In the 1950s, the United States FBI began to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives . Following is a brief review of FBI people and events that place the 1950s decade in context, and then an historical list of individual fugitives whose names first appeared on the 10 Most Wanted list during the decade of the 1950s, under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
In late 1949 the FBI helped publish an article about the "toughest guys" the Bureau was after, who remained fugitives from justice. The positive publicity from the story resulted in the birth of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list on March 14, 1950.
Cases of espionage against the United States and its allies were some of the prevalent investigations by the Bureau during the 1950s. Eight Nazi agents who had planned sabotage operations against American targets were arrested. Organized crime networks and families in the United States also became targets, including those headed by Sam Giancana and John Gotti.
As wanted fugitives were added, and then later removed, the FBI began to keep track of the sequence number in which each fugitive appeared on the list. Some individuals have even appeared twice, and often a sequence number was permanently assigned to an individual fugitive who was soon caught, captured, or simply removed, before his or her appearance could be published on the publicly released list. In those cases, the public would see only gaps in the number sequence reported by the FBI. For convenient reference, the wanted fugitive's sequence number and date of entry on the FBI list appear below, whenever possible.
The most wanted fugitives listed in the decade of the 1950s include (in FBI list appearance sequence order):
March 20, 1950 #11
William Francis (Willie) Sutton
On February 18, 1952, Sutton was arrested without incident in New York after two years on the list.
December 19, 1951 #28
George Arthur Heroux
On July 25, 1952, Heroux, who was a bank robber with accomplice and fellow top Ten Fugitive, Gerhard Arthur Puff, was caught at Miami, Florida after seven months on the list.
January 28, 1952 #30 - was added soon after his partner George Arthur Heroux, #28
Gerhard Arthur Puff
Puff, who was a bank robber with accomplice and fellow top Ten Fugitive, George Arthur Heroux, was caught after killing an FBI Agent in a gunbattle after six months on the list. He was executed two years later.
By the end of the decade, six of the ten places on the list remained filled by these elusive long-time fugitives, then still at large:
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives is a most wanted list maintained by the United States's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service editor-in-chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the FBI's "toughest guys". This discussion turned into a published article, which received so much positive publicity that on March 14, 1950, the FBI officially announced the list to increase law enforcement's ability to capture dangerous fugitives. The first person added to the list was Thomas J. Holden, a robber and member of the Holden–Keating Gang on the day of the list's inception.
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In the 1960s, for a second decade, the United States FBI continued to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Following is a brief review of FBI people and events that place the 1960s decade in context, and then an historical list of individual suspects whose names first appeared on the 10 Most Wanted list during the decade of the 1960s, under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
In 1951, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a second year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1952, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a third year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1953, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a fourth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1954, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a fifth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1956, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a seventh year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1957, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for an eighth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1958, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a ninth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1959, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a tenth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1963, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for a fourteenth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
In 1967, the United States FBI, under Director J. Edgar Hoover, continued for an eighteenth year to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.
Jerry Lynn Young was an American criminal and bank robber, appearing on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list in 1967.
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