Lanny Leon Larson

Lanny Leon Larson was preceded in death by his father Roger Larson, mother Olive Larson and older brother Larry Larson. He is survived by his loving wife Janet, daughter Cheryl and her husband David, son Keith, daughter Kim and her husband Rob, grandsons Zachary and Justin, sister Laverna and her husband Rod, sister in law Doris, brother in law Richard and his wife Kate, brother in law Raymond and his wife Ronda and numerous nieces and nephews.

Lanny Leon Larson was born in Clearwater Nebraska on June 27, 1939. When Lanny was about 3 years old he had an undetermined illness that rendered him temporarily unable to walk. During that time, his sister Laverna had to pull him around in a wagon until he was able to walk again.

Lanny’s parents moved the family to Buffalo, Wyoming in 1945 when he was 6 years old. Lanny became a high school basketball star and earned a reputation as the town prankster. Lanny and his friend Junior Curuchet, whose family owned a bunch of sheep, decided to take one of the sheep and put it in the school gymnasium. Someone told on the two, but they didn’t get in any serious trouble. Another time Lanny and his friend decided to paint the Mansion House Motel porch light red to imply that it was part of the “red light district” since that is what the Mansion House reminded him of so it seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, his friend lived across the street from the Mansion House and they spilled some red paint on his car so they ended up getting caught. No serious trouble again since his dad ran the barber shop in town and knew the town sheriff. Lanny and his brother Larry often laughed about the pranks because Larry also did a lot of pranks, but Lanny was the one that always got caught.

In 1957 Lanny moved to Denver to work for the FBI. At the FBI, he met his future wife Janet Lehl. They married on August 12, 1960. One highlight of being at the FBI was the opportunity to meet Robert Kennedy.

After leaving the FBI Lanny went into the carpet business, first as a top sales person and later he started his own company. For a number of years Lanny worked for U-Haul. After retirement Lanny worked as a greeter at Wal-Mart where he made a lot of friends with customers and the people he worked with.

Lanny had many hobbies including basketball, fishing, gambling, watching westerns, supporting the Broncos and Rockies and spending time with family.

Justin’s Interview with Grandpa

I put in an application for the FBI in March of 1957. Seven months later, I got hired. I got a call asking if I wanted to go to Washington D.C. or Denver, Colorado. I said “Denver.” “Good. Can you be here tomorrow?” “No, this is a one horse town and the bus already left. There is not another one until tomorrow.” I was hired as a clerk with a whopping $2,460 per year. That’s $200 a month. Ninety of it was for room and board at the rooming house. That didn’t include washing your clothes or eating lunch. You only got breakfast and supper. I worked my way up to Security Patrol, where I worked from four in the afternoon until midnight. There I did filing, cryptography, photography and ran a teletype machine. Cryptography is the process of decoding messages sent down from Washington D.C. with a code.

The most interesting case we were on was the Coors kidnapping. We got a ransom note from Denver. We tried to find out the typewriter it was typed on and its make, model, and year. A thorough investigation of shoe prints and fingerprints found on and around the ransom note matched a man by the name of Joseph Corbett. We found that he had been in prison in California and had moved into the Denver area. Then we found Coors chained up to a tree shot dead. We found where the chain came from and found Corbett bought the chain along with the same typewriter the note was typed on. He would not admit anything or talk about it, he was very smart and very sharp. We got a conviction but we didn’t have an eye witness or a signed statement. The jury gave him fifty years, but he got out in seventeen. He is walking around today.

I will always remember Jack, who would call while I was a Security Clerk. Jack was a normal red headed man in his early thirties, and a real nice guy when he was sober. He just couldn’t remember anything when he was drunk. He would just ramble about anything when he’d call. If you tried to talk to him he wouldn’t make any sense. We would get up to fifty, sixty, seventy calls a night, from a payphone! That’s a lot of change. We had to record each call and one night he called me ninety six times. Jack would talk forever; I would put the phone down, walk away and when I came back a half hour later he’d still be yak-in. Every once in a while we’d get fed up with him and send him down to Pueblo, where the insane people are. He’d beat the agents back to town because by the time they would get there he’d be sober. As normal as ever. Since nothing was wrong with him, they would let him go.

He would be in the bars when he’d call drunk. “Ima-na burn your ass with fire.” That’s what he’d tell us. “Ima-na burn your ass with fire.” I would tell him, “Jack you gotta quit calling here; otherwise, I’m gonna send ya down to Pueblo again.” He would ramble continue rambling. “Why are you calling me Jack?” “Cause I gotta tell you what I know.” It seemed Jack didn’t really know anything.

Another case was a bank robber off of south Colorado Boulevard. This man’s wrists were so big the handcuffs wouldn’t fit around them. I wasn’t on the scene when he was arrested; but, I took the pictures when they brought him into the bureau to interview him. This was one of the cases where the police department called to inform me that they were at the bank checking if it was a false alarm or not. Every time bank alarms would go off I would get the call that they were on scene. If it was a robbery I’d call the agents.

It seemed like most of the people that called wanted to talk to you about communism. They never convinced me that our government should be communist, but I’m sure they were all crazy. J. Edgar Hoover did not like communists one bit. He even wrote a book about it called “Masters Of Deceit.” Hoover was very strict. When Kennedy was president his brother Bobby always would get under Hoover’s skin. You did not walk into J. Edgar Hoover’s office without a suit and tie. Never! Not even the President. Not Bobby, he’d walk in there with his sleeves rolled up and his tie undone. Since he was the Attorney General, Hoover couldn’t say anything about it.

I lost my badge and billfold one day and I got a letter of censure from J. Edgar Hoover. Which is close to a slap on the wrist. It wasn’t a good thing I lost it though because anyone could pick it up and use it anywhere falsely. Agents had to comb the block and trace everywhere I went, to see if they could find the badge. They never did find it. I’m sure someone picked it up though because if it were to be found, the agents would have found it.