Public Enemies (91 page)

Conversations within the Barker Gang are derived almost exclusively from the Karpis transcripts, more than a thousand pages of unpublished interviews Karpis gave to his biographer, Bill Trent, in 1969 and 1970. Background on John Dillinger’s upbringing and early career can be found in John Toland’s
Dillinger Days,
as well as in contemporary newspaper and magazine articles and in
Dillinger: A Short and Violent Life,
by Robert Cromie and Joseph Pinkston. For the portrait of Alvin Karpis’s last years in Spain, I am grateful to Robert Livesey, who spent many hours there with Karpis compiling their book,
On The Rock: Twenty-five Years in Alcatraz.

Material in the latter half of this book is drawn almost exclusively from FBI files. A prominent exception is material drawn from
Dillinger: The Untold Story,
by Russell Girardin, with Bill Helmer. I strongly recommend this book. Most of the conversations Dillinger had with Louis Piquett and Art O’Leary were drawn from Girardin’s long-lost manuscript.

I reserve the final mentions for my two favorite books on Depression-era outlaws. I kept both on my desk at all times. One is Paul Maccabee’s
John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook’s Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936.
This is local history at its very best, and a must-read for anyone interested in the War on Crime period. The other is probably the most comprehensive reference available,
Public Enemies: America’s Criminal Past, 1919-1940,
by Bill Helmer and Rick Mattix. These two men probably know more about Depression-era outlaws than anyone alive, and they have poured their passion into this fine book.

1
Cited in
The Crisis of the Old Order,
by Arthur Schlesinger, Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

2
Cited in
J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets,
by Curt Gentry, W. W. Norton, 1991.

3
Clegg quoted in
The Mississippi Oral History Program,
volume XCIX, 1977.

4
Memo, Nathan to Hoover, June 24, 1932. 67-822-148.

5
Moley cited in Gentry, pp. 159-60.

6
War on Crime: Bandits, G-Men and the Politics of Mass Culture,
Claire Bond Potter, Rutgers University Press, 1998, p. 68.

7
Potter, p. 62.

1
“The Fugitives (renamed
The True Story of Bonnie and Clyde
), Signet Paperback Edition, 1968, pp. 52-54.

2
Ibid, p. 64.

3
Karpis, p. 84.

Epigraphs taken from
The Union Station Massacre,
Robert Unger, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1997, p. 13.

1
Harvey memo, Feb. 15, 1935, KCM #3570.

2
Miller’s visit to the Davis apartment is confirmed in FBI records. The Bureau’s source was Edna Murray. The only detailed version of events is one Murray wrote in a four-part series of articles in
Startling Detective Adventures
magazine beginning in August 1936.

3
This is courtesy of the memory of former agent James J. Metcalfe, who told the story to his daughter Krista Metcalfe.

4
Unger,
Union Station Massacre
, p. 13.

5
Missouri State Trooper Magazine,
Capt. E. M. Raub, August 24, 2000.

6
Allanna Nash article, July 18, 1976.

7
Muncie Sunday Star,
July 16, 1933;
Muncie Evening Press,
July 15, 1933.

8
Muncie Evening Press,
July 17, 1933.

9
Muncie Evening Press,
July 17 and 18, 1933;
Muncie Morning Star,
July 18 and 19, 1933.

10
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J.Edgar Hoover,
Anthony Summers, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993, pp. 67-72.

11
Chicago Tribune,
July 25, 1933.

12
Hoover to Purvis, July 26, 1933, Hamm kidnap file #67.

13
USA ex rel.
Roger Touhy v. Joseph E. Ragen,
U.S. District Court, No. Dist. of Illinois. Eastern Division No. 48 C 448, Opinion of Court.

14
There are many versions of the scene on the Urschels’ sunporch that evening. None of them vary in any substantive way. Probably the most detailed, on which this account is based, was written by Harrison Moreland in
True Detective Mysteries,
March 1934. Though none of his material is attributed, Moreland’s facts mirror those in FBI files, and it’s clear he interviewed many, if not all, of the principal players.

