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Cold Open: Holy shit this is gonna to be a fun ride today! Man, I forgot how much I loved Depression era gangster tales! The members of the Gang, aka the Barker-Karpis Gang it quickly evolved into and became more commonly known as, were cold-blooded, thieving, kidnapping, cop-killing sons-of-bitches. They don’t deserve to be romanticized. They were self-serving, ruthless dirtbags - I know that!

But…there is something darkly romantic about old time bank robbers.

A criminal such as a rapist is an obvious fucking coward. Holding down someone usually physically weaker then themselves, physically and psychology violating someone they’ve drugged, or tricked, or are holding a weapon to, using them for their own sadistic, physical pleasure. The nature of that crime is inherently evil. Same for pedophilia. Same for most . Those crimes seem to me, and to most of us, as inhuman somehow, which explains our fascination with them. How could someone do that?

Theft, however, while also not morally justified, is so much more relatable, because it’s so very human. We don’t all, thank God, want to rape. However, we ALL do want money! Even if you don’t consider yourself materialistic, or monetarily driven, you still have bills to pay. Or, if you don’t, then someone else is paying for your existence - and I hope you’re grateful for them being at least somewhat financially motivated.

And, almost all of us have stolen something at some point in our lives! Maybe you haven’t taken anything from a store, but, have you bit torrented a movie? Ever used someone else’s username and password to watch something intended for paid subscribers only? Ever downloaded an album someone gave you on a thumb drive and listened to it over and over and then never paid for it? Well, welcome to the thief club! You took something, or you used something - you listened to or watched something - that someone else created with the intention of having it sold.

And, I think the reason we’re fascinated with bank robbers is, while illegally downloading, say, a movie, is a very easy and a very low risk crime - you’re probably not going to ever get caught and if you do, not punished very severely, robbing banks is anything but easy. People guard banks. People with guns. People who can legally kill you if you try to take what belongs to the bank. And the Ma Barker aka Barker-Karpis gang robbed banks. They robbed a LOT of banks. They did something that’s very hard to do, and they did it over and over again.

Coming into a large sum of money quickly - how many of us have had that fantasy? How many of us have daydreamed about hitting the lottery of finding a briefcase full of unmarked hundred dollar bills? That would be the best!

Well, the Barker boys didn’t just fantasize about that. They did it. They didn’t find money or win it - they just went out and took it.

And they got away with it for years. They robbed bank, after bank, after drugstore, after hardware store, clothing store, Chevy dealership, jewelry store, and still more banks. They committed more than the much more famous Dillinger Gang. The Dillinger Gang was active for less than one year. The Barker-Karpis gang was active from 1931 to 1935. They bought a custom bank robbing car off of ’s car man! They got drunk with in Reno! Got in a barroom debate with future President Harry Truman in City! President FDR called them out on national radio during one of his famous Fireside Chats! Called them “an attack on everything we hold dear”. FBI Director J Edgar Hoover made it his personal mission to shut them down.

Only four Depression-era gangsters were given the title of “ Number One” by the FBI: , Baby Face Nelson, …and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis. And only Karpis, the man who ran with Ma and those Barker boys, was taken alive.

And today, we’re gonna Suck deep on the story of this infamous gang and their leader, Ma Barker! A woman J Edgar Hoover described as "the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade".

But, was she really their leader? Or was she just along for the wild ride? Keep listening and find out, on today’s shoot ‘em up, put your hands in the air edition, of Timesuck! PAUSE SHOW INTRO

I. Welcome A. Happy Monday Timesuckers!

Welcome to the Cult of the Curious, this is Timesuck, and I am the rare cult leader who is not trying to bone any of the cult members. Outside of my wife, of course. I’m always trying to bone her.

I am the Master Sucker Dan Cummins. Hail Nimrod! Excited for today’s show and excited for some announcements. Some seriously cool - no - some seriously DOPE ass summer merch just hit the shop. Talking about that in a second.

Thank you SO much for all the recents ratings and reviews online - nothing spreads the Suck better than ratings and reviews and word of mouth. Thanks to Whatpods dot com for including Timesuck in their new list of the 64 funniest podcasts in the English speaking world - we landed at number 15. Pretty awesome! Timesuck landed ahead of so many long-standing, very funny & very popular podcasts. Very honored!

B. Pre-roll (Amerigas): Timesuck is brought to you once again by Amerigas!

America! Gas! Bald Eagles! Barbecues! Willie Nelson! John Wayne! Hot dogs! I think of all these things when I think of Americas. It’s patriotism in gaseous form.

So get your grill on this summer with AmeriGas Propane Exchange, and do it on the new, free, American-made WEBER grill you’ve won thanks to Timesuck.

Register to win this grill at MyTimeSuckGrill.com! Enter your name and email address. That’s it.

The contest runs through the 4th of July, so you have no excuse not to try and win a brand new Weber Spirt II – E 210 (2 burner propane gas grill) A $400 dollar grill - FOR FREE.

And how do you get your meat paws on some Amerigas right now for the grill you already own? You pick up propane tanks at your local Home Depot, Dollar General Store, and many other stores nationwide.

How do you win that Weber grill? Sign up at MyTimeSuckGrill.com. The winner will be announced on Friday, July 6th!

God speed and Hail Nimrod.

C. Summer Merch: Now for that exciting merch news - the summer line is here! I know pickings have been pretty slim since the Memorial Day sale. I know sizes have been low. And by low, I mean completely out of almost everything. Well now we have all kinds of good shit.

1. Black Tee! First up - the seventh generation timesuck tee! A Danger Brain black on BLACK, unisex, crew neck classic! Cult of the Curious on the front, Timesuck on the back - little more subtle than previous designs. What did we use for fabric on this one? A classic mashup of koala anus and Chinchilla labia. 200% of each! The Koala anus is somehow domestic this time. Not sure how that works. The Chinchilla labia is imported. And the result is a shirt so soft and beautiful it’s hard not to immediately cum when you put it on.

2. Summer tee! Next up! Eighth generation summer tee! A Tahiti- blue, Cult of the Curious banger with some 90s pop to it! 300% imported dolphin tit-skin. I didn’t know that dolphins had tits or skin, but my fabric importer assures me it’s a thing, that it’s very rare and sought after, and that it’s some of the softest and sexiest material on Earth. Each shirt comes with a free boner and/or vaginal moistness.

3. Tank tops! Next up - you’ve asked since last summer and it’s finally here - the first generation Timesuck tank top! A royal blue stunner. Time to bring out the guns. Time to showcase the ta-tas. Nimrod is SO pleased with this tank top. It’s 50% cotton. And a 1,000% baby deer AKA fawn, inner-thigh fur. You ever rubbed a young deer’s inner thigh? It’s sublime. And now those baby deer legs can rub you every time you wear this beauty.

