Who Killed Former Kansas City Police Officer, Politician, And Black Leader Leon Jordan? How A 40-Year-Old Cold Case Came To A Close
Leon Jordan's life, career, and death had a profound impact on Kansas City, Missouri, which makes his story my contribution to BuzzFeed's Black History Month True Crime Series.
Leon Jordan was shot and killed in 1970, but despite eye witness testimony, partial prints, a murder weapon, and named assailants, the case was cold for decades.
The biggest challenge investigators faced? There were too many possible motives for killing Jordan given that he was a powerful Black businessman and politician during an incredibly divisive time in Kansas City.
Leon Jordan was born Saturday, May 6, 1905, in Kansas City, Missouri. He attended Lincoln High School in his native city of Kansas City.
Robert Farnsworth, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, wrote a biography called, Leon Mercer Jordan: The Founder of Freedom Inc. Following in the Footsteps of His Father and Grandfather
Farnsworth moved to Kansas City in 1960 to teach at what was the University of Kansas City. It was during this time that he met Leon Jordan and his wife Orchid.
In 1961, Farnsworth and his wife were asked to host a meeting at their house for CORE – the Congress of Racial Equality, which was a new Civil Rights group. “Most of us were white, except for the Jordans and the Blankenships," Farnsworth said of CORE. "Someone suggested I become chairman of the group, I said I didn’t think that was appropriate since I was relatively new in Kansas City and particularly didn’t know the Black community…"
..."At that point, Leon rhetorically put his arm around me and said, ‘I’ll introduce you to the Black community.’”
Farnsworth says he didn't get very close with Jordan, but he claims the Civil Rights leader did inspire him to find his passion, African American literature. Farnsworth speaks of Jordan's upbringing at that time as well.
"He had grown up in a comfortable house economically," he stated of Jordan. "His grandfather… was seen in the Black community as a relatively wealthy man. He invested in real estate quickly; he was a barber; he had a good source of income. He had a very large family that were often in the news.”
Jordan's father died when he was only 13 years old, a tragedy that Farnsworth thinks was traumatic for a young Jordan.
Jordan changed school a lot and somehow enlisted in the U.S. Army at just 15 years old. This was in 1919, but the military kicked him out soon after when they learned his real age.
In 1933 Jordan graduated from Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio. He worked as a teacher and social worker for a while, but ended up joining the Kansas City Police Department.
Jordan thrived as a police officer, but he was not given the promotion he wanted. However, In 1947, the president of Liberia called on Jordan to modernize the police in his country.
So, Jordan took an extended leave of absence to spend time in Liberia, where he led the re-organization of a local police department by training 450 men. He and Orchid also helped set up modern fingerprint and photography labs for the police force. Orchid played an essential part in establishing the Records Bureau of the Liberian police department.
Above we see Leon Jordan with the Liberian President William Tubman. The Jordans were frequent guests of the Liberian President at the Executive Mansion.
When Jordan returned to Kansas City, he was finally given the promotion he wanted, and was named the first Black police Lieutenant in the department’s history. However, the promotion was somewhat of a hoax.
“He came back to Kansas City to see what all this would mean in terms of his advancement in the police department. They did promote him to a lieutenancy…. but they assigned him to Flora Street station, doing the same thing he had done before, only in charge of Black officers, very limited, and there was no way he was going to accept this,” stated Farnsworth. “So he resigned, and went back to Liberia. This created a midlife crisis, in a sense. What was he going to do with his life?” Jordan would return to Kansas City again in 1954.
Upon returning to Kansas City from Liberia, Jordan opted to enter the business sector and purchased a bar called the Green Duck Tavern in 1955.
The original owner of the Green Duck Tavern was Tim Moran. Executive Director of ALCU Kansas Micah Kubic characterized Moran as a leader of the white political machine. Jordan purchased the bar and turned it into a home base for building Black political power, and it became the location of a new organization he would form especially for that purpose.
Jordan founded Freedom, Inc. with Bruce R. Watkins in 1962, with a focus on increasing political awareness among Kansas City’s Black residents. With Freedom, Inc., Jordan led one of the largest voter registration drives in Kansas City history.
Leon Jordan started Freedom Inc. a black political action committee that worked to get black men and women elected to positions in local, state, and the federal government. Take some time to listen to his story.https://t.co/BFw1mKzQ63
"He and Bruce Watkins decided... that the political problem of the Black community was its control by white politicians," stated Farnsworth. "Not just political control, but… it also included a great deal of economic exploitation, so [Jordan] and Bruce both decided it was time for a Black political leadership to be beholden only to the Black community and not to white political bosses... So they developed a theme: throw the plantation bosses out.”
