Joseph Corbett Jr. and the Adolph Coors III Kidnapping Case

Joseph Corbett Jr. was the man behind the Joseph Corbett Jr. Coors kidnapping, the 1960 abduction and shooting death of Adolph Coors III, chairman of the Adolph Coors Company. A Berkeley dropout with a prior murder conviction and a prison escape behind him, Corbett ambushed Coors on a rural Colorado bridge, mailed a $500,000 ransom demand, and fled the country. He was captured in Vancouver, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to life. After roughly nineteen years in prison, he lived quietly and alone in Denver until he shot himself in 2009.

Before the Coors Case: A Prior Killing and an Escape

Corbett was born in 1928 in Seattle. He tested at an IQ of 148 and attended the University of California at Berkeley on a Fulbright scholarship.¹ He dropped out shortly after his mother Marion fell from a balcony at the family home in June 1950 and died five days later.²

By late December 1950, Corbett had killed a hitchhiking sergeant near San Francisco. He pleaded guilty to murder in 1951 and was sent to the California Institution for Men in Chino.³ After about four years inside, he walked away from a minimum-security cell on August 1, 1955, and made his way to Colorado.²

In Denver, he took his older brother’s first and middle names and became “Walter Osborne.”²⁴

For nearly thirty months, he planned what he called the “job.” He bought a canary-yellow 1951 Mercury, a gun, handcuffs, leg irons, and a typewriter. He paid cash for gas and told attendants he was camping. He also took out an insurance policy that listed “Joseph Corbett” as the beneficiary, which would later become the thread that tied the Osborne alias back to the fugitive.⁵⁴

The Ambush on Turkey Creek Bridge

On the morning of February 9, 1960, Adolph Coors III, 44, chairman and CEO of the family brewery, drove his International Harvester Travelall from his ranch home toward work in Golden. On the one-lane Turkey Creek Bridge west of Denver, near Morrison, Corbett had positioned his yellow Mercury with the hood up to look broken down.⁴

Coors stopped. Corbett drew a pistol. Coors, six feet one and 185 pounds, fought back, and the two struggled against the bridge railing. His eyeglasses and baseball cap fell into the creek. As he tried to get back to his own vehicle, Corbett shot him twice in the back. A neighbor heard the shots around 8:00 a.m. and thought they sounded like lightning hitting a tree.⁴

A passing milkman found the station wagon abandoned on the bridge with the engine running. Police recovered blood on the bridge, Coors’s hat on the riverbank, and a size 7 3/8 fedora belonging to the attacker.⁶⁷ Coors’s remains were not found for months. In September 1960, hikers came across clothing bearing his initials at a dump area near Shamballah-Ashrama, roughly twelve miles southwest of Sedalia in Douglas County. Analysis of the clothing and bones confirmed he had been shot in the back.⁸

The Ransom Note That Never Paid Out

The day after the abduction, Coors’s wife Mary received a typewritten note demanding $500,000: $200,000 in tens and $300,000 in twenties, all used, non-consecutive, and unmarked.⁴ Part of it read: “Understand this: Adolph’s life is in your hands. We have no desire to commit murder. All we want is that money.”¹

The instructions told the family to place a tractor-for-sale ad in the Denver Post signed “King Ranch, Fort Lupton,” and wait for a call with drop-off directions. Mary Coors tried to reach the kidnapper, but no further communication ever came. The FBI Laboratory matched the note’s typeface and paper watermark to Corbett’s typewriter. He had sealed the envelope with tape over the stamps to prevent investigators from lifting saliva.⁴⁶²

The Manhunt and Capture

The FBI’s Denver Division opened the case on February 10, 1960, under the federal kidnapping statute. J. Edgar Hoover code-named it “COORNAP” and assigned more agents than any case since the Lindbergh kidnapping.⁴

