The Kidnapping and Murder of Little Skeegie Cash: J. Edgar Hoover and Florida's Lindbergh Case

8. The Paperboy

8 The Paperboy Saturday, June 4, 1938 Saturday dawned on a community shaken to the core.exactly one week earlier , in the no-stoplight town of Princeton, florida, an innocent child had been snatched from his home. it was the type of crime small-town residents naively believed only happened in big cities. in rural southern florida, people tended to live harsh but simple lives, and not many stuck their noses in their neighbors’ business. Under normal circumstances, that was the best way to keep the peace. few things, however , remained completely hidden, and now that residents knew a monster walked among them, they opened up to investigators.These country folk revealed buried secrets and dragged skeletons from long-closed closets in an attempt to ferret out the identity of the kidnapper. in some cases, this offered them a chance to get back at old enemies.1 even though he’d been officially cleared, Willard Campbell’s name kept coming up in the investigation. on the previous evening, William Johnson of West haven, Connecticut, had called the local office of the US Secret Service and told agents that he had information about the Cash kidnapping in florida. Johnson said he thought a local man named Willard Campbell might have taken the boy.2 The caller informed Secret Service agents that in 1921 he’d been a bootlegger in south florida and that Campbell was his supplier. he described Campbell as a “daredevil, very tricky, [and] capable of committing almost any crime; that in addition to being a bootlegger, he has smuggled aliens into the United States.”3 80 / Chapter 8 Johnson said that on one occasion he and Campbell drove to a house Campbell’s father owned. The building had been unoccupied at the time, and Campbell told Johnson that he stored illegal liquor there. The house had a secret trapdoor in the ceiling and other hidden entrances and concealed compartments. Johnson informed the agent that Campbell may have snatched the Cash boy and hidden him in one of those secret rooms. Unfortunately,it had been more than fifteen years since the caller had been in florida, and he was unable to pinpoint the exact location of the house.4 The fbi recorded this information but spent little time pursuing the lead. having struck out with Campbell and braxton, the G-men now turned their attention to the most unlikely suspect of all—an eighteen-year-old churchgoing paperboy named Walter Augustus fisher.5 This unlucky teenager became a suspect for one reason: he drove a car that looked exactly like one that had allegedly been spotted near Asbury Cash’s house early on Monday morning, about the time bailey Cash paid the ransom.6 beatrice Cash told G-men that she’d seen a car circling her home sometime between three and four that morning. Several streets connected with each other to form a circle around her residence, she said, and the car kept driving around and around on those roads. She described the vehicle as an older model ford with a fog light attached to the front bumper. The first time it passed her house, she recalled, the auto had on its front lights, rear lights, and fog light. Later, after the sixth time it drove by, all the lights were off except for the fog light and the taillights. beatrice claimed that she later saw the ford parked near a grove opposite her house.7 The story seemed odd, but the G-men took it seriously. According to the fbi files, “[Walter fisher] was taken into custody and was questioned at the temporary headquarters at Princeton,florida,regarding his activities on the night of the payoff.” When interrogated, fisher, naive to the ways of hardened investigators, proudly proclaimed that he’d been “making his way” since he was twelve years old. by that, he meant he’d been working and making money to help support his family.8 he stated that he lived with his father, franklin, a carpenter, his mother, ethel, and a brother and sister. he had a route delivering the Miami Herald newspaper. fisher informed agents that he’d worked for the Herald for Paperboy / 81 three years and had never missed a day. he also worked odd jobs, depending on the season. he’d finished the eleventh grade but had decided not to complete his schooling this year and hadn’t...