In 1964, Jordan campaigned and won a seat in the Missouri State House of Representatives. He and Harold Holiday, Sr. became the first Black State Representatives from Kansas City.
In the same year, Freedom, Inc. accomplished its first citywide referendum. It was a vote on public accommodations, ending segregation in public places and businesses.
“The only reason the ordinates passed was because the Black community was so overwhelmingly in support of it," stated Farnsworth. "The white vote was negative, total. And it was a significant tribute to the organization of the Black vote. It gave Freedom a kind of authenticity within the Black community."
However, everything came to a screeching halt when this powerful and intelligent Black activist was murdered.
In the early morning hours of July 15, 1970, Jordan left the Green Duck Tavern at 2548 Prospect Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, and then was shot and killed. He was 65 years old at the time of his death and left behind his wife, Orchid. Leon and Orchid didn’t leave a legacy of children behind; however, Orchid did succeed Leon in the Missouri State Legislature.
According to the New York Times, Leon Jordan's murder took place at about 1 a.m. At the time of his murder, Jordan was holding a bag with soda and liquor in one hand, while it's reported his other hand was either holding or near his .38-caliber Smith Wesson Chief Special (which he usually carried for protection).
Jordan went to his car as three Black men reportedly approached in a brown 1960s Pontiac. That’s when he was hit with a buckshot from a Remington 12-gauge Wingmaster shotgun.
The car then sped west on 26th Street. The culprits are believed to have tossed the shotgun in a nearby lot full of weeds where they abandoned the stolen car. Everything about the crime pointed to foul play, but this insight wasn’t enough to nail the culprit quickly.
Over a 40-year span, the case of Leon Jordan’s murder has drawn a total of about 60 detectives. Police conducted interviews with hundreds of people, polygraphs with 13 people, and an analysis on 112 fingerprints. Investigators had a hard time pinning down which of Leon Jordan’s adversaries would organize a hit on him given that his political agenda put him at odds with so many people.
The incident took place three weeks ahead of the Democratic Primary election in which Jordan was campaigning to retain his seat in the House of Representatives. Jordan faced only one opponent on the path to re-election to the Missouri General Assembly, which was Lee Bohannon, a 25-year-old Black activist who was part of the Social Action Committee of 20.
According to the Kansas City Star, the FBI and Kansas City Police Department investigated a lead from an informant who had information that Lee Bohannon had been in Detroit to allegedly pay the killers.
Once the investigators dug into the story, the lead didn’t pan out. Kansas City Star spoke with Bohannon and showed him files from the investigation that took him aback, considering that he respected and admired Jordan. Instead, he suggested that the extensive investigation into him as a suspect could point to COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) — an arm of the FBI that J. Edgar Hoover used to live out his obsession with taking down Black civil rights activists.
Jordan was working to bust a drug trafficking scheme months before his death, which put him on the radar of a locally organized crime ring.
Police Maj. James Campbell, who was one of the 60 investigators who dove into this case, informed the FBI that he thought narcotics may have been a motive in the assassination.
Jordan also had an ongoing conflict with the city’s white politicians from the North End faction over political moves such as jobs in the Jackson County Courthouse.
He was contending with them when it came to hiring for patronage jobs in the courthouse. Sylvester Norris, a Black political adversary of Jordan’s (who allied himself with the white faction leaders), told authorities after the assassination that he heard there was a “contract” out on Jordan. Norris also said Jordan was a “ruthless politician who would stab you in the back.”
Jordan also had a poor relationship with the Black Panthers — a revolutionary group that sought systemic change across the United States.
In the 1970s, Jordan allegedly told an investigator for the House Committee on Internal Security that he thought some of the Black Panthers were “gangsters who preyed on the community,” and were apathetic to solving “real problems.” However, no evidence has linked the Black Panthers to the murder.
A theory also floated around that perhaps Jordan was involved in fencing stolen jewelry and had been keeping diamonds to himself. This theory was never supported by any evidence, and seemingly was drummed up in an attempt to further tarnish Jordan's good name.
Many rumors surrounding Leon Jordan’s killing drifted around town, likely making it difficult for investigators and the community of Kansas City to get to the truth of what really happened.
