Two-part article with the first part about crime prevention methods in Westport through neighborhood committees, one led by "Bob Berdella, organizer of the block captain system," with the second part of the article about preventing street walking by prostitutes in the area.
House History, 4305 Campbell, Kansas City, Missouri
Collection of clippings and research by Fred Lee about the 4305 Campbell Street residence located in the Central Hyde Park neighborhood known as "Sunny Slope." History of the residence and its surrounding neighborhood, with notable past residents or neighbors such as Jean Harlow, Bobby Greenlease, Jr., and Bob Berdella.
What a great find @LOLFIELDANDLOVE It’s incredible Berdella was quoted multiple times talking about crime prevention and calling the police if you see suspicious activity. Mind boggling. A true killer “Werewolf” in sheep’s clothing. Also interesting is the fact that he loved to cook for public events or for potlucks at the Westport Market. Detectives said his house was rancid with dog excrement and filth everywhere. Days old Turkey carcass on the stove when they entered the home. What else could have been in those dishes? Obvious ideas come to mind.
A collection of photocopied newspaper articles, primarily from the Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times, detailing the criminal activities of Robert A. Berdella and the subsequent investigation of those crimes. In April of 1988, a twenty-two-year old man escaped from a house at 4315 Charlotte in midtown Kansas City wearing only a dog collar. He told police he had been held captive and tortured by the owner of the house, Berdella. This led police to investigate the scene, where they found instruments of torture and records documenting what had been done to victims.
1988/1993
Newspaper Articles
Berdella: The Unanswered Questions
Photos and biographical article about Robert Andrew Berdella or Bob Berdella (ca. 1949-1992), a serial murderer in the 1980s, residing in the Central Hyde Park neighborhood at 4315 Charlotte Street (with his former house torn down in 1993). Description of his career as an antiques dealer and supposed witchcraft practicer with a booth at the Westport Flea Market at 817 Westport Road called "Bob's Bizarre Bazaar," convicted in 1988 of multiple murders of local young men, etc.
1990-01-10
Newspaper Article
The Hyde Park Festival
Article reviewing homes on the Hyde Park Festival tour, with illustrations, addresses, and names of owners contributing to the festival efforts, including the later convicted murderer Bob Berdella.
"A self-proclaimed prophet, his wife and son and three other followers were sought Friday in the reportedly sacrificial slayings of an Ohio family of five who belonged to the man's breakaway religious sect, authorities said."
"The Avery family was believed to be part of Lundgren's sect, which church officials said broke away in 1988 from a Kirtland congregation of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
(maybe there was some other cult but I don't have any ideas)
Bizarre events surrounding the disappearance of Randy Leach
¢ Rumors of satanic cult activity in southern Leavenworth County already were circulating among locals before Randy's disappearance. Word that the party site at the Erwin farm had quickly been cleaned helps fuel such rumors, including speculation that Randy had been ritually slaughtered there by devil worshipers who whisked away the evidence of their mayhem.
¢ The Erwin house burns to the ground "not that long after'' Randy disappeared, said Leavenworth County Sheriff Herb Nye.
¢ In 1988, a man told police he had been abducted by satanists and held captive for two weeks in a cave to the east near Kansas City, but not far from Linwood. The man said his abductors threatened to cut off his left arm and had shown him the corpse of a man hanging in the cave. The corpse perhaps was Randy. It was some time before police searched the cave. No bodies were found. They concluded the man was a drug user who hallucinated the experience. The cave has since been bulldozed at the request of the sheriff, says Randy's dad. The sheriff denies this.
(...)
¢ A Topeka man who volunteered to help the Leaches search for their son was subsequently found shot to death along with his wife. Topeka police ruled it a murder-suicide.
The situation with kids being handed over by courts to Berdella reminded me of this article About kids in Berlin openly/purposefully/officially placed by courts with pedophiles as an experiment in child abuse. These pedophiles also used them in child pornography. God knows what else.
And this case where a woman in bumf*ck Alabama (but interestingly near the borders of both Florida and Georgia) already convicted of fraud, owned a lab which contracted for the state. She got busted falsifying drug and paternity tests which resulted in children being taken from their parents.
