Nevada Lore Series: The truly bizarre tale of Frank Sinatra Jr.'s Tahoe abduction

Days after President Kennedy was assassinated, Frank Sinatra, Jr., just barely an adult, was in the midst of a tour getting his music career off the ground.

On his tour during a snowy Tahoe December, he performed at the Harrah’s Club Lodge in Lake Tahoe.

Little did he know he had a few followers trailing him from city to city, and they weren’t hopeful fans, but instead, hopeful foes.

Two 23-year-olds named Barry Keenan and Joe Amsler, who had gone to school with Nancy Sinatra in Los Angeles, had been stalking Frank Jr. from city to city, club to club, with a plan to hatch: They were going to kidnap the son of Old Blue Eyes, hold him for ransom, and wait for payment from his rich father. All they needed was their moment.

They found that moment on December 8, 1963. Before his performance at the Harrah’s Club Lodge, Frank Sinatra, Jr. was relaxing in his dressing room with one of his musicians eating chicken when Keenan, under the guise of delivering a package, knocked on the door.

When Frank Jr. came to open the door, Keenan and Amsler busted in, tying both men with tape, and blindfolded Frank Jr. before taking him through a side door and into their car.

The musician freed himself from his bounds almost immediately and alerted authorities, and roadblocks were set up throughout town. The car carrying Frank Jr. was actually stopped by police at one of these roadblocks, but the men were able to weasel their way through with some story, and Frank Jr. was taken to their hideout in Los Angeles.

Frank Sr. flew to Reno immediately upon learning of the kidnapping and awaited the random call with Reno FBI agents, while FBI agents in California stayed with Frank Jr.’s mother in Bel Air.

The next night, the third member of the kidnapping team, John Irwin, who was the boyfriend of Keenan’s mother and a decorated World War II Navy Vet, called Frank Sr. and told him to await the kidnapper’s instructions.

They told Frank Sr. he needed to go to a Chevron station in Carson City and answer the phone there when they called.

In an almost comical interaction, Frank Sr. was late to the phone call due to a snowstorm. In a 1998 article in the Washington Post written by Peter Gilstrap, he writes the story Keenan gave him, which makes it sound like Frank Jr. became immediate best friends with his kidnappers and they all had a great time.

According to Keenan, the call to Frank Sr. went this way:

Irwin calls the station in 15 minutes. “Is Frank Sinatra there?” The Chevron man answers — “No!” Click.

Irwin calls back a second time. “Is Frank Sinatra there?”

The Chevron man: “Listen buddy, I’m working on a car, I don’t have time to play around. Don’t call again!”

Irwin calls a third time. “Is Frank Sinatra there?”

Chevron man: “Listen, pal. Mr. Sinatra is not in the habit of taking his calls at this Chevron station!”

Seconds after he hangs up, a black car peels into the station, brakes screeching to a halt. The passenger door is flung open, a man bounds out, brilliant blue eyes ablaze. He runs up, grabs the slack-jawed attendant by the front of his shirt.

“I’m Frank Sinatra! Have I had any calls?!!”

Irwin calls one more time, a panting Sinatra grips the phone, and the conversation goes something like this:

“What do you want, money?”

“Of course.”

“How much? I’ll give you a million dollars if you let my son go!”

“Well, we don’t need a million dollars. I’ll tell you how much we need tomorrow.”

“Can I talk to my son?”

A conversation ensues that consists of: “Are you all right?” and “Yeah.” Click.

Jazzed on Percodan, Coca-Cola and no sleep for two days, Keenan proceeds to drive back to Lake Tahoe in a rented Impala. He’s strapped skis on the roof for a winter tourist effect. He cleans the hotel room, pays up, completes the smoke screen by going skiing. Once down the bunny slope and he’s L.A. bound.

He arrives at the hideout to find a nervous Irwin and Amsler demanding they get going with the ransom collection.

In his absence, Amsler and Junior "had been really bonding. They were doing pantomimes of their favorite Wallace Beery movies," Keenan recalls.

On December 10, Irwin called again and instructed the demand amount was $240,000, which in today’s money is nearly $1.8 million. $1 million in 1968, which Frank Sr. allegedly offered for the return of his son, is worth $7.4 million.

Frank Sr. was told to drop the money between two school buses in Sepulveda, California, beside a Texaco Station the morning of December 11.

Keenan and Amsler went to collect their money, and the story goes that Irwin got spooked and decided to set Frank Jr. free.

Frank Jr. was then found in Bel Air after alerting a security guard and was hidden in the trunk of the guard’s car and brought to his mother’s house in an effort to avoid the throng of press collected outside her home.

Despite Keenan’s story of them all becoming great pals on their heist, Frank Jr. told FBI agents that he had barely seen two of his kidnappers and had only heard the third as he was blindfolded the majority of the 54 hours he was gone.

Agents were able to retrace his steps and found the house he had been held at in Canoga Park and were able to recover evidence.

