Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Brewing Empire Heir Ransomed: Adolph Coors III Pt. 2

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

After Adolph Coors III vanished in 1960, the FBI launched one of the most intense investigations in U.S. history. From the ransom note to the discovery of his body and the capture of Joseph Corbett Jr., this is the gripping conclusion to the Coors kidnapping and murder case that stunned America. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. For ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Don’t miss out on all things Scams, Money, & Murder! Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios X: @crimehousemedia YouTube: @crimehousestudios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. And if you love digging into the most gripping true crime stories, then you need to listen to another Crime House original, Crimes of, with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Corinne Vienne. Crimes of is a weekly series that explores a new theme each season from crimes of paranormal, unsolved murders, mysterious disappearances, and more. Sabrina and Corinne have been covering the true stories behind Hollywood's most iconic horror. villains, and this month they'll be diving into the paranormal. Listen to Crimes of every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. We've all heard the saying, follow your dreams. Most of the time, that's easier said than done, because it's not always about how hard you work. Usually, there are other factors at play, like timing and a little bit of luck.

Adolf Coors, the third, better known as Ad, never had to worry about any of that. Unlike so many people, he was handed the keys to his destiny on a silver platter. As the grandson of the man who created the Coors Brewing Company, Ad didn't have to climb his way to the top. He was born knowing he would be CEO one day. But beer wasn't Ad's dream. He couldn't even drink it because he was allergic. If it were up to him, he'd be a rancher,

spending his days outdoors, riding and raising horses. But he had a legacy to live up to and saying no wasn't an option. It turned out, Following someone else's dream came with a hefty price tag, and in the end, Ad paid for it with his own life. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. It's not just a saying. It's a means of survival, because in the world we're entering trust, is a trap, and betrayal is often fatal. I'm Carter Roy, and this is scams, money, and murder. And I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Thursday, we'll explore the story of a money-motivated crime gone

wrong, whether it's a notorious con, fraud, burglary, or even murder. From the archives of Crime House, The Show, Murder True Crime Stories, and Killer Minds, These are some of our favorite cases that have kept us lying awake at night wondering if money didn't make the world go round, could all this have been avoided? And as always, at Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following scams, money, and murder wherever you get your podcasts. This episode comes from the archives of murder true crime stories. This is the second of two episodes on the 1960 abduction and murder of Adolf Coors III in Morrison, Colorado. Last time, I introduced you to the Coors family and explained how their small brewery became one of the biggest beer companies in the world.

After surviving Prohibition and two World Wars, Adolf Coors III was eventually named CEO. But just a few years into his tenure, he suddenly vanished. Today, we'll follow the investigation that J. Edgar Hoover dubbed the largest manhunt since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. With little to no evidence, agents desperately searched the country for Adolf and his captor. After months without any progress, the FBI honed in on a suspect, but bringing him to justice would come with its own set of challenges. All that and more coming up. By 1960, the Coors family were titans in the beer industry, with a huge brewery in Golden, Colorado, about 30 minutes from Denver. At 45 years old, Adolf Coors III, better known as Ad, was the CEO and chairman of the board.

For the most part, Ad handled the business side of things. while his two younger brothers managed the day-to-day operations. 44-year-old Bill was the brewmaster and spokesperson, and 43-year-old Joe was in charge of another aspect of the business, Cors Porcelain, where they made ceramics products. At that point, Coors was one of the few family-owned and operated breweries in the country. It was a great position to be in, but it also came with a lot of expectations. As CEO, Ad was committed to growing the company and making his late grandfather proud.