Early in the investigation, police located the murder weapon and stolen getaway car associated with the crime. Two days after Jordan was slain, then-Jackson County prosecutor Joe Teasdale announced charges against two Black men named Reginald Watson and Carlton Miller for first-degree murder.
It was the first of two known failed prosecutions. Orchid Jordan and local activists were reportedly displeased with the charges because she didn’t believe either man to have been responsible. They believed that Teasdale was issuing the charges as a political ploy for his campaign to ascend to the Jackson County Court.
The charges against Reginald Watson and Carlton Miller were dropped a week and a half after the announcement due to failed polygraph tests by two “eyewitnesses” that the prosecution relied on to make their case. Mike McGraw and Glenn E. Rice of the Kansas City Star report that “Teasdale defended his actions at the time, maintaining that he had no choice but to charge the men so he could hold them while the investigation continued.”
In 1973 another set of charges was announced against new defendants by then-prosecutor Ralph Martin. Martin issued charges against James A. Willis, Maynard Cooper, and James “Doc” Dearborn.
These charges were issued after Jordan’s hired security changed his statement about what he witnessed. He previously told investigators that he hadn’t seen anything that would help them solve the case...then years later gave new testimony that he heard two gunshots. He also claims he heard Jordan shout out on the night of the incident. He went further to say that he saw Willis with a shotgun as he backed away from Jordan’s body.
The civil rights community questioned the validity of the charges. Willis was later acquitted of all charges and issued a lawsuit against Kansas City Police in federal court making the claim that they used false evidence in the grand jury hearing. Willis lost the case. As recently as 2010, Willis denied being involved in the murder of Leon Jordan. Cooper hasn’t given a statement on the matter, and Dearborn has since passed away.
In 2010, self-taught legal defense advocate Alvin Sykes chose to pursue justice for Leon Jordan by encouraging the Kansas City Police to re-open the cold case.
According to local news KCTV5, Sykes’ involvement in the Leon Jordan case led the Kansas City Police Department to re-open the case — adding 917 pages to the then-2,146-page case file. The new investigation in 2010 led detectives to identify three suspects as being responsible for the murder: Robert “Bob” Willis, James L. “Monk” Johnson, and James “Doc” Dearborn — all of whom were deceased by that time. In 2011, the Jackson County prosecutor felt that police provided enough evidence to warrant closing the case of the killing of Leon Jordan.
Sykes is also responsible for persuading the federal government and the Mississippi State government to re-open the tragically infamous case of Emmett Till’s murder from 1955. Emmett Till’s case was reopened in 2018, though there were no new charges issued.
Sykes advocated for getting the “Till Bill” passed in the United States Congress. According to Clay Risen at the New York Times, “In 2005 he helped write a bill to fund a civil-rights cold-case initiative within the F.B.I. But the bill met potentially fatal opposition from Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a Republican who thought that the proposal was a waste of money.”
Sykes took initiative to set meetings with Senator Coburn and eventually succeeded.
Sykes was so influential that Coburn not only reversed his position on the matter, but he became a proponent of the bill and instrumental in getting it signed into law. “We are going to see this bill come into fruition,” Senator Coburn said on the Senate floor in 2007. “I can’t say enough about his stamina, his integrity, his forthrightness, his determination," he said of Sykes. Alvin Sykes passed away at the age of 64 on March 19, 2021, in Shawnee, Kansas.
While the Leon Jordan case is officially closed, it is fair to say that the circumstances surrounding Jordan’s murder and the subsequent investigations may never truly put the community of Kansas City at ease. Jordan is yet another Black activist who was murdered and his family received no true justice.
He is gone, but never forgotten! In 1975, the Leon M. Jordan Memorial Park was dedicated to his legacy in Kansas City. Jordan's Green Duck Tavern joined the list of the city's historical locations in 2015. And in 2021, local TV news station KMBC ran a report on a documentary about Leon Jordan called Legacy of Leadership, by filmmaker Emiel Cleaver.
"People call him the godfather in the Black community just because everyone came to him for advice on politics, business, different things, so during his day, he was well-known but I don't think that legacy is as translated to the next generation," Cleaver stated. "From day one, the mafia had it in for Leon Jordan, and that's who eventually ended up killing him."
"Knowing what I know about the things that he's done are pretty remarkable so yes, it does surprise me that people don't know who he is," Cleaver concluded.
Leon Jordan worked to create a better America for Black citizens, and his contributions to the Civil Rights movement should be taught to everyone!
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