4. Koozies: What else!?! Fucking koozies, that’s what! Black and silver cult of the curious koozies, dark blue and gold Nimrod koozies, blue and gold Chikatilo koozies, red and a sexy blood orange Lucifina koozies. And black and lime green Secret Suck koozies only available for Space Lizards. Keep your drinks cold and keep your mind sharp this summer! Koozies are believed to give their owners somewhere around 500 extra IQ points. That’s what my science team tells me. And by science team, I mean my two doodles, Penny Poopers and Ginger Belle.

5. Magnets: Is that all? Nope. You’ve asked for over a year and magnets are now also here! A 3 inch by 3 inch, sick black logo based, circular magnet. AND - a 7 inch by 1 3/4 inch rectangular magnet. Both guaranteed to spread the Suck! Both guaranteed to block reptilian mind-control signals beaming down from the moon. Both guaranteed to annoy the shit out of Flat-Earthers.

Okay, real quick tour announcements before diving into to the Ma Barker gang!

D. Tour: Thanks to the DC Timesuckers who came out to the Draft house. I was given a few challenge coins by a veteran and a kick ass highway patrolmen. Thank you veterans for protecting us from foreign harm, thank you police officers for protecting us from domestic harm. Adam Dayton came out - the man, myth and legend who sent two beautiful hand-painted corn hole boards to the Suck Dungeon.

Speaking of corn - this weekend, June 15-16th the Flat Earth Tour rolls into Des Moines, Iowa. Meet me at the Funny Bone.

July 12-14th - Orlando Improv. Live podcast on the 15th. That podcast is almost sold out so get your tickets fast. Only a handful left.

Comedy Store in La Jolla, July 20-22nd.

Dayton, Funnybone July 27-28th.

Many more tour dates - such as Portland, Denver, and Tacoma, at www.dancummins.tv.

E. That’s it! Thanks for listening. I know announcements can be annoying sometimes, but I try and make them fun, and sponsors, live dates, and merch REALLY keep the Suck coming.

It’s Ma Barker time.

PAUSE INTERLUDE

II. Intro: A. America in the 1920s and : America in the 1920s. Let’s talk about it! Let’s learn some fun shit. Let’s Suck on the rise of organized crime and gangsters. Why did organized crime take off in the twenties? Good ol’ prohibition! Those tee-totalers never saw that coming did they?

1. Prohibition: Ratified on January 29, 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale, possession, or consumption of libations went into effect a year later, by which time no fewer than thirty-three states had already enacted their own prohibition legislation. In October 1919, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, which provided guidelines for the federal enforcement of Prohibition.

Championed by Representative Andrew Volstead of Mississippi, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the legislation became commonly known as the Volstead Act.

And Prohibition was a foolish, stupid plan. Great example of trying to legislate based on subjective morality instead of logic.

Alcohol was an extremely popular drug. Always has been in America. Always been the number one drug of choice for many Americans. It’s woven into the culture of not only the nation, but into all of the European nations on which America was built. Poor and rich alike have always enjoyed some spirits to ease their troubles and enhance their celebrations.

And the timing of prohibition was terrible.

America had just returned from World War One. A war that had left over sixteen million total people dead. Over 300,000 Americans dead, missing, or wounded. Countries with strong cultural ties to America lost millions. WWI ended on November 11th, 1918. Just over two months before the Prohibition Act was ratified. The nation was still grieving. A lot of people really wanted a stiff drink.

And where there’s demand there is gonna be some supply. Bootleggers sprung up to keep the spirits flowing. With so much money to be made in bootlegging, fortunes started being made which increased competition. Competition led to violence. Violence led to organization. Organization led to widespread, frantic and public masturbation. It became a real problem. Who could blame the hundreds of thousands of men and women who were openly masturbating in the streets. Without a bold beer or glass of wine to calm them down, it was only a matter of time before this happened.

Of course that’s nonsense. Can you imagine if that did happen? Would that part of history be taught in schools.

(teacher) “Yes, Jonathan.”

(student) “I’m sorry Mrs. Anderson, did you say, HUNDREDS of thousands of men and women started jerking and diddling themselves in the street?”

(Teacher) “I said “masturbating” Jonathan. And if you want to turn this into something crude I’m happy to send you to Principal Sanchez’s office. As I was saying, between 1919 and 1933, 4.3 million Americans were arrested for furiously and openly masturbating in the middle of the streets of this great nation.”

But seriously, who could supply speakeasies most consistently through bribing officials and killing or intimidating anyone who tried to interfere with their new business? Gangs. Organized gangs.

New booze-selling gangs in New York, Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere were romanticized in the press. What they were doing wasn’t really seen as that bad by a lot of Americans. A lot of Americans were drinking the booze they supplied. Or wanted to be. When FDR ended prohibition in 1933, it’s rumored he celebrated with a martini, his favorite drink. And I highly doubt he hadn’t had one since 1918.

So now, in the twenties, you have kids growing up idolizing these new gangsters. It’s been said that gangsters were America’s most famous celebrities in the twenties. Kids such as the the Barker kids read about or heard about their exploits and wanted to be them. And then, when the hits following the stock market freefall of October 1929, you have young men old enough to hit the work force who find out there is no fucking work force anymore. Not like there used to be. Unemployment would actually hit 25% in 1933. Holy shit! A quarter of the work force, unemployed.

Currently, the United States has an unemployment level somewhere around 3.9%. So, over six times the amount of unemployed people per capita.

So, you now have a lot of poor people who have grown up romanticizing gangsters who need money. And, you still have organized crime. It didn’t end with the end of prohibition. It just found new ways to make money. And with the Barker boys, one way was to form a new gang and rob a shit ton of banks.

Now that we have a little context, we’re gonna dive into the meat of today’s tale - in just a bit. First, I want to let you know I found a cool old movie on Youtube about Ma Barker and her gang called Ma Barker’s Killer Brood. The poster for this B flick is so good that I immediately bought it. Well, I bought a cheap replica of it. Originals exist but are a little too expensive for me. It’s fucking awesome.

And in the comments below this movie I found today’s Idiots of the Internet.

PAUSE IDIOTS OF THE INTERNET INTRO

III. Idiots of the Internet. A. Movie: Again, today’s comments come from the full length Ma Barker’s Killer Brood movie on Youtube. Great old black and white, B movie gangster flick. Starring Lurene Tuttle! You may remember her as Gladys Peabody from the Beverly Hillbillies or as Vinnie Day from Life with Father!

Odds are, you do not remember her.

In the opening scene, some poor victim of Ma Barker and her gang is getting gasoline splashed on him, and then he’s set on fire. Then some words come on screen, with the music you hear now played underneath it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ids_QY6Fms Play from :41 to 1:12

“This story is true; documented from police records, newspaper files and eye witness reports. It is the sadistic career of Katherine Clark Barker, Master of Crime, who taught her sons that the only crime was to “get caught”. So cunning was this evil genius that in almost two decades of , kidnapping, and , she herself was never once arrested. Ma Barker, mother to the underworld and public enemy.”

Mother to the underworld! I love it. And then, in the comments below, some idiots turn the commentary political.

