Pod Insights Infamous America BARKER GANG Ep. 2 | “Barker Bonnie and Clyde” About this episode When Herman Barker, the eldest son, returns home from prison, he assumes leadership of a new gang. He gets married, despite Ma’s protests, and his crimes turn him and his wife into fugitives. While on the run, Herman commits two headline grabbing murders to stay free. But the murders only buy him a little time before the end.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich, together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.
0:41 Speaker 01 1921 ended in miserable fashion for the Barker family. The three oldest sons, Herman, Lloyd, and Arthur, nicknamed Doc, were in prison. Herman was locked up in Minnesota, Lloyd was in Kansas, and Doc was in Oklahoma. That left the youngest of the four brothers, Fred, home alone in Tulsa with his mother. Kate Barker, better known as Ma Barker, was 48 years old, and she was the unquestioned leader of the family. She had guided all of her sons into the criminal underworld because she had romanticized the life of Old West outlaw Jesse James. She wanted excitement, riches, and no rules. Unfortunately, she had married a man, George Barker, who was the polar opposite of Jesse James.
1:26 Speaker 01 George was a mild-mannered, hard-working, law-abiding citizen. Ma had steamrolled George and had raised her four sons to be outlaws, and by the end of 1921, George was gone, like the three oldest boys. He left Ma and Fred in Tulsa and moved up to Joplin, Missouri. He had tolerated their criminal dealings as long as he could. But when Doc had led a robbery at a hospital construction site in June of 1921 and had murdered the night watchman in the process, George was done. Ma Barker was not happy about the turn of events. Her son's in prison, not the loss of her husband. But she was a determined woman. She stood just over five feet tall with a frumpy build and dark curly hair.
2:10 Speaker 01 She looked more like a grandmother than a gangster. But she ran a family of gangsters and then basically ran a boarding home for gangsters. To make money, Ma Barker turned her Tulsa home into a safe house for fugitives. At the same time, she continued to encourage her youngest son Fred to step up his criminal enterprises.
2:33 Speaker 01 Fred idolized his older brother Herman and he adopted Herman's fearless nature. But Fred was arguably the more dangerous of the two. Herman oozed menace. He walked with a scowl and no one dared approach him. He was intimidating even among hardened cons. Fred had charm. He could lure unsuspecting people in and then turn on them. Herman was a fairly simple, direct action type of guy. He thought of a straightforward plan and he did it. Fred developed into a strategist who would help devise the gang's biggest and most notorious crimes in a few years. But to get started, Fred went on a rampage from 1922 to 1925.
3:15 Speaker 01 He stole cars like Doc, robbed mail carriers like Lloyd, and held up card games and jewelry stores like Herman. Shootouts left him injured, from which Ma helped him recover. And he did stints in reformatory and jail, but never for very long. And then in July of 1925, Herman came home. He was released from the Minnesota State Prison at Stillwater, the same prison which had housed the infamous Younger Brothers of the James Younger Gang of the previous generation of American outlaws. Herman sported a tattoo on his chest which read, "A boy's best friend is his mom." He was back in Tulsa with Ma and Fred, and the final two years of his life would be a whirlwind.
3:58 Speaker 01 Herman would commit numerous robberies with Fred and other associates. He would get married and continue his crime spree, which would end after the murders of two lawmen.
4:23 Speaker 01 From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season, we're telling the story of the Barker-Carpus Gang, the longest-running and deadliest group of Depression-era outlaws. This is Episode 2: Barker, Bonnie, and Clyde.
4:48 Speaker 01 Fred was thrilled to be reunited with his brother, but Herman, who was eight years older than Fred, was more hesitant. Herman, 32 years old, tentatively took 24-year-old Fred under his wing. Herman preferred working with seasoned pros, but he cut Fred in on occasion. In December 1925, five months after Herman was released, Herman and Fred robbed a bank in Washington, Arkansas, and walked away with $7,000. Herman fled to the Radium Springs Health Resort in Salina, Oklahoma, to lay low, but Fred made a rookie mistake, despite three years of experience working on his own. He went to a bank to exchange coins for paper bills.
