Mystery Stories in Sedgwick County Genealogy Trails Kansas

SEDGWICK COUNTY, KANSAS

MYSTERY STORIES

BODY OF BRUCE SMOLL DISCOVERED

IDENTIFICATION POSITIVE SAYS KBI DIRECTOR

Hunters Make Gruesome Find; Youth Had Wound in Back of Head

A body found in a field near Peabody Christmas afternoon by two rabbit hunters has positively been identified as that of Bruce Smoll, missing 18-year-old Wichita student, L. P. Richter, director of the KBI, announced late Saturday.

Richter said a laundry mark on a pair of shorts on the body aided in the positive identification.

The body, clothed only in shorts, tan shoes, and tan hose rested in a corn field unconcealed. Nearby were found a pair of thick-lensed glasses said to be of a type worn by young Smoll.

A wound on the back of the head had the appearance of a bullet wound, but no bullet was found on first examination, authorities said.

The mysterious disappearance of Smoll, has been cleared three months and seven days after the student was last seen on a highway near Marion, hitchhiking to Wichita from Kansas State College, Manhattan, where he was a student. That was on September 18.

The body found on the Townsend ranch, two and one-half miles east of Peabody. An investigation shows the youth apparently was shot in the head with either a .32 or .38 caliber pistol. Dr. E. H. Johnson, Marion county coroner, said the body had been in the corn field three months so apparently the student was slain a short time after he was seen hitchhiking near Marion.

When Smoll left Manhattan for Wichita he was carrying a laundry box bearing the purple Kansas State emblem. The laundry box was found in Denver in the possession of Ernest Hoefgen, who is held for questioning in the case, according to KBI officials.

Finding of the body was the second rapid, tho not directly connected development last week for the search of the youth.

TWO ARRESTED

Thursday, Ernest Hoefgen, fugitive from a Texas prison, and his bride, Pauline, of Cedar Point, Kas., were arrested in Denver for questioning relative to young Smoll's disappearance and removed immediately to Topeka.

Finding of the body of Smoll delayed a scheduled grilling of the escaped convict, who had been subjected to only preliminary questioning by Kansas Bureau of Investigation authorities when the body was found.

Upon being notified of the finding of the body, L. P. Richter, director of the KBI, left Topeka immediately for Peabody. Word of the finding of the body was received at KBI headquarters just as officers prepared to explore "a new angle in the case."

FATHER TO SCENE

A. E. Smoll, father of the youth, went to Peabody to identify the dead youth. He is an insurance man residing at 1545 Park Place. Mrs. Smoll, the mother, is visiting in California.

Edward Girk, 25, and his father-in-law, Willie Hawk, 45, both of Peabody, were hunting rabbits Christmas afternoon in a corn field two and half miles east of Peabody when they discovered the body. They notified Constable Harve Derby of Peabody who summoned Dr. Edward H. Johnson, Marion County coroner, who also resides at Peabody.

The body was removed to the Baker Funeral Home at Peabody.

LAST SEEN NEAR POINT

The remains of the youth were found at a point less than 15 miles distant from where he was last seen by acquaintances as he hitchhiked homeward from Manhattan, where he was enrolled at the Kansas State Agricultural College.

Acquaintances had observed him on the highway south of Marion.

Young Smoll was graduated at North High School last June.

Wearing apparel carrying the name of "Smoll" was found in a Denver tourist cabin last week after Hoefgen was taken into custody. Hoefgen had rented the cabin as a residence for his wife and himself when he obtained employment a few days ago as a horse wrangler at the Denver stockyards.

Hoefgen escaped from the Chase County jail at Cottonwood Falls last September 2 and Smoll's disappearance followed 16 days later. Except for being jailed at the Chase County seat, Hoefgen had been at Liberty since escape from the Huntsville, Tex., prison farm August 29, 1942.

Former Governer Payne Ratner, who was employed by Smoll to assist in finding his son, was informed by KBI Director Richter Saturday afternoon that the body of the youth had been found at Peabody. Ratner then delivered the information to the father, who left immediately for Peabody.

