The Disappearing Parrot - PART 2
Sources:
https://gardenstatelegacy.com/files/Who_Shot_Honest_John_Bilby_GSL34.pdf https://ia601404.us.archive.org/32/items/true-detective-jan-1929/TrueDetectiveJan1929.pdf
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
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. Language I heard true crime with a dash of the paranormal, the
garish, the strange in the darkly comic. I'm Zevan Odelberg, 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. That's right, folks, Just
like it says in the intro, I am Zevan Odleberg, and this is
kind of Murdery. You have found your way to Part two of The Disappearing
Parent. So if you haven't heard part one yet, go and listen to
it, then rejoin us. We'll save you a seat if you're all caught
up. You may remember the detective Parker found a piece of a shotgun stock
at the murder scene, and by following the route of the murderers presumed getaway
car, they went on a hunt for the rest of the shotgun, and
there in a creek near the road jackpot they found it. So that's where
we are, and if you're ready, I'm ready. So I'm not gonna
dilly dally. Please join me as we uncover what truths we can and solve
what mysteries we may kind of murderies the disappearing parrot are two starts. Now,
the barrel of the gun was in the mud at the edge of the
creek, not far from the main highway. It had apparently been tossed in
there at high tide, but now 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 Bruton home. We
immediately began a more thorough search of the creek and were rewarded by finding the
stock of the gun. The stock bore the manufacturer's name. We then started
the process of tracing the gun. Now I anticipated a long, hard task
in tracing it, and believed me. I was not disappointed. Meanwhile,
we were trying to communicate with every one of the four hundred people who had
been connected with Brunan's show and the two hundred workers who had been with Moore's
show the year previous. Quite a job rounding up some six hundred people who
were scattered all over the United States and Canada. One was even located in
jail in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where he was serving time for a minor offense.
He was soon eliminated from the case, however, having begun his term
before the murder. In order to get in touch with the show people,
I communicated with the billboard the Theatrical Weekly, where I knew they kept their
addresses on file. Well within the record break in time. At twelve days
after the murder, I knew the whereabouts of every one of the six hundred
people who had worked for either Moore or Brunan during the two preceding years.
Clifford Kane, Hermann Baiting, and another of my assistants, Arthur Carabine,
and I set out on the tedious job of communicating with all these people in
an effort to find out just where they were and what they would doing at
the time of the murder. The police in various cities in the country and
in Canada helped us out considerably by questioning a great number of these folks In
getting satisfactory alibis. However, my associates and I had to make trips here,
there, and everywhere to interview those whose stories did not sound quite right.
During this gigantic checkup, an idea came to me which loomed very large.
As I thought it over. I discovered that four of the people who'd
worked with the Brunnan Show had worked for Harry Moore the year previous. This
was very interesting. Indeed, of these four people, one lived in Philadelphia,
one in Canada, and one in New England. They were shadowed,
in questioned, and quickly eliminated. But the fourth man in this group,
one Charles M. Powell, who had lived in Indianapolis, could not be
located right off the bat. Further investigation revealed that he was living at four
or five five Cooper Street, Camden, New Jersey. We at once said
about the work of getting some detailed dope on the one man out of the
six hundred who sounded a promising Bear in mind that by this time the other
employees, every one of them, had been eliminated. I had stayed through
ber Herman bating secret himself in a factory located directly across the street from Powell's
home, and report the man's description and actions. By this time, however,
the newspapers were beginning to play up the case as an unsolved mystery and
one that has Parker baffled. At last. To digress for a moment,
I might state that a good reputation is not always a comfortable thing to have.
Just because I'd succeeded in solving many murder mysteries, some people suspected,
perhaps that I was falling down on the job and the Brunan case. But
that wasn't so. As you have probably already gathered, The truth of the
matter was, I had a certain, very definite information which I was forced
to keep to myself in order to protect the case. All the public knew
was that Werner had been eliminated from the whole business. They didn't know that
we were shadowing Powell, or w we were shadowing him. They weren't familiar
with the gigantic groundwork that I was building up. They didn't realize that if
I showed my hand too early, I would ruin the case and undo the
work that had been accomplished. So it should therefore be readily seen that a
smart detective, one who is really more interested in solving a case than in
covering himself with glory, will bear the brunt of criticism at those very times
when he knows that he least deserves it. This was one of those times
for me, But I threw public opinion the one side, and among other
things, concentrated on tracing the various owners of the shotgun. We found through
the number and the manufacturer's name on the stock that it was imported by a
Philadelphia armstealer. The Philadelphia firm retailed the weapon to a man who lived in
Shrkel County, Pennsylvania. The gun was later confiscated by a game warder and
subsequently disposed of at a public sale by the Game Commission at Harrisburg. The
man who purchased it at this sale was one Solomon Simons, a dealer of
Philadelphia. The weapon then passed from Simons to a man named William Berkowitz,
who conducted a loner stab wishment on North ninth Street, Philadelphia. Upon questioning
Berkowitz, we elicited the information that the gun had been sold to two men
at a date just prior to the Brune and murder. Berkowitz said that he
was unaware of the identity of the two men, but that he would be
able to identify him if he saw him again. We then gave him a
description of Powell based on the information handed over to us by State Trooper Bating,
and Berkowitz said that the description of Powell fitted one of the purchases of
the gun to a quote tea unquote. Well, so far, so good.
