For
someone described as a recluse, Charles Rogers got out quite a bit.
As
a geologist for Shell Oil, Charles seemed to possess a nose for valuable
mineral deposits. He was able to quickly
divine the potential profitability of a tract of land. He also had ideas as to how seismological
data could be analyzed to more accurately identify oil and gas deposits which sounded good in principle, but were beyond the computing power available in the 1950s. He was responsible for several patents;
however, these were Shell’s intellectual property and Charles did not stand to
profit. He resigned from Shell in 1957,
and after this his trail went cold for the next four decades save for his
involvement with the crime he’s presumed to have committed.
Fortunately
(or not, depending on your desire for privacy), we are a nation of
recordkeepers. A determined researcher
can glean a lot of information from even scanty data. Charles Rogers’ biography before and after
his parents’ June 1965 murder was painstakingly pieced together by a pair of
dogged forensic accountants named Hugh and Martha Gardenier, whose findings were
the basis of their 2003 nonfiction novel The Ice Box Murders. On first reading the story takes a lot of what
look like irrelevant turns, with shifting narratives involving the Rogers,
Charles’ business associates, and seemingly peripheral figures such as the
handyman, until the Gardeniers tie them all together at the end with a
satisfying denouement.
One
question arising from commonly accepted accounts of Charles Rogers’ life is what
he did after quitting Shell and before the death of his parents. Eight years is a long time to be off the
radar. It’s probably one reason why his
name was connected with some of the JFK assassination conspiracy theories
mentioned in the previous post. The
Gardeniers, fortunately, pieced together a more quotidian though nonetheless interesting
life.
Upon
returning from the war, Charles pursued a doctorate at the University of Texas
in Austin. He also bought a house in
Houston at 1815 Driscoll Street. It was
a quaint 1920s era dwelling in the quiet Hyde Park neighborhood. Charles rented it out while working for Shell
in Canada, Mexico, and in southern Texas, and it became his residence after
Shell transferred him home to Houston.
He enjoyed a contented existence for a time, spending his evenings on
his ham radio, contacting far-flung stations and collecting their QSL cards.
Then
his parents moved in. Edwina had sold
the fleabag Rogers Hotel on Washington Avenue, and Fred had scaled back his
various shady enterprises while continuing to take sports bets. Edwina occupied herself as a Stanley Home
Products distributor, though she was better at accruing inventory than selling
it. (Stanley was what would nowadays be
called a multilevel marketing business.
It was a cross between Fuller Brush, which sold its products door-to-door,
and Tupperware, which was once sold through hostess parties.)
Life
in the Rogers home became a hell for each of its occupants. It was probably excruciating for
Charles. He retreated into his upstairs
bedroom, abandoning his own house to his feuding mother and father. Neither was permitted to enter the room. Ever. When
he was out of the house, he secured the door with a deadbolt lock. Charles became a cipher, and Edwina would
often say to acquaintances that she hadn’t seen her son for weeks or longer
despite living under the same roof.
The neighbors seldom set eyes on any of the three, although Fred would
venture out on occasion in a dark suit and fedora.
And
yet Charles was quite active during his reclusive period. He became a private pilot, and took
consulting jobs. He shared his father’s entrepreneurial
trait and desire for self-enrichment, and cofounded a mining exploration
company. Mexus Minerals came into being
in 1959, with the goal of developing gold mines in the Sierra Madre Occidental
range in Mexico. (Interestingly, there
is a present-day company based in Nevada called Mexus. Its business?
Gold mining in Mexico.)
This
venture brought Charles Rogers into association with several individuals who
would have a prominent role in his life before and after the Ice Box
Murders. The first was Harry Grebe, a
prospector and businessman who had spent much of his life in Mexico. Grebe’s father had purchased the El Tigre
Mine in the Sierra Madre, which remained in the family for decades. His initial connection with Charles isn’t clear, though
they had lived nearby after Charles had bought the house on Driscoll Street. The Gardeniers found Grebe’s business partner
had been involved in one of Fred Rogers’ dubious real estate transactions and
had a gambling habit Fred may have catered to.