Unlike some of his relatives, though, Ad had interests outside of beer. Ad had recently finished construction on his dream home, a 480-acre ranch in Morrison, Colorado. There, he and his wife, Mary, had plenty of room to raise their four kids, and Ad had space for his beloved horses. Plus, it was only about a 12-minute drive to the brewery. After decades of putting the family business first, 45-year-old Ad was finally leading the life he'd always wanted, and he'd never been happier. But on February 9th, 1960, disaster struck,

and it threatened to destroy everything he'd worked for. That morning, Ad never showed. showed up to work. After a few hours, the Chorus family learned his car had been found abandoned on Turkey Creek Bridge, just two miles from his house. By 1.15 p.m., Bill, Joe, and Mary were all on the scene with local officers. Along with his car, investigators found Ad's lucky baseball cap in the creek nearby. Not far from it was a fedora that no one recognized, and another set of tire tracks leading away from the bridge. Based on all that, it seemed like Ad hadn't been alone. Whoever was there had left in a hurry and taken Ad with them. They also noticed blood in the dirt

along the edge of the bridge. Everyone was hoping for the best, but they had no way of knowing if Ad had been hurt, and if so, how badly. The discovery kicked things into high gear, because one thing was certain. It appeared he'd been taken against his will. The Jefferson County Sheriff launched a large search operation. Between the deputies, G-patroll, men on horseback, and Alpine rescue team, there were about 150 people combing every inch of the countryside surrounding Turkey Creek Bridge. By early evening, there was still no sign of ad. But there was one, more clue. His glasses were found near the bridge, and while the search team continued to scour the area, forensics arrived at the bridge to analyze the blood that had been found. What looked like a few

drops turned out to be a pool that had almost entirely soaked into the earth. Experts determined it was about a foot wide and three inches deep. It was nearly impossible for someone to lose that much blood and survive. When Mary learned about it, she was distraught, not just for herself, but for her four young children. Once they were home from school, she sat them down and explained what had happened. Mary tried to assure them everything would be okay, but her words rang hollow. The truth was they might never see their father again. There was a tough pill to swallow, especially because at that point in the investigation, there were more questions than answers. Apparently, there was no record of Ad's blood type anywhere, which meant they couldn't confirm

the blood at the scene was actually his. So for now, detectives continued to operate under the assumption that Ad had been abducted, but was still alive. Their suspicions seemed to be confirmed the following day. On the morning of Wednesday, February 10th, a Jefferson County investigator intercepted a letter bound for Ad's ranch. It was a ransom note. The investigator immediately turned it over to the FBI, which had just taken over the case. Agents from the FBI Western Kidnap Squad dusted the envelope for prints and made copies. The original was sent to their lab in Washington, D.C. for additional forensic analysis.

According to the letter, Ad was taken for ransom. His abductor promised not to hurt Ad as long as the Corps' family cooperated and met their demands. They wanted $500,000. That's more than $5.5 million in today's money. The note also included very specific details on how to proceed. They told the Corps to place an advertisement in the Denver post for a tractor for sale. After that, they'd receive further details. Once the FBI had sent the

original letter off for testing, they brought a copy over to the ranch where Mary, Joe, and Bill were all gathered. After talking it over, the FBI recommended that the family get the money together as instructed. The Bureau would handle the trade from there. The whole thing made Mary incredibly nervous. The note warned not to get law enforcement involved, yet here she was surrounded by them. Still, she knew there was no denying the facts. Just a day after he was taken, news of ads kidnapping was already a national story, and everyone knew the FBI was looking for him. But the remaining corpsmen were determined to keep things as quiet as they could. When Joe and Bill showed up at the brewery that Wednesday, they didn't acknowledge what was going on.

There wasn't even a memo passed around informing the staff that their CEO had been taken hostage the day before. Bill and Joe simply divvied up ads work and went on with business as usual. Meanwhile, the FBI continued to search tirelessly for ad. At same day, agents fanned out across the Turkey Creek Canyon area, knocking on every door in the hopes of getting more information. It wasn't long until they got a hit. One resident lived just a quarter mile away from the bridge. She reported hearing commotion coming from the direction of the bridge around 8.20 the previous morning.

