The Stones Unturned Podcast
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Post by The Stones Unturned Podcast on Sept 16, 2023 21:49:26 GMT -5
In real life, Robert E Burns was an optician after the Great War, and then a tax accountant and NJ Tax Auditor (did you know they work on commission? They get a percentage of every dollar in back taxes they collect...) in the 1940s, and was a "Tax Consultant" in the 1950s. He was also a steamfitter. I can't help wondering if he didn't deliberately get himself arrested so he could write an expose of what was, indeed, a notoriously exploitative Georgia slave labor racket. There is simply no way he was "tricked" into participating in a robbery. Let alone, one all the way down in Atlanta.
His father and mother were both white collar workers.
FWIW, his brother, "Reverend" Vincent G Burns, was initiated into the Freemasons in Pittsfield, MA, in 1924. I swear that lodge had other interesting members from the 1920s, but I can't recall just who. Maybe it's just my memory playing tricks. His (first?) wife, Katherine Ann Howard, worked at the US Army Ordnance depot in Detroit during WWII, and before that, at an explosive chemical plant, also in Detroit. They were married in Kansas City in 1945. When he was 52. According to his obituary, he was a rabid anti-commie. You know. Like Lucky Lindy.
Has anyone ever seen photographs of him? There is one photo of "Robert" Burns that looks an aaawwwwful lot like the guy dressed like a priest who's always onstage with Lindy at his "America First" bull sessions. Who also shows up at German American Bund rallies. I ask, because, Robert's chauffeur's license photo from 1952 looks nothing like the guy in the priest outfit, let alone the photo of "Robert."
Anyhoooooo, it's funny that the Rev inserted himself into the phony kidnapping of Little Lindy. Unless, of course, it's not funny.
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The Stones Unturned Podcast
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Post by The Stones Unturned Podcast on Sept 16, 2023 22:28:48 GMT -5
Sorry. I got the names reversed. The guy dressed as some kind of priest or minister looks veeerrry much like Robert, not like Vincent. I'm not able to edit my post. It might not be him. But it sure looks like him. And it would sure fit everything else we know about him.
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Post by Sue on Apr 5, 2024 18:39:33 GMT -5
If anyone is interested in seeing what Vincent Godfrey Burns looked like on film decades after the Lindbergh trial ended -- See: "The Threatened Neighborhood," a Baltimore TV program that was filmed in December 1967. The segment of the program that features Burns is called "Battle of the Bards," and begins at about 33:00. (I would start at 32:00, though.) The show starts out by mentioning Burns' connection to the Lindbergh case. VGB was Poet Laureate of Maryland for life -- "Maryland, My Maryland" Burns, who famously stopped the court proceedings in Flemington 1935, was still ruffling a few feathers in the 1960s. Some of those interviewed felt he was misusing his position as poet laureate for political reasons. archive.org/details/WMAR_MISC_1144_011_DIG"The Threatened Neighborhood"-- "Battle of the Bards" University of Baltimore December 1967
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Joe
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Post by Joe on Apr 6, 2024 9:30:31 GMT -5
Thanks Sue, there are some real insights here into Burns' general motivations and the way he operated. Not unlike John Condon, in terms of his penchant for publicity and self-promotion. Relative to his involvement in the case, I believe Burns may have had good reason to claim a man had confessed of the crime to him. Which of course doesn't mean this same man wasn't lying to him. In any event, why would Burns insist only on 'revealing' such information in the courtroom of the most famous trial in history to that time in front of the public and press? Just a few loose bats in that belfry, I think.
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Post by IloveDFW on Apr 26, 2024 14:47:37 GMT -5
Thanks Sue, there are some real insights here into Burns' general motivations and the way he operated. Not unlike John Condon, in terms of his penchant for publicity and self-promotion. Relative to his involvement in the case, I believe Burns may have had good reason to claim a man had confessed of the crime to him. Which of course doesn't mean this same man wasn't lying to him. In any event, why would Burns insist only on 'revealing' such information in the courtroom of the most famous trial in history to that time in front of the public and press? Just a few loose bats in that belfry, I think. [b Hi Joe! We can't forget the reverend who helped Curtis either. He was a media hog. Sorry for typos. Was diagnosed with essential tremor and it's difficult trying to type anything.
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Joe
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Post by Joe on Apr 27, 2024 8:07:16 GMT -5
Thanks Sue, there are some real insights here into Burns' general motivations and the way he operated. Not unlike John Condon, in terms of his penchant for publicity and self-promotion. Relative to his involvement in the case, I believe Burns may have had good reason to claim a man had confessed of the crime to him. Which of course doesn't mean this same man wasn't lying to him. In any event, why would Burns insist only on 'revealing' such information in the courtroom of the most famous trial in history to that time in front of the public and press? Just a few loose bats in that belfry, I think. [b Hi Joe! We can't forget the reverend who helped Curtis either. He was a media hog. Sorry for typos. Was diagnosed with essential tremor and it's difficult trying to type anything. Yes, Dobson-Peacock was very much that, at least according to what John Hughes Curtis had to say about him. I believe there's enough additional evidence to demonstrate clearly he was very much involved in a true desire to be of assistance to the Lindbergh family but that he had no intention of sitting on the sidelines as some anonymous benefactor. I can just picture the photo of him trying to fix his combover for the camera after getting out of the open cockpit plane he had rented to fly him into Hopewell.
And hope you're much better soon!
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