Smoll returned to Wichita late Saturday after conferring with Richter. He said Mrs. Smoll has not yet been notified of the gruesome find. (Wichita Sunday Beacon ~ December 26, 1943)

HOEFGEN SIGNS CONFESSION OF GUILT IN DEATH

Payne Ratner, Attorney for Father, Will Aid in Prosecution

The death penalty will be asked for Ernest Hoefgen, 31, alias Melvin Greenman, confessed slayer of Bruce Smoll, 18-year-old Wichita student, County Attorney Roscoe King of Marion County said Monday.

Hoefgen was expected to be arraigned Monday at Marion on a charge of first degree murder following his statement Sunday that he shot the Kansas State College student.

King's decision to ask the death penalty was in accord with a request that capital punishment be imposed made by former Gov. Payne Ratner, attorney for A. E. Smoll, father of the slain youth, and the father himself.

RATNER TO AID PROSECUTION

The Marion County attorney welcomed Ratner's offer of assistance in the case and arrangements are being made for its probably swift disposition. Ratner will appear in the case when Hoefgen is taken before Judge J. P. Coleman of Junction City, who presides over the Marion County District Court at Marion.

Hoefgen is expected to be taken by Kansas Bureau of Investigation officials to Marion for arraignment Monday afternoon preliminary to the escaped convict's appearance in district court. Authorities expected Hoefgen to enter a plea of guilty to the first degree murder charge.

Officials pointed out that upon a plea of guilty to the first degree murder complaint, Judge Coleman would decide the punishment but that the law required that evidence be presented even tho the defendant volunteered his guity plea. Statutes provide a penalty of death by hanging or life imprisonment for first degree murder.

Hoefgen's wife, Pauline, will be released because "she had no connection with the crime," L. P. Richter, head of the KBI, said in Topeka.

Hoefgen's excuse given in his confession for taking Smoll's life was strongly discounted by the slain youth's father who termed Hoefgen's explanation of events as "a story to make things easier for him (Hoefgen)."

BODY FOUND SATURDAY

Hoefgen's confession of the Smoll slaying came within a day after the discovery of Smoll's body in a field two and half miles east of Peabody and three days after his arrest in Denver and the finding of apparel of Smoll's in his tourist cabin there.

Hoefgen said in his confession that he picked up Smoll about 4 p.m. on the afternoon of September 18 when the youth signaled for a ride. The youth was on the highway south of Marion, hitchhiking his way from Manhattan where he was enrolled at Kansas State College.

Smoll, Hoefgen's statement said, asked if he had seen Hoefgen before, but the convict said he had not.

Then he said, "Oh, yes I have.", the confession continued. "You are Melvin Greenman. Stop and let me out. The law wants you." I got scared and grabbed by gun laying in the seat under my gloves and told him to sit still.

MADE HIM DISROBE

"I drove on up the road and turned off on a side road. I drove down it a ways and stopped by a cornfield, told him to get out and take off his clothes. He did, and I told him to walk across the ditch and cross the fence.

"He got across the fence and started to run. I got scared he would run to a house somewhere and I would get caught, so I yelled to him to stop, and took after him. Then, he started yelling at me and cussing at me. I stopped and shot and he jumped down a ditch, just as I shot.

"I ran up there, he got up the other side of the ditch and started to run again. I took careful aim and shot again and he fell. I turned around and went back to the car, pick up his clothes and drove off."

WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN HIM

In bitterly discounting Hoefgen's asserted motive for the slaying, the father of the dead youth said his son would have no way of knowing Hoefgen's identity.

"We believe Hoefgen should receive the death sentence as a protection for society," former Governor Payne Ratner, attorney for Smoll's father said. "Hoefgen is as great an enemy of society as a Jap, a Nazi or any of the war criminals we are fighting."

Authorities said no agreement had been made by Kansas Bureau of Investigation authorities in obtaining Hoefgen's confession and that they were aware of no legal reason precluding possible imposition of the death penalty.