1. User MrShobar posts: “Ma Barker-the Sarah Palin of her time.”

Haha!

a) And immediately, Kenneth Wallace is butt hurt. He posts, “No comparison you liberal democrat socialist communist.”

“Liberal democrat socialist communist”. Wow! Little angry towards the left, huh? Couldn’t handle one little Palin jab?

b) Mr Shobar comes back with “Go brush your tooth.”

I know that’s an easy joke but I still always like it.

Kenneth Wallace doesn’t come back with anything. Maybe he really did go brush that tooth. Polished it right up. If you do only have one tooth, I do think you should probably keep it clean and shiny.

Or, maybe that’s a terrible idea. Maybe that would just draw more attention to it. Maybe it would create more fascination around it. “How did he lose ALL of his other teeth when he’s clearly taken such care of that one?”

2. Next comment down goes back the other way. Panzer Marche posts: “Ma-Barker the Hillary of her time”

Touché! Tit for tat!

MoronVideos 1940 replies with “You make no sense with that statement…” And that reply works for a solid 30-50% of all Youtube comments.

And then Gabe Giron posts, “Goooo Trump!”

These guys are clearly looking for any excuse to throw in some liberal or conservative grandstanding.

After the two unnecessary political comments and the replies underneath them, User Alter Ego asks, “Is there a nest of you fuckwits somewhere?”

Haha. If you find it Alter Ego, please destroy it and let me know so I can celebrate your great deed.

User Doc Harris is sick of the political comments. And he’s also quite possibly insane, posting: “The election is over gentleman ok let it rest ! But if you want to hot-dog then guess what you're in a circus and the ringleader is dun-donald and his good troop and oh just for the record I wasn't a Hillary supporter either if she was won it would have been way worse God bless this country because this clown will have people running to Christ for sure.”

Huh? Donald and his “good troop” will have us running to Christ? And, if you want to hot-dog you’re in the circus? I think I get the gist of what you’re saying, Doc. And I also think you should run your future comments through an editor. At least have a friend look them over before you post. “Does this make sense?” “Uh, no Doc, it doesn’t. What point are you trying to make, exactly, with the hot dog slash circus analogy?”

3. User Eteranl Ganjauser cracked my shit up with this post: “my dogs name is Ma Barker she is bad ass just like this bitch”

I fucking love it. What a great name for a dog! “Ma Barker!” Haha. Ma Barker and Bojangles! What a terrific two-some that would be.

4. User Jack Hyde also really cracked me up, “a lil unknown fact was that not all Barker's sons were killed. one survived and went on to become the greatest game show host Bob barker.”

Haha! How great would that be if that was true!?! If long-time Price is Right host Bob Barker was the son of Ma Barker. “From bank robbing to Plinko - today on A& E Biographies, it’s the story of Bob Barker.”

5. User, or bot, Endie87, shoehorns some idiotic spam into the comments: “I scanned some of the replies on here however I believe that this is a first-rate youtube video. My brother simply wishes to become the best with the ladies. He figured out alot from Master Attraction. (Google it if you want pretty good emails on picking up girls.) The strategies for seducing girls through nightclubs from Master Attraction got him his 1st sex in around 4 yrs. I was really bothered though coz I heard them all.”

I love the first two sentences and the pivot in between them. This is a “first-rate” youtube video! That reads as, “I didn’t watch a second of this.” And then immediately pivoting to “My brother simply wishes to beome the best with the ladies.” Which reads as, “This is spam most likely sent in from Nigeria.”

I checked out Master Attraction Dot Com and then left after reading the first sentence. It says, “Welcome to my Master Attraction Formula. I’m Jake, and I help men get girls…”

“Men” get “girls”? Dude. How about “men get women”? When you phrase it with men getting girls, you sound like your website should be renamed to jailbait dot com. Then I thought, is that a real website? And THEN I thought, I’m never going to find out because finding the answer to that question is not worth having FBI agents come to my home to confiscate my hard drive and take me to prison.

One more!

6. User Hilda Martin does some very odd hook up trolling, asking, “So do vampires make friends I think their sexiest or is that fonnie”.

Ummmm. Okay. We now know three things about Hilda. a) One. She can’t spell very well - spelling funny as “f-o-n-n-i-e”. b) Two. She finds vampires sexy. c) Three. She is so desperate to find someone else who shares her vampire fetish that she’s dropping the comment under a 1960 Ma Barker movie that has zero to do with vampires.

What are you doing, Hilda? If you’re gonna troll for Vampire dick get out of the Ma Barker comment thread and move over to one of the Underworld or Blade movies. Even the Vampire in Brooklyn and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer threads are better than this. Know your audience, Hilda! Know your audience. And maybe use spellcheck?

And that’s all for today’s Idiots of the Internet.

PAUSE IDIOTS OF THE INTERNET OUTRO

IV. Segue into Timeline

A. If you do watch that movie we just talked about, know that the depiction of Ma in that movie was a popular one after her arrest: the public narrative about Ma Barker was that she raised her boys to be criminals, that she was the mastermind of the gang, and that she was a hard drinkin’, hard living woman who was probably handy with a gun. After she was gunned down herself, the public was led to believe that she was an active participant in the crimes the gang committed.

Scholars have more recently come to highly doubt this depiction, however, thinking it was more likely that she just loved her boys in spite of their criminal dealings.

If this more modern analysis is true though, why would she accompany them on their crime spree? Very unusual. No other gangs at the time had their mom along for the ride.

I’m guessing the truth about Ma Barker lies somewhere between her being a mastermind and her being an innocent bystander. You make your own judgement after marching through today’s Timesuck Timeline.

PAUSE TIMESUCK TIMELINE INTRO V. Timesuck Timeline:

1. October 17, 1873: On October 17, 1873, Arizona Donnie Clark was born in Ash Grove, Greene County, . She’s listed as going by Kate in some accounts. She sometimes went by Rita. Damn gangsters and their nicknames and aliases! She’d become commonly known as “Arrie”. What a cool name. Arizona. I actually really like that. “Donnie” on the other hand - unfortunate middle name for a woman. Almost as bad as “Hank” or “Dick”. “And this is my daughter, Kimberly Hank Johnson. And this is my other daughter Michelle Dick Johnson.”

At the time of Arrie’s birth, Ash Grove only had 400-500 residents. About the size of my hometown, Riggins, Idaho. It only has about 1,400 residents today.

It was a little farm town only twenty miles northeast of Springfield, Missouri. A little over 150 miles south of Kansas City.

As a child, Arrie was described as God-fearing and a devout Presbyterian. She was also described as tough and ill-tempered. And, she loved tales of the 19th century gangsters Jesse and Frank James. The Jesses James gang! Gotta Suck those dirty cowboys one of these days. That’s a sentence that could be interpreted very differently out of context.

Arrie is said to have been devastated when Jesse was shot in the back and killed while he was straightening a picture on the wall in 1882 when she was eight years-old. Jesse’s killer, Robert “Bob” Ford, would be reviled in history as “the dirty little coward whose shot laid poor Jesse in his grave”.