5:31 Speaker 01 The coins were still wrapped in paper, as if they were straight from a bank. The wrappers were not labeled with the name of a bank, but the teller grew suspicious and alerted the police, who hauled Fred in for questioning. Like all Barker boys, Fred knew how to dodge the law. He used an alias and claimed he'd won the coins fair and square in a card game, knowing the unmarked wrappers couldn't prove a robbery. But a search of his pockets revealed a wire receipt and a hotel key. Authorities raided his room and discovered his true identity through a letter he'd written but not sent to his mother. Now that the cops had caught Fred in a lie, they kept searching. They found expensive clothes and other items which made Fred seem suspicious, but they
6:15 Speaker 01 did not find money which could be tied directly to the robbery. Fred had covered his tracks just enough so that he was still free to join Herman for the next big gig, though it would have to wait. Herman was about to break Ma Barker's number-one rule: no wives or serious girlfriends.
6:36 Speaker 01 Ma felt wives or serious girlfriends took the focus away from the only priority: stealing to provide for the family. Plus, loyalty was always a question. Ma had drilled a singular, ironclad rule into her boys: Never trust a woman other than your mother. In Ma's eyes, the inner circle demanded absolute secrecy. Wives and girlfriends were loose ends. They were liabilities who could crack under police interrogation and bring the whole operation down. But Herman Barker fell hard and fast for Carol Anton. Carol was a Native American woman who was three years younger than Herman, and a whirlwind two-month courtship led to marriage. The union struck Ma Barker a blow.
7:21 Speaker 01 Herman was devoted to his mother, but he ignored her warnings. He didn't shield his new bride from the gritty reality of his life. Instead, he pulled her in. Herman and Carol quickly became Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Hamilton. Together, the newlyweds ran a safe house at the Radium Springs Resort in Salina, Oklahoma. Salina was a tiny town on the shore of Lake Hudson, 45 miles outside of Tulsa. The resort was a criminal sanctuary operated by Q. P. McGee, a former judge turned corrupt attorney. McGee rigged the resort with lights which flashed a silent warning to fugitives when the law was approaching. For a share of the stolen goods, McGee offered full service for the criminal elite: harboring
8:06 Speaker 01 thieves, fencing merchandise, and springing them from jail when they got caught. McGee had already worked extensively with the Barker boys. Through his corrupt connections, he pulled strings to get the Barkers paroled. He paid lawmen to look the other way. His favorite trick involved fabricating bogus warrants for serious crimes from other counties. So, when the boys got caught, he demanded they be transferred to a different jail to face punishment for a different crime, one which hadn't happened. When they arrived and someone eventually discovered that they weren't wanted for anything, they were set free. It was crazy that it worked, but it did. With QP McGee handling legalities and Ma Barker providing overall guidance,
8:51 Speaker 01 the gang felt invincible, even though Lloyd Barker, one of the two middle brothers, was serving 25 years at Leavenworth in Kansas for robbery, and Doc Barker, the other middle brother, was serving life in McAllister, Oklahoma, for murder. But nobody's perfect. So after Herman got married, Fred Barker headed to the resort to join him for their most sophisticated crime spree yet.
9:13 Speaker 00 At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.
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10:20 Speaker 01 Herman recruited seasoned criminals Ray Terrill and Elmer Inman to join he and Fred for the job. The four-man gang scouted eight clothing and jewelry stores in three Oklahoma cities. For most of the jobs, they stole a truck and backed it up to the door of the shop. They went up to the roof, cut a hole in the ceiling, and shimmyed down a rope into the store. They stripped the store of safes, cash, and jewels, and walked out the front door to their getaway vehicle. Their alternative method, when the site called for it, involved slipping in through ground level crawl spaces. Over a four-month stretch in the spring of 1926, they hit all eight targets and raked in between $30,000 and $100,000 in loot, a haul worth upwards of $2 million today.