15
This glimpse of Bates and Kelly is taken from an odd, privately published 1991 book,
Machine Gun Kelly: To Right a Wrong,
Tipper Publications. The book was written by Kelly’s son, Bruce Barnes, a California lighting designer who as a young man was able to interview his infamous father about his crimes. Barnes’s book deals mostly with Kelly’s precriminal life, when he was married to his first wife, Barnes’s mother. Of the stories Kelly tells of his crimes, a number are demonstrably false. But many others, including this one, are surprisingly close to versions found in FBI files.

16
Ellis,
A Man Named Jones
, p. 84.

1
Hoover, p. 143.

2
Blake to Vetterli, July 7, 1933, KCM #220.

3
Charles Winstead, untitled autobiographical essay, p. 22. Winstead’s essay, written shortly before his death in 1972, is on file at the Red River Historical Museum in Sherman, Texas.

4
Detective Weatherford’s role is described in Dallas report, Aug. 18, 1933, UKM #293.

5
Fugitives,
p. 137.

6
Phillips, p. 152.

7
Ibid.

8
Dexter (Ia.)
Sentinel,
Oct. 5, 1967.

9
Dallas report, Aug. 7, 1933, UKF #99.

10
Kirkpatrick tells his story in
Crimes Paradise,
Naylor Press, San Antonio, Tex., 1934.

11
No explanation for the incident is contained in FBI files. The flooded-engine story is told by Lew Louderback in
The Bad Ones,
Fawcett Publications, Greenwich, Conn., 1968.

12
Kirkpatrick, p. 86.

13
Letter, N.Y. office to Oklahoma City office, July 31, 1933, KCM #413.

14
The Mathias investigation is described in an August 5, 1933, New York office report, KCM #418.

15
This version of Charles Urschel’s debriefing I found in a thin volume not cited in bibliographies of Depression-era criminal literature. The book, a biography of Jones, is
A Man Named Jones,
by George Ellis.

16
Ellis, p. 113.

17
Colvin to Hoover, Aug. 11, 1933, UKF #201.

18
Jones and Bailey told consistent versions of their confrontation. Ellis, p. 136. Haley, p. 134. Fitzpatrick, p. 130.

19
Serb World USA,
May/June 1992, p. 48.

20
Both Toland and Cromie assert Dillinger vaulted the railing at Montpelier, as he had at Dalesville. Contemporary newspaper accounts do not mention such a leap. Bluffton
Evening News-Banner,
Aug. 4, 1933; Fort Wayne
News-Sentinal,
Fort Wayne
Journal Gazette,
Hartford City
Times-Gazette,
Aug. 5, 1933.

1
I am deeply indebted to a Chicago amateur historian, Tom Smysyn, who discovered these articles during the early 1990s, for bringing them to my attention.

2
Chicago Tribune,
January 7, 1930.

3
Chicago Tribune,
January 23, 1930.

4
Chicago Tribune,
April 1, 1930;
Chicago Herald & Examiner,
April 1, 1930.

5
Chicago Herald,
October 8, 1930.

6
Chicago Tribune,
February 15, 1931. The article contains a lengthy list of the gang’s confirmed crimes.

7
Chicago Tribune, Joliet Evening Herald,
February 18, 1932.

8
The story of Bentz’s tutelage of Nelson is told in an article Bentz, then in prison, wrote in 1951 for
Argosy
magazine. The salient facts are confirmed in FBI reports.

9
The South St. Paul robbery is one of the Barker-Karpis Gang’s more confusing to unravel. Fitzgerald would later claim that Bryan Bolton and George Ziegler took part; according to Karpis, they didn’t. Karpis says the gang’s fifth man that day was Bill Weaver, and says it was Weaver who first shot Officer Yeaman, who was then further wounded by fire from Fred Barker’s Thompson gun. All the witnesses but one indicate Fred Barker emerged from the car along with Fitzgerald and Dock Barker. The owner of the bar where Weaver waited would later claim Barker waited with him.

