Thursday, October 13, 1977 Akron Be(JCon JournQ, A had robbery background uspec 1 By RICK REIFF and DOIG OPIJNGER Beacon Journal Staff Writer Several times in the early 1960's James Hendree climbed into a cab, directed the driver to a dark street and then robbed him, threatening his victim with a makeshift weapon or by faking he had a gun. The exploits netted him $83 and 10 years in jail. Recently things were looking up for Hendree. He was free on parole and relatives said he was enthusiastically working at a steady job. Parole officials said he had a clean prison record and showed no signs of being violent.
BUT TUESDAY night Hendree's life came to a violent end. FBI agents said Hendree resorted to the technique he had used in the cab robberies faking the use of a gun. Hendree was allegedly trying to extort $10,000 from an Akron fami rector of the AMs Halfway House in Columbus, said Hendree wanted to get a job when he got out of jail and wrote several halfway houses for help. "He didn't want to go back to Akron and depend on people there," Thomas said. "He wanted a halfway house elsewhere in the state." Hendree got a job with Goodwill Industries in Columbus, broke no rules and showed no signs of being violent during his stay at the Alvis house, Thomas said.
IN 19(4 his defense lawyer argued for a light sentence for Hendree, contending Hendree only bluffed his robbery victims and did not carry a weapon. But an assistant Summit County prosecutor countered, "Some of the victims were slapped and kicked. We believe it is just a question of time until one of these robberies will be fatal." He was paroled nine years later, in March 1973. HENDREE drew his stiffest sentence, 10 Vi to 105 years, in September 1974, because his new offense, receiving a stolen lawn mower, was a violation of his parole. Yet in March of this year, Hendree was paroled again.
He worked at a Columbus halfway house before returning to Akron three months ago. Hendree recently was working at Gojo Industries a soap-making firm at 144 Cuyahoga Akron, and living with an aunt and uncle. Jail records said Hendree "didn't appear to be a violent individual," Clarence Clarke, chairman of the Ohio Parole Board, said. That is why prison officials and program doctors had recommended him for parole, Clark said. RUFUS THOMAS, assistant di FBI studies tapes in extortion ease Pumpkin loan Jason Mattingly, 8, signs a bank loan agreement in Bellevue, that will allow him and his fellow third graders to go into the pumpkin business.
The class will pay 82 cents interest on the $100, 2-week loan. OP). agent fired four shots, reportedly from a pistol, three of them striking Hendree. Hendree was pronounced dead on arrival at Barberton Citizens Hospital at 10:30 p.m. No weapon of any kind belonging to Hendree was found in the car or on his body.
About 2 a.m. Wednesday, FBI agents went to the home of Mrs. Walton on Fifth Avenue on Akron's east side to question her and to confiscate some of Hendree's possessions, including his wallet, a gold jacket and papers from his room. AFTER EXPLAINING a few details of the shooting to her, agents asked to see recent copies of the Beacon Journal, and asked if Hen dree had clipped anything from them. Mrs.
Walton said she knew of no clippings. The agents also examined her most recent telephone bill to see if Hendree had made long-distance phone calls. There were none. The agents also asked if Mrs. Walton had heard of anyone named Joe Bob.
She said she hadn't. In a later interview with Mrs. Virginia Rogers, Hendree's mother, one agent asked whether she had ever heard her son mimic another person's voice. She said she hadn't. Mrs.
Walton said her nephew's spirits had been low when he first arrived in Akron, but they had picked up considerably after finding a job a few weeks ago. "He was excited about getting that job," she said, "and he was doing well." Siamese twin PHILADELPHIA (JP) A month-old Siamese twin, clinging to life after a rare operation that claimed the life of her sister, is making medical history. The twin remains critical at Children's Hospital, where physicians separated her and her sister Tuesday. "No twin such as this has ever survived more than 14 hours," said Dr. C.
Everett Koop, the chief surgeon. THE twins, whose identities were withheld at the request of their JV MMIT FALL JWMGjr ly whose daughter was reportedly abducted five weeks ago. He threatened an FBI agent posing as a member of the family, and another agent, hiding on the floor in the back of the car they were in, fatally shot Hendree, the FBI said. As in the earlier robberies, the road was dark. And the weapon he said he had was nonexistent, the FBI said.
HENDREE was 20 and on furlough from the Army in 1961 when he robbed a taxi driver of $17.50, reportedly using a broken windshield wiper for a knifelike weapon. He was convicted of armed robbery and sent to the Mansfield Reformatory. A year later he was free on parole. In February 1964, Hendree was convicted of the armed robbery of four other taxi drivers and sentenced to the Ohio Penitentiary for 40 years. sounding like Joe Bob.
During that call, the arrangements were made for a Tuesday night meeting. On Tuesday morning, Hendree left his Rosyln Avenue home about 5:45 a.m., to walk to work. On Sept. 20, Hendree had begun work at Gojo Industries on Cuyahoga Street and his aunt, with whom he was living, said he liked to walk to work. Hendree worked in the maintenance department.
ABOUT 5 P.M., Hendree arrived home, as usual, his aunt said, and an hour later, he and his aunt, Mrs. Louise Walton, left to visit Mrs. Walton's mother, and help her fix her furnace. While they were there, Mrs. Walton said she sent Hendree down the street to purchase a chair at a garage sale.
Hendree and his aunt then returned to the Walton home about 7 p.m. About 45 minutes later, Hendree said he was going to walk to a drugstore on Copley Road to purchase a money order. But about 8 p.m., Mrs. Walton said her nephew called to say he had been unable to purchase one at the drugstore. It was her last conversation with him.
