Gangsters: Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

Mara Salvatrucha (commonly known as MS, Mara, and MS-13) is a transnational criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. The majority of the gang is ethnically composed of Central Americans.

In the U.S., the MS-13 has an especially heavy presence in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California; the Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas of Fairfax County, Virginia, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Prince George’s County, Maryland; Long Island, New York; the Boston, Massachusetts area; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Houston, Texas. There is also a presence of MS-13 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Members of MS distinguish themselves by tattoos covering the body and also often the face, as well as the use of their own sign language.

They are notorious for their use of violence, and a moral subculture that predominantly consists of merciless revenge and cruel retribution.

Their wide-ranging activities have drawn the attention of the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who have initiated raids against known and suspected gang members – netting hundreds of arrests across the country.

Principal characters of the feature film “Sin Nombre” (2009) are members of MS in Chiapas, Mexico, and many of the traditions and practices of MS are depicted accurately (killings, tattoos, initiation, exploitation of migrants, etc.).

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

That’s a slice of reel life.

Here’s the history:

Origins

The Mara Salvatrucha gang originated in Los Angeles, having its roots in El Salvador.

It was set up in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the city’s Pico-Union neighborhood who emigrated to the United States after the Central American civil wars of the 1980s.

Originally, the gang’s main purpose was to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other, more established gangs of Los Angeles, which were predominantly composed of Mexicans and African-Americans.

Some sources state the gang is named for La Mara, a street gang in San Salvador, and the Salvatrucha guerrillas who fought in the Salvadoran Civil War. Additionally, the word “mara” means gang in Caliche slang and is taken from marabunta, the name of a fierce type of ant.

“Salvatrucha” may be a combination of the words Salvadoran and “trucha”, a Caliche word for being alert. The term, “Salvatruchas” has been explained as a reference to Salvadoran peasants trained to become guerrilla fighters, referred to as the “Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.”

Gang Markings and Hand Signs

Many Mara Salvatrucha members cover themselves in tattoos. Common markings include “MS”, “Salvatrucha”, the “Devil Horns”, the name of their clique, and other symbols. A December 2007 CNN internet news article stated that the gang was moving away from the tattoos in an attempt to commit crimes without being noticed.

Members of Mara Salvatrucha (like members of most modern American gangs) utilize a system of hand signs for purposes of identification and communication. One of the most commonly displayed is the “devil’s head” which forms an ‘M’ when displayed upside down. This hand sign is similar to the symbol commonly seen displayed by heavy metal musicians and their fans. Founders of Mara Salvatrucha allegedly borrowed the hand sign after attending concerts of heavy metal bands.

Spread

Many Mara Salvatrucha gang members from the Los Angeles area have been deported after being arrested. Jose Abrego, a high-ranking member, was deported four times.

As a result of these deportations, members of MS have recruited more members in their home countries.

According to the 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment, “The gang is estimated to have 30,000 to 50,000 members and associate members worldwide, 8,000 to 10,000 of whom reside in the United States.”

In recent years the gang has expanded into the Washington, D.C. area. In particular, the areas of Langley Park and Takoma Park, Maryland, near the Washington border, have become centers of MS gang activity.

Counter-Measures

In 2004, the US FBI started the MS-13 National Gang Task Force. The FBI also began teaming with law enforcement in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

In 2005, the FBI helped create a National Gang Information Center and outlined a National Gang Strategy for Congress.

Also in 2005, the office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started Operation Community Shield. By 2011, this operation had made over 20,000 arrests, including more than 3,000 arrests of alleged MS-13 members.

Illegal Immigration and People Smuggling

According to The Washington Times, MS “is thought to have established a major smuggling center” in Mexico. There were reports by the Minuteman Project that MS members were ordered to Arizona to target U.S. Border Patrol agents and Minuteman Project volunteers.

In 2005, Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez and the President of El Salvador raised alarm by claiming that Muslim terrorist organization Al-Qaeda was meeting with Mara Salvatrucha and other Central American gangs to help them infiltrate the United States. FBI agents said that the U.S. intelligence community and governments of several Central American countries found there is no basis to believe that MS is connected to Al-Qaeda or other Islamic radicals, although Alvarez did visit Central America to discuss the issue.

On the southern border of Mexico, the gang has also unleashed violence against migrants.

Child Prostitution

In 2011, Alonso “Casper” Bruno Cornejo Ormeno, an associate of MS-13 from Fairfax, Virginia was sentenced to 292 months in prison for child prostitution. Ormeno recruited juvenile females into a prostitution ring by locating runaway children.

In June 2012, Rances Ulices Amaya of Springfield (a leader of MS-13) was sentenced to 50 years in prison for child prostitution. He was convicted in February 2012 for trafficking girls as young as 14 into a prostitution ring. They were lured from middle schools, high schools, and public shelters.

In September 2012, Yimmy Anthony Pineda Penado (also known as “Critico” and “Spike”) of Maryland, a former “clique leader” of MS-13, became the 11th MS-13 gang member to be convicted of child prostitution since 2011.

A Catalog of Crimes

On July 13, 2003, Brenda Paz, a 17-year-old former MS member turned informant, was found stabbed on the banks of the Shenandoah River in Virginia. Paz was killed for telling the FBI about Mara Salvatrucha’s criminal activities. Two of her former friends were later convicted of the murder.

On December 23, 2004, one of the most widely publicized MS crimes in Central America occurred in Chamelecón, Honduras when an intercity bus was intercepted and sprayed with automatic gunfire, killing 28 civilian passengers, most of whom were women and children.

MS organized the massacre as a protest against the Honduran government’s proposing a restoration of the death penalty in Honduras.

Six gunmen raked the bus with gunfire. As passengers screamed and ducked, another gunman climbed aboard and methodically executed passengers.

In February 2007, Juan Carlos Miranda Bueso and Darwin Alexis Ramírez were found guilty of several crimes, including murder and attempted murder. Ebert Anibal Rivera was also held over the attack, and was arrested after fleeing to Texas. Juan Bautista Jimenez, accused of masterminding the massacre, was killed in prison. According to the authorities, fellow MS-13 inmates hanged him. There was insufficient evidence to convict Óscar Fernando Mendoza and Wilson Geovany Gómez.

On May 13, 2006, Ernesto “Smokey” Miranda, a former high-ranking soldier and one of the founders of Mara Salvatrucha, was murdered at his home in El Salvador a few hours after declining to attend a party for a gang member who had just been released from prison. He had been studying law and working to keep children out of gangs.

In 2007, Julio Chavez allegedly murdered a man because he was wearing a red sweatshirt and was mistaken for a member of the Bloods gang.

On June 4, 2008, in Toronto, Ontario, police executed 22 search warrants, made 17 arrests and laid 63 charges following a five-month investigation.

On June 22, 2008, in San Francisco, California, a 21-year-old MS gang member, Edwin Ramos, shot and killed a father, Anthony Bologna, 48, and his two sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, after their car briefly blocked Ramos from completing a left turn down a narrow street as they were returning home from a family barbecue.

On November 26, 2008, Jonathan Retana was convicted of the murder of Miguel Angel Deras, which the authorities linked to an MS initiation.

Fighting The Law

In 2008, the MS task force coordinated a series of arrests and crackdowns in the U.S. and Central America that involved more than 6,000 police officers in five countries. Seventy-three suspects were arrested in the U.S. In all, more than 650 suspects were taken into custody.

In February 2009, authorities in Colorado and California arrested 20 members of MS, and seized 10 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.3 kilograms (5 pounds) of cocaine, a small amount of heroin, 12 firearms and $3,300 in cash.

On November 4, 2009, El Salvadoran leaders of the MS-13 gang allegedly put out a contract on the federal agent responsible for a crackdown on its New York factions. The plot to assassinate the unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent was revealed in an arrest warrant for reputed gang member Walter (Duke) Torres.

Torres tipped authorities to the plan after he and four MS-13 members were stopped by NYPD detectives for hassling passersby on Northern Boulevard in Queens, New York. He was debriefed on October 22 at Rikers Island, where he was being held on a warrant issued in Virginia, according to court papers.

Torres said “the order for the murder came from gang leadership in El Salvador,” ICE agent Sean Sweeney wrote in an affidavit for a new warrant charging Torres with conspiracy.

Torres said he traveled to New York in August “for the specific purpose of participating in the planning and execution of the murder plot,” Sweeney wrote.

Gang members were trying to get their hands on a high-powered assault rifle, like an M-16, to penetrate the agent’s bulletproof vest.

Another MS-13 informant told authorities the agent was marked for death because the gang was “exceedingly angry” at him for arresting many members in the past three years, the affidavit states.

Federal prosecutors have indicted numerous MS-13 gang members on racketeering, extortion, prostitution, kidnapping, illegal immigration, money laundering, murder, people smuggling, arms trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking charges. The targeted special agent was the lead federal investigator on many of these federal cases.

Charlotte, North Carolina

In the early 2000s, US authorities investigated MS-13 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Eventually the work led to charges against 26 MS-13 members, including 7 trial convictions in January 2010, 18 guilty pleas, and 11 multi-year prison sentences.

Among these was the alleged first federal death-penalty conviction for an MS-13 member, Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umaña, a.k.a. “Wizard” (age 25).

The Umaña Case

On July 27 2005, in Los Angeles, Umaña allegedly murdered Jose Herrera and Gustavo Porras and participated in the killing of Andy Abarca (September 28). He later came to Charlotte, North Carolina, according to witnesses, as a veteran member of MS-13, to reorganize the Charlotte cell of the gang.

According to witnesses at his later trial, on December 8, 2007, Umaña shot Ruben Garcia Salinas fatally in the chest and Manuel Garcia Salinas in the head, while in the Las Jarochitas, a family-run restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Witnesses testified that the shootings took place after the Garcia Salinas brothers had “disrespected” Umaña’s gang signs by calling them “fake”.

Firing three more shots in the restaurant (according to trial testimony), Umaña injured another individual with his gunfire.

Trial testimony and evidence showed that Umaña later fled back to Charlotte with MS-13 assistance. Umaña was arrested five days after that, in possession of the murder weapon. Additional evidence and testimony from the trial revealed that while Umaña was incarcerated awaiting trial he coordinated attempts to kill witnesses and informants.

Umaña was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 23, 2008.

During trial, he attempted to bring a knife with him to the courtroom, which was discovered by U.S. Marshals before Umaña was transported to the courthouse.

The murder was investigated by the Charlotte Safe Streets Task Force.

The court case was prosecuted by Chief Criminal Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina, and Trial Attorney Sam Nazzaro from the Criminal Division’s Gang Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Don Gast and Adam Morris of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina were also members of the government’s trial team.

Charges included:

Murder in aid of the racketeering enterprise known as MS-13, two counts
Murder resulting from the use of a gun in a violent crime, two counts
Conspiracy to participate in racketeering
Witness tampering or intimidation, two counts
Possession of a firearm by an illegal alien
Extortion

On April 19, 2010, The jury convicted Umaña of all charges, and additionally found him responsible for the 2005 murders during the sentencing phase.

On April 28, a 12-person federal jury in Charlotte voted unanimously to impose the death penalty.

On July 27, 2010, Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr., of Charlotte, NC, formally imposed the federal death penalty sentence.

The case was automatically appealed under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

And the war goes on.

I have to be going, at this point.

Hope to see you, for our next story.

Till then.

Peace.

Gangsters: Frank Nitti

Francesco Raffaele Nitto (January 27, 1886 – March 19, 1943), also known as Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti, was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone’s top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and ‘muscle’ operations.

Nitti was later the front-man for the Chicago Outfit, the organized crime syndicate headed by Capone.

Frank Nitti was portrayed by Anthony LaPaglia in the 1988 biopic “Nitti: The Enforcer”.

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

So much for Hollywood.

Here’s some history, for you:

Nitti’s Early Life

Francesco Raffaele Nitto was born in the small town of Angri, in the Italian province of Salerno, Campania.

He was the second child of Luigi and Rosina (nee Fezza) Nitto, and a first cousin of Al Capone.

His father died in 1888, when Frank was two years old, and within a year his mother married Francesco Dolendo. Although two children were born to the couple, neither survived – leaving Francesco and his older sister, Giovannina, the only children.

Francesco Dolendo emigrated to the United States in July 1890, and the rest of the family followed in June 1893, when Nitti was 7. The family settled at 113 Navy Street, Brooklyn, New York City.

Little Francesco attended public school and worked odd jobs after hours to support the family. His 15-year-old sister married a 24-year-old man, and his mother gave birth to his half-brother Raphael in 1894, and another child, Gennaro, in 1896.

Francesco quit school after the seventh grade, and worked as a pinsetter, factory worker, and barber.

Al Capone’s family lived nearby, and Nitti was friends with Capone’s older brothers and their criminal gang (the Navy Street Boys).

A worsening relationship with Dolendo provoked Francesco to leave home when he was 14 (in 1900), to work in various local factories.

Around 1910, at the age of 24, he left Brooklyn.

Uncertainty, and Gang Links

The next several years of Nitti’s life are poorly documented, and little can be ascertained.

Francesco may have worked in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn around 1911.

He probably moved to Chicago around 1913, working as a barber and making the acquaintance of gangsters Alex Louis Greenberg and Dean O’Banion.

He definitely married Chicagoan Rosa (Rose) Levitt in Dallas, Texas, on October 18, 1917 – but the couple’s movements after their marriage remain uncertain.

Nitti is known to have become a partner in the Galveston crime syndicate run by “Johnny” Jack Nounes. He is reported to have stolen a large sum of money from Nounes and fellow mobster Dutch Voight, after which Nitti fled to Chicago. By 1918, Nitti had settled there at 914 South Halsted Street.