So, Ma Barker had a fascination with gangsters long before the 1920s. She loved those old Wild West stage coach and train robbers that the press also romanticized.

2. 1892: In 1892, Arrie does what nineteen year olds did back then if they hadn’t done it already - Arrie marries George Barker before she hits twenty and becomes an old maid! Didn’t anyone ever play the card game Old Maid as a kid, by the way? I used to play it with my great-grandma Stella Burman, born in 1915. She was a great woman. Born in 1915, travelled by wagon as a kid, and helped raise three generations of my family. She probably was fascinated by tales of Ma Barker and the Barker-Karpis gang when she was a teen. Love you grandma Stell!

Anyways, Arrie and Geoge lived near Aurora MO where George worked as a share cropper. He’s described as a mild mannered and soft spoken man. It is said that Arrie was the one the ran the family. In most media depictions, poor George is portrayed as a total door mat that Arrie walked all over.

Aurora, by the way, isn’t that much bigger than Ash Grove. 7,500 people in the Southwest corner of Missouri. Former mine town that transformed into another agricultural community thirty miles Southwest of Springfield.And it would be the birthplace of the key members of the Barker gang.

3. 1893-1901: George and Arrie Barker had four sons, all born in Aurora Missouri.

Their first son, Herman, was born October 30, 1893.

Lloyd William, called “Red”, was born next, on March 14, 1897. He was named after the fact that he had a red penis, much like a dogs. Unfortunate. Ugh.

Arthur Raymond called “Doc”, was born January 4, 1899.

And Frederick George “Freddie”, was born December 12, 1901.

And I made up the shit about the dog’s dick. I hope you know that. Guessing he got the nickname “red” because he had red hair. If he didn’t have red hair, but did have a red dick, you’d think he’d really fight to accept that nickname. I know I would. If I had a red dick, and people found out and wouldn’t stop calling me “red”, I’d runaway, leave my family, and start a new life that includes a more respectable nickname like “Ace”, or “Snake” or even “Skippy” would be better. Hell, I’d take “Goober” over red as in a dog’s red rocket.

4. 1903: Anyway! Sometime around 1903, the family moved to Webb City, a small 11,000 person suburb of Joplin, Missouri. Joplin itself having about 50,000 people. Joplin, if you’ll recall, also was the location of ’s infamous apartment hideout they left after a shootout with law enforcement in 1933. Joplin is seventy miles due West of Springfield and, from the looks of the map, less than five miles from the state line with Kansas, and less than ten miles from the state line. Guessing that’s what made the town so popular in the days of Prohibition and Depression era gangsters when all you had to do to escape being chased by the cops was make it across the state line. We talked about the importance of those state lines in the Bonnie and Clyde Suck.

To refresh your memory, if you’re a longtime Sucker, essentially, not all states had passed a form of the Uniform Act on Fresh Pursuit in the early 30s, allowing state police to cross state lines when pursuing a person or persons suspected of committing a felony. Back then, as long as the Feds weren’t chasing you, and that was rare, making in to the next state was almost like making it out of the country when it came to being pursued by law enforcement. Man that would make it easier to be a criminal! Get a hideout on the state line and only have to make it a few miles to be able to start a new life.

But I digress. We’re talking about the childhood of the Barker boys. Truth is, we don’t know much about the Barker’s early family life. We know, in addition to working as a sharecropper, George worked as an “ore buyer” for the Queen Jack Mine and the Prime Western Smelter Company around Joplin.

We know the boys attended Webb gradeschool. And we know that Herman gained a reputation as a prankster at school and that he once rode a horse through the front door of a local saloon in imitation of his idol, Jesse James. And one can only surmise he came to idolize Jesse James because his mother also still idolized him. Teaching her boys to love outlaws and bank robbers!

5. 1910: In 1910, the oldest boy Herman has his first encounter with the law. He’s arrested for petty theft, but released to his mother after she begs authorities not to incarcerate him.

6. March 5, 1915: On March 5th, 1915, Herman is arrested for highway robbery. Arrie again throws a public tantrum and is somehow once again able to convince local authorities to relinquish Herman to her care. Wow. Can anyone say, “enabler”? Jesus. She’s made the wrong call again. Let your kid go to jail for a bit when they’re young, don’t have to spend much time behind bars, and still have time to change the course of their lives. What lesson is Herman learning? That he can get arrested and have Ma bail him out. Not good.

And, how strong was Arrie’s will in order for her to convince local authorities to let her son off for highway robbery? He’s twenty-one years old, not fifteen. I don’t think you can pull off that shit today. Good luck talking a judge to let your twenty-one year old come live with you instead of going to prison for highway robbery.

After this arrest, Arrie allegedly told her neighbors that her sons were “marked.” She’d tell friends and neighbors, “The police here won't ever stop picking on my boys.” Pretty sure they’d stop getting “picked on” if they stopped taking other people’s shit. That’s usually how that works.

Ma grew so furious with the way she felt that law enforcement was picking on her sons that she demanded that her husband George move them to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her own family had already moved. Her step-father was actually working in Tulsa as a police officer. Maybe he’d go easy on her boys. Let ‘em take what they wanted like a good cop.

7. 1914: In 1915, the Barker family does move to Tulsa. Doormat George initially gets a job as a laborer. He’d later work for the Spring Water Company LIKE A SUCKER. Ma and the boys, from everything I can tell, do not work. They take.

Shortly after making it to Tulsa the boys, with a number of other juvenile delinquents, form the Central Park gang. This teen group of hooligans would include numerous members of the later Barker-Karpis gang.

8. 1916: In 1916, Herman is arrested in Joplin on a multitude of burglary charges including the July burglary of Hawkins and Miller Jewelry Store in Springfield. Due to his prior record, he’s sentenced to forty years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. Mom can’t talk the officials out of sending him away this time. So he manages to escape and flees to Montana where he immediately starts committing more crimes. So much for the theory that he was just getting picked on back in Joplin.

In October of 1916, under the alias “Bert Lavender”, he was arrested in Billings, Montana for burglary and grand larceny and sentenced to six to twelve years in the Montana State Penitentiary at Deer Lodge. You can actually visit this prison now if you want. It’s called the Old Prison Museum. I’ve driven by once in my Montana travels, and it’s pretty cool looking.

“Bert Lavender”. Great alias by the way. He had fun with that one. Sounds fancy. I wonder what other aliases were considered? Maybe “Lawrence Cumberbund”, or “Nathaniel Haberdash”. Maybe “Turd Ferguson”.

