Roy Frisch (6 of Spades, Nevada)
2024-02-28 00:23:14
For years, some law enforcement agencies have replaced the faces of traditional playing card decks with images of missing and murdered people and distributed those cards in prisons hoping inmates would come forward with information needed to crack these cold cases wide open. Now, audiochuck is dealing you in. Each week, we will be working with investigators and family members to bring you the details of some of the coldest cases from around the country in hopes that someone listening can finally bring these victims the justice they deserve.
Our card this week is Roy Frisch, the Six of Spades from Nevada, dubbed the most famous missing man in Nevada by local press. Roy Frisch was a bright light during an otherwise dark, lawless time in 1930s. RENO Yeah, I said, 1930s. This is the oldest case we've covered so far on this show.
Roy disappeared almost 90 years ago. So, while it's not possible to punish those responsible for his death. Thanks to newfound permission from a property owner. There is now serious potential that his remains could be recovered. And just maybe Roy can finally rest in peace. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is the deck.
It was getting into the early morning hours on Friday, March 23rd, at a nice home on Court Street in Reno. It was the weekend eve in 1934. And just real quick. I want to address that for some reason. Roy's cold case playing card states that this night was in 1935, but according to all of our other source material, it was 1934. So we're gonna stick with that. But anyways, if you were anybody who was anybody, you wouldn't be caught in bed asleep before midnight on a Friday night. Because, think about it, prohibition was over, gambling was legal in Nevada, and back then, Reno was basically Vegas before Vegas became Vegas.
So at midnight, the parties in town would just be getting started. And, according to an article by the Reno Gazette-journal, the Frisch family was hosting a late-night Bridge bash at their home with some friends. Well, most of them anyway. 46-year-old Roy hadn't participated in any of the festivities. He wasn't one to really party or gamble.
Instead, he ate dinner solo at the house and then proceeded to walk over to the theater at around 7.
45 that evening to go see a movie by himself, when the Frisch party ended at around 2 a..m. Roy's sister had probably just assumed that he'd made it home at some point earlier that night and snuck into his room without being seen. So, as she was finally heading to bed after saying goodbye to their guests, she peeked into Roy's room, thinking he'd be there, snuggled up and sound asleep, but he wasn't. And this didn't immediately alarm her.
I mean, after all, Roy's a grown man and heck he could use a little fun in his life, maybe he decided to spend the night out with some friends. But, according to more reporting by the Reno Gazette-Journal, around 9.30 later that morning, the family's alarm bells did start ringing when they discovered Roy had been a no-show for his job as a cashier at the United Nevada Bank. Roy's secretary had notified his assistant when he failed to arrive to work, but when his assistant told him Roy should be there, someone made contact with the Frisch family to try and figure out his whereabouts.
When family and friends failed to locate him by lunch, they reported him missing to the Reno Police Department. Almost immediately, the then-Reno police chief notified the district attorney to get the Department of Justice involved. He also got the local sheriff on board for extra hands on deck. That's a lot of people really quick, right? Well, there was a reason.
From the minute they got the report on Roy, a theory began to form. Here's Reno PD Sergeant Laura Conklin.
Reno was a small town at that time, but supposedly Reno was a safe haven for the mob to come into that. Our officials looked the other way. They were allowed to operate in the city and kind of be untouched. And as long as they didn't do horrific things, then they would kind of smooth everything over.
Sergeant Conklin's been learning everything she can about Roy's story, in addition to what had been going on in Reno around 1934. As it's glaring that organized crime likely had a lot to do with what happened to Roy.
So the Wingfield family, ultimately, they were involved and were a prominent Reno family, and Wingfield owned a bank. There was a couple of mobsters. William Graham and James McKay were arrested for a national sports wire fraud and insider stock trading scam, and this money was laundered in the Wingfield owned Riverside Bank.
Enter Roy, who had been working at Wingfield's bank while all this was going on.
And so Roy Frisch in 1933 was called as a federal witness against Graham and McKay, and Roy testified before a grand jury, and Graham and McKay were indicted due to his testimony. And then Roy Frisch was asked to appear before a federal committee investigating the failure of several of Wingfield's banks in Reno. That's when this whole thing starts for Roy Frisch, coming up as a missing person and how the whole case took off at that point.
