Joseph Corbett Jr.

Joseph Corbett Jr.
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive
Alias Walter Osborne
Description
Born (1928-10-25)October 25, 1928
Seattle, Washington
Status
Penalty Life imprisonment
Status Paroled (1980)
Added March 30, 1960
Caught October 29, 1960
Number 127
Captured

Joseph Corbett Jr. (October 25, 1928 - August 24, 2009), a former Fulbright scholar,[1] became the 127th fugitive named on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, placed there on March 30, 1960 for the kidnap and subsequent murder of Adolph Coors III, heir to the Coors beer fortune.[2]

Corbett was convicted of shooting a man in the back of the head in 1951. He claimed it was self-defense. Corbett was placed in a maximum-security prison and due to good behavior, he was later transferred to minimum security, from which he then escaped.[3]

On the morning of February 9, 1960, Adolph Coors III, the 44-year-old CEO and chairman of the board of the Coors brewery, left his house for work, but never arrived.[3] A delivery man found Coors' station wagon abandoned, and blood droplets were found nearby.[3] Corbett was implicated, and the FBI began a manhunt that spanned from California to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and eventually to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.[3] In March 1960, the FBI added Corbett to its Ten Most Wanted list.[3]

On September 11, 1960, Coors' remains were found in a trash dump, with two bullet wounds in his back.[3]

Corbett was finally arrested October 29, 1960 in Vancouver by Canadian police after two citizens recognized him from a November 1960 Reader's Digest article.[4] Since the kidnap and murder occurred in Colorado, the state charged Corbett with murder.[5]

On March 29, 1961, Corbett was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.[5] He was paroled and released from prison on December 12, 1980.[1]

In 1996 Corbett gave his only interview following his release from prison; in it, he maintained his innocence.[1] [6]

Corbett committed suicide on August 24, 2009.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "1996 interview with Joe Corbett". The Denver Post. 2009-08-25. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  2. ↑ FBI pdf source document listing all Ten Most Wanted year by year Archived 2002-01-27 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Swierczynski, Duane (2014-02-04). The Encyclopedia of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List: Over Fifty Years of Convicts, Robbers, Terrorists, and Other Rogues. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. ISBN 9781628739060.
  4. ↑ Douglas County Sheriff's Office Archived 2010-09-21 at the Wayback Machine., Adolph Coors, III Murder Investigation Records 1960, Processed by Shaun Boyd, Douglas County Libraries, April 2000
  5. 1 2 "A Look Back at the Coors Kidnapping Case". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  6. ↑ "My Encounter With Joseph Corbett Jr". 5280.com. Archived from the original on 2014-07-07.
  • A Look Back at the Coors Kidnapping Case (FBI)
  • Jett, Philip. The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1250111807
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