First, there was shouting and then a gunshot or possibly two shots close together. Other neighbors told similar stories. unfortunately no one saw anything not on that tuesday morning anyway but early on monday the day before ad went missing two of these same neighbors spotted a strange car loitering around the bridge it was a yellow 1951 mercury sedan luckily one witness remembered the first part of the license plate this was 1960 though. They couldn't just type the numbers into a computer and get instant results. Hand checking the records at the Denver DMV took a while, but eventually, agents had identified four mercuries that might be a match. They tracked them down to various addresses across the city,

but none of the first three cars were yellow. When they got to the fourth and final location, All they found was an empty apartment. Even so, it seemed like a promising lead. The car was registered to a man named Walter Osborne. According to the building manager, he'd unexpectedly moved out the morning of Wednesday, February 10th, the day after Ad went missing. He left behind a spotless studio apartment.

Unfortunately, by the time the investigators arrived, the manager had gotten it professionally cleaned. Still, agents scoured the premises and found a few pieces of evidence. Before he left, Osborne had tried to incinerate some leather boxes, and the manager thought they looked nice, so she'd pulled them out of the shoot. When the agents took a look, they realized the boxes had contained. handcuffs. Behind the building, detectives also discovered a chain hidden inside a five-gallon paint bucket from the Benjamin Moore brand. The manager assumed it belonged to Osborne since he'd worked for the paint company. The most important piece of evidence was also on that

bucket, a single fingerprint, which detectives matched to Walter Osborne's driver's license application. print itself was sent to FBI headquarters to check against their criminal records. Because this also had to be done by hand, there was no way to know how long it would take to get a result if they did at all. The one thing they didn't find was the yellow mercury. That's because it wasn't anywhere near Denver. It was across the country in Atlantic City, New Jersey. At 9.30 p.m. on February 17th, a week after ad was last seen, the Atlantic City Fire Department responded to a fire at the city dump. The source turned out to be a vehicle, so the police were called in too. The interior was almost entirely destroyed, but the car

remained mostly intact. It looked like a mercury sedan. There was still some paint visible along the bottom, and it appeared to be yellow. And although the car didn't have any plates, the officers were able to read the serial number off the frame. They ran it through their system, and eventually they got a hit. The car belonged to Walter Osborne of Denver, Colorado. By then, everyone knew ad cores had been kidnapped and the FBI was looking for him. So as soon as they had a name, the Atlantic City PD shared what they knew with the bureau. For the FBI, this confirmed what they already believed, that Osborne was their man. Now they just needed to find him.

Within days of the disappearance of 45-year-old Adolf Coors III, the FBI had narrowed in on a suspect, Walter Osborne. By then, Osborne had already fled Colorado, and his car was found burned in New Jersey. Agents knew that if they wanted to find ad, they needed to find Osborne, too. But first, they needed to learn exactly who they were dealing with. although osborne had lived in the same apartment building for four years his neighbors didn't know much about him in fact many referred to him as mystery boy and his former co-workers at the benjamin more paint company couldn't tell the agents much about him either apparently he hadn't made any friends while he was there for detectives it seemed like osborne only existed on paper

The truth wasn't far off. On March 5th, nearly a month after ad cores disappeared, the FBI lab in Washington, D.C. got a match for the fingerprint found on the paint bucket behind Osborne's building. It turned out that Walter Osborne was actually 31-year-old Joseph Corbett Jr. Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Joe was from a typical. middle-class family. His father was a journalist, and his mom stayed home to care for him and his older half-brother. Joe was a friendly kid, active in many clubs and sports at school. But that changed as he got older. Puberty wasn't kind to Joe. He developed a lot faster than his peers, and by the end of middle school, he was almost six feet tall. He towered over most of his classmates,

while he eventually settled into his height, that awkwardness and insecurity never quite left him. It didn't help that Joe was very smart. It was just another thing that made him feel different, and it didn't make him a good student either. He couldn't seem to focus on topics that didn't hold his interest. Still, after graduating high school in 1946, 18-year-old Joe was accepted to the University of Washington. The average score on the entrance exam that year was 50 out of 99. Joe got a 91. He declared physics as his major and was considering pre-med. Even so, he struggled with the same issues that plagued him in high school. And before long, a family tragedy sent him

over the edge. In the summer of 1949, Joe, Joe's mother fell from a balcony. Joe found her lying unconscious on top of an iron grate. She died in the hospital five days later. The law sent him further into isolation. Even though Joe had just a year of college left, he dropped out and moved to San Francisco. There he worked whatever odd jobs he could find. The only thing his neighbors knew about him was that he owned several guns. It seems like the only person he kept in contact with was his father, because in late December 1950, Joe Sr. called the San Francisco police to perform a wellness check on his son. He hadn't heard from Joe Jr. in a few days.