According to one of the parents/victims who decided to investigate, the lab address:
the address she had on the paperwork belonged to an aerospace building.
Fort Rucker, the US Army Aviation military base is only 20 minutes away.
About the millionaire who swooped in, bought the house and estate also bulldozed it quickly and divided the property between the neighbors. I would just point out that David Pickton, the obvious ringleader and older brother of Robert Pickton who took the fall for all the murders in Vancouver, he is the CEO of a contractor company that provides bulldozers and stuff like that to construction sites. I am not implying a link between the two, just pointing out that there is no shortage of specialist Cultists out there.
And that reminds me - the abandoned house where Israel Keyes took and killed a married couple and dumped their bodies in the basement was bulldozed by the owners with the bodies rotting inside. It smelled so bad, they workers didn't go inside, but they did manage to cart everything to the dump and the couples bodies were never found.
Yeah, the CAVDEF page has a bunch of info I've collected about Bob Berdella, some of which (the info about local political figures like Mayor Richard Berkeley and Howard Haynes) is from a Kansas City source who I'm currently corresponding with. There is some developing information about a Franklin scandal connection, because Berdella was connected to group homes in his neighborhood and multiple boys from a (currently unknown) Kansas City group home accused Larry King of abuse in 1988. We actually know that the same Kansas City detective Lynn Cunningham who told Nebrask authorities about Larry King was on the Berdella case, investigating satanism leads as per Troy Cole's book. Just wanted to let everyone know also that the cavdef.org domain is safely back and you won't have to use the IP address anymore, the Berdella page is here: http://cavdef.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Berdella
"Kansas City Star, "Berdella referred to ranch, victim alleges in civil lawsuit" by Lane Beauchamp, 1988/12/03 (pages 1c, 2c): "Robert A. Berdella threatened to send a man he held captive and sodomized to a ranch in Montana, where Berdella said he sent other young men, according to court papers filed Friday. [...] The ranch is mentioned in a civil lawsuit filed by the man who underwent four days of torture and sexual abuse inside Berdella's house earlier this year, thus prompting a police investigation into the Westport merchant. [...] The sodomy victim contended in a motion filed Friday that he had earlier agreed not to sue Berdella because he feared Berdella's associates in Kansas City might inflict the same kind of torture on him. The motion said Berdella repeatedly told the man that he had friends in town who enjoyed the “same perverse pleasures that defendant Berdella enjoyed.” If the man failed to cooperate, Berdella said, he would “call these friends and they would come to the house and help torture” the man, according to the court papers. [...] The mention of the Montana ranch and Berdella's friends were included in a response to Berdella's request to throw out the civil lawsuit.""
"Let me backtrack a moment. In 1960 Allen Ginsberg became friends with Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary was an American psychologist born on October 22, 1920, in Springfield, Massachusetts—meaning he’d been born near Herbert Huncke, Jack Kerouac, and John Clellon Holmes a little after Huncke was born and a little before Kerouac and Holmes were born. At Harvard University—which William S. Burroughs also attended—Leary conducted experiments involving psychedelic drugs for the Harvard Psilocybin Project.
Oh stop. I have my blog in polish so I've done research.
Gysin - Yes, he is connected to Tangier and some people. I forgot about "The process". If I remember correctly inside this book are some suggestions. Nothing explicit but new connections.
Second photo - who is this. "One Eye Symbolism" - too vague, I never pursue things like that.
@Getting The Fear SERIOUSLY!Awesome is an understatement-Everytime I get on here I'm so mindblown at the research you two do!I'm still trying to figure out this GAMMA thing!Haven't even scratched half the surface!You two are rockstars
"Berdella and Burroughs both had a history of arrest and convictions for drug dealing, and connections to gay male junkie prostitutes.William Burroughs lived in Lawrence, Kansas, a thirty minute drive away from Robert Berdella, in Kansas City"
(William S. Burroughs - occult connected writer, homo, he knew pedos like Allen Ginsberg, he shot in head his wife in Mexico in very suspicious circumstances, suspected CIA killer, he attended to Scientology seminar in London in 60's - same seminar that was attended by Robert De Grimston and Mary Ann McLean - it is very obscure fact, but it is true.)
