Unquestionably, it was going to be highly dangerous. Yet I felt it was quite natural to jump at the task. After all, if you don't like action and excitement, you don't go into police work. And, what the hell, I figured, nobody lives forever!

Later he made a number of forays into the corporate world all of which failed from his lack of business acumen. In 1944 he left to become chairman of the Diebold Corporation a security safe company based in Ohio. Ness's aEliot Nesss were scattered in one of the small ponds on the grounds of Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.