17-12-2008, 10:58 AM
The Strange Saga of Papa Pilgrim
Part 3
Who Is Papa Pilgrim?
Papa Pilgrim, was raised in an affluent family in Fort Worth, Texas. His
real name is Robert Allan Hale. He has a twin brother named Billy. His
father is I B Hale
I B Hale, was a two-time All-America tackle and was ranked among the
very best of many great players during Texas Christian University 's
most triumphant football era. In 1937, All-America tackle, was ranked
among the very best of many great players during Texas Christian
University 's most triumphant football era.
In 1937, Hale was on the TCU team that defeated Marquette in the
first Cotton Bowl classic. As a senior, he played on the undefeated and
untied 1938 national championship team that finished with a 15-7 victory
over Carnegie Tech in the 1939 Sugar Bowl. Hale was inducted into the
Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.
After College, I B Hale joined the FBI and became one of Hoover's
favorite agents. Later, he became chief of security for General
Dynamics, the giant military contractor. He was chairman of ASIS
International, a professional association of private security firms. He
rode in the motorcade behind JFK, on the day he was assassinated. He
died of a heart attack in 1971.
In 1958, when 17 and still in high school, Robert (known as Bobby Hale)
eloped to Florida with 16 year old Kathleen Connally. the daughter of
John B. Connally. Connally later become the Texas governor and was
wounded in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Shortly after the elopement in 1958, Kathleen died of a gunshot wound.
The Coroner's jury found that Kathleen Hale was killed by the accidental
discharge of a 20 gauge shotgun. A fingerprint expert said no prints
recognizable as Robert's were found on the gun. However, a palm print
which COULD HAVE BEEN Kathleen's was found.
When police arrived on the scene, neighbors were restraining Robert from
jumping out the second story window.
Robert claimed she was in good spirits the night before her death but
then suddenly she left their apartment and didn't return until late the
following morning. He said that he went out to search for her on several
occasions and when he returned from his last trip, she was seated on the
couch holding a shotgun. Robert tried to persuade her to put it down but
she brought the weapon up to her head. He claimed that, "at the last
desperate moment, I lunged at the gun and hit it. It hit the wall and
she was still." He claimed not to know if the gun went off before or
after he had hit it.
Detective Bob Maige said, "It looked like it was very possible that it
was an accident." He continued by saying that, "a little squabble like
kids have preceded the shooting."
A Florida deputy sheriff told Connally, as he wrote in his
autobiography, "there may have been a suicide pact, and Bobby backed
out."
Asked about Connally's book, Pilgrim denied any suicide pact and said
Kathleen's death was an accident. He said he was in the hotel room when
she died, but declined to give details about how she supposedly fired a
shotgun into her face.
Five years after Kathleen's death, Bobby turned up in Southern
California and insinuated himself into the life of another well-known
figure from the Kennedy era,
According to Seymour M. Hersh's book "The Dark Side of Camelot." Citing
unreleased FBI documents, Hersh writes that Bobby joined his twin
brother, Billy, in breaking into the Los Angeles apartment of Judith
Exner, a woman who later acknowledged having an affair with Kennedy.
An FBI agent observed the break-in on Aug. 7, 1962, but made no attempt
to arrest the Hale brothers, according to Hersh. "A man answering the
description of the individual who entered Exner's apartment was observed
leaving the area in an automobile registered to former Special Agent
I.B. Hale who resides in Fort Worth, Texas," the summary said. " In the
book, Hersh speculates that the break-in was part of a successful
attempt by the Hales' father, I.B., then chief of security at General
Dynamics, to blackmail Kennedy into giving the company a major defense
contract.
"That is ridiculous," said Pilgrim, when asked about the Hersh book. "I
wasn't there, and neither was my brother. Mr. Hersh is a liar."
Through the 1960s and into the '70s, Bobby Hale called himself
"Sunstar." He lived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco,
worked on a commune in Oregon and he rode a horse across South America
on his quest to find the answer!
While camping out in the Southern California desert, he met Kurina Rose
Bresler, a 16-year-old from suburban Los Angeles. She would become the
mother of the 15 children now living with him in Alaska.
"My daughter was running around with friends, and they were into drugs
at the time -- that's when she met Bobby," said Kurina's mother, Betty
Freeman, an actress and singer who lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She is
married to producer Joel Freeman, whose movies include "Shaft."
Reborn and Renamed After Bobby and Kurina had their first two children
together, whom they named Butterfly and Nava Sunstar, they became
born-again Christians. They renamed themselves Papa Pilgrim and Country
Rose, renamed their eldest children Elizabeth and Joseph, and began
naming newborn children after characters, places and other designations
in the Bible.