We were getting pretty hot on the trail by this time, so now
it came back to shadowing Powell. We found out through several sources that Powell
was a man in poor financial circumstances. Further, he had a wife and
a baby. Now, any school child possesses reason enough to tell you that
a man in financial difficulty and with a family dependent on him will at least
try to hunt some kind of employment unless something's wrong with his health. There
was nothing wrong with Powell's health so far as we could find out. But
did he hunt for work? Listen? State Trooper Bait observed every single movement
that Powell made for ten days and ten nights. Baiting was relieved from his
vigil by another man only in the middle of the night, when he had
no choice but to grab forty or fifty winks. During the time that Baiting
hid watching from the factory across from Powell's home, he observed that the man
spent almost all of his time in the house. On the first day that
he was under surveillance, Powell, a pale faced fellow of thirty two,
came out of the front door of the house about ten o'clock in the morning.
He looked about him as if he was afraid of something. Then he
walked briskly to a corner store about a half a block away. There,
we found out later, he purchased two newspapers, which were filled with news
about my being baffled by the brune in case. He also bought a loaf
of bread and a pack of cigarettes. Little did Powell realize that Baiting,
peering out of a secret window, was taking in his every action. Baiting,
in his report to me the first day, as we later found out,
guessed Powell's height to within a quarter of an inch and the size of
his foot within half a shoe size, which, if you ask me,
is pretty damn smart work. After a turn from the corner store, Powell
never left the house during the remainder of the day. On the morning of
the second day, shortly after ten o'clock, he appeared again. Once Mary
looked up and down the street, and then he repeated his visit to the
corner store. He again bought newspapers, cigarettes, bread, and milk.
He hurried back to the house and slammed the door and was not seen again
until the following morning. This exact routine was repeated every day until the evening
of the fifth day, when shortly after nightfall, Powell slipped out the front
door as quietly as possible, But despite Powell's best efforts, troop Abating was
tailing him in almost less time than it takes to tell it. Powell bought
it a trolley and then went to the terminal of the Philadelphia Ferry. He
bought a ticket to Quaker City, so did troop A Bating. Powell.
During the few minutes that it took the ferry to cross the Delaware River,
looked around time and time again, as if he felt that he was being
followed, but he didn't recognize the rather rough looking baiting. Hudda grown a
gangster like beard to disguise himself and pulled his hat down over his more than
active eyes. Upon arriving in Philly, Powell proceeded to an out of the
way hotel, and there, in a corner of the lobby, he met
none other than Harry Moore. Now Baiting hid himself behind a pillar and observed
that Moore and Powell had much to say to each other. They talked in
whispers, and Baiting couldn't get close enough to hear what the trend of their
conversation was. The two men talked for more than half an hour, and
then Powell retraced his steps to his home in Camden, with state trooper Baiting
never more than one hundred feet from him, and often as close as six
inches. The next morning, Powell again visited the corner store as usual for
his newspapers, cigarettes, and milk, and that night he again went to
Philadelphia, accompanied in quotes by Baiting. Once more, Powell met Moore in
the same hotel, where they talked in whispers, and once again Baiting was
unable to get close enough to the two men to hear what they were saying.
Powell kept close to his house for the next few days, and on
the tenth night, the tenth night of Baiting surveillance. That is, he
again went to Philadelphia to meet more. By that point, I'd stationed another
man in the factory with instructions to telephone me with that the information that Baiting
thought I would want in a hurry. I then gave him instructions to convey
to Baiting. These telephone conversations would, of course carried on in code.
The word apple meant one thing, the word lamp another, etc. So,
as Baiting prepared to follow Powell on the tenth night, he told the
second man to get in touch with me at once. As soon as I
received the information, I made plans to nab Powell upon his return. I
told my man in Camden that I was sending several other men there at once.
I told him that they would park the automobile at a spot just a
few doors from Powell's house. As Baiting followed Powell home, he was to
be given a signal from the auto indicating that the time was ripe to nab
Powell. My men arrived in Camden shortly after nine o'clock and parked a machine
at the designated spot. Not until a few minutes before one o'clock in the
morning did Powell show up. He'd alighted from a trolley a few blocks from
his home and was walking briskly up the street. Baiting saw the parked car.
