BARKER GANG Ep. 4 | “99 Problems”

After fleeing Missouri, Ma, Fred, and Alvin Karpis run to the criminal sanctuary of St. Paul, Minnesota. But shortly after they arrive, they are betrayed by an insider. After the betrayal, they suffer a litany of problems during robberies for the first time in the gang’s existence. Thanks to our sponsor, Quince! Use this link for Free Shipping and 365-day returns: Quince.com/infamousamerica Thanks to our sponsor, Mood! For 20% off of your first order, use the promo code INFAMOUS at Mood.com Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com or @blackbarrelmedia on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:05Speaker 02

  For about seven months of 1931, Ma Barker, Fred Barker, Alvin Karpis, and Ma's boyfriend, Arthur Dunlop, had a good thing going. When Fred and Alvin had been released from prison in March and May of 1931, respectively, they moved Ma and Arthur from a dirt-floor shack in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a 10-acre farm in Thayer, Missouri. Fred worked tirelessly to turn the farm into a secure criminal hideout, but his efforts fell apart, thanks to his own actions less than two months after the work was complete. During a span of six weeks, from early November to mid-December 1931, Fred Barker killed the small-town chief of police in Pocahontas, Arkansas, and the sheriff of Howell County,

• 1:50Speaker 02

  Missouri. Alvin Karpis helped with the second killing, and with the murders of two lawmen within an hour's drive of the farm, the farm was no longer the safe house it was designed to be. The murders forced the Barkers to abandon the farm just before Christmas 1931. They were on the run, and they ran west to an ally near Joplin, Missouri. Herbert Farmer was an old family friend who had been a small-time crook many years ago and now used his farm as a fugitive hideout. He was happy to see his old friends when they showed up on his doorstep, but when he heard that Fred and Alvin were wanted for the murder of a county sheriff, they were not yet connected to the murder of the small-town police chief, Herbert knew his farm was too close to the crime scene to provide shelter.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Herbert pointed the group north, toward the criminal sanctuary of St. Paul, Minnesota. St. Paul operated under the so-called O'Connor system, and it was a haven for the criminal underworld from the turn of the century until World War II. Former police chief John O'Connor had engineered a unique peace treaty after taking office in 1900. He aimed to scrub crime from St. Paul's streets, and he achieved it by cutting deals with America's most dangerous men. The word went out: criminals could spend time in St. Paul without being targeted by local police as long as the criminals did not commit crimes within the city limits.

• 3:18Speaker 02

  The rules were simple but strict. Gangsters checked in with officials upon arrival and paid regular bribes to ensure the police continued to look the other way. Chief O'Connor retired in 1920, but the machine he built kept running. Chief Tom Brown did not like to be as personally involved as O'Connor, so he used a go-between, Harry Sawyer, to manage communications with the underworld. Sawyer, a known fixer and close associate of Herbert Farmer, was the reason Farmer directed Ma Barker and her boys to St. Paul. By February 1932, Ma, Arthur, Fred, and Alvin had found their new home, which made them some of the earliest arrivals of the soon-to-be-famous gangsters of the Depression

• 4:03Speaker 02

  era. The following year, 1933, John Dillinger and his gang would begin their legendary crime spree. And Dillinger and his associates, including Babyface Nelson, would spend plenty of time in St. Paul. By that time, the Barker clan would be well-established in the city, though not without some serious problems along the way. Robberies which had been quick and easy in the past would now be chaotic hostage situations. And worst of all, they would have to deal with a traitor in the group.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  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-Karpis gang, the longest-running and deadliest group of Depression-era outlaws. This is episode 4: 99 Problems.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  When Ma Barker, Arthur Dunlop, Fred Barker, and Alvin Karpis arrived in St. Paul in February of 1932, Ma and Arthur took on the roles of a married couple, with Fred and Alvin as their sons. Ma and Arthur became Mr. and Mrs. George Anderson, a bland, common name designed to deflect suspicion. The group spotted a house for rent, and Ma and Arthur approached the owner, Mrs. Helen Hannigraft, who lived next door with her son Nick. Ma and Arthur claimed their two sons were musicians in the local orchestra, which thrilled Helen to no end. The Anderson family looked like the perfect neighbors, and for a while, they were. After the Barkers moved in, Ma and Helen started to share coffee in the mornings,

