Fleeing Physician: The Curious Case of Dr. Kenneth Uhls, Part 10
Part Ten: The Great Escape
The Final Chapter
Trusty. As a noun, the word specifically denotes a convict who is considered trustworthy and is granted special privileges in prison due to their good behavior. During nearly two years’ time, Dr. Kenneth Uhls managed to attain the status of a trusty in the Kansas penitentiary in Lansing. That changed on April 1, 1928, when the doctor failed to report back to the prison after a day trip to visit his ill mother, Anna B. Uhls, who lived in Kansas City. Uhls had made five previous visits accompanied by a prison guard before he violated the trust on this sixth visit. Warden William Henry Mackey, Jr., announced the disappearance on April 4, but declined to reveal the name of the guard, declaring he was held blameless in the escape.
There was a difference in the versions of Dr. Uhls’s escape, as related by Anna Uhls and by the prison guard. According to Warden Mackey, the guard reported he sat in the front room of the house at 4327 Charlotte Street while Uhls talked with his mother in a bedroom, and that the prisoner slipped out of a door on the side of the house, leaving the guard waiting. Mrs. Uhls claimed her son walked out the front door and that there was no guard anywhere around the house. Anna Uhls also stated she believed her son would return to the prison in about ten more days, as she believed he was taking a leave of absence only to go straighten out a financial situation she had been facing involving a rental home she owned in Long Beach, California. She denied that she knew of his intention to disappear.
An investigation into the disappearance commenced on April 6, conducted by Charles H. Huffman, chairman of the Kansas State Board of Administration. Asked whether Dr. Uhls had been accompanied by a guard while on his visit, Warden Mackey replied he had no information to give out. He then became angry when asked whether Dr. Uhls had been given a 10-day parole from the prison. “I don’t intend to satisfy the public’s curiosity about anything that happens inside the penitentiary,” Warden Mackey said. “Any attempt to question me is an attempt to pry into my business. I do not feel answerable to the public for anything that takes place here!” The prison guard who was alleged to have accompanied Dr. Uhls to Kansas City was also questioned. Due to Mackey’s silence, the court of public opinion concluded that Dr. Uhls was allowed to make this sixth trip unaccompanied.
Word of the escape led investigators to be contacted by a family relative, Talmage Ray (“T.R.”) Uhls, cousin of Dr. Kenneth Uhls. T.R., who was a sales manager at the Waldo Chevrolet Company, told investigators that he had been contacted by his cousin who requested the use of a car for a five-day period. Dr. Uhls told T.R. that he was granted a 10-day leave of absence from the prison so that he could go to Oklahoma City and meet his new legal counsel, James C. Mathers, to discuss filing a new appeal to overturn his conviction. With some hesitation, T.R. agreed to lend his cousin his green 1927 Chevrolet Cabriolet.
Upon hearing about the Oklahoma City story, deputy warden Richard H. Hudspeth immediately traveled to the city and met with attorney James Mathers. While an appointment had been made, Dr. Uhls never appeared in the attorney’s office. Hudspeth decided to stay in the area for a few days and search for Dr. Uhls. On April 11, after no leads, Hudspeth abandoned the search and returned to Lansing.
A Pouncing Press
Meanwhile, pressure was mounting on Warden Mackey to provide information to justify how the escape could happen on his watch. Numerous editorials appeared in several newspapers across central and eastern Kansas, regarding the lax oversight at the penitentiary. The Chanute Tribune printed an editorial expressing their disgust over the situation, stating:
“Dr. Kenneth Uhls has escaped from the Kansas penitentiary where he had been sentenced for murder. He did not make his way out through a sewer. He scaled no stone walls. He secreted himself in no case of goods to be carried as merchandise beyond the walls. No alarm broke the stilly night with its shrilling. No armed guards are scouring the country. We doubt even if escape is the proper word to use. Dr. Uhls, it might be better said, is missing. One probably should be aroused by all this and demand something be done. But there are so many more murders outside the prison walls than in, so many more who haven’t even been identified than are serving time, that one more joining the free can’t make a great deal of difference. Besides, Dr. Uhls only seemed to be staying at the penitentiary when he felt like it.”
