Remember the Frank Sinatra Jr. Kidnapping?

"[On December 8, 1963], five decades ago, just days after the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a group of amateur criminals hoping to strike it rich engineered one of the most infamous kidnappings in American history: The kidnapping of Frank Sinatra jr."

At the time, I had lived in Westwood Hills, CA while growing up. It was an upscaleLife Magazine - August 23, 1963 area of Los Angeles where U.C.L.A. college is located and that shared with many of the nearby communities like Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and Brentwood all the celebrities and entertainment figures of the day and still continues on today. I knew of Frank Sinatra Jr. in 1958 when I attended Emerson Jr. High, but he was a little older than me by about a year which put him in a higher grade level. I saw his dad, Frank Sinatra Sr., during a father-son night there too. 

I frequented a true neighborhood meeting place where neighbors met at the gas station and I ran into many notable people; after all, everyone needs gasoline. Roger Curtis and Max Ross were the Texaco station owners and had been running their filling station for over the past twenty years by then. 

In 1963, I, myself, was a college freshman with a vintage 1951 Chevy sedan that guzzled gas and with an always hungry gas tank. My class schedule was set on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I was racing to school for my first class at 8:00 am that morning. That day was on an early Wednesday morning for a fill-up during the middle of the week, which was thankfully not busy since it was not on Monday or Friday with the beginning or end of the week traffic. I pulled into the station at 7:15 am and saw two school buses parked at the side of the station next to the restroom doors as it was the only area large enough to accommodate parking them there. The local school bus drivers picked them up and left their own cars parked there until their shifts were over.

As usual Roger came out of his office to pump my gas and collect my cash. However, since I was in a rush, I told Roger to skip washing my windshield. Back then, service stations were just that when you pulled in for gasoline. They filled the gas tank, checked the oil, tires, battery and cleaned your windshields.

I left never seeing anything amiss around the service station while not knowing the suitcase with the $240,000 ransom was only thirty feet away from me stuck between those two parked buses that morning. That station also had been out in the open and would have been hard to hide any agents without being seen by any drive-by casual observer looking for any surveillance. This was way before any of today's tracking electronic devices. 

I laughed later about it when I found out from Rodger Curtis about the F.B.I. staking out the suitcase of ransom stash and wondered if I had used the station restroom that morning I would have walked into the F.B.I. agents hiding in a toilet stall peering out the bathroom door transom window. Or would I have noticed the suitcase and walked over to pick it up? I guess I would be just getting out of prison about now. LOL! If you are too young to remember the Sinatra kidnapping ransom or even who Frank Sinatra, the singer, was read the F.B.I. write-up on what had transpired below.   

The F.B.I. Report

"For several weeks, two 23-year-old former [University] high school classmates from Los Angeles, Barry Keenan and Joe Amsler had been following a 19-year-old singer from city to city, waiting to make their move. Their target: none other than Frank Sinatra, Jr., son of one of the most famous singers in the world, “Old Blue Eyes” himself."

"Their plan was bold but simple…snatch the young Sinatra and demand a hefty ransom from his wealthy father. The pair decided to strike on the evening of December 8, 1963. Sinatra, Jr., just beginning his career in music, was performing at Harrah’s Club Lodge in Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada. Around 9 p.m. he was resting in his dressing room with a friend when Keenan knocked on the door, pretending to be delivering a package. Keenan and Amsler entered, tied up Sinatra’s friend with tape, and blindfolded their victim. They took him out a side door to their waiting car."

Barry KeenanJoe Amsler

"The singer’s friend quickly freed himself and notified authorities. Roadblocks were set up, and the kidnappers were actually stopped by police...but they bluffed their way through and drove on to their hideout in a suburb of Los Angeles. By 9:40, the FBI office in Reno was brought in on the case. Agents met with young Sinatra’s father in Reno and his mother in Bel Air, California. The motive was presumed to be money. The FBI recommended that Sinatra wait for a ransom demand, pay it, and then allow the Bureau to track the money and find the kidnappers."

"The following evening, Keenan called a third conspirator, John Irwin, who was to be theJohn Irwin ransom contact. Irwin called the elder Sinatra and told him to await the kidnappers’ instructions. On December 10, he passed along the demand for $240,000 in ransom. Sinatra, Sr. gathered the money and gave it to the FBI, which photographed it all and made the drop per Keenan’s instructions between two school buses [at the Curtis & Ross Texaco gasoline station on Sepulveda Blvd, Westwood Hills, California] during the early morning hours of December 11, 1963."

"While Keenan and Amsler picked up the money, Irwin had gotten nervous and decided to free the victim [on the Mulhulland Drive overpass of the San Diego Freeway, Interstate 405]. Sinatra, Jr. was found in Bel Air after walking a few miles and alerting a security guard. To avoid the press, he was put in the trunk of the guard’s patrol car and taken to his mother Nancy’s home."

"Young Sinatra described what he knew to FBI agents, but he had barely seen two of the kidnappers and only heard the voice of the third conspirator. Still, the Bureau tracked the clues back to the house where Sinatra had been held in Canoga Park and gathered even more evidence there."

"Meanwhile, with the FBI’s progress being recounted in the press, the criminals felt the noose tightening. Irwin broke first, spilling the beans to his brother, who called the FBI office in San Diego. Hours later, Keenan and Amsler were captured, and nearly all of the ransom was recovered."

"Although the defense tried to argue that Frank Sinatra, Jr. had engineered the kidnapping as a publicity stunt, the FBI had strong evidence to the contrary. The clincher was a confession letter written earlier by Keenan and left in a safe-deposit box. In the end, Keenan, Amsler, and Irwin were all convicted."

The final outcome since that F.B.I. report: The case had many twists and turns including connections to singers Jan and Dean. Jan Berry was in the same car club, The Barons in West Los Angeles, at University High School with Keenan and Amsler. [my old high school alma mater] Dean Torrance was friends with Keenan who Dean loaned money in order to finance the kidnapping scheme and later in the trial perjured that he did not know of the deal and later bragged he did. No complicity or perjury charges were ever filed.

There were more inconsistencies proven too about questionable publicity gains furthering the career of young Sinatra's public persona in the State's evidence on appeal in the case which fell apart even further resulting in the defendants Joe Amsler and John Irwin who ended up serving a tiny fraction of their original sentences.

Barry Keenan, the alleged drug-addled mastermind, who served his reduced sentence of four years regained his right mind to became a millionaire real estate developer. All men were released as full sentences served, no probation.

Comments

[Ed Lewis]

I remember the publicity of the crime very well. Living in West L.A. myself one couldn't ignore the local news. However, I never knew all the details until now. Thanks Don.

[Buzz]

The Texaco Station was in Granada Hills, CA, not Woodland Hills. Sepulveda does not run through Woodland Hills, CA. Sinatra Jr. was let out on the 101 Freeway in Woodland Hills, CA at Valley Circle and Avenue San Luis. We lived about 500 yards from where is was let out, and my Step-Mother went to University High School with the kidnappers.