The Karpis-Barker Gang

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 426 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford.

Morph, what's going on this week, buddy?

I'm doing pretty good. A little bit busy running around, doing errands and stuff like that, but always happy to sit down and record with you. How you doing?

Yeah, I'm doing great. You know, this is my favorite part of the week, right? The research, all of that is what it is. That's the work part. The sitting down and talking about the case, that's the fun part. So I'm ready to get into it.

Yeah, and we've got an interesting one today. It's something different, and I like that every once in a while.

Yeah, me too. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had one new supporter, and that's Camilla Valani. So that is great support. We really appreciate it.

Well, that's awesome, Camilla. Thanks so much. And thanks to everyone else that helps support the show. For anyone else that would like to, head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.

All right, let's jump right into this week's case. And you mentioned it, it's a little bit of a different type of case. We're discussing one of the most violent and long lasting criminal organizations during the Great Depression. This group did a lot of bad stuff. And one member of that group, a man named Alvin Creepy Carpus, was so bad that he wound up being named Public Enemy Number One by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was one of only four men ever to be on that list, along with infamous names like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Babyface Nelson, all some of the most infamous names in crime.

Alvin Francis Carpevisius, Alvin with a B, who would become known as Alvin Karpis, was born in Montreal, Canada, on August 10, 1907. When he was young, his family moved to Topeka, Kansas. By 10 years old, Alvin was already getting into trouble. It seems he never cleaned up his act, because when he was 19, he was arrested for attempted burglary and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Somewhere along the way, Alvin got the nickname Creepy, supposedly due to the way he smiled.

Creepy didn't take his time behind bars to reflect or change. Instead, he decided to hone his criminal skills and get into even more trouble. On March 9, 1929, about three years into his sentence, he escaped with another inmate named Lawrence DeVal. The two made their way nearly 400 miles west, traveling from the state industrial reformatory in Hutchinson, Kansas, to Pueblo, Colorado. Once in Pueblo, they stole a car and switched directions. They made their way back east, about 400 miles to Woodward, Oklahoma. It was during this time that the Great Depression in the US had begun. Poverty, homelessness,

breadlines, and soup kitchens made a lot of people, not just criminals, very desperate. But for bad guys like Creepy and DeVal, it made them especially desperate and a lot more dangerous. So Morph, I've been excited for this episode. I've always had kind of a fascination with this time period, right? The Great Depression, the gangsters. Let's face it, they've been romanticized in movies for many, many years. And these are big names, right, that we're throwing out there. But this, the idea that the Great Depression

caused so many different people to be desperate, it's very true. But then you had people who were already criminals. And that just, you know, kind of pushed them into almost another stratosphere.

Yeah, I think it probably, that time period made a lot of people that were desperate for food, to feed themselves or children, you know, maybe do some things they wouldn't normally do. But for criminals that were already into that kind of stuff, it probably just fueled, you know, their desire to go out and make money any way they could during that time, because it was hard to come by. And I just want to say too, the name Creepy seems like a great moniker to have, even though it might be because he was creepy looking. It's a name that's memorable, like some of those other names we've mentioned, like

Babyface and those kinds of names are something you can look back on and remember. It sounds pretty sinister.

Yeah, Pretty Boy. I mean, it's part of the romanticism, though. I mean, I know Creepy's not romanticized, but these people, and I definitely in the movies, and I think even back when it was happening, there were people rooting for them. You know, I don't know that you would have that today, but they were taking what they wanted. They were robbing banks. They were doing all kinds of different things. And somehow, everyday, ordinary people were kind of like, yeah, I wish I could do that, I think. I don't know what they were thinking, but there were a lot of people who looked at what they did

as almost like Robin Hood-ish, which I always have thought was strange. I don't know that they were giving to the poor. I think they were just taking.

That romanticism you mentioned, you know, that was long lasting, because look how many gangster movies were inspired by those kinds of people. On March 23, 1930, just over a year after escaping, the law caught up with the two fugitives, and both men were arrested together for stealing a car. Creepy was first sent back to the reformatory and later moved to a different facility, the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing. This facility is where he met Fred Barker of the Bloody Barker Gang, who would later become his literal partner in crime. Barker was serving time for bank robbery. In 1931, Creepy was released from prison. By then, his old partner in crime, DeVal, had already been released on parole, but he didn't stick around waiting for Creepy.

So Creepy traveled down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the Barkers lived.

