Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The bumb who snatch Ling kidnappers hed Sinatra’s son
Messed up three attempts.. had to go back to scene for wigs.. and turned down a $1million ransom, saying they needed much less
Just two weeks after President John F Kennedy’s assassination rocked the world, another famous American was caught up in his own terrifying drama… as Frank Sinatra’s only son was abducted at gunpoint.
On December 8, 1963, 19-year-old Frank Jr had been snatched from a California motel, drugged and blindfolded and driven off in the back of a Chevrolet.
He was held for 54 hours by a group of men who demanded a $240,000 ransom, while baiting his father through a series of calls from gas station pay phones.
When their demands were met and Junior was finally released, the world breathed a sigh of relief that another tragedy had not befallen a much-loved character.
Junior said: “I was scared… I was under nervous tension. The only thing I could do was hope for the best.”
But, according to a new podcast, it was not long before the kidnappers were revealed as hapless amateurs whose simple mistakes, including leaving behind wigs, fake moustaches and a gun in the hotel room, quickly led the police to them.
They even turned down a million dollar ransom offer, insisting they did not need so much.
The cash was retrieved and the trial of the three kidnappers was front page news around the world.
Mastermind Barry Keenan, 23, was sentenced to life plus 75 years. But he was released after four and a half on the grounds that he was legally insane at the time of the crime.
And now, aged 80, he has helped retell one of the most infamous celebrity kidnappings in the 10-part podcast, The Grand Scheme: Snatching Sinatra, with ER actor John Stamos.
Explaining how he managed to speak with Keenan, Stamos said he was approached by Dean Torrence of the 60s surf-rock duo Jan and Dean.
The star told him: “My best friend kidnapped Frank Sinatra Jr in the 60s, and I have this manuscript that he wrote in jail.”
Keenan, who had been a high school friend of Sinatra’s older daughter Nancy, was all set to make millions legitimately not long before he hatched the kidnap plan.
At 21, he was youngest member of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange, beginning a lucrative career in securities and owning two cars and boats.
But everything changed following a car accident, when he became penniless and addicted to painkillers.
He worked out that he needed $240,000 to get out of the mess he was in.
Keenan claims mental health problems ran in his family and said he became convinced God had given him the plan to kidnap the child of a famous person and even spoke to him through his car radio. He says: “God told me that kidnapping was the only way of making that kind of money.
“If I could just do one big hit, that would cure everything.”
Keenan, later diagnosed as schizophrenic, briefly entertained the idea of kidnapping Bob Hope’s son Tony, but because the star was active entertaining the troops he decided that wouldn’t be “very American”.
He convinced himself snatching Frank Jr was an act of good will which would bring the estranged Sinatra family back together.
He says: “I decided upon Junior because Frank Sr was tough and I had friends whose parents were in PODCAST showbusines, and I knew Frank always got his way. It wouldn’t be morally wrong to put him through a few hours of grief worrying about his son.”
Keenan reveals he spent six months planning the operation, even spending hours in the library reading up about FBI tactics.
And he tells how along with high school friend Joe Amsler and his mother’s former boyfriend John Irwin, they made three failed attempts to nab their in Phoenix, Arizona, w was playing with his nearby guesthouse, K ransom call from the
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r victim. The first was where Frank Sinatra Jr s band. Holed up at a Keenan practised the ir room. ld not use the same e the calls on, so called to install another line. en the installer turned e on, it never occurred ld take the phone that e with them. Our the phone.” listed a rich girlfriend, s plot. d her what I was doing. ll the relationship but wanted to be involved.” ap attempt had to be same night as JFK was s, Texas. But the group tried again a few weeks later after Frank Jr had returned to playing concerts. They lay in wait at a laundry room beneath his Los Angeles apartment.
Keenan says: “Just as we were about to walk in, a neighbour came out and asked us what we were doing. We said we were making a delivery. She told us we had better get out of there as she had called the cops. So that was the LA attempt failed.”
Days later, Keenan, Amsler and Irwin travelled to Lake Tahoe, in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, where Frank Jr was playing a show. The group blew £1,800 at the casino opposite the star’s motel.
Keenan says: “Joe and I gambled all of Pam’s money. We were completely broke and down to six cents between us.”
Clutching a wine box, he knocked on
Frank Jr’s door pretending to be room service and was let in. Keenan recalls: “I reached into my coat pocket to pull out my gun, but the hammer got stuck in my pocket. I said OK, this is a robbery, where’s your wallet?” Jon Foss, a trumpet player from Frank Jr’s band was also in the room. The group tied him up and blindfolded him.
But in the commotion Keenan mistakenly gave away Joe’s name – the first of a series of blunders.
After taking Frank Jr to the getaway car, Keenan realised he had left his gun in the room, so went back for it.