11:08 Speaker 01 After each crime, the gangs split up and scattered before the law even knew a crime had been committed. Authorities had no suspects and no good leads, but the crimes were not perfect. After one robbery, a jewelry store owner found a man's hat that didn't belong in his store. The tag on the hat led authorities to the store where it was purchased, and the store traced the purchase to Herman Barker. Apparently, he had used his real name for the purchase, but the rest of the time, he used his alias J. H. Hamilton, so the cops had a hard time finding him. When his description circulated, the police tracked him down and arrested him with Carol. He clung to his alias, denied ownership of the hat, and did not have any of the stolen
11:53 Speaker 01 merchandise on him. Ultimately, Q. P. McGee forced the police to release Herman and Carol, and Herman went straight back to work. In June 1926, shortly after shaking off accusations from the jewelry store heist, Herman and Elmer Enman led authorities on a high-speed chase through Oklahoma in a stolen vehicle. The pursuit devolved into a desperate footrace once the pair abandoned the car. Herman got away, but Elmer did not. Flushed with the arrogance of another escape, Herman decided to reward himself with a shopping trip. In a twist of irony, the law finally caught up with him inside a store while he was buying a new hat.
12:37 Speaker 01 Once again, Q. P. McGee got Herman out of jail. After a wild beginning to the year, it was time to retreat to Tulsa and regroup with Ma. Herman and Fred had mostly mastered the art of hitting clothing stores, drugstores, and jewelry stores. Now it was time to go bigger. The brothers shifted their sights to banks. They marked Christmas 1926 as the launch date for their new high-stakes schemes. But old habits died hard. Before the bank job started, Herman and Fred teamed up for one final run at the burglary game. In November 1926, the brothers targeted a string of businesses in Winfield, Kansas, a small town just above the Kansas-Oklahoma border.
13:22 Speaker 01 They successfully robbed two shops, but during the nighttime robbery of the third, a grocery store, their luck ran out. A deputy sheriff spotted Herman while Herman was breaking into the store. Herman took off in a run and easily escaped the deputy. The deputy, now empty-handed, doubled back and noticed a man lounging on the hood of a nearby car. The deputy thought the man must have witnessed the break-in. When grilled about the fleeing suspect, the man, Fred Barker, offered little substance. His evasiveness, combined with his presence on the street long after the shops had closed, sparked the deputy's suspicion. The deputy hauled Fred to the station for a harder interrogation.
14:05 Speaker 01 Fred claimed his name was Ted Murphy and insisted he was merely waiting for his mother, who had been shopping at the drugstore. It was a clumsy lie because the stores had been closed for hours. The lie gave the police probable cause to search his car. Authorities found a cache of burglary tools and a hoard of items that looked stolen. The following day, the cops confirmed Fred was carrying cash that matched, to the dollar, the amounts stolen from two local businesses. Ma rushed to Fred's rescue, but the evidence was damning and Fred's criminal record was extensive. The judge set bail and an insurmountable $14,000, equivalent to more than $250,000 today.
14:49 Speaker 01 That sum was too steep even for the resourceful Q. P. McGee to negotiate. Fred spent the Christmas holiday of 1926 in jail in Cowley County, Kansas. McGee made a desperate attempt to corrupt county officials in January 1927, but the plan failed. To make matters worse for McGee, the Winfield police turned the tables on him and arrested him on charges of aiding, harboring, and assisting known felons. McGee bonded out and continued with his schemes, but he couldn't help Fred Barker. In March of 1927, Fred received a sentence of five to 10 years in Kansas State Prison, where he would sit while he lost his eldest brother.
15:39 Speaker 01 While Fred Barker endured prison in Kansas, Herman Barker remained loose. His ambition to graduate to bank robbery didn't waver with Fred's incarceration. Elmer Inman was now out of jail, and Ray Terrill was always ready for action, so Herman reunited with his two friends for a series of bank robberies across the southern plains. In mid-December 1926, they struck State Bank in Buffalo, Kansas. On Christmas Eve, they hit an Oklahoma bank. On New Year's Eve, they hit an Arkansas bank. They were making off like bandits in the truest sense, stacking thousands of dollars in certificates, money orders, traveler's checks, and cash.