Fred Barker was the youngest son of George and Ma Barker. Ma's birth name was Arizona, but she eventually started going by the alias of Kate. Once her sons were infamous, she became known as Ma. She had four sons, Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Fred. By the time Creepy met up with the family in Tulsa, Herman was dead, and Arthur and Lloyd were in prison. Herman had taken his own life four years earlier after being pulled over by the police in Wichita, Kansas. He was wanted for killing a police officer, and he didn't want to be taken into custody. Lloyd and Arthur had been arrested for different crimes in 1921.

So Morph, we are throwing around some, you know, let's face it, very infamous names, right? In the world of crime back in the day, Ma Barker, the Barker Gang. I mean, you watch any movie that is based on real life characters around, you know, gangs of the Great Depression, you're going to hear all these names. They're going to be in there.

Yeah, definitely some historic aspects to these names, and reminiscent to me of their predecessors, like the James Gang. You know, that was sort of a family affair, and I think this was something along those lines.

Yeah, that's very interesting, because you think about the Old West and the gangs. There were a lot of family gangs, and I think the same for like the Great Depression era.

So the early gang consisted of Creepy, Fred Barker, and their associates. In June of 1931, just months after Creepy was released, he and Fred Barker were arrested for burglary. They both paid restitution and were released on parole, free to commit more crimes. On December 19th, 1931, Fred and Creepy killed Sheriff C. Roy Kelly in West Plains, Missouri. He recognized their car as the vehicle used by suspects in a burglary the day before. As Sheriff Kelly walked toward the car, they shot him. Soon after this, investigators raided the Thayer, Missouri home of Arthur Dunlap, Ma Barker's boyfriend, after getting a tip that a suspicious man was living there. Stolen goods from the December 18th burglary were found in the shed on the property.

Investigators believe that Creepy and Fred Barker, or at the very least Fred Barker, were also responsible for the November 1931 murder of Pocahontas Police Department Chief Manley Jackson in Arkansas. He had been gunned down on the side of a highway.

And, and this is why for me, it's hard to believe that some of these figures are romanticized in history and were even looked at, at the time, as kind of Robin Hood-like or cheered on. I mean, they killed a lot of law enforcement officers back then, right? If you got pulled over, it seems like the easiest way out for them was just to kill the person pulling them over?

Yeah, there's no doubt they were very ruthless and, you know, it is strange that people would be rooting on people that were going around murdering people, but that's definitely the case. This was more than a case of Robin Hood stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, that kind of thing. This was pure cold-blooded murder.

Suspected in two murders of police officers. The gang, feeling the heat, made their way to Chicago, Illinois, but they had to be careful because gangster Al Capone was already well-established there and they didn't want to get on his bad side. So instead of staying in Chicago, they settled in Minnesota for a while, specifically St. Paul, where former police chief John O'Connor had encouraged criminals to live by making an agreement that any known criminals who told authorities they were in town and paid a fee would not be arrested or hassled, provided they didn't commit crimes in the city. There, they worked with Tom Brown, new chief of the St. Paul Police Department, who was

extremely corrupt. In exchange for cash, he would warn criminals about searches so they could look squeaky clean or even get out of the area. And this one kind of blew me away more. You have this police chief actually encouraging criminals, gang members, hey, you know, come live here. As long as you tell us we're here and you pay a fee and you don't commit your crimes in the city, you can live here and you won't be hassled. And on top of that, we'll even warn you, right? If somebody's about ready to come and, and raid.

Yeah, that's in-your-face corruption. That arrangement wouldn't fly today, but I think back then, because people were so desperate, you know, that kickback, that money exchange during those times when money was so short, I think a lot of people would probably be on the take and looking to make an extra buck when they could.

Yeah, I think a lot of people, especially in, in law enforcement, unfortunately were on the take, you know, back in the day. But I just wonder how much of this is, hey, I don't want to get killed, so I'll just make a deal with these people. If not, they're probably just going to kill me.

Yeah, and one interesting thing is they want the criminals to come to town, but don't commit crimes. So I mean, did they have to sign a contract or what was the deal there? I, I wouldn't trust criminals not to commit crimes, you know, just because, you know, they promise.

No, we just take their word for it.

On April 25th, 1932, the owner of the home that Ma Barker was running in St. Paul became suspicious of the occupants and reported them to the police. She believed she had seen wanted posters for Creepy and Fred Barker, but Chief Brown made sure the tip was not immediately acted upon, and he gave the gang time to flee. On April 26th, 1932, the day after the tip about the gang, the body of Arthur Dunlap, Ma Barker's boyfriend, was recovered from Lake Fransted in Minnesota. He had been shot three times. Investigators believe that Creepy and Fred Barker murdered him, thinking that he was the one who called in the tip.