After plying their victim with sleeping pills and booze, they drove 12 hours non-stop through a blizzard to a safehouse in LA. Keenan adds: “They started playing Strangers in the Night on the radio. How amazing. Here we are, three strangers.” Things started going from bad to worse as Frank Jr refused to hand over his father’s number for the gang to make the ransom call.
And within minutes, Foss had freed himself and called the police, who brought in the FBI.
The kidnappers were even stopped at one of the hastily set-up roadblocks but managed to get through after telling officers their car had already been searched.
But as soon as they had made it to the safehouse, Keenan realised he had forgotten to check out of their casino hotel room, where a £1,089 bill had been run up. The gang even left behind their disguises, including wigs and fake moustaches – which they had forgotten to wear to carry out the abduction.
Keenan and Pam drove back to Lake Tahoe. He says: “There was debt to the casino which had to be paid in order not to leave a trail of evidence behind for the FBI.
“As I got in the elevator, two FBI agents got in behind me. I said good morning and they said good morning.”
All his stuff was as he had left it in the room. He and Pam tried in vain to make love. Keenan adds: “She said, ‘We’re in the middle of a kidnapping, it’s OK.’”
The gang’s next blunder came the following day when they called Frank Sr, who was camped at a hotel with the FBI, and made their ransom demand.
Irwin arranged to call a nearby gas station phone to speak to the singer.
Sinatra answered, yelling: “I’ll give you a million dollars if you let my son go.” But Irwin replied: “Well, we don’t need a million dollars.” He asked for $240,000 instead.
Concluding, correctly, the gang were not seasoned pros, the police advised the Sinatra family to follow through on the ransom demand and pay the money, as it would likely lead them to the culprits.
The FBI photographed the money being dropped off at a petrol station in Sepulvedo.
Keenan, who had gone with Amsler to pick up the cash, says: “All of a sudden I saw three taxi cabs roll up. There were two men in the front of one, wearing fedora hats, which is kind of the uniform of FBI agents.”
The FBI surrounded him but Keenan picked up the suitcase and tossed it into his car. He adds: “I was counting on my research that the FBI wasn’t going to do anything unless they knew where the victim was. We were just staring each other down.”
The plan had been to hold their captive longer, but rather than wait for the money to return, Irwin, who stayed at the safehouse, got nervous and let Frank Jr go.
It was only a matter of time before Keenan was caught, but not before he spent some of Sinatra’s cash. He says: “I considered giving myself up, but not before I’d done the Christmas shopping.” He and Amsler were nabbed hours later, with the entire ransom.
All three men were convicted of the kidnapping, despite theories alleging Frank Sr orchestrated it as a publicity stunt.
Keenan, who became a real estate developer, sold the rights to his story to Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures in 1998. But the movie was never made.
Frank Jr, who died in 2016 aged 72 – 18 years after his father – sued to stop the deal, arguing the gang should not profit from their crimes.
The podcast The Grand Scheme: Snatching Sinatra is available on Wondery+.
There were men in fedora hats, kind of the uniform of the FBI BARRY KEENAN ON THE MOMENT GAME WAS UP
Inevitably if you leave kids together for too long without a responsible adult, someone will get their head “flushed” down the loo.
A traumatised David Dodd in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, writes: “A couple of friends and I started at the local grammar school in the late 60s. We were warned as new boys we might get a ‘ducking’ by senior boys, taken into a toilet where your head would be pushed down into a toilet bowl and flushed.
“This only happened to first year boys on the first day of school and the last day before the summer holidays – the rest of the time you were safe.
“We all survived the first day but on the last day I was on my way to my first lesson in the afternoon, when I was captured. All the teachers knew this was a tradition and as long as there was no violence involved they turned a blind eye. Could you imagine if this happened today?”
My new BFF, Mary Gazzard, in Dudley, West Midlands, writes: “As an avid reader of your page, many of the school memories resonate. I quite enjoyed school dinners and I was made a table monitor. I would go into the dining hall, along with the other monitors, to grab a table and check it over before everyone arrived.
“It was fine if you were first sitting, but on the second sitting I always asked the dinner ladies for fresh water and glasses and checked the plates were clean. I was not particularly popular with them! The food was then brought to the table and I served it out. Some table monitors only gave meagre amounts to the others and kept the rest for themselves.
“One day disaster struck when the child who fetched the food put the tray down on the opposite side of the table and I tried to drag it round with one finger. This resulted in the tin of hot stew sliding off the tray and tipping its contents over me and into my satchel. We had to persuade the dinner ladies to find us some more food.
“I also became a school librarian because you could stay in during break and lunchtime, avoiding the playground bullies!”
■ What are your best – or worst – school days memories? Send them in by email to siobhan.mcnally@ mirror.co.uk