Another
was John Mackie. (This is the spelling
used by the Gardeniers; other sources give his surname as “Mackey.”). Mackie was a veteran of the bombing campaigns in Europe
during the Second World War who floundered in civilian life but was reputed to be
a skilled prospector. Still another
partner was a former police officer and wartime OSS agent named Dan O’Connor. O’Connor had close ties to Mexican officials,
and contributed his claim on an existing mine along with its dredging
equipment.
Rounding
out Charles’ circle of associates was a much younger man called Anthony Pitts,
who was not part of the Mexus scheme. Pitts
grew up in a single-parent home in Texas’ hill and lake country. He learned to hustle at an early age and
cultivated a taste for risk. Like
Charles, Pitts was an enthusiastic pilot.
There was one more thing, the importance of which would not become
evident until much later: Pitts bore a physical resemblance to Charles
Rogers, their age disparity aside, which becomes a crucial plot twist down the
road.
How
they met isn’t known. The first possibility is that Grebe’s company did
business with the metalworking firm employing Pitts. Another is that Charles’ travels took him to
various small airports in Texas, including the one in Pitts’ hometown of
Kerrville. The when and where of their acquaintance
is less important than the what of their dealings, however.
There
was one other associate of Charles Rogers during this part of his life who has
gone unmentioned so far. Charles had a
longtime girlfriend with whom he carried on a low-key affair. The Gardeniers call her “Jean,” though this is
most likely a pseudonym for reasons to be discussed later. Jean had been a secretary at Shell’s Houston
offices while Charles worked there. Jean
knew her boyfriend led a complicated life; Charles refused to let her meet his
parents. They met in public places and
presumably in her apartment. Little was
or is known of the details. But, as with
Anthony Pitts, Jean would play a pivotal role in events to come.
The
Mexus venture, begun with such bright expectations, did not thrive. Charles Rogers and John Mackie traversed the
Sierra Madre Occidental multiple times over a three-year span. Charles was more diligent than Mackie, who began
to spend more of his time drinking and womanizing. O’Connor’s mine became a nonstarter after
Mackie had the dredge dismantled and sold.
Mackie became infatuated with a local girl and got a Mexican divorce
from his wife so he could remarry. Wife
#1 refused to accept this outcome, a judge concurred, and Mackie soon found
himself supporting two households.
Meanwhile,
Dan O’Connor, who evidently had not completely shed his ties with the
intelligence community, was distracted from Mexus while playing some part in the
Bay of Pigs invasion. (That tidbit,
whether true or not, ought to stir up the JFK conspiracy crowd. There! You see! Charles Rogers really was involved
in the assassination! O’Connor was CIA,
O’Connor knew Charles, who knew David Ferrie, who knew Lee Harvey Oswald…)
After
the dust settled in Cuba and O’Connor found out Mackie had stolen his dredge,
the partnership was doomed. O’Connor
swore out an arrest warrant against Mackie and impounded the company plane, a
Cessna previously owned by Charles. The
partnership was as good as dead.
Charles,
the only Mexus Minerals partner who was wholly committed to the venture, had
already made his geological assessment and passed it on to Harry Grebe. There were a few promising leads, though none
were pursued. Charles, for his part, had
further sharpened his already considerable prospecting skills.
For
whatever reason, Charles stayed close to Mackie, the most volatile and
unreliable of the Mexus partners. He
helped Mackie with sundry business ventures and legal issues. He introduced him to Anthony Pitts. The
three enmeshed themselves in questionable ventures in Mexico and Central
America. Treasure hunting occupied some
of their efforts, others included such potentially hazardous sidelines as gunrunning. (Pitts would later discover that drug running
was quite lucrative as well.)
Although
Charles didn’t shy from breaking the law when it suited him, his priority was
developing his ideas for improving prospecting technology. Criminal enterprise was a means and not an
end for him. One factor frustrating his
ambition was that he had had little contact with Houston’s oil and gas industry
since leaving Shell. Harry Grebe was of
some assistance in supporting Charles’ research, but could not provide the
needed foot in the door. There was also
the fact that Charles had done most of his prospecting in Mexico, which nationalized
its petroleum industry in the 1930s shutting out foreign companies.
Given
all this activity, there may have been substantial truth to Edwina’s frequent
claim that she seldom saw Charles. But
for all the trips at home and abroad, they all ended with Charles returning to
1815 Driscoll Street and his cramped little room. Something, sometime, had to give.
To be continued…
© 2019 The Unassuming Scholar
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