Post by Anja Nieser on Sept 19, 2006 17:45:57 GMT -5
Clearing his name
Imagine if Sherlock Holmes ended his fictional law enforcement career in
disgrace and behind bars while criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty
walked free.
Andrew Sahol is haunted by the idea that very thing happened to his
grandfather, the late great Burlington County Detective Ellis Parker.
Parker once was hailed as America's nonfiction version of Sherlock Holmes
for his ability to use deduction, common sense and psychology to solve
thousands of baffling crimes, but he died in federal prison in 1940
shortly after he and his son, Ellis Jr., were convicted of masterminding
the kidnapping and torture of a man the elder Parker suspected was
responsible for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
Sahol, 67, a retired electrician who resides in Florence, was an infant at
the time. He has no personal recollection of his world-famous grandfather,
only the memories passed along by his mother, Lilyan Parker Sahol, and
various aunts and uncles.
Those family stories, he said, have spurred him to seek a new ending for
the Parker story in the form of a posthumous presidential pardon.
"That conviction tore my family apart. It wasn't something anyone ever
talked about because it was so painful," Sahol said in a recent interview.
"It wasn't until my father had passed and my mother was ill that she began
talking about it.
"I would take her on rides in Mount Holly and she remembered different
buildings and would talk about her family and old friends," he said. "She
talked about "Pop', which was what all his children called Ellis, and how
good he was. I realized right then how much pain (his conviction) caused
my family."
America's Sherlock Holmes
Parker's career as county detective is by all accounts unparalleled in
U.S. history.
Born in 1871 in what is now Wrightstown, Parker spent his early years
working as a traveling musician who played the fiddle at local dances. He
got his start in law enforcement after his own horse and wagon were stolen
and he tracked down the thief, attracting the attention of the Burlington
and Ocean County Pursuing Society, an amateur police force that was paid
fees for tracking down criminals. His work with the society led to his
appointment in 1898 as Burlington County's first full-time chief of
detectives.
In the 40 years that followed, the bald, pipe-smoking supersleuth gained
national fame as a master crime solver. During his career, he investigated
236 murders, some as far away as Europe and the Orient, and gained
convictions in all but 10 of them.
During one of his most famous cases, Parker was able to determine that a
murder victim had died weeks earlier than a coroner surmised and the
corpse had not deteriorated because it was left in a freezing river
downstream from a tanning business.
In another, Parker doggedly interviewed 175 soldiers stationed at Fort Dix
to solve a murder committed there.
The Lindbergh kidnapping
But it was the so-called Crime of the Century - the kidnapping of the
Lindbergh baby on March 1, 1932 - that proved Parker's undoing. Parker was
wrapping up his police career when the infant son of famed trans-Atlantic
aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was snatched from the family's secluded home
in East Amwell, N.J. Despite his reputation, Parker was left out of the
official investigation.
It wasn't until after Bruno Richard Hauptmann was captured and convicted
of the kidnapping and death of the infant that then-Gov. Hoffman asked his
close friend Parker to investigate to make sure Hauptmann was not wrongly
executed.
Days before the execution, Parker produced disbarred Trenton lawyer Paul
H. Wendel and a 25-page confession stating that Wendel had kidnapped and
killed the Lindbergh baby to avenge bad financial dealings with
Lindbergh's in-laws.
Although the confession forced a postponement of Hauptmann's execution,
Wendel ended up recanting his confession. He went on to tell authorities
that he was kidnapped in Manhattan, held prisoner and beaten until he
confessed to the kidnapping.
The kidnappers were found. They eventually implicated both Parker and his
son, Ellis Jr., in the Wendel abduction and torture plot. Parker was
sentenced to 6 years in federal prison. He died there from an apparent
brain tumor at the age of 68.
Thousands attended Parker's funeral in Mount Holly and newspaper accounts
detailed talk of an effort to have the famed detective posthumously
pardoned.
Ellis Jr. was later granted a pardon by President Harry Truman, but
efforts to clear the elder Parker's record failed because there was no
precedent for posthumous clemency.