Hoefgen's bride, Pauline, a former resident of Cedar Point, Kas., was absolved by KBI officials of any complicity in the crime. However, attorneys discounted his wife to accompany him in his flight when she met him at a rendezvous near Florence the evening after the slaying.

CONFRONT WITH EVIDENCE

Hoefgen's confession came after he was confronted with circumstantial evidence based on his wife's story to officers of their movements and whereabouts.

Mrs. Hoefgen told L. P. Richter, direct of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, that she first saw Smoll's bag of clothing when she and her husband stopped at Greensburg to sleep the morning of September 19. "Later, when they got to Denver, she noticed the name "Smoll" on the clothing while laundering it," Richter said.

Hoefgen is a fugitive from the Huntsville, Tex., state prison farm where he was serving a term for murder when he escaped in 1942. (Wichita Beacon ~ December 27, 1943)

FACTUAL WEB WOVEN ABOUT HOEFGEN TO ASSURE CONVICTION AND DEATH PENALTY; THREE ATTORNEYS MAP PROSECUTION

Marion, Kas., Dec. 28---Bruce Smoll, 18-year-old Wichita student slain by Ernest Hoefgen, 31, alias Melvin Greenman, met death within four minutes after he entered the killer's car south of Marion on September 18.

Hoefgen left Smoll's textbooks with acquaintances within four hours after Smoll was last seen alive. Acquaintances burned the books after Hoefgen's flight from central Kansas.

Hoefgen attempted to try on Smoll's trousers the night of the slaying and told acquaintances they were too small.

The remains of a partially burned radio transformer made by Smoll also have been recovered from a trash burner in a neighborhood where Smoll visited.

WEAVE WEB OF FACTS

There are a part of a web of facts the state as assembled in the first degree murder case of Hoefgen at Marion this week.

Details of the evidence and its source, which the state is prepared to offer in its proof of the quick slaying and Hoefgen's appearance in the area later the night of the killing, will not be revealed prior to the trial.

Hoefgen waived his preliminary hearing before Judge Jay E. Hargett of the Marion County court Tuesday morning and was bound over to the district court on a first degree murder charge without bond.

The defendant will be arraigned before Judge J. P. Coleman of the Marion County District Court at 10 o'clock Wednesday morning.

Hoefgen was removed to the Marion County jail from Topeka late Monday by county officials.

En route to the Marion County jail, one of the modern local prisons of the state, Hoefgen reiterated his intention to plead guilty to first degree murder charges. Sheriff George Gephart of Marion County and Ollie Wight, Marion city marshal, who transported the prisoner, said.

3 PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS

Nevertheless, three attorneys representing the state, Marion County and the Smoll family immediately entered upon a conference Monday night to correlate facts in what they call "an airtight case."

Kansas' statues require presentation of evidence in first degree murder cases even tho the defendant pleads guilty.

These attorneys representing the state will be Harden Johnston, assistant attorney general; Roscoe King, Marion County attorney and former Gov. Payne Ratner, counsel for the Smoll family.

A. E. Smoll, Wichita Insurance man, father of the slain youth, Monday night viewed for the first time the clothes of his son found in possession of Hoefgen at the latter's tourist cabin residence.

FATHER PLEASED

Lou P. Richter, director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, who "broke" the case with the arrest of Hoefgen in Denver last week, showed the father his son's clothing and Hoefgen's confession written in the slayer's own hand writing.

The father, in good spirits in the satisfaction of knowing the confessed slayer of his son had been apprehended, praised Richter warmly for his patient and intensive efforts in tracking down Hoefgen.

Richter revealed how persistent investigation in central Kansas had tightened a web of evidence around Hoefgen as early as three weeks ago.

Mr. Smoll, father of the dead youth and five other sons, said that oddly he had marked his son's clothing before he left for Manhattan to enroll in Kansas State College.

NAME ON CLOTHING

He printed the name "Smoll" on three shirts, shorts and other apparel, mostly underclothing, belonging to his son and found in Hoefgen's possession. He said he could not explain what prompted him to mark the clothing because two other sons had graduated from Kansas State College and he had never marked their clothes.

