Harry Bennett's Role in the Ypsilanti Torch Murders of August 11, 1931

The Torch Murderers protected from the lynch mob outside by Washtenaw County Police and Harry Bennett's Ford Motor Company "Servicemen." 


The Torch Murders were among the most horrific crimes in Ypsilanti history to that date. On August 11, 1931, three young men who had been drinking whiskey at a local speakeasy decided to go out on a prowl in their car and rob somebody. In the early morning hours, robbery was the least of their crimes.

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The City of Ypsilanti thrived before and during World War I. The Huron River provided a good source of reliable water power, and local industries provided mercantile goods for the war movement. The train station in Ypsi's Depot Town helped make Ypsilanti a thriving farm and light industry center. But that wasn't to last long.

The Roaring Twenties saw some fundamental changes in the thinking of young Americans and Ypsilanti wasn't immune. Many family farms, the traditional backbone of Ypsilanti's economy, were no longer being handed down from father to son. 

Once the farm boys joined the infantry and went to France, it was hard to keep them on the farm. The automobile was still relatively new and created new opportunities for people. It changed the way most people lived. Americans were intoxicated with their new sense of freedom, courtesy of Henry Ford's inexpensive Model T.

Like the rest of the country though, Ypsilanti went dry during Prohibition. Right! The Huron River was a highway for booze, smuggled into Detroit from Windsor, Ontario. Society was undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift in the Twenties; then, the Great Depression of the 1930s struck the country with a vengeance and knocked the stuffing out of the economy. Ypsilanti was hard hit.

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In 1931, scratching for a living must not have been easy for the three shiftless young men looking to commit a simple robbery for an easy payday. They pulled their Model T Ford into Peninsular Grove along a dirt road bordering the north edge of the Huron River. The area was well-known and well-used as a "lovers lane." Today, it is known as Peninsular Park off of LaForge Road.
Two teen aged couples were "parking" when they were surprised by three shadowy figures. The four teens were beaten and robbed; the two girls were raped; all were murdered. The final indignity was that their bodies were soaked in gasoline and torched in their car at another location.
Site of Torch Murders - Tuttle RoadThe horrific nature of the crime caught the attention of Mr. Henry Bennett, known to his friends and foes alike as "Harry," Henry Ford's head of FoMoCo security and UAW union- busting thug. 
Bennett had a chateau-like home built on the north bank of the Huron River off Geddes Road between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. The property was bordered by a concrete and iron reinforced wall, courtesy of FoMoCo.
Henry Ford also had a private railroad spur built leading onto Bennett's property, so his security chief could travel to Detroit in record time if he needed to. This was before Interstate 94 was built, and Michigan Avenue was the most direct route into Detroit.
Bennett also had a speedboat with a hefty inboard engine that was all gassed up and ready to go at a moment's notice. The Huron River ran southeast to the Detroit River, just south of the island of Grosse Ile where Bennett kept another "safe house."
Seems like being in the "security" business was pretty lucrative for Mr. Bennett. Sarcasm aside, this shows how important Henry Ford believed Bennett was to his "organization."
After the untimely death of one Joseph York, a Detroit gangster who tried to kill Harry Bennett in his home, Bennett had Ford architects design and build several strategically located crenelated gun towers on the roof of his home, staffed around the clock by Ford Servicemen. The entire area surrounding the Bennett Castle for many miles was known as a no-mans' land for criminal activity. Then the Torch Murders happened almost on his doorstep.
  Harry Bennett's Castle
In a book published in 2003 with the dreadful title of Henry Ford: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management, Vol. 1, authors John Cunningham Wood and Michael C. Wood wrote about Harry Bennett's role in the Ypsilanti Torch Murders. 
"The last crime of any consequence in the area occurred in 1931 (These authors obviously hadn't heard about John Norman Collins) and Bennett cleared it up within forty-eight hours. It was a thoroughly horrible affair. It involved rape and murder, and the incineration of two young couples in a car parked along a road not far from the estate.
"Bennett was invited to participate in the case by a local sheriff, and he soon had his Servicemen swarming over the countryside. Under the noses of the state troopers and the county officials, he shifted the scene of the crime a few feet to bring it into the jurisdiction of a hanging judge (note: Michigan has never been a death penalty state).
"Then he uncovered two informers who named a couple of possible suspects. Taking one of the suspects in tow, Bennett, together with Robert Taylor, the head of the Ford Sociological Department,
Ford Servicemen in action.and one of his towering Ford Servicemen, repaired to the basement of his fortified house. There, while one of his companions created an enormous racket with an electric (weight) reducing machine, Bennett undertook to get a confession out of the suspect.

"(Bennett) interrupted this job occasionally to dash upstairs and pour a beer for the county sheriff who visited him inopportunely before his 'guest' had begun to talk. He tactfully neglected to advise the sheriff of what was going on below, and it was not until he had results that he turned his captive over to the police.
"The Torch Murder Case, as it became to be known, was rapidly brought to a successful conclusion. Bennett's captive and two others were sent to Marquette Penitentiary for life. While they were being transported to jail, the prisoners were protected from a lynch mob by Bennett and his Serviceman as well as the police."
***After the speedy court proceedings, the accused were indicted, pled guilty, and were sentenced all in the same proceeding. They were hustled down the back stairs of the courthouse and shoved into the backseat of a souped-up Mercury, driven by Harry Bennett himself, with a three car police escort and delivered alive to Jackson Prison sixty miles west of Ypsilanti.
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For a much more detailed account of The Torch Murders, consult Judge Edward Deake's account found in the Ypsilanti Historical Society's publication Ypsilanti Gleanings:http://ypsigleanings.aadl.org/ypsigle...
For more information on Harry Bennett, check out a previous post on this blog: http://fornology.blogspot.com/2012/09...