Fleagle Gang

Last updated

The Fleagle Gang was a group of early 20th century American bank robbers and murderers. They were found and executed or killed after robbing the First National Bank in Lamar, Colorado. Their cases were the first in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used a single fingerprint as part of the evidence leading to a conviction. They were also suspected to have committed a series of previous bank robberies over a 10-year period. [1]

Contents

Planning

On May 23, 1928, Ralph Fleagle, his brother Jake Fleagle, George J. Abshier, (a.k.a. Bill Messick), and Howard "Heavy" Royston, came in to Lamar, Colorado. They planned to rob the First National Bank.

They met at a ranch near Marienthal, Kansas shortly before the robbery, but Jake Fleagle had planned on robbing the Lamar bank for some time. Like many professional robbers of that time, the Fleagles, together with Abshier, had carefully scouted the bank on several occasions before they decided to commit the crime

The gang had maps of the roads of Prowers County, Colorado, and the brothers had been inside the bank building and knew its layout. Abshier said they had weighed the "possibilities" and decided that it was a job for no less than four men, so they recruited Heavy Royston.

When they left Kansas on May 23, about 3 a.m., the men had license plates from Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and California to throw any witnesses off their track. Each man was heavily armed.

The drive took about six hours, but the plan required them to wait until the afternoon to commit the robbery. At about 1 p.m., they went into action.

The robbery

E. A. Lundgren, a one-armed teller at the bank, was waiting on a customer when he saw the men come into the bank and heard one shout, "You sons-a-bitches get them all up!" and another yell, "Hands up!"

In the noise and confusion of the moment, Bank President A. N. Parrish ducked into his office and pulled out a Colt 45 he called "Old Betsy" and fired at the closest bank robber from the door to his office, hitting Royston in the jaw, and then, by all, accounts, all hell broke loose.

The bank teller, William Garrett and Miss Vivian Potter, another bank employee, later said two of the gunmen struggled with customers and most of the gang members were shouting to their victims to either lie down or put their hands up. Abshier, who later confessed to his role in the robbery and its aftermath, recalled:

I grabs hold of the man standing alongside of me, shoved him to the floor; told him to get down. I wanted them out of the way of the bullets.

During the struggle, Parrish, the bank president, who had shot Royston in the face, was subsequently shot and killed. Jaddo Parrish, the son of the president, a bank employee, was also killed in the fusillade.

The bandits loaded their booty — $10,664 in cash, $12,400 in Liberty bonds, and almost $200,000 in commercial paper  — into pillowcases and grabbed two hostages. The original plan had called for the gang to take Jaddo Parrish as hostage, because they felt that his father would not pursue them and risk his son's life, but, when Jaddo was killed, the gunmen took other hostages.

Escape

The gang, along with hostages Eskel A. Lundgren and a teller named Everett Kesinger, headed out to the car by a back door and drove out of town. After fending off the sheriff in a car chase that ended at a crossing on Sand Creek northeast of Lamar, where the robbers used rifles to disable the sheriff's car, the gang got away. Ralph Fleagle was driving the 1927 blue Buick Master Six getaway car.

During the car chase the gang released the one-armed teller Lundgren. Kesinger pleaded that he had a wife and new baby, and asked to be let go, but the bandits refused, forcing Kesinger to ride on the floor of the back seat of the car while Royston in the front seat used a pillowcase to catch the blood from his wound.

The gang arrived back in Kansas by nightfall. Royston, who had been shot by the bank president, needed medical attention, so the gang tricked a local doctor into coming out from his Dighton, Kansas home at night by telling him that a young boy's foot had been crushed by a tractor.

When Dr. W. W. Wineinger arrived at the ranch, he discovered the ruse, but treated Royston's wounds. After he finished, the gang bound him up and blindfolded him, took him out of the ranch, shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun, and rolled his body and his Buick into a ravine north of Scott City, Kansas. The car and doctor's body were spotted from the air by a Colorado National Guard airplane that had been brought from Denver to aid in the search. Dozens of citizen posses crisscrossed the counties along the Colorado border in search of the getaway car. [2]

The Fleagle brothers took Kesinger to a shack near Liberal, Kansas and shot him. The body was discovered about three weeks after the bank robbery.

