The Murder of Brooks Van Noose

On Sunday, March 4, 1934, W. R. Murray went to the home of wealthy businessman Brooks Van Hoose and became concerned when he couldn’t rouse him. The next day, he went to the real estate agency Van Noose and George Biemdick operated together in Carthage. Informed that Van Hoose hadn’t showed up for work yet, Murray told Van Hoose’s partner what had transpired the day before. Biemdick and others drove out to the Van Hoose place to investigate. They found Van Hoose dead on the floor just inside the doorway of his massive stone house. He’d been shot multiple times.

The Biemdick party immediately called authorities, and Sheriff Oll Rogers arrived to investigate. A revolver Van Hoose owned was found on the floor beside his body, and Rogers thought the victim had been killed while resisting would-be robbers. The sheriff believed there was more than one assailant, and he placed the time of death as about 9:30 Saturday night, March 3, because a neighbor woman reported hearing gunshots about that time and Van Hoose had not yet dressed for bed when he was killed.

On Monday evening, eight or ten hours after Van Hoose’s body was discovered, ex-convict Charles Napper turned himself in at the county jail after learning he was wanted as a suspect in the murder. He confessed he was with four other men near the Van Hoose home on Saturday night, but he denied participating in the crime. He named the other four men as former Carthage restaurant operator L. B. Harmon, L. B.’s brother Glenn Harmon, and two acquaintances of Glenn Harmon whom he did not know. Napper said he and L. B. Harmon were in one car, while Glenn Harmon, who had a long crime record and was currently wanted for several robberies, was in a second car with his two sidekicks. They met and parked near Van Hoose’s house, and L. B. Harmon walked off with the other three men leaving Napper alone in L. B.’s car. Napper said he knew the gang was up to something but he was not in on the scheme. After a few minutes, the four men hurried back, and all five took off in the same cars they’d arrived in. Napper said he never saw Glenn Harmon or his two pals after that.

Arrested about the same time as Napper, L. B. Harmon gave a story similar to Napper’s except he said that he and Napper, after stopping at the rendezvous spot near Van Hoose’s home, left for Joplin without waiting for Glenn Harmon and his sidekicks to show up. He claimed to know nothing about the murder of Van Hoose. After talking to Napper and L. B. Harmon, officers concluded that a sixth man might have been in on planning the robbery of Van Hoose.

On March 8, first-degree murder charges were filed against Napper, L. B. Harmon, Glenn Harmon, and three unidentified associates of Glenn Harmon.

In mid-March, Victor Powell and Byron Wolff were identified as accomplices of Glenn Harmon in the murder of Van Hoose. Apprehended in Denver, Powell was brought back to Jasper County. During the return trip the prisoner admitted he’d been in the Carthage area with Glenn Harmon at the time of Van Hoose’s murder but, like Napper, he denied involvement in the actual crime. He put the full blame on Wolff and Glenn Harmon.

Wolff was captured in Los Angeles on the evening of March 26 when he was overpowered by a tailor whom he attempted to hold up. The next night, Glenn Harmon was killed in a gunfight with a Los Angeles detective after Wolff led officers to the hideout where the fugitive was holed up. A couple of days later, William Moors was arrested as the mysterious sixth accomplice. He was a taxicab driver who had brought Powell, Wolff, and Glenn Harmon from Kansas City to Carthage on the day of Van Hoose’s murder.

In mid-April, Wolff was brought back to Jasper County, and he and the other four suspects were jointly arraigned at Carthage on charges of first-degree murder.

In early June, the cases of Napper, Powell, Wolff, and Moors were severed, while L. B. Harmon was granted a change of venue to Barton County. Powell’s trial was held first, in mid-June. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

At Wolff’s trial in late June, Napper testified for the prosecution, and Wolff was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Napper was released on parole a couple of weeks later.

Both Powell and Wolff appealed their verdicts to the Missouri Supreme Court after their motions for new trials were denied. L. B. Harmon’s trial at Lamar in September ended in a mistrial.

In late March 1935, Moors, who’d been adjudged insane a few years earlier, was again declared insane and committed to the state hospital at Nevada. The murder charge against him was nol prossed.

L. B. Harmon was acquitted upon retrial in September 1935. In November 1935, the Missouri Supreme Court granted Wolff a new trial. On retrial at Carthage in March 1936, he was convicted of second-degree murder and given ten years in the penitentiary.

In June 1936, the state supreme court denied Victor Powell’s appeal and sustained his sentence of life imprisonment. The Jasper County prosecutor expressed dissatisfaction with verdict, because authorities were convinced that Glenn Harmon was the ringleader and Wolff was the trigger man. Yet Powell had ended up getting a much stiffer sentence than Wolff. Powell had been offered a deal if he turned state’s evidence, but he refused and was now paying the price.

This blog entry is condensed from my book Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings.