Author John E. O'Rourke

http://www.johneorourke.com/

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Murder at Chimney Rock

Robert E. Coyle #238

 
Robert E. Coyle was born in the bustling, historic city of Philadelphia on May 31, 1898. Raised in Philly, Coyle was of Irish heritage, originating from the counties of either Donegal, Tyrone or North Connacht. The Coyles were Catholic and gave their son a parochial education. Young Robert graduated from St. Stephen’s Grammar School in Philadelphia. As he grew, Coyle gained great physical ability. The world was at war, and Robert decided to enlist in the United States Army. He served three years during the World War, but nothing is known of his service other than that he was a private. 
 
After his discharge, Coyle worked as a chauffeur in Philadelphia. In the early twentieth century, a chauffeur was a prestigious job that came with a great deal of responsibility. State police records indicate that Coyle worked for two years with the Pennsylvania State Police; however, the Pennsylvania State Police couldn’t confirm this. 
 
Robert Coyle was invited to attend the eighth state police class, along with Herman Gloor #240. Only two badge numbers apart, side by side, Coyle and Gloor sweated through weeks of difficult training. His experience driving through the busy streets of Philadelphia paid off for Coyle, as he
proved to be an excellent driver. 
 
On April 1, 1924, Bob Coyle was given badge #238. Bob Coyle’s tour with the “outfit” would be brief, as the tragic day that would take his life was only eight months away.
 
The increasing criminal activity attributed to Prohibition was rearing its ugly head all over the country, and New Jersey was no exception. The Roaring Twenties were a difficult time in America. The phrase, coined because of the cultural movements taking place, could also be used to illustrate the turbulent events taking place between law enforcement, rumrunners and gangsters. An illustration of this is that on the day Coyle was murdered, gangsters pulled an armed robbery in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and troopers in New York shot and killed a rumrunner.
 
The last page in Coyle’s life is marked Thursday, December 18, 1924. Troopers John Gregovesir and Robert Coyle were supervising a payroll transaction for the Bound Brook Crushed Stone Company, which was a major quarry nestled in the woods of Somerset County that employed a large portion of the local population. Gregovesir and Coyle were sent to assist with the payroll distribution. The manager of the company, Charles Higgins, went once a week to the local bank, picked up about $6,000 in payroll money and delivered it using Chimney Rock Road. One day, two suspicious men wearing long army overcoats stopped Higgins, identified themselves as troopers and promptly questioned him. Afterward, Higgins asked for police assistance and designed a plan that would involve the New Jersey State Police. The plan was simple: the superintendent of the company, William Haelig, would pick up the proceeds and bring them to Higgins’s house, where Higgins, escorted by the troopers, would deliver the money using an alternate route. Haelig took the usual payroll route, serving as a decoy. Higgins’s plot worked, protecting the money and foiling the robbery.
 
Higgins, Gregovesir and Coyle arrived at the quarry, and the payroll was delivered without incident. Little did anyone know of the danger lurking on Chimney Rock Road, as Haelig was stopped near the quarry by two thugs posing as state troopers who inquired about the money.20 Haelig returned to the quarry and told Gregovesir and Coyle what had happened, and the two raced down the long quarry driveway and turned onto Chimney Rock Road in pursuit of the bandits.
 
Traveling down the winding road—known today as Thompson Road—the troopers spotted a man fitting the description. Unbeknownst to the troopers, they were speaking with Daniel Genese, a hardened criminal who was a consummate professional—calm, cool and collected. He made a career of robbing people. Gregovesir and Coyle also noticed another man standing up at Dr. Donahue Lane (today called Donahue Lane). The troopers thought it wise to question the two together and, according to Gregovesir, drove Genese up to the intersection. Whether the troopers searched the man isn’t certain. What is certain is that Genese had a gun.
 
Genese was put in the back seat. Coyle went to sit alongside him and was instantly met with Genese shouting, “Stick um up.” When Bob Coyle looked up, a gun was in his face. Coyle pulled his weapon, and Genese shot Coyle in the face. The gun was loaded with blanks but burned Coyle’s face, giving Genese the chance to grab the trooper’s gun. Genese then shot Bob Coyle with his own weapon. Coyle fell mortally wounded. While this was transpiring, Gregovesir pulled his gun, but was slow in doing so, and the seasoned criminal grabbed it. A round rang out, missing both men. Within the small confines of an automobile, one trooper was dead and the other was fighting for his life.
 
While Genese’s partner, John Anderson, a petty criminal, was running to help, Genese won the struggle and took possession of Gregovesir’s gun. Genese later said that he could have killed Gregovesir “but didn’t want the blood of both of them on [his] hands.”
 
The state police had just marked the one-year anniversary of William Marshall’s death and now was faced with another death. The state police would stop at nothing to find the culprits. The senseless murder of Coyle made troopers apprehensive, for the realities of the newly formed organization were settling in. Leads came in as local residents reported seeing two suspicious men a few days before the murder operating a red sports-type vehicle. Colonel Schwarzkopf, in an interview, “tolled off on his fingers…the reasons he believed” those committing the crime were “professionals of some experience.” Schwarzkopf said the gun used was loaded with two blanks, “an old gunman’s trick.” The weapon was neatly and conveniently concealed but readily available. Schwarzkopf elaborated further: “The bandits had successfully palmed themselves off as state troopers while gathering information about the pay roll; that the bandit was case-hardened enough to shoot immediately without compunction when the occasion arose.”
 
The investigation followed like a Hollywood movie; there was a multistate manhunt, and police from all over took part in varying degrees. State Police Captain Robert Hamilton set up a command post at Pluckemin. Hamilton had risen through the ranks rapidly and, with about two years of tenure, was commanding Troop B. The next day, the newspaper headline read: “Trooper Slain by Captive;
One Death in Hunt.” Local residents were asked to help in the search, and William Morton, a local auto mechanic from New Brunswick, volunteered and rode sidesaddle in Trooper Harry Linderman’s motorcycle. Linderman and Morton had been out all night combing the area when they were met with an accident. The mechanic was catapulted to his death. Morton left behind a wife and a young daughter.
 
Then, suddenly, there was a break in the case when a local taxicab driver said that he had driven two individuals over the past several weeks up to the Chimney Rock Road area. The taxi driver said that the men spoke of two brothers from Hudson County, one of whom was called “Rags Reilly.” 
In his frenzy to escape, Genese had left his revolver at the crime scene, and the gun proved to be unique. There were only five hundred manufactured due to an infringement of patent.
 
The weapon Genese had left behind couldn’t be traced back to its origins, but it was believed to have been shipped to Paterson, New Jersey, by the manufacturer. However, records showed that it was never received. Presumably, some shady employee had traded the weapon on the black market.
 
With only three years in existence, the state police could not have fathomed that it would be challenged with managing a complex, coordinated criminal investigation with state and local authorities involving a murder of one of its own. Efforts were now being focused in Hudson County. In light of the complexity of the investigation, two seasoned Jersey City Police Department officers were called upon. Lieutenants Charles Wilson and Harry Walsh were brought on board and proved to be excellent cops, bringing the investigation to a successful conclusion. 
 
The handgun that Genese had left behind was processed for prints by the two-month-old State Police Fingerprint Bureau. “Rags Reilly” was found to be a convicted murderer doing a life term in prison. Investigators focused on Reilly’s associates and thumbed through “25,000 photos along with Gregovesir.” Genese’s photo was easily identified by Gregovesir. How could he forget the man who had let him live? “He had a murderous look…I’ll never forget it,” Gregovesir remembered. Three other taxi drivers came forward saying they too had driven Genese up to the Chimney Rock Road area. 
 
Investigators discovered that the red car Genese and Anderson had used was in the hills near Stirling, New Jersey. Authorities learned that Genese and Anderson had stolen a blue coupe and abandoned it in a garage at 127 East Second Street in Plainfield about 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon of the murder. From there, they picked up the red sports car they had hidden in a different garage and proceeded up to Chimney Rock. In the weeks following the crime, the red sports car came to be called the “murder car.”
 
Lieutenants Wilson and Walsh followed Genese’s trail by searching the vital statistics registry and discovered that Genese had applied for and obtained a marriage license in New York in 1923. The record indicated that he had married a woman named Florence Kleffer. Kleffer lived at 172 Hopkins Avenue in Jersey City. Upon checking the Hopkins address, detectives discovered that Florence’s mother had remarried and her last name was now Berberich. This led them to East Sixth Street in Plainfield, New Jersey, where they posed as census takers. Under this guise, it was learned that Florence was living with her married sister, Mrs. Paldino, at Mount Horob, which was close to the crime scene. 
 
Troopers stood vigil, waiting out in the bitter February cold around the Paldino home. The discipline that Schwarzkopf had envisioned for his troopers was now evident in their actions. Troopers went without sleep, food and shelter and refused to abandon their posts. Every trooper involved wanted to be there when the cold-blooded killer showed up. The credo of honor, duty and fidelity was being adhered to.35
 
On the afternoon of Friday, February 8, Daniel Genese was spotted entering the Paldino home. Troopers apprehended Genese inside the residence, and the brutal killer turned out to be unarmed and gave up without a struggle.
 
The exhaustive manhunt was over. The very next day, John Anderson was arrested in Jersey City.36 Genese was interrogated and confessed when he was told his prints were on the handgun he had left behind.
 
For their hard work and effort, Lieutenants Wilson and Walsh were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal from the New Jersey State Police. Seven years later, the state police would once again call upon Harry Walsh’s expertise to assist with the Lindbergh kidnapping.
 
On December 15, 1925, less than a year after the murder, Daniel Genese was put to death via electrocution. He asserted to the last minute that he didn’t get a fair trial. Prior to his execution, his wife, two children, mother, brother and sister visited him. Genese remained calm, composed and fearless up to his last breath. The killer bent down, said an act of contrition with two priests and then was strapped to the chair, where volts of electricity soared through his body. It took three soars of electricity to kill him. John Anderson escaped this fate by receiving a lesser sentence.
 
Robert E. Coyle’s funeral took place on December 22, 1924, at St. Veronica’s Church on Tiosa Street in Philadelphia. Bob Coyle was twenty six years old.
 
Then
(c) 2010 John E. O'Rourke
 
Now
(c) 2010 John E. O'Rourke

Courtesy New Jersey State Police
 
 All material and photographs are copyrighted and cannot be used without permission.
(c) 2010 John E. O'Rourke

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http://www.johneorourke.com/Jersey-Troopers.html
 

7 comments:

  1. Wow, this is great! I've been doing research on Trooper Coyle for our family's ancestry page and have never seen this article of the road! I'm in VA so it's hard to get the access to the PA & NY papers from 1924, as it seems like everything ends around 1922. So happy to find your site!

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    1. I'm glad you like it. I may have more information for you if you would like. I take it you're a relative?

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    2. Pedagogue, do you by any chance who his wife was? I am researching Trooper Coyle for my family. I believe he may have been engaged or recently married to my Grandmother.

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  2. RVA Clothing - I am researching Trooper Coyle as well. By any chance do you have recorded the name of his wife. They say he was married but even on his death certificate they didn't fill in her name. My understanding was that they had been married for less than a year. I am wondering if it was actually a betrothal. Any help would be great!

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  3. If you have a subscription to GenealogyBank, there are plenty of articles about the slaying and the resulting execution.

    Florence Kleffer and Daniel Genese had two chilcdren, according to many of the articles. In a 30 Mar 1927 Jersey Journal article, Florence Genese, 20, applied for a marriage license with George J. Paldino, with her mother, Catherine Berberich, as a witness.

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    1. Hi Eileen, I am not looking for the wife of the person who killed Robert Coyle. I am looking for the name of Robert's widow. In all the articles I have looked at, not one lists her name. Including articles associated with his funeral and burial. All I know, is that as of December 16th, they had been married less than a year and that at that time she was living with a Rafferty family. I was hoping Mr. O'Rourke had access to Robert's personnel files since he did an amazing job of documenting his history with the St. Police Dept. Thank you in advance for your help! Mary

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  4. Hi, sorry for long delay. I kind of abandoned this blog. Working on a more organized approach to my research about my books.

    As for Trooper Coyle, please direct questions to my email, because I'm not sure when I will log into here again. My email is authorjohneorourke@gmail.com

    I will be connecting future blogs to my website at www.johneorourke.com I plan on putting together a comprehensive blog that will have a lot of my research into the Jersey Troopers who died in the Line of duty captured in my two books, and about my other books as well.

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