Investigators began trying to trace Roy's steps that Thursday before he went missing. They learned that he left his job at the bank at around 5 p..m. Went home, ate dinner and then left to go to the Majestic Theater just before 8. From talking to folks at the theater that night, they found out that Roy had made it to the movie. And though he hadn't sat in his regular seat, he had sat seemingly without any company for the entire showing. And then set off toward his house, which would have only been about a 10 minute walk. And so, because no one noticed him arriving home that evening and his sister found his bedroom to be empty. Police were working under the assumption that something had likely happened to Roy on that short walk home.
Oftentimes, in criminal investigations, police will look into other reports from around the same time to see if there are any other incidents that could be connected maybe to their case. And when they did that. Here, detectives found a report of a Reno resident's car that was stolen from its parking space in front of the local library that same night. According to reporting by the Reno Gazette-journal, the car was found abandoned on State Street in the morning before Roy was reported missing, according to its owner. Not only was the car damaged as if it had been backed into trees, but a few unusual things were missing from the car, including rope and adhesive tape. Authorities were able to tell that the car had been driven about 150 miles overnight.
So with all this new information, it's likely that they at least suspected that this car could have somehow been involved in Roy's disappearance. Now, that same day that Roy was reported missing, searches ensued. Investigators searched part of the Truckee River that flows through town. And, according to the Nevada State Journal, they searched sand pits near a golf club where a tipster had said they'd heard gunshots that night. But all of these searches turned up nothing, no signs of Roy anywhere.
But during all of these fruitless searches, they were starting to hear more reports. That were reinforcing the belief that members of the mob were probably involved with whatever happened to Roy.
The day before, we have a report that at 8 p.
M.
Roy received a call in which his brother overheard Roy, stating No, I can't do that, he's a friend of mine. And then on the date that he went missing or was last seen at about 830. A female was walking by the Senator Hotel, which is a hotel that is in the downtown area, and witnessed a male looking at the Frisch residence at 247 Court Street. The male was approximately 40 years old, dark brown, hair, medium build, wearing a light gray hat, light gray suit, driving a dark blue sedan with Nevada or Utah plates. And the male drove by the residence three times.
According to reporting by the Reno Gazette-Journal, around that same time, a neighbor also reported that a tall man with a large car parked on the curb had visited their house seemingly by mistake, saying that he was looking for a different house. Other neighbors reported seeing a similar vehicle, but with a smaller man behind the wheel. Now, it's possible these neighbors actually saw the same man, just with different vantage points, or maybe two different men had been there together. Investigators also found out that a witness had spotted Roy stopping to talk to an unidentified friend around 10 15 p..m. on his walk home from the movies. According to reporting from the Nevada State Journal.
At around 11.
30 p.
M.
A Reno firefighter had recounted seeing a car's headlights in an uncommon spot off South Verdi Road near an abandoned mineshaft, which, in hindsight, seemed sketchy. Could this have been the spot where Roy's body was dumped? So it was easy for police to connect the dots here? Knowing that several of Graham and McKay's associates were supposedly hanging in Reno around this time, including Lester Joseph Gillis, better known as Babyface Nelson, and his gang. Things were not looking good for Roy, so throughout the following week, they focused on trying to find him. Or, more likely, at this point, find his remains. In hopes that maybe that could lead them to more tangible clues. Now, first, let me say that without the original reporting from Reno in 1934, a lot of Roy's case would be lost to history.
There are tidbits of information, little things that even investigators today hadn't recalled, but an article from the Reno Gazette-Journal said. Members of the National Guard conducted a full-blown search of the Truckee River, again to no avail. And then, according to reporting from the Nevada State Journal, officials searched the abandoned mineshaft right near where. That firefighter said he saw the car's headlights the night of Roy's disappearance. But even with drag marks at the scene, investigators had no luck. They also searched vacant bars in Douglas and Lincoln alleys, which the historic Reno Preservation Society says were known for their speakeasies, bootleggers, and overall reputation for illicit and illegal activities.
But nothing pertaining to Roy was found in any of them. Investigators even eventually took a trip to Fort Churchill, an abandoned military base. After getting word that quote, some strange things were going on, but once again, this turned up nothing, so authorities then turned their sights one state over to California. This had come after DOJ officials received intel that allegedly Roy was abducted, taken to the San Francisco Bay area and was being held quote prisoner.
