the kitchen with his back to the wind, and began reading the news of the day, his usual custom.

11:06 One of the first things that caught his attention was a California murder case wherein a woman had been accused of brutally slaying her husband. Do you know, dot, said Brunan to his wife. I don't believe that woman knows a thing about that killing. It was then about half past seven pm, and Missus Brunan said she went outside to put the dog in the cellar. Coming back inside, she went upstairs to draw her husband a hot bath. The shade above his head pulled down halfway as was customary. A light directly above his head outlined the killer's target very clearly.

11:39 There's a railroad near the Brunan home, and two trains were scheduled to pass at about half past seven. That's when the shot was fired, and Missus Brunan was the only one who heard the gun report. The noise of one of the trains drowned it out. It was apparently perfectly timed. Missus Brunan said that she ran down to the kitchen when she heard the shot, but stopped at the threshold when she saw the ghastly sight of her husband with his melon blown off. She notified a woman neighbor about ten minutes later.

12:07 When I asked her why she'd allowed such a length of time to elapse before giving any alarm, she replied that she'd been so upset she didn't know what she was doing, which seemed reasonable under the circumstances. During my questioning of missus Brunan, I found that she and her husband had often quarreled. She assured me, however, that there had never been any serious differences between them. Missus Brunan, at the time of the murder was an attractive, blonde woman of thirty six, rather plump. She'd been married once before she became John's wife.

12:36 John Brunan, a German guy at middle aged, had also been married once before. He Webb the current Missus Brunan. He had a daughter, Hazel, a good looking kid of seventeen, by his first wife. I found out later that the Brunans had quarreled seriously at a time when Hazel ran off with a circus lion tamer, and that shots had been fired by both Missus Brunan and her husband. A bullet from brune His gun struck Missus Brunan, but the injury was not serious. Of course, at steel caused the bullet to glance off.

13:05 I also learned through question in the Widow that her husband years before had been tried for murdering another man. He was acquitted on grounds of self defense. By this time, the plot was, as they say in the movies, thickening. Missus Brunan was getting more and more nervous every minute, and the process had drawn information from her was growing more difficult. I was afraid that she was going to faint on several occasions, but I had to try to get as much as possible, for I had no time to lose.

13:32 So I asked missus Brunan if she had any idea who killed her husband. She thought for a moment and then replied that she suspected a man named George Werner, a circus chef known as Duchy. This Werner, she said, had been discharged by Brunan not long before the murder, and he'd threatened to quote get unquote his employer. We all know what that means, right, So I asked the widow to describe Duchy, and she said he was a short man. I then asked if he was heavier, slight and build. She said he didn't weigh very much.

14:01 I noticed at once that this description fitted in fairly well with the picture of the slayer, which I conjured up with the aid of the footprints. I asked Missus Brunan when she'd seen Duchy last, and she replied that it had been a matter of weeks. She added that she hadn't the slightest ideas to his present hans. It was now pretty well along toward midnight when the doorbell rang and in walks Harry C. Moore, Missus Brunan's brother. Now Moore's a tall, heavy set fella in his mid thirties. He'd been a showman himself for a little over a year, and he'd been associated with Brunan's show.

14:31 Prior to that, he had had a show of his own on the road. Moore, who lived with the Brunans, explained that he'd driven up from Philadelphia. He seemed apparently greatly upset about the murder, and he asked me if I'd picked up any clues. I told him about the footprints. He went out, took a look at him, swore something I can't repeat, and then he called me to one side, Parker. He says, there'll be a bit reward in this for you if you can track down the fiend who did this job. Guy had one hell of a voice, so I then asked More if Brunan had the enemies who would be likely to murder him for a grudge.

15:02 More reflected for a moment and then mentioned the name of a the same man as Missus Brunan, the discharge chef Werner. I asked More to describe Warner, and his description tallied exactly with that of Missus Brunan. I asked More if he thought the footprints in the rear of the house might be those of Warner. He said it looked that way to him, adding that Warner had been overheard on more than one occasion to say that he would get even with John Brunan for discharging him. Furthermore, he stated that Warner was the type of guy who would seek vengeance, and that on occasion, Werner, following an argument with Brunnan, chased the latter from the lunch car at the point of a gun.