Precedent for a posthumous pardon
Sahol said he began research on his grandfather and U.S. clemency laws in
1999 after his mother died. He said he became serious about his efforts
after learning from U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th of Robbinsville, that
precedent for a posthumous pardon was established in 1999 when President
Bill Clinton granted a pardon to deceased soldier Henry O. Flipper, the
first black American cadet to graduate from the United States Military
Academy at West Point. Flipper was court-martialed for embezzlement and
conduct unbecoming an officer in 1882 while serving as a quartermaster at
Fort Davis, Texas. He died in 1940.
Sahol said he also has learned efforts are now under way to gain a
presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, the 1st black heavyweight champion.
Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating a federal vice law.
Sahol said he intends to model his presidential pardon petition for his
grandfather on the applications submitted on behalf of Flipper and
Johnson.
He has enlisted the help of freelance writer Linda Moser of Lumberton to
help him draft the document and Smith has promised to review it and submit
the finished document to the U.S. Pardon Attorney.
The Pardon Attorney and the U.S. Attorney General are both charged with
advising the president in exercising executive clemency such as granting
pardons and communing sentences.
Questions remain
Sahol said he intends to argue in the pardon petition that his
grandfather's record of meritorious service outweighs any "liberties or
errors in judgment" he might have made trying to save Hauptman from the
electric chair.
He said questions remain surrounding Hauptmann's conviction and the
reputation of Wendel, a man linked to numerous swindles, scams and
underworld activities. According to most accounts, Parker became
suspicious of Wendel after he disclosed to him many unpublished details
about the kidnapping.
"My grandfather was a great man who maintained his innocence to the very
end, as did Hauptmann," Sahol said. "Both trials were complete fiascos.
There's no way he should have gone to jail.''
He said Hauptmann's widow, Anna, mourned Parker at his funeral and
continued to thank the family for his efforts.
Sahol said he also plans to present stories he recorded by his now
deceased aunt and other members of his family about acts of kindness by
Parker for many poor Burlington County families, several of them black or
reformed convicts Parker had put behind bars during the Great Depression.
"He used to pay people's rent or give them meals at his house, and he
saved several crooks from lynch mobs," Sahol said. "Compare that to
Wendel, who was a liar and swindler," he said.
A book about Parker's life
Sahol also hopes a new book, entitled "Master Detective: The Life and
Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Real Life Sherlock Holmes" about
Parker's life and his involvement in the Lindbergh case attracts attention
to his cause.
The book, by Maryland author John Reisinger, was published in July by
Citadel, a subsidiary of Kensington Publishing.
In an interview, Reisinger said he learned about Parker by reading about
his exploits in an old almanac and became interested in his life.
"It was an interesting story no one had done, and I jumped on it," said
Reisinger, 63, a retired engineer. "I thought it was an interesting story,
and I wanted to learn more. I had never heard of him.''
Reisinger said he made several visits to Mount Holly while conducting his
research. He reviewed Parker's will and visited the Garden Street home
where Parker's viewing was held. The current owner of the house showed
Reisinger a box of newspaper clippings of stories about the Lindbergh
case. The clippings contained Parker's hand-written notes about the case,
he said.
He said he also visited the historic county courthouse on High Street and
inquired about being directed to what once was Parker's office, but nobody
at the courthouse even knew who Parker was.
Reisinger said he was amazed at how Parker solved crimes by deduction,
observation and psychology because modern techniques such as DNA analysis
did not exist.
"He should be remembered as the most famous detective ever," Reisinger
said. "He had a long career where he did a lot of great stuff, and (with
one case) he went down in flames. The rest of his life was noteworthy and
certainly deserving of mention."
The book is being sold at major book chain stores and at the Burlington
County Historic Prison Museum in Mount Holly, the former home or execution
site of many of the hundreds of culprits Parker caught. A book signing is
being planned at the museum in December, officials said.
Sahol said he was interviewed by Reisinger for the book and he was mostly
pleased with the finished work.
"He did my family a great service with this book in bringing my
grandfather's life and legacy back to light," Sahol said.
He said his cousin, Bill Fullerton of Florida, also has created a Web
site, www.fullerton1.com, devoted to their grandfather.
Sahol asked anyone with recollections about his grandfather or old
newspaper or magazine articles that mention his exploits to contact him at
(609) 499-2432.
