J. Allison Conley, FBI investigator on famous abductions
WASHINGTON - J. Allison Conley, a retired FBI inspector and deputy assistant director who worked on several famous kidnapping cases in the 1960s and 1970s, died Feb. 21 at Morristown Memorial Hospital in New Jersey of complications from hip replacement surgery. He was 84.
Mr. Conley chased down leads into the kidnappings of Adolph Coors III, the Coors beer scion who was killed, and Frank Sinatra Jr., the singer's son, who was released for a ransom, in the 1960s. In the late 1960s and mid-1970s, Mr. Conley played supervisory roles in the cases involving the abductions of Barbara Jane Mackle, the heiress who spent three days underground in a fiberglass box, and Patty Hearst, the newspaper publishing magnate's daughter who ultimately joined her captors from the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Throughout a 30-year career, and later as a security consultant and private investigator, Mr. Conley most enjoyed interviewing and talking to people. It came naturally to him, said son Derek James Conley of Westfield, N.J.
"He would always strike up conversations with people, complete strangers," Mr. Conley said. "He was always interested in people's backgrounds and how they got where they were."
James Allison Conley, who was born in Elizabeth, N.J., and raised in Cranford, N.J., enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school. During World War II, he served in England and France, where he had encounters with enemy as well as friendly fire as he drove staff officers to meetings near the front lines.
He graduated from Western Maryland College (now McDaniel University) in 1947 and immediately joined the FBI after hearing a pitch from a fraternity brother. Mr. Conley initially ran one-agent stations in Yakima and Vancouver, Wash., and Marysville, Calif.
In 1949, he joined the FBI's Major Case Squad in the San Francisco office and was later promoted to supervise the team that investigated interstate transportation of stolen property.
He transferred to bureau headquarters in 1960 and oversaw the general investigation group.
After retiring in 1976, Mr. Conley worked as a security consultant and private investigator for law firms, and he helped manage security for East Coast soccer venues for the 1984 Olympics. 