On April 24, 1917, two men were driving from St. Paul to Minneapolis when the capital city police arrested them for speeding. The driver gave his name as Howard Lux, 325 Morgan Avenue, St. Paul, and furnished $25.00 cash bail, which took nearly all their ready cash. The two men then proceeded toward Minneapolis.

At Washington Avenue and Union Street SE., they drove into a speed trap set by Minneapolis Patrolman Charles E. Ziegler and F.X. Kort. Kort signaled them to stop. They failed to heed the command and Patrolman Kort sprang to the running board of the speeding machine and forced the driver to stop.

A block away, on his beat, stood Patrolman George Connery, who was called by Kort to take the prisoners to the east side station. The driver gave the same name to Patrolmen Kort and Connery as he had given the St. Paul police."We've just been arrested in St. Paul for speeding, and it took all our money to give bail," he pleaded. The plea was in vain. Patrolman Connery climbed into the rear seat of the men's car, the curtains of which were closely drawn. The prisoners occupied the front seat.

The car turned into Pleasant Avenue, headed toward the east side station, 18 blocks away, the closest route to which lay through the University of Minnesota campus.

Patrolman Connery failed to report from his beat at 3 p.m. and again 4 p.m., when he was scheduled to go off duty.

Shortly after 4 p.m., Patrolmen Ziegler and Kort, their day's work ended, went to the station and began checking over the disposition of the prisoners caught in their speed trap. They could find no record of the men Patrolman Connery had stopped. Inquiries revealed that Connery never had appeared at the station with his captives.

The policemen were baffled about the mysterious disappearance of George Connery. Since he was a quiet, married man with a good departmental record, he seemed to have no reason for an abrupt departure.

At 6 p.m. Connery's wive called the station and inquired for her husband, saying he had not come home at the usual time. This caused the first real alarm over the patrolman's disappearance, but the east side station failed to report the matter to headquarters until nearly 10 p.m.

From 10 p.m. on, the entire night police force searched for Patrolman Connery. Every detective in the department was sent out. In seven automobiles they covered all of Minneapolis, but it was then approximately eight hours after Connery's disappearance and the trail was cold.

"It is highly possible," said Lieutenant P.J. Quealy, commanding the east side police precinct, "that the two men, before the station was reached, gained Connery's consent to return with them to St. Paul after bail money. If they did this and took the East River Road, the car had to pass through miles of timbered and sparsely populated territory, where an attack on Connery would have no witnesses."

"Connery naturally would not have been looking for violence from two mere speeders and might easily have been caught off guard. He was armed with a pistol but may have had no chance to use it. They may have killed him and hidden his body in the woods. They may have knocked him senseless and thrown his body over the bluff into the river. They may have overpowered him and left him tied to a tree in the woods."

It was in line with this theory that Lieutenant Quealy sent a score of detectives and policemen from the east side station out along the east bank of the Mississippi River to search the woods and bases of the bluffs between Minneapolis and St. Paul, in the belief that Patrolman Connery might have been kidnapped and tied to a tree.

Patrolman Connery had a wife and five children. Mrs. Connery was near a breakdown as the hours passed with no word on her husband. "I want to do all I can to help find George. Our neighbors are helping, too. I know he's tied somewhere. He isn't dead," she said.

The name and address given by the driver of the car was found to be fictitious, the detectives said. The police broadcast the descriptions of the two automobilists over the entire northwest, as follows:

DRIVER - About 22 years old, 5 feet 7 inches; slender, dark, smooth face, dark clothes.

SECOND MAN - About 34 years old, 5 feet 10 inches; slender, fair, smooth face, dark clothes.

Patrolman Connery was in full uniform, and this would make his body easily recognizable, even at a distance. His description follows: Age, 46 years; height, 5 feet 8 inches; weight, about 150 pounds; bald, what hair remains is gray.

Connery has been on the police for for almost eight years, having been appointed under the J.C. Haynes administration.

Captain John Galvin said he was convinced the two automobilists had killed or disabled Connery or had locked him up somewhere. He said the men, without bail money, probably feared detention as speeders would reveal that their car was stolen. He said it was also possible they had used the car to commit robberies and feared exposure on this score. In either case, he said, there would be sufficient motive for an attack upon Connery to escape detention.