9. July 4th, 1918: On July 4, 1918, another one of Ma’s brood, nineteen-year old Arthur “Doc” Barker gets arrested for having stolen a government car on June 26th in Tulsa. Damn coppers are picking on him too! Really cramping his style! He somehow manages to escape and flees to Joplin, where he stays until he was recaptured there in 1920 and returned to Tulsa. But he again managed to escape. If you recall from the old Bonnie and Clyde Suck - real easy to escape back then compared to now. Jails were overcrowded and understaffed. Guards were undertrained and underpaid. Security cameras didn’t exist. Electronic locks didn’t exist. People just literally walked out of prison fairly often. Or they dug out, climbed over a fence, snuck away from labor camp work or from a chain gang. And they could sneak off to a neighboring state and start a new life, which was often still a criminal life, which usually landed them in that state’s jail.

10. August 17, 1918: On August 17, 1918, Loyd “Red ween” Barker enlists in the Army in Tulsa just a few months before the end of WWI. Ol’ dog dick! Ol’ Red Rocket serves as a cook with the 162nd Depot Brigade, 87th Division, and is honorably discharged with the rank of Sergeant in February of 1919. 11. January 1921: In January 1921, using the alias “Claude Dale”, Doc was arrested for the attempted burglary of the bank in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Doc was released a short time later, and was then soon implicated in more serious trouble. The Barker Boys man - if they weren’t in jail they just could not stop causing trouble.

Tulsa’s new Catholic hospital, St. John’s, was under construction and on the night of August 26, 1921, three men broke into the building to rob the office safe. They were interrupted by the night watchman, Thomas J. Sherrill, whom they killed while fleeing the scene. Soon thereafter, Volney Davis and Doc were arrested and charged for Sherrill’s murder. Ma is DEFINITELY not keeping her boy out of jail this time. They were convicted, and sentenced to life in prison at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

This time, Doc doesn’t escape. He actually makes his peace with imprisonment, largely because, while Ma isn’t able to get him out of jail, she is able to make his stay a little more comfortable by buying him a subscription to his favorite comic book, a comic extremely popular in the early 20th century you may be familiar with called Pootie and Juju.

12. Pootie Issue #113 - “Prison Break!”

Doc was especially fond of issue #113 of the original Pootie and Juju run, Pootie and Juju’s Prison Break!

In this Bee’s knees issue - Pootie accidentally robs a bank when he finds the security guards’s gun laying on the floor next to him. It had fallen out of it’s holster when the guard fell asleep in his chair.

Not familiar with gun etiquette, Pootie absentmindedly pointed the pistol at the guard in a clumsy attempt to give it back to him and the guard awoke to find himself staring down the barrel of his own Colt .45. He instinctively threw his hands in the air and yelled “Jeepers are you Zozzled? Don’t shoot!”, which caused the rest of the bank to panic, including Pootie, who waved the gun around the room as he’d tried to explain himself. “I ain’t doing nothing, no-how everyone! I’s just trying to give the guard what’s rightfully his!” Well, this is misinterpreted by the branch manager who thought this meant he was gonna give the guard, who was in tears by this point, a belly full of lead lead. And he yelled, “Don’t shoot! You’ll get your lettuce!” And then Pootie, who did come to make an account with-drawl, thought the manager was fooling around and joked back saying, “You slay me! Small bills and fast before someone get’s hurt!” Upon hearing this, some other customer, some terrified dame squealed, startling Pootie into firing the gun. The next thing you know, he’s serving 5-10 in Leavenworth.

Juju is NOT happy with any of this. Juju can’t afford the mortgage on the little house they just went 50/50 on! So, he sneaks a file into prison.

Pootie explains that the whole thing was one big misunderstanding, but Juju’s not hearing it, “Too little, too diddle, Pootie!” And then Juju slides Pootie a file under the table. Pootie asks, “How my ‘sposed to sneak this into my cell, Juju!?!”

Juju hisses, “Put it in your lunchbox, Shirly.”

Pootie’s completely befuddled. “What kind of Phonus Balonus are you squawking about, Juju?”

Juju nods towards Pootie’s hiney. “Put it IN your LUNCHBOX, Shirly!”

“Ooooooohhh,” says Pootie, before quietly sneaking the file up into his or her bottom. Turns out a lunchbox can refer to something other than a place to keep your lunch. It can also be the place your lunch ends up after you eat it.

Pootie sneaks the file in, files down some bars in a cell, and escapes just in time to get Pootie’s job back and help Juju keep from foreclosing the house. THE END!

And Doc LOVED that issue! And if you’re new to the show, that comic only exists in the Timesuck world, and that’s about as weird as we get. And you made it through it. And we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming now.

While Doc was sentenced to life in prison, he wouldn’t actually spend his whole life in prison, and he’ll rejoin the timeline in about ten years.

Also in 1921 - not the best year for the Barker family - ol’ second born Red is arrested for vagrancy in Tulsa and then arrested again for robbing a mail courier in Baxter Springs, Kansas, and he gets sentenced to 25 years in Leavenworth. He enters Leavenworth on January 16th, 1922, and he’d remain there until 1938. Once out, he’d re-enlist. He’d serve again as a cook in WWII, and after being honorably discharged again, he’d move to Denver, get married, have a daughter, get a job as an assistant manager and live happily after!!

Well, not quite. While he did walk away from a life of crime, and he did end up in Denver, get married, have a daughter, and get a decent job - he still was unable to escape the violent death that would be the fate of almost every member of his family. The one Barker boy who would eventually walk away from a life of crime ended up getting his head nearly blown off with a point blank shotgun blast in 1949. His wife shot him when he came home from work and she’d spend the rest of her life in an insane asylum. Not sure what happened to their child.

Clearly, Red’s tale has now been told and he’s out of the timeline.

So let’s head back to the early 1920s, when Red is still alive but in prison in Kansas, Herman is in prison in Montana, Doc is in prison in Oklahoma , and the youngest Barker boy, Fred, is the only son NOT currently incarerated.

Arrie and Geroge must have been so proud.

“Hey George, how are the kids?”

(George) “Good! Real good. Herman is staying out of trouble up in Montana, Red is keeping to himself in Kansas, Herman is enjoying a little rest and relaxation in McAlester, and Fred is trying to decide which brother to bunk up with here soon.”

13. September 1st 1922: Fred, the only free brother, is doing his best to get locked up as well. On September 1st 1922, Fred and two other men rob a mail carrier who was delivering $14,200 of a mine’s payroll.

14. January 6, 1923: And then on January 6, 1923 Fred and another man rob a back room poker game at Slim’s Repair Shop. They net $600 but police were informed that Fred was behind it and he was arrested on June 28, 1923 and sentenced to five years in McAleister. He apparently decides to bunk up with brother Doc! He’d be out again in only a few years.

How nice would that be as a parent? Now you have four sons and all of them are in prison for separate crimes. Ma Barker, whether or not she would later go on to be a criminal mastermind, or, just along for the ride - CLEARLY not a great mother. Clearly a criminal enabler. Her and George - not winning any parent of the year awards.

15. 1926: In 1926, Herman gets out of prison in Montana and heads back to Tulsa where he forms a new gang. On June 7th 1926, Herman and another gang member are arrested. The quickly get out thanks to the help of a crooked Ottawa County Judge, Phillip McGhee.