Nitti quickly renewed his contacts with Greenberg and O’Banion, becoming a jewel thief, liquor smuggler, and fence.

Through his liquor smuggling activities, Nitti came to the attention of Chicago crime boss Johnny “Papa Johnny” Torrio and Torrio’s newly-arrived soldier, Al Capone.

Prohibition, and Capone

Under Torrio’s successor, Al Capone, Nitti’s reputation soared.

Nitti ran Capone’s liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing whisky from Canada and selling it through a network of speakeasies around Chicago.

Nitti was one of Capone’s top lieutenants, trusted for his leadership skills and business acumen. Capone thought so highly of Nitti that when he went to prison in 1929, he named Nitti as a member of a triumvirate that ran the mob in his place. Nitti was head of operations, with Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik as head of administration and Tony “Joe Batters” Accardo as head of enforcement.

Despite his nickname (“The Enforcer”), Nitti used Mafia soldiers and others to commit violence, rather than do it himself.

In earlier days, Nitti had been one of Capone’s trusted personal bodyguards, but as he rose in the organization, Nitti’s business instincts dictated that he should personally avoid the “dirty work”, and contract it out to others – an early use of delegation.

Frank and Rose Nitti divorced in 1928, and shortly thereafter he married Anna Ronga Nitti (daughter of a mob doctor and former neighbor of the Nittis in the 1920s). The couple adopted a son, Joe.

The New King of Chicago

Frank Nitti took over control of Chicago after Capone was sentenced to eleven years imprisonment in 1932 for income-tax evasion.

Nitti got down to business almost immediately.

He summoned those close to Capone to a conference, outlining how things were going to operate in Capone’s absence, with him as head. Most of the Outfit’s top men were in attendance, including Jake Guzik, Murray Humphreys, Gus Alex, Anthony Accardo, and Paul Ricca.

At the summit Paul Ricca was promoted to Underboss; he would be Nitti’s second in command when enforcing the Outfit’s law on the streets of Chicago. Also promoted that day was Tony Accardo, who had been Capone’s bodyguard; he was given the rank of Capo.

After Repeal

The repeal of the extremely unpopular Volsted Act in 1933 brought an end to Prohibition – and meant that the Outfit had lost its largest source of income.

Nitti had to diversify the Outfit’s interests into areas that had once been secondary to bootlegging.

Nitti expanded their operations into prostitution, gambling and labor racketeering. He also involved the Outfit in legitimate business enterprises, including taverns all across Chicago and a substantial stake in the slot-machine business.

Gambling was to become the lifeblood of the Chicago Mafia, just as bootlegging had been in the Capone era.

A few months into his reign Nitti had to deal with constant pressure from the police – much of it instigated by an old Capone foe, Teddy Newburry.

Further Marriages

Anna Nitti died in 1938.

On November 8, 1939, Capone’s former lawyer Edward J. O’Hare (who had co-operated in bringing about Capone’s downfall) was shot and killed.

Nitti married Ursula Sue Granata – O’Hare’s fiancée – who died in 1940.

He subsequently married Annette Caravetta on May 14, 1942.

Hollywood Extortion Indictment

In 1943, many top members of the Chicago Outfit were indicted for extorting the Hollywood film industry.

Among those prosecuted were Nitti, Phil D’Andrea, Louis “Little New York” Campagna, Nick Circella, Charles “Cherry Nose” Gioe, Ralph Pierce, Ricca, and John “Handsome Johnny” Roselli.

The Outfit was accused of trying to extort money from some of the largest movie studios, including Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox. The studios had cooperated with The Outfit to avoid union trouble – labor unrest which was itself stirred up by the mob.

At a meeting of Outfit leaders at Nitti’s home, Ricca blamed Nitti for the indictments. Ricca said that since this had been Nitti’s scheme and the FBI informant who exposed the scheme (Willie Bioff) one of Nitti’s trusted associates, Nitti should go to prison.

An Ambiguous Death

Severely claustrophobic as a result of his first prison term, Nitti dreaded the idea of another prison confinement. It was also rumored that he was suffering from terminal cancer at this time. For these or possibly other reasons, he seems to have decided to take his own life.

The day before his scheduled grand jury appearance, Nitti had breakfast with his wife in their home at 712 Selborne Road in Riverside, Illinois. When his wife left for church, Nitti told her he planned to take a walk, then began to drink heavily. He then loaded a .32 caliber revolver, put it in his coat pocket, and walked five blocks to a local railroad yard.

Two railroad workers spotted Nitti walking on the track of an oncoming train and shouted a warning. They thought the train hit him, but Nitti had jumped out of the way in time.

Two shots rang out.

The workers thought Nitti was shooting at them, then realized he was trying to shoot himself in the head.

The first shot fired by Nitti’s unsteady hand missed and passed through his fedora. The second bullet slammed into his right jaw and exited through the top of his head, taking a lock of his hair with it and leaving the tuft protruding from the hole in the crown of the fedora. The final, fatal, bullet entered behind Nitti’s right ear and lodged in the top of his skull.

Police Chief Allen Rose of North Riverside rushed to the scene with a sergeant and several beat patrolmen, and recognized Nitti immediately.

An autopsy by Dr. William McNalley, coroner’s toxicologist, showed that Nitti’s blood contained .23 of 1 per cent of alcohol – enough to cause an ordinary person to become intoxicated.

A coroner’s jury ruled the following day that Nitti “committed suicide while temporarily insane and in a despondent frame of mind.”

Frank Nitti died on an Illinois Central railroad branch line in North Riverside, Illinois on March 19, 1943, at the age of 57.

Nitti is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. Nitti’s grave can be found left of the main Roosevelt Road entrance, about fifty feet from the gate. It is marked “Nitto”.

To the right of the gate is the family plot containing the grave of Al Capone, marked by a six-foot white monument stone. And straight up from the gate can be found the graves of Dion O’Banion and Hymie Weiss – both North Side Gang leaders ordered killed by Capone.

Lot of action, at Mount Carmel.

But that’s all the action, for this one.

See you for our next story – I hope.

Till then.

Peace.

Gangsters: Jack Ruby

Jacob Leon Rubenstein (March 25, 1911 – January 3, 1967), who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby, was a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas.

He is best known as the man who shot the man who (supposedly?) shot the President.

Ruby murdered Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who (according to four government investigations) assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

Some contend that Ruby was involved with major figures in organized crime, and conspiracy theorists widely assert that Ruby killed Oswald as part of an overall plot surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy.

Others have disputed this, arguing that Ruby’s connection with gangsters was minimal at best – and also that Ruby was not the sort to be entrusted with such an act within a high-level conspiracy.

In the 1992 film “Ruby”, Jack Ruby was played by Danny Aiello.

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

That’s Hollywood.

Here’s some history, for you:

Ruby’s Early Life

Jack Ruby was born Jacob Leon Rubenstein to Joseph Rubenstein and Fannie Turek Rutkowski (or Rokowsky) – both Polish-born, Orthodox Jews – in Chicago, on March 25, 1911.

The fifth of his parents’ eight surviving children, Ruby had a troubled childhood and adolescence growing up in the Maxwell Street area of Chicago, marked by juvenile delinquency and time spent in foster homes.

On June 6, 1922, at age 11, he was arrested for truancy. Ruby eventually skipped school enough times to be sent to the Institute of Juvenile Research.

Back on the street, the young Ruby sold horse-racing tip sheets and various other novelties, then acted as business agent for a local refuse collectors union that later became part of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Military Service

In the 1940s, Ruby frequented race tracks in Illinois and California.

He was drafted in 1943 and served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, working as an aircraft mechanic at bases in the US until 1946. He had an honorable record and was promoted to Private First Class.

Upon his discharge on February 21, 1946, Ruby returned to Chicago.

Ruby in Dallas

In 1947, Ruby moved to Dallas where he and his brothers soon afterward shortened their surnames from Rubenstein to Ruby.

The stated reason for changing the family name was that he and his brothers had opened up a mail order business and feared that some customers would refuse to do business with Jews.

Ruby later went on to manage various nightclubs, strip clubs, and dance halls. Among the strippers Ruby befriended was Candy Barr.

Ruby developed close ties to many Dallas police officers who frequented his nightclubs, where he showered them with large quantities of liquor and other favors.

Cuban Connections

In 1959, Ruby went to Cuba – ostensibly to visit a friend, influential Dallas gambler Lewis McWillie, an associate of Mafia boss Santo Trafficante. Ruby may have met directly with Trafficante on those visits, according to the testimony of British journalist John Wilson-Hudson, who was imprisoned in Cuba at the time.

Trafficante operated major casinos in Cuba, and was briefly imprisoned after Fidel Castro came to power.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations inferred from Ruby’s trip to Cuba and his subsequent trips “…that Ruby was at least serving as a kind of courier on behalf of gambling interests in Cuba.”

Alleged Links to Organized Crime

Ruby was known to have had links with both the police and the Mafia.

In 1946, mobster Tony Accardo allegedly asked Jack Ruby to go to Texas with Mafia associates Pat Manno and Romie Nappi to ensure that Dallas County Sheriff Steve Gutherie would acquiesce to the Mafia’s expansion into Dallas.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations said that Ruby had known restaurateurs Sam and Joseph Campisi since 1947, and had been seen with them on many occasions.

After an investigation of Joe Campisi, the HSCA found:

“While Campisi’s technical characterization in federal law enforcement records as an organized crime member has ranged from definite to suspected to negative, it is clear that he was an associate or friend of many Dallas-based organized crime members, particularly Joseph Civello, during the time he was the head of the Dallas organization. There was no indication that Campisi had engaged in any specific organized crime-related activities.”

Similarly, a PBS Frontline investigation into the connections between Ruby and Dallas organized crime figures reported the following:

“In 1963, Sam and Joe Campisi were leading figures in the Dallas underworld. Jack knew the Campisis and had been seen with them on many occasions. The Campisis were lieutenants of Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss who had reportedly talked of killing the President.”

A day before Kennedy was assassinated, Ruby went to Joe Campisi’s restaurant. At the time of the Kennedy assassination, Ruby was close enough to the Campisis to ask them to come and see him after he was arrested for shooting Lee Oswald.

James E. Beaird – who claimed to be a poker-playing friend of Jack Ruby – told both The Dallas Morning News and the FBI that Ruby smuggled guns and ammunition from Galveston Bay, Texas to Fidel Castro’s guerrillas in Cuba in the late 1950s.

Beaird said that Ruby “was in it for the money. It wouldn’t matter what side, just [whatever] one that would pay him the most.”

Beaird said that the guns were stored in a two-story house near the waterfront, and that he saw Ruby and his associates load “many boxes of new guns, including automatic rifles and handguns” on a 50-foot military-surplus boat. He claimed that “each time that the boat left with guns and ammunition, Jack Ruby was on the boat.”

Blaney Mack Johnson, an FBI informant, said Ruby was involved in “arranging illegal flights of weapons from Miami” to pro-Castro forces in Cuba in the early 1950s.

Conspiracy Theory

In his memoir “Bound by Honor: A Mafioso’s Story”, Bill Bonanno, son of New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, stated that several Mafia families had longstanding ties with anti-Castro Cubans through the Havana casinos operated by the Mafia before the Cuban Revolution.

Many Cuban exiles and Mafia bosses disliked Kennedy, blaming him for the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. They also disliked his brother, the young and idealistic Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who had conducted an unprecedented legal assault on organized crime.

The Mafia were experts in assassination, and Bonanno reported that he recognized the high degree of involvement of other Mafia families when Ruby killed Oswald, since Bonanno was aware that Ruby was an associate of Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.

Four years prior to the assassination of President Kennedy, Ruby went to see a man named Lewis McWillie in Cuba. Ruby considered McWillie, who had previously run illegal gambling establishments in Texas, to be one of his closest friends.

At the time Ruby visited him, in August 1959, McWillie was supervising gambling activities at Havana’s Tropicana Club. Ruby told the Warren Commission that his August trip to Cuba was merely a social visit at the invitation of McWillie.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations would later conclude that Ruby “…most likely was serving as a courier for gambling interests.”

The committee also found “circumstantial,” but not conclusive, evidence that “…Ruby met with [Mafia boss] Santo Trafficante in Cuba sometime in 1959.”

In his book, “Contract on America”, David Scheim presented evidence that Mafia leaders Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Jr. and Jimmy Hoffa ordered the assassination of President Kennedy. Scheim cited in particular a 25-fold increase in the number of out-of-state telephone calls from Jack Ruby to associates of these crime bosses in the months preceding the assassination.

According to Vincent Bugliosi, both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations determined all of these calls were related to Ruby seeking help from the American Guild of Variety Artists in a matter concerning two of his competitors.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations report stated “…that most of Ruby’s phone calls during late 1963 were related to his labor troubles. In light of the identity of some of the individuals with whom Ruby spoke, however, the possibility of other matters being discussed could not be dismissed.”

The Kennedy Assassination

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas – ostensibly shot by Lee Harvey Oswald.

White House correspondent Seth Kantor – who was a passenger in the President’s motorcade – told the Warren Commission that he went to Parkland Hospital about an hour after President Kennedy was shot. It was at Parkland Hospital that Kennedy received medical care after the shooting.

Kantor said that as he was entering the hospital, he felt a tug on his coat. He turned around to see Jack Ruby, who called him by his first name and shook his hand. Kantor said that he had become acquainted with Ruby when Kantor was a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald newspaper.