The next day, April 25th, t 5 p.m., the automobile in which Patrolman Connery was whirled away in by the two men, was found unattended in the rear of the Rex theatre in St. Paul.

The discovery of blood in the rear seat of the car and the fact that the crank was also in the rear seat, shattered the hopes of the police that Patrolman Connery would be found alive.

Convinced that he was deliberately beaten to death because the men he was taking to the east side station were criminals who feared detection, the whole police department gave its attention to the mystery. Squads of police, national guardsmen and civilians now searched both sides of the river between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and detectives searched other routes between the cities. At least 500 men were engaged in the hunt in the Twin Cities.

The fact that the car was found to have been stolen from La Crosse, Wisconsin, was further indication that the occupants feared arrest for the theft and attacked the policeman.

In the meantime, Patrolman Connery's record in the police department from the day he began his service on October 1, 1909, was gone over to see if revenge might have figured in his disappearance. While the record showed he figured in many cases of daring and that he had forced convictions against bandits, the defendants were still in prison. It was also argued that the circumstances of his disappearance disproved the revenge theory.

In an effort to hasten the solution of the mystery in the disappearance of Patrolman Connery, who had now been missing for 48 hours, Minneapolis Mayor Thomas Van Lear said he would offer a reward for information that would clear up the case. He said he would ask the city council and Governor J.A. Burnquist to offer additional rewards. Chief of Police Lewis Harthill said the reward should be large enough to make it worthwhile for those who knew something, to tell it.

Minneapolis policemen offered a reward of $50.00 from their own pockets for the finding of the body of their comrade. The Automobile Club of Minneapolis offered $100.00 reward for the finding of Patrolman Connery or his body, and a call was issued for members to volunteer their services to the searching parties.

Superintendent of Schools, B.B. Jackson, commissioned 52,000 school pupils to become volunteer searchers and help the 1,000 policemen and firemen of the two cities who were combing the Twin Cities and Hennepin and Ramsey counties. Leading the pupils were the boys from Motley School, Oak Street and Washington Avenue SE. Patrolman Connery was the policeman on the Motley beat and he watched the crossings at the busy hours, helping the small children across the street, hurried the tardy ones along and was looked on by the boys as one of them.

Mrs. Connery asserted that she believed her husband was attacked and injured by the men with whom he disappeared and that he was being held in the hope that rewards would be offered. She appealed to the searchers to redouble their efforts.

In her belief that her husband was still alive, she stood out against the police departments of the two cities.

"I know he is alive, though he may have been wounded," Mrs. Connery said. The search, which answer her appeal, will be so thorough that every foot of east Minneapolis and the northern ends of Hennepin and Ramsey counties will be combed.

Meanwhile across the river, on April 26th at about 1:45 a.m., St. Paul was shocked to learn that burglars had entered a rear window of the house at 793 Selby Avenue, and murdered Alice McQuillan Dunn with three shots from a .44 caliber colt revolver. It was a puzzling burglary because the thieves did not take anything of value, and a younger sister who shared the bedroom with Alice was unharmed.

The family summoned the St. Paul police at once, and under the direction of John J. O'Connor, chief of police, detectives worked swiftly and, as event proved, brilliantly. They took measurements and impressions; they classified fingerprints; and they questioned, questioned, questioned. They also lost no time in calling upon Frank Dunn, the victim's estranged husband, for questioning at 3:30 a.m. After being questioned, he was released when he was able to explain his whereabouts during the entire night.

By April 29th, three days after the murder. St. Paul detectives had uncovered several critical facts. They worked patiently to unravel the details of an involved assassination plan involving Frank Dunn.

By May 3rd, through the combined efforts of the Twin City police departments, they knew who murdered Alice Dunn in St. Paul, and furthermore, believed that the same man killed Patrolman George Connery in Minneapolis. Fingerprints found on the windowsill at the Dunn residence identified the murder as a notorious teenage gunman from Kansas City named Joseph P. Redenbaugh. The police also had reason to believe that Frank McCool, another Kansas City underworld character, had acted with Redenbaugh. A coast-to-coast manhunt had begun for the two men.