(source: Burlington County Times
Imagine if Sherlock Holmes ended his fictional law enforcement career in
disgrace and behind bars while criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty
walked free.
Andrew Sahol is haunted by the idea that very thing happened to his
grandfather, the late great Burlington County Detective Ellis Parker.
Parker once was hailed as America's nonfiction version of Sherlock Holmes
for his ability to use deduction, common sense and psychology to solve
thousands of baffling crimes, but he died in federal prison in 1940
shortly after he and his son, Ellis Jr., were convicted of masterminding
the kidnapping and torture of a man the elder Parker suspected was
responsible for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
Sahol, 67, a retired electrician who resides in Florence, was an infant at
the time. He has no personal recollection of his world-famous grandfather,
only the memories passed along by his mother, Lilyan Parker Sahol, and
various aunts and uncles.
Those family stories, he said, have spurred him to seek a new ending for
the Parker story in the form of a posthumous presidential pardon.
"That conviction tore my family apart. It wasn't something anyone ever
talked about because it was so painful," Sahol said in a recent interview.
"It wasn't until my father had passed and my mother was ill that she began
talking about it.
"I would take her on rides in Mount Holly and she remembered different
buildings and would talk about her family and old friends," he said. "She
talked about "Pop', which was what all his children called Ellis, and how
good he was. I realized right then how much pain (his conviction) caused
my family."
America's Sherlock Holmes
Parker's career as county detective is by all accounts unparalleled in
U.S. history.
Born in 1871 in what is now Wrightstown, Parker spent his early years
working as a traveling musician who played the fiddle at local dances. He
got his start in law enforcement after his own horse and wagon were stolen
and he tracked down the thief, attracting the attention of the Burlington
and Ocean County Pursuing Society, an amateur police force that was paid
fees for tracking down criminals. His work with the society led to his
appointment in 1898 as Burlington County's first full-time chief of
detectives.
In the 40 years that followed, the bald, pipe-smoking supersleuth gained
national fame as a master crime solver. During his career, he investigated
236 murders, some as far away as Europe and the Orient, and gained
convictions in all but 10 of them.
During one of his most famous cases, Parker was able to determine that a
murder victim had died weeks earlier than a coroner surmised and the
corpse had not deteriorated because it was left in a freezing river
downstream from a tanning business.
In another, Parker doggedly interviewed 175 soldiers stationed at Fort Dix
to solve a murder committed there.
The Lindbergh kidnapping
But it was the so-called Crime of the Century - the kidnapping of the
Lindbergh baby on March 1, 1932 - that proved Parker's undoing. Parker was
wrapping up his police career when the infant son of famed trans-Atlantic
aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was snatched from the family's secluded home
in East Amwell, N.J. Despite his reputation, Parker was left out of the
official investigation.
It wasn't until after Bruno Richard Hauptmann was captured and convicted
of the kidnapping and death of the infant that then-Gov. Hoffman asked his
close friend Parker to investigate to make sure Hauptmann was not wrongly
executed.
Days before the execution, Parker produced disbarred Trenton lawyer Paul
H. Wendel and a 25-page confession stating that Wendel had kidnapped and
killed the Lindbergh baby to avenge bad financial dealings with
Lindbergh's in-laws.
Although the confession forced a postponement of Hauptmann's execution,
Wendel ended up recanting his confession. He went on to tell authorities
that he was kidnapped in Manhattan, held prisoner and beaten until he
confessed to the kidnapping.
The kidnappers were found. They eventually implicated both Parker and his
son, Ellis Jr., in the Wendel abduction and torture plot. Parker was
sentenced to 6 years in federal prison. He died there from an apparent
brain tumor at the age of 68.
Thousands attended Parker's funeral in Mount Holly and newspaper accounts
detailed talk of an effort to have the famed detective posthumously
pardoned.
Ellis Jr. was later granted a pardon by President Harry Truman, but
efforts to clear the elder Parker's record failed because there was no
precedent for posthumous clemency.