"Some things stand about this Delbert Dunmire guy to me. First, he was military/air force, with connections that got his 50 -year sentence for armed robbery commuted after just two years in jail. Bank robbery is a federal offense. [quote] Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional.In the United States, reduction of a sentence is handled by an executive head of government and is normally linked to prisoners' good behavior.[1] The President of the United States solely holds the power to commute federal sentences[2] while commutations of state charges are handled by the governor's office.[3][quote] Then, only six years later, Delbert Dunmire is suddenly an aeronautical engineer who owns a machine shop manufacturing specialty parts for Bendix Corporation?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendix_CorporationSince the 1950s Bendix and its successors have managed Department of Energy (DOE) facilities in Kansas City, Missouri and Albuquerque, New Mexico which procured non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons, and during the 1960s the company made ground and airborne telecommunications systems for NASA, including the ST-124-M3 inertial platform used in the Saturn V Instrument Unit.Quote:
Dunmire went to the University of Kansas, which is in Lawrence, Kansas, the same city that William Burroughs moved to. He and his fiancee had this gigantic lavish engagement/wedding party in Kansas City in 1986, dressed as clowns, the same time frame that the Berdella black mass murders were going on:
The police then arrested Mr. Berdella at his shop and searched his house, where, besides the skull of Mr. Sheldon, they found the pictures, the torture journal, pornographic magazines and an extensive collection of primitive art as well as a recording of a satanic ritual, a black mass. They then turned their attention to the yard, where excavation produced the skull of Mr. Pearson. As the investigation continued, a side of Mr. Berdella began to emerge that neither his neighbors here nor others back in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, had known. At various times before opening the Bazaar Bizarre, he also worked as a cook in several clubs, including two of the city's most exclusive, the University Club and the Carriage Club."
(probably bullshit, maybe some of this is somewhat true)
"Restless and disappointed in himself, Dunmire joined the Air Force and became a fighter pilot. He also ran up $5,000 in gambling debts, which led, he says, to the biggest mistake of his life. On an October day in 1958, Dunmire left Schilling Air Force Base in Kansas, drove to nearby Abilene and robbed a bank of $2,461. Twenty-two minutes later he was arrested, and in a matter of days he was sentenced to 50 years.
“I was humiliated,” says Dunmire, who considered suicide while jailed. Watching fellow convicts win release one year only to return to prison the next, he says, “was devastating,” and this set him on the road to self-improvement. He read a lot and made friends with parole officers, which paid off when his sentence was commuted in 1960. After studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Kansas, he opened a machine shop in his Kansas City garage in 1966, making small parts for Bendix, Bell Labs and eventually TWA and other airlines."
"studying aeronautical engineering" - after prison when he had poker debts
"Robert Berdella-the curio merchant, art collector and confessed murderer- needed cash.
Last summer he pleaded guilty to the slaying of Larry Pearson, a 20-year- old boarder he had taken in. Berdella, 40, was sentenced to life in prison, and he still faced charges in a second murder of another young man whose skull police allegedly found inside Berdella`s buff-colored house on Charlotte Street here.
Naturally, Berdella`s legal expenses were mounting every day, even as he languished in the Jackson County (Mo.) Jail. For the last several weeks, he has sued, engineered, manipulated, cajoled and hired people to help him stage a series of auctions offering his mind-boggling accumulation of about 2,000 rare antiquities, ordinary household goods and an uncountable assortment of egregious junk."
"In his nearby neighborhood, Hyde Park, Berdella led a campaign to rid the area of street crime. As a former chef at private clubs, he invariably brought the best covered dishes to the block parties."
"Prosecutors seized the trove under a state law called the Criminal Activity Forfeiture Act. Sharlie Pender, Berdella`s lawyer, persuaded a judge to release Berdella`s formidable collection, arguing it had been seized before any wrongdoing had been proven or confessed and that the goods were not connected with the commission of a crime.
Shortly after getting his stuff back, Berdella decided to sell his collection and appointed Pender to make the arrangements. Pender hired estate auctioneer Gary Ryther of suburban Excelsior Springs, and Ryther hired appraiser R. Bond Blackman. Berdella, meanwhile, conducted operations from jail, where apparently he had virtually unlimited access to a telephone."
