Events to honor legendary Burlington County sleuth Ellis Parker

He was known by many as America's Sherlock Holmes.

Before criminal profiling, before CSI and Miranda warnings, Ellis Parker garnered an international reputation for his uncanny sleuthing abilities.

The Mount Holly man - Burlington County's first chief of detectives - solved hundreds of murder cases and obtained signed confessions in more than half of them.

He was so well-known that law enforcement officials from England, France, and other countries sought his help.

But Parker's 44-year career abruptly ended at what should have been its high point - with work on the "crime of the century," the 1932 kidnapping of the son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.

Parker overstepped the law during the investigation and wound up in prison, where he died in 1940 at 68.

His grandson Andrew Sahol will present the Burlington County freeholders with a portrait of Parker this month. And on Thursday, county historian Joe Laufer will discuss the detective's colorful life at a free lecture at the warden's house next to the old county prison on High Street in Mount Holly.

"He was a genius," Sahol said of Parker, who lived in houses that still stand on High and Garden Streets in the township. "He's become my role model in every way. I feel his presence in me."

Parker "had an instinctive grasp of psychology and was very good during interrogations," said Dave Kimball, vice president of the Historic Burlington County Prison Museum Association. "When he died, the New York Times ran an obituary on him, and they didn't run obits on county sheriffs."

Parker, who was born in Wrightstown in 1871, had planned to be a musician. He played the violin at barn dances. Fate intervened when a horse-drawn wagon - containing his instrument - was stolen.

"There were no police officers or constables for miles, so Ellis began some sleuthing himself," said a 1940 obituary in the Camden Courier-Post. "By process of deduction, he found the culprit, fiddle, wagon, and horse."

Parker was later selected by the Monmouth, Ocean, and Burlington County Pursuing Association to trace horse thieves. His success led to his appointment as Burlington County's first detective in 1898.

He honed his abilities over time, racking up "an almost impossible conviction rate," said Kimball, who lives in Willingboro.

Parker "was a detective who was looked down on by professional law enforcement as somebody who had not received formal training in investigative techniques," said Paul Schopp, a professional historian who lives in Riverton.

Yet "he was quite the folk hero," Schopp said.

One of his cases involved the killing of an English-born governess at a refuge for homeless children in Moorestown in March 1906.

Parker solved the case within days, and the killers, Rufus Johnson and George Small, were executed within two months, Kimball said. They were the last to be hanged at the old prison.

On his way to the gallows, "Johnson said to my grandfather, 'I hold no malice toward you, Mr. Parker,' " said Sahol, 72, a Florence resident who has been the family historian. "He said that because, during his arrest, a mob had tried to lynch him, and Parker handcuffed himself to Johnson to prevent it."

Parker was a "profiler" before profilers, and sometimes identified offenders without leaving his desk. Science was one of his important tools.

Called to investigate a body found in water in 1920, he sought help from a chemist, Sahol said. The detective learned that the acidic content of the water had helped preserve the remains. That meant that two men who had been eliminated as suspects were ruled back in. The pair later confessed.

Then came the case that could have been Parker's crowning achievement: the mysterious abduction of Lindbergh's 20-month-old son from the family home in East Amwell, N.J. The boy was found nearby, dead of a massive skull fracture.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with murder, found guilty in 1935, and ordered to be executed in 1936. Authorities believed they had their man.

But not Parker. He became obsessed with finding the "real" murderer.

"The Lindbergh case was all about egos, including Parker's," Schopp said. "Everybody wanted to solve the case."

There was a problem, though. Parker was no longer himself. "He became increasingly childlike and insecure," Sahol said.

"He lost his photographic memory, and other county workers were compensating for him," he said. "He was rambling and argumentative when he had been a calm, collected, and precise person."

Days before the Hauptmann sentence could be carried out, Parker shocked the world by offering a confession signed by Paul Wendel, a disbarred Trenton lawyer, who claimed he had committed the kidnapping.

Hauptmann was executed after Wendel recanted and accused Parker and others of kidnapping and torturing him.

The ace detective and his son, Ellis Jr., were convicted and ordered to federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa.

The elder Parker was later found to have had a brain tumor, which Sahol believes affected his judgment and should have been taken into account by authorities. He died five months after beginning his sentence.

"I'm angry at the way he was handled," said Sahol, a former troubleshooter for the Public Service Electric & Gas Co. "My grandfather's condition was not allowed to come out during the trial or sentencing."

Parker's death was on the front pages of many newspapers. "It was an inglorious end to the most brilliant career in crime-detection history outside the annals of fiction," said the Courier-Post obituary.

Sahol sought and received a posthumous pardon for his grandfather from President George W. Bush.

This week, he hopes to see Parker again remembered for his sleuthing prowess.

"He should be honored," Sahol said. "It's my goal to free him completely - not just have him pardoned, but put him on a pedestal where he belongs."