Of course, they didn't find him there. And in early April, less than one month after Roy went missing, officials questioned three unnamed men, but they were apparently released after nothing tied them to Roy. And I don't know this for sure, but the way that everything happened back to back makes me think that. These men were likely members of the mob and affiliated with the California Tip. Now. Later that month, there seemed to be more happening behind the scenes because it had been announced that a grand jury had convened and its members had questioned several people regarding Roy's case. But so it goes in Roy's story again, nothing came of it.
All signs for police were still pointing to Babyface Nelson and his cohorts. But any time they tried to talk with him, he found a way to evade them. One of the first people to finally start talking was John Paul Chase in 1935. He was behind bars in Alcatraz by then, so there might have been some upside to him sharing some information now. And he admitted that he had witnessed Babyface Nelson murder Roy, and he had helped him cover it up, even telling investigators that he had helped transport Roy's body. About 150 miles southeast of Reno.
He said, No, no. We put his body down in this old mine shaft and that's how we got rid of him and drove him all over the desert in Nevada. And they finally realized that he just wanted a trip out of Alcatraz. He probably was somehow involved or knew information on it, but nothing was confirmed. Chase said that he assisted in the burial and provided several locations for the body. Chase stated that. They followed him out of the theater, blocked his path with a black Buick and took him out of town.
The Feds transported Chase to Nevada, where they searched all over. And so they feel like his confession was a lie, but we do believe that Lester Gillis was involved in it.
Again, Lester Gillis was another name for Babyface Nelson, so investigators had a hunch that there was some hidden truth to this story. They assumed that these mobsters were likely the ones responsible for Roy's disappearance, and just weren't willing to give up the true location of his remains. And more and more evidence continued to point to this gang shortly after Roy went missing, although it had already been searched, someone found a burlap sack full of ammo in the Truckee River.
This led to an additional sweep of the not-so-deep waters, which this time yielded a submachine gun with the inscription T.
W.
A gun likely linked to the mob.
So our sheriff, instead of turning that gun over to the Feds, which kind of fully supports that, we allowed mobs just to kind of hang out here in Reno. He took it back and oiled it and made it accessible. And the Feds were like, we could have got evidence off of that, so he turned it back over to the Feds. The Feds did whatever they wanted to do with it, tracked it because you could still track firearms and stuff. Ultimately, the gun was given back to the sheriff.
Thanks to this sheriff botching evidence, they weren't able to pull anything useful from the gun. So it was just circumstantially tied to the mob, and maybe tied to Roy's supposed murder. Now, wildly enough, that submachine gun still exists today. It actually hangs in a glass case at the Reno Police Department, along with a short explanation of its vivid history. We have a picture of it up on our blog post for this episode if you want to check it out.
Now, the following year, in 1936, according to an article published by the Reno Gazette-journal, skeletal remains were discovered on King's Mountain, close to where. Chase had said they'd gotten rid of Roy's body, but those remains weren't Roy, after all. Chase had likely been lying about where they had actually dumped him. So the search for Roy's remains and the investigation slowed like way down after that.
And there weren't any new breakthroughs that we know of, at least for years. But, according to the historic Reno Preservation Society, about five years later, Reno District courts officially declared Roy legally dead, which helped provide at least a little closure for his family. But maybe even more importantly, it helped solidify the story of what likely happened for law enforcement and for Roy's loved ones. That babyface Nelson and or members of his crew were likely responsible for getting rid of Roy. And they probably did it to help protect more of their fellow mobsters from being found out in federal court.
Besides keeping an eye out for Roy's remains, there wasn't too much more detectives could do to move forward. At that point. They were confident about the whodunit and the why in this case, but any additional details would remain a mystery for decades to come. That is, until a story about a deathbed confession finally surfaced, and it was not the kind of deathbed confession you're probably thinking of.
We also received information that on the night that he went missing. Roy's mother was sitting in her third story window, facing the Wingfield's backyard at 219 Gorge Street, and watched six men carrying lanterns and shovels. Dig a hole and drop a large bundle into the hole and bury it so she knew what had occurred. And then, during the statement of the person in 1989, he said she was actually contacted by the mob at that time. And said, You know what we did. And we will kill the remainder of your family and you if you ever say anything about this. So, supposedly, the mother then told a cousin on her deathbed that this had occurred.
And that's when he finally said, I better say something.