The Kansas State News out of Topeka took their criticism a step further and suggested corruption and political paybacks:
“About a month ago one Dr. Uhls, serving time for murder, left Lansing for Kansas City, Missouri on one of his regular visits to his home city. The doctor did not choose to return to Lansing and is said to have left the area. When Warden Mackey was asked why the doctor was permitted to leave to make these trips home without the formality of being accompanied by a guard, he became angry and reared right up on his hind legs and said, “It was nobody’s business, he was running the penitentiary, and no one had a right to ask such pertinent questions.” Well, we could not understand how the prison became his to do with as he pleased, but we went to the county clerk’s office in Shawnee County and there we found out why Brother Mackey thinks it’s nobody’s business. The Republican State Committee certified that they received from Mr. Mackey four thousand dollars in 1926. The largest contribution, if a contribution is what it was, to the campaign fund. Judging from subsequent events it seems that it was no contribution, but rather the price paid for the penitentiary “concession.” Rumor has it that a week prior to Dr. Uhls leave of absence, Warden Mackey himself brought to Governor Paulen’s office for his signature the papers for the release of the honorable doctor. The Governor, being away on one of his many trips to some “so-called” bankers’ convention, did not return in time to sign the papers before the date the doctor had set for his departure. Will Governor Paulen tell us whether he has the papers still in his office and if he is now going to comply with Warden Mackey’s rumored request? Will some of those responsible for Uhls’s absence from Lansing, without legal authority, please tell us what if any dirt Uhls has on the Republican State officials who have the charge of the prison and the pardon and parole matters?”
Did Uhls See the USA in a Chevrolet?
On Monday, January 28, 1929, nearly ten months after Dr. Uhls had fled, his cousin T.R. Uhls stepped out the front door of his home at 5029 South Benton in Kansas City and abruptly stopped in his tracks. Out in the street in front of his home was the 1927 Chevrolet Cabriolet he had allowed his cousin to borrow nearly a year ago. There was no license plate on the car. It was in good condition, neatly washed and with a different set of tires than it had last April. The speedometer showed it had been driven 40,000 miles since then. T.R. Uhls notified the motor car theft bureau immediately and said he would leave it standing as he found it until the police had inspected it. “This matter has given me enough trouble as it is,” Mr. Uhls said.
The return of the car suggested various possibilities. Dr. Uhls may have returned it himself, in which case he probably had been in the Kansas City area for some time. Or a friend may have returned it for him. Police concluded most likely Dr. Uhls had driven to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he secretly reunited with his wife Charlotte and daughter, Mary Louise, and then paid someone to return the car. Attempts to get cooperation with investigators in Canada proved less than fruitful and, surprisingly, the State of Kansas decided not to pursue any further investigations. Dr. Uhls had indeed gotten away with murder and escaped justice after serving only two years of his lengthy sentence. In March of 1929, newly appointed Kansas Governor Clyde Reed fired Warden William Henry Mackey, and replaced him with Milt Amrine, who had been Mackey’s predecessor.
Shortly after her son’s disappearance, Anna Uhls moved to Long Beach and lived with her sister for three years before passing away on March 16, 1932. In her obituary her daughter was mentioned, but there was no mention of her son, Dr. Kenneth Uhls. Dr. Uhls’s wife, Charlotte, would become the owner of her parents’ successful dry-cleaning operations in Vancouver. She later moved to Santa Cruz, California, where she passed away in 1989 at the age of 94. Her daughter, Mary Louise, would help run her mother’s dry-cleaning business, become a pharmacist’s mate in the WAVES during World War II, and go on to marry Jack Louis Gross before moving to Sherman Oaks, CA. She was unattended at her wedding, with no mention of her father. They would divorce in 1971, and Mary Louise passed away in 2018 at the age of 93. A review of newspaper articles from the 1930s through the 1970s would yield many articles about both Charlotte and Mary Louise. However, there is no mention of a husband or father to be found. There is no mention of Charlotte being widowed or divorced. So, whether Dr. Kenneth Uhls maintained their marriage in secret or in hiding will forever remain a mystery.