He also recorded the serial number of his son's watch before Bruce left for college. Thru this number the watch has been located in a pawnshop in a Colorado city. It was the father's markings that identified the clothing as that of his son.

By an ironic twist of fate, cornhuskers had been working for weeks in the field where young Smoll's body was found on the Townsend ranch, two and a half miles east of Peabody, by Willis Hawk, highway worker, while rabbit hunting Christmas afternoon.

HUSKERS NEAR BODY

Huskers were within six corn rows of the body when Hawk, a Peabody resident, discovered the body a few feet from him as he walked along a draw. Unbroken glasses remaining on young Smoll's body and the youth's shoes first attracted his attention. He called his son-in-law, Edward Girk, a Christmas guest, who was on the other side of the draw. Girk, an oil field pumper, resides 10 minutes from Hoisington.

The scene of the crime was 100 yards from a little used road a half mile due east of Highway 50.

Lou Richter, director of KBI, who personally trailed Hoefgen to Denver and conducted a five-day search of the city with Denver authorities to catch the fugitive, revealed that Hoefgen's presence in the Marion County area on the morning and evening of the crime had been verified days ago.

HOEFGEN TELLS STORY

Richter related Hoefgen's explanation of the fugitive's movements for 24 hours preceding the crime and expressed the belief they were probably accurate.

Hoefgen, Richter said, told this story: Hoefgen stole the car of T. M. Vaughn, Winfield, the evening of September 17 from its parking place near the Winfield library. It was the car found in Hoefgen's possession at Denver. The fugitive then drove to a point near Cassoday in the Flint Hills of northeastern Butler County and slept in the car a part of the following morning.

(Other information in the hands of authorities reveals that he sent a communication to his wife to meet him near Florence and that he urged her to depart with him and she refused.)

FORCED WIFE TO GO

Hoefgen, according to his own story, met Smoll in the afternoon and shot the youth. He located his bride, Paulina, at Florence later the same evening and forced her to accompany him in his flight.

Hoefgen appeared in good spirits after being locked in his cell in the Marion County jail and showed no remorse for his crime. He was permitted to telephone his wife, Pauline, at Cedar Point and urged her to visit him.

Mrs. Hoefgen, who married the convict when he was living under the name of Greenman, was taken to the home of her family at Cedar Point by authorities Monday afternoon. She was absolved of any knowledge of the crime, as her time on the day of slaying was accounted for.

Sue is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Foushee, highly respected citizens of Cedar Point. Foushee operates a garage and blacksmith shop. (Wichita Beacon ~ Tueday ~ December 28, 1943)

MANY DETAILS STILL UNSOLVED

Did Ernest Hoefgen, escaped Texas fugitive, have other motives than that admitted for the slaying of Bruce Small, 18, Wichita student, on a lonely Marion County road on the afternoon of September 18. Hoefgen claims that the youth recognized him as a fugitive and he feared Smoll would reveal his whereabouts.

How did Hoefgen, who had served felony sentences in three states, elude arrest for nearly and year and a half after his escape from a Texas prison farm where he was serving a sentence for murder?

These are the questions repeatedly asking by observers of the Smoll case which has shocked central and northern Kansas with the revelation of the brutal slaying of the Kansas State College student as he was hitchhiking homeward for a 10-day vacation with his family.

Some authorities see a possibility that young Smoll did recognize Hoefgen as a fugitive, since the convict at one time had been a Wichita taxicab driver. But friends of the Smoll family feel Hoefgen's confessed motive is a fabrication in an attempt to soften judgment against him in criminal court.

Authorities agree that Hoefgen could hve needed a change of clothing. At the time of the slaying he was not only a fugitive from the Texas prison farm, but faced jail breaking charges at Cottonwood Falls.

It is known Smoll had little money. But college youths generally are not expected to have much cash on their person. That Smoll was a student would have been immediately evident to Hoefgen as the youth carried textbooks and a student's black laundry box.

