The Kidnapping of Highway Patrolman Kenneth Crone

Kenneth, who was at the end of his shift and looking forward to his well-earned rest, received a request from the Port Arthur Police Department to assist them in stopping the fleeing Dent couple. Deputy Wesley King of the Chambers County Sheriff’s Department received the call also and both Crone and King worked together to set up a roadblock. “They had been told the Dents were driving a corvette,” said Wesley King’s son Wesley Jr. “so they made plans to fire buckshot into the radiator to disable the vehicle. However, when the vehicle came into view it was not a corvette, but a 1963 Corvair, which had an air-cooled engine in the back of the vehicle. Realizing their original plan wouldn’t work, they fired shots over the top of the vehicle then fell in behind them in pursuit. Dad told Kenneth he was going to ram the back of the vehicle to stop them, but just as he was about to, his car blew a tire. He abandoned the patrol car on the side of the road, Kenneth picked him up and they continued the pursuit following them down Hamshire Road north of Winnie,” reported Wesley Jr. Dent’s success in outrunning them was doomed from the start as the Corvair was not built to sustain a high rate of speed and the engine eventually blew. The Dent’s fled into nearby rice fields on foot, quickly blending in with the shadows of the night. Wesley called in bloodhounds which he used to search for the couple for four hours, but the flooded rice field hindered the dogs from picking up their scent. Crone said they were in the process of calling off the search about 6:00 a.m. when he heard a call come over his patrol car radio from Chambers County that two people, located at the Robert Bauer ranch near Hamshire, had been beaten and robbed by two hitchhikers who then stole their car. Bauer reported that the couple had arrived covered in mud. Kenneth, already weary from his long day, set out to investigate and get a description of the stolen car, believing the couple may have been attacked by the Dents. 

 
“Of the five kids who were in the house that morning there are only three surviving,” said Linda Bauer, youngest child of Robert and Mary Bauer. “I was only five at the time and slept through the whole entire thing, but the only thing separating my head from the gun in the room was a hollow sliding door. My siblings said what drew the Dents to our house was our security light in the front yard plus Mom was already up making breakfast, so there were lights on in the house. They came to the door and said they had been carjacked by two hitchhikers who left them tied to a fencepost with no shoes. Kind of weird they would take their shoes, but they took their car and that’s why dad called the sheriff for help. Mom was like, ‘Oh, come in, let me get you some clean clothes and some shoes,’” said Linda with a laugh. “That was back when you trusted people, you know. Mom met Officer Crone outside when he arrived, as Dad was sitting at his desk on the phone with Sheriff Otter who had just called. Mom told the officer to go on in and she went around to the back of the house. Dent, who was behind the door, pulled a gun on him and took Crone’sgun. Dent had just a little gun and he gave it to his wife after he took Crone’s,” explained Linda. Kenneth, expecting to meet an injured couple, was caught completely off guard. “Dent told Dad to get off the phone,” continued Linda, “and when he didn’t, he went over and yanked the phone off the wall. During all this Carol and Janet were in their bedroom, Marilyn, myoldest sister, was in the bathroom cause she was getting ready for school, Jack was in his room and of course, I was asleep,” noted Linda. “Carol said they were getting ready for school and all of their clothes were in the opposite end of the house in the utility room. She said that’s probably what saved them, because if they had their clothes they would have been like, ‘hey we’ve got company, who’s here?’ and they would have been in the middle of it. Carol, in her housecoat and pajamas, looked around the corner to see who was there and saw Dent with the gun. They all went back in their rooms and hid in the closet. Both of them told me, ‘like hiding in the bottom of the closet would do any good,’ Linda said laughing. “At that point Dent said,‘there’s kids in the house,’ then looking straight at Dad said, ‘let’s go.’ The wife told Dad to come on but Dad, being a quick thinker, said, ‘he was talking to you, not me,’ so she left without him. That was the second time he had fooled her as when she asked if there was another phone in the house, he told her yes, but it was disabled when he yanked this one from the wall. Dent had told Dad before he left if he called anyone, they would come back for him and his family. Mom was terrified at this point. She sent the kids to school with instructions not to tell anyone what was going on. Carol and Janet went to the Nome school, and they have long covered walkways from the bus drop off to the school. When they were walking towards the school there was this whole line of police cars gong down highway 90 and all the other kids were saying, ‘oh, my gosh, look at all the cop cars, isn’t that cool.’ Of course, Carol and Janet knew what was going on but they weren’t supposed to say anything. One of them finally told their teacher and then they let them listen to the news updates on the hour, so they heard when he got shot and when he died. Dad had to go to court to testify but he pleaded with the lawyers to please leave Mom out of it. So, Mom didn’t have to go to court, Dad handled it,” concluded Linda with obvious pride in her dad’s chivalry.
After leaving Bauer’shome, Dent forced the trooper into the driver’s seat of his patrol car and seated himself on the front passenger floorboard. Joining her husband and Officer Crone in the patrol car, Ila Faye positioned herself in the back seat with Crone’s shotgun. “Upon leaving the farmhouse, they drove past Dad and the other officers who were set up on the perimeter waiting for a description of the stolen vehicle,” said Wesley King Jr. “Kenneth did not acknowledge them or make radio contact, so they knew immediately something was wrong and the officers all fell in behind him,” said Wesley. The Dents then began what would be a 6-hour, 300-mile erratic trip, one they obviously did not put much thought into, making decisions on the fly during the following hours, irrational decisions born out of desperation.
Once the entourage departed from the farmhouse, Bauer immediately called deputy Hoffpauir letting him know what had transpired. The news of patrolman Crone’s abduction was then broadcast to all law enforcement agencies. 