When officers arrived at the boarding house where Joe was living, his bags were packed and he was nowhere to be found. They spoke to the landlady who hadn't seen Joe in a few days. either. However, she did jot down his license plate number at some point. When authorities looked it up, they were shocked by what they found. The plate matched a stolen vehicle that had been involved in a murder. Sometime around Christmas, a 20-year-old man had been found dead in Marin County just north of San Francisco. He'd been shot twice in the back of the head. police didn't find a murder weapon but they did find a vehicle abandoned next to the body after running the plates authorities realized it had been stolen they just didn't know by whom now they had a name and a suspect twenty-one year old joe corbett junior a few days later either in late december or early january nineteen fifty one authorities tracked him down in beverly Hills. Initially, Joe denied any involvement in the murder, but detectives were one step ahead

of him. While he was in custody, they'd searched his room in San Francisco and found a blood-stained hat. When they presented the evidence to Joe, he knew he had to come clean. He admitted to stealing the car found near the Marin County victim. However, he insisted he was acting in self-defense. According to Joe, he was on his way home from target practice when he picked up a hitchhiker. The man, who was a sergeant stationed at the nearby Air Force base, invited Joe to join him for a night on the town. When Joe refused, the man got angry and went for Joe's gun. Apparently, Joe shot him before he could get to it. Joe dumped the body and ditched the stolen car.

Then he walked into town where he was. stole another vehicle and fled to Beverly Hills. Joe's story wasn't very convincing, especially since the victim had been shot in the back of the head. Still, the prosecutors offered him a deal. Joe pled guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of five years to life. The judge said it at 10 years, and Joe was sent to San Quentin. During his sentence, Joe was examined by several psychiatrists, one of whom was hired by his father. Joe's senior desperately wanted to understand why his son had killed someone. The doctor determined he was asocial and emotionally repressed.

After his first year in San Quentin, Joe was sent to a federal medical facility at Terminal Island near Los Angeles. There, a psychiatrist diagnosed him as markedly schizoid. Meaning, he showed schizophrenic symptoms but didn't experience hallucinations or delusions. After three years of treatment, he was released to a minimum security facility in Chino, California. But he wasn't there long. In August of 1955, 26-year-old Joe Corbett Jr. escaped. No one knew where he'd gone until five years later when Walter Osborne appeared. appeared on the FBI's radar.

Now, the FBI knew their suspect's true identity, but they also knew that AdKorz was in immediate danger. After the Corps' family received the ransom note in February 1960, Ad's father, 76-year-old Adolf Jr., immediately gathered the $500,000. The FBI recorded the serial numbers of the bills and ran the advertisement in the dead. Denver Post as instructed. Then they waited, but nothing happened. For well over a month, no one heard from AdCores or his alleged abductor Joe Corbett Jr. Finally, on March 30th,

the FBI added Joe to their 10 most wanted list. Joe's photo and a list of his aliases were printed on over one million flyers and distributed across the country. Reports appeared in papers and on TV broadcasts. The FBI was pulling out all the stops. They wanted everyone in the country to know Joe's face. He might have escaped once already, but the next time he reappeared, the feds would be waiting to haul him back to jail. of 1960, the FBI was searching for 31-year-old Joseph Corbett Jr. He was their top suspect in the kidnapping of 45-year-old Adolf Kors III, who disappeared near his home in Morrison, Colorado on February 9th. The Bureau had added Joe to their 10 most wanted list and distributed