"Auctioneer Ryther announced the auction site quietly, in a brochure discreetly advertised in publications read by serious collectors and dealers. Blackman was certain those people would be impressed. Berdella had been collecting since the mid-`60s, and the appraiser came upon Syro-Roman glass, ancient beads, Tibetan bronzes, Greco-Roman pottery, Indonesian puppets, African tribal costumes. . . ."
(Pretty rare, expensive stuff...)
"WHO`S THE BUYER?
By midmorning, everyone realized that one man seemed bent on acquiring almost everything still unsold. Of course! Local flamboyant millionaire-industrialist Del Dunmire stood near the back with his 9-month-old son in his arms and, nodding toward the podium from time to time, topped every bid.
A few outsiders seemed puzzled by the intrusion, but the Kansas City residents knew what was happening and they all knew his story. Dunmire, clad that day in brown leather vest, brown plaid shirt and scruffy jeans, once robbed a bank in Abilene. After his release from the Kansas State Penitentiary in 1960, Dunmire worked as a machinist and-with considerable help from kindly citizens-eventually put together Growth Industries Enterprises, a supplier of aftermarket replacement parts for the aviation industry."
"Occultist Josef Lubin, a Kansas City practitioner of the psychic arts, had been one of the first customers to arrive on that first Saturday and, on Sunday, one of the last to leave. Dressed all in black with a clipped beard, he looked upon the proceedings with a mixture of amusement and amazement.
''A publication-I`m not at liberty to disclose which one-assigned me to come here and see if they were selling anything that dealt with witchcraft and satanism,'' Lubin said. ''I haven`t found anything like that.'' "
"Bidding resumed on the following Saturday, as auctioneer Ryther disposed of inventory from Berdella`s store. But with hundreds of household items remaining to be sold, Ryther canceled the remaining auction day, explaining that a single individual, whom he wouldn`t name, was negotiating to buy the entire lot. A rumor circulated that the same anonymous person had been bidding on Berdella`s house. Speculation centered, of course, on Kansas City`s favorite millionaire."
"The pleadings today followed by only a few days Mr. Berdella's sale of the house where the slayings occurred to Growth Industries Inc., a concern owned by Delbert Dunmire, a prominent businessman in the area. The same business had negotiated the private purchase of many of Mr. Berdella's personal possessions, including art objects and items of his shop inventory."
The_Kansas_City_Star_Sun__Oct_23__1988
The_Kansas_City_Star_Tue__Dec_27__1988
4 part interview with Troy Cole. A lot of whitewashing but worth a listen for sure. I apologize if this was posted before.
Yeah ole bizarre bob
Crime Prevention in Westport
Two-part article with the first part about crime prevention methods in Westport through neighborhood committees, one led by "Bob Berdella, organizer of the block captain system," with the second part of the article about preventing street walking by prostitutes in the area.
1981-08
Magazine Article
House History, 4305 Campbell, Kansas City, Missouri
Collection of clippings and research by Fred Lee about the 4305 Campbell Street residence located in the Central Hyde Park neighborhood known as "Sunny Slope." History of the residence and its surrounding neighborhood, with notable past residents or neighbors such as Jean Harlow, Bobby Greenlease, Jr., and Bob Berdella.
Manuscript
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v1XVSeEcLYAMQnRuCvri5XULFa_wFT-d?usp=share_link
(Source: Kansas City Public Library)
Bob Berdella Murder Case
A collection of photocopied newspaper articles, primarily from the Kansas City Star and Kansas City Times, detailing the criminal activities of Robert A. Berdella and the subsequent investigation of those crimes. In April of 1988, a twenty-two-year old man escaped from a house at 4315 Charlotte in midtown Kansas City wearing only a dog collar. He told police he had been held captive and tortured by the owner of the house, Berdella. This led police to investigate the scene, where they found instruments of torture and records documenting what had been done to victims.
1988/1993
Newspaper Articles
Berdella: The Unanswered Questions
Photos and biographical article about Robert Andrew Berdella or Bob Berdella (ca. 1949-1992), a serial murderer in the 1980s, residing in the Central Hyde Park neighborhood at 4315 Charlotte Street (with his former house torn down in 1993). Description of his career as an antiques dealer and supposed witchcraft practicer with a booth at the Westport Flea Market at 817 Westport Road called "Bob's Bizarre Bazaar," convicted in 1988 of multiple murders of local young men, etc.
