Murder of Bobby Greenlease

Murder of Bobby Greenlease
Bobby Greenlease and his father, 1953
Location	Lenexa, Kansas, U.S.
Date	September 28, 1953
Attack type	Child murder by shooting, child abduction
Weapon	.38 caliber snubnosed Smith & Wesson revolver
Victim	Robert Cosgrove "Bobby" Greenlease Jr., aged 6
Perpetrators	Carl Austin Hall Bonnie Emily Brown
Motive	Ransom
Verdict	Pleaded guilty
Convictions	Kidnapping (18 U.S.C. § 1201)
Burial	Forest Hill Calvary Cemetery
Sentence	Death

Robert Cosgrove Greenlease Jr. (February 3, 1947 – September 28, 1953) was a six-year-old from Kansas City, Missouri, United States, who was the victim of a kidnapping and homicide on September 28, 1953. His father, Robert Cosgrove Greenlease Sr., was a multi-millionaire auto dealer, and the demanded ransom payment was the largest in American history at the time.

Greenlease Jr.'s kidnappers, Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady, had no intention of returning him to his family, the child having been murdered before the ransom demand was even issued.^[1] Both perpetrators were sentenced to death and executed in Missouri's gas chamber in December 1953. Heady was the third woman ever to be executed by U.S. federal authorities.^[2]