They moved to the Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico,
setting up a subsistence farm on land owned by Jack Nicholson, the
actor.
Permission to live there was granted after Country Rose's mother made a
personal appeal to Nicholson's business manager, Bob Colbert.
For more than 20 years on Nicholson's land, the family tanned leather,
raised sheep and bred dogs. They made some money playing bluegrass music
at state fairs and festivals.
But they also got into frequent scraps with neighbors, according to Mike
Francis, retired deputy chief of the New Mexico state police.
"We would get calls in regard to him and his family that they were
stealing chickens and eggs, and that hay was disappearing," Francis
said, adding that criminal charges were never filed. "Neighbors were
afraid of Bob, and they didn't want to prosecute." Pilgrim says he and
his family never took anything from anyone.
Friction with neighbors, he said, was over religion. "They called me
Preacher Bob, and they didn't want to hear the gospel from me," he said.
"People for no reason created stupid rumors about us."
While the family lived in New Mexico, Country Rose cut off all contact
with her mother in Los Angeles, as did her children. "He won't let me
talk to my daughter directly," said Freeman, referring to her
son-in-law. "If I want to talk to her, I have to talk to him. The
children have been taught that the devil is in me."
Pilgrim objects to questions about his past, and he especially resents
criticism from his mother-in-law. "My past is gone and that is not who I
am," he said. "My mother-in-law has been trying to break our family up
since the very beginning.
"If you start talking about Jack Nicholson and Seymour Hersh, John
Connally and cults, then people are going to forget about the real
Pilgrim family and the life we live now in Alaska. My family represents
something that is not a problem." ____________End___________________
Update: Papa Pilgrim/Robert Hale's trial was set for January, then
Febuary and then March. In March it was postponed again to May 8th.
Since March there has been no news released. I rechecked the news
sources every few days and there was no news whatsoever. I have been
thinking there was possibly a News Blackout.
Today, I emailed Tom Kizzia, who wrote some articles about the Pilgrims
for the Anchorage Daily News. He replied that the trial has been reset
for December and possibly January. There has been no News Blackout and
he will be updating with an article in the very new future.
by Dixie Dea
Continued in Part 4
Part 3
Who Is Papa Pilgrim?
Papa Pilgrim, was raised in an affluent family in Fort Worth, Texas. His
real name is Robert Allan Hale. He has a twin brother named Billy. His
father is I B Hale
I B Hale, was a two-time All-America tackle and was ranked among the
very best of many great players during Texas Christian University 's
most triumphant football era. In 1937, All-America tackle, was ranked
among the very best of many great players during Texas Christian
University 's most triumphant football era.
In 1937, Hale was on the TCU team that defeated Marquette in the
first Cotton Bowl classic. As a senior, he played on the undefeated and
untied 1938 national championship team that finished with a 15-7 victory
over Carnegie Tech in the 1939 Sugar Bowl. Hale was inducted into the
Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.
After College, I B Hale joined the FBI and became one of Hoover's
favorite agents. Later, he became chief of security for General
Dynamics, the giant military contractor. He was chairman of ASIS
International, a professional association of private security firms. He
rode in the motorcade behind JFK, on the day he was assassinated. He
died of a heart attack in 1971.
In 1958, when 17 and still in high school, Robert (known as Bobby Hale)
eloped to Florida with 16 year old Kathleen Connally. the daughter of
John B. Connally. Connally later become the Texas governor and was
wounded in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Shortly after the elopement in 1958, Kathleen died of a gunshot wound.
The Coroner's jury found that Kathleen Hale was killed by the accidental
discharge of a 20 gauge shotgun. A fingerprint expert said no prints
recognizable as Robert's were found on the gun. However, a palm print
which COULD HAVE BEEN Kathleen's was found.
When police arrived on the scene, neighbors were restraining Robert from
jumping out the second story window.
Robert claimed she was in good spirits the night before her death but
then suddenly she left their apartment and didn't return until late the
following morning. He said that he went out to search for her on several
occasions and when he returned from his last trip, she was seated on the
couch holding a shotgun. Robert tried to persuade her to put it down but
she brought the weapon up to her head. He claimed that, "at the last
desperate moment, I lunged at the gun and hit it. It hit the wall and
she was still." He claimed not to know if the gun went off before or
after he had hit it.
Detective Bob Maige said, "It looked like it was very possible that it
was an accident." He continued by saying that, "a little squabble like
kids have preceded the shooting."