15:38 I told Moore and Missus Brunan that I would bend every effort to catch up with Warner at the earliest possible moment, and I asked him to assist me in any way possible to find out the whereabouts of this fired chef. Missus Brunan was then emotionally overcome, and she offered me a diamonds if I apprehended the slayer. From Missus Brunan and her brother, I learned that several employees of the Mighty Doors Shows were living in the cities of Perth, Amboy, Pattison, and Jersey City, New Jersey. I at once called the police departments of those cities from the Brunean home and asked that all employees of the Brunnan Show be questioned immediately and made the given account of their actions at the time of the murder.

16:15 I always followed the plan at checking up on anyone who could possibly have even the slightest connection with a crime, and then I go to the process of elimination. In this way, I lay a groundwork that cannot be shaken, because all possible angles are covered, and the process of closing in on the guilty party is not so hard as it may seem. So when I drove home in the early hours, I congratulated myself. Not such a bad night. I knew that I was on the killer's trail. In fact, I was positive, and you'll find out why later.

16:44 The next day, newspaper headlines said a manhunt was on for dutchy Werner. Bright and early in the morning, refreshed by three hours sleep, I resumed my investigation of the grounds surrounding the Brunan home. My man who'd kept god all night, had prevented anyone from from loitering around the places. I wanted to keep the footprints and any other clues intact. With Chief of Police Vocal, I went once again to the spot where the killer had fired through the window. Then we carefully followed the footprints to the lane where the murderer escaped by an automobile.

17:14 And this is where Chief Vocal picked up what proved later to be the most important clue in the solution of the mystery. Look here, mister Parker, he shouted. Chief Vocal had run across part of a grip of the slayer's shotgun. It had been dropped during the flight. On the grip was a number which corresponded to the number on the missing barrel and stock. I knew that if we could only locate the gun itself, we'd be able to identify it immediately owing to the piece being broken off the grip. But more on that later too.

17:44 About the remaining part of the gun, I mean, at this point I called my assistants, Clifford Kane and Herman Baiting, and I had them witnessed the finding of the grip, etc. Etc. I always make a point to have another people witness things as I go along. In a murder case. It's a good idea, no scratch that. It's a great idea for a detective to have as many people back up his story as possible. One man should never monopolize the witness stand. It was then that I questioned those living in the vicinity of the Brunan home.

18:13 Nobody'd hurt a shot fired, But some neighbors had seen a man about Werner's size or run across the fields from the Brunan Home, jump into a fourth coop that had been parked in the lane, and speed off with the lights out, in the direction of Camden. Yet the people who saw this told me they didn't attach any particular significance to it at the time. What the actual fuck the man they saw running across the fields carrying something which they thought looked like an umbrella instead of a shotgun. I guess that's their excuse.

18:40 You know, it's strange how people arrive at surface conclusions and then build up false theories. Accordingly, this is a failing of human nature, which, and this may shock you, I have observed on countless occasions. The trouble with some people is, of course, that they don't stop to think when a man dashes across the fields and then speeds away in an automobile with the lights out. Some people don't stop to think that maybe yet, just maybe that might mean that something unusual is in progress. Well, anyway, and a short time, I located Duchy Werner in Berwin, Pennsylvania, and I went there to question him.

19:14 Duchy eyed me up and down suspiciously when I told him who I was, and he asked me in broken English what he could do for me. I gave it to him straight that I was investigating the murder of John Brunan and thought perhaps he could shed some light on it. Dutchy immediately denied he knew anything at all, and then I told him that Harry Moore had implicated him. When cornered, a guilty man will usually shift the responsibility again and again. I have found this to be one of the most positive evidences of guilt.