Precedent for a posthumous pardon
Sahol said he began research on his grandfather and U.S. clemency laws in
1999 after his mother died. He said he became serious about his efforts
after learning from U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th of Robbinsville, that
precedent for a posthumous pardon was established in 1999 when President
Bill Clinton granted a pardon to deceased soldier Henry O. Flipper, the
first black American cadet to graduate from the United States Military
Academy at West Point. Flipper was court-martialed for embezzlement and
conduct unbecoming an officer in 1882 while serving as a quartermaster at
Fort Davis, Texas. He died in 1940.
Sahol said he also has learned efforts are now under way to gain a
presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, the 1st black heavyweight champion.
Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating a federal vice law.
Sahol said he intends to model his presidential pardon petition for his
grandfather on the applications submitted on behalf of Flipper and
Johnson.
He has enlisted the help of freelance writer Linda Moser of Lumberton to
help him draft the document and Smith has promised to review it and submit
the finished document to the U.S. Pardon Attorney.
The Pardon Attorney and the U.S. Attorney General are both charged with
advising the president in exercising executive clemency such as granting
pardons and communing sentences.
Questions remain
Sahol said he intends to argue in the pardon petition that his
grandfather's record of meritorious service outweighs any "liberties or
errors in judgment" he might have made trying to save Hauptman from the
electric chair.
He said questions remain surrounding Hauptmann's conviction and the
reputation of Wendel, a man linked to numerous swindles, scams and
underworld activities. According to most accounts, Parker became
suspicious of Wendel after he disclosed to him many unpublished details
about the kidnapping.
"My grandfather was a great man who maintained his innocence to the very
end, as did Hauptmann," Sahol said. "Both trials were complete fiascos.
There's no way he should have gone to jail.''
He said Hauptmann's widow, Anna, mourned Parker at his funeral and
continued to thank the family for his efforts.
Sahol said he also plans to present stories he recorded by his now
deceased aunt and other members of his family about acts of kindness by
Parker for many poor Burlington County families, several of them black or
reformed convicts Parker had put behind bars during the Great Depression.
"He used to pay people's rent or give them meals at his house, and he
saved several crooks from lynch mobs," Sahol said. "Compare that to
Wendel, who was a liar and swindler," he said.
A book about Parker's life
Sahol also hopes a new book, entitled "Master Detective: The Life and
Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Real Life Sherlock Holmes" about
Parker's life and his involvement in the Lindbergh case attracts attention
to his cause.
The book, by Maryland author John Reisinger, was published in July by
Citadel, a subsidiary of Kensington Publishing.
In an interview, Reisinger said he learned about Parker by reading about
his exploits in an old almanac and became interested in his life.
"It was an interesting story no one had done, and I jumped on it," said
Reisinger, 63, a retired engineer. "I thought it was an interesting story,
and I wanted to learn more. I had never heard of him.''
Reisinger said he made several visits to Mount Holly while conducting his
research. He reviewed Parker's will and visited the Garden Street home
where Parker's viewing was held. The current owner of the house showed
Reisinger a box of newspaper clippings of stories about the Lindbergh
case. The clippings contained Parker's hand-written notes about the case,
he said.
He said he also visited the historic county courthouse on High Street and
inquired about being directed to what once was Parker's office, but nobody
at the courthouse even knew who Parker was.
Reisinger said he was amazed at how Parker solved crimes by deduction,
observation and psychology because modern techniques such as DNA analysis
did not exist.
"He should be remembered as the most famous detective ever," Reisinger
said. "He had a long career where he did a lot of great stuff, and (with
one case) he went down in flames. The rest of his life was noteworthy and
certainly deserving of mention."
The book is being sold at major book chain stores and at the Burlington
County Historic Prison Museum in Mount Holly, the former home or execution
site of many of the hundreds of culprits Parker caught. A book signing is
being planned at the museum in December, officials said.
Sahol said he was interviewed by Reisinger for the book and he was mostly
pleased with the finished work.
"He did my family a great service with this book in bringing my
grandfather's life and legacy back to light," Sahol said.
He said his cousin, Bill Fullerton of Florida, also has created a Web
site, www.fullerton1.com, devoted to their grandfather.
Sahol asked anyone with recollections about his grandfather or old
newspaper or magazine articles that mention his exploits to contact him at
(609) 499-2432.
(source: Burlington County Times