1990-01-10
Newspaper Article
The Hyde Park Festival
Article reviewing homes on the Hyde Park Festival tour, with illustrations, addresses, and names of owners contributing to the festival efforts, including the later convicted murderer Bob Berdella.
1980-05
Magazine Article
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aG1LjuhN2zsyqDIeXZ3ADuruO7-1fYaq?usp=share_link
(Source: Kansas City Public Library)
Tom Jackman, Troy Cole - Rites of Burial
Bryson = Christopher Bryson, victim who escaped
Tom Jackman, Troy Cole - Rites of Burial
(document related to Franklin scandal in Omaha)
https://ia802904.us.archive.org/17/items/JudianneDensenGerber_19901229/JudianneDensenGerber_19901229.pdf
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/01/05/Five-arrested-eight-sought-in-apparent-cult-slayings/2717631515600/
(1990)
"A self-proclaimed prophet, his wife and son and three other followers were sought Friday in the reportedly sacrificial slayings of an Ohio family of five who belonged to the man's breakaway religious sect, authorities said."
"The Avery family was believed to be part of Lundgren's sect, which church officials said broke away in 1988 from a Kirtland congregation of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
(maybe there was some other cult but I don't have any ideas)
The situation with kids being handed over by courts to Berdella reminded me of this article About kids in Berlin openly/purposefully/officially placed by courts with pedophiles as an experiment in child abuse. These pedophiles also used them in child pornography. God knows what else.
And this case where a woman in bumf*ck Alabama (but interestingly near the borders of both Florida and Georgia) already convicted of fraud, owned a lab which contracted for the state. She got busted falsifying drug and paternity tests which resulted in children being taken from their parents.
According to one of the parents/victims who decided to investigate, the lab address:
Fort Rucker, the US Army Aviation military base is only 20 minutes away.
About the millionaire who swooped in, bought the house and estate also bulldozed it quickly and divided the property between the neighbors. I would just point out that David Pickton, the obvious ringleader and older brother of Robert Pickton who took the fall for all the murders in Vancouver, he is the CEO of a contractor company that provides bulldozers and stuff like that to construction sites. I am not implying a link between the two, just pointing out that there is no shortage of specialist Cultists out there.
Yeah, the CAVDEF page has a bunch of info I've collected about Bob Berdella, some of which (the info about local political figures like Mayor Richard Berkeley and Howard Haynes) is from a Kansas City source who I'm currently corresponding with. There is some developing information about a Franklin scandal connection, because Berdella was connected to group homes in his neighborhood and multiple boys from a (currently unknown) Kansas City group home accused Larry King of abuse in 1988. We actually know that the same Kansas City detective Lynn Cunningham who told Nebrask authorities about Larry King was on the Berdella case, investigating satanism leads as per Troy Cole's book. Just wanted to let everyone know also that the cavdef.org domain is safely back and you won't have to use the IP address anymore, the Berdella page is here: http://cavdef.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Berdella
CAVDEF info!
http://45.55.65.82/w/index.php?title=Bob_Berdella
"Kansas City Star, "Berdella referred to ranch, victim alleges in civil lawsuit" by Lane Beauchamp, 1988/12/03 (pages 1c, 2c): "Robert A. Berdella threatened to send a man he held captive and sodomized to a ranch in Montana, where Berdella said he sent other young men, according to court papers filed Friday. [...] The ranch is mentioned in a civil lawsuit filed by the man who underwent four days of torture and sexual abuse inside Berdella's house earlier this year, thus prompting a police investigation into the Westport merchant. [...] The sodomy victim contended in a motion filed Friday that he had earlier agreed not to sue Berdella because he feared Berdella's associates in Kansas City might inflict the same kind of torture on him. The motion said Berdella repeatedly told the man that he had friends in town who enjoyed the “same perverse pleasures that defendant Berdella enjoyed.” If the man failed to cooperate, Berdella said, he would “call these friends and they would come to the house and help torture” the man, according to the court papers. [...] The mention of the Montana ranch and Berdella's friends were included in a response to Berdella's request to throw out the civil lawsuit.""