A former constable named James Cable gave investigators a partial plate from the yellow Mercury: “AT-62,” with the “A” designating Denver County. That led agents to the Perlmor and the tenant known as Walter Osborne, who had vacated on February 10. Inside the apartment, agents found handcuff boxes, tent poles, and leg irons. Eight days after the kidnapping, police in Atlantic City found the Mercury smoldering after being torched, and identified it by VIN. Soil recovered from underneath the car matched the Douglas County site where Coors’s remains would later be found.²

The insurance policy naming Joseph Corbett as beneficiary connected the Osborne alias to the fugitive’s real identity. Agents confirmed his prior California murder conviction and prison escape, and added him to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Hoover called him “the most wanted man since John Dillinger.”⁶¹

The break came from readers. A Reader’s Digest feature on the case reached Canadian tipsters who recognized Corbett’s photograph. A rooming-house manager in Winnipeg then reported that a man matching the description had been staying at her establishment and driving a fire-engine red Pontiac. On October 29, 1960, a Vancouver police officer spotted the car outside a local motor inn. Officers confronted Corbett in his hotel room, and he surrendered without a struggle, saying, “I give up. I’m the man you want.”⁶

Conviction and Life Sentence

Although the abduction triggered federal jurisdiction, prosecutors chose to try Corbett in Colorado state court for murder because Coors’s remains had been found in the state, an option that carried the possibility of a life sentence. The case went to Jefferson County Court before Judge Christian D. Stoner, with District Attorney Ronald J. Hardesty prosecuting.²

The trial ran thirteen days and turned on forensic and circumstantial evidence: the typewriter link to the ransom note, material from the burned Mercury, the soil match to the dump site, and the restraints and equipment from the apartment. Prosecutors called the case “iron-clad.”⁶ The jury deliberated more than sixteen hours and came close to a hung verdict before returning a first-degree murder conviction. On March 30, 1961, Judge Stoner sentenced Corbett to life.²

Parole, Reclusion, and Death

Corbett was paroled in the week of July 8–13, 1979, after roughly eighteen years, on the condition that a cousin in California give him a home. Within forty-eight hours, Jefferson County officials issued a fugitive warrant for a parole violation.⁹ He returned to custody, was released again on December 12, 1980, and finished parole supervision on December 12, 1985.¹⁰

He worked briefly at a manufacturing plant and then drove a truck for the Salvation Army before stopping work entirely at some point in the 1980s.¹¹ He moved into Unit 307 at the Royal Chateau Apartments on South Federal Boulevard in Denver, where he lived for more than twenty-five years.¹⁰

Neighbors described years of near-total silence, a whispered “hello” or a slight nod at most. He rose early, wore threadbare blue trousers and work shirts, and walked to the grocery store and the library. His cousin Gordon Myers said Corbett had shown no interest in maintaining a relationship. In a brief 1996 conversation with Denver Post reporters, he denied involvement in the Coors murder.¹⁰ In 2008, after roughly a dozen attempts to reach him, 5280 reporter Robert Sanchez got Corbett to open his door. Corbett declined an interview: “It’s nothing personal. I have nothing to gain from the notoriety. I’ve put it behind me. It’s a gruesome memory.”¹¹

By 2009, Corbett was eighty and had cancer. He needed help to walk. On the morning of August 24, 2009, he was found dead in his apartment from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, pronounced dead at 8:28 a.m. He left no note.¹²¹⁰

1
Chapter 16. The Most Wanted Man Since Dillinger
2
5280. Anatomy of a Murder
3
FBI. Joseph Corbett 1951 Mugshot
4
Longreads. The Death of an Heir
5
FBI. Coors Kidnapping Ransom Note
6
FBI. A Look Back at the Coors Kidnapping Case
7
CPR News. Death of an Heir Recounts the Notorious Kidnapping Turned Murder of Adolph Coors III
8
Douglas County Libraries. Adolph Coors III Murder
9
The New York Times. Just-Released Coors Killer Wanted for Parole
10
Denver Post. Adolph Coors Murder: Notorious Killer’s Quiet End
11
5280. My Encounter With Joseph Corbett Jr.
12
Denver Post. Coors Killer Corbett Takes His Own Life