• 5:57Speaker 02

  and Ma baked cookies for the neighborhood. When Fred and Alvin hauled their gun cases from the house to the car, Helen Hannigraft believed the cases held musical instruments, and the boys were simply heading to orchestra practice. Fred and Alvin helped Helen with her granddaughter, offering rides to school during bad weather. For the most part, the fiction worked well. Three of the four members of the group played their roles to perfection, but Arthur Dunlop remained a thorn in the gang's side. A year earlier, Fred Barker had accurately labeled Arthur "a worthless drunk," and Arthur had done nothing to improve his reputation. But for the time being, Fred and Alvin tolerated Arthur because they had more important matters to attend to.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  An old friend joined them in St. Paul, and it was time to start making moves.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  In March of 1932, Lawrence DeVal showed up at the Barker rental house. He had been part of the Barkers' first gang, the Central Park Gang, in Tulsa, Oklahoma nearly 15 years earlier. He had served time with Alvin Karpis at the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory and then had become a criminal mentor to Alvin after the two broke out of prison. DeVal had recently finished another stretch, and now he was back with the gang. Fred, Alvin, and DeVal recruited Tommy Holden and Phil Courtney for their first big job in Minnesota. On March 29, 1932, the five men pulled up to the rear entrance of the Northwestern National Bank in Minneapolis.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  They arrived in a stolen Lincoln Town Car, courtesy of DeVal. Holden stayed in the alley with the car while the others rushed in through the back door. Phil Courtney held the employees at gunpoint while Fred, Alvin, and DeVal went to work on the safe. Courtney did his job, but not to Alvin's liking. They were professional bank robbers, yet Courtney was wasting time chatting up the female switchboard operator. With his guard down, she likely alerted the police, because they arrived too quickly. The group scrambled to grab everything from the safe and raced out the back door, only to find Tommy Holden pointing a gun at the head of a police officer. Luckily for the gang, the officer was alone and had not been able to call for backup

• 8:14Speaker 02

  before Holden nabbed him. The gang released the terrified officer and sped away. Safely back in St. Paul, they tallied the loot. It was more money than any of them, including Ma, had ever seen. They had stolen more than $250,000 in cash, coins, and bonds, a value exceeding $5 million today. It was time to celebrate for everyone but Karpis. He was furious at Courtney's unprofessionalism, and he was alarmed that the police had found their car so quickly. Moving forward, he decided he would take over all planning duties. They believed they had a solid team of professional bank robbers; they just needed to act like it.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Without delay, Alvin Karpis started planning their next heist, but they never had a chance to do it. And it wasn't because they had committed a major robbery so close to the sanctuary of St. Paul. Technically, they hadn't violated the O'Connor Code. Even though the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sit right next to each other and are often viewed as one unbroken metropolitan area, they're still separate cities. The problem for the gang was the murder of Sheriff Roy Kelly in Missouri. Four months had passed since the murder, but federal and state authorities had not given up on finding the suspects.

