GRAND RAPIDS, MI (WOOD)— The 1940s were a difficult decade for the Michigan legislature. Lansing was rocked by a corruption investigation involving dozens of lawmakers from both parties.
But all of this was overshadowed by Warren Hooper’s gruesome assassination. Saturday marked 80 years since the state senator was assassinated on a rural highway in Jackson County.
Who was Warren Hooper, and why did he become the target of a suspected professional hit job?
WHO WAS WARREN HOOPER?
Warren G. Hooper’s path to the legislature took many twists and turns. The California native was born in 1904 as a third-generation descendant of William Hooper, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
After graduating from college, Hooper joined the California Stock Exchange, but his career in finance was brief. The Great Depression wiped out many stockbrokers, including him. Hooper relocated to Washington in 1931 and began working for a weekly newspaper.
His budding journalism career is what ultimately led him to Michigan. After a brief stint in Washington, Hooper accepted a position as a copy editor with the Chicago Herald-Examiner. Three years later, he relocated to Albion to work at the Albion Evening Recorder.
In 1936, Hooper decided to travel to Berlin to cover the Olympics as a freelance writer. He returned to discover that the newspaper had filled his position, leaving him looking for a new career path.
After briefly running a service station, Hooper decided to enter politics and was elected to represent Albion in the state House of Representatives in 1938. He spent three relatively quiet terms in the House before being elected to the state Senate in 1944.
That is where Hooper’s story takes another significant turn. Bruce Rubenstein and Lawrence Ziewacz, historians, broke down the details in their book “Three Bullets Sealed His Lips.”
There was no reason for Michigan lawmakers to believe January 11, 1945, would be anything other than a normal day. Historians, however, believe Hooper was on guard. Instead of traveling to Grand Rapids to attend the Republican Party’s state convention, Hooper remained in his Lansing office.
“Normally on the eve of the Republican State Convention he would be packing his bags to attend and join his fellow lawmakers in three days of drinking, story-swapping and the general ribald camaraderie which surrounded the assemblage,” the paper’s authors wrote. “This year’s gathering was to be in Grand Rapids, however, and there was no way he would show his face in that city.”
Why? Because Grand Rapids is the hometown of Frank McKay, who served three terms as Michigan’s state treasurer but preferred to work behind the scenes for the Republican Party. Over the course of several decades, he had accumulated enormous power and influence throughout Michigan. He also happened to be the focus of the state’s corruption investigation.
McKay first faced criminal charges in 1942, for conspiracy related to his control of the State Liquor Control Commission. On December 4, 1944, special prosecutor Kim Sigler served warrants for conspiracy charges against McKay and two other men.
Sigler believed he had finally gathered enough evidence to throw the book at McKay. What’s his main weapon? Hooper gives a full confession.
On January 15, the Albion lawmaker was scheduled to testify in front of a grand jury about accepting a bribe. Sigler knew Hooper’s testimony would reveal damning evidence against McKay, but he never took the stand. Instead of being reserved for breaking open the state’s corruption case, that date was now set aside for the funeral of the prosecution’s star witness.
THE GRUESOME SCENE
According to Rubenstein and Ziewacz, police were notified shortly after 6 p.m. that bystanders had discovered Hooper’s car, which was parked on the shoulder of M-99 about 3 miles north of Springport.
The car was on fire, and smoke was billowing from the cab. The first person to stop and investigate backed away from the car when he noticed a bullet hole in the rear window.
A second bystander remained far away. According to Rubenstein and Ziewacz, a third bystander stopped about 15 minutes later. He was the one who finally found the courage to open a door and look inside.
It was a dismal sight. Hooper, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, was slumped forward and had been severely burned. While one of the men ran to call for help, the other two pulled Hooper’s body from the car.
The men were resourceful and respectful enough to throw snow on the corpse, extinguishing the smoldering parts of his clothing.
The autopsy revealed that Hooper was shot three times in the head and died before the car caught fire. Investigators believe Hooper’s cigarette fell from his dead hand and started the fire.
Special prosecutor Sigler drove from Lansing to the scene on his own. In the hours following the shooting, he met with detectives and doctors who performed the autopsy, working late into the night.
Just weeks ago, Sigler boasted to the press that the testimony set to be revealed on January 15 was juicy. According to Rubenstein and Ziewacz, “There are going to be prominent men as surprise witnesses, and they will have an amazing tale to tell.”
The day after the shooting, he gave a press conference with a very different tone. Sigler revealed that Hooper was a key state witness, and that his death dealt a “serious blow” to his corruption investigation.
Investigators used witness testimony to determine that the killing occurred between 5:15 and 5:30 p.m. They discovered several sets of footprints at the scene and received extensive circumstantial testimony from witnesses, but no hard evidence.
The Legislature ultimately offered a $25,000 reward for information that could lead prosecutors to the arrest and conviction of Hooper’s killer.
In reference to the corruption investigation, Lt. Gov. Vernon Brown told reporters, “Many people will realize now for the first time that the grand jury is dealing with something very sinister.”
THE INMATE THEORY
The tips and evidence led Sigler and the other investigators on a wild chase, revealing evidence that the assassination was linked to Detroit’s infamous “Purple Gang.”
Three months later, four men with ties to the Purple Gang were charged with conspiracy to murder. Mike Selik, Pete Mahoney, Harry, and Sam Fleisher were all convicted and sentenced to at least 54 months in prison.
Sigler obtained the convictions through the testimony of Sam Abramovitz, another career criminal from Detroit. When he was promised immunity, Abramovitz admitted that he and his accomplice, Henry Luks, had been hired by Harry Fleisher to assassinate Hooper. Luks, who had also been promised immunity, corroborated the story and conducted multiple polygraph tests.
