The Peculiar Truth about Sinatra Jr.’s Kidnapping

• December 8, 1963: Frank Sinatra, Jr., the teenage son of the world famous crooner, was in his dressing room at Harrah’s Club in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He was having a bite to eat before his evening show at the casino. His friend and trumpet player John Foss dined with him.

• After the Tahoe engagement, Sinatra Junior and his band were scheduled to perform in Europe. At age 19, he was following in his father’s footsteps. With limited success.

• Someone knocked on the dressing room door and claimed to be making a delivery. Two men barged in. One held a handgun and told them to remain quiet. It was a stick-up. He demanded their money. Junior had only twenty bucks and Foss had nothing.

• Then the accomplice taped up Foss’s hands and arms. A blindfold was placed over Junior’s face. They left Foss and took Sinatra Junior to an awaiting car. Off they went.

• But the accomplice did a poor job of restraining John Foss. He got free in a few minutes. Then Foss called the cops.

• Police and FBI set up roadblocks to find Frank Sinatra Jr. and his kidnappers, but they escaped the dragnet all the way to Los Angeles.

• Barry Keenan was a 23 years old dropout from UCLA. After a car accident, he became addicted to painkillers. Keenan needed money. So he schemed kidnapping a celebrity for ransom.

• His first target was Bob Hope’s son, Tony. He dropped that idea in favor of Frank Sinatra’s son.

• Keenan couldn’t pull off the scheme alone. So he enlisted his high school pal, Joe Amsler, a penniless newlywed. Keenan also enlisted his mother’s ex-boyfriend, a middle-aged man named John Irwin.

• Sinatra Junior was on tour, so Keenan plotted to go to the various locations to snatch their victim. He and Amsler went to Phoenix and then Los Angeles, but their plans were foiled both times.

• Then they planned to take Junior on November 22, 1963. That fell apart, too, because it was the day of JFK’s assassination.

• Keenan and Amsler finally succeeded two and a half weeks later. But nothing went as they planned.

• Sinatra Junior was a defiant kidnapping victim. When told to give them contact information to call his father for ransom money, Junior refused.

• December 9: Keenan learned that Frank Sinatra, Sr. was at a hotel in Reno. So he called there and demanded $240,000. Then he gave instructions. Go to a gas station in Carson City and wait by the payphone for details. At the gas station, he was told to take the money to another gas station on Wilshire Blvd. in LA.

• Instructions were given to

• December 11: As soon as Keenan and Amsler went to collect the cash, John Irwin panicked. He set Junior free.

• Junior was found wandering through the upscale LA suburb of Bel Air at 3 am. He was then driven to his mother’s home nearby.

• Irwin joined his fellow conspirators where they partied with the ransom money.

• The trio could have gotten away with everything if not for one mistake. Irwin confessed to his brother that he, Keenan, and Amsler had pulled off the crime. The brother then called the cops, and the kidnappers were arrested.

• At their trial the following February, Keenan’s defense attorney said it was nothing more than a publicity stunt meant to bolster Junior’s career. The jury didn’t bite. But the allegation dogged Junior for years thereafter.

• Keenan, Amsler, and Irwin received harsh sentences to keep them behind bars for life. However, none of them served even five years in prison.

• The kidnapping didn’t seem to bolster Frank Sinatra, Jr.’s music career, but he remained in showbiz until he died in 2016.

• After prison, Barry Keenan got into the Los Angeles real estate business. His new career made him a millionaire.

• ALSO:

• Frank Sinatra Sr. was worried during the gas station payphone episodes that he wouldn’t have enough coins to make any calls. So he carried ten dimes in his pocket… for the rest of his life.

• It’s said that the famous crooner was placed to his final rest with ten dimes in his pocket.