his photo across the country. They were confident they'd get a hit soon. But there was a problem. Even if they did find Joe, they didn't have any physical evidence linking him to the crime. But agents were working overtime to find some. They started with a car that was found torched in New Jersey. Although it was badly burned, the blaze hadn't reached the underside of the vehicle, which was caked with dried mud. Agents scraped off several samples and sent them to the FBI lab in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, back in Colorado, other agents collected more dirt. Samples were taken from the Turkey Creek Bridge and roads all around Adds property. In total, 457 specimens were sent to the lab. There, the chief forensic geologists performed a detailed analysis, comparing them to the ones collected from the car. There were several matches. It was damning, but highly circumstantial. If the FBI wanted to take the case to trial,

they are going to need a whole lot more evidence. It wouldn't be long until they found what they were looking for. In early September, 1960, nearly seven months after Ad went missing, a young pizza delivery man was out enjoying a hike on his day off. He'd chosen a secluded area near. at Sedalia, about 30 miles south of Denver. He was walking along when he noticed a pair of pants lying in the overgrowth near the trail. The delivery man stopped to pick them up and heard the pockets jingle.

He reached inside and found some loose change and a set of keys. There was also a silver penknife inscribed with the initials, A.C. the third. Like everyone else in Colorado, he knew Adolf Kores III was missing. As soon as you saw the inscription on the knife, the delivery man ran back to town and tracked down a police officer. The officer immediately called the FBI office in Denver. By evening, the area was swarming with agents. Over the next two days, 26 agents combed the hillside, and they found a number of personal items that were identified as ads,

including a tie clip shaped like a ski and some other pieces of clothing. Eventually, they found Ad himself at the bottom of an overgrown ravine. After being exposed to the elements for so long, his remains were skeletal. Even so, his dentist was able to confirm it was him, and a coroner determined the cause of death. There were two holes in the back shoulder area of his jacket with slight discoloration around them. those corresponded with holes in his shirt as well as the right shoulder blade according to the corner ad had been shot twice in the back probably at close range despite everything the corps family had been hoping for a miracle especially mary now she had to find closure in a different way because the fbi was upgrading their investigation from kidnapping to murder and they were determined to bring Joe Corbett Jr. to justice. Ever since Joe was added to the

FBI's 10 most wanted list, the Bureau had been receiving tons of tips. None had panned out so far, but that October, they received a call from Canada. Agents traveled to Toronto where a man had contacted the local police. Apparently he'd worked with Joe at a warehouse. Incredibly, he was still using the name Walter Osborne. Not only that, but he'd put his real address on the application. The FBI went to the boarding house only to find that Joe had left nearly a month earlier. The landlord told them it was very sudden, so much so that he still had Joe's things in storage.

Going through it, the agents found Joe's wallet wallet with his Colorado driver's license still inside. Clearly, they were on the right track. The issue was they had no idea where Joe might have gone. So they decided to take a look at his bank account. Among the most recent transactions was a bad check written to a Hertz rental car in Winnipeg, Canada. They were on their way there when they got another tip from the manager of a rooming house in Winnipeg. This time, Joe had chosen a rather flashy getaway car, a red Pontiac convertible. The FBI put out an alert to law enforcement across the country, and eventually agents tracked Joe down in Vancouver, British Columbia. After eight and a half

months of searching, Joe Corbett Jr. was arrested in his rented room on October 20, 29th, 1960. Joe was extradited and sent back to Colorado, where he awaited trial in Golden's Jefferson County Jail. After several months, the proceedings began in March 1961, over a year after Ad Cors was taken hostage. Although Joe pleaded not guilty, the prosecution painted a convincing picture. After doing their research, they'd come up with their own theory on how and why Joe targeted ad cores. According to them, after escaping from prison, Joe decided to leave California. He set his sights on Denver in the winter of 1955, where he began his new life as Walter Osborne. At first, he tried to embrace the fresh start, getting a job

at Benjamin Moore. The problem was he still didn't feel free. Joe was constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting to be caught and dragged back to prison. He knew it'd have to go far to outrun that feeling. His best bet was to get out of the country. For that, he'd need a lot more money that he made at the paint factory. And then he heard about the Corps family. It turned out, the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune lived right there in Denver. The idea for informed instantly, kidnap Ad Cors, and get a ransom big enough to go wherever he wanted. While the idea came quickly, the plan would take time and patience. So Joe watched and waited. He followed Ad and learned his patterns and routines.

