I have discussed the 1921 Father Heslin kidnap-murder case a few times here, leaning heavily on contemporary press coverage — particularly from William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner and its chief rival, the San Francisco Chronicle. The most influential paper on the beat was certainly the Examiner, which could well lay claim to having solved the crime — or to railroading an innocent man and allowing the real killer to commit decades of mayhem, depending on your view of the case.
Two other big city papers played a significant role in shaping the story: the San Francisco Post and Call (also owned by “Citizen Hearst”) and the San Francisco Bulletin. True to Hearst’s reputation as the creator of the “Yellow Press,” the Call promoted the highly prejudicial claim that William Hightower had convicted himself by flunking a revolutionary scientific “lie detector” test, thereby inaugurating a brave new world of quackery and junk science forensics in American law enforcement.
The Bulletin’s main claim to fame on the Heslin story arose when its columnist, Nick Harris, the founder of America’s oldest private detective agency, concocted a bogus second ransom note in a ruse to flush out the kidnappers. While we’ll never know for sure, this gambit may indeed have been responsible for prodding William Hightower into coming forward to lead authorities to Heslin’s grave and claim the $8,000 reward.
As far as I know the pertinent San Francisco Call archives are not available online, but newspapers.com recently added the Bulletin to its collection. I have reviewed its entire coverage of the Father Heslin case chronologically and will highlight a few of the more interesting stories. Naturally, much of the reporting is duplicative of coverage in rival papers — and it never hurts to revisit the features of a mystery like this after letting them percolate for a while — but I noticed some new angles in there, too.
To be continued.