It was not until May 5th, after eleven days of intense searching, that the police came upon Patrolman Connery's body. An anonymous telephone call, which proved accurate, directed them to look in the woods one and a half miles north of Fridley in Anoka County.

His body was found in a spot so remote, its chance for discovery would have been almost impossible. The man who phoned police with the tip, described the hiding place of the body so accurately that it was easy for the police later to find it in the dark.

Apparently the murderers had driven to the point near where the body was found and dragged it a considerable distance through the woods with a rope.

There was every evidence that Patrolman Connery battled desperately with his captors for his life. His wounds indicated he was struck by the crank of the car when he leaned over to tell the men how to drive to the east side station.

His head was literally beaten in by the blows from the heavy crank handle of the car. His uniform was in tatters. There was a deep cut on Connery's chin, his nose was broken and lacerated by a blow, and there was a wound on top of the head. This wound apparently had bled freely.

The policeman's coat had been unbutton and his pockets searched. His service revolver was missing. Connery's murders took his police book and silver crucifix, which they threw away, and left the body face up and covered. His feet were crossed, but his arms lay at the sides of his body.

In his right leg there was a wound that looked as though it had been made by a pistol bulled. After the murder the slayers placed the policeman's cap back on his head and pulled it down tightly over the shattered skull, apparently to check the flow of blood while they were looking for a place to dispose of the body.

Detectives searching the woods near Fridley found Patrolman Connery's holster and a pocket knife which was believed to have been used by one of his assailants. The knife had been tossed away, and it was bloodstained.

The autopsy was conducted by Coroner H.P. Thurston of Anoka County. It showed the wounds on Connery's chin and nose were knife wounds. Connery did not own the knife, the police said. The autopsy also showed Connery's skull was fractured on top. The bullet wound, believed to have been inflicted after he was thrown from the car, entered the leg and passed upward to his back. He had bled profusely from this wound.

The clearing in which the body lay was 10 miles from Washington Avenue SE and Church Street, where Connery got into the car to take the two speeders to the east side station. It was believed that Patrolman Connery was slain in the car, for streams of blood were found in it.

Tire tracks found in this remote area showed that an automobile equipped with peculiar tires and chains had taken Connery to the lonely spot. Comparisons confirmed that these tire tracks were made by the automobile abandoned behind the St. Paul theatre, presumably by the killers.

Patrolman Connery's body was found near the place where the police had been dragging Rice Creek in their search. It was here they found a bloodstained automobile rug which was positively identified as the one that had been in the murder car stolen by Connery's slayers in La Crosse, Wisconsin, early on the day Connery was kidnapped and slain.

After police determined that the .44 caliber bullet found in Patrolman Connery's right leg, and the bullets that killed Alice Dunn had been fired from the same revolver, there was no question that the two murders were connected.

On May 8th at 8:30 a.m., Patrolman Connery's funeral took place from the family home at 3009 Taylor Street NE. All policemen who were not on duty, and all those who could be spared from their beats, and the entire mounted force attended the service. The mounted men and others in uniform formed an escort, and marched from the house to St. Clements Catholic church, where services were conducted at 9:00 a.m. At the conclusion of these services, the body was escorted to St. Anthony cemetery for the interment.

On the same day that Patrolman Connery was buried, police captured Frank McCool in North Platte, Nebraska. At the time of his arrest, he had in his pocket a police weapon identified as the one carried by Connery, even though the number had been filed off. McCool admitted living for two weeks prior to the policeman's murder at 1012 Nicollet Avenue, but he protested that he had nothing to do with the officer's death.

Patrolman F.X. Kort of the east side station in Minneapolis, and the men of the Prior Avenue police station in St. Paul, who detained and collected bail from Connery's abductors a few minutes before they were stopped in Minneapolis, positively identified McCool as the taller and older of the two men in the Connery case.

The grand jury in Hennepin County indicted Frank McCool for the murder in the first degrees.

