Adolph Coors III

Adolph Coors III (January 12, 1915 – February 9, 1960) was the grandson of Adolph Coors and heir to the Coors Brewing Company empire. He died in a kidnapping for ransom attempt gone wrong; Joseph Corbett Jr. was convicted of murder in 1961 and released on parole in 1980.

Life and career

Coors was born on January 12, 1915, the son of Alice May (née Kistler; 1885–1970) and Adolph Coors Jr. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Like his father and his youngest brother Joseph Coors, Adolph graduated from Cornell University, where he was president of the Quill and Dagger society and a member of the Kappa Alpha Society. Coors was also a semiprofessional baseball player. At the time of his death, he was CEO and chairman of the board of the Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colorado. Coors married Mary Urquhart Grant in November 1940. The couple had four children together.

Kidnapping

On February 9, 1960, Coors had to take a detour onto Turkey Creek Bridge near Morrison, Colorado due to construction work that had been going on since January. Joseph Corbett Jr., a convicted murderer who had escaped from prison in California and had been secretly stalking Coors for months, parked his car in the middle of the bridge a few minutes before Coors arrived. Corbett was pretending to be broke down. The next day, his wife Mary received a ransom note in the mail requesting $500,000 for his safe release. The hunt for Coors and his assailant was the largest FBI effort since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Then on September 15, 1960, a shirt belonging to Coors, and his skull, were found in a remote area near Pikes Peak.

A witness turned up who revealed he had seen a yellow 1951 Mercury with the letters "AT" and numerals "62" somewhere in the license plate combination on the bridge around the time of Coors' disappearance. A car matching the description was found torched in a dump in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Due to international obsession with the case, including a picture of Corbett in an issue of Reader's Digest, he was recognized by two neighbors in Vancouver, B.C., and was arrested.

As no witnesses were found, prosecutors built their case against Corbett through circumstantial and forensic evidence. Corbett's coworkers overheard him talking about a plan that would earn him over $1 million and the ransom note typeface was traced back to Corbett's typewriter. He died by suicide at the age of 80 in August 2009. He lived and died just 10 miles from where he killed Coors and always maintained his innocence.