Dent had patrolman Crone turn off his patrol car radio for the first thirty minutes of their journey as he directed him to drive towards Beaumont. “His original plan was to go back to Louisiana,” said Brad Crone, son of officer Kenneth Crone. “Dad told him that Louisiana would never allow him to cross the state line and they would shoot him on sight, so Dent had him turn around and head down Hwy 90 towards China.” Said Brad. They stopped at the Louis Gulf Station and Café in China, Texas to get fuel and the owner of the station, Robert G. Louis, age 55, said he saw the shotgun on the back seat with Mrs. Dent and noticed Crone’s holster was empty. “I asked him (Crone) if everything was all right,” Louis said. “He said everything was just fine. But I knew better than that. The guy in the front seat looked like the kind of character that would kill that patrolman, but there was nothing I could do.” Captain Jerry Miller, who was the head of the Highway Patrol Office in Beaumont, had fallen in behind Crone’s vehicle and kept a calming dialogue with Dent.

Somewhere between Raywood and Dayton, a Chambers County Deputy tried to ram Crone’s patrol car to disable it, but only nicked the bumper. This caused Dent to get very agitated and he threatened to kill Officer Crone, but Captain Miller was able to calm him down. Dent instructed officer Crone to drive towards Houston where they got stuck in rush hour traffic. 

By this time, law enforcement agencies statewide, aware of the unfolding saga, had begun falling in line with the other officers pursuing the abductors. Each county entered brought a new influx of patrol cars, eventually numbering about sixty in the parade. At one point, helicopters joined in the pursuit observing the pursuit from the air. This brought a new level of anxiety to Bobby who once again threatened to shoot Officer Crone. Captain Miller, once again, quickly calmed him down by telling him the highway patrol helicopters belonged to the news media. Officer Crone, despite the dangerous position he was In, was able to maintain an extraordinary level of composure. Both officers Crone and Miller, able to execute a high-octane situation in such a placid manner, were a testament to their training and aptitude as law enforcement officials.

Bobby, realizing all avenues of escape were quickly being closed to them, finally accepted their capture was inevitable and resigned himself to their fate. Assuming ifit happened, they were both going away for a long time, he decided he wanted them to see Ila Faye’s children first, who were in the custody of her mother in Wheelock, Texas. He told Captain Miller that they wanted to go to Bryan. Miller instructed them to turn around to avoid the Houston traffic and head East on I-10,turning them North onto Hwy 146 at Mont Bevieu. From there they meandered their way through Dayton, Cleveland, Navasota and Bryan. In Navasota, Dent requested a bag of lunchmeat and bread be left on the side of the highway, and Miller obliged him. Twice, the Dents were allowed to stop, unhindered, to get gasoline and take a restroom break. Captain Miller said he simply tried to pacify Dent by letting him have food and time for getting gas. Throughout the chase, Captain Miller urged Dent to pull over and surrender assuring him he would not be hurt, but Dent refused. Dent, in stark contrast to the even-toned Miller, was an emotional time bomb much of the time threatening to shoot Crone on numerous occasions when he felt vulnerable. In College Station, they made their last stop before Wheelock at a Texaco Station to refuel, where Dent handcuffed Crone and took over driving. 

During the last leg of the journey to Wheelock, DPS Captain Jerry Miller, communicating via his police radio, made a deal with Dent. Dent told Miller, “I want 10 or 15 minutes to talk to the kids and love them ‘cause I don’t think they’ll be seeing us again. Then give us a 15-minute head start.” Captain Miller agreed and called the Robertson County Sheriff’s Department to tell them where they were headed. 

Steven Spielberg, beginning his career in 1971, was just getting his feet wet as a director when he got wind of the kidnapping of Patrolman Kenneth Crone. He made his film making debut with the movie, Sugarland Express, in 1974, based on the harrowing pursuit of kidnappers Bobby and Ila Faye Dent. The movie ended up being a box office flop, which is a shame, because the true rendition of those suspenseful hours would have made a great movie. Spielberg strayed so far from the facts that the movie bore little resemblance to the real-life event. “From the starting credits to the very end, that movie is full of fiction,” said Crone to the Hometown Press of Winnie in a 1998 interview. The Hometown Press reported that because it was so different from the actual story, law enforcement refused to be a part of it until they were pressured by the governor to cooperate. “Dad said the only thing they got right in the movie is there were a lot of cop cars,” laughed son Brad Crone. 

Many of us give little thought to the danger law enforcement officers face each and every time they don their uniform. “Once we put on our uniform, we make sure and kiss our wife goodbye before we walk out the door,” said Wesley King, Jr. of Anahuac, “because we may not walk back in. There is no routine traffic stop, each one can turn to a catastrophe in the blink of an eye. Our service to the community is first and foremost, sacrificing precious family occasions to be ever present when needed. But that is our job, and we do it without reservation” he concluded.  Pray for our men and women in law enforcement.