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• 10:36Speaker 00

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• 11:02Speaker 02

  El problema comenzó con Nick Hanegraff, quien vivía con su madre en la casa de Barker. Durante los cuatro meses pasados, como los investigadores en Missouri no tenían la suerte de encontrar a los sospechosos localmente, expandieron su búsqueda. Además de enviar las posters de los deseados por todas partes, imprimieron los posters, que presentaban los premios de $1,200, en las páginas de la ampliamente circulada True Detective Magazine. De todos los grupos de gin en todas las ciudades del mundo, Nick Hanegraff vio los posters para Fred Barker y Alvin Karpis en True Detective Magazine. Fred y Alvin estaban usando el nombre Anderson, pero Nick podía ver la sembranza de los fugitivos en los posters de deseados. Durante los dos meses pasados, los dos hombres se habían vuelto muy cerca con Nick y su madre.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Con los ojos en el dinero de los premios, Nick marchó a una estación de policía de St. Paul, pero a su sorpresa, se fue a la calle. Durante más de siete horas, la policía parecía no poder localizar a la persona adecuada para tomar el informe de Nick. Cuando los oficiales de St. Paul finalmente atacaron la casa de alquiler propiedad de Nick, la banda había ido. La casa era en su mayoría vacía, aunque había señales claras de una salida rápida. Ma Barker dejó atrás una de sus favoritas, las camisas de goma. Los platos estaban puestas en el bañero, y los incendios aún brillaban en la cocina. La banda recibió un apoyo de la fixa Harry Sawyer, el hombre de derecha de la jefe de policía Tom Brown, justo cuando Ma comenzaba el almuerzo. Las brias de la banda le compraron tiempo, pero apenas.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  escaparon con la piel de sus dientes, y estaban furiosos por la interrupción. Acababan de establecer su tienda en St. Paul, y ahora estaban quemados. Peor aún, como iban a aprender, la descubrimiento de Nick Hanegraff en True Detective Magazine no fue tan coincidental como parecía.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  La banda fue a la tienda en un lugar de ocubrimiento local para aguantar el calor de la ataque. Planificaban huir a Kansas City, pero no antes de descubrir cómo habían encontrado. Alvin Karpis pidió una explicación de un oficial amistoso en su salario. Los policías dijeron que Nick Hanegraff llevó la Magazine con las pistolas y dejó a la banda que vivía en la casa de alquiler de su madre. La descubrimiento de Nick podría haber sido un desastre extraordinario, pero no fue. Arthur Dunlop, el novio de Ma Barker, le dio la Magazine a Nick y lo obligó a actuar. Karpis estaba loco, pero sabía que Fred se desplegaría cuando escuchara la noticia. Así que Karpis confrontó a Ma y Arthur sin Fred.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  culparon al whisky, afirmando que estaba borracho en ese momento, y pidió perdón. Ma estaba incendiada. Sabía que Arthur era inútil, pero nunca pensó que sería un traidor. Después, Alvin condujo a Ma por la ciudad mientras hashaban una solución. Finalmente se establecieron un plan para llevar a Arthur con ellos a Kansas City, luego enviarlo a la exilio en Chicago. Ma aceptó, aunque la decisión claramente la golpeó. Ella y Arthur habían estado juntos lo suficiente para ser considerados marido de la ley común, pero su lealtad pertenecía a Fred y Alvin. Alvin llenó a Fred sobre la situación. Fred aceptó que tenían que lidiar con Arthur, pero no aceptó el plan de Chicago. Aprendieron que Arthur a menudo se vio licorado en los pubs locales

• 14:22Speaker 02

  y filtraba detalles sobre las operaciones de la banda. Había estado demasiado cómodo en su estilo de vida actualizado de no trabajar y solo jugar. Y si se sentía cómodo hablando con extranjeros mientras vivían en la misma casa como Fred Barker y Alvin Karpis, no se podía decir qué diría cuando estaba solo en Chicago y se cortaba del apoyo de la banda. El 26 de abril de 1932, Fred y Alvin tomaron a Arthur por un viaje para discutir el plan de desacuerdo. Se detuvieron por gas cerca de Webster, Wisconsin, luego decidieron mover la conversación a la playa Frimsted, a unos kilómetros de allá. El siguiente día, el cuerpo desnudo de Arthur Dunlop de 73 años fue encontrado cerca de la costa de la playa. Fue muerto de una herida de una pistola en la cabeza.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Una teoría sugirió que su asesino, o asesinos, trataban de sacarlo al agua con la esperanza de que la playa lo devorara y se deshaga de los evidencia, pero el peso muerto era demasiado pesado. Anos después, Alvin Karpis trató de negar estar en la escena, afirmando que otro miembro de la banda trataba de Dunlop como un favor a Fred. En términos de la investigación, realmente no importaba. No había suficiente evidencia para arrestar a nadie por el crimen. Con el asesinato de Arthur Dunlop, quien fuera responsable, Ma, Fred y Alvin huyeron del santuario de St. Paul y condujeron a Kansas City, Missouri.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Ma Barker rápidamente se fue de la pérdida de Arthur Dunlop. Ella se había acostumbrado a ellos para deshacerse de la soledad mientras todos sus hijos estaban en la cárcel. Con Fred y Alvin volviendo a la grupe de robo de gran escala, no necesitaba a Arthur. Ella no estaba emocionada de ser forzada a moverse de nuevo tan pronto como llegaron a St. Paul, pero nunca realmente le gustó la ciudad. Ella prefirió mucho la casa de la agricultura fuera de Thayer, Missouri, y a su alegría, no tendría que esperar mucho para encontrar un equipamiento similar. En Kansas City, comenzaron a reclutar talento local para rodear la banda. El notorioso robo de bancos Harvey Bailey estaba en la ciudad, y saltó a la oportunidad para salir con Barker y Karpis. Los tres hombres pasaron los siguientes dos meses scouting antes de encontrar el objetivo correcto.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Usaron la gran ciudad como su base, pero no tenían intención de robar bancos en ella. Vieron que iban a volver al concepto de encontrar pequeñas ciudades con pequeñas fuerzas de policía, y Fort Scott, Kansas, se ajustaba al presupuesto. Fort Scott, a lo largo de la frontera entre Kansas y Missouri, dos horas a su lado de Kansas City, solo tenía un par de miles de personas. Y cuando la banda entró con su mejor lista hasta el momento, los policías locales no serían un equipo para la banda. Además de Harvey Bailey, Fred y Alvin incorporaron a Tommy Holden de su robo en Minnesota. El amigo viejo confiante Larry Duvall, y dos otros robarones veteranos, así que se juntaron con una banda de siete. El 17 de junio de 1932, la banda atacó al Banco Nacional de Ciudadanos,