What Became of the Sanitarium Property?
In 1924, the new owners of the Uhls Sanitarium planned to convert the property to a resort including a golf course. However, financing challenges resulted in the abandonment of the project in 1925. In 1926, the property was sold to James H. White. White and Dr. E.H. Bullock, who was health director for Kansas City, MO from 1916 to 1923, formed a company to operate the facility as the Bullock Sanitarium. In late August of 1932 the former Uhls Sanitarium property was bought as an investment by a client of the J.C. Nichols Companies from the Interstate Trust and Banking Company of New Orleans. The new owner then leased half the property for ten years to Mrs. Edith B. McClure, who operated a rest home intended particularly to serve Christian Scientists. In 1935, Kansas City physician Dr. L.H. Trotter purchased the property with plans to open a convalescent home and recreation center, including swimming pool and tennis courts, on the site. Those plans also never came to fruition and the property ended up back in the hands of the J.C. Nichols Company. In September of 1941 the Church of God (Holiness) purchased the 12-acre tract from the J.C. Nichols company and established the Kansas City College & Bible School, today known as the Kansas Christian College.
Thus concludes the incredible story of Dr. Kenneth Uhls: tennis star, doctor, businessman, convicted murderer, and prison escapee. December 30, 2023, will mark 100 years since the murder of Hutchinson miser and Civil War veteran, William Gibbs, at the hands of Overland Park physician Dr. Kenneth Uhls. A murder that would set into motion an incredible investigation leading to tales of greed and desperation which would be the motive for murder.
Part Ten: The Great Escape
The Final Chapter
Trusty. As a noun, the word specifically denotes a convict who is considered trustworthy and is granted special privileges in prison due to their good behavior. During nearly two years’ time, Dr. Kenneth Uhls managed to attain the status of a trusty in the Kansas penitentiary in Lansing. That changed on April 1, 1928, when the doctor failed to report back to the prison after a day trip to visit his ill mother, Anna B. Uhls, who lived in Kansas City. Uhls had made five previous visits accompanied by a prison guard before he violated the trust on this sixth visit. Warden William Henry Mackey, Jr., announced the disappearance on April 4, but declined to reveal the name of the guard, declaring he was held blameless in the escape.
There was a difference in the versions of Dr. Uhls’s escape, as related by Anna Uhls and by the prison guard. According to Warden Mackey, the guard reported he sat in the front room of the house at 4327 Charlotte Street while Uhls talked with his mother in a bedroom, and that the prisoner slipped out of a door on the side of the house, leaving the guard waiting. Mrs. Uhls claimed her son walked out the front door and that there was no guard anywhere around the house. Anna Uhls also stated she believed her son would return to the prison in about ten more days, as she believed he was taking a leave of absence only to go straighten out a financial situation she had been facing involving a rental home she owned in Long Beach, California. She denied that she knew of his intention to disappear.
An investigation into the disappearance commenced on April 6, conducted by Charles H. Huffman, chairman of the Kansas State Board of Administration. Asked whether Dr. Uhls had been accompanied by a guard while on his visit, Warden Mackey replied he had no information to give out. He then became angry when asked whether Dr. Uhls had been given a 10-day parole from the prison. “I don’t intend to satisfy the public’s curiosity about anything that happens inside the penitentiary,” Warden Mackey said. “Any attempt to question me is an attempt to pry into my business. I do not feel answerable to the public for anything that takes place here!” The prison guard who was alleged to have accompanied Dr. Uhls to Kansas City was also questioned. Due to Mackey’s silence, the court of public opinion concluded that Dr. Uhls was allowed to make this sixth trip unaccompanied.