According to Kantor, Ruby asked him if he thought that it would be a good idea for him to close his nightclubs for the next three nights because of the tragedy, and Kantor responded that he thought that doing so would be a good idea.

It has been suggested that Ruby might have been involved in tampering with evidence while at the hospital.

Ruby would later deny he had been at Parkland Hospital, and the Warren Commission decided to believe Ruby rather than Kantor.

However, in 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reversed the Warren Commission’s judgement, stating: “While the Warren Commission concluded that Kantor was mistaken [about his Parkland encounter with Ruby], the Committee determined he probably was not.”

Goaded by the Warren Commission’s dismissal of his testimony, Seth Kantor researched the Ruby case for years.

In a later published book called “Who Was Jack Ruby?”, Kantor wrote:

“The mob was Ruby’s “friend.” And Ruby could well have been paying off an IOU the day he was used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. Remember: “I have been used for a purpose,” the way Ruby expressed it to Chief Justice Warren in their June 7, 1964 session. It would not have been hard for the mob to maneuver Ruby through the ranks of a few negotiable police [to kill Oswald].”

Witness Wilma Tice also said that she saw Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital during the time Kennedy was being treated there.

Called to testify before the Warren Commission, Tice said that she received an anonymous phone call from a man telling her “…that it would pay me to keep my mouth shut.”

The Murder of Lee Harvey Oswald

Ruby (also known as “Sparky,” from his old boxing nickname “Sparkling Ruby”) was seen in the halls of the Dallas Police Headquarters on several occasions after the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963.

Newsreel footage from WFAA-TV (Dallas) and NBC shows Ruby impersonating a newspaper reporter during a press conference at Dallas Police Headquarters on the night of the assassination.

District Attorney Henry Wade briefed reporters at the press conference, telling them that Lee Oswald was a member of the anti-Castro Free Cuba Committee. Ruby was one of several people there who spoke up to correct Wade, saying: “Henry, that’s the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,” a pro-Castro organization.

Some speculate that Ruby may have hoped to kill Oswald that night at the police station press conference. Ruby told the FBI (a month after his arrest for killing Oswald) that he had his loaded snub-nosed Colt Cobra .38 revolver in his right-hand pocket during the press conference.

Two days later on Sunday, November 24 – after driving into town and sending a money order to one of his employees – Ruby walked to the nearby police headquarters and made his way to the basement.

At 11:21 am CST – while authorities were preparing to transfer Oswald by private car from the police basement to the nearby county jail – Ruby stepped out from a crowd of reporters and fired his .38 revolver into Oswald’s abdomen, fatally wounding him.

The shooting was broadcast live nationally, and millions of television viewers witnessed it. There is some evidence that Ruby’s actions were on a whim, as he left his favorite dog, Sheba, in the car before shooting Oswald.

However, the House Select Committee on Assassinations in its 1979 Final Report stated:

“…Ruby’s shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby’s intentions…”

The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting.

Aftermath of the Shooting

When Ruby was arrested immediately after the shooting, he told several witnesses that he had helped the city of Dallas “redeem” itself in the eyes of the public, and that Oswald’s death would spare “…Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial.”

Within hours of Ruby’s arrest for shooting Oswald, a telegram was received at the Dallas city jail in support of Ruby, under the names of Hal and Pauline Collins. In one of the Warren Commissions exhibits, Hal Collins is listed as a character reference by Ruby on a Texas liquor license application.

At the time of the shooting Ruby said he was taking phenmetrazine, a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant.

Ruby’s explanation for killing Oswald would be “exposed … as a fabricated legal ploy”, according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: “Joe, you should know this. [My first lawyer] Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn’t have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?”

Another motive was put forth by Frank Sheeran (allegedly a hitman for the Mafia), in a conversation he had with the then-former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

During the conversation, Hoffa claimed that Ruby was assigned the task of coordinating police officers who were loyal to Ruby, to murder Oswald while he was in their custody. As Ruby evidently mismanaged the operation, he was given a choice to either finish the job himself, or forfeit his life.

Prosecution and Conviction

After Ruby’s arrest, he asked Dallas attorney Tom Howard to represent him. Howard accepted, and asked Ruby if he could think of anything that might damage his defense. Ruby responded that there would be a problem if a man by the name of “Davis” should come up. Ruby told his attorney that he “…had been involved with Davis, who was a gunrunner entangled in anti-Castro efforts.”

Davis was identified years later — after research by journalist Seth Kantor — as being Thomas Eli Davis III, a CIA-connected “soldier of fortune.”

Ruby later replaced attorney Tom Howard with prominent San Francisco defense lawyer Melvin Belli – who agreed to represent Ruby pro bono (free of charge).

Some observers thought that the case could have been disposed of as a “murder without malice” charge (roughly equivalent to manslaughter), with a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Belli attempted to prove, however, that Ruby was legally insane and had a history of mental illness in his family. The latter was true, as his mother had been committed to a mental hospital years before.

On March 14, 1964, Ruby was convicted of murder with malice – for which he received a death sentence.

Appeals

During the six months following the Kennedy assassination, Ruby repeatedly asked, orally and in writing, to speak to the members of the Warren Commission.

The commission initially showed no interest.

Only after Ruby’s sister Eileen wrote letters to the commission – and her letters became public – did the Warren Commission agree to talk to Ruby.

In June 1964, Chief Justice Earl Warren, then-Representative Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, and other commission members went to Dallas to see Ruby.

Ruby asked Warren several times to take him to Washington D.C., saying “my life is in danger here” and that he wanted an opportunity to make additional statements. He added: “I want to tell the truth, and I can’t tell it here.”

Warren told Ruby that he would be unable to comply, because many legal barriers would need to be broken and public interest in the situation would be too heavy. Warren also told Ruby that the commission would have no way of protecting him, since it had no police powers.

Following Ruby’s March 1964 conviction for murder with malice, Ruby’s lawyers, led by Sam Houston Clinton, appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest criminal court in Texas.

Ruby’s lawyers argued that he could not have received a fair trial in the city of Dallas because of the excessive publicity surrounding the case.

Not long before Ruby died, according to an article in the London Sunday Times, he told psychiatrist Werner Teuter that the assassination was “an act of overthrowing the government” and that he knew “who had President Kennedy killed.” He added: “I am doomed. I do not want to die. But I am not insane. I was framed to kill Oswald.”

Eventually, the appellate court agreed with Ruby’s lawyers for a new trial, and on October 5, 1966, ruled that his motion for a change of venue before the original trial court should have been granted.

Ruby’s conviction and death sentence were overturned.

The Death of Jack Ruby

Arrangements were underway for a new trial to be held in February 1967 in Wichita Falls, Texas, when on December 9, 1966, Ruby was admitted to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, suffering from pneumonia. A day later, doctors realized he had cancer in his liver, lungs, and brain.

Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism, secondary to bronchogenic carcinoma (lung cancer), on January 3, 1967 at Parkland Hospital – where Oswald had died, and where President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.

He was buried beside his parents in the Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Illinois.

And perhaps took the whole truth behind the affair with him.

That’s it, for this one.

I hope you’ll join me, for our next story.

Till then.

Peace.

Gangsters: Machine Gun Kelly

George Celino Barnes (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954), better known as “Machine Gun Kelly”, was an American gangster during the Prohibition era. His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun.

Kelly’s most famous crime was the kidnapping of oil tycoon and businessman Charles F. Urschel in July 1933 – for which he, and his gang, collected a $200,000 ransom. His crimes also included bootlegging and armed robbery.

Kelly was played by Charles Bronson in the 1958 film “Machine-Gun Kelly”.

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

That’s Hollywood.

This is history:

Kelly’s Early Life

George Celino Barnes was born on July 18, 1895, to a wealthy family living in Memphis, Tennessee.

Kelly’s early years as a child were essentially uneventful, and his family raised him in a traditional household.

His first sign of trouble began when he enrolled at Mississippi State University to study agriculture in 1917.

From the beginning, Kelly was considered a poor student with his highest grade (a C plus) awarded for good physical hygiene. He was constantly in trouble with the faculty and spent much of his academic career attempting to work off the demerits he had earned.

It was during this time that Kelly met a young woman by the name of Geneva Ramsey. Kelly fell in love with Geneva, and made an abrupt decision to quit school and marry.

Kelly fathered two children with Geneva, and to make ends meet, took a job as a cab driver in Memphis. He worked long hours with little reward. Kelly and Geneva were struggling financially.

Distressed and broke, Kelly left his job with the cab company to seek other avenues to make ends meet. The strain proved to be overwhelming and at 19 years old, he found himself without steady work and separated from his wife.

It was about this time that Kelly took up with a small time gangster, and started a new venture as a bootlegger.

Criminal Enterprise

During the Prohibition era of the 1920s and 1930s, Kelly worked as a bootlegger for himself, and his new colleague.

Kelly began to enjoy the financial rewards of his new trade – along with the notoriety.

With new success came the complexities of working in the underground.

After being arrested on several occasions for illegal trafficking, Kelly decided to leave Memphis along with a new girlfriend and head west.

To protect his influential family’s reputation (and to escape law enforcement officers), Barnes changed his name to George R. Kelly.

Kelly continued to commit smaller crimes, and bootlegging.

He was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for smuggling liquor onto an Indian Reservation in 1928, and sentenced to three years in Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, beginning February 11, 1928.

Kelly was reportedly a model inmate, and was released early.

Shortly thereafter, he married Kathryn Thorne, who purchased Kelly’s first machine gun, and also went to great lengths to make her husband’s name known in underground criminal circles. Kathryn allegedly helped to plot some of Kelly’s smaller bank robberies.

The Urschel Kidnapping

In July 1933, Kelly kidnapped a wealthy Oklahoma City resident, Charles F. Urschel, and his friend Walter R. Jarrett.

It was to prove a costly move.

Urschel – an intelligent and observant man – made note of his experiences (despite having been blindfolded), including remembering background sounds, counting footsteps, and leaving fingerprints on surfaces within his reach.

This proved invaluable to the FBI in their subsequent investigation, as they concluded that Urschel had been held in Paradise, Texas, based on sounds that Urschel remembered hearing while he was being held hostage.

An investigation conducted in Memphis concluded that the Kellys were living at the residence of J.C. Tichenor, at 1408 Rayner Street.

Special agents from Birmingham, Alabama were immediately dispatched to Memphis, where, in the early morning hours of September 26, 1933, a raid was conducted.

George and Kathryn Kelly were taken into custody by FBI agents and Memphis police.

Caught without a weapon, George Kelly allegedly cried, “Don’t shoot, G-Men! Don’t shoot, G-Men!” as he surrendered to FBI agents. The term – which had previously applied to all federal investigators – became synonymous with FBI agents.

The couple was immediately removed to Oklahoma City.

The arrest of the Kellys was overshadowed by the escape of ten inmates, including all of the members of the future Dillinger gang, from the penitentiary in Michigan City, Indiana that same night.

Repercussions

Investigation at Coleman, Texas disclosed that the Kellys had been housed and protected by Cassey Earl Coleman and Will Casey – and that Coleman had assisted George Kelly in storing $73,250 of the Urschel ransom money on his ranch. This money was located by Bureau agents in the early morning hours of September 27, in a cotton patch on Coleman’s ranch.

Coleman and Casey were indicted in Dallas, Texas on October 4, 1933, charged with harboring a fugitive, and conspiracy.

On October 17, 1933, Coleman (after entering a plea of guilty) was sentenced to serve one year and one day, and Casey (after trial and conviction) was sentenced to serve two years in the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas.

On October 12 1933, George and Kathryn Kelly were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial was held at the Post Office, Courthouse and Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City.

Kathryn Kelly eventually had all charges dropped, and was released from prison in Cincinnati in 1958.

Precedents

The kidnapping of Urschel and the two trials that resulted were historic in several ways.

They were the first federal criminal trials in the United States in which moving cameras were allowed to film, and the first kidnapping trials after the passage of the so-called Lindbergh Law, which made kidnapping a federal crime.

The kidnapping was also the first major case solved by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and the first prosecution in which defendants were transported by airplane.

End of the Line

Machine Gun Kelly spent his remaining 22 years in prison.

During his time at Alcatraz he got the nickname “Pop Gun Kelly”. This was in reference (according to a former inmate) to the fact that Kelly was a model prisoner, and was nowhere near the tough, brutal gangster his wife made him out to be.

Kelly spent 17 years on Alcatraz Island, working in the prison industries, and was quietly transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951.

He died of a heart attack at Leavenworth on July 18, 1954 – his 59th birthday.

Kelly is buried at Cottondale Texas Cemetery, with a small headstone marked “George B. Kelly 1954”.

It’s the end of the line, for this one, too.

Hope you’ll join me, for the next story.

Till then.

Peace.

Gangsters: John Dillinger

John Herbert Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American bank robber in the Depression-era United States. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations.

Dillinger was the most notorious of all the Depression-era outlaws, standing out even among more violent criminals such as Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde.

Media reports in his time were spiced with exaggerated accounts of Dillinger’s bravado and daring, and his colorful personality.

In the 2009 film “Public Enemies”, John Dillinger was played by Johnny Depp.

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

Hollywood saw things that way.

History has this, to tell us:

Dillinger’s Early life

John Herbert Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903, in the Oak Hill section of Indianapolis, Indiana, the younger of two children born to John Wilson Dillinger and Mary Ellen “Mollie” Lancaster. Dillinger’s father was a grocer by trade and, reportedly, a harsh disciplinarian.

Dillinger’s older sister, Audrey, was born March 6, 1889.

Their mother died in 1907 just before John’s fourth birthday.

