Monday, Feb. 19, 1934

Sankey's Suicide

A one-man necktie party closed two major U. S. kidnapping cases last week. In his cell in the South Dakota State Penitentiary at Sioux Falls, wistful-looking Verne Sankey, arrested week before in a Chicago barber's chair, made a noose of two cravats and hanged himself to an iron cross beam. Next day he was to have pleaded guilty to the kidnapping in 1932 of Haskell Bohn of St. Paul (ransom: $12,000) and in 1933 of Charles Boettcher II of Denver (ransom: $60,000), whom he hid on his Dakota turkey ranch. Next day Sankey's accomplice, Gordon Alcorn, was sentenced to serve the rest of his natural life in Leavenworth for his part in the snatchings.

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