• 17:14Speaker 02

  rompió el puente, quitó dinero y bonos totales de $47,000, y desapareció en minutos.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  El trabajo de Fort Scott fue limpio, sin hostages, sin heridos, sin asesinatos. Mientras se fueron, implementaron una policy de seguro sucio, un montón de agujas de madera que se tiraban de la ventana trasera. Las agujas se dispersaron por el asfalto para cederle a cualquier carro de policía lo suficientemente tonto como para darle la vela. Fue el movimiento de Harvey Bailey, y uno que la banda Barker y Karpis adoptaría como su propia desde ese día adelante. Pero tan bonito como fue el trabajo de Fort Scott, Kansas City pronto perdió su belleza. Ma, Fred y Alvin querían volver a St. Paul. Habían pasado casi tres meses desde que habían sido expulsados y habían matado a Arthur Dunlop, y apostaron que era seguro volver.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Dos semanas después del trabajo de Fort Scott, se dirigieron a Minnesota, pero esta vez con las lecciones aprendidas. Necesitaban la seclución como tenían en la granja de Missouri, y estarían mucho más cautivos sobre sus interacciones con los civiles. El 9 de julio de 1932, leasingan una casa de ocho habitaciones en las costas de White Bear Lake, en la costa norte de St. Paul. Ma Barker ahora se llama Mrs. Hunter, y alquilaron la propiedad de lujo con sus hijos Freddy y Raymond. Para los locales, eran ciudadanos modelos, silenciosos, bien vestidos y fuertemente privados. La casa llegó con un barco, que era el lugar perfecto para planear sus crímenes. En la playa, nadie podía escuchar los detalles de su siguiente trabajo.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Los vecinos solo notaron que los chicos estaban desaparecidos mucho, y cuando estaban en casa, pasaban su tiempo en el agua. Pero en una comunidad de vacaciones, los vecinos no se sentían como los dueños de la tierra en la ciudad. Con los vecinos desaparecidos, la familia centró su atención en la ley. Tenían que reconstruir su red de seguridad con el Departamento de Policía de St. Paul y los funcionarios de la ciudad corruptos. Llevó semanas de limpias de palos y hacer las contribuciones necesarias para la gente correcta, pero pronto el rango de protección volvió a estar en orden. Los últimos dos trabajos de bancos habían netecido a la banda un total de casi $300,000 de ganancias. Lo que sea que fuera para Ma, Fred y Alvin, era suficiente para la casa, las bribas,