Audrey married Emmett “Fred” Hancock that year and they had seven children together. She cared for her brother John for several years until their father remarried in 1912 to Elizabeth “Lizzie” Fields. They had three children, Hubert, Doris M. and Frances Dillinger.

A Rebellious Youth

As a teenager, Dillinger was frequently in trouble with the law for fighting and petty theft. He was also noted for his “bewildering personality” and bullying of smaller children. He quit school to work in an Indianapolis machine shop.

His father moved the family to Mooresville, Indiana, in about 1920.

Dillinger’s rebellious behavior continued, despite their new rural setting. He was arrested in 1922 for auto theft, and his relationship with his father deteriorated.

He enlisted in the United States Navy, where he was made a Fireman 3rd Class assigned to the battleship USS Utah. He deserted a few months later, when his ship was docked in Boston. He was eventually dishonorably discharged.

Dillinger returned to Mooresville, where he met Beryl Ethel Hovious. The two were married on April 12, 1924.
The marriage ended in divorce on June 20, 1929.

Dillinger was unable to find a job, and planned a robbery with his friend Ed Singleton. The two robbed a local grocery store, stealing $50.

Leaving the scene they were spotted by a minister who recognized the men, and reported them to the police. The two were arrested the next day. Singleton pleaded not guilty, but after Dillinger’s father (the local Mooresville Church deacon) discussed the matter with Morgan County prosecutor Omar O’Harrow, his father convinced John to confess to the crime and plead guilty without retaining a defense attorney.

Dillinger was convicted of assault and battery with intent to rob, and conspiracy to commit a felony. He expected a lenient probation sentence, but instead was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison for his crimes.

En route to Mooresville to testify against Singleton, Dillinger briefly escaped, but was apprehended within a few minutes.

School of Hard Knocks

Dillinger embraced the life behind bars in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Upon being admitted, he is quoted as saying, “I will be the meanest bastard you ever saw when I get out of here.”

He soon befriended other criminals, such as seasoned bank robbers like Harry “Pete” Pierpont, Charles Makley, Russell Clark, and Homer Van Meter, who taught Dillinger how to be a successful criminal. The men planned heists that they would commit soon after they were released. Dillinger studied Herman Lamm’s meticulous bank-robbing system, and used it extensively throughout his criminal career.

Outside Moves

Dillinger’s father launched a campaign to have him released, and was able to get 188 signatures on a petition.

Dillinger was paroled on May 10, 1933, after serving nine and a half years.

Released at the height of the Great Depression, Dillinger had little prospect of finding employment. He immediately returned to crime.

On June 21, 1933, he robbed his first bank, taking $10,000 from the New Carlisle National Bank, in New Carlisle, Ohio.

On August 14, Dillinger robbed a bank in Bluffton, Ohio. Tracked by police from Dayton, Ohio, he was captured and later transferred to the Allen County jail in Lima to be indicted in connection to the Bluffton robbery.

After searching him before letting him into the prison, the police discovered a document which appeared to be a prison escape plan. They demanded Dillinger tell them what the document meant, but he refused.

Dillinger had helped conceive a plan for the escape of Pierpont, Clark and six others he had met in prison, most of whom worked in the prison laundry. Dillinger had friends smuggle guns into their prison cells, with which they escaped, four days after Dillinger’s capture.

The group, known as “the First Dillinger Gang,” comprised Pete Pierpont, Russell Clark, Charles Makley, Ed Shouse, Harry Copeland, and John “Red” Hamilton, a member of the Herman Lamm Gang.

Pierpont, Clark, and Makley arrived in Lima on October 12, where they impersonated Indiana State Police officers, claiming they had come to extradite Dillinger to Indiana. When the sheriff, Jess Sarber, asked for their credentials, Pierpont shot him dead, then released Dillinger from his cell.

The four men escaped back into Indiana.

Methods and Means

The Bureau of Investigation (BOI), a precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was brought in to help identify the fugitives – although the men had not violated any federal law. Using their superior fingerprint matching technology, they successfully identified all of the suspects, and issued nationwide bulletins offering rewards for their capture.

But the crooks had methods of their own.

Among Dillinger’s more celebrated exploits was his pretending to be a sales representative for a company that sold bank alarm systems – and then “testing” a bank’s security by carrying out an actual robbery.

He reportedly entered a number of Indiana and Ohio banks and used this ruse to assess security systems and bank vaults of prospective targets.

Another time (allegedly) the men pretended to be part of a film company that was scouting locations for a “bank robbery” scene. Bystanders stood and smiled as a real robbery ensued, and Dillinger’s gang fled.

Dillinger was believed to have been associated with gangs who robbed dozens of banks and accumulated a total of more than $300,000.

To obtain supplies, the gang attacked the state police arsenals in Auburn and Peru, stealing machine guns, rifles, revolvers, ammunition and bulletproof vests.

On October 23, 1933, the gang robbed the Central National Bank & Trust Company in Greencastle, Indiana. They then headed to Chicago to hide out.

The Shanley Case

On December 14, 1933, Chicago Police Department (CPD) Detective William Shanley was killed.

The police had been put on high alert and suspected the Dillinger gang of involvement in the robbery of the Unity Trust And Savings Bank of $8,700 the day before.

Shanley was following up on a tip that one of the gang’s cars was being serviced at a local garage. John “Red” Hamilton showed up at the garage that afternoon. When Shanley approached, Hamilton pulled a pistol and shot him twice, fatally, then escaped.

Shanley’s murder led the Chicago Police Department to establish a forty man “Dillinger Squad”.

As police began closing in, the men left Chicago to hide out first in Florida, later at the Gardner Hotel in El Paso, Texas (where a highly visible police presence dissuaded Dillinger from trying to cross the border at the Santa Fe Bridge in downtown El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico), and finally in Tucson, Arizona.

Capture

On January 21, 1934, a fire broke out at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, where members of the Dillinger gang were staying.

Forced to leave their luggage behind, they were evacuated through a window, and down a fire truck ladder.

Charles Makley and Russell Clark tipped a couple of firemen $12 to climb back up and retrieve their luggage.

One of the firefighters, William Benedict, later recognized Makley, Pierpont, and Ed Shouse while thumbing through a copy of True Detective and informed the police, who tracked Makley’s luggage to a second hideout.

Makley was the first to be arrested. Clark was next.

To arrest Pierpont, the police staged a routine traffic stop and lured him to the police station, where they took him by surprise.

Dillinger was the last to be arrested.

The police found the men in possession of over $25,000 in cash and several automatic weapons.

Tucson still celebrates the historic arrest with an annual “Dillinger Days” festival, the highlight of which is a reenactment of the events.

Extradition

The men were extradited to the Midwest after a debate between prosecutors as to where the gang would be prosecuted first.

The governor ordered that Dillinger should be extradited to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point for Officer O’Malley’s murder in the East Chicago bank robbery, while Pierpont, Makley and Clark were sent to Ohio to stand trial for Sheriff Sarber’s murder.

Shouse’s testimony at the March 1934 trials of Pierpont, Makley and Clark led to all three of the men being convicted.

Pierpont and Makley received the death penalty, while Clark received a life sentence.

Escape from Crown Point

The police boasted to area newspapers that the Crown Point jail was escape-proof – and posted extra guards, to make sure.

There is still some debate as to what happened on the day of Dillinger’s escape in early March.

Deputy Ernest Blunk claimed that Dillinger had escaped using a real pistol, but FBI files indicate that Dillinger carved a fake pistol from a piece of wood. How he acquired such a thing is still the subject of controversy. Sam Cahoon (the janitor that Dillinger first took hostage in the jail) believed that Dillinger had carved the gun with a razor and some shelving in his cell.

However, according to an unpublished interview with Dillinger’s attorney, Louis Piquett, and his investigator, Art O’Leary, it was later revealed that O’Leary claimed to have smuggled the gun in himself.

What is known is that Dillinger’s wooden pistol was modeled after a Colt .38.

He tricked a guard into opening his cell, took seventeen men hostage, used Deputy Blunk to lure the guards back to the cell block one at a time, locked them in his cell, and fled with another inmate (Herbert Youngblood).

Dillinger stole Sheriff Lillian Holley’s new Ford car (embarrassing her, and the town), and traveled to Chicago.

In so doing, he crossed the state line in a stolen car – breaking the federal Motor Vehicle Theft Act.

The crime was under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Investigation, who immediately took over the Dillinger case after the car was found abandoned in Chicago.

Youngblood was killed in a police shootout two weeks later.

Dillinger was indicted by a local grand jury, and the BOI organized a nationwide manhunt for him.

On the Run

After escaping Crown Point, Dillinger began living with his girlfriend Evelyn “Billie” Frechette. They proceeded to Saint Paul, Minnesota, met up with Hamilton and a few others, and joined Baby Face Nelson’s gang, composed of Homer Van Meter, Tommy Carroll and Eddie Green.

Three days after Dillinger’s escape, the six men robbed the Security National Bank and Trust Company in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. During the robbery, a traffic cop, Hale Keith, was severely wounded when Nelson shot Keith, through a plate glass window.

A week later, on March 14, the new gang robbed the First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa, intending to get $250,000 but only making off with $50,000 due to the bank manager’s stalling tactics. Dillinger and Hamilton were both shot in their right shoulders and wounded.

The landlord of the apartment Dillinger rented in St. Paul became suspicious, and on March 30, 1934, reported his suspicions to a federal agent. The building was placed under surveillance by two agents, Rufus Coulter and Rusty Nalls.

The next day, Nalls remained with his car while Coulter and a local St. Paul Police detective, Henry Cummings, went up to the apartment. They came face to face with Billie, who alerted Dillinger to the police presence. Dillinger immediately started assembling his submachine gun while the two detectives were kept waiting at the door.

Van Meter showed up, and sensed trouble. After exchanging brief words with Coulter, he headed back downstairs to his car, which he had parked next to Nalls. Coulter followed him down to the ground floor, where Van Meter pulled out a pistol and opened fire on him.

Coulter ran for the car and fired several shots before Van Meter retreated inside.

Dillinger fired through the apartment door upstairs at Cummings, then fled out of a back entrance with Frechette and Van Meter, before back-up could arrive.

They commandeered a truck and drove to Eddie Green’s home. Dillinger was hit in the leg by a ricochet from his own gun and required medical attention.

Federal agents later closed in on the building, and the gang opened fire as they escaped and split up. Eddie Green was shot in the head when agents captured him. He lasted for a week, before dying on April 10.

Meanwhile, Dillinger and Frechette traveled to visit Dillinger’s father in Mooresville, where they remained until Dillinger’s wound healed.

When Frechette returned to Chicago to visit a friend, she was arrested, but refused to reveal Dillinger’s whereabouts. Unknown to the agents, Dillinger was waiting in his car outside the bar where Frechette was arrested, and drove off unnoticed.

Still Making Moves

Dillinger reportedly became despondent after Billie was arrested.

The other gang members tried to talk to him out of rescuing her, but Van Meter knew where they could find bulletproof vests.

That Friday morning, late at night, Dillinger and Van Meter took Warsaw, Indiana police officer Judd Pittenger hostage. They marched him at gunpoint to the police station, where they stole several more guns and bulletproof vests.

After separating, Dillinger picked up Hamilton, who was recovering from the Mason City robbery. The two then traveled to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where they visited Hamilton’s sister Anna Steve.

Upon his return to Chicago, Dillinger again ran into the police in Port Huron, Michigan following a tip that he was checking in on one of his bootlegging operations. Dillinger received a bullet to the left shoulder while avoiding capture.

Dillinger got a tip that federal agents were headed there, and left just days before they arrived.

Little Bohemia Lodge

In April, the Dillinger gang settled at a hideout called Little Bohemia Lodge, in the northern Wisconsin town of Manitowish Waters.

The gang assumed the owners, Emil Wanatka and his family, would give no trouble, but monitored them whenever they left or spoke on the phone.

Emil’s wife Nan and her brother managed to evade Baby Face Nelson, who was tailing them, and mailed a letter of warning to a U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago, which later contacted the Division of Investigation.

Days later, a score of federal agents led by Hugh Clegg and Melvin Purvis approached the lodge in the early morning hours. Two barking watchdogs announced their arrival, but the gang was so used to Nan Wanatka’s dogs that they did not bother to inspect the disturbance.

It was only after the federal agents mistakenly shot a local resident and two innocent Civilian Conservation Corps workers as they were about to drive away in a car that the Dillinger gang was alerted to the presence of the BOI.

Gunfire between the groups lasted only moments, and the whole gang managed to escape in various ways despite the agents’ efforts to surround and storm the lodge. Agent W. Carter Baum was shot dead by Nelson during the gun battle.

Aftermath of Little Bohemia

The next day, Dillinger, Van Meter and Hamilton were confronted by authorities in Hastings, Minnesota, in a rolling gunfight. Hamilton was mortally wounded in the encounter. He died in Aurora, Illinois, three days after the shooting.

Dillinger, Van Meter, Arthur Barker, and Volney Davis (a member of the Barker-Karpis gang) buried him. Dillinger and Van Meter then met up with Carroll.

One week after Hamilton’s death, Dillinger, Van Meter, and Tommy Carroll robbed the First National Bank of Fostoria, Ohio. Van Meter wounded the local police chief, Frank Culp, during the robbery.

Dillinger and Van Meter spent most of May living out of a red panel truck with a mattress in the back.

On June 7, Tommy Carroll was shot and killed by police in Waterloo, Iowa.

Dillinger and Van Meter reunited with Nelson a week later, and went into hiding.