Members of the grand jury then subscribed $86.00 to start a fund for the relief of the widow and five children left by the death of Patrolman Connery. The grand jurors turned the money over to the Minneapolis Journal newspaper, suggesting in a resolution that the public should add generously to the fund.

Alderman H.H. Downes said he would seek the mayor's consent to a plan to place small tin boxes in all parts of Minneapolis to collect the small coins the public might wish to give the Connery family. He said he found a man who would donate the work of making the boxes.

While Frank McCool was being apprehended in Nebraska, the police of the entire country sought Joseph Redenbaugh, declared as the actual slayer of both Patrolman Connery and Mrs. Alice Dunn.

Redenbaugh and his wife, Pearl, were finally apprehended in San Francisco, California, on May 11th, seventeen days after the murder of Connery. Redenbaugh admitted that he was in the Twin Cities on April 25th and 26th. Although he strenuously denied having anything to do with the Connery and Dunn murders, he and his wife were returned to Minnesota.

Redenbaugh was nineteen. Neat and well dressed, five feet six inches tall, and of fair complexion, he looked more like a high school student spruced up for a prom than a criminal. Nevertheless, he had committed his first crime when he was nine years old, had spent much time in reform schools and prisons, had progressed steadily in criminal expertness, and in 1917 was known as the "toughest kid in America."

Upon reaching the Twin Cities, Redenbaugh was coldly advised that the authorities planned to indict his wife as a principal in the murder, along with McCool and himself. Threatening his eighteen year old wife seemed to have been the one way to reach him. In order to save Pearl from standing trial, he broke down, admitted killing both Patrolman Connery and Alice Dunn, and revealed to the St. Paul police who had hired him. It was Frank Dunn, Alice's estranged husband, he said. On April 24th, Redenbaugh admitted that Frank Dunn had agreed to pay him four thousand dollars to do the job. Dunn wanted to get rid of his wife because he claimed she was bleeding him. It was suggested that a divorce would be far simpler, but Dunn's conscience as a Catholic would not let him accept this solution because, as he said, "under the rules of my church I can never get married again."

Redenbaugh claimed that the killing of the policeman was not planned. On April 24th he and McCool were speeding in Minneapolis when they were stopped by police. Patrolman Connery made the arrest and entered the automobile to guide them to the precinct station. Having no money with which to pay the fine, and having an important murder to commit in St. Paul, Redenbaugh admitted that he and McCool were not going to let themselves be jailed for a traffic offense. McCool drew a pistol and held Connery prisoner while Redenbaugh drove the automobile into the woods north of Minneapolis where Patrolman Connery was shot and beaten to death.

Connery's disappearance would inevitably lead to increased police activity, making it unhealthy for Redenbaugh and McCool to linger in the Twin Cities. Frank Dunn had told them that Alice Dunn planned to move to Minneapolis in a few days and asked them not to kill her in St. Paul. The Connery matter, however, changed everything. Redenbaugh reasoned that if Mrs. Dunn's murder "was to be done at all it would have to be done right away," so the two men completed the job, collected the money from Frank Dunn and left town.

On the same day Joseph Redenbaugh pleaded guilty to the murder of Patrolman George Connery, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and was immediately transported to the state prison in Stillwater.

McCool pleaded not guilty, stood his trial, and was convicted of third degree murder. He was sentenced to thirty years imprisonment at hard labor.

Neither man was ever brought to trial for the Alice Dunn murder, although Redenbaugh was to appear in Ramsey County district court again on August 30, 1938, where he pleaded guilty to murder in the third degree and received a sentence of from seven to thirty years imprisonment for shooting Alice Dunn.

Frank Dunn was also indicted for murder in the first degree. His trial, which began on June 14, 1917, was a local sensation.

Joseph Redenbaugh was brought in under guard to testify against him. The case went to the jury on June 29th, which promptly found him guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor and sent to Stillwater prison.

Dunn died in prison on February 26, 1958.

Redenbaugh, the boy killer, served forty-five years in prison. During that time, attitudes toward criminals changed, and the emphasis shifted from punishment to rehabilitation. On May 9, 1962, the graying, sixty-four-year-old Redenbaugh was released.

Although Joe was still married, he had not seen or heard from Pearl for twenty-five years.