The gang continued to commit crimes as they traveled around eluding police. In June of 1932, Creepy, his old friend Larry Duvall, Fred Barker, and others robbed a bank in Fort Scott, Kansas. In September of 1932, Arthur "Doc" Barker was released from prison and joined in the gang's criminal activities. In December of that year, the gang robbed the Third Northwestern Bank in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Two police officers and an innocent bystander were killed. Just five days later, Duvall was arrested and the rest of the gang fled Minnesota.

It's said Creepy may have spent time in Reno, Nevada, as well as California, before making his way back east.

Creepy, Doc Barker, and five others, including Frank Nash, robbed the First National Bank in Fairburg, Nebraska on April 4th, 1933. Nash ended up behind bars. On June 17th of that year, a different gang trying to free Frank Nash from federal custody killed two Kansas City police officers, the Oklahoma Police Chief, an FBI agent, and Frank Nash, as well as wounding an additional FBI agent. This all happened in a 30-second ambush, now known as the Kansas City Massacre. This was a violent and well-publicized event. In fact, this ambush directly influenced FBI policy moving forward. The agents had no way to defend themselves since at the time FBI agents were unarmed.

They weren't even able to take anyone into custody. They had to call the United States Marshals or the local sheriff's office and let them arrest a suspect. Soon after the Kansas City massacre, they were allowed to carry firearms, a practice which obviously continues to this day.

Okay, tough time to be an FBI agent, right? You're trying to combat some of these very violent individuals and you don't even have a gun.

Yeah, I think it's clear that they were outgunned. They didn't have any guns, so clearly outgunned, but I, I think even the police that were armed were outgunned, were outgunned because a lot of these mobsters back then carried Tommy guns, machine guns. So, you know, imagine if you've got a revolver or something along those lines going up against someone with a machine gun.

Yeah, there's no doubt law enforcement was always behind the criminals, right? They had better weapons, they had faster vehicles. They would buy or do anything to try to get an edge, to help them get away. It's, it's one of the reasons why, you know, they came up with the National Firearms Act of 1934 to try to curb all these, you know, automatic weapons. You were talking about the Tommy guns. You see them in all the movies and that act still exists today. It's almost 100 years old. You know what, folks?

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Around 1:00 in the afternoon on June 15, 1933, Hamm left the brewery on his lunch break. Four members of the gang, including Doc Barker, were waiting for him. According to the Minneapolis Journal, he was almost to his home when someone stopped him, put their hand out to shake his, and said, "How do you do, Mr. Hamm?" Afraid to offend someone he may have met in the past but didn't remember, he stopped to shake hands. Before he knew it, the man and another had grabbed both of his arms. He was forced into the car and pushed down onto the floor in the backseat. A bag was placed over his head. The whole time, he could feel the barrel of a gun pressing into his back, so he laid on the floor of

the car. He was driven to Wisconsin. The gang forced him to sign multiple ransom notes. After this, they put goggles on him that had cotton stuffed against the lenses, effectively making them a blindfold. He was then taken to yet another location in Illinois. Hamm's family was called, informed he had been kidnapped, and instructed to wait for further information.

One of the members of the gang took one ransom note to St. Paul, Minnesota, and paid a taxi driver to deliver it to the brewery. The gang was demanding $100,000. Today, that would be over $2.5 million. A second note was sent by a third party, thanks to a ruse by one of the members of the gang. After William Dunn, the manager of the brewery, purchased something at a drugstore near his home, a man entered and asked for something that required the pharmacist to step away from the counter. The man was gone by the time the pharmacist returned. But a few minutes later, the phone rang. It was Mr. Dunn, asking if he had dropped a letter in the store. The pharmacist found an envelope with his

name on it, so it was returned to the Dunn residence. Only, it hadn't been Mr. Dunn calling, and he hadn't dropped anything in the store. That had been one of the gang members, making sure the second ransom note got delivered to those close to Hamm. The gang was obviously watching Dunn, who was acting as negotiator and the point of contact, since they were able to send someone into the drugstore just after he left.

Hamm's family did pay up, though we don't know the actual amount that was paid, and it speculated that it was much less than the original demand. And they complied with the drop-off instructions. They tossed the money from a moving car on the highway. The gang was able to successfully retrieve the money, because Chief Brown told them about what authorities were planning at every step, enabling them to stay one step ahead of the investigation. Days after his abduction, Hamm was taken to Wyoming, Minnesota, nearly 50 miles north of St. Paul, and left near a barn in the early hours of the morning. He was let go. It was reported that he was unharmed and told his loved ones that the gang treated him well. He told the Minneapolis Journal, "They were very courteous to me

at all times, and gave me all the care that I needed." He even remembered that one of the men told him, "If there's ever anything we can do for you, Mr. Hamm, just let us know."