Manhunt

The gang divided the loot and separated, with Abshier driving Royston to Minneapolis, Minnesota to be seen by a dental surgeon. After reaching Minneapolis each man went to a different area of the country with Abshier going to Grand Junction, Colorado, Royston to San Andreas, California, and Ralph to San Francisco, California. It took police about 13-months to track down the owner of the single latent fingerprint left on the windows of Dr. Wineinger's car. Jake Fleagle was arrested by Detective Paul Quyle after Quyle found a cache of weapons in a house he had rented him in Stockton, California in March 1929. His fingerprints were sent to the Bureau of Investigation (later known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation) in Washington, D.C., where they were identified as Jake Fleagle's and connected to the Lamar bank robbery. The Stockton Police had released Jake after fingerprinting. Ralph Fleagle was arrested first in Kankakee, Illinois, and after flying back to Kansas and being booked in Lamar he was taken to Colorado Springs, where he eventually confessed. Ralph agreed to provide authorities with information about the rest of the gang in exchange for the release of his two brothers Fred and Walt Fleagle. A nationwide manhunt for Jake resulted in his death in a shootout on a train in Branson, Missouri, in October 1930 after his brother had been hanged in Colorado. Royston was captured at his home in San Andreas, California, and Abshier was arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado.

The three were tried first in Lamar, Colorado, and in a sensational series of trials in October and November 1929, and they were all sentenced to hang.

Their appeals to the Colorado Supreme Court did not succeed, and the men were executed over a two-week period in mid-July 1930. This was the very first time the FBI used a single fingerprint to convict someone of a crime, and was a major success for the Bureau.

Treasure

Even today treasure hunters scour the west looking for the caches of loot supposedly buried by skinflint Ralph Fleagle. Credible rumors, but little proof, abound about unrecovered loot buried in California, Kansas and possibly Missouri. There is evidence that Ralph invested much of his money, and possibly owned an apartment building in San Francisco, where he had been living before being arrested in Kankakee, Illinois. Ralph's wife Margaret was sent away by the Fleagle family shortly after Ralph was hanged in Colorado, but there is no evidence of where she went.

Related Research Articles

Bank robbery Crime of stealing from a bank using violence

Bank robbery is the crime of stealing money from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank-owned property, such as a train, armored car, or (historically) stagecoach. It is a federal crime in the United States.

Baby Face Nelson American bank robber

Lester Joseph Gillis, also known as George Nelson and as Baby Face Nelson, was an American bank robber who became a criminal partner of John Dillinger, when he helped Dillinger escape from prison, in Crown Point, Indiana. Later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally identified Nelson and the remaining gang of bank robbers as: "Public Enemy Number One" of American society.

<i>Taxi</i> (2004 film) 2004 film

Taxi is a 2004 American action comedy film directed by Tim Story and starring Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon, Gisele Bündchen, Jennifer Esposito, and Ann-Margret. An incompetent New York City police officer is banned from driving and comes to rely on a talented taxi driver to help him solve a series of bank robberies. The film was panned by critics.

Harry Pierpont American gangster, murderer and bank robber

Harry "Pete" Pierpont was a Prohibition era gangster, convicted murderer and bank robber. He was a friend and mentor to John Dillinger.

Pretty Boy Floyd American bank robber

Charles Arthur Floyd, nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber. He operated in the West and Central states, and his criminal exploits gained widespread press coverage in the 1930s. He was seen positively by the public because it was believed that during robberies he burned mortgage documents, freeing many people from their debts. He was pursued and killed by a group of Bureau of Investigation (BOI) agents led by Melvin Purvis. Historians have speculated as to which officers were at the event, but accounts document that local officers Robert "Pete" Pyle and George Curran were present at his fatal shooting and also at his embalming. Floyd has continued to be a familiar figure in American popular culture, sometimes seen as notorious, other times portrayed as a tragic figure, even a victim of the hard times of the Great Depression in the United States.

<i>The Lookout</i> (2007 film) 2007 film by Scott Frank

The Lookout is a 2007 American crime film written and directed by Scott Frank, in his directorial debut, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, and Isla Fisher.

Santa Claus Bank Robbery Bank robbery in Texas

The Santa Claus Bank Robbery occurred on December 23, 1927, in the Central Texas town of Cisco. Marshall Ratliff, dressed as Santa Claus, along with Henry Helms and Robert Hill, all ex-cons, and Louis Davis, a relative of Helms, held up the First National Bank in Cisco. The robbery is one of Texas' most infamous crimes, having invoked the largest manhunt ever seen in the state. Eyewitness Boyce House wrote that this was "the most spectacular crime in the history of the Southwest ... surpassing any in which Billy the Kid or the James boys had ever figured."

Robert G. "Big Bob" Brady was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. A well-known Oklahoma bandit during the 1920s and 1930s, Brady was associated with Wilbur Underhill, Harvey Bailey and Jim Clark.