"I don't know what he wanted the money order for," Mrs. Walton said. "But he told me the money order had to be mailed that day, and so he was going to keep looking until he found one." BETWEEN 9:30 and 10 p.m. Tuesday, Hendree wandered into the Elbow Grill, 274 S. Main St.
The bartender said he just walked through with a "blank stare on his face" and, after using the rest-room, walked out. About 10 p.m., an FBI agent, posing as a member of the Horan family, picked up Hendree along a street somewhere in South Akron. This was done according to the schedule which had been arranged during the Monday night telephone call. Another FBI agent was hidden on the floor of the car, behind the front seat. The driver of the car was believed to have been equipped with a transmitter.
FBI agents in other cars, following the car Hendree rode in, listened to and tape recorded the conversation as Hendree directed the driver through a long, indirect route to the Snyder Avenue area of Barberton, where the shooting occurred. THE CAR WAS believed to be equipped with a signaling device which was being tracked by an airplane, as a precaution, in case the suspect's car went on the expressway and the trailing cars had to drop back to avoid being spotted. Hendree reportedly had told the agents Mrs. Dodd was in a Volkswagen van with West Virginia license plates, along with a man with long, straggly hair, two small girls and a small boy. But when the car carrying Hendree and the two agents arrived in the 100 block of Snyder Avenue, there was no van.
The FBI has not located the van and does not know if it exists. Then, about 10:15 p.m., "all hell broke loose," according to what Mrs. Walton said an FBI agent later told her. Hendree was sitting in the front seat of the car and had told the driver he had a .357 magnum pistol in his right pocket. He told the driver he was going to blow his head off if the driver didn't give him the money, according to an FBI statement.
THE FBI AGENTS had brought a packet with them, containing real and counterfeit money. The FBI said Hendree, with his hand still in his pocket, placed the alleged weapon against the driver's head. After hearing the threat, the FBI said the agent in the rear seat identified himself and ordered Hendree to drop his gun. When Hendree didn't move, the agent shot him, the FBI said. The Beacon Journal learned the Contracts awarded LONDON OP) The British Aerospace company has won two major contracts totaling more than $23 million for work on a giant American telescope that will probe deep space and possibly tell scientists what life was like billions of years ago.
making history parents, were born Sept. 15 at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, N. with a combined weight of 8 pounds, 10 ounces. They were born facing each other, joined from below the collar bone to the navel and sharing a six-chambered heart that could support only one life. "Joined together both twins would have died," Koop said.
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The West Virginia voice identified himself as that of "Joe Bob." The voice believed to have been that of a black man was not identified by name. At one time, sources said, Joe Bob told the Horans he would "send a nigg*r" to meet Horan in an Akron park and lead him to Joe Bob. After receiving $10,000, Joe Bob was to tell Horan the whereabouts of his daughter, sources said. Joe Bob told the Horans to place an advertisem*nt in the "Special Bulletins" column of the Beacon Journal's classified section an advertisem*nt that would indicate the Horans had the $10,000 and were ready to meet that night. The time of the contact apparently was worked out in advance.
ON OCT. 3, the Beacon Journal published a three-line classified ad that read: "MARGIE PLEASE COME HOME WE LOVE YOU." That was the signal that the Horans were ready. That night, a black man approached the area where Horan was sitting on a park bench, sources said, but he left without contacting Horan. The Horans, fearing that those they believed to be Margaret's abductors had been scared off, ran more classified ads in the Beacon Journal last weekend to try to reestablish contact. They received another call and a meeting was set up Tuesday night to pick up the $10,000, sources said.
This meeting was the one that led to the encounter between Hendree and the FBI agents, sources said. THE BEACON JOURNAL has learned that these events preceded the shooting death of Hendree: On Sept. 25, the man calling himself Joe Bob told the Horans on the phone that he had their daughter hidden in a cabin in West Virginia, near a place he identified as "Four Points." He also said Mrs. Dodd was being held by a friend of his named Peter, and by Peter's wife. There were several calls made that week, sources said.
Although the caller had been referring to Mrs. Dodd as "Margaret," he called her "Margie" at one point. That was Mrs. Dodd's nickname. Horan asked the caller for a description of his daughter's clothing and, in addition to some general details, the caller said she was wearing "funny shoes." An FBI check with West Virginia authorities determined that Mrs.
Dodd owned a pair of shoes with high cork soles. THESE DETAILS convinced the family the caller may have been involved in the kidnaping. Joe Bob had arranged that after the Horans got the money they would run an ad in the Beacon Journal as a signal. Horan apparently had been told in advance to go to Perkins Square Park at Buch-tel and Bowery streets to wait for a black man to approach him and ask for $20. Horan was to give the man the money and the man would then take Horan to meet Joe Bob.
At that meeting, Horan was to-give Joe Bob $10,000 and Joe Bob would tell Horan where he could find his daughter. In other phone calls before the Oct. 3 meeting, the caller had told the Horans he was arranging to have their daughter brought from West Virginia to the Akron area. While Horan waited on a park bench, a black man appeared in the park, walked around for 15 or 20 minutes, and left, without speaking. The FBI, which had staked out the park, called off its operation about an hour later.
During the next week, the Horan family received no calls. ON THE FOLLOWING Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 8 and 9, the family placed another ad in the Beacon Journal, in an effort to make contact with the telephone caller. "JOE BOB please call. We miss Margie," the ad read.
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