Okay, so they were nice kidnappers. That's basically what he's saying. But yeah, the thing that strikes me here more is this Chief Brown being so involved. You know, it's a lot harder to be caught when you have a prominent member of law enforcement who knows everything that law enforcement's doing, and they're telling you. A lot easier to steer clear.

Yeah, it almost sounds like a movie plot. I think some movies come to mind that sort of have that kind of theme, where inside information is going to a bad guy from, you know, someone who you assume to be a good guy, and the criminals are somehow steering clear of it. And, you know, that's definitely what was happening back then.

Chief Brown was given a portion of the ransom money for his help. Initially, everyone assumed that two bank robbers, Vern Sankey and Gordon Alcorn, had kidnapped Hamm. It was a fair assumption. They had just pulled off two kidnappings, one in St. Paul and one in South Dakota. They hadn't been caught at the time of Hamm's kidnapping. And Hamm himself thought one of the men, the one who took the ransom note to the taxi driver, looked like a mugshot he was shown of Vern Sankey. Although Sankey and Alcorn weren't involved with Hamm's kidnapping, investigators tracked them down anyway and questioned them, and they strongly denied being involved. And it seems as if police believed them. At

the time, the Barkers and Creepy, the real men behind Hamm's abduction, weren't on the radar in the area.

Investigators kept digging, looking for Hamm's true abductors. They were able to collect the perpetrator's fingerprints from the ransom notes. They used a brand-new technique involving silver nitrate instead of fingerprint powder. There were no central databases at the time and no computers to automatically find print matches, though. So they would need to scour prints from any suspects and compare them one at a time using a magnifying glass, a tedious and time-consuming task. Meanwhile, the true perpetrators kept terrorizing everyone in their path.

And it amazes me more if that they actually had, you know, this level of technology in the 1930s. Now, they didn't have a good way to look for matches, I get that, but they still caught people using fingerprints in the 1930s, and that's kind of amazing.

Yeah, I mean, that's good old-fashioned police work, just stick-to-itiveness and taking time and being patient and picking up the magnifying glass and just hoping you find the right match to a print.

On August 30, 1933, the gang robbed Stockyards National Bank in St. Paul, Minnesota. Patrolman Leo Pavlik, who was accompanying two employees to and from the post office, was shot and killed. Officer John Yeeman was shot in the head, but survived. Less than a month later, the exact same scenario played out again in Chicago. Five members of the gang robbed two Federal Reserve messengers. As they sped away from the scene, they crashed into another car. Officer Miles Cunningham and his partner happened to witness the crash, and they ran to the scene. Officer Cunningham went unknowingly toward the gang's car.

His partner went to the car of the uninvolved and unlucky people who were hit. Officer Cunningham was shot by one of the members of the gang as they exited the vehicle. They stole a nearby car and took off. Officer Cunningham died from his injury. And just another example of how ruthless these people were. Right? Here's an officer who is just trying to help people, sees a crash and thinks, "Oh, my gosh, I gotta run over, see what's going on." But it's like, their first instinct is to just shoot. I mean, that seems like that's what their mentality was.

Yeah, that poor officer had no idea what he was running into, and, you know, just in the wrong place at the wrong time, just trying to help someone, and this is what happened.

Also, one of the officers was shot in the head, you know, during the bank robbery and survived. Hard to believe you could survive a gunshot to the head in the 1930s.

Yeah, and I wonder what the long-lasting effects for him were from that injury. With the FBI still chasing down the wrong suspects, the creepy Barker gang chose a new target. Their first kidnapping had gone off without a hitch and they received thousands of dollars for just a few days of work. There hadn't been any consequences yet. So they decided to kidnap Edward Brummer Jr., president of Commercial State Bank and the heir to the Schmidt Beer Brewery. Instead of robbing Commercial State Bank, they figured they'd go for its president. On January 17, 1934, Brummer was walking to his car when the gang found him. Luckily, he had just dropped his nine-year-old daughter off at her school, so she wasn't involved in what happened next.

Doc Barker walked right up to Brummer and pistol-whipped him. Doc continued beating Brummer until he and his accomplice had him in the backseat of his own car with blacked-out goggles over his eyes. They drove to Bensonville, Illinois, switching vehicles on the way. Eventually, after 13 different ransom demands had been made, Brummer's family decided to pay. $200,000 was left near Zambroda, Minnesota. Every single serial number on each bill given to the kidnappers was recorded by the FBI before the money was dropped off. Flashlights

used to mark the drop spot were purchased at a local store, and the cashier remembered Creepy's face.