• 19:34Speaker 02

  y, esperaba, suficiente para sacar a sus hijos Lloyd y Doc de la cárcel. Lloyd estaba cumpliendo 25 años por robo en Leavenworth, Kansas, y Doc estaba cumpliendo la vida por el asesinato en McAllister, Oklahoma. Ma contrató a un investigador privado que era famoso en el mundo bajo por saber cuáles funcionarios estaban a la venta. Le entregó un papel de banco y la tarea de liberar a ambos de sus hijos. La fixa atacó una pared en Leavenworth. Los guardias federales de la cárcel no vinieron a la venta, ni siquiera. Pero Oklahoma podría haber sido una historia diferente. Arthur "Doc" Barker había cumplido diez años en la cárcel por matar a un guardia nocturno de 68 años en un sitio de construcción en Tulsa en 1921.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  En 1932, se le otorgó el paro. Estaba listo para liberarse en principios de septiembre. Es difícil decir si las esfuerzos de Ma eran la razón, pero de todos modos, ella tendría otro hijo en casa con ella en solo dos meses. Ma dijo a Fred y Alvin que esperen para que Doc pudiera ser parte del siguiente trabajo, pero en un momento raro de desafío, Fred y Alvin la ignoraron. Tenían su sitio establecido en el banco de Cloud County en Concordia, Kansas, y no querían sentarse y esperar por al menos dos meses haciendo nada.

• 20:51Speaker 00

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• 21:15Speaker 01

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• 21:48Speaker 02

  Now that the gang had reestablished itself in St. Paul, Minnesota, it was a full eight-hour drive back down to the tiny town of Concordia on the plains of northwest Kansas. The distance would turn the robbery into a logistical challenge. Alvin Karpis mapped out a route from Concordia to White Bear Lake. To avoid stopping at towns during the escape from the bank and the drive back to the lake, the gang hid spare gas cans, food, and thermoses of coffee along the roads while they drove down to Kansas. Karpis carried a stockpile of corks, typically used for wine or whiskey bottles, so they could use them to plug holes in the car's gas tanks. Over the last few years, as the number of armed robberies by gangs with fast cars rose

• 22:33Speaker 02

  dramatically, the cops had started shooting the gas tanks to stop the vehicles. In an emergency, a simple cork could save the getaway. When the gang arrived in Kansas, they did their final recon of the town and the bank. Karpis thought he had every angle covered, but he wasn't prepared for the one variable he had never encountered: a bank cashier who was willing to risk his life and the lives of others for money that wasn't his. Late in the day on July 26, 1932, the five-man crew ran into the Cloud County Bank. They herded the customers into a back room and grabbed the cash out of the teller's drawers. Then they turned to the vault. The cashier with the combination refused to open it.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  He stood his ground and boldly claimed he wouldn't open the vault for anyone. Karpis decided to test the man's resolve. He grabbed a female employee, jammed his pistol into her stomach, and said, "I'll blow her in half." The cashier didn't blink. He responded, "Go ahead. She's not mine."

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Karpis was astounded. When the threat to kill a fellow employee didn't work, he and Fred threatened to hurt the cashier in agonizing ways, and that didn't work either. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. Customers kept wandering in from the street, and the back room was bursting at the seams. They could barely force the door shut. The gang had been in the bank for 45 minutes, which was an absolute eternity. Finally, the gang aborted the vault robbery, grabbed every available dollar, and dragged two female hostages out to the car. They balanced the women on the car's running boards to act as human shields to discourage the police from opening fire as they sped out of town. A few miles into the countryside, they dumped the women unharmed, but they had lost valuable

• 24:26Speaker 02

  daylight. It was dusk, and they faced a long, unfamiliar drive in the dark. As night fell, the gang got lost, and they couldn't find the roads along which they had stashed their supplies. And then they got bogged down in the mud on a country road. Hungry, furious, and exhausted, they eventually muscled the car out of the mud pit, but there was no celebration, just arguments about which way to go. It wasn't pretty, but they limped back to St. Paul the next day. Alvin Karpis collapsed onto his bed to count the loot. Despite the setbacks, they had actually snatched $22,000 from the teller windows, far more than anyone expected.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Ma was pleased with the cash, but she repeated her request to wait for Doc before the boys pulled any more jobs. Doc Barker walked out of the Oklahoma State Prison in McAllister on September 10, 1932, on the condition that he leave Oklahoma and never return. It was an easy condition to meet. But Doc didn't head straight for St. Paul. First, he went to Joplin, Missouri for a couple months to visit his father. While Fred and Alvin were thrilled Doc was out, they, again, were not willing to wait for him to make the trip north. They had already planned their next job: Citizens National Bank in Wapatin, North Dakota. That was the one that would be a blueprint for Hollywood filmmakers.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Five men—Fred, Alvin, Larry Duvall, Tommy Holden, and another man—hit the bank on September 30, 1932. All five carried Tommy guns. Four men kicked open the double doors of the bank and rushed inside. Tommy Holden remained behind the wheel of the car as the getaway driver. Inside the bank, Alvin, Fred, and the others screamed for everyone to hit the floor. All but one person obeyed. A teller ran toward the back, but one of the robbers subdued him by smashing the butt of a pistol against his head. The blow knocked the teller out cold, but not before the man had slapped the silent alarm button. While local police officers started to swarm the perimeter, the crew grabbed every dollar