On June 30, Dillinger, Van Meter, Nelson, and an unidentified “fat man” robbed the Merchants National Bank in South Bend, Indiana. The identity of the “fat man” has never been confirmed, although it has been suggested (by Fatso Negri to the BOI) that it was Pretty Boy Floyd.

What is known is that in the robbery, Van Meter shot and killed police officer Howard Wagner as he walked towards the bank from a nearby intersection after being drawn by the sound of gunfire. Van Meter would be shot in the head during a shootout with police that followed the robbery.

The Elusive Mr. Lawrence

By July 1934, Dillinger had dropped completely out of sight, and federal agents had no solid leads to follow.

He had, in fact, drifted into Chicago and went under the alias of Jimmy Lawrence, a petty criminal from Wisconsin who bore a close resemblance to Dillinger’s real self.

What Dillinger did not realize was that the center of the federal agents’ dragnet happened to be in Chicago.

When the authorities found Dillinger’s blood spattered getaway car on a Chicago side street, they were positive that he was in the city.

The Woman in Red

Division of Investigations chief J. Edgar Hoover created a special task force headquartered in Chicago, to locate Dillinger.

On July 21, a madam from a brothel in Gary, Indiana – Ana Cumpănaş, also known as Anna Sage – contacted the police.
She was a Romanian immigrant threatened with deportation for “low moral character”, and offered the federal agency information on Dillinger in exchange for their help in preventing her deportation. The agency agreed to her terms, but she was later deported.

Cumpănaş told them that Dillinger was spending his time with another prostitute, Polly Hamilton, and that she and the couple would be going to see a movie together, the following day.

She agreed to wear an orange dress – which is believed to have appeared red in the artificial lights of the theater – so that police could easily identify her.

She was unsure which of two theaters they would be attending but told the agency their names: the Biograph and the Marbro.

A team of federal agents and officers from police forces outside Chicago was formed, along with a very few Chicago police officers (Federal officials felt that the Chicago police had been compromised and could not be trusted). Among them was Sergeant Martin Zarkovich, to whom Sage had informed on Dillinger.

Not wanting another embarrassing escape, the police were split into two teams.

On July 22, one team was sent to the Marbro Theater on the city’s west side, while another team surrounded the Biograph Theater at 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue on the north side.

During the stakeout, the Biograph’s manager thought the agents were criminals setting up a robbery. He called the Chicago police, who dutifully responded and had to be waved off by the federal agents, who told them that they were on a stakeout for an important target.

The Biograph Theater

Dillinger attended the film “Manhattan Melodrama” at the Biograph Theater in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, with Polly Hamilton and Ana Cumpănaş.

Once they had determined that Dillinger was in the theater, the lead agent, Samuel P. Cowley, contacted J. Edgar Hoover for instructions.

Hoover recommended that they wait outside, rather than risk a gun battle in a crowded theater. He also told the agents not to put themselves in harm’s way, and that any man could open fire on Dillinger at the first sign of resistance.

When the film let out, Purvis stood by the front door and signaled Dillinger’s exit by lighting a cigar.

Both he and the other agents reported that Dillinger turned his head and looked directly at the agent as he walked by, glanced across the street, then moved ahead of his female companions.

Dillinger reached into his pocket but failed to extract his gun, then ran into a nearby alley.
Other accounts state that Dillinger ignored a command to surrender, whipped out his gun, then headed for the alley.

Agents already had the alley closed off, but Dillinger was determined to shoot it out.

Three men fired the fatal shots: Clarence Hurt fired twice, Charles Winstead fired three times, and Herman Hollis fired once.

Dillinger was hit from behind, and fell face first to the ground. He was struck three (or four, according to some historians) times, with two bullets entering the chest, one of them nicking his heart, and the fatal shot – which entered Dillinger through the back of his neck, severed his spinal cord and tore through his brain before exiting out the front of his head just under his right eye.

Although three agents shot Dillinger, Winstead was believed to be the man who fired the fatal round, and he received a personal letter of commendation from Director Hoover.

Two female bystanders took slight flesh wounds from flying bullet and brick fragments.

An ambulance was summoned, though it was clear that Dillinger had quickly died from his gunshot wounds.

At 10:50 p.m. on July 22, 1934, Dillinger was pronounced dead at Alexian Brothers Hospital. According to the investigators, Dillinger died without saying a word.

Dillinger’s body was displayed to the public at the Cook County morgue after his death.

He was buried at Crown Hill Cemetery (Section: 44, Lot: 94) in Indianapolis.

His gravestone has had to be replaced several times, because of vandalism by people chipping off pieces as souvenirs.

The Nash Theory of Dillinger’s Escape

In “The Dillinger Dossier”, author Jay Robert Nash maintains that Dillinger escaped death at the Biograph Theater simply by not being there. In his stead was “Jimmy Lawrence” – a local Chicago petty criminal whose appearance was similar to Dillinger’s.

Nash uses evidence to show that Chicago Police officer Martin Zarkovich was instrumental in this plot.

Nash theorizes that the plot unraveled when the body was found to have fingerprints that didn’t match Dillinger’s (the fingerprint card was missing from the Cook County Morgue for over three decades), the body was too tall, the eye color was wrong, and it possessed a rheumatic heart.

The F.B.I. – a relatively new agency whose agents were only recently permitted to carry guns or make arrests – would have fallen under heavy scrutiny, this being the third innocent man killed in pursuit of Dillinger. The Bureau would have gone to great lengths to ensure a cover up.

In shooting “Lawrence”, F.B.I. agents were stationed on the roof of the theater and fired downward, causing the open cuts on the face which were described through the media as “scars resulting from inept plastic surgery.”

The first words from Dillinger’s father upon identifying the body were “that’s not my boy.”

The body itself was buried under five feet of concrete and steel, making exhumation less likely.

Nash produced fingerprints and photos of Dillinger as he would appear in 1960, that were allegedly sent to Melvin Purvis just prior to his own 1960 alleged suicide.

Nash alleged that Dillinger was living and working in California as a machinist, under what would have been an early form of the witness protection program.

Just another aspect of Dillinger folklore?

Who knows?

In any event, this story ends, here.

Hope you’ll join me, for the next one.

Till then.

Peace.

The Gunfighters: The Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch, also known as the Doolin–Dalton Gang or the Oklahombres, was a gang of outlaws based in the Indian Territory that terrorized Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s – robbing banks and stores, holding up trains, and killing lawmen. They were also known as The Oklahoma Long Riders, from the long dusters they wore.

The group is not to be confused with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.

Of all the outlaw gangs produced by the American Old West, none met a more violent end. Of its eleven members, only two would survive into the 20th century.

All eleven would eventually meet with a violent death, in gun battles with lawmen.

A version of the group was portrayed in Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 Western, “The Wild Bunch”, starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine.

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

That’s Hollywood.

This is history:

Notable Members

The gang consisted at various times of Bill Doolin, George “Bittercreek” Newcomb (aka “Slaughter Kid”), Charley Pierce, Oliver “Ol” Yantis, William Marion “Bill” Dalton, William “Tulsa Jack” Blake, Dan “Dynamite Dick” Clifton, Roy Daugherty (a.k.a. “Arkansas Tom Jones”), George “Red Buck” Waightman, Richard “Little Dick” West, and William F. “Little Bill” Raidler.

Two teenaged girls known as Little Britches and Cattle Annie also followed the gang, and informed the men about the location of law-enforcement officers whenever they were in pursuit of the criminals.

The Daltons

The Dalton Gang, also known as The Dalton Brothers, was a family of both lawmen and outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. They specialized in bank and train robberies.

They were related to the Younger brothers, who rode with Jesse James, though they acted later, and independently of the James-Younger Gang.

The three Dalton brothers involved in the gang were Gratton “Grat” Dalton (born 1861), Bob Dalton (born 1869), and Emmett Dalton (born 1871).

Origins of the Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch had its origins following the Dalton Gang’s botched train robbery in Adair, Oklahoma Territory, on July 15, 1892, in which two guards and two townspeople (both doctors), were wounded. One of the doctors died the next day.

Bob Dalton told Doolin, Newcomb, and Pierce that he no longer needed them.

Doolin and his friends returned to their hideout in Ingalls, Oklahoma Territory. It was fortunate for them, because on October 5, the Dalton Gang would be wiped out in Coffeyville, Kansas.

Grat and Bob Dalton, Dick Broadwell and Bill Power were killed. Emmett Dalton, however, received 23 gunshot wounds and survived.

There is some speculation that Bill Doolin was in an alleyway, acting as a lookout man.

In any event, he soon put together a new outfit.

Crime Spree

Doolin wasted no time.

On November 1, 1892, his new gang, the Wild Bunch, robbed the Ford County Bank at Spearville, Kansas, getting away with all the cash on hand, and over $1,500 in treasury notes.

From the postcard descriptions sent out, the Stillwater, Oklahoma Territory, city marshal recognized Ol Yantis, the newest member of the gang. Shortly after, Yantis was cornered and killed in a shootout with the marshal’s posse.

On June 11, 1893, the Wild Bunch held up a Santa Fe train west of Cimarron, Kansas, and took $1,000 in silver from the California-New Mexico Express.

A sheriff’s posse from old Beaver County, Oklahoma Territory, caught up with the gang north of Fort Supply. The gang got away, but, in the ensuing gunfight, Doolin received a bullet in his left foot. Doolin was to suffer with the pain for the rest of his life, and it led indirectly to his capture.

Battle of Ingalls

On September 1, 1893, a posse organized by the new U.S. Marshal, Evett Dumas “E.D.” Nix, entered the outlaw town of Ingalls with the intent of capturing the gang.

In what would be remembered as the Battle of Ingalls, three of the fourteen lawmen carrying Deputy U.S. Marshals’ commissions would die, in the ensuing gunfight. Two town citizens would also die; one killed protecting the outlaws.

Of the outlaws, Newcomb was seriously wounded but escaped, and Arkansas Tom Jones, the killer of the three deputies and one citizen, was captured.

Resumption of Duties

After a short break, the gang continued its activities.

On January 3, 1894, Pierce and Waightman held up a store and post office at Clarkson, Oklahoma Territory.

On January 23, the gang robbed the Farmers Citizens Bank at Pawnee, Oklahoma Territory, and March 10, the Wild Bunch robbed the Santa Fe station at Woodward, Oklahoma Territory, of over $6,000.

On March 20, Nix sent a special posse known as the Three Guardsmen a directive to take care of the Wild Bunch. The directive stated in part, “I have selected you to do this work, placing explicit confidence in your abilities to cope with those desperadoes and bring them in – alive if possible – dead if necessary.”

On April 1, 1894, the gang attempted to rob the store of retired US Deputy Marshal W.H. Carr at Sacred Heart, Indian Territory. Carr, shot through the stomach, managed to shoot Newcomb in the shoulder, and the gang fled without getting anything.

On May 10, 1894, the Wild Bunch robbed the bank at Southwest City, Missouri, of $4,000, wounding several townspeople, and killing one.

On May 21, 1894, the jurors in Arkansas Tom’s trial found him only guilty of manslaughter in the killing of the three Deputy US Marshals. Frank Dale, the territorial judge hearing the case, returned to Guthrie, the territorial capitol, and told E.D. Nix, ” … you will instruct your deputies to bring them in dead.”

Elsewhere…

Bill Dalton, meanwhile, had left Doolin to form his own Dalton Gang.

On May 23, 1894, Dalton and his new gang robbed the First National Bank at Longview, Texas. This was the gang’s only job. Various posses would kill three of its members, and send the last one to prison, for life.

One Last Job

On April 3, 1895, the Wild Bunch – without Doolin – held up a Rock Island train at Dover, but were unable to open the safe with the $50,000 army payroll. So they robbed passengers of cash and jewelry.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Chris Madsen and his posse took a special train to Dover, and picked up the trail at daybreak, surprising the gang around noon.

The marshals killed Blake, and scattered the gang.

This would be the last robbery by the Wild Bunch as a gang, although separately, its members kept up the robberies and killings for which they were known.

Doolin’s Demise – and Others

Bill Doolin’s death was as violent as the rest of his Wild Bunch. As with him, all their deaths were by gunshot.

U.S. Marshal Evett “E.D.” Nix had been appointed in 1893. He made his main priority the toppling of the Doolin Dalton Gang.

Nix appointed one hundred marshals to the task, insisting they hunt down all outlaws, but with a priority on this gang in particular.

Marshal Nix was staunchly supportive of his deputies and in the means they felt were necessary to bring down the gang, and with him as their defender politically, his deputy marshals systematically hunted down the gang members.

Ol Yantis was killed on November 29, 1892 at Orlando, Oklahoma Territory by Ford County, Kansas Sheriff Chalkey Beeson and Deputy US Marshal Tom Hueston.

Arkansas Tom Jones was captured on September 1, 1893, in Ingalls, Oklahoma Territory. He was pardoned in 1910.
On August 16, 1924, he was killed in Joplin, Missouri, by Joplin police detectives.

Bill Dalton was killed on June 8, 1894, near Elk, Indian Territory, by an Anadarko posse.

Tulsa Jack Blake was killed on April 4, 1895, near Ames, Oklahoma Territory, by Deputy U.S. Marshals Will Banks and Isaac Prater.

Bitter Creek Newcomb was killed on May 2, 1895, in Payne County, Oklahoma Territory, by the Dunn Brothers, who were bounty hunters.

Charley Pierce was killed on May 2, 1895, in Payne County, Oklahoma Territory – also by the Dunn brothers.

Little Bill Raidler was shot and captured on September 6, 1895, by Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman.
He was paroled in 1903 because of complications from wounds received when he was captured, and died in 1904.