Brummer was released after weeks as a hostage. While driving Brummer to the drop-off point, Doc Barker made a big mistake. They knew it was far enough away that they would need to refuel, but they didn't want to risk stopping off at a station with a kidnapping victim in the car. So Doc planned ahead and brought a gas can. They had been very careful during this whole scheme, taking care to wear gloves the whole time, except for when he was putting more gas in the car. Doc had to take off one of his gloves for this. He threw the empty gas can on the side of the road. With Edward Brummer's help, describing many details, he was smart to observe while he was being held captive. Authorities were able to collect the gas can and a funnel and dust them for prints. They found a match. Doc Barker.

So now it was clear exactly who was involved with the kidnapping. It's important to point out that Creepy and Fred Barker had their fingerprints altered by Joseph Moran, a physician well-known for working with gangsters. They essentially went through a process to try and get rid of their fingertip ridges. He also helped launder some of the ransom money. Creepy and Fred also paid Moran for some kind of plastic surgery to disguise their appearance, but it didn't change their physical appearance, and the whole process was agonizing.

The efforts to evade capture must have involved a lot of physical pain. There's a photograph online of Creepy's fingertips showing smooth spots, likely from some kind of acid solution where the ridges should be. You can still see some ridges, and some fingers are much smoother than the others. It was an obvious attempt to obliterate his fingerprints, but it just changed them a little bit. It's unclear whether the knowledge that the authorities had collected prints from the gas can influenced his decision to alter his prints, whether he was already planning to do this, or whether he had already done so in preparation for the kidnapping. Doc Barker's fingerprints, which were not altered, let law enforcement know that the gang was involved in the Brummer kidnapping. They just had to find them.

So I talked earlier, Morphe, about, you know, these gangs kind of looking for every advantage. Whether it was, you know, having the fastest cars, the Tommy guns, the newest and latest in firearms. I mean, here we're talking about, you know, them trying plastic surgery, trying to get rid of their fingerprints. I mean, they went to great lengths to try to keep doing what they were doing and not to be captured.

Yeah, back during that time period, you know, they didn't have to worry about DNA and some of that kind of stuff, but they knew prints were a real threat to them being discovered. So they, you know, tried to make moves to keep that from happening. It's almost like something out of the movie Seven where his fingerprints were removed from Kevin Spacey's character, the killer.

But it sounds very painful, and it sounds like it really didn't work all that well. In April of 1934, there were multiple breaks in the investigation into the Karpis Barker gang. First, the bills from the ransom began to appear. On April 23, a man walked into a bank in Chicago, Illinois with $900 from the Brummer ransom money. He was trying to exchange it, which raised suspicion. This was William Fidler, who was arrested and found with $2,625 from the Brummer ransom. This arrest started a domino effect of more arrests.

The gang split up. Some of them went to Cuba for a while, but eventually ended up back in the US. Creepy was afraid that the money they were spending could be tracked, and he was right. Bills from the ransom money had been spent or exchanged in Havana, Cuba.

We talked about the efforts for the gang to avoid capture, hiding their prints, taking steps to not be identified or caught, and, you know, they had to spend this money. So without, you know, technology, computers to help them record all these serial numbers, they had to do that, you know, by hand, and that must have been painstaking to go one bill at a time for all these bills and record all those serial numbers.

Yeah, it would have taken a lot of effort, right, to record all these serial numbers, but it's also kind of what they had to work with. And really, if you think about it, a great idea.

One by one, members of the gang were arrested as investigators tried to make their way to Creepy and the Barkers. On May 4, 1934, an indictment was returned for those involved with kidnapping. Nearly a dozen people, including Alvin "Creepy" Karpis and Doc Barker. A few more conspirators were already dead. On January 8, 1935, Doc Barker was arrested in Chicago. During a search of his belongings, investigators found a machine gun that had been stolen from Officer John Yeeman, who was wounded during the robbery at Stockyards National Bank in St. Paul, Minnesota, in August of 1933. This tied him directly to that crime. Also among his possessions was a letter sent to him by Ma Barker. A mention of an alligator that

locals called Gator Joe helped authorities track the gang to Florida's Lake Weir, where agents then asked locals if anyone was new in town. They were quickly told about the Blackburns, a mother and her sons who were vacationing in the area.