He'd previously been told what that meant. The night was dark and there
was no lights about, but Baiting saw one of the men in the car
wave a large white handkerchief, but so did Powell. Baiting pounced on him,
put his hand over Powell's mouth, and in just a few seconds was
assisted by several of my men in bundling Powell into the car. Just as
the car was speeding off, Missus Powell, who had apparently been waiting for
her husband, came to the front door of the house, evidently she'd heard
the scuffle, but in a few moments the car was out of sight,
headed at breakneck speed for Mount Holly. I was waiting for Powell in my
office shortly after one thirty am. He was brought in. Well, good
even, Charlie, I said, hello, mister Parker, retorted Powell,
who was visibly nervous. Charlie, I said, you've been arrested in connection
with the brune and murder at my request. Now make yourself comfy and tell
me all about you. Where you were born, what you've done especially lately,
and things like that. Well, all right, mister poker. Powell,
in a very even voice, told me that he was thirty two years
of age, that he had a wife and a child, that he'd been
in show business as a bollihoo man for a good many years. I then
asked him what he'd been doing since the close of the season the previous year
until now the six to April, and he said he'd been running a bazaar
at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania with Harry Moore. When asked why he had come
to Camden to live, he replied that Moore had brought him on from Wilkes's
bar promising to get him employment until the Brunan Show went on the road.
Powell then proceeded to tell me, without being question that for the past month
he'd been a salesman for a novelty company. He'd been working right up until
the time of his apprehension, he said, and he'd been quite successful.
Herman Bating winked in me, and I almost laughed in Powell's face. I'd
put Powell in jail secretly on a John Doe warrant. I might pause here
to explain the procedure he was locked up quote in connection unquote with the murder.
I had no grounds on which to charge him with the murder. If
I had charged him, he would have obtained the services of a lawyer and
demanded a hearing, and in the absence of definite incriminating information, I would
have lost the battle to the lawyer and Powell would have been freed. I
knew Powell was a weakling. I also knew he would confess everything he knew
sooner or later. But I knew we would spoil the confession by forcing it.
In my years of experience, I've obtained most of my confessions by the
simple method of leaving a man to himself behind boss and jail has a peculiar
effect on a guilty conscience, and the average man is more than glad to
unburden himself after a stay alone in jail. When a guilty person is allowed
to associate with others, his conscience is not so apt to bother him as
it is when he's left alone. Any experience detective will tell you that I've
managed to convince certain authorities in New Jersey as to the wisdom of my method
of securing confessions. I therefore had the full cooperation of the Camden County authorities
when I secretly detained Charlie Powell. They were tipped off before the arrest and
agreed to give no information of any kind if they were appealed to by Missus
Powell or any other interested parties. A few hours after we'd nabbed Powell,
Missus Powell went to the Camden Police and reported that he'd been kidnapped. She
said she'd recognize the khan which he was spirited away. The police working with
me told Missus p that they would bend every effort to locate a husband,
and that was that I had men watching the Brunan home where Moore was living.
I wanted to watch the effect of Powell's disappearance, and I was not
surprised therefore, when two hours after she'd reported a husband's disappearance to the police,
Missus Powell showed up at the Brunean home. She'd only been in the
place five minutes when she reappeared, accompanied by Moore. Missus Powell and Moore
hopped into the latter's machine and sped off toward Camden. Not an hour later,
Lawyer and Camden called up Jonathan H. Kelsey, then the prosecutor of
Burlington County, and asked if Powell had been arrested in connection with the Brunan
murder. Things were becoming interesting. Mister Kelsey didn't answer the lawyer's question,
but told him to hold the wire. He then sent for me and asked
what he should say. I told him to say that he'd never heard of
Powell and asked by the lawyer on the other end of the wire thought the
arrest had been made. This was done and the lawyer was mystified. He
told Kelsey that something told him that Powell might have been picked up because he'd
worked for the Brunnan show. On the following day, Missus Powell came to
see me. She asked if her husband had been arrested. I admitted that
he'd been apprehended. Missus Powell then broke down and said she didn't know what
she would do because she had no money left. I gave her some money
when she told me that a baby didn't have enough food. I ain't a
hard hearted bastard. I have several children on my own. She thanked me
profusely and then left the office. I didn't tell anything more than that her
husband had been arrested in connection with the case. I also made her a
promise that she would not tell anyone else about it. We followed missus Powell
when she left the office. She went to Camden, where she met Harry
Moore in a restaurant near the ferry terminal. Missus Powell came again the following
day seek an additional information about a husband. I then asked a point blank
who had sent her to me. She said Harry Moore had advised her to
come. I asked why. She replied that Moore was very interested in Charlie.