Bill Doolin was captured on January 15, 1896, in Eureka Springs, Arkansas by Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman.
He escaped with Dynamite Dick Clifton but was killed on August 24, 1896, in Lawson, Oklahoma Territory, by a posse under Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas.

Red Buck Waightman was killed on March 4, 1896, near Arapaho, Oklahoma Territory, by a Custer County posse.

Dynamite Dick Clifton was captured in June, 1896, by Deputy U.S. Marshals from Texas.
He escaped with Bill Doolin, and was killed on November 7, 1897, near Checotah, Indian Territory, by Deputy U.S. Marshals under Deputy Marshal Chris Madsen.

Little Dick West was killed on April 8, 1898, in Logan County, Oklahoma Territory, by Deputy U.S. Marshals under Deputy Marshal Chris Madsen.

A violent end, to a violent group.

And the end of this tale.

I hope you’ll be back, for my next story.

Till then.

Peace.

The Gunfighters: Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley (August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926), born Phoebe Ann Moses, was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter.

Oakley’s amazing talent led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which led her to becoming the first American female superstar.

Oakley’s most famous trick was being able to repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it could touch the ground, while using a .22 caliber rifle, at 90 feet.

During her lifetime, the theater business began referring to complimentary tickets as “Annie Oakleys”. Such tickets traditionally have holes punched into them (to prevent them from being resold), reminiscent of the playing cards Oakley shot through during her sharpshooting act.

Country & Western singing star Reba McEntire played Annie Oakley, opposite Anjelica Houston (as that other famous gunslinging woman, Calamity Jane), in the 1995 TV movie “Buffalo Girls”.

Video comes courtesy of YouTube:

That’s how Hollywood saw it.

Here’s what history has to tell us about the lady:

Annie’s Early Life

Phoebe Ann (Annie) Moses was born in “a [log] cabin less than two miles northwest of Willowdell in Partentown North Star, Ohio”, a rural western border county of Ohio.

Annie’s parents were Quakers of English descent from Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania: Susan Wise, age 18, and Jacob Moses, age 49, married in 1848.

They moved to a rented farm (later purchased with a mortgage) in Patterson Township, Darke County sometime between 1855 and her sister Sarah Ellen’s birth there, in 1857.

Born in 1860, Annie was the sixth of Jacob and Susan’s seven children, but her mother also had another child from a previous relationship.

Her father, who had fought in the War of 1812, died in 1866 at age 65, from pneumonia and overexposure in freezing weather.

Annie’s mother married Daniel Brumbaugh, had a ninth child, Emily, and was widowed for the second time.

On March 15, 1870, at age nine, Annie was admitted to Darke County Infirmary, along with elder sister Sarah Ellen. According to her autobiography, she was put in the care of the Infirmary’s superintendent, Samuel Crawford Edington and his wife Nancy, who taught her to sew and decorate.

Beginning in the spring of 1870, she was “bound out” to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents a week and an education. She spent about two years in near-slavery to them, where she endured mental and physical abuse.

When, in the spring of 1872, she reunited with her family, her mother had married a third time, to Joseph Shaw.

Because of poverty following the death of her father, Annie did not regularly attend school. But later, she did receive some informal education.

She rendered her surname as ending in “ee”, while it appears as “Moses” on her father’s gravestone and in his military record; it is the official spelling by the Annie Oakley Foundation maintained by her living relatives.

Variations in the accepted surname spelling (“Moses”) have included “Mosey”, “Mosie”, and “Mauzy”. There is no known record to substantiate Annie’s vehement assertion that the correct spelling is “Mozee”.

Annie began trapping animals at a young age, and shooting and hunting by age eight, to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game for money to locals in Greenville, as well as restaurants and hotels in southern Ohio. Her skill eventually paid off the mortgage on her mother’s farm when Annie was 15.

A Bet, and A Marriage

On Thanksgiving Day 1875, the Baughman and Butler shooting act was being performed in Cincinnati.

Traveling show marksman and former dog trainer Francis E. Butler (1850–1926), an Irish immigrant, placed a $100 bet per side (roughly equivalent to US$2,000 in today’s money) with Cincinnati hotel owner Jack Frost, that he, Butler, could beat any local fancy shooter.

The hotelier arranged a shooting match between Butler and the 15-year-old Annie saying, “The last opponent Butler expected was a five-foot-tall 15-year old girl named Annie.” After missing on his 25th shot, Butler lost the match and the bet.

Butler soon began courting Annie, and they married on August 23, 1876. They did not have children.

Joining Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

Annie and Frank Butler lived in Cincinnati, for a time.

Oakley – the stage name she adopted when she and Frank began performing together – is believed to have been taken from the city’s neighborhood of Oakley, where they resided. Some people believe she took on the name because that was the name of the man who had paid her train fare when she was a child.

They joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in 1885. At 5 feet (1.5 m) tall, Oakley was given the nickname of “Watanya Cicilla” by fellow performer Sitting Bull, rendered “Little Sure Shot” in the public advertisements.

During her first engagement with Buffalo Bill’s show, Oakley experienced a tense professional rivalry with rifle sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Being eleven years younger, Smith promoted herself as younger and therefore more bankable than Oakley. Oakley temporarily left Buffalo Bill’s show, but returned after Smith departed.

Around the World

In Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, King Umberto I of Italy, Marie François Sadi Carnot (the President of France) and other crowned heads of state.

Oakley had such good aim that, at his request, she knocked the ashes off a cigarette held by the newly crowned German Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The Annie Oakley Foundation suggests that she was not the source of a widely repeated quip related to the event:
“Some uncharitable people later ventured that if Annie had shot Wilhelm and not his cigarette, she could have prevented World War I.”

After the outbreak of World War I, however, Oakley did send a letter to the Kaiser, requesting a second shot. The Kaiser did not respond.

Pioneering Work

Oakley promoted the service of women in combat operations for the United States armed forces. She wrote a letter to President William McKinley on April 5, 1898, “offering the government the services of a company of 50 ‘lady sharpshooters’ who would provide their own arms and ammunition should the U.S. go to war with Spain.”

The Spanish-American War did occur, but Oakley’s offer was not accepted. Theodore Roosevelt, did, however, name his volunteer cavalry the “Rough Riders” after the “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World” where Oakley was a major star.

The same year that McKinley was fatally shot by an assassin (1901), Oakley was also badly injured in a train accident, but she recovered after temporary paralysis and five spinal operations. She left the Buffalo Bill show and in 1902 began a quieter acting career in a stage play written especially for her, “The Western Girl”. Oakley played the role of Nancy Berry and used a pistol, a rifle and rope to outsmart a group of outlaws.

Following her injury and change of career, it only added to Annie’s legend that her shooting expertise continued to increase into her 60s.

Throughout her career, it is believed that Oakley taught upwards of 15,000 women how to use a gun.

Oakley believed strongly that it was crucial for women to learn how to use a gun, as not only a form of physical and mental exercise, but also to defend themselves. She once said: “I would like to see every woman know how to handle [firearms] as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”

Multiple Libel Cases

In 1904, sensational cocaine prohibition stories were selling well.

The newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst published a false story that Oakley had been arrested for stealing, to support a cocaine habit. The woman actually arrested was a burlesque performer who told Chicago police that her name was “Annie Oakley”.

The original Annie Oakley spent much of the next six years winning 54 of 55 libel lawsuits against newspapers. She collected less in judgments than were her legal expenses, but to her, a restored reputation justified the loss of time and money.

Most of the newspapers that printed the story had relied on the Hearst article, and upon learning of the libelous error they immediately retracted the false story with apologies. Hearst, however, tried to avoid paying the anticipated court judgments of $20,000 (around $330,000, adjusted for inflation) by sending an investigator to Darke County with the intent of collecting reputation-smearing gossip from Oakley’s past. The investigator found nothing.

Her Final Years

Oakley continued to set records, into her sixties.

She embarked on a comeback and intended to star in a feature-length silent movie.

In a 1922 shooting contest in Pinehurst, North Carolina, sixty-two-year-old Oakley hit 100 clay targets in a row from 16 yards (15 m).

In late 1922, Oakley and Butler suffered a debilitating automobile accident that forced her to wear a steel brace on her right leg. Yet after a year and a half of recovery, she again performed and set records in 1924.

Her health declined in 1925, and she died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio at the age of sixty-six on November 3, 1926.

She was buried in Brock Cemetery in Greenville, Ohio.

Butler was so grieved by her death that he stopped eating. He died just 18 days later, on November 21, 1926 in Michigan.

Butler was buried next to Annie.

Annie Oakley was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.

Quite the lady.

And quite a story.

I hope you’ll join me, for our next one.

Till then.

Peace.

The Gunfighters: Pat Garrett

Patrick Floyd “Pat” Garrett (June 5, 1850 – February 29, 1908) was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent who became famous for killing Billy the Kid. He was also the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico as well as Doña Ana County, New Mexico.

James Coburn played Pat Garrett opposite Kris Kristofferson, in the aptly titled film, “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid”.

Video is courtesy of YouTube:

That’s Hollywood, for you.

Here’s the history:

Garrett’s Early life

Patrick Floyd Garrett was born in Cusseta, Alabama, and grew up on a prosperous Louisiana plantation near Haynesville in northern Claiborne Parish, just below the Arkansas state line.

He left home in 1869, and found work as a cowboy in Dallas County, Texas. In 1875, he left to hunt buffalo.

In 1878, Garrett shot and killed a fellow hunter who charged at Garrett with a hatchet following a disagreement over buffalo hides. As he lay dying, the hunter brought Garrett to tears upon asking him to forgive him.

Garrett moved to New Mexico and briefly found work as a cowpuncher before quitting to open his own saloon.

A tall man, he was referred to by locals as “Juan Largo” or “Long John”.

In 1879, Garrett married Juanita Gutierrez, who died within a year. In 1880, he married Gutierrez’s sister, Apolinaria. The couple had nine children.

Lincoln County War

On November 7, 1880, the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, George Kimbell, resigned with two months left in his term. As Kimbell’s successor, the county appointed Garrett, a member of the Republican Party who ran as a Democrat, and a gunman of some reputation who had promised to restore law and order.

Garrett was charged with tracking down and arresting an alleged friend from his saloon keeping days, Henry McCarty, a jail escapee and Lincoln County War participant who often went by the aliases Henry Antrim and William Harrison Bonney, but is better known as “Billy the Kid”.

McCarty was an alleged murderer who had participated in the Lincoln County War. He was said to have killed 21 men (one for every year of his life), but the actual total was probably closer to nine. New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace had personally put a US$500 reward on McCarty’s capture.

On December 19, 1880, Garrett killed Tom O’Folliard, a member of McCarty’s gang, in a shootout on the outskirts of Fort Sumner.

On December 23, the sheriff’s posse killed Charlie Bowdre, and captured the Kid and his companions at Stinking Springs (near present-day Taiban, New Mexico). Garrett transported the captives to Mesilla, New Mexico, for trial.

Though he was convicted, the Kid managed to escape from the Lincoln County jail on April 28, 1881, after killing his guards, J. W. Bell and Bob Olinger.

Killing Billy the Kid

On July 14, 1881, Garrett visited Fort Sumner to question a friend of the Kid’s about the whereabouts of the outlaw. He learned the Kid was staying with a mutual friend, Pete Maxwell (son of land baron Lucien Maxwell). Around midnight, Garrett went to Maxwell’s house.

The Kid was asleep in another part of the house, but woke up hungry in the middle of the night and entered Maxwell’s bedroom – where Garrett was standing in the shadows. The Kid did not recognize the man standing in the dark.

“Quién es? (Who is it?), Quién es?,” the Kid asked repeatedly. Garrett replied by shooting at him twice.

The first shot hit the Kid in the chest just above the heart; the second shot missed and struck the mantle behind him. The Kid fell to the floor and gasped for a minute before dying.

Some historians have questioned Garrett’s account of the shooting, alleging the incident happened differently. They believe Garrett went into Paulita Maxwell’s room and tied her up. The Kid walked into her room, and Garrett ambushed him with a single blast from his Sharps rifle.

Whatever the details, the way Garrett allegedly killed McCarty without warning eventually sullied the lawman’s reputation.

Garrett claimed Billy the Kid had entered the room armed with a pistol, but no gun was found on his body. Other accounts claim he entered carrying a kitchen knife, but no hard evidence supported this.

Garrett’s reputation was also hurt by popular stories that he and Billy had once been friends, and that the shooting was a kind of betrayal – but historians have found no evidence of such a close friendship. Legends also persist that Billy the Kid was not killed that night, and that Garrett staged it all so the Kid could escape the law.

At the time though, the shooting solidified Garrett’s fame as a lawman and gunman, and led to numerous appointments to law enforcement positions, as well as requests that he pursue outlaws in other parts of New Mexico.

After the Lincoln County War

Garrett’s law enforcement career never achieved any great success following the Lincoln County War, and he mostly used that era in his life as a stepping-stone to higher positions.

After finishing out his term as sheriff, Garrett became a rancher and released a book in 1882 titled “The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid”. His book, a first-hand account about his experiences with McCarty, helped raise the Kid to the level of historical figure, and was in large part ghostwritten by his friend Ash Upson.

Garrett lost the next election for Lincoln County sheriff and was never paid the $500 reward for McCarty’s capture, since he had killed him.

In 1882, he ran for the position of Grant County, New Mexico sheriff, but was defeated by Sheriff Harvey Whitehill. In 1884, he lost an election for the New Mexico State Senate. Later that year, he left New Mexico and helped found and captain a company of Texas Rangers.

He returned to New Mexico briefly in 1885. In October 1889, Garrett ran for Chaves County, New Mexico, sheriff but lost.

