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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1987-10-16 NP police chief is ending 36-year caeer (Palm Beach Post)NORTH PALM BEACH PUBUC UBRARY North Palm police chief is ending 36-year career Atwater recalls major cases he solved for FBI By JOE BROGAN /0-Aly Palm Beach Post Staff Writer NORTH PALM BEACH — In Oc- tober 1953, Bobby Greenlease, the 7-year-old son of a wealthy Cadil- lac dealer, was kidnapped in Kan- sas City, Mo., by Carl Austin Hall and Bonnie Heady, who escaped with a $600,000 ransom. North Palm Beach Public Safety Director John Atwater, who retires Nov. 18, was then a special agent with the FBI. "They had killed the boy within an hour after taking him from a private school, but nobody knew it and we worked on that case for However, Hall told a jailer who three months — seven days a week, he was and identified those who 12 hours a day," Atwater said. took the loot. The lieutenant and Atwater Thursday reflected on the Greenlease case and other in- vestigations of a law enforcement career spanning nearly 36 years. He remembers the Greenlease in- vestigation was going nowhere, when events took a bizarre turn. "Hall stashed Heady in a cheap motel and took the $600,000 with him for a wild time of drinking and women," he said. "He confided in the cab driver who was taking him around and said he was an embez- zler from Canada. The driver called a friend who was a police lieutenant and the lieutenant ar- rested Hall on some charge and they split the money." Please see RETIREMENT/6B LOREN G. HOSACK/Staff Photographer John Atwater, who retires next month, was a special agent with the FBI before accepting the North Palm Beach job robberenrsub�rban. He rWest Palm Beachs being as s n e 1968 strings' while arresting anarmed 6B THE PALM BEACH POST /0-)t—g7 ~JOHN E. ATWATER ■ AGE: 63 ▪ ■ POSITION: North Palm „,. Beach director of public safe- t• y■ CAREER: Served as U.S. Army Air Force combat fighter pilot in England in World War II. Earned three • ,,Air Medals and several Bat- ":tie Stars. Graduate of Uni- 77'versity of Notre Dame. Re - ;tired Nov. 11, 1978 after 27 -years with the FBI. Earned 21 FBI commendations for outstanding work. Will retire :Nov. 18 after nine years as -: public safety director. the cab driver later went to prison. The kidnappers were executed. Atwater served 27 years in the FBI before taking over in North Palm Beach nine years ago. Early in his FBI career in St. Louis, he said, a rash of bank rob- beries had the bureau hopping. "Sometimes we'd be going to one robbery and another would be oc- curring at the same time," he said. "We: finally caught this guy named John Roger Bloom after he had robbed about 13 banks. "He had torn out the St. Louis Yellow Pages (on banks) and told us he was going to rob them all." In April 1968, he arrested embez- zlement fugitive Thomas Nelson Truax, who had made the FBI's 10 most wanted list. Truax, then 28, was wanted for stealing $500,000 in government money from a California urban re- newal project he headed.. News ac- counts at the time said the big - spending Truax often tipped waitresses with mink coats and had unlimited credit at a Las Vegas casino. Atwater arrested him in a low- key confrontation at O'Hara's Bar in Palm Beach. "He was a big, handsome, ex -college football play- er who looked like he should have been a movie star," Atwater said. "I just walked up to him at the back of the bar and said we needed to tallt to him outside. He said, `I won't give you any trouble.' He had an outstanding personality. You couldn't help but like him." But there were rough times, too. In 1978, three months before his FBI retirement, Atwater and two other agents confronted an armed bank robber in a home in the West- gate area of suburban West Palm Beach.� 'Ile walked out of the bedroom with. a Browning 9mm (pistol) held in the air by the side of his head. I had a revolver aimed at his chest and the agents on either side of me had shotguns loaded with buckshot. "I had told the other agents, `If he wiggles, blow him away.' " After several tense minutes, the man dropped the gun. "We were like bow strings," Atwater said. Over the years, ex -FBI Director J. Pdgar Hoover presented him with:` 21 commendations for out- standing work. He said his job in North Palm Beach has been quieter, but the department has increased in pro- fessionalism during his tenure be- cause of improved law enforce- ment• education and better equipment. "I'm also an outstanding grass cutter who is going to have to de- cide whether I want to become a professional fisherman or do some- thing that will exercise my mind," Atwater said of his retirement. He has lived in North Palm Beach since 1965 with his wife Pa- tricia. They have six children. When he walks out of his North Palm Beach office for the last time, he'll be replaced by the man he recommended — Capt. Bruce Sekeres. But staff memories of him will remain. "On a personal level, he is sensi- tive and caring," Detective Brian O'Shaughnessy said. "You figure a chief is just someone you have to answer to, but he's like a father figure,with an open-door policy." Detective Sgt. Ralph Pauldine agreed. "He prefers to be in trench- es:wvith the guys rather than out plying golf or socializing. His good ^ion sense carried over to ev- 1 .ie here."