Word of the escape led investigators to be contacted by a family relative, Talmage Ray (“T.R.”) Uhls, cousin of Dr. Kenneth Uhls. T.R., who was a sales manager at the Waldo Chevrolet Company, told investigators that he had been contacted by his cousin who requested the use of a car for a five-day period. Dr. Uhls told T.R. that he was granted a 10-day leave of absence from the prison so that he could go to Oklahoma City and meet his new legal counsel, James C. Mathers, to discuss filing a new appeal to overturn his conviction. With some hesitation, T.R. agreed to lend his cousin his green 1927 Chevrolet Cabriolet.
Upon hearing about the Oklahoma City story, deputy warden Richard H. Hudspeth immediately traveled to the city and met with attorney James Mathers. While an appointment had been made, Dr. Uhls never appeared in the attorney’s office. Hudspeth decided to stay in the area for a few days and search for Dr. Uhls. On April 11, after no leads, Hudspeth abandoned the search and returned to Lansing.
A Pouncing Press
Meanwhile, pressure was mounting on Warden Mackey to provide information to justify how the escape could happen on his watch. Numerous editorials appeared in several newspapers across central and eastern Kansas, regarding the lax oversight at the penitentiary. The Chanute Tribune printed an editorial expressing their disgust over the situation, stating:
“Dr. Kenneth Uhls has escaped from the Kansas penitentiary where he had been sentenced for murder. He did not make his way out through a sewer. He scaled no stone walls. He secreted himself in no case of goods to be carried as merchandise beyond the walls. No alarm broke the stilly night with its shrilling. No armed guards are scouring the country. We doubt even if escape is the proper word to use. Dr. Uhls, it might be better said, is missing. One probably should be aroused by all this and demand something be done. But there are so many more murders outside the prison walls than in, so many more who haven’t even been identified than are serving time, that one more joining the free can’t make a great deal of difference. Besides, Dr. Uhls only seemed to be staying at the penitentiary when he felt like it.”
The Kansas State News out of Topeka took their criticism a step further and suggested corruption and political paybacks:
“About a month ago one Dr. Uhls, serving time for murder, left Lansing for Kansas City, Missouri on one of his regular visits to his home city. The doctor did not choose to return to Lansing and is said to have left the area. When Warden Mackey was asked why the doctor was permitted to leave to make these trips home without the formality of being accompanied by a guard, he became angry and reared right up on his hind legs and said, “It was nobody’s business, he was running the penitentiary, and no one had a right to ask such pertinent questions.” Well, we could not understand how the prison became his to do with as he pleased, but we went to the county clerk’s office in Shawnee County and there we found out why Brother Mackey thinks it’s nobody’s business. The Republican State Committee certified that they received from Mr. Mackey four thousand dollars in 1926. The largest contribution, if a contribution is what it was, to the campaign fund. Judging from subsequent events it seems that it was no contribution, but rather the price paid for the penitentiary “concession.” Rumor has it that a week prior to Dr. Uhls leave of absence, Warden Mackey himself brought to Governor Paulen’s office for his signature the papers for the release of the honorable doctor. The Governor, being away on one of his many trips to some “so-called” bankers’ convention, did not return in time to sign the papers before the date the doctor had set for his departure. Will Governor Paulen tell us whether he has the papers still in his office and if he is now going to comply with Warden Mackey’s rumored request? Will some of those responsible for Uhls’s absence from Lansing, without legal authority, please tell us what if any dirt Uhls has on the Republican State officials who have the charge of the prison and the pardon and parole matters?”
Did Uhls See the USA in a Chevrolet?