16. November 8th 1926: On November 8th, 1926, Fred, recently a free man again, is caught burglarizing a place called Dillion’s Grocery store. And on March 5th 1927 he’s sentenced to another five years, this time at the Kansas State Penitentiary where he would soon meet Alvin “Creepy” Karpis.

17. December 20th 1926: On December 20th, Herman, Ray Terrill, and others, broke into the State Bank of Buffalo, in Wilson County, Kansas where they stole $6,000 in cash and American Express Travelers Checks worth another $2,000.

Almost three weeks later, on January 16th 1927, the safe from the bank in Rogersville, Missouri is stolen.

The next day Terrill, Herman, and their gang broke into the bank in Jasper, Missouri. They had stolen a truck, and backed it up to the bank. The plan was to winch the safe into the back of the truck, take it back to their hideout at Radium Springs, empty it, then dump it over the side of the Lindsay Mayes bridge into the Grand River below.

Jesus!

And all of this shit, mind you, is BEFORE the formation of the Ma Barker/Barker-Karpis gang. The crime run that would outlast the Dillenger Gang’s run by years hasn’t even STARTED yet. These guys were robbing places for years beforehand.

18. May 17th 1927: Another May 17th this week - my birthday can’t seem to stay out of these timelines recently - May 17th, 1927, Herman and his common law wife Carol use some of the stolen traveler’s checks they’d just taken in Kansas. A clerk notices something is off and calls police. Deputy Sheriff Arthur Emil Osborn stops them. After a quick exchange of words, Herman Barker pulls out a 32 caliber Colt automatic pistol and shoots Osborn twice in the chest, killing him.

Damn. Things just escalated to cop killing.

19. August 1927: In August, Herman leaves his girl Carol to do a “quick job” and rob the Crystal Ice Company. On August 28th Herman and two accomplices broke in, cracked the safe, took the $200 inside and headed out.

As they were driving back home, motorcycle patrolmen Joseph Earl Marshall and his partner Frank Bush see a car speeding by just after 1 am. Marshall approached the car and Herman quickly shoots him three times in the head with his 32 Colt. Second cop. Herman Barker was a cold-blooded son-of-a-bitch.

Bush starts shooting and there’s a gun fight. And apparently Officer Bush is one Hell of a shot because he shoots Herman and both of his criminal associates. Herman is hit in the lower chest and begins bleeding badly.

The trio manages to drive away but quickly crashes in to a burger joint.

Dazed, Herman opens the car door and falls flat on his face. Somehow, he manages to get to his feet one last time. He can barely breathe as the blood pools in his throat from the tunnel Bush’s bullet bored through his chest. Everything is quickly fading to black. He staggers a short distance away from the car across to the southeast corner of the intersection. He knows this is the end of the line - he’s gonna bleed out or get caught and be bandaged up just to fry later in the electric chair. So, he places his Colt against his right temple, allegedly yells out “Forgive me, Ma!” and squeezes the trigger. Herman Barker, George’s and Arrie’s first born son, is dead at the age of thirty-three.

20. 1928: By 1928, George and Arrie’s marriage is now on the rocks as she and George grieve the loss of their oldest boy.

Arrie, her oldest son dead and her other three sons still in prison, she begins to drink away her troubles. She begins hitting the illegal speakeasies with her girlfriends. They drank and carried on with known criminals around Tulsa during the height of prohibition. This pushed George over the edge. He was tired from years of Arrie never punishing the boys, and being pushed around. So he packed his bags, left Arrie and moved back to Webb City, just outside of Joplin. He’d never speak to her again.

George would live another thirteen years, dying in his home on February 8th, 1941 of arteriosclerosis [ahr-teer-ee-oh-skluh-roh- sis], a hardening of the arteries, and chronic myocarditis [mahy- oh-kahr-dahy-tis]. Basically - he had a weak heart and it gave out.

And check this out - he would be the only member of his immediate family to die of natural causes. That’s crazy. Ma and all four sons would die from bullet wounds. That’s fucking hardcore.

Now back to the years following him leaving Arrie.

21. 1930: In 1930, Fred gets a new cellmate at Kansas State Penitentiary, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis and they quickly become friends. “Creepy” - what a terribly unflattering nickname. I feel like that might be my nickname if I were an old time-y gangster. “That’s ol’ Creepy Cummins! Stay away from him, see! He’s dead in the eyes I tell ya! Boys used to call him Big Head or Boulder Noggin’, but Creepy Cummins just seems to suit him better. That stare of his gives me the heebie jeebies! He’s always talking about clean weens and he’s constantly telling me to put things in my lunchbox! (shudder)!”

When Barker is released in 1931 he gives Karpis his contact information and tells him to join him when he gets out.

Alvin “Creepy” Karpis! Remember that name? We’ve talked about him before. He showed up in the Suck! Way back in the Suck catalog.

He’s the dude who taught Charles Manson to play guitar, and Manson would later use his guitar playing to attract the followers that became the Manson family. His guitar playing would put him in touch with Dennis Wilson, drummer for the Beach Boys. He’d try to use Dennis’s contacts to get a record deal, and, when he was rejected from the music business, his rage led to the La Bianca and Tate murders. Butterfly effect ladies and gentlemen! Crazy shit.

22. May 2, 1931: On May 2nd, 1931, Karpis is released and makes his way to Ma Barker’s house. But first he stops to see Herman’s widow, Carol, who he knew through a mutual friend, fellow gangster, and future Barker-Karpis gang member Lawrence DeVol. The have a little fling and then Karpis would later marry her niece, Dorothy Ellen Slayman.

So fucked up! God these guys were a trashy bunch. Why do people do shit like date one woman and then later marry that woman’s niece? So awkward. Expand your social circle! There are a lot of people to date! You don’t have to bang your way through a family tree. Why add the extra drama to your life? To each their own I guess.

After Creepy’s release, Fred and Alvin form what would become known as the Barker-Karpis gang and the rest of this timeline will follow their exploits.

23. May 31st 1931: On May 31st, Black’s Jewelry Store in Henryetta, Oklahoma is robbed. $5,000 in jewelry and $300 in cash is stolen. On June 10th , using the alias George Heller, Dorothy Ellen Slayman, , his girlfriend Jo Ann Scott, Sam Coker, and Joe Howard are all arrested for the crime. Fred’s role is determined to be minimal and he only spends a few months imprisoned this time around.

24. September 11th 1931: On September 11th, 1931, Karpis is sentenced to four years. Dorothy returns the stolen goods and he gets paroled.

25. September 21st 1931: On September 21st, 1931, Fred and another man break in to a Chevy dealership. A police officer, Elisha L. Hagler, catches them in the act. Fred shoots and injures him. He dies on October 21st, 1931, from complications of the wound. Another cop killed! He is the only officer to die on the job in Barry County MO. James Langely and Rudolph Parker are arrested and convicted of this crime. It wasn’t until 1971, when Karpis published his autobiography, that Fred Barker was identified as Hagler’s real killer

26. September 26th 1931: On September 26th, 1931, Dorothy and Karpis get married in Monett, MO. Dorothy’s aunt is the maid of honor. All three of them go on the honeymoon and share a bed.

