The bizarre story of a kidnapped Louisville heiress held captive in Indianapolis

Dawn Mitchell | Indianapolis Star

During the 1930s, a wave of kidnappings swept the country, leaving the nation's wealthiest families with no choice but to put armed guards on their fortified estates. The crime was so prevalent that insurance companies created kidnapping and ransom insurance.

One of the most sensational and bizarre kidnapping cases of the era happened in Indianapolis in 1934. Even before the Indianapolis connection was known, the story played out in front-page headlines of all the local papers.

The victim was Kentucky socialite Alice Speed Stoll, 26, wife of wealthy, young Louisville oil executive Berry Stoll.

Alice Stoll came from what was considered “old society.” She was the distant relative of Abraham Lincoln's attorney general, the niece of a former ambassador to Germany and her grandfather was Breckenridge (J.B.) Speed, a prominent businessman and philanthropist, whose name graces the Speed Art Museum in Louisville.The Stoll family's wealth came from oil refineries and gas stations across Kentucky.

On Oct. 10, 1934, the Stoll's maid told police a “well-dressed but fiendish looking” stranger knocked on the door of the exclusive Louisville estate looking for the lady of the house. The maid was gagged and wired to a kitchen chair. The man struck Stoll in the back of a head with a lead pipe, taped her hands and dressed her in a blue polka dot dress that belonged to his wife. He then led her from the home at gunpoint.

Later, it would be revealed that the kidnapper was Thomas Robinson Jr., 27. Robinson had been a disgruntled former employee of Berry Stoll and had been an “inmate of an insane asylum in Tennessee,” as news reports noted.

Barry Stoll made impassioned pleas to the kidnappers in radio broadcasts for the safe return of his wife. The FBI joined the case, but the kidnappers were quiet for six days.

Meanwhile, Stoll was being held captive in a first-floor apartment at 2735 North Meridian St. in Indianapolis. Besides the injury to her head, she was repeatedly beaten. Whenever Robinson left the apartment, he bound and gagged her and left her locked in a dark closet

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Robinson had read in newspapers that an Indianapolis woman was the cousin of Barry Stoll, so the kidnappers contacted The Rev. and Mrs. E. Arnold Clegg of North Capitol Avenue and demanded $50,000.

A long, rambling document written on a typewriter referred to the Lindbergh kidnapping and others, warning that if the $50,000 ransom was not paid, the victim’s body would be burned in a “galvanized tank and the ashes scattered in water and the tank would be cleaned so as to defy detection.”

On Oct. 15, a dusty Studebaker with Kentucky license plates stopped at a Pure Oil filling station at 21st Street and Northwestern Avenue. The attendant told police a woman fitting Mrs. Stoll’s description with “her head swathed in bandages” was accompanied by three men.

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The Stoll family paid the ransom on Oct. 16. Later that day, Mrs. Stoll arrived at the parsonage of the Cleggs in the company of Mrs. Frances Robinson, wife of Mrs. Stoll’s abductor.

Stoll, Robinson and the Cleggs began the return trip to Louisville. Near Scottsburg, they were joined by the FBI's golden boy, Melvin Purvis, who typically handled high-profile cases.

While Robinson eluded police for nearly two years, his wife, Frances, and father, Thomas Robinson Sr., stood trial for their part in the kidnapping. They were acquitted on charges of plotting the kidnapping.

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Throughout his time on the lam, Robinson's propensity for frequenting drug stores and dressing in women's clothing would be his undoing. A soda jerk at a Glendale, California, drug store saw through the disguise of what was allegedly a female customer. He notified the police and Robinson was captured with $4,200 of the ransom money still in his possession.

Robinson, who went from a one-time brilliant law student at Vanderbilt University to the FBI’s 10 most wanted list, served as his own attorney.

Robinson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison at Alcatraz. He appealed his sentence in 1943 and was granted another trial where he was again found guilty. This time he was sentenced to death. Within hours of his execution, President Harry Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison.

Robinson was released in 1970 and died in 1994 at the age of 87.

Alice Speed Stoll died in 1996, leaving behind a $156 million estate.

Follow IndyStar Visuals Manager and RetroIndy writer Dawn Mitchell on Twitter: @dawn_mitchell61.