Miracle Man

If you hungered for an automobile and couldn't get one, Robert L. Knetzer was the man to see. At the famine's wartime worst and later, when the new models appeared, townsfolk of Edwardsville, Il11. (pop. 8,100) noticed that strapping Bob Knetzer was a miracle man at finding cars for people with cash. What's more, he sold them at list price, and delivered them in 30 to 90 days. All he demanded was a deposit of at least $1,000. Cadillacs and Chevrolets were his specialties.

News of Bob Knetzer's magic formula spread quickly beyond Southern Illinois' coal and farm country. St. Louis and Springfield gangsters, who would rather go without a rod than a Cadillac, scurried with cash in hand to Bob's classy showroom, across the street from Edwardsville's courthouse. Orders came from as far away as California and South America. Cash poured in, cars rolled out and Bob, at 37, was rich.

Party with Cuties. He moved his blonde wife, Dolores, a Sunday-school teacher, to a $40,000 English-style house on twelve acres of oak-studded land, with a big playhouse for daughter Kathleen, 4. He rolled around town in a chauffeur-driven car. He liked to peel off $100 bills from a fat roll to pay for a haircut, wowed Edwardsville's drugstore cowboys by flashing $1,000 bills. He staked the town's bowling team to a trip to a Detroit tournament. He bought a duck hunters' show place in Arkansas, dropped $85,000 in a Wyoming land deal, plunged in Illinois oil, imported Hollywood cuties for a Cheyenne businessman's party.

Last week the bubble burst. Prodded by St. Louis' crusading newspapers and the complaints of competing dealers, the state's attorney began poking around Bob's empire. What he found was this: Knetzer lost money on every car he delivered, made his money from the suckers, who got nothing. From his huge backlog of cash deposits, Knetzer bought cars at dealers' auctions for $2,500, sold them for $1,750. Thus he could make good on enough deliveries to keep more customers--and more cash--coming. Cars were scarce, suckers were plentiful and after all, when Bob delivered, the price was right.

Sackful of Bills. To insistent depositors, Bob sometimes handed back their cash from a sackful of $20 bills in his office. Often, he bet a restless customer $100 to $1 that he would deliver on a certain date, temporarily appeased the depositor by paying off the bet on due day. How did Bob hope to keep his bubble from bursting? Best guess was that he hoped to use his huge amount of cash to turn some super deal in land or oil speculation, pay off everybody, including Bob.

Authorities estimated that he had taken in $5,000,000 in the last two years, and had delivered about 1,300 cars. How many suckers had been cheated, no one knew for sure. As the news spread, they started a run on Bob's showroom, but too late. Bankrupt Bob was under charges of fraud, and there were almost no assets.

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