Burroughs Corporation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_Corporation
military contractor, similar profile to Bendix, founded by grandpa of William S. Burroughs
https://stephanienikolopoulos.com/2014/07/31/allen-ginsberg-timothy-leary-and-the-cia/
"Let me backtrack a moment. In 1960 Allen Ginsberg became friends with Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary was an American psychologist born on October 22, 1920, in Springfield, Massachusetts—meaning he’d been born near Herbert Huncke, Jack Kerouac, and John Clellon Holmes a little after Huncke was born and a little before Kerouac and Holmes were born. At Harvard University—which William S. Burroughs also attended—Leary conducted experiments involving psychedelic drugs for the Harvard Psilocybin Project.
http://letsrollforums.com//kurt-cobain-mind-control-t17443p15.html?s=08a8f79ee9dea54263c1a963d8684940&
(Interesting bit from dead forum:)
"Berdella and Burroughs both had a history of arrest and convictions for drug dealing, and connections to gay male junkie prostitutes. William Burroughs lived in Lawrence, Kansas, a thirty minute drive away from Robert Berdella, in Kansas City"
(William S. Burroughs - occult connected writer, homo, he knew pedos like Allen Ginsberg, he shot in head his wife in Mexico in very suspicious circumstances, suspected CIA killer, he attended to Scientology seminar in London in 60's - same seminar that was attended by Robert De Grimston and Mary Ann McLean - it is very obscure fact, but it is true.)
"Some things stand about this Delbert Dunmire guy to me. First, he was military/air force, with connections that got his 50 -year sentence for armed robbery commuted after just two years in jail. Bank robbery is a federal offense. [quote] Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. In the United States, reduction of a sentence is handled by an executive head of government and is normally linked to prisoners' good behavior.[1] The President of the United States solely holds the power to commute federal sentences[2] while commutations of state charges are handled by the governor's office.[3][quote] Then, only six years later, Delbert Dunmire is suddenly an aeronautical engineer who owns a machine shop manufacturing specialty parts for Bendix Corporation?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendix_Corporation Since the 1950s Bendix and its successors have managed Department of Energy (DOE) facilities in Kansas City, Missouri and Albuquerque, New Mexico which procured non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons, and during the 1960s the company made ground and airborne telecommunications systems for NASA, including the ST-124-M3 inertial platform used in the Saturn V Instrument Unit.Quote:
Dunmire went to the University of Kansas, which is in Lawrence, Kansas, the same city that William Burroughs moved to. He and his fiancee had this gigantic lavish engagement/wedding party in Kansas City in 1986, dressed as clowns, the same time frame that the Berdella black mass murders were going on:
The police then arrested Mr. Berdella at his shop and searched his house, where, besides the skull of Mr. Sheldon, they found the pictures, the torture journal, pornographic magazines and an extensive collection of primitive art as well as a recording of a satanic ritual, a black mass. They then turned their attention to the yard, where excavation produced the skull of Mr. Pearson. As the investigation continued, a side of Mr. Berdella began to emerge that neither his neighbors here nor others back in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, had known. At various times before opening the Bazaar Bizarre, he also worked as a cook in several clubs, including two of the city's most exclusive, the University Club and the Carriage Club."
(probably bullshit, maybe some of this is somewhat true)
Del Dunmire:
https://people.com/archive/ex-bank-thief-delbert-dunmire-busts-loose-with-a-classy-high-school-reunion-in-the-bahamas-vol-28-no-9/
"Restless and disappointed in himself, Dunmire joined the Air Force and became a fighter pilot. He also ran up $5,000 in gambling debts, which led, he says, to the biggest mistake of his life. On an October day in 1958, Dunmire left Schilling Air Force Base in Kansas, drove to nearby Abilene and robbed a bank of $2,461. Twenty-two minutes later he was arrested, and in a matter of days he was sentenced to 50 years.
“I was humiliated,” says Dunmire, who considered suicide while jailed. Watching fellow convicts win release one year only to return to prison the next, he says, “was devastating,” and this set him on the road to self-improvement. He read a lot and made friends with parole officers, which paid off when his sentence was commuted in 1960. After studying aeronautical engineering at the University of Kansas, he opened a machine shop in his Kansas City garage in 1966, making small parts for Bendix, Bell Labs and eventually TWA and other airlines."
