Murder at the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids

by Diane Fannon-Langton

Overview

Byron C. Hattman sealed his fate when he checked into the Roosevelt Hotel on December 13, 1948. A maid found his body in a blood-spattered room two days later. An investigation linked him to the young wife of St. Louis pediatrician Robert C. Rutledge, who confessed to the brutal attack after trying to poison himself. The scandal made national headlines and seemed like an easy case for the Linn County court. That is, until new evidence changed the story completely. Reporter and author Diane Fannon-Langton uncovers the truth and compiles the complete details of the Hattman slaying for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467119603
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	08/01/2016
Series:	True Crime
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,109,714
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Diane Fannon-Langton writes "The Time Machine," a history column for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A Cedar Rapids native, she is married to Richard Langton Sr., and has two children and five grandchildren. Her interest in local history is fueled by having unlimited access to the Gazette's archives. "Newspapers have always been viewed as the purveyors of current events," she says, "disposable after each day's read. To me, they are the record of history, more detailed than any encyclopedia."

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

MURDER DISCOVERED

Margaret Bell was cleaning Room 729 at the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday, December 13, 1948, when a man came in and asked how much longer she would be.

Assuming he was the room's occupant, she replied, "About ten minutes."

He left, only to return in five minutes, out of breath — from climbing stairs, he said. He waited until she finished and was still there when she left the room.

The next morning, shortly after 7:00 a.m., Bell unlocked the door of 729 and entered the room, thinking its occupant had checked out. She used her pass key because the door was locked from the outside.

Switching on the light in the dark room, she saw a man's body on the floor, face down, in a pool of blood. She ran to the elevator and told the elevator girl to get the assistant manager or the bell captain to come up.

Bellman Arnold Layer felt for a pulse and, finding none, returned to the lobby and called hotel officials and the coroner.

Detective Tom Condon, the first policeman on the scene, called for help.

Inspector of Detectives Bill Kudrna was assigned the case. He appointed six more officers to the investigation: John Kuba, Leonard Stusak, Harley Simon, Albert Wilson, Charles Shepard and George Connell.

An inspection of the room showed signs of a struggle. All four walls were splattered with blood. There was blood on the bedspread and on the floor. A blood-soaked towel was wadded up by the sink.

No murder weapon was found.

Detectives concluded that the murder was premeditated, but they had yet to determine a motive.

Among the hotel guests interviewed by police was Eugene Potstock of Des Moines. He was staying in the room directly below 729. He told officers he heard "a hell of a fight" in the room above at about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday. He thought it was on his floor, looked out into the hall and saw nothing. The noise subsided quickly, so he returned to the reports he was working on and forgot about it.

W.L. Sheets, also of Des Moines, was in Room 717, about sixty feet away and around the corridor corner from Room 729. He said that he was lying on the bed reading the paper when he heard a fight.

"It sounded like a couple of men having a wrestling match," he said. "Finally, I heard one of them say, 'Stop, you're killing me.'" He got up and looked out into the corridor but saw nothing and heard nothing more. He didn't think anything of it until he saw the Wednesday Gazette.

Police established headquarters in Room 723, several doors from the murder scene. When they were settled in, the hotel sent up lunch. By 2:30 p.m., there appeared to be little progress in finding out who committed the murder.

What authorities knew was that the victim was Byron C. Hattman, twentynine, an instrument designer in the aircraft armament division of Emerson Electric Co., St. Louis. He was unmarried, a Marine Corps veteran, six-foottwo and 180 pounds. He was athletic and played on Emerson's softball team.

Coroner Robert Brosh determined the immediate cause of death was a stab wound in Hattman's lower left chest, a wound administered with such force that it broke his seventh rib and pierced his heart and liver. Other injuries included several gashes in his head and a badly cut finger, as well as a black eye and bruised lips.

Hattman's billfold was beside him with no money in it, but his expensive watch was still on his arm. A key to the room was found under the bed near the body.

The elevator operator told detectives Hattman was wearing heavy, hornrimmed glasses when she took him to the seventh floor shortly before 6:00 p.m. Tuesday.

Hattman's glasses were missing.