16:20 Speaker 01 They had one more target on their list, and it turned out to be a bridge too far. On the morning of January 17, 1927, Herman, Ray, and Elmer went to the First National Bank in Joplin, Missouri. That was a brazen and stupid idea for multiple reasons. The Barker Boys were well-known in Joplin. They had grown up six miles away in Webb City. Herman's father, George, had lived in Joplin for the past five years, since he split from the family in early 1922, so there was still a Barker presence in the area. And, the robbers didn't wear disguises. It was like the Dalton Brothers robbing two banks at the same time in their hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas, 30 years earlier.
17:05 Speaker 01 Despite the absurd fake mustaches and beards they wore, everyone recognized them. And like the Dalton Gang, Herman Barker's gang pressed its luck too far and got into a gunfight. The morning of January 17 was cold and quiet in Joplin. Some shopkeepers were just beginning to unlock their doors when Herman, Ray, and Elmer ran out of the First National Bank. They had rushed in, surprised the staff, and grabbed as much loot as they could carry. They ran outside and caused such chaos that the police swarmed the scene in seconds. Elmer ran one way, and Ray and Herman ran another.
17:47 Speaker 01 Elmer Inman managed to escape, but Ray and Herman found themselves cornered within blocks. No one knows who pulled the trigger first, but the outlaws and the lawmen opened fire. The gunfight stopped when Herman took a shot to the leg. Joplin Police took Ray Terrill to jail and Herman Barker to the hospital. While Herman lay in a hospital bed, healing and racking up criminal charges, Ray Terrill went to court and was convicted for various robbery-related crimes. He was sentenced to Big Mac, the Oklahoma State Prison in McAllister. But Ray wasn't one to go down quietly. During transport, he threw himself out of the moving car and vanished into the hills of Oklahoma.
18:30 Speaker 01 That left Herman Barker as the sole remaining member of the trio to face justice. Herman was eventually convicted of the bank job in Arkansas they had pulled on New Year's Eve. He went to prison in Arkansas, but he didn't stay long. Within days of his admission, he found a way to saw through the bars of his cell and escape the facility. He reunited with his wife Carol, but his wounded legs still pained him badly. He needed to rest and recover, but the southern plains were too hot for the fugitives, even with the safe houses they could use. In short, they needed to get out of Dodge. Carol insisted they head west for a few weeks. And Herman, not one for taking advice, surprisingly complied.
19:14 Speaker 01 It would not have been the easiest trip in 1927, especially for an injured person, but they made it to the California coast. They laid low in the sunshine and mild climate for a while, but their funds began to dry up. By the time they rolled back east to Cheyenne, Wyoming, they were down to a little cash and a stack of stolen traveler's checks. Against Carol's vehement warnings, Herman walked into the American National Bank in Cheyenne on August 1st to cash the checks. Herman introduced himself to the teller as R.D. Snodgrass and stated his business. The teller obliged and cashed the traveler's checks. But as Herman walked out, the teller quickly cross-referenced the certificate numbers
19:59 Speaker 01 against a list of stolen checks from banks across the country. The traveler's checks were stolen. The teller quickly alerted the sheriff's office and then ran out to the parking lot as Herman climbed into his car with Carol. The teller claimed he had made a mistake, and he asked Herman to return to the bank. Herman knew it was a stall tactic. He knew they had been outed. He played it cool and he said he would come in to clear things up. But the moment the teller turned his back, Herman stomped on the gas pedal.