However, the investigation never determined who killed Hooper. Rubenstein and Ziewacz contended that corruption within the state government and Sigler’s own ambition doomed the investigation.
In the 1980s, the two historians sifted through court records discovered in the State of Michigan Archives, reading affidavits from every witness questioned by the grand jury after Hooper’s death.
They contended that the “inmate theory,” which is supported by Attorney General John Dethmers and Michigan State Police Capts Edward Cooper and William Hansen, is the most plausible.
The theory ties together several loose ends while also including some intrigue revealed by Dethmers in the months following the killing.
According to Rubenstein and Ziewacz, Jackson Prison Warden Harry Jackson and his deputy, D.C. Pettit, were known to give special treatment to members of the Purple Gang, including gang leaders Raymond Burnstein and Harry Keywell, who were imprisoned on murder charges.
According to the historians, Jackson and Pettit permitted the gangsters to gather a “coterie of armed robbers and murderers” to hear a proposal for a contract killing. Keywell and Burnstein reportedly turned down a $15,000 offer and demanded $25,000.
After trading messages with a middleman using the alias John Wake and obtaining proof of financing, a deal was reached, and Hooper’s days were numbered.
Rubenstein and Ziewacz cited prison records indicating that Burnstein and Keywell received several visitors in the days following the alleged transaction, including the Fleishers, Selik, and Wake. According to historians, Wake introduced another person to the warden: Frank McKay.
“Wake emphasized again the importance of the job to McKay and reminded them that the Grand Rapids financier could help them in the future if they befriended him in his present hour of need,” they wrote in the letter.
The deputy warden, Pettit, was accused of doing almost everything except the dirty work, according to the inmate theory. Those supporters believe Pettit not only provided the hit squad with weapons, transportation, and a bogus license plate, but also volunteered his own car for the job — a maroon coupe with scratches similar to Hooper’s.
“Shortly after the 3:30 p.m. dinner bugle sounded, Burnstein and Keywell drove away from the prison yard in the deputy warden’s maroon car.
At least two other accomplices followed closely behind in a red car, possibly Pettit’s wife’s. Interestingly, all prison records for official car use on that day were discovered to be mysteriously missing,” the authors wrote.
Burnstein and Keywell allegedly drove to the target location on M-99, about 18 miles from the prison, while the accomplices pursued and apprehended Hooper.
As they approached, the theorists believe Burnstein and Keywell, who were parked on the shoulder, lurched into the lane, forcing Hooper to swerve and skid to a halt. The pursuing accomplices then parked behind him, preventing any escape.
After the execution, Burnstein and Keywell allegedly returned to Pettit’s house, changed back into their prison uniforms, and assisted their accomplices in destroying evidence of the crime, including the gun, gloves, and a forged license plate. Then they returned to prison with their alibi intact.
WHY NO CHARGES?
So, if law enforcement was aware of the inmate theory, why was it not thoroughly investigated?
The historians argue that, despite telling the public that he was working hard on the case, Sigler was hesitant to actually solve it.
“He demanded complete authority over the probe but refused to permit questioning of Burnstein and Keywell and the inspection of D.C. Pettit’s automobile for scratches or missing paint,” the investigators said.
“Therefore, the actual mystery surrounding the death of Warren Hooper is not so much who killed the senator but rather why Sigler was reluctant to bring the guilty parties to justice.”
Rubenstein and Ziewacz argued that Sigler was more concerned with his own ambitions than with solving the case.
“The brash, dynamic attorney assumed nearly despotic power in formulating the practices and direction of the grand jury probe,” according to their report.
“In this way, he charted a course that he hoped would allow him to follow in the footsteps of another crime-busting district attorney, Thomas E. Dewey, who had recently achieved political fame.
“In Sigler’s mind, there would be little personal or political gain in painstakingly proving that Hooper was murdered by two mobsters already serving life sentences.
To do so would have been an indictment of the prison system, but because the attorney general was preparing a lengthy report on abuses in state penal institutions, Sigler would be advancing John Dethmers’ aspirations rather than his own.”
They also reasoned that because Burnstein and Keywell were already serving life sentences, Sigler couldn’t persuade them to testify against McKay, which was his ultimate goal.
Sigler’s best chance was to convince one of the other Purple Gang members to flip. Instead, all four completed their sentences and remained silent.
Whether that judgment is correct is debatable, but what cannot be denied is that the juicy platform elevated Sigler’s name and reputation throughout the state. When he was elected governor of the state in 1946, he used the “white knight” image.
He also used his new authority to promote several people involved in the case, including Jackson County Prosecutor Murl Aten for Michigan Auditor General and MSP Capt. Donald Leonard for State Police Commissioner.
“Everyone even remotely connected with inside knowledge of the case was now beholden to Sigler, and he expected nothing more than their silence in return,” the authors of the report wrote.
When the historians published their book in 1987, they provided enough evidence and made a compelling case that Michigan State Police reopened the investigation.
However, those investigators encountered the same issue: insufficient hard evidence and unconvincing testimony. Sigler and MSP were unable to elicit a response from anyone, owing to the fact that the majority of the witnesses had passed away.
Former MSP Director R.T. Davis told University of Michigan’s Lara Zielin that he attempted to question Selik in 1989, but the ex-con remained silent.
“He stated that he didn’t talk during the grand jury trial in 1945, and he is not going to talk about it now,” Mr. Davis said.
Selik died in 1996, and investigators believe the hope for discovering the truth died with him.
