The Manhunt for Arthur Ross Brown

By Shane Dunning

http://www.redshalereflections.com

Sheridan County (WY) sheriff Willard Marshall entered the Rex Hotel in Sheridan on September 1, 1955, to question a transient ex-convict regarding a recent house burglary. As he went to the front desk, he inquired if an Art Brown was staying there. The proprietor said no one with that name was registered there. Marshall gave the man's description and confirmed that his suspect had been registered under the name "Bob King" at the hotel for three nights. The Sheriff sat a few minutes in the waiting room, and when his subject arrived at the hotel from the back stairs, Marshall followed.

Several shots rang out, and the proprietor heard the Sheriff yell, "call an ambulance and a doctor at once. I've been shot!" At the bottom of the stairway, Marshall was found with two .38 caliber bullet wounds, one through the abdomen and once in the leg. He underwent four hours of surgery at Sheridan Memorial Hospital. Attendants reported that Marshalls' first words when he regained consciousness were, "Did I get him?" The Sheriff had got at least one shot off at his assailant.

Unfortunately, he did not "get him." Witnesses reported hearing three shots and seeing a man leave the hotel with a gun and briefcase in his hand. Another witness said the fleeing man brandished his gun at him as he fled down the alley.

Thus began one of the biggest manhunts the area has ever seen. The Billings Gazette reported that:

Police Chief Ray Dow said three highway patrolmen from Billings and Hardin, Mont. And Gillette, Wyo., had been sent to Sheridan to assist local officers in the manhunt, which is being concentrated in downtown Sheridan, a community of 11,500 persons.

A score of National Guard radio-equipped Jeeps patrolled the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains west of here in the event the suspect might have fled on foot.

Dow said the suspect is believed to be Art Brown, a 29-year-old ex-convict recently released from a California penitentiary.

As the suspect eluded capture, the net was widened throughout an area. The Interstate Highway System would not be constructed through the area for several more years. Throughout a matrix of state roads and US highways, they looked for a 1950 two-door green Ford reported stolen at Sheridan.

The Yellowstone sheriff's office reported a roadblock had been established in the Hardin area and local deputies have been put on the alert.

At 10 p.m. Wednesday, pursuers believed the gunman was traveling on a dirt road north of Decker, which is a short distance north of the Montana-Wyoming border in Big Horn County.

Billings police received reports that a stranger had inquired for directions to Decker. Roadblocks were promptly set up near Broadus and in the Miles City area.

As a young man, former Otter resident Neil Thex recalled game wardens staffing a roadblock on the Otter Creek road. There were many tips, most of which proved to be untrue. Local officers were sent to Birney, where a hitchhiker resembling Brown was sighted and where he had some distant relatives. The officers returned with no results.

On October 15, over a month later, the green ford was found abandoned on Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota. A liquor store in Rapid City was robbed, and the victim identified Brown as the perpetrator. In November, Brown's estranged wife Jean was forced into a car at gunpoint by her husband near her home in Kansas City.

By late October, Sheridan Memorial Hospital released Sheriff Willard Marshall after seven weeks of recovery. Contacted during the manhunt, Brown's mother said that her son suffered from mental problems. "If only people understood," she was reported to have said.

Finally, on November 14, the manhunt ended in San Francisco. Brown's aunt reported a prowler in her home that was possibly her nephew. The FBI and the San Francisco Police found their subject asleep in a car near the aunt's house. Brown was apprehended 75 days after he shot Willard Marshall. Only when the FBI interviewed him did the full horror of Arthur Ross Brown become apparent.

FBI agents questioned Brown about the Willard Marshall shooting when he blurted out, with no prompting: "I'm really wanted in Kansas City." Beginning with that declaration, Brown confessed to a notorious unsolved crime: the murder of Wilma Allen, the 34-year-old wife of a wealthy Kansas City auto dealer and mother of two young children. Ross gave three separate confessions to the FBI, and only on the third did he admit everything, including the fact that he had raped his victim before shooting her twice in the back of the head.

After an extensive missing person search, police discovered Wilma Allen's body on August 7, 1955. But, because Allen had no known association with Brown, he was not on anyone's list of suspects for the crime. Brown's confession to the FBI was the first indication he was involved. He erroneously believed the Kansas City authorities had his picture and were looking for him.

He confessed to the FBI that he had made a decision that fateful morning to rob someone and was walking in a parking lot "looking for a good prospect that looked wealthy." He eventually spotted "an expensive-looking woman," and when she got in her car, Brown opened the passenger door, displayed his weapon, and ordered her to "start driving and behave." They eventually drove to a remote field where Brown committed his gruesome crime.

Brown was taken back to Kansas City, where he led authorities to the places he hid several of Wilma Allen's personal effects. Despite a long history of psychological problems, a three-person expert panel declared the accused mentally competent and fit for trial. During that trial, Brown offered no defense. In fact, when the prosecution was through with its case, his court-appointed attorney simply stated, "the defendant offers no evidence and rests his case." He wanted no mercy and received none. In less than six months, Arthur Ross Brown was executed in Missouri's gas chamber on February 24, 1956.

Willard Marshall continued serving as Sheridan County Sheriff until 1962. He passed away in 1983.