Jim Clark was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. A longtime career criminal in Oklahoma during the 1920s, Clark was associated with Wilbur Underhill, Harvey Bailey and Robert "Big Bob" Brady and remained a public enemy in the state of Kansas until his capture and imprisonment in 1934.

Lawrence DeVol was an American criminal, bank robber, prison escapee and Depression-era outlaw. He was connected to several Midwestern gangs during the 1920s and 1930s, most often with the Barker-Alvin Karpis and Holden-Keating Gangs, and was also a former partner of Harvey Bailey early in his criminal career. DeVol is known to have killed at least eleven people during his criminal career, including six law enforcement officers.

Eddie Green (criminal)

Harold Eugene "Eddie" Green was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw during the 1930s, best known as a member of the John Dillinger gang. He was also associated with Frank "Jelly" Nash, Volney Davis and the Barker-Karpis Gang in his early career.

Frederick Grant Dunn

Frederick Grant Dunn (1905–1959) was an American criminal, burglar and bank robber whose career spanned over four decades from 1919 until his mysterious death in 1959. He led a small gang during the 1940s and 1950s, Dunn becoming referred to by the press as "the modern John Dillinger", and whose activities eventually resulted in his being listed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted in 1958.

Herman Lamm German-American bank robber

Herman Karl Lamm, known as Baron Lamm, was a German-American bank robber. A former Prussian Army soldier who immigrated to the United States, Lamm believed a heist required all the planning of a military operation. He pioneered the concepts of "casing" a bank and developing escape routes before conducting the robbery. Using a meticulous planning system called "The Lamm Technique", he conducted dozens of successful bank robberies from the end of World War I.

Fred William Bowerman

Fred William Bowerman was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. A veteran holdup man, his criminal career lasted over 30 years and he was placed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list in 1953. That same year, his last, Bowerman organized and led the disastrous Southwest Bank holdup in St. Louis, Missouri, which resulted in a standoff between himself and his three partners against a force of over 100 officers of the St. Louis Police Department. The events were later made into a film, The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959), starring Crahan Denton and Steve McQueen.

Wilbur Underhill Jr., often called "Mad Dog" or the "Tri-State Terror", was an American criminal, burglar, bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. He was one of the most wanted bandits in Oklahoma during the 1920s and 1930s and co-led a gang with Harvey Bailey that included many fellow Cookson Hills outlaws including Jim Clark, Ed Davis and Robert "Big Bob" Brady.

The 1984 Sydney bank robbery and hostage crisis was an incident that took place between the hours of 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on 31 January 1984 in George Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, when a 35-year-old male went on a bank robbery spree, taking 11 people hostage, before holding police at bay for several hours before finally being shot dead. The event was described as "Australia's most dramatic hostage chase" with "scenes likened to a Hollywood action film."

Phillip Hutchinson American bank robber

Phillip La Force Hutchinson was an American bank robber, known for his 1988 rampage in Denver, Colorado, in which he robbed a bank, murdered a police officer and held a man hostage. He was chased by police and a news helicopter that filmed his getaway in one of the first ever recorded police chases. Hutchinson was eventually stopped when the pilot of the news helicopter landed it in front of his hijacked pickup truck. Hutchinson was then shot dead by police when they surrounded him. A film made in 1991 called The Chase was about his crime spree.

<i>The Chase</i> (1991 film) 1991 film by Paul Wendkos

The Chase is a 1991 crime drama television film starring Casey Siemaszko and Ben Johnson. It was directed by Paul Wendkos. The film is based on the true story of American bank robber Phillip Hutchinson, who robbed a bank, killed a police officer, and took a man hostage in a 1988 rampage in Denver, Colorado. The film is ninety-three-minutes long and was released on February 10, 1991, to tie in with the three year anniversary of the event, which took place on February 9, 1988. It was later released on DVD on November 26, 2001.

Bonded Vault heist

The Bonded Vault heist was the August 1975 robbery of the Bonded Vault Company, a commercial safe-deposit business occupying a vault inside Hudson Fur Storage in Providence, Rhode Island. It served as the unofficial "bank" used by the Patriarca crime family and associates. The stolen valuables were worth about $30 million. According to The Providence Journal, it was among the biggest heists in US history and resulted in the longest and costliest criminal trial in Rhode Island history.

References

  1. ↑ N. T. Betz (2005). The Fleagle Gang: Betrayed by a Fingerprint. AuthorHouse. ISBN   9781420817621.
  2. ↑ Amy Bickel (Jun 4, 2017). "Nearly 90 years after doctor's murder, stories of the Fleagle Gang are still passed down". Gannett - USA TODAY NETWORK. Retrieved 11 April 2020.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.