Bullet-Riddled Body of Clifford M. Hicks Found on a Lonely Road

Former teacher at Olney, Illinois recalls Hicks as a quiet, studious small town boy who attended high-school athletic contests, although he did not participate in them, and who shunned girls, made an impression on the residents of this town of 5,000 persons ten years ago. According to H.W. Hostettler, Superintendent of the Olney Township High School thought him an honest and upright fellow, a strong character, a fellow of considerable personality, although very quiet and studious.

He was Clifford Million Hicks, who moved from Olney to St. Louis, 120 miles away, entered the ministry, left that for the insurance business and finally became a lawyer, all within the last decade.

Clifford’s father was a traveling man and was killed one day while helping some railroad men carry a heavy trunk. He slipped and the trunk crushed him. Young Hicks lived with his widowed mother. He always talked a good deal about his mother and after his father’s death he began talking about caring for her future.

It always was his ambition to be a lawyer, but he didn’t know how he was going to get the money to go through school. All the newspaper accounts of his affairs are hardly believable Hostettler said.

Clifford Hicks’ legal career, which started simply enough, ended in a maze of complications and mystery on May 1^st, when his body was found on a St. Louis County Road, pierced by six bullets from a .45 caliber pistol.

Clifford M. Hicks was under investigation by Post Office inspectors and the United States District Attorney’s office. In addition, it was disclosed that an application for a state warrant, charging embezzlement, had been sought against Hicks last week and that the police were also inquiring into several of his business transactions. It was also learned that the police are investigating the robbery of Hicks on April 20^th when he reported that he had been held up by auto bandits and robbed of $5000. He was under suspicion for insurance fraud.

Insurance Brokers, Hicks & Hicks sold Financier, Clifford M. Hicks a $5000 holdup insurance policy, Lawyer, Clifford M. Hicks made sure the deal was legal, while Banker, Clifford M. Hicks presumably rubbed his hands at the mutual profit in the deal.

Clifford Hicks talked much but revealed little, according to many who knew him, either through business dealings or socially. He talked freely about business, finance, insurance and law. He was interested in all of those things and discussed them with his business prospects, but when those prospects stopped to analyze his statements they realized his talk had been far from specific and with the exception of the deal in which they had been involved, they knew nothing of him.

He moved as he spoke, quickly and energetically. His gestures were snappy and decisive. Everything about him indicated, as he evidently intended it should, that here was a young man who was “on his toes”. He was tall, slender and black-haired. He had rather heavy eyebrows and a black mustache.

Slaying of Young Man in St. Louis Remains Baffling - 4 years later

St. Louis – March 24, 1931-Out for a Sunday morning canter on May 1, 1927, Judge Sam Hodgdon of St. Louis County pulled up his horse, which had shied suddenly at something along the lonely road. The “something” proved to be the body of a man, half propped against a clay bank and pierced by six bullets.

Thus was the curtain raised on one of the most baffling murder mysteries this community has ever encountered--the slaying of Clifford Million Hicks, promising young attorney, law partner of former Governor, Elliott Mayor, Sunday School Superintendent, one time Methodist Minister and director in a bank.

The investigation which followed covered a period of months, bringing men and women from many walks of life to police headquarters.

First and most sensational of the disclosure, was the revelation that Hicks, only 28 years old, had become financially involved to the point where he owed $207,000. and had taken out life insurance policies totaling $385,000. A finance company operated by Hicks had been credited with bank deposits of nearly $300,000, in the five months before his death, yet his actual estate—aside from the insurance—was found to be less than $25,000.

He had told his wife, who was expecting their first child, that his life had been threatened and that he intended to leave town. He is known to have spent most of his last day desperately attempting to raise money. Partly because of a trip they made to Clifford Hicks’ office early on the morning of May 1, before the body had been discovered. Glenn Hicks (Clifford’s brother) and William Davis, a burglar convict, were taken into custody.

Glenn admitted removing papers from his brother’s office and destroying them, but claimed they were of a personal nature and that Clifford had asked that they be burned in case anything happened.

A few days after Hicks’ death, the bank in which he had been a director, closed its doors. To resolve doubts of the victim’s identity, arising from rumors that the killing was a gigantic insurance fraud, Hicks’ body was exhumed. The body was, in fact, that of Clifford M. Hicks. Glenn Hicks and Davis, after questioning, were released. This, coupled with the marked reluctance of several business associates, creditors and members of the family to testify, brought matters to an impasse.

Chief of Detectives, Robert Kaiser, believes not one, but several of the witnesses still could clear up the mystery if they would. “But there was too much money involved.” That’s his explanation. Did Hicks take his own life? Was he killed by gangsters for “holding out” the proceeds of spoils he had marketed? Or did supposedly respectable associates, learning of his plan to “run out” on them instead of committing suicide, take matters into their own hands? Except by chance, the law may never find out.

The Sedalia Democrat (Sedalia, MO) – Monday, May 2, 1927, The St. Louis Star & Times (MO) - Friday May 5 & 13, 1927 and Bismarck Daily Tribune (ND) - Tuesday, March 24, 1931

Clifford Million Hicks was born December 5, 1899, the son of George E. and Emma D. (Million) Hicks. He married Marie Betts in 1926 and they lived in University City, MO.

Clifford is survived by his mother, Emma Hicks; his wife, Marie and their unborn child; a sister, Gracie Z. Hicks and brother, Glenn Hicks, all living in the St. Louis area.

He is buried in Valhalla Cemetery, Bel-Nor, MO

George and Emma Hicks are buried in Browns, Illinois.