It occurred to me that More had offered a large reward for this,
why shouldn't he come to my office himself? Again we followed missus Powell when
she left the office, and again she met Moore in a restaurant near the
Camden Ferry terminal. A couple days later, Missus Powell called on me for
a third time. She was beginning to crack under the strain and admitted when
I suddenly fired a question at her, that Moore was given her money to
continue her visits to my office for the purpose of finding out what all this
was about more than that. For the purpose of finding out all that she
possibly could, I told Missus Powell, knowing that she'd repeat what I said,
that I was certainly glad that Harry Moore was taking such an interest in
the case, and especially in Charlie. I added that I thought Moore was
a prince among men for being so nice to her while a husband was in
jail. I instructed Missus Powell to tell Harry Moore that I'd be more than
glad to receive any information he might obtain which would aid me in the investigation.
During this time I made repeated visits to Powell's sell and had him tell
me more about himself. I never once asked him about the actual killing of
John Brunnan. I was observing his every action and checking his story as quickly
possible. I sent a man to Wilkes Bar, and he found out that
Powell had constantly been seen there in the company at Harry Moore. As the
days wore on, I allowed Missus Powell to visit her husband in jail,
and then on the twenty ninth day of April nineteen twenty two, she came
to me with tears in her eyes. She said she'd just been talking to
her husband and that he had something to tell me. Yep, you guessed
it. Charlie Powell confessed that he fired the shot that killed John Brunnan.
He also stated that he was hired to do the job by Harry Moore,
who wanted to get control of Brunan's show. Powell was the picture of a
broken man as he poured out his confession. He said that Moore had repeatedly
asked him to do the job, and then finally one night they lay in
wait for Brunan as he was driving home from the winter quarters of his show,
but on this occasion, Powell lost his courage. Another time, they
planned to get in a car and follow a train in which Brunan was riding,
and then shoot him. As the train pulled up at a station that
was deserted. They sped alongside the train for a considerable distance, but once
more Powell lost his nerve. Another time, Powell accidentally broke the gun which
was to have been used, and that's when he went to Simon's in Philadelphia
and purchased a shotgun with which they snuffed out Brunan's life. Powell said he
was a victim of a man with a stronger will who took advantage of his
poor financial condition by holding out a big reward for the killing. As it
was, Powell only received about two hundred dollars for More. We nabbed More
as he was walking along Camden Street. He denied any knowledge of the crime,
branding Powell is crazy, but Powell turned state's evidence and Moore was sent
to the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, where he is now serving a
life term at hard labor. Powell was given twenty to thirty years, and
he was in prison a short time when he was found insane due to remorse
for his revolting crime and committed to an asylum. He's now back in prison.
Listen close now, because I'm about to explain briefly a few interesting things.
And I know what you're probably wondering, hey, Parker, when you're
gonna tell us about the disappearing parrot right now, right fucking now. The
fact that the parrot in the Brunean kitchen had been removed convinced me, after
I talked with More, that the crime was an inside job. As I
had previously stated, a guilty man will immediately shift the responsibility for a crime.
More, like all guilty persons, had his story already made up when
he implicated the discharged circus Chef Werner. I let Moore think that I believed
him and thus tricked him. Had I shown him I doubted him in the
beginning, he probably would have fled before I had a chance to pin anything
on him. Another thing was more, he lacked the real feeling of an
affected person when he pretended to be greatly upset about the death of his brother
in law. I saw him through it once. Then, quick as a
flash, I figured that it was More who had the parrot removed from the
kitchen, And as you now know, I was later proved right. See
I knew the parrot must have been moved by somebody who knew it could talk,
and Moore probably figured that the parrot would pick up any words which might
be exchanged at the time of the murder. Remember this, kids, everything
looked suspicious to a man with a guilty conscience, and that parrot was what
first implicated the Brunean slayers. It put me on the right track at the
very beginning. The moment I laid eyes on More, I was convinced that
he was an arch criminal of the worst type. So interested was I in
bringing the guilty persons to justice during the long, hard investigation, which left
me a nervous wreck, that I overlooked the strange actions of my associate.
That associate was State Trooper Herman Baiting. Little did I realize that while I
was tracking other people, he was just as busy fooling me. When the
Brunean case was over, I had the opportunity to think of other things,
and I discovered that Baiting had been committing one of the cleverest thefts ever brought
to my attention. Bastard stole my secretary. She's now missus Baiting. Oll'swell
that ends well. All's fair in love, war and murder. Something like
that, right anyway, Thanks for letting an old detective benja ire awhile for
Zevan Odelberg. I'm Ellis H. Paker, and you've been listening to kind
of Murdery. If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell
your friends. You can find us on social media at kinda Murdery or email
at Kindamurdery at gmail dot com.
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