Will E Worm
Conspiracy...
Peek Through Time: Politician's shooting death in 1945 is still a mystery
By 1945, political corruption was common in Michigan. Legislators’ votes frequently favored those who could pay them the most for their support.
The death of a state politician on M-99 three miles northeast of Springport might have helped put an end to that.
State Sen. Warren G. Hooper was driving his green Mercury home to Albion from Lansing on Jan. 11, 1945, when he was killed execution-style, allegedly because he was about to testify before a grand jury about legislative graft.
Hooper, 40, had been shot three times in the head with a .38-caliber pistol about 4:30 p.m. in what authorities later believed was a professional hit, possibly committed by members of Detroit’s infamous Purple Gang.
Tire tracks revealed Hooper’s car, which was headed south, had skidded across the road and stopped with the front wheels on the pavement and the rear wheels off. It was still facing south but on the wrong side of the road.
A recent heavy snowfall had been followed by bitterly cold temperatures, and that’s why Floyd Modjeska, operator of Springport’s feed elevator, thought it was odd to see a car parked cockeyed on the side of the road as he drove by.
He stopped to investigate and found Hooper’s body slumped forward in the front seat on the passenger side. The ignition switch was off and the gears in neutral. Footprints in the snow led from the driver’s side door to the pavement.
The car was on fire, and Hooper’s body was partially burned. Police later speculated he was smoking a cigarette when he was shot and it fell from his mouth and ignited the seat.
Modjeska flagged down another motorist, Kyle Van Auker of Eaton Rapids, and then drove to the nearby farm of Goldie Hersay to call Michigan State Police in Jackson to report the crime.
Born in Los Angeles, Hooper was the great-great- grandson of William Hooper, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He came to Albion in 1935 to become the Albion Recorder’s advertising manager.
Hooper left the job a year later to cover the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a freelance reporter but came back to Albion afterward. He bought and operated a gas station in town before going into politics.
A Republican, Hooper was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives’ 1st District in 1938. He served three terms before being elected to the Senate’s 9th District.
Hooper had been a state senator for only two weeks when he was killed. That was four days before he was to be a key witness in Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Leland Carr’s grand jury on legislative bribe-taking, in which former Jackson County assistant prosecutor Kim Sigler was serving as special prosecutor.
Hooper was the key witness in the case against former state treasurer Frank McKay, sports promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons and former state Rep. William Green. He had been given immunity after making a full confession to being paid $500 from McKay for his vote on a horse-racing bill.
Hooper, who agreed to testify against these men and others, had declined police protection when it was offered. But his wife, Calienetta, said he feared for his life and had been staying at a Lansing hospital instead of a hotel.
Upon learning of Hooper’s murder, Lt. Gov. Vernon J. Brown was quoted in the Citizen Patriot as saying, “Many persons will realize now for the first time that the grand jury is dealing with something sinister. It shows what the underworld will do when it finds itself in danger.”
The first real lead police had in the case was a witness report of a maroon-colored car seen blocking the highway in front of Hooper’s car. One man was inside the car and another was standing at the left side of Hooper’s car.
On April 20, brothers Harry and Sammy Fleisher and Detroit saloon operator Mike Selik, all former Purple Gang members; Selik’s wife, Naomi; and Pete Mahoney of Detroit were taken into custody for questioning in Hooper’s murder. Naomi Selik was soon released.
On May 2, the Fleishers, Selik and Mahoney were charged with conspiring to kill Hooper. The star witness at their arraignment was Sam Abramowitz of Detroit, a career criminal who was granted immunity for his testimony that he was one of several people who had been hired at different times by these men to kill Hooper.
The case was bound over for trial, and the Fleishers, Selik and Mahoney were convicted and sentenced to spend no less than four-and-a-half and no more than five years in Southern Michigan Prison for conspiracy to commit murder.
They appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which upheld the sentences of the Fleishers and Selik but set aside the conviction of Mahoney.
No one ever was arrested for pulling the trigger or bankrolling the hit, and Hooper’s murder remains unsolved.
However, the investigation snowballed after Hooper’s death into 62 convictions, including a former lieutenant governor, 23 state legislators and more than 30 lobbyists, police and court officials.
Tidbits
The Jan. 11, 1945, murder of state Sen. Warren G. Hooper has come to be known as one of Michigan’s most sensational murder mysteries.
• Hooper and wife Calienetta had two sons, Robert Lewis and John Charles, who were 6 and 4, respectively, at the time of their father’s death.
• Hooper’s funeral at Albion’s St. James Episcopal Church was attended by about 200 people. He’s buried in Riverside Cemetery.
• A $25,000 reward, the largest ever offered at the time for the capture of a criminal, was put out by the state in hopes of getting information that would lead to solving Hooper’s murder. The Detroit News added an additional $5,000.
• Abe Rosenberg, alias Harry Rosenburg, a former Albion roadhouse operator and Detroit cigarette salesman, was the first person to be formally arrested in connection with Hooper’s murder. He was booked for investigation of murder after a witness, who later recanted, said he heard Rosenberg threaten Hooper for being too friendly with his wife.
• Ingham County Circuit Judge Leland Carr, who conducted the grand jury investigation into legislative bribe-taking at which Hooper was to testify, became a Michigan Supreme Court Justice.
• Kim Sigler, a former Jackson County assistant prosecutor and special prosecutor in the grand jury investigation was a flamboyant trial lawyer. He was elected governor in 1946.
• Hooper was the third grand jury witness to die under unusual circumstances. State Sen. Earl Munshaw was found dead in his garage with the motor of his car running two days after he testified. Harvey Bylenga of Grand Rapids, an official of the Star Transportation Co., which was under grand jury investigation, was also killed when his car was struck by a train in Grand Rapids.
• Attorney General John R. Dethmers, who was investigating Southern Michigan Prison at the time of Hooper’s murder, theorized that with the help of Warden Harry H. Jackson, Hooper’s murderer might have been slipped out of the prison to commit the crime and then returned to rest easy with a perfect alibi. He said a ring of big-time convicts virtually had their own way in the prison and came and went almost at will. Jackson and other prison officials were eventually ousted for corruption.
• The Hooper case was reopened in 1989 when state police conducted ballistic tests on possible murder weapons, again without reaching a conclusion. Included in the test were old guns from Southern Michigan Prison. The .38-caliber handgun that killed Hooper has never been found.
• The Hooper murder prompted the publishing of the books “Three Bullets Sealed His Lips” and “Payoffs in the Cloakroom, the Greening of the Michigan Legislature 1938-1946” by Bruce A. Rubenstein from the University of Michigan-Flint and Lawrence E. Ziewacz of Michigan State University.
• Michigan Court of Appeals Judge William C. Whitbeck also has penned a new legal thriller, “To Account For Murder,” based on the Hooper murder. He will discuss the book and sign copies at 11 a.m. Feb. 26 at Albion’s Books & More, 119 N. Superior St.
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