10
Dallas report, UKF #508.

11
The Arnolds’ story is told in detail in an Oklahoma City report, UKF #732.

12
Chicago report, Nov. 13, 1933, UKF #994.

13
Gus Jones, Oklahoma City report, Oct. 3, 1933, UKF #732.

14
Colvin report, UKF #1110.

15
Durham’s story told in Dallas report, Sept. 25, 1933, UKF #598.

16
Details of the Kellys’ Chicago trip are told by Geralene Arnold in a Chicago report, Nov. 13, 1933, UKF #994.

17
Letter, Purvis to Hoover, Dec. 18, 1933, UKF, #1039.

18
Memo to D. O. Smith, Oct. 24, 1933, UKF, #956.

19
Dayton
Daily News,
Sept. 22, 1933, Dayton
Herald,
Sept. 23, 1933. Toland, p. 108.

20
Karpis transcripts, tape 15.

21
Chicago Daily Times,
Sept. 25, 1933.

22
Statements from Cass Coleman and Geralene Arnold, UKF #918.

23
The story of Rorer’s morning is told in detail in a Birmingham report, Oct. 6, 1933, UKF #778.

24
Chicago American,
Sept. 26, 1933.

1
Toland, pp. 6 -8.

2
Chicago Reader,
July 20, 1984.

3
Toland, p. 127.

4
Auburn
(Ind.)
Evening Star,
Oct. 16, 1934.

5
Indianapolis Times,
Oct. 21, 1933.

6
Greencastle Banner,
Oct. 24, 1933;
Indianapolis News,
Oct. 22, 1983.

7
Karpis transcripts, tape #15.

8
Letter, Purvis to Kansas City office, Aug. 29, 1933.

9
FBI statements on Miller’s escape in Kansas City Massacre files.

10
Jodil #4, Oct. 23, 1933.

11
Hoover, memo to file, Oct. 24, 1933, Jodil #19.

12
Indianapolis News,
June 15, 1955.

13
Chicago Herald and Examiner,
Aug. 27, 1934.

14
Mary Kinder, “Four Months with the Dillinger Gang,”
Chicago Herald and Examiner,
July 30, 1934.

15
“My Adventures with The Dillinger Gang,”
Chicago Herald and Examiner,
September 1934.

16
Toland, p. 147.

17
Ibid.

18
Cromie, p. 89.

19
Chicago Tribune,
Nov. 16, 1933.

1
Racine
Journal,
Nov. 21, 1933.

2
Cromie, pp. 111-12.

3
Toland, p. 149.

4
Memo, Hughes to Hoover, Nov. 9, 1933, Hamm kidnap file, #214.

5
Memo to file, Hoover, Oct. 21, 1933, Hamm kidnap file, #182.

6
F. X. Fay to Kansas City SAC, Nov. 29, 1933, KCM #926.

7
KCM #904.

8
Conroy to Hoover, December 1, 1933, KCM #906.

9
Maccabee, p. 229.

10
“Daring Machine Gun Mob Robs First National Here,”
Brainerd Daily Dispatch,
Oct. 23, 1933; “It was no gangster movie,”
Brainerd Daily Dispatch,
December 4, 1988.

11
San Antonio report, June 5, 1934, Jodil #1829.
San Antonio Light
articles, Dec. 11-15, 1933.
A Man Named Jones,
p. 157.

1
Cherrington statement, Jodil #2617.

2
Toland, p. 175.

3
Gary
Post-Tribune,
January 16, 1934.

4
The
Times,
Hammond, Indiana, July 22, 1984. (Interview with Hobart Wilgus’s widow.)

5
Gary
Post-Tribune,
January 16, 1934.

6
BKF #66.

7
Chicago Tribune,
January 26-29, 1934.

1
Toland, p. 195.

2
BKF #667.

3
Girardin, pp. 72-73.

4
Chicago American,
Feb. 9, 1934.

5
Girardin, p. 74.

6
BKF #295.

7
Girardin, pp. 77-78.

8
Simmons, pp. 166-67.

9
Springfield
Leader,
Feb. 13, 1934.

10
Hamilton,
Public Enemy Number 1,
p. 33.

11
Phillips, pp. 175-76.

12
Fugitives
, pp. 158-59.

13
Simmons, p. 127.

14
Winstead, unpublished manuscript, p. 24.