Little-Known Duesy Story

By Sigur Whiaker
 
Duesenberg tested all of its cars at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before they were shipped to either a Duesenberg dealership or to the customer placing the order. These cars were highly desired by Hollywood elites, such as Gary Cooper, and gangsters because they could easily outrun any car on the road. One day in May 1929, things went terribly wrong.
 
Duesenberg employees W. A. Wills and George Lutzell were on their way to the Speedway for a test of the custom-built sedan valued at $15,000, when a top line Ford cost $630. As they waited at the light at Tibbs and 16th Street, they were surprised when three well-dressed gunmen brandishing pistols jumped on the running board. One of the men told the driver, “Drive out of town and drive like hell.”
 
With little fuel in the car, they had to stop at a gas station where the car was left running while one of the bandits pumped the fuel. According to Duesenberg vice president P. A. Watson, the gasoline station attendant was in on the heist. When the testers did not return to the factory by noon, a Duesenberg employee checked with the Speedway only to learn that they did not arrive. That was when Watson began to suspect foul play.
 
Driving westward, they were about four miles outside of Danville, Illinois, at 2:30 p.m. when the Duesenberg employees were ordered out of the car.  They walked into town. The Danville chief of police called the Duesenberg factory and said that the two men needed fare back to Indianapolis. They returned home by train.
 
Aware that the car had been stolen and was last seen in the Danville area, Indianapolis police notified Illinois authorities to be on the lookout for the Duesenberg. Several days later, Chicago police found the car abandoned in a wooded area outside Chicago with several bullet holes in the rear. The bandits had stripped the instrument panel from the car. The car was recovered and returned to the Duesenberg factory.
 
Nine days after the heist, Chicago police arrested Joseph Hadhaza, age 35, as he sat in a parked car on Chicago’s southside. Hadhaza, who lived in the Chicago area, admitted to stealing the car and named his accomplices as William Mulligan, age 23, and Nicholas Hingel, age 19. In Hadhaza’s car, the police found a 38-caliber revolver and a 32-caliber automatic pistol.
 
Hadhaza told the arresting officers that they had robbed drug stores, restaurants, haberdasheries, gasoline filling stations and even people on the street. The Chicago police believed the arrest would clear up sixty burglaries.

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