"studying aeronautical engineering" - after prison when he had poker debts
Bendix and Bell Labs - military contractors
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1988-12-07-8802220628-story.html
"Robert Berdella-the curio merchant, art collector and confessed murderer- needed cash.
Last summer he pleaded guilty to the slaying of Larry Pearson, a 20-year- old boarder he had taken in. Berdella, 40, was sentenced to life in prison, and he still faced charges in a second murder of another young man whose skull police allegedly found inside Berdella`s buff-colored house on Charlotte Street here.
Naturally, Berdella`s legal expenses were mounting every day, even as he languished in the Jackson County (Mo.) Jail. For the last several weeks, he has sued, engineered, manipulated, cajoled and hired people to help him stage a series of auctions offering his mind-boggling accumulation of about 2,000 rare antiquities, ordinary household goods and an uncountable assortment of egregious junk."
"In his nearby neighborhood, Hyde Park, Berdella led a campaign to rid the area of street crime. As a former chef at private clubs, he invariably brought the best covered dishes to the block parties."
"Prosecutors seized the trove under a state law called the Criminal Activity Forfeiture Act. Sharlie Pender, Berdella`s lawyer, persuaded a judge to release Berdella`s formidable collection, arguing it had been seized before any wrongdoing had been proven or confessed and that the goods were not connected with the commission of a crime.
Shortly after getting his stuff back, Berdella decided to sell his collection and appointed Pender to make the arrangements. Pender hired estate auctioneer Gary Ryther of suburban Excelsior Springs, and Ryther hired appraiser R. Bond Blackman. Berdella, meanwhile, conducted operations from jail, where apparently he had virtually unlimited access to a telephone."
"Auctioneer Ryther announced the auction site quietly, in a brochure discreetly advertised in publications read by serious collectors and dealers. Blackman was certain those people would be impressed. Berdella had been collecting since the mid-`60s, and the appraiser came upon Syro-Roman glass, ancient beads, Tibetan bronzes, Greco-Roman pottery, Indonesian puppets, African tribal costumes. . . ."
(Pretty rare, expensive stuff...)
"WHO`S THE BUYER?
By midmorning, everyone realized that one man seemed bent on acquiring almost everything still unsold. Of course! Local flamboyant millionaire-industrialist Del Dunmire stood near the back with his 9-month-old son in his arms and, nodding toward the podium from time to time, topped every bid.
A few outsiders seemed puzzled by the intrusion, but the Kansas City residents knew what was happening and they all knew his story. Dunmire, clad that day in brown leather vest, brown plaid shirt and scruffy jeans, once robbed a bank in Abilene. After his release from the Kansas State Penitentiary in 1960, Dunmire worked as a machinist and-with considerable help from kindly citizens-eventually put together Growth Industries Enterprises, a supplier of aftermarket replacement parts for the aviation industry."
"Occultist Josef Lubin, a Kansas City practitioner of the psychic arts, had been one of the first customers to arrive on that first Saturday and, on Sunday, one of the last to leave. Dressed all in black with a clipped beard, he looked upon the proceedings with a mixture of amusement and amazement.
''A publication-I`m not at liberty to disclose which one-assigned me to come here and see if they were selling anything that dealt with witchcraft and satanism,'' Lubin said. ''I haven`t found anything like that.'' "
"Bidding resumed on the following Saturday, as auctioneer Ryther disposed of inventory from Berdella`s store. But with hundreds of household items remaining to be sold, Ryther canceled the remaining auction day, explaining that a single individual, whom he wouldn`t name, was negotiating to buy the entire lot. A rumor circulated that the same anonymous person had been bidding on Berdella`s house. Speculation centered, of course, on Kansas City`s favorite millionaire."
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/20/us/missourian-admits-murders-of-5-men.html
"The pleadings today followed by only a few days Mr. Berdella's sale of the house where the slayings occurred to Growth Industries Inc., a concern owned by Delbert Dunmire, a prominent businessman in the area. The same business had negotiated the private purchase of many of Mr. Berdella's personal possessions, including art objects and items of his shop inventory."