Police later learned that Hattman always wore his glasses, rarely taking them off.

The police theorized that when Hattman realized the intruder was bent on killing him, he tried to escape. The assailant knocked him down and hit him hard enough to kill him. When the killer dragged Hattman back into the room, he held him down until he was certain Hattman was dead. Police figured Hattman lost his glasses in the hallway scuffle, but his killer didn't notice them until he had locked the room door. He picked them up and took them with him.

Police urged people to be on the lookout for a man with bruises on his face or marks of a fight.

Cab driver Wayne Jeffords said that he picked up a man at the Roosevelt with several patches of adhesive tape on his face. He took the man to Union Station and then to the bus depot. The man went in, reappeared and walked up Second Street to the alley, where he turned and disappeared.

Hattman arrived in Cedar Rapids on Monday, December 12, from St. Louis.

Collins Radio Co. in Cedar Rapids and Emerson had contracts with the air force. Hattman had been in Cedar Rapids several times, according to Arthur Collins, company president.

"Hattman was here as a contract liaison man, checking over engineering details with our engineers," Collins said. "He was comparing general technical matters with our men."

Collins said that Hattman was frequently in Cedar Rapids doing the same type of work.

Hattman left Collins Radio shortly before 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 13.

Paul Stockberger was the manager of the Roosevelt Hotel garage, a building that once housed a popular local theater, the Greene Opera House. The first two floors of the five-story building had been revamped and served as a parking garage. Stockberger said Hattman brought his 1948 Buick to the garage between 5:15 and 6:00 p.m.

Detectives came across something weird when they searched Hattman's Buick. Wrapped in heavy paper was a frame in which someone had mounted against cloth the neck vertebrae and the end part of the backbone of a chicken along with a message, "Lest You Forget," in indelible pencil.

Police called John C. Hattman of Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, Hattman's father, to tell him of his son's death. In the course of their conversation, the elder Hattman told police that his son often carried a lot of money — $300 to $400. When the conversation concluded, John Hattman left immediately for Cedar Rapids.

Routine procedure required Collins Radio officials to notify the FBI and naval intelligence about the murder. When that was reported, rumors flew, many of them centered around Hattman's job. Could it have been a murder for company secrets?

As detectives dug deeper into the case, they found out Hattman had been the victim of pranks in recent weeks. He was the only boarder in landlord Alvin Steinke's home at the time. A week before, Steinke said, Hattman found a spike-studded plank in front of his car as he left in the morning. It was one of several similar incidents.

"He used to have three or four dates a week," Steinke said. "Recently he had spent most of his evenings in his room, going out only about once a week, sometimes not even that."

Two of Hattman's friends and coworkers from St. Louis, Paul Deam and Fred Gaez, came to Cedar Rapids to help authorities. They immediately cleared up the mystery of the chicken bones.

Deam and Gaez said Hattman had gone on a picnic with a girl who had prepared fried chicken. He enjoyed it and the frame was her unique way of reminding him.

Gaez also said Hattman had drawn $150 from his expense account for the trip to Cedar Rapids. They said he should have had most of it after only twenty-four hours there.

A conundrum facing Inspector W.J. Kudrna's force was the room key. The chambermaid explained that hotel knobs "talked" to the maids. If the knob wouldn't turn, it was locked from the inside, meaning the room was occupied. If it turned part way, it was locked from the outside and the occupant was not in the room. Hattman's room was locked from the outside, yet his key was found under the bed.

They surmised there must have been two keys.

Then a detective discovered that the key to one room could often open the door to another. The bellhop told them that he often opened rooms with the wrong key. The detectives tried it and found the key to Room 725 could unlock 729.

By Friday, a story the Gazette had sat on for several days in order not to hinder the police investigation began to be revealed.

One by one, pieces of the puzzle had been dropped into the hands of authorities.

First, the maid, Margaret Bell, said the man who walked in on her as she cleaned Room 729 arrived at 1:45 p.m. He left, and then he returned five minutes later and stayed until she finished. When she checked again at 2:45 p.m., the same man was on the bed. When shown a picture of Hattman, she said that was not the man she saw. When shown a Gazette photo of Dr. Rutledge on Friday, Bell positively identified him as the man who came into Byron Hattman's room four hours before he was killed.