At 5:00 in the morning on January 16, 1935, FBI agents raided a home in Oclawha, Florida, where the Barkers and Alvin Karpis were believed to be hiding. At the time, only Fred and Ma Barker were inside. The rest of the gang had left the home just three days earlier. Fred and Ma were together in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Agents shouted out commands, and Fred answered by shooting at them. The agents returned fire. This reportedly went on for at least four hours, long enough to draw a crowd of locals. When it was all

over, Fred and Ma were dead. 33-year-old Fred had been hit many times. Ma was shot just once. A Thompson submachine gun, known as a Tommy gun, was found either on the floor between their bodies or in Ma's hands, depending on which source is describing the scene. Inside the home, investigators recovered multiple firearms, tons of ammo, and $14,000. And we've mentioned this Tommy gun, right, a couple of times in the episode. It was a big deal back then. I mean, it was an automatic submachine gun. So when you pulled the trigger,

you just had to hold it down, and the bullets came out flying. It was very deadly, and a lot of these gangsters in the 30s carried them. But it's also interesting that it was a gun, it said machine gun, it might have been a Tommy gun, it probably was, that was actually stolen from the officer who was wounded, that tied Doc Barker directly to that crime. So he took this officer's gun and kept it.

Yeah, those Thompson machine guns are, were pretty lethal. They used them, I know they were still using them in World War II because of how deadly they were. So, you know, if you're one of these criminals, that's probably something you wanted to have, and it sounds like they did a lot of damage using those guns. But this seems like a really big score. When, you know, the dust settled and the shooting stopped, they found a lot of stuff inside that house, guns, cash, ammunition. So I think the law enforcement was pretty happy about this bust.

Well, not to mention that Fred and Ma were, you know, really wanted. I mean, they were high up there on the, on the list of wanted criminals. So, yeah, it was a big deal.

It's disputed whether anyone knew Ma Barker would be inside the home or that she was there when the shooting started. From being shot just once, it doesn't seem like she was really taking part in the gunfire, like Fred obviously was. This may be why it's also disputed just how involved Ma was with the gang and their activities. Some accounts paint Ma as the matriarch of a crime family that just kept growing, and others make Ma seem like a mother who loved her sons and their friends, even though they got into trouble sometimes. Many believe that the narrative making her look like a conspirator, or even leader, was invented after her death to help cover up the fact that shooting and killing her was an accident.

Either way, the elderly woman dead in the shootout didn't sit well with the public. The FBI's ability to carry guns was new, and here they were, shooting people's elderly mothers. That's not exactly the message they wanted to present to the public.

J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI, pushed back, and according to the Miami Herald, he called Ma "the most vicious, dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade." According to the ledger.com, Harvey Bailey, a criminal associate of the gang, once wrote about Ma, saying she couldn't plan breakfast, let alone a heist or kidnapping. Creepy would later write an autobiography and included a bit about Ma, describing her as mostly unaware of their plans and activities. The gang was apparently careful to plan their crimes when Ma was out of the house, running errands or going to the movies, which, because

of how often they were planning something, she did often. But here's the thing for me, Morf, regardless of whether Ma was a criminal mastermind, or she obviously knew, you know, what her sons and these other people were doing. She had, she had to know. There's no way around it. And she's in that house, and Fred is firing a Tommy submachine gun at officers. Well, there's gonna be returned fire. I get it, you know, shooting an elderly woman is

frowned upon, to say the least, but in this situation, I don't know what choice they had.

Yeah, if you got that kind of gunfire going back and forth, it's not out of the question that somebody, you know, is going to get hit that they're not aiming for. And it seems like that's what happened with Ma.

Well, and we talked a number of times about how this gang certainly was like, shoot first, right? Mentality. That's what they had. And especially with law enforcement. I don't think these guys were taking any chances.

On January 20th, 1935, authorities tracked Alvin Creepy Karpis down to a hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He and associate Harry Campbell came out of the hotel room, guns blazing. Creepy's pregnant girlfriend, Dolores Delaney, was with him and was shot in the leg. It was clear that Creepy was all about himself, because rather than help Dolores, he fled. Harry Campbell also left his girlfriend, Winona Burdette, behind, and the women were taken into custody. The two women were indicted for conspiracy and kidnapping. Dolores and Winona were arrested for harboring and conspiring with Creepy. They both pled guilty and were sentenced to five years in prison. Creepy's parents went on to adopt the son he had with Dolores.

After leaving their girlfriends behind, Karpis and Harry Campbell escaped and drove through Pennsylvania, where they kidnapped a doctor and forced him to drive to Ohio where they left him. They then went on to Michigan. By March 1935, they were in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In April, they robbed a mail truck in Warren, Ohio, getting away with $72,000. In June, they spent time in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Alvin Karpis continued to outmaneuver the authorities and avoided capture. And, you know, one thing that really jumps out at me is how much these people drove the country. I mean, they were all over the place.

And maybe part of that was just not wanting to stay in one place, you know, for too long. They're trying to avoid capture, but they really, you know, traversed the country and drove a lot.

