Just after midnight on July 7, 1933, Lieutenant John J. O'Connell Jr., of Albany, was driving to his Putnam Street home following a movie date.
After getting out of his car, four masked men walked towards him. One put a gun to O'Connell's back.
O'Connell was struck in the back of the head. He was put into the men's car, blindfolded, bound and gagged.
O'Connell was 23 years old and a lieutenant in the National Guard. He was a nephew to two powerful Democratic party bosses, Dan and Ed O'Connell, who ran the Hedrick Brewery, where their nephew acted as an officer.
John was described as "handsome" and "powerfully built" and was a former football star at the Manlius Military School near Syracuse.
Hours after John's abduction a telephone call was received at his Uncle Ed's law office:
"Tell Eddie that we've got his nephew and that he will hear from us. If he tells the police we'll kill him."
The kidnappers were demanding a $250,000 ransom and said they would be sending a letter with further instructions. (The ransom was the largest then ever asked for by an American kidnapper.)
Kidnapping had become an epidemic in America in the early 1930s.
The New York Times wrote in 1932 that "abduction for ransom has become 'a big money crime,' taking its place beside liquor, vice and drug traffic among the prominent 'rackets' of the country."
Between 1931 and 1932, more than 2,000 people were abducted for ransom.
In the five months before John O'Connell was taken, kidnappers were demanding at least $650,000 from various families across the country.
Due to his family name, his military service and the size of the ransom, the abduction of John O'Connell "stirred the nation" the Associated Press said.
Why was he kidnapped?
Frank Robinson wrote in his book about the O'Connell family, "Machine Politics," this theory:
"Gangster 'Legs' Diamond had been trying to muscle in on the O'Connell bootlegging business. He was murdered in a Dove Street rooming house. To those who had done the job, the O'Connells had promised a share in their Hedrick Brewery."
After not paying, the kidnapping was ordered.
Announcement of the kidnapping was kept quiet for three days and the family made assurances they were not cooperating with police.
A letter arrived from the kidnappers which ordered the O'Connells to place an ad in Albany newspaper's classified sections, naming in code possible intermediaries to negotiate John's release.
Detectives were quick to narrow down the list of suspects by noticing which of Albany's most notorious criminals were absent from their usual hangouts.
These included Manny Strewl, an Albany beer-runner and two ex-convicts John Oley and Percy "Angel-Face" Geary.
Robinson in his book believes that police may have decided to let the culprits know that they had been identified. John Oley's name was featured in the middle of the first list sent by the O'Connells.
But the first two lists of possible intermediaries were rejected by the kidnappers.
As negotiations stalled, the kidnapping had, according to one newspaper, "gripped Albany" like few events.
"High and low alike are ready to drop what they are doing to exchange the latest news."
"Little groups gathered on street corners, in restaurants and in beer establishments" to discuss the latest rumors.
The O'Connell family moved to their Helderberg Mountain lodge and passed along a third list of intermediaries.
This one included the name Manny Strewl, the mastermind of the whole thing.
If it was a trap, the kidnappers bit.
Strewl was accepted to be the go-between and lead the ransom discussions.
After a few conferences with Dan O'Connell in Albany's Washington Park, the family agreed to $40,000 in cash for John's release.
On July 30, a car carrying John and Manny Strewl arrived at the O'Connell mountain home.
John was free after 23 days.
He told reporters his story about his captivity:
He knew he had been driven a long distance, later to be revealed as to Hoboken, New Jersey, after being abducted and said he had been "well-treated."
He had been blindfolded and handcuffed in a bedroom for the whole time.
The next day, Manny Strewl was arrested in Albany and charged with kidnapping.
A handwriting expert testified that Strewl's writing was matched with what was in many of the negotiation letters. Convicted following a two-week trial, he was sentenced to 50 years in Dannemora prison.
Strewl was granted a second trial in late 1936 during which time much of the plot was discovered.
The arrest of Frank Fisher, a former diamond miner, who guarded O'Connell in the bedroom, opened the floodgates.
Eventually a total of eight people was charged in the kidnapping, including John Oley and "Angel-Face" Geary.
All were convicted and were given 77-year prison sentences, Strewl received a 58-year term.
The O'Connell kidnapping would provide one more drama though before it was through, giving New York one of its most daring jail breaks and biggest manhunts in state history.
In November 1937, three of the kidnappers, Oley, Geary and Harold Crowley, were being held at Onondaga County Penitentiary in Jamesville, awaiting transfer to Alcatraz.
A nervous superintendent, Herbert Paddock, had begged Federal authorities to remove the trio, claiming the jail did not have sufficient security to hold them.
Plus, they were wearing their regular street clothes because they were Federal inmates not county ones.
Geary made his move early in the morning on Nov. 16, 1937.
Armed with a gun he had smuggled in, he removed two bars from his cell then walked across and removed another bar from a cell block "cage."
(An investigation found the bars in the jail were made of a "soft steel" which could be sliced through with a table knife in 18 minutes. The bars were then held in place by chewing gum.)
He held the gun to a guard's head and made him tell the others that "Oley was hanging himself."
When the guards came running, Geary pointed his gun at them asked for the keys and then freed Oley and Crowley.
The guards were bound by their neckties and belts and gagged with cotton removed from the prison cell's mattress cots.
Using one guard as a hostage, the men escaped the jail and drove to Syracuse in the guard's car.
F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover announced a $6,000 reward for their apprehension and one of the biggest manhunts in New York State history was underway.
Every street out of Syracuse was roadblocked and armed police patrolled city streets.
The group was found on the second story of a Burnet Avenue boarding house the next day.
Oley and Crowley surrendered, Geary threw himself out of the window, breaking an ankle in the fall.
He was apprehended a day later in a parking lot shanty.
All eventually made their way to Alcatraz.
After 20 years, "Angel Face" Geary thought of the prison as home. When he was ordered to be released he begged prison officials to stay, saying he could not live in the real world.
Three days before his scheduled release, he threw himself under a moving truck.
Between 1957 and 1958, Oley, Crowley and Strewl, the kidnapping leader, were all released from prison.
John O'Connell served as Chairman of the Democratic Party from 1940 to 1946. At the time of his death in 1954 at the age of 45 he was working as vice president of the Hedrick Brewery.
The ransom money from his kidnapping was never recovered. Legend has it that it remains buried somewhere in Albany's Washington Park.
Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle: Email | 315-427-3958.
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