THE MISSING BANKER PART TWO OF FOUR

The stranger had flown from Minneapolis to Thief River Falls on a North Central Airlines flight. Again he used the name of J. O'Malley when making the plane reservation. He registered under the name of Johnson at the hotel in Thief River Falls and informed the room clerk that his secretary, Miss Hadley, would arrive on Sunday or Monday. He did not go to his room. He went, presumably, directly to the bank where he was admitted by Lindberg.


A further check at the Greystone Hotel in Detroit Lakes, whence Lindberg had telephoned his wife, revealed that two hotel employees distinctively recalls seeing Lindbergh and the stranger in the lobby that Saturday evening. The desk clerk said that Lindbergh had entered the telephone booth alone. The other man had waited in the lobby.

"He was about 30 years old," said the clerk, "and well dressed. He had a mean look and appeared rather nervous. He scowled at me when I asked him if there was anything I could do for him."


Now it is 197 miles from Detroit Lakes to Minneapolis. Nevertheless Johnson -- O'Malley, or whatever his name was, arrived back at the Nicolet Hotel at 3:30 in the morning. Apparently he had driven the distance in less than four hours. He went to his room and called room service. He ordered ice, which was brought to him by Arthur Leeds, a bellboy. An hour later he called room service again. This time he requested a large container of coffee. Leeds brought it to him. A few minutes later, Leeds, standing in the lobby, saw the stranger walked out of the hotel.


He returned a half hour later, went to his room, picked up his suitcase, and came back to the lobby and asked for his bill. He paid it with a Bank of America travelers check. For identification he produced a sheaf of credit cards from all over the country, all made out to Herbert F. Johnson.


The FBI, up to this point, had done a brilliant job in tracing the fugitives movements. Unfortunately the trail is it on the pavement outside the Nicolet Hotel, in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, November 13. No witnesses who had seen Johnson could be found after he checked out.


A quick audit at the Northern State Bank revealed that $1850 in coins and $14,000 in negotiable travelers checks were missing. The serial numbers of the travelers checks were on file. All other cash in the bank had been locked in a vault, sealed with the time lock.


On Friday, November 18, a woman telephoned the Minneapolis police to report that a car parked across the street from our home on 18th Ave North, since early Monday morning. It was a 1951, 2-tone green Buick. The local police investigated, check the license plates and found the car was registered in the name of Kenneth Lindberg of Thief River Falls. They promptly notified the FBI. The federal man, under the command of Calvin B Howard, agent in charge of the Minneapolis office, arrived and made a thorough examination of the car.


In the trunk compartment they've found $1630 in silver, still in bank wrappers. The also obtained five different fingerprints from the interior of the car. One of these sets belong to Lindberg. Three others were too blurred for definite identification. The remaining set was not on file in the FBI Washington archives, further investigation revealed.


The mystery of what happened to Kenneth Lindberg remained just that until the afternoon of Friday, November 25. On that day the Fiereck boys, where rabbit hunting. There were three Fiereck boys: Merle, Kenney, and Gary. They were the sons of a farmer whose property lay a little more than 2 miles from Clear Lake, Minnesota. At two o'clock in the afternoon they came upon a corpse. It was half covered with snow and frozen solid. There were a dozen wounds in the head and the snow was stained with blood. Surrounding the body was some $200 in quarters and dimes.


The boys ran back to the farmhouse and told their father, Lawrence Fiereck, of the gruesome discovery. Feireck put a call to sheriff Chester Goenner of Sherburne County.


The sheriff and the coroner, Dr. Gordon Tesch, raced out to be Fiereck farm. Goenner, who had a detailed description of Kenneth Lindberg in his office, was certain that this was the body of the missing bank cashier. Dr. Tesch ordered the body taken to Elk River for autopsy. Goenner communicated with Sheriff Arthur Rambeck and Police Chief Cummings of Thief River Falls. Both were personal friends of Lindberg. They set out at once for Elk River and positively identified the corpse as that of Kenneth Lindberg. The FBI, searching the area where the body had been found, picked up more than $200 in silver.


The autopsy revealed that Lindbergh had been brutally beaten to death with some instrument, such as a hatchet, a machete, or possibly a stack of rolled up quarters. There were eight to 10 cuts in his head, four to 5 inches long. All of them had penetrated the skull.


Dr. Tesch announced that a corners jury would hold an inquest. "However," he added, "yet was undoubtedly murder."

On November 26, County Attorney L. W. Rulien issued a John Doe kidnapping warrant. The coroner are announced it would take 10 days of laboratory tests to determine just when Lindbergh had been killed. However, the fact that snow had half covered the body indicated that he had been murdered prior to the last heavy snowfall, which it occurred on November 15.

Stay tuned for part Three