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21:20 Speaker 01 Herman and Carol Barker, alias Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, or Mr. and Mrs. Snotgrass, sped away from the bank. The teller ran back inside and called the law again. Laramie County Deputy Sheriff Arthur Osborne chased Herman's car out of Cheyenne and east on Highway 30, the old road that ran across southern Wyoming before it was largely replaced by Interstate 80. If Herman had been running with Ray, or Elmer, or Fred, the pursuit might have dragged on. But after a short chase, Carol convinced Herman to pull over. Ma Barker would have been livid, and the decision to stop may have been the most consequential of Herman's life.
22:01 Speaker 01 They stopped along Highway 30, about two miles from the next town to the east, Pine Bluffs. Deputy Osborne walked up to the driver's side window and said, "I think you folks are the people I want." Herman responded, "I'm sure you're mistaken. We've done nothing wrong." Both sides knew Herman and Carol were caught, and the banter ended when Osborne turned serious and started to say he was going to arrest them. Herman Barker pulled out a gun and fired twice. Deputy Osborne dropped where he stood. Carol leapt out of the car, sobbing and shaking as she stared at the dying man. Herman screamed at her to get back in. She obeyed, and the two roared away.
22:43 Speaker 01 Herman swerved around Deputy Osborne's patrol car as the officer lay bleeding in the road. Minutes later, two men discovered Deputy Osborne, who was still clinging to life. They rushed him to a doctor in pine bluffs. But the deputy, who had been on the job for one year and eight months, died of his wounds fifteen minutes later.
23:06 Speaker 01 Much like Bonnie and Clyde would be, seven years in the future, Herman and Carol were now fugitives who were wanted for the murder of a lawman. Not Q. P. McGee, nor Clarence Darrow, nor lawyer-turned-founding father John Adams, would be able to help Herman now that he was a cop killer. Carol wouldn't be treated as harshly, since she was an accessory who had not directly participated in the robberies or the murder, but if she was caught, she would definitely face some sort of punishment. For Herman, his younger brother Doc was imprisoned for life in Oklahoma for killing an elderly night watchman. For murdering an active-duty deputy sheriff, life in prison was the best Herman could hope for. Herman kept the gas pedal to the floor as he raced south from Cheyenne.
23:51 Speaker 01 In the barren country of northern Colorado, a summer storm set in. Rain lashed the car, and a fast change in temperature produced thick fog. Herman weaved through county roads for thirty miles before deciding to make a brief stop near the village of Grover, Colorado, about fifty miles outside of the city of Fort Collins. Herman and Carol still had a blue luggage trunk from their west coast vacation strapped to the back of their car. The bank teller had seen it, and maybe others too. It was a rolling bullseye, and it had to go. Herman and Carol transferred the most important items from the trunk to the backseat of their car, before dumping the luggage in a ditch and speeding off again.
24:34 Speaker 01 As a manhunt sprawled across southern Wyoming and northern Colorado, patrolmen soon found the trunk and discarded items of clothing. But the trunk was labeled "Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Hamilton." There was no criminal record for the Hamiltons in Wyoming or Colorado, and Herman had further muddied the waters by using the name RD Snodgrass with the Cheyenne bank teller. In 1927, long before the easy ability to cross-reference any of that information with other local, state, or federal agencies, Wyoming authorities did not know they were looking for Herman and Carol Barker. Not that it mattered. Regardless of the true identities of the suspects, the man and woman were wanted for one of the most serious crimes in the book.
25:19 Speaker 01 Even so, Herman stayed one step ahead. He traded their car for a new one and kept driving, all the way to Oklahoma. Four days later, on August 5, 1927, he and Carol made it to Tulsa. Herman knew Ma's house was off-limits. The couple registered at a motel on the edge of town under the names Mr. and Mrs. Smallwick. They allowed themselves to rest for two nights before getting back on the road. Herman knew of a fugitive-friendly farm in Arkansas, which he hoped would be far enough from the murder scene in southern Wyoming to keep them safe.
