Jay J. Armes, a flamboyant private investigator who lived on an estate with miniature Tibetan horses, traveled in a bulletproof Cadillac limousine with rotating license plates and had steel hooks for hands, including one fitted to fire a .22 caliber revolverpampawerte, died on Sept. 18 in El Paso. He was 92.
His death, at a hospital, was caused by respiratory failure, his son Jay J. Armes III said.
Described by People magazine as “armless but deadly,” Mr. Armes appeared to live the life of a superhero. In the 1970s, the Ideal Toy Corporation even reproduced him as a plastic action figure, with hooks like those he began wearing in adolescence after an accident in which railroad dynamite exploded in his hands.
ImageIn the 1970s, the Ideal Toy Corporation reproduced Mr. Armes as a plastic action figure, complete with hooks for hands.Credit...Associated PressMr. Armes (pronounced arms) catapulted to investigatory stardom in 1972 after Marlon Brando hired him to find his 13-year-old son, Christian, who had been abducted in Mexico. Working with Mexican federal agents, Mr. Armes said he found the boy in a cave with a gang of hippies.
He told other daring tales of triumph: flying on a glider into Cuba to recover $2 million for a client; helping another client escape from a Mexican prison by sending him a helicopter, which he said inspired the 1975 Charles Bronson movie “Breakout.”
The national media was enthralled by his detective skills.
“He is an expert on bugging, a skilled pilot, a deadly marksman and karate fighter and, perhaps, the best private eye in the country,” Newsweek wrote in 1975. “All he lacks is a pair of hands.”
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