• 26:41Speaker 02

  they could carry, seized two female hostages, and burst out of the front doors. Tommy Holden unleashed a barrage of fire from his Tommy gun at the oncoming police cars. The gang shoved the two women onto the running boards of their getaway car. Most times, the human shields stopped the police from firing at the outlaws, but not that day. The lawmen returned fire. They didn't aim for the women, but in the crossfire, both women were injured. The gang members fired from the car, police officers fired from their positions in the street, and the two women on the running boards screamed as they gripped the vehicle while it roared out of town. Past the edge of town, the gang members pulled the women into the car and deployed Harvey

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Bailey's signature security measure. They dumped milk cartons filled with roofing nails onto the asphalt behind them. The nails shredded the tires of police cars which tried to follow.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  The gang escaped their immediate pursuers, but they were in trouble. The two women in the backseat of the car cried and thrashed from the pain of gunshot wounds. And bullets from the police officers had flattened two tires on the car and punctured the gas tank. The nails bought them a few precious miles, but the car was dying. Tommy Holden was able to steer it onto a dirt road shrouded by trees just as the rubber peeled off the tires. The car ground to a halt. The gang spilled out and debated their options. Fred spotted a dilapidated farmhouse and signaled the crew forward. Alvin lingered by the car. He administered morphine from the gang's medical kit to the wounded women.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  He told them to blame the cops for the bullets, not the gang, and then he sprinted to catch up. As they closed in on the farmhouse, they spotted a vehicle. The owner emerged just as the gang began to inspect it. Karpis stepped up to handle the farmer. Karpis wanted to avoid killing the man, if at all possible, and he decided on a wild gamble. He told the truth. He said they had just robbed the bank in Wapatin, and they needed the man's car to get away. Karpis wasn't asking, but he did offer payment. Larry Duvall took the cue and produced a thick roll of stolen bills from a bag. He handed the wad of cash to the farmer, who reportedly cracked a grim smile and said, "You robbed a bank, did you? Well, I don't care.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  All banks ever do is foreclose on farmers." The gamble paid off. The gang had a new getaway car, and the farmer had made more money in a few seconds than he'd probably made all year. The gang piled into the car and sped off, leaving the wounded women in the woods where they were eventually found by lawmen. Both women survived, though they carried the bullets in their bodies for the rest of their lives. The gang made the four-to-five-hour drive back to the lake house outside St. Paul, only to discover they had another problem. After they cleaned and repaired the car, the take was a measly $6,900.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  After two messy jobs in a row, Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis decided to heed Ma's advice and lay low until Doc showed up. 1932 had been an exhausting year: from moving from southern Missouri to St. Paul, then to Kansas City, then back to St. Paul, to nearly getting captured because of Arthur Dunlop's betrayal, to pulling off two robberies which were technically successes but were also riddled with the types of problems the gang had never experienced. But 1933 would be different. 1933 would be the year of the gangster. It would be unlike any other year in American criminal history. Doc would rejoin the Barker gang in Minnesota.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  John Dillinger's gang would start an epic spree in Illinois and Indiana. Pretty Boy Floyd and George Machine Gun Kelly would light up Missouri and Oklahoma. And Bonnie and Clyde would terrorize Texas. Not local police, nor state agencies, nor the FBI were ready for what was to come.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  Next time on Infamous America, the gang nails two more high-stakes bank robberies before switching to the flavor of the year: kidnapping. After the saga with the Lindbergh baby in 1932, kidnapping becomes all the rage in 1933. The Barker/Karpis gang commits its first kidnapping at the same time Machine Gun Kelly commits his last. Robberies, kidnappings, and a growing cast of the most infamous gangsters of the era is next week on Infamous America.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  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.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays? Here's a tip: the Apple Sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone.

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• 33:32Speaker 07

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