On Monday, January 28, 1929, nearly ten months after Dr. Uhls had fled, his cousin T.R. Uhls stepped out the front door of his home at 5029 South Benton in Kansas City and abruptly stopped in his tracks. Out in the street in front of his home was the 1927 Chevrolet Cabriolet he had allowed his cousin to borrow nearly a year ago. There was no license plate on the car. It was in good condition, neatly washed and with a different set of tires than it had last April. The speedometer showed it had been driven 40,000 miles since then. T.R. Uhls notified the motor car theft bureau immediately and said he would leave it standing as he found it until the police had inspected it. “This matter has given me enough trouble as it is,” Mr. Uhls said.
The return of the car suggested various possibilities. Dr. Uhls may have returned it himself, in which case he probably had been in the Kansas City area for some time. Or a friend may have returned it for him. Police concluded most likely Dr. Uhls had driven to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he secretly reunited with his wife Charlotte and daughter, Mary Louise, and then paid someone to return the car. Attempts to get cooperation with investigators in Canada proved less than fruitful and, surprisingly, the State of Kansas decided not to pursue any further investigations. Dr. Uhls had indeed gotten away with murder and escaped justice after serving only two years of his lengthy sentence. In March of 1929, newly appointed Kansas Governor Clyde Reed fired Warden William Henry Mackey, and replaced him with Milt Amrine, who had been Mackey’s predecessor.
Shortly after her son’s disappearance, Anna Uhls moved to Long Beach and lived with her sister for three years before passing away on March 16, 1932. In her obituary her daughter was mentioned, but there was no mention of her son, Dr. Kenneth Uhls. Dr. Uhls’s wife, Charlotte, would become the owner of her parents’ successful dry-cleaning operations in Vancouver. She later moved to Santa Cruz, California, where she passed away in 1989 at the age of 94. Her daughter, Mary Louise, would help run her mother’s dry-cleaning business, become a pharmacist’s mate in the WAVES during World War II, and go on to marry Jack Louis Gross before moving to Sherman Oaks, CA. She was unattended at her wedding, with no mention of her father. They would divorce in 1971, and Mary Louise passed away in 2018 at the age of 93. A review of newspaper articles from the 1930s through the 1970s would yield many articles about both Charlotte and Mary Louise. However, there is no mention of a husband or father to be found. There is no mention of Charlotte being widowed or divorced. So, whether Dr. Kenneth Uhls maintained their marriage in secret or in hiding will forever remain a mystery.
What Became of the Sanitarium Property?
In 1924, the new owners of the Uhls Sanitarium planned to convert the property to a resort including a golf course. However, financing challenges resulted in the abandonment of the project in 1925. In 1926, the property was sold to James H. White. White and Dr. E.H. Bullock, who was health director for Kansas City, MO from 1916 to 1923, formed a company to operate the facility as the Bullock Sanitarium. In late August of 1932 the former Uhls Sanitarium property was bought as an investment by a client of the J.C. Nichols Companies from the Interstate Trust and Banking Company of New Orleans. The new owner then leased half the property for ten years to Mrs. Edith B. McClure, who operated a rest home intended particularly to serve Christian Scientists. In 1935, Kansas City physician Dr. L.H. Trotter purchased the property with plans to open a convalescent home and recreation center, including swimming pool and tennis courts, on the site. Those plans also never came to fruition and the property ended up back in the hands of the J.C. Nichols Company. In September of 1941 the Church of God (Holiness) purchased the 12-acre tract from the J.C. Nichols company and established the Kansas City College & Bible School, today known as the Kansas Christian College.
Thus concludes the incredible story of Dr. Kenneth Uhls: tennis star, doctor, businessman, convicted murderer, and prison escapee. December 30, 2023, will mark 100 years since the murder of Hutchinson miser and Civil War veteran, William Gibbs, at the hands of Overland Park physician Dr. Kenneth Uhls. A murder that would set into motion an incredible investigation leading to tales of greed and desperation which would be the motive for murder.
