Overview

The Death of an Heir is Philip Jett's chilling true account of the Coors family's gilded American dream that turned into a nightmare when a meticulously plotted kidnapping went horribly wrong. It's the first comprehensive narrative of the Coors kidnapping and murder that had been lost to history for decades! In the 1950s and 60s, the Coors dynasty reigned over Golden, Colorado, seemingly invincible. When rumblings about labor unions threatened to destabilize the family's brewery, Adolph Coors, Jr., the septuagenarian president of the company, drew a hard line, refusing to budge. They had worked hard for what they had, and no one had a right to take it from them. What they'd soon realize was that they had more to lose than they could have imagined. On the morning of Tuesday, February 9, 1960, Adolph ""Ad"" Coors III, the 44-year-old CEO of the multimillion dollar Colorado beer empire, stepped into his car and headed for the brewery twelve miles away. At a bridge, he stopped to help a man in a yellow Mercury sedan. On the back seat lay handcuffs and leg irons. The glove box held a ransom note ready to be mailed. His coat pocket shielded a loaded pistol. What happened next set off the largest U.S. manhunt since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. State and local authorities, along with the FBI personally spearheaded by its director J. Edgar Hoover, burst into action attempting to locate Ad and his kidnapper. The dragnet spanned a continent. All the while, Ad's grief-stricken wife and children waited, tormented by the unrelenting silence. The Death of an Heir reveals the true story behind the tragic murder of Colorado's favorite son.

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Reviews

""Stranger Than Fiction: The Best True-Crime Stories"" -- Book Review of The Death of an Heir, The New York Times ""The rich are powerful too. That's the message to take from Philip Jett's compassionate appraisal of the tragedy that shattered the family of Adolph (Ad) Herman Joseph Coors III."" The New York Times. ""The author puts his legal experience to good use with behind-the-scenes insights into investigative legwork while crafting a suspenseful true-crime narrative that reads like an edge-of-the-seat detective story."" Booklist ""'The Death of an Heir' is an excellent account of a 57-year-old tragedy ..."" The Denver Post ""Jett's amazing research and captivating narrative tell a remarkable Coors family story, occasionally whispered about during my time at Coors. An incredible and tragic story, brilliantly told."" Ralph Hargrove, Former Chief Global People Officer, Molson Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado

Author Information

PHILIP JETT is a retired U.S. corporate and tax attorney who has represented multinational corporations, CEOs, and celebrities from the music, television, and sports industries. He is the author of The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty, which was named one of the best true crime stories of 2017 by The New York Times. He followed that book with another true crime story titled Taking Mr. Exxon: The Kidnapping of an Oil Giant's President. His newest book, a work of historical nonfiction, is called Stranded in the Sky: The Untold Story of Pan Am Luxury Airliners Trapped on the Day of Infamy. Philip Jett lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

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