This family secret, one they had kept for ages to protect the rest of their family, was finally out. But what now if your answer is digging wishful thinking?
We were going to get permission to go on the actual piece of property, but it was owned by a local person here in town. We went over and did soil samples, and then we did aerial photos, and then we were not given permission to go and dig in his yard.
Although the soil samples didn't tell them whether or not human remains were present, it did tell them what sort of stuff was in the ground so that they could plan for a future excavation. But still, they kept running into roadblocks.
And then we were going to use the ground penetrating radar that was accessible to the FBI. They were going to come over and do that, but then they had to use that technology elsewhere, and eventually we lost our permission to be on that land. We don't have enough to go over and dig up somebody's personal property.
In the 1990s, the FBI gave the case back to the Reno Police Department, so if any breakthroughs were going to happen, they'd happen through them. Reno officially reopened the case in 1996 without many new developments. But just within the last few years, the Wingfield property actually sold, and along came some new owners.
The new owners of the property have been very gracious to us and allowed us to go on there. And you don't have to do that as a private citizen unless we had probable cause to go over there. And we don't have this. We have a theory from 1934 when this occurred.
As of now, they're just waiting for some utility work on the property to get sorted out so they can start digging the new property. Owners aren't just like allowing this search. They're donating an excavator for law enforcement and anthropologists to help the effort, so they are fully invested.
And we'll work with the University of Nevada Reno Anthropology Department to go over and dig this up and hopefully locate him. I mean, we still have, like his clothing description and what he was wearing and items that would be on his body if we do find him.
Whether they ended up serving life sentences for other crimes or were killed themselves, the mobsters believed to be involved in Roy's case are obviously dead and gone. And while there's no chance of serving justice, there is at least a strong possibility. Investigators will now be able to solve the city's oldest cold case, a mystery that has haunted Reno since the era of the Great Depression.
It would be extremely interesting if there was a projectile that remained in the ground or in the body. Because we possibly have the gun that we could match it to.
If they do find skeletal remains, this is what would likely happen next.
Bones are usually sent to a different type of lab because there's labs specific that deal with bone and extracting DNA. We identify him possibly by what he's wearing, if there are old dental records, which I don't know if there are. We have familial members of his that we could get DNA and run it through a familial DNA profile service. And so we would be able to deduce that this is more than likely. Him, we have, his height, we have his weight, we have the things. Hopefully he still has all the stuff in his pockets and it's not too degraded.
And then the body would go into custody of the medical examiner's office, and then the body would be released. Probably to the family after some sort of determination was made. That it is, in fact, Roy Frisch. And then they could bury him or choose to do whatever he wanted.
Sergeant Conklin's eager to be part of replacing this folklore with fact, or at least come as close to finding the truth as she can. It's about being able to close this chapter in Reno's history book, to be able to have a documented account of what happened to Roy. Because while he's long gone, his story will live on for generations to come.
For me, it's about the victim and the victim's family, and bringing closure to the victim. I've always policed in a victim-centered approach. And to let that family know that the police have not given up after all these years. And it's not just like, Oh, we want a stat or anything else. We want to bring closure for that family and we do police and follow every lead we can.
And since this was handed to me when I came in this division, I have made a pain in the ass of myself the entire time. To the people that own this new piece of property. And they got tired of talking and listening to me, and they finally gave us permission to go on there. I think just his living family members and I have a list of them that are local here in Reno. It would just be a nice story for them to have closure on this. Because we do have the historical building where his family's house was still here in Reno. And it would be a great part of Nevada history to have this thing solved.
If all goes as planned, we're hoping we'll be able to update you about the search for Roy on the Old Wingfield property at some point this year. So stay tuned.
We're going to dig where we presume there's a body. We have had a cadaver dog go on that property and the dog has alerted on the property. Now, a dog will alert on bones, and it doesn't have to be a human bone. But about the place where the driveway would have been, where the mother saw the hole being dug, is where the dog hit. Is it a coincidence? It could be. But we're hoping that this will solve our oldest cold case that we have at this point that we know of.
If you think you have any information that could help bring closure to the nearly 90-year-old missing persons case of Roy Frisch, please contact the Reno Police Department Homicide Unit. Their number is 775-334-2188, or you can anonymously report information by calling Secret Witness at 775-322-4900..
The Deck is an audiochuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast..com. So what do you think, Chuck, do you approve?
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