What Is Duane Earl Pope's Role In Criminal Justice

Duane Earl Pope was born on February 8, 1943 in Roxbury, Kansas. He grew up on a 160-acre farm in Roxbury, the northeast part of McPherson County, Kansas. He was one of eight children. He was athletic and shy as a child, fascinated with tractors and guns. He had no deviant past or childhood; excluding parking tickets and one minor traffic violation, there is no evidence that he had any run-ins with law enforcement. The family was large but did not always have the best relationships due to having to work the farm together. Left out from the media, Pope grew up with a semi-abusive father. His father was not always physically abusive, just instructive and aggressive.

Pope went to school in Roxbury; he played baseball and basketball, and ran

track, but he excelled in football. He was very sociable and well-known in high school. He later pursued and graduated from McPherson College with a degree in industrial education, though he was not qualified to teach industrial arts at a high school. In college, he was co-captain of the football team and was named all-conference defensive end. Pope’s college football coach said he was “the least trouble of anybody that I had.”
Duane Pope had been preparing this robbery for a long period of time. He got the idea to rob this specific bank while he was working in a wheat field near it in Nebraska. He had been building his own silencers in the machine shops at McPherson College and tested them at the family farm’s barn. He also built and fashioned a breastplate from a piece of a bulldozer blade. Two days after Pope graduated from college, he went home and borrowed $50 from his father, telling him he was heading to Oklahoma to look for work. He then started his journey to Big Springs, Nebraska.
On June 4, 1965, Pope went into Community First Bank of Big Springs, Nebraska. He then acted as a landowner asking for a loan while all the customers left. Once all the customers had left, Pope pulled out a Ruger .38 semi automatic pistol and forced the bank employees to fill his briefcase with cash. After getting around $1,600, he ordered the four employees to lay on the ground, face down, where he shot each of them in the back and in the neck, execution style. Three of the victims, bank president, Andreas Kjeldgaard, 77; a cashier, Glenn Hendrickson, 59, and the bookkeeper, Lois Ann Holthan, 35, were all killed instantly. The fourth victim, Franklin Kjeldgaard, 35, the bank president’s nephew, survived but is paralyzed for life.
Pope left the bank, saying “good morning” to an incoming customer, and being spotted by several witnesses. Once in his rental car, he drove his escape route and tossed the silencer out the window, and later, he got out of the car and threw his gun into a field. They were later found by the FBI. He arrived at the hotel in Salina, just north of McPherson, and checked in using his real name. He returned the rental car and picked his Buick. He then drove about an hour south to the family farm. There, he left a note and $150- $50 to pay his father back and the other $100 to put into his bank account.
He then drove the Wichita and left his Buick and got on a bus to Oklahoma. Once there, he took a plane to Texas and then a bus to San Diego. He arrived there on June 6 and placed his money and gun in a storage locker, then he headed to Tijuana, Mexico, where he went to a bullfight. He traveled back to San Diego and booked a hotel room, this time using a false name. The next day, while he was buying a new car, he saw a newspaper about the bank robbery. His car broke down shortly after, and he got on a bus to Las Vegas. There, on June 10, Pope gambled and had fun until he saw another newspaper with a message from the president of McPherson College, which read, “We suggest and urge that you give yourself up to the proper police authorities at once.”
After reading that note, Pope flew to Kansas City, Missouri on June 11. On that same day, Duane Earl Pope was added to the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list. In Kansas City, Pope called the McPherson College president and told him that he was going to turn himself in. Then, he called the KCPD, told them where he was, and said “I’m tired of running. I want to surrender.” When the police arrived, the hotel room door was standing open and he was calmly waiting for them. He told the police, “My plan was to rob the bank and then kill everyone in the bank so they would not be alive to identify me as the robber.” The KCPD turned Pope over to the FBI.
Throughout December 1965, he was sentenced the death penalty, 20 years for bank robbery, 10 years for transporting stolen money, and 25 years for assaulting and putting lives in jeopardy with a gun.

In 1968, it was determined that Pope was sentenced under a defective federal statute and he then was resentenced to life in prison. He was put in federal prison in Leavenworth, KS and was then granted federal parole and was moved to Nebraska.

The reason that Pope gave for robbing the bank was that he was in debt, due to college loans. Also, the reason for killing the employees was so that no one would be alive to identify him. There were no warnings or signs that Pope would commit these crimes. Family, friends, and anyone else that knew him were in complete shock to hear of his crimes. I cannot think of one definite reason for him to attempt these acts, but I do believe that his aggressive father and family life were a major

factor.
One of the many possible factors in Pope’s decision to commit these crimes could be the financial state of his family and/or farm. His family was not poor, but there were many children to take care of; with ten people in the family/residence, it did affect their finances majorly. Therefore, he had to pay for his own path through college. Additionally, Pope was not the best student academically. It was not that he did not have basic knowledge, he just did not put forth the full effort or work to his full potential. The reason behind his lack of motivation in school is uncertain but in some odd way, it could be due to him knowing that he was eventually going to rob the bank.
Another large factor could be the crime rates in the town where the robbery took place, Big Springs, NE.

The overall crime rate there is 16% higher than the national average. McPherson, KS also has very high burglary and theft rates, compared to the United States’ average rates. While in police custody, they unofficially diagnosed Pope with Schizoid personality disorder, though he was ruled competent to stand trial. Schizoid personality disorder is a case where an individual cannot have intimate or close relationships with others, show or have few emotions, and will sometimes live in their own “fantasy world.” Although Pope was very social in his younger years, they believed he had this disorder because he did not feel for his victims or think through the consequences of his actions; though, Pope was never professionally

diagnosed.