By this time, his rough disposition was beginning to wear thin with much of the populace, and rumors of his less than admirable killing of Billy the Kid were beginning to affect his popularity.

Garrett left New Mexico in 1891 for Uvalde, Texas.

Disappearance of Albert Jennings Fountain

In January 1896, Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain served as a special prosecutor against men charged with cattle raiding in Lincoln, New Mexico. With his work finished, Fountain left Lincoln with his eight-year-old son, Henry. The two did not complete their trip home; on the third day, they disappeared near White Sands.

Fountain’s disappearance caused outrage throughout the territory. Further complicating matters, the main suspects in the disappearance were deputy sheriffs William McNew, James Gilliland, and Oliver M. Lee.

New Mexico’s governor saw outside help was needed, and called in Pat Garrett. One problem Garrett encountered was that Lee, McNew, and Gilliland were very close with the powerful former judge, lawyer, and politician Albert B. Fall.

Garrett, who was appointed Doña Ana County sheriff on August 10, 1896, and elected to the post on January 4, 1897, believed he would never get a fair hearing regarding his evidence while Fall was in control of the courts. Therefore, Garrett waited two full years before presenting his evidence before the court and securing indictments against the suspected men. McNew was quickly arrested, and Lee and Gilliland went into hiding.

Garrett’s posse caught up with Lee and Gilliland on July 12, 1898. One of Garrett’s deputies, Kurt Kearney, was killed in the gun battle that followed. Garrett and his posse then retreated, and Gilliland and Lee escaped.

The two men later surrendered, although not to Garrett. Both stood trial and were acquitted.

The location of the Fountain bodies remains a mystery.

Garrett’s Final Years

On December 20, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, who became a personal friend of Garrett, appointed him customs collector in El Paso, Texas. Garrett served for five years. He was not reappointed – possibly because he had embarrassed Roosevelt by showing up at a San Antonio Rough Riders reunion with a notorious gambler friend, Tom Powers. Garrett had Powers pose in a group photograph with Roosevelt, resulting in bad publicity for the president.

Garrett had been warned about his close association with Powers, by friends.

Years earlier, Powers had been run out of his home state of Wisconsin for beating his father into a coma. Garrett did not listen, and when his reappointment was denied, he traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak personally with Roosevelt. He had the bad judgment of taking Powers with him. In that meeting, Roosevelt told Garrett plainly that there would be no reappointment.

Garrett retired to his ranch in New Mexico but was suffering financial difficulties. He owed a large amount in taxes and was found liable for an unpaid loan he had cosigned for a friend.

Garrett borrowed heavily to make these payments and started drinking and gambling excessively. He crossed paths regularly with Oliver M. Lee and Lee’s corrupt attorney, Albert Fall, always finding himself on the opposite end of their illegal land deals and intimidation of local ranchers and citizens.

The Death of Pat Garrett

Garrett’s main creditor, rancher W. W. Cox, who was brother-in-law to Oliver M. Lee, worked out a deal to repay the debt by using Garrett’s Quarter horse ranch in the San Andres Mountains slopes as grazing land for one of his partners. There is no deal on record in the courthouse, and no deed from Garrett to Cox.

Cox took over the ranch and razed the home. Garrett had agreed to the deal, not realizing that Jesse Wayne Brazel would be grazing goats, rather than cattle on the land. Garrett objected to the goats, feeling their presence lowered the value of his land in the eyes of buyers or other renters.

By this time, questions surrounding the manner in which he killed Billy the Kid, and Garrett’s general demeanor had led to his becoming quite unpopular. He no longer had any local political support, his support from President Roosevelt had been withdrawn, and he had few friends with power.

Garrett and Carl Adamson (who was in the process of talks with Garrett to purchase land) rode together, heading from Las Cruces, New Mexico in Adamson’s wagon. Brazel showed up on horseback along the way.

Garrett and Brazel began to argue about the goats grazing on Garrett’s land. Garrett is alleged to have leaned forward to pick up a shotgun on the floorboard. Brazel shot him once in the stomach, and then once more in the head as Garrett fell from the wagon.

Brazel and Adamson left the body by the side of the road and returned to Las Cruces, alerting Sheriff Felipe Lucero of the killing.

Controversy?

There has occasionally been disagreement about the identity of Pat Garrett’s killer.

Today, most historians believe Jesse Wayne Brazel (who confessed to the shooting and was tried for first degree murder) did in fact commit the crime – and not in self-defense. Cox paid his bond and retained Fall as his defense attorney. Brazel pleaded self defense, claiming Garrett was armed with a shotgun and was threatening him. Adamson backed up Brazel’s story. The jury took less than a half-hour to return a not guilty verdict. Cox hosted a barbecue in celebration.

Another alleged suspect in Garrett’s death was the outlaw Jim Miller, a known killer for hire and cousin of Adamson. Miller was alleged to have been hired by enemies of Garrett, but this is believed to be only a rumor because Adamson was kin to him, and Miller is believed to have been in Oklahoma at the time.

Oliver Lee was also alleged to have taken part in a conspiracy to kill Garrett, made up of businessmen and outlaws who disliked the former lawman. However, despite his previous clashes with Garrett, there is no evidence to support the claim.

To date, the common belief is that the death was an ambush. Garrett was known to have carried a double-barreled shotgun when he traveled, and he had a fiery temper, but the gun was found disassembled and in non-working condition next to Garrett’s body – as if thrown there after the fact.

Garrett’s Funeral and Burial Site

Garrett’s body was too tall for any finished coffins available, so a special one had to be shipped in from El Paso.

His funeral service was held on March 5, 1908, and he was laid to rest next to his daughter, Ida, who had preceded him in death eight years earlier.

The site of Garrett’s death is now commemorated by a historical marker, which can be visited south of U.S. Route 70, between Las Cruces and the San Augustin Pass. The highway marker is not at the actual spot where Garrett was shot.

The location of the shooting was marked by Pat’s son Jarvis Garrett in 1938-1940, with a monument of his construction. The monument consists of concrete laid around a stone with a cross carved in it. The cross is believed to be the work of Pat’s mother. Scratched in the concrete is “P. Garrett” and the date of his killing.

The location of this marker has been a closely guarded secret, but is now being made public because the city of Las Cruces is annexing the land where the marker is located. An organization, Friends of Pat Garrett. has been formed to ensure that the city preserves the site and marker.

Garrett’s grave and the many graves of his descendants can be found in Las Cruces at the Masonic Cemetery.

And here ends our tale.

I hope you’ll join me, for the next one.

Till then.

Peace.

The Gunfighters: Bat Masterson

William Barclay “Bat” Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) was a noted figure of the American Old West.

Known as a buffalo hunter, U.S. Marshal and Army scout, avid fisherman, gambler, frontier lawman, sports editor and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph, he was the brother of lawmen James Masterson and Ed Masterson.

The actor Gene Barry played Bat Masterson in a U.S. television series loosely based on the historical character. The show ran on NBC in 107 episodes from 1958 to 1961, and featured Masterson as a superbly dressed gambler, generally outfitted in a black suit and derby hat, who was more inclined to “bat” crooks over the head with his gold-knobbed cane than shoot them.

Here’s a taste of what the show was like (video comes courtesy of YouTube):

And here’s what history has to tell us about the man:

His Early Years

William Barclay Masterson was born on November 26, 1853, at Henryville, Canada East, in the Eastern Townships of what is today Quebec, and was baptized as Bartholomew Masterson. He adopted the forename William Barclay, in later life.

His father, Thomas Masterson (or Mastersan), was born in Canada, of an Irish family; and his mother, Catherine McGurk (or McGureth), was born in Ireland.

William was the second child in a family of five brothers and two sisters. They were raised on farms in Quebec, New York, and Illinois, until they finally settled near Wichita, Kansas.

In his late teens, he and two of his brothers, Ed Masterson and James Masterson, left their family’s farm to become buffalo hunters.

While traveling without his brothers, Bat took part in the Battle of Adobe Walls in Texas, and killed Comanche Indians. He then spent time as a U.S. Army scout in a campaign against the Kiowa and Comanche Indians.

Gunfighter

His first gunfight took place in 1876 in Sweetwater, Texas (later Mobeetie in Wheeler County).

Bat was attacked by a soldier, Corporal Melvin A. King – allegedly because of a girl. The girl in question, Mollie Brennan, stopped one of King’s bullets and was killed.

King (whose real name was Anthony Cook) died of his wounds.

Masterson was shot in the pelvis, but recovered. The story that he needed to carry a cane for the rest of his life is a legend perpetuated by the TV series starring the late Gene Barry.

Lawman

In 1877, he joined his brothers in Dodge City, Kansas. Jim was the partner of Ed, who was an assistant marshal.

Soon after his arrival, Masterson came into conflict with the local marshal over the treatment of a man being arrested. He was jailed and fined, although his fine was later returned by the city council.

He served as a sheriff’s deputy alongside Wyatt Earp, and within a few months was elected county sheriff of Ford County, Kansas.

As sheriff, Bat won plaudits for capturing four members of the Mike Roark gang, who had unsuccessfully held up a train at nearby Kinsley.

He also led the posse that captured Jim Kenedy – who had inadvertently killed an entertainer named Dora Hand in Dodge. Masterson brought Kenedy down with a shot through the shoulder.

Masterson continued as Ford County sheriff until he was voted out of office in 1879. During this same period his brother Ed was Marshal of Dodge City and died in the line of duty on April 9, 1878.

Ed was shot by a cowboy named Jack Wagner – who was unaware that Bat was in the vicinity.

As Ed stumbled away from the scene, Masterson responded from across the street with deadly force, firing on both Wagner and Wagner’s boss, Alf Walker. Wagner died the next day but Walker was taken back to Texas and recovered.

Tombstone

For the next several years, Bat made a living as a gambler moving through several of the legendary towns of the Old West.

Wyatt Earp invited Masterson to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, in early 1881.

Earp owned a one-quarter interest in the gambling concession at the Oriental Saloon, in exchange for his services as a manager and enforcer. He wanted Bat’s help running the faro tables in the Oriental.

Bat remained until April 1881, when he received an unsigned telegram that compelled him to immediately return to Dodge City:

COME AT ONCE. UPDEGRAFF AND PEACOCK ARE GOING TO KILL JIM.

Battle of the Plaza

Jim Masterson was in partnership with A. J. Peacock in Dodge City’s Lady Gay Saloon and Dance Hall. Al Updegraff was Peacock’s brother-in-law and bartender.

Jim thought Updegraff was dishonest and a drunk, and demanded that Peacock fire Updegraff, which Peacock refused to do. Their disagreement grew until threats flew, at which time Bat received the telegram.

Masterson got the next stagecoach out of Tombstone and arrived in Dodge City on April 16.

Jumping off the train before it stopped, Masterson saw Updegraff and Peacock. He accosted them.

Recognizing Bat, the two retreated behind the jail, and the three began exchanging gunfire.

Citizens ran for cover as bullets ripped through the Long Branch Saloon. Other individuals began firing in support of both sides until Updegraff was shot.

Mayor Ab Webster arrested Masterson, and only then did he learn that his brother Jim was fine.

Updegraff slowly recovered, and since it could not be determined who shot Updegraff, Masterson was fined $8.00 and released.

Updegraff and Peacock did not explain why they were headed towards the train depot, guns under their coats.

The citizens were outraged, warrants were issued, but Bat and Jim were permitted to leave Dodge.

Denver, Colorado

In 1888 Masterson was living in Denver, Colorado, where he dealt faro for “Big Ed” Chase at the Arcade gambling house.

That same year, he managed and then purchased the Palace Variety Theater. It was probably there that Bat first met an Indian club swinger and singer called Emma Moulton, born as Emma Walter near Philadelphia in 1857. The pair subsequently lived together, and it has been widely reported that they married in Denver on 21 November 1891. Although no record of the marriage has come to light thus far (and Emma was not divorced from her first husband until 9 November 1893), the partnership was to survive until Bat’s death.

While in Denver, Bat also met and maintained a long term friendship with the infamous confidence man, Soapy Smith, and members of the Soap Gang.
In 1889 the two friends were involved together in the famous Denver registration and election fraud scandal.

Travels, West

In 1892 Bat moved to the silver boom town of Creede, Colorado, where he managed the Denver Exchange Club until the town was destroyed by fire. On the 1900 Federal Census record for Arapahoe County in Denver he lists his name as William Masterson with his birthplace as Missouri in 1854. His wife is listed as Emma Masterson married for 10 years and he lists his occupation as Athletic Club Keeper.

Bat continued to travel around the boom towns of the West, gambling and promoting prize fights. He began writing a weekly sports column for George’s Weekly, a Denver newspaper, and opened the Olympic Athletic Club to promote the sport of boxing.

New York: A Call to Service

Masterson left the West and went to New York City by 1902, where he was arrested for illegal gambling

Some time later, President Theodore Roosevelt, on the recommendation of mutual friend Alfred Henry Lewis, appointed Masterson to the position of deputy to U.S. Marshal for the southern district of New York, under William Henkel. Roosevelt had met Masterson on several occasions and had become friendly with him.

Masterson split his time between his writing and keeping the peace in the grand jury room whenever the U. S. Attorney in New York held session. He performed this service for about $2,000 per year from early 1908 until 1912, when President William Howard Taft removed Masterson from the position during Taft’s purge of Roosevelt supporters from government positions.

Newspaper Man

Bat Masterson’s career as a writer started around 1883, and ended at his death in New York City in 1921. He worked as a sports writer and editor; and a columnist.