19:41 Duchy, on the other hand, did nothing of the kind. He confined himself to a very strong denial that he had anything to do with Brunan's death, and when I checked up on Duchy's story as to his whereabouts at the time of the crime, I was soon convinced that he was not the man. Duchy was not the guy I wanted. Back in Burlington County, I began casting about for another man, a Werner's type, in spite of the fact that Moore could not be convinced that Duchy was not the individual who did the killing.

20:08 By this time we were going after the case from several angles. For one thing, we hunted high and low for someone who saw the deathmobile with the lights off as it sped away from the murder. Finally, a man named Arthur Fletcher, Philadelphian, came to us, and he said that he was positive that he'd seen the Ford Coop of the slayer as it made its way into the direction of Camden. Fletcher was driving past the Brunan residence on his way home around seven thirty on the night of the crime when he saw the Ford Coop turn out of a lane and had in a southerly direction with its lights out.

20:39 Fletcher thought this was suspicious and endeavored to follow the car. He didn't succeed in keeping pace with it, but he did get a license number by the aid of the headlights on his own machine. He wrote the number down on a piece of paper, but his fortune, or in this case, misfortune, would have it. Fletcher's wife mislaid the paper the next day, little realizing she was destroying the few numerals which, in their proper sequence could probably have saved untold time labor and expense in the solution of this case.

21:09 As for Fletcher, for the life of him, he couldn't remember the license number, just another one of the many tough breaks to expect the detective's profession. So now I had a whole lot of people working on the case. The probable route of the death car from the Brunan home toward Camden was carefully combed, and within a week Chief of Police Morris Beck of Palmyra, New Jersey, located a shotgun barrel in pensackn Creek on the road between Burlington and Camden. The shotgun barrel was in the mud on the edge of the creek, not far from the main highway.

21:38 It had apparently been tossed in there at high tide, but at low tide it was visible. Checking up, we found that the number on the barrel corresponded to the number on the portion of the grip found on the grounds surrounding the Brunin home. And if you want to find out what happens next for Detective Ellis Parker in the case of the disappearing then please do join me next Thursday, May second, for part two. But before I let you go, don't go, because we've got some stuff to talk about. That's right, It's time for three key takeaways and a moral.

22:11 Is there, in fact, any generally applicable wisdom that can be gleaned from the story? So far? Will you tell me? Here we go? Here are the three key takeaways. Number one Echoes of the past. Personal histories often cloud the present, steering the course of events in unexpected ways. For example, George Werner, who was previously fired by Brunnan, became a prime suspect based on past grievances rather than current evidence, and Parker, to his credit, was able to dismiss Werner pretty quickly. Sometimes we're too quick to judge people by bad stuff that might have happened to them before, rather than what they're doing now.

22:53 I'd say that's generally true. Takeaway number two hidden motives. The smallest d details can hold the key to unraveling complex mysteries, suggesting deeper unseen forces at play. Hmm, Well, only example the removal of the peerage from the kitchen to the cellar. Although it's hard to fathom exactly what that has to do with the murder, it does hint at manipulation of the crime scene in a way that suggests the crime may have been committed by someone familiar with their surroundings. Number three, the fragility of human bonds.

23:30 Now, family and business entanglements reveal the delicate balance of trust and suspicion that often defines unfortunately fortunately who knows, but often defines human relationships. Example, the Brunans had a history of serious quarrels and previous altercations, underscoring the volatile nature of their relationship, something which may very well influence the investigation's direction going forward. But if you want to find out, you'll have to come back on Thursday May second for part two, and now on too.

24:02 The moral of the story so far, and here it is, since after all, our victim did own a circus. The moral of the story so far is even in a circus ring where illusions entertain, the greatest illusions often occur unseen behind the scenes, and what you see is only misdirection. Sometimes what's not there is even more important then what is again. Please join me next week for part two of Kind of Murdery's the Disappearing Parrot. Until then, thank you so much for being here. I'm Zevan Odleberg, and this has been kind of Murdery.

24:44 If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell your friends. You can find us on social media at kinder Murdery or email at Kindomurdery at gmail dot com