I have no idea if the Aunt even attended the wedding let alone was the maid of honor. Seems possible with these dirtbags though.

27. October 7th 1931: At 3AM on October 7th, 1931, the gang broke in to People’s Bank in Mountain View Missouri. They hid out and waited until 9 am when two workers arrived and then Karpis and another member used guns to force their way in to the safe. They netted $14,000 in cash and securities. It was Alvin Karpis’s first daylight robbery.

28. December 17th 1931: Fred and Alvin break in to C.C. McCallon’s Clothing Store on December 17th. They stole $2,000 dollars worth of merchandise and other items. December 19th they picked up a hitchhiker named Robert Gross who noticed the stolen clothing in the car. He telephoned the police. Sheriff Roy C Kelly approached Fred and Alvin about the stolen goods. Fred shot Kelly and he died instantly.

Those Barker boys had no problem killing patrolmen, did they? I feel like some of the blame here falls on Ma as well. I’m guessing these killings didn’t bother her at all and that, since her oldest son Herman was killed by a cop, these slayings may have delighted her. Just speculation.

The killing of Sheriff Kelly brings the gang a new level of heat. $1,200 was offered for the capture of Alvin Karpis and Fred Barker in relation to the murder of Sheriff Kelly. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but, $1200 in 1931 is more like $18-20,000 in today’s dollars.

Law enforcement knew that Alvin was married to Dorothy. They watcher her like a hawk. He would not see her again for four years. Her Aunt was secretly delighted! When he did see her he gave her $500 dollars to take a secretarial course and file for divorce.

Arrie “Ma” “Kate” Barker was also put on a wanted poster for a reward of $100. A little over $1,500 in today’s dollars. This is the only time she would ever be on a wanted poster.

What’s funny about her wanted poster is that she didn’t have a criminal record. In her life she would never have a criminal record. She was wanted solely in connection to her son Fred and Alvin Karpis.

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C. Timeline Continued.

Okay - no more interruptions. But that last one was great.

After the murder of Sheriff Kelly Ma and the Barker-Karpis gang flee Oklahoma. They arrived in Joplin and immediately went to their friend Herb “Deafy” Farmer’s house. Farmer was the Barkers’ friend and neighbor when they lived in Joplin and Webb City, and he had a lot of contacts around the country who could help hide them.

One of these contacts leads the gang heads up to West St. Paul, .

Why St. Paul? Let’s talk about Minnesota’s strange early 20th century relationship with gangsters.

1. Minnesota’s gangster’s paradise:

A man named John J. O’Connor joined the Saint Paul Police Department about 1880, and served on the force until June 1, 1900, when the new Mayor-Elect appointed him as Chief of Police. And he was publicly heralded as a champion of truth and justice. And he was privately crooked as shit. He was a dirty bird!

He did bring an end to a crime wave that had plagued St. Paul. But he did so by taking massive bribes from criminals around the country. Behind the scenes, he and his brother Richard quietly put together a plan whereby criminals could come to Saint Paul, pay a bribe, and stay without being bothered so long as they didn’t commit any crimes within the city limits.

Saint Paul would be a safe haven for early 20th century gangsters. It would be known among the underworld as a Sanctuary City.

O’Connor’s plan became known as the Layover Agreement” And it allowed criminals to stay in the city under three conditions: that they checked in with police upon their arrival; agreed to pay bribes to city officials; and committed no major crimes in the city of St. Paul. This arrangement lasted for almost forty years, ending when rampant corruption forced crusading local citizens and the federal government to step in.

A man named William "Reddy" Griffin was the first keeper of O'Connor's system. Maybe HIS nickname came from having a reddy, dog-like ween? I have no evidence that that is true, BUT, I also have no evidence that it’s NOT true!

Anyway, after arriving in town and meeting with the police, criminals stopped to "check in" with Griffin at the Hotel Savoy in downtown St. Paul.

When Griffin dies in 1913, a man named “Dapper” Dan Hogan takes over. John Dillinger, Ma Barker and her boys, "Babyface" Nelson, Alvin Karpis, and others would all come to meet Dapper Dan and all considered St. Paul a safe haven at some point during their crime sprees.

Dapper Dan’s Green Lantern Saloon on Wabasha Street became a sort of club house for these gangsters when they stayed in St Paul. The original building doesn’t exist any longer, but there is a Green Lantern Saloon at 229 6th Street East in St Paul that claims to carry on it’s legacy.

So, in 1931, the Barker-Karpis gang heads to his haven. They call themselves the Andersons, saying that they are musicians who have come to play at as part of an orchestra that was preforming at resorts and lakes around the Twin Cities. They often carried around violin cases, however these cases contained guns and not instruments.

How darkly cool is that? Guns in violin cases.

Alvin meets a 16 year old girl named Delores Delany at The Green Lantern speakeasy and is immediately taken with her. She’s the sister of one of the criminal underworld members, Rat Riley who was a bar tender at The Green Lantern. And Riley had a rule that, “Every guy wants to make her. But we’ve got a rule. Nobody gets in her pants until she’s seventeen”. But Alvin and Delores soon become and item. They’d actually have a son together, Raymond Alvin Karpis, in 1935.

Ol’ Creepy Karpis! Clearly loved some danger, didn’t he? After getting out of prison he immediately bangs the widow of Herman Barker. That could’ve backfired on him. Then he shacks up with her niece. That also could’ve pissed off the Barker boys. Then, he falls for the 16 year-old sister of the Green Lantern’s bartender and risks pissing off the people hiding their cop-killing gang in St. Paul. Dude was just immune to playing it safe. And yet, he’d live by far the longest.

2. December 29th 1931: On December 29th, 1931, Alvin, Fred, and four other gang members get right to work making money up North, robbing a drug store and a hardware store in Pine River, Minnesota.

3. January 5, 1932: On January 5th, 1932, the gang hit Cambridge Minnesota. They stole a 4 door Buick and ransacked the whole town netting about $3,000 dollars

4. March 29, 1932: On March 29th, 1932, the gang pulls off their biggest heist so far. They hit the North American Branch of the Northwestern National Bank at 1223 N Washington Avenue, . The take was $75,000 in cash, $6,500 in change, and $185,000 in bonds. That total of $266,500 is worth roughly 4.5 million in today’s dollars. Damn!

And $6,500 in change! How heavy was that? That’s 650 rolls of quarters. Or 3,250 rolls of nickels. 6,500 penny rolls.

The gang doesn’t get to enjoy their loot in St Paul for long. A short time later, a neighbor opens a copy of True Detective Magazine, sees a wanted photo of the boys in relation to the murder of Sheriff Kelly. The neighbor sneaks next door, writes the license plate number down and then drives down to the police station where he reports the boys to Chief Inspector James P. Crumley.