After a couple years, Joe was ready to make his move. But then in 1958, Ad moved to Morrison, and Joe had to recalibrate. He continued to watch Ad and figured out where his new ranch was. In the meantime, Joe also gathered supplies. He got leg irons, handcuffs, camping gear, and a typewriter. By January 1960, things had fallen back in place. A section of the highway ad normally took to the brewery was shut down for construction. the detour led along winding isolated country roads through an area called turkey creek canyon along that road was a tiny bridge the perfect spot for an ambush the prosecution theorized that on the morning of february ninth joe stopped ad on the bridge possibly pretending to need help ad likely got out of his car and approached joe who probably pulled out his weapon

there was a struggle and ad was shot losing a lot of blood very fast joe then loaded ad into his yellow mercury and fled to the next county over he raced up a secluded mountain trail near sedalia where he threw ad down an overgrown ravine hoping no one would find his body or that he'd be long gone by the time they did the prosecution presented a convincing argument after After 13 days of testimony from FBI experts, witnesses, and ads family, the jury was ready to deliberate. On March 29, 1961, 32-year-old Joe Corbett Jr. was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was sent to the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canyon City, roughly 100 miles south of Denver. For 12 years, Joe was a model inmate.

Then, in 1973, the Colorado State Legislature passed a statute that made any inmate eligible for parole after 10 years, even those who'd been sentenced to life. In 1979, 50-year-old Joe Corbett Jr. applied and was granted a hearing. there Joe made the same argument as lawyers had during his trial none of the evidence linked him directly to ad's murder he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time the parole board seemed to agree he was released on december 12th 1980 after five years of supervised parole joe was a free man He settled in Denver once again, driving trucks for the Salvation Army until he retired. He lived the way he always had, quietly and mostly alone. Until 2009, that year, 80-year-old Joe was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Instead of undergoing treatment, he chose to die by suicide. The Corps family never publicly addressed, adds murder. for Adolf Jr. and his two surviving sons, life and business continued as usual. After Ad's death, his brother Bill became chairman. He held the position until 2000 and retired from the company's borge three years later when he retired at 87 years old. But behind closed doors, the family was shattered. Mary had never been particularly close to Ad's parents, and it seemed like they took Ad's absence as permission to distance themselves entirely, both emotionally and financially. After Adder's death, Adolf Jr. cut Mary and her children off from the family,

although the company paid her a $3,400 monthly pension worth about $30,000 today. Ad would turn out to be the final Adolf Coors to helm the corporation. His son, Adolf Herman Joseph Coors IV, worked for the company for a time, but he left in 1979, giving up business entirely to become an evangelical speaker. With his untimely death, Ad gave his son a gift he'd never had. The freedom. to choose his own path. Thanks so much for listening.

I'm Carter Roy, and this is Scams, Money, and Murder. If you enjoyed this episode, you can check out more just like it by searching for murder true crime stories wherever you get your podcasts. Scams, Money, and Murder is a Crime House original here at Crime. House. We want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Scams, money, and murder, and murder true crime stories wherever you get your podcasts. And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on

Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Murder, True Crime Stories, ad free. along with early access to each thrilling two-part series and exciting bonus content. We'll be back next Thursday. Looking for your next crimehouse listen, don't miss Crimes of with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Corinne Vienne. Crimes of is a weekly series that explores a new theme each season from Crimes of the Paranormal, Unsolved Murders, mysterious disappearances, and more.

Their first season is Crimes of Infamy, the true stories behind Hollywood's most iconic horror villains. And coming up next is Crimes of Paranormal, real-life cases where the line between the living and dead gets seriously blurry. Listen to Crimes of every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.