A modest house. Who’da thunk it fulla clams. Clams stink. Something stinks.
Missing moolah. Accented callers. We know about those accented callers. Bruno Hauptmann was one.
[While here at 47hq we leave the day’s events suspended in time, Bardin’s juicy tale cries out to be heard: The question stands-noone pulled down this sort of action in LA, so who tipped the crew? Or were these Indy-savvy boys out from the Hoosier state for a business/pleasure vay-cay? The FBI didn’t even look into it-they were curious about the interstate transfer of a large sum of cash, not the robbery. Bardin stated that the money was going to pay taxes, but, uh, had less of an explanation as to why he didn’t put that money in a bank. Probably had something to do with his background as a WWII-era beer-peddling black marketeer, and fellow traveler in the famously corrupt Democratic machine out Indiana/Illinois way. He bought the brewery from Democratic National Committeeman Frank McHale, with money from Democratic National Chairman Frank McKinney and, after serving a six-month Federal prison term in 1948 on the charge of putting 12-ounce labels on bottles actually containing 11 ounces of beer {hanging’s too good for ‘im!} finally got popped in ’52 by Repub Senator John Williams for concealing $231,000 of his 1946 income from his return.]