He wrote a letter published in the Daily Kansas State Journal, on June 9, 1883, that mentioned his arrival in Dodge City, the famous Long Branch saloon, and his famous cohorts who made the Long Branch their headquarters during the so-called “Dodge City Saloon War.” It was during this time that Bat met newspapermen Alfred Henry and William Eugene Lewis.

Masterson penned a weekly sports column for George’s Weekly sometime after his arrival in Denver, Colorado, in the late 1890s.

Masterson continued his writing career in New York at the New York Morning Telegraph, (a sporting newspaper featuring race form and results, whose reputation was part of what was known as “a whore’s breakfast,” which consisted of a cigarette and the Morning Telegraph), c. 1904. Hired by the younger Lewis brother, William Eugene Lewis, he reprised his role as sports writer, later becoming the paper’s sports editor.

The politics, sporting events, theaters, fine dining establishments, and varied night life of his adopted city became fodder for his thrice weekly column “Masterson’s Views on Timely Topics” for more than 18 years.

W. E. Lewis eventually became the general manager and president of the company and promoted his friend Masterson to vice president and company secretary.

The Latter Day Masterson

Alfred Henry Lewis eventually wrote several short stories and a novel, “The Sunset Trail”, about Masterson. He encouraged Bat to write a series of sketches about his adventures which were published by Lewis in the magazine he edited, Human Life (c. 1907–1908). Masterson regaled his readers with stories about his days on the frontier and his gunfighter friends. He also explained to his audience what he felt were the best properties of a gunfighter.

It was during this time that Masterson sold his famous six-gun -“the gun that tamed the West” – because he “needed the money.”

Actually, Masterson bought old guns at pawnshops, carved notches into the handles and sold them at inflated prices. Each time he claimed the gun was the one he used during his career as a lawman!

Bat Masterson’s Death

Bat Masterson died at age 67 on October 25, 1921, while living and working in New York City. He collapsed at his desk from a heart attack after penning what became his final column for the New York Morning Telegraph.

His body was taken to Campbell’s Funeral Parlor and later buried after a simple service in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.

His full name, William Barclay Masterson, appears above his epitaph on the large granite grave marker in Woodlawn.

His epitaph states that he was “Loved by Everyone.”

I hope you loved this one.

And that you’ll join me, for the next.

Till then.

Peace.

The Gunfighters: Dallas Stoudenmire

Dallas Stoudenmire (December 11, 1845 – September 18, 1882) was an American Old West gunman and lawman, who gained fame for a brief incident that was later dubbed the “Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight”.

Stoudenmire had a deadly reputation in his day, and was involved in more gunfights than most of his better known contemporaries, such as John Selman, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Elfego Baca, Luke Short, and Doc Holliday.

Hollywood has yet to produce a specific movie on his life, but the classic 1952 Western “High Noon” (starring Gary Cooper) may have been inspired by Stoudenmire’s exploits in the town of El Paso.

Video is courtesy of YouTube:

Here’s what is known about Stoudenmire’s life:

Stoudenmire’s Early Life

Dallas Stoudenmire was born in Aberfoil, Bullock County, Alabama, one of the nine children of Lewis and Elizabeth Stoudenmire.

Shortly after the American Civil War began, Dallas enlisted in the Army of the Confederacy, even though he was only 15 years old. He was six feet tall, but his officers soon discovered his age and discharged him.

He reenlisted twice more (the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors system reports a Pvt D. Stoudenmire Co F of the 17th Alabama Infantry and a Pvt D. Stowdemire Co C, 6th Alabama Cavalry) and eventually was allowed to serve as a private in Company F, 45th Alabama Infantry Regiment.

According to surviving records, he stood 6’4″ (1.94 m) tall by the war’s end and was wounded numerous times. He carried two bullets in his body for the remainder of his life.

Following the war, Stoudenmire drifted west and served for at least three years with the Texas Rangers.

He had a reputation for being handsome, a sharp dresser, and a gentleman around ladies. But when intoxicated, he could be extremely dangerous and had a quick temper.

Stoudenmire was known for his habit of wearing two guns, and being equally accurate with either hand.

He disappeared from the records between 1874 and 1878, possibly residing in Mexico for a time. He was able to speak Spanish fairly well, and is known to have worked during the years immediately after the war as a sheep farmer, wheelwright, proprietor, merchandiser and carpenter.

Career as a Lawman: El Paso

Stoudenmire resurfaced when he served as a town marshal for Socorro, New Mexico. While employed there, his brother-in-law and El Paso, Texas resident, Stanley “Doc” Cummings, convinced him to take up a job as town marshal in El Paso.

At that time, El Paso was a remote, lawless boomtown. The city was seeking to hire an outsider with a “rough reputation”.

Stoudenmire traveled to El Paso by stagecoach and was soon hired.

Marshal Stoudenmire started his tenure in El Paso on Monday, April 11, 1881. He was the sixth town marshal in eight months.

The City Council immediately asked him to take the city jail keys from deputy marshal and town drunkard Bill Johnson.

Witnesses alleged that Stoudenmire approached an intoxicated Johnson asking for the jail keys. Johnson mumbled that he would go home and figure out which keys were his, and which were the city’s.

Stoudenmire became impatient and demanded he hand over the keys right away. When Johnson demurred, the marshal physically turned Johnson upside down, grabbed the keys, then threw him to the ground. Johnson was publicly humiliated.

Prelude to a Gunfight

On Thursday, April 14, 1881 – only three days into his new job – Stoudenmire became involved in one of the most famous gunfights in Old West history, called the “Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight”.

This gunfight was well publicized in newspapers in cities as far away as San Francisco and New York City.

The events began a mile (1.6 km) south, at the Rio Grande – which divided the U.S.A. and Mexico.

Roughly 75 heavily-armed Mexican cowboys galloped into El Paso, looking for two missing young Mexican cowboys, Sanchez and Juarique, plus thirty cattle stolen from a ranch just across the river. The missing animals belonged to a wealthy Mexican who had hired an armed posse to recover them.

El Paso County Constable Gus Krempkau was asked by the Mexican leader to lead them to a possible location. Krempkau agreed.

The bodies of the two missing Mexicans were discovered near Johnny Hale’s ranch about 13 miles (21 km) northwest of El Paso. Hale was a ranch owner and cattle rustler.

The bodies were taken back to town.

Two American cattle rustlers, Pervey and Fredericks, were accused of the murders, after they were overheard bragging about killing the two cowboys when they found them trailing the herd to Hale’s ranch.

A large crowd gathered in El Paso, including John Hale and his friend, former town marshal George Campbell.

There was animosity and worry among the Americans about the presence of heavily armed Mexicans within the city limits, demanding justice for the slain men.

An inquest was held in court. Constable Krempkau was fluent in Spanish and was required to interpret for the judge.

The two Americans were formally charged with the murders and immediately arrested. They were scheduled for trial at a later date. The court was adjourned and the crowd dispersed.

The armed Mexicans, now calm, took the two corpses back to Mexico for proper burial.

The “Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight”

On April 14, 1881 Constable Krempkau went into a saloon to retrieve his rifle and pistol. A confrontation erupted with George Campbell over comments allegedly made by Campbell about Krempkau.

A heavily intoxicated John Hale, who was allegedly unarmed and upset by Krempkau’s role in the investigation, pulled one of Campbell’s two pistols and shot Krempkau.

Marshal Stoudenmire was eating dinner across the street. He ran out and started shooting, killing first an innocent Mexican bystander, then Hale.

When Campbell saw Hale go down, he tried to stop the fight, but Krempkau, thinking Campbell had shot him, fired at him before losing consciousness.

Campbell screamed and scooped up his gun. Stoudenmire then fired and killed him.

After the Gunfight

This gunfight made Stoudenmire a legend, but it eventually had deadly consequences.

Stoudenmire had few friends in El Paso, whereas both Campbell and Hale had many. Eventually, Stoudenmire would stand alone in his own defense of his actions.

Three days after the gunfight, on April 17, 1881, James Manning (he and his brothers were friends to Hale and Campbell) convinced former Deputy Marshal Bill Johnson to assassinate Stoudenmire. Johnson was known to have a profound hatred and grudge against Stoudenmire for publicly humiliating him.

That same night, Johnson, heavily intoxicated, squatted behind a large pillar of bricks with a loaded double-barreled shotgun and waited.

When he heard the voices of Stoudenmire and Stoudenmire’s brother-in-law, Stanley “Doc” Cummings, his legs started to wobble and he fell backward, accidentally firing both shells into the air. Stoudenmire quickly pulled out his pistols and fired at Johnson eight times, severing his testicles. Johnson bled to death, within minutes.

This started a feud between Stoudenmire and the Mannings.

Within six days of having started his job as town marshal, Stoudenmire had killed four men, one accidentally. Between the killing of Johnson and the following February, Stoudenmire killed another six men in shootouts during arrests, and the city’s crime rate dropped dramatically.

His reputation, as both a lawman and a gunman, grew to legendary status.

Feud!

On February 14, 1882, James Manning killed “Doc” Cummings – supposedly while acting in self-defense after an earlier argument that evening had escalated. Manning claimed that Cummings had pulled his pistol and verbally threatened to kill him outside the saloon, when an innocent bystander walked by.

Cummings whirled and growled, “Now, are you not one of his friends?”

The bystander squealed his innocence, but Cummings allowed him to go, provided that he walked with his arms up in the air, into the darkness of night.

Cummings then turned and realized that Manning had gone back inside the saloon. Cummings entered and again verbally threatened to kill him.

Manning left the bar briefly and appeared in the hallway. Armed with his pistols, Manning snapped, “We will settle this for now and all.”

In an instant, gunfire erupted from both sides. Hit, Cummings staggered out across a wooden sidewalk toppling backward onto the dusty street as he screamed in agony, then died.

Manning was acquitted in a trial attended by a large number of local residents who were friends of the Mannings. This enraged Stoudenmire.

Unfortunately for El Paso, Cummings had been the only man able to face up to or control Stoudenmire’s fierce temper. He began to publicly confront those responsible for James Manning’s acquittal, and caused many to avoid coming into town or visiting saloons, for fear of running into an irate Stoudenmire.

Alone

Despite his prowess and expertise with handguns, and his effectiveness as a lawman, Stoudenmire was still an outsider.

Locally, he had several things going against him.

He was not from El Paso, and had no family there other than his own family and his now deceased brother-in-law. The Mannings had been in El Paso longer, and had many friends in the general population as well as in high places in the city government.

Stoudenmire had only two things in his favor; he had dramatically lowered El Paso’s violent crime rate – and people truly feared him.

On May 27, 1882, the town council announced the firing of Stoudenmire. He walked into the council hall, drunk, and dared them to take his guns or his job. They attempted to calm him by telling him he could keep his job.

However, after sobering up, he resigned on his own on May 29, 1882 and became a proprietor of the Globe Restaurant, which had formerly belonged to Cummings. He was then appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal for Western Texas and New Mexico Territory.

U.S. Marshal – Still a Target

For a few short months, Stoudenmire served well as a Deputy U.S. Marshal.

However, the feud was far from over.

The Mannings, mainly “Doc” Manning (d.1925), James Manning (d.1915), and Frank Manning (d.1925), were careful to never confront Stoudenmire alone. Despite their hatred of him, he had shown his skill with a gun on several occasions, and this made them wary.

On one instance, while standing out in the street, a drunken Stoudenmire mocked them, daring them to come outside and fight him. They remained inside a saloon while other residents attempted to convince Stoudenmire to go away and sleep off his intoxication. Eventually he grew tired, called the Mannings cowards, and left.

The Death of Stoudenmire

On September 18, 1882, the Mannings and Stoudenmire met in a local saloon, to make what they would call a “peace treaty” to end the feud.

James Manning, believing things were settled, left.

Stoudenmire is reported to have said,”Doc, someone or somebody has been going about telling lies…”.

Doc replied, “Dallas, you have not kept your word.”

“Who ever says I have not tells a damn lie,” Stoudenmire roared.

Manning and Stoudenmire drew their pistols and fired. Stoudenmire’s friend tried to push both men, causing Stoudenmire to lose his balance and Doc’s bullet to hit Stoudenmire in his left arm. A second round barely penetrated Stoudenmire’s skin because of papers folded heavily in his shirt pocket. Nonetheless, the second shot knocked Stoudenmire down.

As he fell outside the doorway, he pulled one of his pistols with his right hand and shot “Doc” Manning in the arm.

As Stoudenmire was firing, James Manning came from behind Stoudenmire and fired two rounds, one hitting a barber’s pole, and the other hitting Stoudenmire behind the left ear, killing him. “Doc” Manning then commenced beating the dead man over the head with his own gun, before being restrained by James Manning.

His Funeral and Legacy

A funeral ceremony for Stoudenmire was held at El Paso’s Masonic Lodge #130. His wife Isabella then had his body shipped to Columbus, Texas for burial. All funeral expenses were paid for by the Masonic Lodge.

The Mannings stood trial for the murder, but were acquitted – again by a jury made up mostly of their friends. They continued to live in El Paso, and soon the killing of Dallas Stoudenmire was all but forgotten.

When Assistant City Marshal Thomas Moad was killed while investigating a disturbance at a local brothel on July 11, 1883, Frank Manning was appointed to replace him. However, he only kept the job temporarily, as he often failed to arrest friends and acquaintances.

Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire has been credited for successfully taming a wild and violent town.

Even today, the El Paso Police Department acknowledges and pays tribute to the legendary Marshal Stoudenmire, for his accomplishments.

An intriguing tale.

I hope you’ll join me, for the next one.

Till then.

Peace.