Second, Hattman's associates at Collins Radio told Kudrna and Police Chief Jesse Clift that Hattman talked about trouble with a doctor in St. Louis involving the doctor's wife.

Third, Mrs. Bee Nichols, credit manager at Handler Motor Co., reported an odd incident with a St. Louis man who had a water pump replaced on his car. Short of cash, he gave several Cedar Rapids references to establish credit. When he called from St. Louis the next day to say he was sending a check for $15.31, she was suspicious. None of his references was real. She called police, who learned that a Dr. Rutledge had registered at the Montrose Hotel on Monday and checked out early Tuesday. He had been a guest on December 6 as well.

Fourth, a taxi driver picked up a man from the Roosevelt at about 6:00 p.m. the night of the murder. The man had a bandage over his right eye.

The Gazette quietly kept in close touch with both the St. Louis Star-Times and the Post-Dispatch from an hour after the murder was discovered.

CHAPTER 2

ARREST

Gazette police reporter Lou Breuer was the only Cedar Rapids newsman in St. Louis on Friday, December 17, to cover the arrest of pediatrician Dr. Robert C. Rutledge, age twenty-seven, on a charge of firstdegree murder.

Dick Everett, a Star-Times reporter who had previously worked at the Gazette for more than two years in the mid-1930s, followed the case closely from the St. Louis angle and also kept in close touch with the Gazette's city desk.

Breuer was there when Detective Tom Condon and Deputy Sheriff Larry Condon went to St. Louis with Linn County attorney William Crissman. They first went to the St. Louis police station and asked Detective William Washer to take Rutledge into custody for questioning about a murder.

The three Cedar Rapids officials and three St. Louis officers went to the Rutledge apartment at 2:20 a.m. They knocked on the door three times before a woman's voice asked, "Who is it?"

A tall, slender blonde dressed in a negligee opened the door and told them she was Sydney Rutledge.

Washer asked for Dr. Rutledge.

He was in the bathroom, she said. The officers had no warrant for arrest and couldn't break into the bathroom. They waited for a full five minutes for Rutledge to come out.

Rutledge called to his wife to bring him a robe. When he had put it on, he came out.

Breuer described the man he saw.

"He was at least six feet, two inches tall, of athletic build, with wide shoulders and narrow hips. He had wavy brown hair. He was very calm."

The officers told Rutledge to get dressed. He put on his clothes and accompanied the officers to the street, where his red convertible was being searched.

When Rutledge saw that, he started to become very nervous.

"You know all of this excitement isn't good for me," he said. "I have a bad heart and have been advised to take it easy."

Rutledge was placed in back of a police car, and the group headed for police headquarters.

A half block away from the apartment, Rutledge lit a cigarette, took a drag and slumped toward the left rear door. He began to perspire, vomit, froth at the mouth and writhe violently.

The squad car took an immediate detour to St. Louis City Hospital as detectives tried to find out what drugs Rutledge had taken. After his stomach was pumped at the hospital and he was given oxygen, Rutledge still wouldn't tell what he had taken.

As soon as the arrest occurred, the Cedar Rapids Gazette's city editor was informed, and local radio station KCRG broadcast the story when it came on the air at 6:00 a.m.

In a report from St. Louis, Breuer said:

I heard Dr. Robert C. Rutledge tell Cedar Rapids and St. Louis police this afternoon that he had been in Byron C. Hattman's room at the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids last Tuesday night and that he fought with Hattman there. He denied stabbing Hattman, however.

Rutledge, a brilliant young pediatrician here, is charged with first degree murder of Hattman. He is 27 years old.

The doctor was picked up by Cedar Rapids and St. Louis police at his home at 2:20 a.m. today. On the way to the police station he became violently ill and was taken to City Hospital where he remained in a coma until shortly after one o'clock this afternoon.

He had taken a sleeping potion as police called at his home to question him.

Awakening from his coma, he said: "You shouldn't have brought me around. I would be better off dead. My career is ruined anyhow."