A Florida deputy sheriff told Connally, as he wrote in his
autobiography, "there may have been a suicide pact, and Bobby backed
out."
Asked about Connally's book, Pilgrim denied any suicide pact and said
Kathleen's death was an accident. He said he was in the hotel room when
she died, but declined to give details about how she supposedly fired a
shotgun into her face.
Five years after Kathleen's death, Bobby turned up in Southern
California and insinuated himself into the life of another well-known
figure from the Kennedy era,
According to Seymour M. Hersh's book "The Dark Side of Camelot." Citing
unreleased FBI documents, Hersh writes that Bobby joined his twin
brother, Billy, in breaking into the Los Angeles apartment of Judith
Exner, a woman who later acknowledged having an affair with Kennedy.
An FBI agent observed the break-in on Aug. 7, 1962, but made no attempt
to arrest the Hale brothers, according to Hersh. "A man answering the
description of the individual who entered Exner's apartment was observed
leaving the area in an automobile registered to former Special Agent
I.B. Hale who resides in Fort Worth, Texas," the summary said. " In the
book, Hersh speculates that the break-in was part of a successful
attempt by the Hales' father, I.B., then chief of security at General
Dynamics, to blackmail Kennedy into giving the company a major defense
contract.
"That is ridiculous," said Pilgrim, when asked about the Hersh book. "I
wasn't there, and neither was my brother. Mr. Hersh is a liar."
Through the 1960s and into the '70s, Bobby Hale called himself
"Sunstar." He lived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco,
worked on a commune in Oregon and he rode a horse across South America
on his quest to find the answer!
While camping out in the Southern California desert, he met Kurina Rose
Bresler, a 16-year-old from suburban Los Angeles. She would become the
mother of the 15 children now living with him in Alaska.
"My daughter was running around with friends, and they were into drugs
at the time -- that's when she met Bobby," said Kurina's mother, Betty
Freeman, an actress and singer who lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She is
married to producer Joel Freeman, whose movies include "Shaft."
Reborn and Renamed After Bobby and Kurina had their first two children
together, whom they named Butterfly and Nava Sunstar, they became
born-again Christians. They renamed themselves Papa Pilgrim and Country
Rose, renamed their eldest children Elizabeth and Joseph, and began
naming newborn children after characters, places and other designations
in the Bible.
They moved to the Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico,
setting up a subsistence farm on land owned by Jack Nicholson, the
actor.
Permission to live there was granted after Country Rose's mother made a
personal appeal to Nicholson's business manager, Bob Colbert.
For more than 20 years on Nicholson's land, the family tanned leather,
raised sheep and bred dogs. They made some money playing bluegrass music
at state fairs and festivals.
But they also got into frequent scraps with neighbors, according to Mike
Francis, retired deputy chief of the New Mexico state police.
"We would get calls in regard to him and his family that they were
stealing chickens and eggs, and that hay was disappearing," Francis
said, adding that criminal charges were never filed. "Neighbors were
afraid of Bob, and they didn't want to prosecute." Pilgrim says he and
his family never took anything from anyone.
Friction with neighbors, he said, was over religion. "They called me
Preacher Bob, and they didn't want to hear the gospel from me," he said.
"People for no reason created stupid rumors about us."
While the family lived in New Mexico, Country Rose cut off all contact
with her mother in Los Angeles, as did her children. "He won't let me
talk to my daughter directly," said Freeman, referring to her
son-in-law. "If I want to talk to her, I have to talk to him. The
children have been taught that the devil is in me."
Pilgrim objects to questions about his past, and he especially resents
criticism from his mother-in-law. "My past is gone and that is not who I
am," he said. "My mother-in-law has been trying to break our family up
since the very beginning.
"If you start talking about Jack Nicholson and Seymour Hersh, John
Connally and cults, then people are going to forget about the real
Pilgrim family and the life we live now in Alaska. My family represents
something that is not a problem." ____________End___________________
Update: Papa Pilgrim/Robert Hale's trial was set for January, then
Febuary and then March. In March it was postponed again to May 8th.
Since March there has been no news released. I rechecked the news
sources every few days and there was no news whatsoever. I have been
thinking there was possibly a News Blackout.
Today, I emailed Tom Kizzia, who wrote some articles about the Pilgrims
for the Anchorage Daily News. He replied that the trial has been reset
for December and possibly January. There has been no News Blackout and
he will be updating with an article in the very new future.
by Dixie Dea
Continued in Part 4