Bruce Smoll had $7 in his possession as he started on foot out of Marion after a Lincolnville family gave him a "lift" to the main street of the county seat. Hoefgen had $7 in his possession a few hours after the slaying. Lou P. Richter, director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, has determined.

Richter also has revealed that the theft a year ago of a draft registration card and social security card from a Wichitan, Melvin Greenma, husband of Hoefgen's cousin, enabled Hoefgen to maintain an alias by using Greenman's name. Hoefgen is credited by peace officers with the theft of Greeman's identification cards from his residence. Hoefgen's duplicity brought embarrassment to the cousin.

Even so, how did Hoefgen succeed so well in keeping free of suspicious officers after his flight from the Texas prison farm in August, 1942?

Richter has pieced together this story: Hoefgen, after his flight into Kansas, took refuge in the Flint Hills. With ability as a horse wrangler and some aptitude for blacksmithing, he obtained employment at the garage and blacksmith shop of William Foushee at Cedar Point. Within 60 days he was married to his employer's daughter, Pauline, under the name of Greenman without revealing the fact he's a fugitive.

There was no suspicion attached to Hoefgen as he went about his duties at the shop of his father-in-law. But the peaceful arrangement came to an end, Richter revealed, when Hoefgen, under the influence of liquor, became abusive to his wife. Mrs. Hoefgen called to her father for help and Foushee asked her to go home with him. Hoefgen intervened and attached his father-in-law.

Officers were called and Hoefgen was charged with assault and carrying concealed weapons, but Chase County officers did not take him into custody upon his agreement to appear for a hearing at Cottonwood Falls.

Hoefgen then took his wife and fled to western Kansas, obtaining employment at Syracuse. After several months, she reported to her family that Hoefgen was abusing her, Richter said, and Chase County officers arrested Hoefgen on the old assault charge last August.

A few days after being jailed at Cottonwood Falls, Hoefgen escaped. He made a trip into Oklahoma, he told officers, and returning, stole car at Winfield the night of September 17, the day before his confessed slaying of Smoll.

From Cassoday he sent an intermediary to his wife informing her he wished to see her, and met her on the highway about 9:30 a.m. September 18. Mrs. Hoeften was unsympathetic to his pleading that she leave with him and returned to the home of her family at Cedar Point.

Knowing the Foushee family would make a Saturday night visit to Florence, Hoefgen, Richter said, parked in Florence the stolen car he had used several hours earlier to make away Bruce Smoll. Mrs. Hoefgen drove into Florence, saw Hoefgen and sought to avoid him. He drove away, Mrs. Foushee, Mrs. Hoefgen's mother, went into a Florence store and Mrs. Hoefgen proceded down the main street across the Santa Fe tracks to enjoy the entertainment of a Mexican fiesta.

Hoefgen then drove up suddenly and forced Mrs. Hoefgen to accompany him. After a drive south thru the Flint Hills and back within two miles of Florence, Hoefgen then suddenly decided to drive west, Mrs. Hoefgen told Richter. By side roads and devious routes, Hoefgen finally turned onto the Kechi road in Sedgwick County and proceeded west, skirting Wichita on the north, and later turned to south onto the Cannonball Highway.

Hoefgen and his wife soppted at Greensburg the next morning to sleep and then Mrs. Hoefgen saw foro the first time Smoll's laundry box and his shirts and underclothing.

Hoefgen had removed the Kansas State College emblem, a purple "K", from the laundry box, but in its removal left a small trace of the purple emblem sticker which Richter pointed out to the father of the slain youth Monday night.

Hoefgen, his wife said, then took a suspicious attitude toward her and in their journey which ended at Denver attempted to keep her under "surveillance." He refused to let her drive the car until the day of his capture by Richter, in Denver. That morning, she said, Hoefgen permitted her to drive him to work.

Since the return of her husband from Denver to Kansas, she has assisted officers further in establishing Hoefgen's movements in Marion County a few hours prior to the slaying, Richter said. (Wichita Beacon ~ Tuesday ~ December 28, 1943)