25:58 Speaker 01 The Arkansas plan worked. With 1927 technology and resources, lawmen in Wyoming and northern Colorado were not able to track Herman and Carol across 650 miles of territory. But the relative safety only solved one of their problems: They were still dangerously low on money. Herman left Carol on the farm and headed to Oklahoma to round up a crew for a new score. His go-to team, Ray Terrill and Elmer Inman, were not available. While Herman and Carol were out west, Ray and Elmer robbed two banks in Oklahoma and got into a gun battle which left a US Marshal dead. The two robbers were on the run and hiding from the US Marshals.
26:41 Speaker 01 So Herman recruited Porter Meeks and Charlie Stalkup. Porter had just been paroled after serving part of a twenty-five-year sentence at Big Mac for robbery. Charlie was less seasoned than the other two, but he had served a brief stint at Leavenworth where he picked up some valuable intel. He had it on good authority from fellow inmates that the vault at the crystal ice plant in Newton, Kansas, was loaded with cash and easy to crack. The intel was years old, but it beat hitting a target blind. After a few days of discussion, the three men decided to rob the ice plant. In the middle of the night on August twenty-ninth, nineteen twenty-seven, they drove to the ice plant in Newton, Kansas.
27:24 Speaker 01 They didn't have much of a plan, but it should be enough for an unguarded factory. As it happened, the robbery wasn't very difficult, but the getaway was. For two of the three robbers, it was the last crime they ever committed. A little before one o'clock in the morning, Raymond Molds was alone in the engineering room of the factory when a man with a gun burst through a side door, followed quickly by two more men with guns. The first man, who was probably Herman Barker, did not wear a mask, but the other two did. The first man shoved his gun against Raymond's back and marched Raymond through the building until they reached a storage vault for ice.
28:07 Speaker 01 The temperature in the vault was twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, minus one Celsius. The gunman locked Raymond inside while the other two robbers used a sledgehammer and a saw to break into the safe. The supposed gold mine of valuables turned out to be about two hundred dollars' worth of coins, cash, and checks. The robbers fled with their paltry sum and left Raymond trapped in the ice vault. Raymond waited about an hour in the freezing cold after he heard the final sounds of the robbery before he used a crowbar he found in the vault to bust open the door. Raymond ran to Main Street and alerted the police. The sheriff of Harvey County, Kansas, spread the word to other jurisdictions to be on
28:51 Speaker 01 the lookout for the robbers. Herman, Porter, and Charlie had driven about twenty miles south to Wichita before they were spotted by motorcycle officers J. E. Marshall and Frank Bush. The officers stopped the robbers' car on North Saint Francis Street at about two o'clock in the morning. Officer Marshall dismounted and approached the driver's side, while Bush held his position at the rear of the car. As Marshall leaned down to the window, Herman grabbed the officer and fired twice at his head. Marshall fell to the ground, dead, and Officer Bush opened fire. Porter Meeks and Charlie Stalcup fired from the back of the car before Meeks bailed out and ran away from the scene. In the car, Herman and Charlie had both been hit.
29:37 Speaker 01 Herman stepped on the gas, but he veered wildly across the road and slammed the car into a ditch. Herman and Charlie pulled themselves out of the wreck and stumbled away in opposite directions. Herman didn't go far. Badly wounded and cornered, he took his own life before he could be captured and sent back to prison. Charlie Stalcup stayed hidden for the rest of the night, but he was arrested at dawn. Porter Meeks spent two days on the run until he died in a shootout with police while resisting arrest. Herman Barker, the eldest of the Barker family, was dead at 33 years old. With three sons in prison, one dead and her husband gone, Ma Barker was alone for the first time in her life.
30:38 Speaker 01 Next time on Infamous America, Ma Barker endures four long years without her remaining sons. When Fred finally gets out of prison, he introduces his new friend, Alvin Karpis, to his mother, and they begin a four-year run as some of the most dangerous criminals in the country. That's next week on Infamous America.
31:12 Speaker 01 Members of our Black Barrel Plus program receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. This series was researched and written by Mandy Wimmer. Additional research and writing by me, Chris Wimmer. Original music by Rob Valier. Thanks for listening.
31:46 Speaker 00 At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters, so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich, together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.
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