MSP tour guide Randy Walters shares the story of Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady.

Hanging on the wall in the Missouri State Penitentiary’s gas chamber, the photos of the 40 people executed there from 1937 to 1989 are displayed as one of the most arresting features of the prison. Two of these prisoners who were executed include Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady. 

Though disturbing and horrifying, the execution site is a source of fascination for visitors to the historic location. Randy Walters, a retiree who gives weekly tours of the former maximum-security prison, says the 1953 story of Carl and Bonnie is one that makes visitors gasp. Yet, at the same time, their story serves as an example of swift justice for two callous kidnappers. 

As Randy retells the horrific story, he notes that Carl was a common criminal, and Bonnie was a periodic prostitute. Together, they devised a plan to kidnap 6-year-old Bobby Greenlease, the son of a wealthy Kansas City, Missouri, auto dealer. Carl was familiar with the family, having attended Kemper Military Academy with Bobby Greenlease’s older brother. 

On September 28, 1953, Carl and Bonnie traveled to Bobby’s school, where Bonnie pretended to be Bobby’s aunt. Bonnie told school officials she needed to take Bobby to be with his mother, who had suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital. After securing the young boy, Carl shot Bobby in the head, and the kidnappers buried him in Bonnie’s flower garden at her home in St. Joseph, Missouri. The pair then brazenly demanded a $600,000 ransom (the equivalent of $6.8 million today) for Bobby’s safe return, which the Greenlease family paid. 

Afraid they would be caught in St. Joseph, the kidnappers drove to St. Louis, where they began to freely and stupidly spend the ransom money they had received. The large sums of money Carl was throwing around drew the attention of a taxi driver that Carl had hired to be his personal chauffeur. When the taxi driver told his boss about his rich client, the boss informed St. Louis police of the situation. Carl and Bonnie were captured and sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary, where they both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to death by execution. Their sentence was carried out by gas on December 18, 1953. Carl was 34, and Bonnie was 41. 

“The story goes that on the way to the gas chamber’s holding cell, Carl Austin Hall began to break down, and Bonnie Brown Heady told Hall to suck it up and man up,” Randy says. “She was pretty cold-blooded.”  

When giving tours, Randy likes to note the speed with which the trial, sentencing, and execution took place. 

“Less than 90 days after they killed that little boy, they were tried and executed,” Walters says. “To find out that they got executed in that quick of a manner actually provides visitors with some satisfaction.” 

In telling Carl and Bonnie’s tale, Randy also provides tour guests with some interesting facts about the institution’s gas chamber. For instance, before gas, the method of execution in Missouri was public hanging in the county seat where the crime was committed. But the hangings eventually got out of control, often drawing hundreds of spectators and vendors selling their wares. Sometimes, schools would even close to allow families to attend the executions together. 

“That’s how the gas chamber ended up in the Missouri State Penitentiary,” Randy says, adding that gas was a more effective means of execution than hanging and electrocution. 

A frequent question Randy gets when giving tours is how the gas chamber worked. 

“A lot of people think the gas was pumped into the chamber, but it wasn’t,” he explains. “It was made inside the chamber.” 

There were two seats in the gas chamber, and under each seat was a ceramic crock containing sulfuric acid. Above the crocks were shelves containing 20-25 cyanide tablets. Hooked to the shelves was a red handle located outside the gas chamber. When it was time for the execution, the handle was pulled, releasing the cyanide tablets into the sulfuric acid, creating poisonous gas that caused suffocation within 3-5 minutes. 

“They say the gas was like a fog rising up from the ground, and you could see it coming,” Randy says.