Only a few days later, Irwin finally cracked under the pressure and told his brother he had been involved with the kidnapping, who immediately called the San Diego FBI office and ratted his brother out. Keenan and Amsler were captured only a few hours later and almost all of the ransom money was recovered.

The trial for Keenan, Amsler and Irwin lasted four weeks, and was even more bizarre than the kidnapping itself.

Keenan told Gilstrap in the Washington Post article that he had been broke after a car accident — brought on by him gallantly swerving to avoid hitting a dog in the road — left him addicted to pain relievers, and needed money fast.

He said he decided on Frank Jr. because he wanted to bring the Sinatras back together, while saving his own family from going bankrupt in the process.

He also told the Post he thought about kidnapping Bob Hope’s son, but decided it would be un-American to do so.

"I originally thought of Tony Hope, but Bob Hope had been very active with entertaining the troops and seemed like an all-around good guy. Kidnapping Tony didn't seem like a very American thing to do.”

Frank Sr., however, was “tough,” and it wouldn’t affect him too terribly, Keenan said in the article.

He also claimed that his best friend, Dean Torrence of "Jan and Dean," the popular duo behind the No. 1 hit Surf City, had met with Keenan where he prepared a business plan, asking Dean to finance the kidnapping.

According to Keenan, he told Dean he was going to pay Sinatra back after he was able to collect money from investments the ransom would fund.

Dean ended up giving Keenan $500, though Keenan asked for $5,000, but claimed he never thought Keenan would actually go through with the heist.

During the trial, yarns were spun by each of the captors to try and pin the crime on each other, and in a truly bizarre turn of events, Frank Jr. got on the stand, told his story, and admitted that he had told his abductors, “I hope you guys get away with this.”

Keenan also started the rumor that Frank Jr. had concocted the whole abduction as a publicity stunt, something Keenan wholeheartedly took back, but followed Frank Jr. for the rest of his life.

Each of the captors received life sentences, but soon after, the convictions were reversed on technicalities.

According to Keenan, it’s because he was declared insane during the kidnapping and didn’t fit any of the profiles of normal criminals.

Their sentences were brought down to 25 years, and after appeals, Keenan’s prison sentence was reduced to 12 years.

Amsler and Irwin were released after three and a half years, and somehow, Keenan was released shortly after, having spent only four and a half years of his original 75 years to life sentence.

Keenan went on to be a titan of industry in Los Angeles as a developer, and was worth over $17 million dollars in the 80s, which is almost $44 million in today's money.

He was an addict and an alcoholic for most of his life, until he nearly died from his addictions, joined a 12-step program, and got even richer building treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals and shelters.

Frank Jr. died March 16, 2016 in Daytona Beach at the age of 72.

Amsler, who later became a Hollywood stunt double and farm hand, died in Virginia in 2006.

In 1999, Columbia Pictures offered Keenan $1.5 million for the rights to his story, which was stopped in the courts by Frank Jr. despite Keenan’s pledge to donate any money made from the film to charity.

Keenan is still alive, owns a farm in Mississippi, and lives in Texas. As of the early 2000s, he was planning on writing a book about the abduction.

— The Nevada Lore Series focuses on the legends of Nevada and the surrounding areas that help build our culture, from ancient Washoe stories, to Old West ghostly visions, to modern day urban legends.

Nevada Lore Series: The Toeless Hermit of Emerald Bay

Nevada Lore Series: Vikingsholm, Lake Tahoe’s not-so-secret Viking Castle

Nevada Lore Series: Reno, the Biggest Little Divorce Capital of the World

Nevada Lore Series: The Missing Treasure of Prison Hill

Nevada Lore Series: The Ormsby House

Nevada Lore Series: The Curse of Bodie

Nevada Lore Series: The murder of Julia Bulette, Virginia City’s beloved Madam and Firefighter

Nevada Lore Series: 'Captain' and the bizarre history of the Thunderbird Lodge at Lake Tahoe

Nevada Lore Series: The Birth and Death of the American Flats

Nevada Lore Series: Genoa's Hanging Tree, and Adam Uber's Dying Curse

Nevada Lore Series: The Extortion Bombing of Harvey's Lake Tahoe Resort

Nevada Lore Series: the Making of a State, Part 1

Nevada Lore Series: the Making of a State, Part 2

Nevada Lore Series: the Infamous Hauntings of the Goldfield Hotel

Nevada Lore Series: 50 year old Tahoe mystery includes an assassination, a secret safe, and Oprah Winfrey

Nevada Lore Series: the invention of the famous blue jean and the Reno, Levi connection

Nevada Lore Series: the Haunting of the Gold Hill Hotel, Nevada's Oldest Hotel

Nevada Lore Series: Walker Lake's famed sea monster, Cecil the Serpent

Nevada Lore Series: Abe Curry and the Founding of Carson City