Yeah, I think in a time before cellphone tracking and cameras all over the place, it would be much easier to stay one step ahead of the police if they could move around. And I think, you know, that was all a big part of their plan to, to stay one step ahead of the police. On September 26, 1935, a body was pulled from Lake Erie. Dental records confirmed the identity as Dr. Joseph Moran, the criminal physician who helped alter Creepy's fingerprints. He had been missing since July of 1934. The last time anyone saw Moran, he was drinking with the Barkers and Creepy in Ohio. It was after the gang had kidnapped Edward Bremer, and Moran had helped them launder some of the ransom money. He had, according to witnesses,

drunkenly, stupidly, whatever you want to call it, started bragging about how he knew so much about their crimes, and how he could basically tank the whole operation if he wanted to. It seems that Karpis wasn't going to risk this guy spilling his secrets, so he killed him to silence him. Alvin Karpis would later admit that Moran had been murdered, but claimed that the body pulled out of Lake Erie was not his body. According to Karpis, Fred and Doc Barker killed Moran and buried his remains in a lime pit somewhere in Michigan. And according to him, he didn't know whose body had been recovered.

So, you know, you're taking a real chance, right? This doctor did. He's helping, you know, these guys kind of alter their appearance, alter their fingerprints. He even laundered money for them. So he knows a lot about what's going on with the gang. I think that's a real dangerous position to be in, because at what point are they going to want to try to silence you? And obviously, at some point, they did. But how dumb is it to, you know, get drunk and then basically start bragging about how much you know and what damage you could do? You gotta know what these people are capable of.

Yeah, this whole situation to me is sort of reminiscent of that scene out of Goodfellas, where Jimmy Conway starts whacking all of the people that connect him to the, the heist they pulled off. And I think in this situation, similar, if you're involved, you have knowledge, you can, you can turn witness against someone and get them in trouble, then they're going to, you know, eliminate you. And I think that's what Creepy and the gang did here.

Yeah, you mentioned Goodfellas. It's definitely one of my favorite movies. But the thing that struck me about that was, you know, they were killing people who knew about the heist for that reason. But I also think they were killing them because they wanted their cut of the money. It was almost like, uh, there was two different reasons for the murders.

Yeah. And if this doctor, you know, I don't know why he ever decided to do what he did and get involved with this gang, but, you know, he was probably looking over his shoulder because, you know, he might've thought if they just suspect he said something, even if he hadn't, he could be killed. So I wouldn't want to have been in his shoes at that time.

In November of 1935, Alvin Karpis and what was left of the gang robbed a train in Garrettsville, Ohio, making off with at least $34,000. On May 2nd, 1936, Creepy's luck finally ran out. Authorities apprehended him as he was getting into a car outside of his apartment in New Orleans. There was no shootout, no police chase. Karpis cooperated without a shot being fired, and he was taken into custody. He was the only person ever designated on the FBI's public enemy number one list to be taken into custody a lot.

Alvin Karpis was hit with a number of charges related to the federal kidnapping and conspiracy. At first, he fought the charges, but he ended up changing his plea from not guilty on all charges to guilty of conspiracy in exchange for the kidnapping charge getting dropped. And amazingly, although Creepy was charged in relation to multiple murders, he was never convicted of them. Creepy and Doc Barker were both sentenced to life in prison and sent to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. While Alcatraz is famous for escape attempts, Creepy never tried to escape, despite previously escaping from prison.

While Alvin Karpis never tried to flee Alcatraz, his buddy Doc Barker was one of the many who tried to get off the island. On January 13th, 1939, he and four other inmates saw through the bars of their cell and made their way out of the building. Once on the shore, they found the tide impossible to swim against, and they just kept getting washed back onto the island. A guard spotted them from the watchtower and opened fire, striking Doc in the legs and head. He died from his injuries, supposedly after interfering with an attempted blood transfusion by removing the tube from his arm. And the other four men were taken back into custody.

And this case really conjures up a lot of movies for me. And this time I'm thinking about that movie with Clint Eastwood, Escape from Alcatraz, which is a great film, which really portrays what it was like in that prison and how hard it was to get out of there and how desperate people were to try.

Well, and I think it's why the people who did allegedly escape are so immortalized, because it really was almost impossible to get off this island, right? The tide was said to have been so strong that it was, it was almost impossible to swim it. So they, they're really, to this day, still trying to figure out how and if those people really did escape.

Yeah, there's theories ranging from them drowning and their bodies just being washed out to sea and other theories that they assumed new identities and lived out the rest of their lives.

But you're right in that, you know, this episode does conjure up a lot of movies. Cause let's face it, there have been a lot of mob movies, you know, depression era gang movies, a lot have been made. And even recently, you know, throughout this episode, I've kind of been thinking about the Netflix movie, The Highwaymen. Did you watch that one?