Then he began to tell us — the police and me — some of the details of the fatal fight. "It was over attentions he (Hattman) had been paying to my wife," he said. "Hattman had been trying to shake me down for payment in return for leaving him alone. I was in the room and we got into a fight."

Marks of the violent encounter were still visible on the doctor. He has a broken nose and a blackened left eye.

"Hattman kicked me in the eye," he continued slowly, "and he pulled a knife on me."

"We kept on fighting and I managed to get the knife away from him. Then I managed to knock him out."

Answering a question by Detective Tom Condon, Dr. Rutledge denied having stabbed his fellow townsman. "I don't remember stabbing him," he said.

He had said earlier that he went to Cedar Rapids for a showdown with Hattman.

He verified that he walked in on the maid as she was cleaning the room.

"I walked in while the maid was cleaning," he said, "so I just waited. I kept on waiting until Hattman got there."

Someone asked him what sort of poison he had taken.

He said it was phenobarbital, mixed with some drug. We couldn't get the name of the drug he mentioned.

Whatever it was, he had apparently been able to shake off it effects quite well since he was sitting up and eating soup.

Crissman, Washer and Tom Condon remained at the apartment to talk to Sydney Rutledge. A story unfolded about an affair between Sydney and Hattman.

The six-foot-tall, honey-blonde twentythree-year-old had been a mathematician at Emerson Electric since February. It was there that she met Byron Hattman. The two hit it off.

With her husband's knowledge and consent, Sydney went sailing on the Mississippi with Hattman and some friends. That led to a second sailing date, followed by drinking. The pair ended up at the Rutledge apartment, where they were intimate.

When Rutledge found out, that was the last time Sydney saw Hattman. She said that the two men exchanged phone calls that became progressively more heated.

She told the officers that her husband returned home from Cedar Rapids on Wednesday shortly after midnight. His right eye was black, and he had bruises on his body. He told her he had gone to Cedar Rapids to talk to Hattman about the affair.

Rutledge said he waited in Hattman's room, and when he arrived, they fought. Hattman pulled a knife, but Rutledge said he took it away, knocked Hattman out and left the room. The first he knew of Hattman's death, he told Sydney, was in the newspapers on Wednesday.

The officers searched the Rutledge apartment but found no weapon or eyeglasses.

Rutledge's injuries were not immediately apparent when the officers first saw him. When he was cleaned up at the hospital, it was revealed that he had put on makeup to conceal a black eye and a broken nose.

By Saturday, reports surfaced that Hattman may have been stabbed with his own knife. His landlady in St. Louis, Mrs. Alvin D. Steinke, said that Hattman had a three-inch clasp knife that he usually had with him. The knife was not found in the Roosevelt Hotel room; neither did police find it in his pockets or among any of Hattman's possessions. Mrs. Steinke told police she had been packing up Hattman's things to send to his family. The knife was not there, either.

No one at Collins Radio remembered seeing Hattman with a knife.

Guards were placed at Rutledge's room at City Hospital in St. Louis after his suicide attempt. No one was allowed near him except for medical personnel.

Dr. Robert C. Rutledge Sr., of Houston, Texas, hired Leo F. Laughren as attorney for his son. As they determined whether they would fight Rutledge's extradition to Cedar Rapids, Linn County attorney Crissman and St. Louis chief of detectives Major George Parker conferred about the case.

Doctors at the hospital soon determined that the drug Rutledge had taken, in addition to phenobarbital and syntropan, was aconite. Aconite was a form of nightshade, an obsolete drug used in the nineteenth century as a remedy for colds. A druggist told authorities he had sold two grains of the drug to Dr. Rutledge.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Murder at the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Diane Fannon-Langton.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9

1 Murder Discovered 11

2 Arrest 17

3 Charged 23

4 Return to Cedar Rapids 30

5 The Trial 36

6 The State's Case 43

7 The Defense 48

8 Rutledge Testifies 61

9 State Rebuttal 71

10 Closing Arguments 79

11 A Verdict 88

12 Personal Interview 96

13 A Request for a New Trial and a Sentence 103

14 Freedom 111

15 The Appeal 115

16 Conclusion 122

Bibliography 125

About the Author 127