No, I haven't seen that one.

Yeah, it's really good. It's, it's Woody Harrelson, Kevin Costner. They're basically agents trying to track down, you know, some of these famous mobsters. One thing I think it does really well is it paints a picture of what law enforcement had to do in terms of vehicles, firepower, to try to even catch up to the criminals. Because they were always one step ahead of them. Faster cars, bigger guns, more powerful guns, which seems strange today, right? You think of law enforcement as always having the advantage when it comes to that. But that it definitely wasn't the case back then.

Doc Barker's brother Lloyd Barker, the second oldest Barker brother, the only one who wasn't part of their deadly gang, and the only Barker who never killed anyone, was finally released from prison in October of 1938, just months before Doc was killed at Alcatraz. He wound up serving in the United States Army as a clerk and received an honorable discharge. He was killed in 1949 when his wife Jenny Winn shot him in the head with a shotgun. He was 52. A Time Magazine article called him the only one of Ma's boys who ever did an honest day's work.

As for Alvin Creepy Karpis, he served 26 years at Alcatraz, the longest amount of time anyone ever served on the island. Despite the life sentence, in 1969, Creepy was released on parole. He was also deported back to Canada where he was born. This was a difficult process because his fingerprints no longer matched the ones on file in Canada or on any of his official documents. He had to reestablish his identity. He lived in Montreal until 1973, when he moved to Spain. He actually lived a long life. On August 26, 1979, he

died at the age of 71, still living in Spain. There was speculation that he took his own life with an overdose of sleeping pills because there was a bottle of them near his bed. But according to the coroner, the cause of death was actually heart failure. And you know, Morph, in this episode, we've only mentioned a small amount of people connected to the gang and their criminal activities. There were many more, and most of them were either killed by authorities or arrested. I mean, you could make an episode like this into three or four episodes, if you really wanted to. If you wanted to get nitty gritty and talk

about every single person involved in the gang. But Creepy's death officially marked the end of the Karpis Barker gang.

In October 2016, Ma Barker's house, as it's now called, the home where Ma and Fred Barker were killed, was moved to its current location on Carney Island. It was floated across Lake Weir on a barge, restored and updated with modern air conditioning. It's now a museum and can be toured by request. It's one place that can still be visited to remind people of just how violent and infamous this gang was. And it's why they're still talked about, along with other infamous gangsters from the depression era.

So as we wrap this one up, you know, I said it early on, I feel like some of these gangs, these gangsters, they're often romanticized in films, but there obviously was nothing romantic about these people. They were ruthless. They were vicious. We talked about a number of, you know, police officers that they killed. Now, to be fair, it does seem like there was quite a bit of law enforcement that was on the take back then, right? Some actually helping the gang out. It wasn't the Wild West, but it was still much more Wild West than, than today.

And you mentioned on the take and the fact that Alvin Creepy Karpis served, you know, less than three decades, basically, when he was involved or played a role or responsible for the murders of multiple people. For him to get out, I wonder if someone somewhere along the way made that possible because they didn't want to be dragged in because they were shady too, or on the take. And they made sure his sentence was pretty light and he never faced sentencing for, for any murders.

Yeah, that could be, but he was behind bars for 26 years. So if he wanted to spill, he could have. My thinking was it was more about sentencing guidelines back then, maybe just not being quite as tough as we think of them today. Obviously, if you're involved in killing law enforcement today, you're not getting out. You're never getting out of prison.

Yeah, the fact that he served his time, got out and went on to live in Canada and then moved to Spain and lived out his years is, is pretty remarkable.

Yeah, it really is for all that he was involved in. But we, we mentioned a lot of different movies in this episode. You think of like the movie Hoover, where DiCaprio played Hoover. So many movies have been made about this era, about the larger than life criminals who kind of dominated the era. There is something that really grabs people's attention, right? And keeps it about some of these old gangsters. And not to mention Capone, we mentioned his name in the episode, but there's so many of them.

Yeah. Another one that just came to mind for me was Sonny at the toll booth in, in The Godfather, you know, speaking of the, those machine guns. You know, if you watch that scene, you see how deadly those, those weapons were and the fact these guys were using them made, you know, I think it demonstrates how ruthless and violent they were.

Well, they just didn't want to be caught, right? And they were willing to do anything to try to keep that from happening. But that's it for our episode on the Karpis Barker gang. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a rating, a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media or on every major platform, just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. You can also find old episodes, news about the show and more on our website, criminologypodcast.com. And if you want to discuss the show and the topics we cover, head over to Facebook and search for the Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans Group.

So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike

And Morph.

We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.