Officers then called Harry Sawyer, who was managing the Green Lantern at the time, and he tells the boys they have to get out of town.

Not even St Paul can openly offer cop killers a place to stay. At least for the gang, they were still crooked enough to let them leave and not get caught.

The boys blamed Ma’s boyfriend, Arthur W. Dunlop. A man the boys referred to as the “old bastard”. Not much is known about Arthur, but he must have been crazy. Why would you date someone who had four sons who were all either in prison for serious crimes including involvement in the murder of a law enforcement officer or out of prison committing armed robberies or worse? Some people just seem to truly have death wishes. They just have to play with fire until it eventually burns them down.

Ma reluctantly agreed with the boys’ assessment that Dunlop ratted them out even though he didn’t and it we now know it was the neighbor. On April 25 1932 the body of Dunlop was found in Webster WI. He’d been shot several times. You damn well know the poor bastard sincerely pleaded his innocence in vain before they blasted him. I don’t really feel bad for him though.

Supposedly, the Old Bastard was known to get a bit rough with Ma from time to time - not smart - and he mooched off of the loot her sons gave to her. Also not smart. He was known to get mouthy when he drank, which was often, and the boys hated him. He’d been along for the gang’s ride for over two years by the time he was killed. He knew what he’d gotten himself into and he had plenty of time to get out but didn’t. Dude might not have ratted them out but he did get himself killed.

After leaving St. Paul, Ma and the boys go to Kansas City, Missouri to lay low for a while. A little while. Pretty soon after arrival, the boys hit the town one night and end up at the bar in the Pickwick Hotel, which has since been transformed in the Pickwick Plaza - a $65 million dollar luxury apartment restoration project.

Well, one night in 1932, the Barker Boys would have some drinks in this hotel and get into an argument with a future US President.

An older fellow was sitting by himself at a table and saw the Barker Boys and Alvin Karpis when they came in. He motioned for the boys to come join him, bought a round of drinks, and he and Alvin talked for hours. Their conversation made Fred nervous, who sat at the bar watching them. After a while, Alvin and the man were pretty well plastered, and they began to argue about politics.

At one point, the man stared at his drink and said, “Young man, you don’t know a thing about politics!” To which Alvin replied, “You don’t know who I know in politics!” Finally, when things got even more heated, Fred grabbed Alvin by the arm and led him out of the bar, and back home. Luckily, nothing worse happened, like Alvin or Fred getting so mad they killed him. They’d killed cops before and just killed Ma Barker’s boyfriend, what would another murder be to them?

Good thing they didn’t kill him. Alvin’s new drinking buddy was none other than Judge Harry S. Truman, who would, in 1945, of course become President Harry S. Truman, and go on, after the war, to form the CIA, an organization that has led to so many Suck-worthy topics such as Project MK Ultra and possible involvement in the assassination of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr, working with Pablo Escobar in the cocaine smuggling trade, and so much more.

5. June 17, 1932: On June 17th, the gang hits Citizens National Bank in Fort Scott, Kansas and they end up having to improvise a bit to escape capture. An employee trips a silent alarm, the gang hear the sirens in the distance, and they end up taking a few girls as hostages. The make the girls stand on the running boards of the car as they speed away. No shots were fired as police did not want to hit the girls. Once the gang was clear of the cops, the released the unharmed hostages. The take was $47,000. Almost $800,000 in today’s dollars.

Those poor girls having to stand outside the car and be human shields! That has to be one of the least fun ways to travel. As a human shield. Like, I don’t like riding the bus. I used to get car sick a lot as a kid and sometimes I feel that old nauseousness creep back in on a bus. But, I would way rather ride the bus - even a shitty bus - than travel as a human shield. Like, if there was a really cheap fare option listed on flights. If the ticket was $1200 for a first class ticket, $600 for main cabin with a chance of an upgrade, $450 for an economy/non-refundable ticket, but only $40 to fly as a “human shield”, I’m still not gonna buy that ticket.

“What the Hell are those people doing just sitting out there on the wing”

“Oh, those are human shields.”

6. July 25 1932: On July 25 1932, the gang hits Cloud County Bank in Concordia, Kansas. This goes off smoothly and the take is $250,000. Over four million dollars worth of spending power today. Damn these guys are making a lot of money!

7. August 18 1932: On August 18th, 1932, the gang hits Second National Bank in Beloit, Wisconsin. They ordered Bank President B. P. Eldred to open the vault. At first he refused, but they pistol whipped him in to submission. The total take on this robbery was $50,000. The ol’ pistol whipping! You don’t hear about that a lot anymore. Man, if you really, really hated someone, I imagine it would be so satisfying to pistol whip them.

8. September 1st 1932: On September 1st, they hit the First National Bank of Flandreau, South Dakota. The snuck in dressed as farmers to not arouse any unwanted suspicion. It was an easy hit, and the take was comparatively light - only $7,400 in cash and $2,600 in bonds.

9. September 10th 1932: On September 10th, 1932 Doc Barker is paroled from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester where he’d been serving a life sentence for the shooting death of night watchman, Thomas J. Sherrill, back in 1921. He was released on the condition that, “he was never to set foot in Oklahoma again”. And he does leave Oklahoma. He also immediately joins the Barker-Karpis gang with his brother and mom.

10. September 23rd 1932: Two weeks after being released from prison, on September 23rd 1932, Doc and the gang hits State Bank & Trust in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. They again took two women as hostages, making them stand on the running boards on either side of the car. Again - WORST way to travel. If Uber had a “human shield” discount fare, I’m not taking it. If I can’t afford the non-human shield far, I’m walking.

A few miles out of town, they let the women go. And they then threw thumbtacks across the road in order to prevent others from following them. These guys are fucking pros. Several pursuers end. up with flat tires. The gang made a clean break and get away with $30,850.79 in cash and another $4,000 in traveler’s checks. That equates to nearly $600,000 today.

11. September 30th 1932: A week later on September 30th, 1932, they hit Citizens National Bank across the Red River in Wahpeton, North Dakota.

Once again they took two women to stand on the running boards. This time one of the women, Miss Stock, was shot and the bullet broke her leg. When they pulled over, Alvin, “gave her a quarter grain of Morphine in her leg, and told her, “Don’t blame us! Blame that trigger-happy bastard with the rifle!”

What an asshole.

“Don’t blame me! All I did was kidnap you at gunpoint and make you stand outside our car as we drove away at a high speed while the cops shot at us. I was doing my job! Sheesh!”

Bad day for that cop. “How was your day, honey?” “Not good. Shot some woman.”

“What did she do?”

“She picked a bad way to get across town. Never travel as a human shield, Martha. Not ever!”

After the shootout with police, the car was shot up and barely running. As the gang was attempting to leave town, they noticed an old Essex sedan near the road. They asked the farmer in the yard if it will run. He said yes, looked at all the bullet holes in their car and asked, “What’s this all about?” Alvin replied, “We just robbed the bank in Wahpeton, and we need that car to get out of here fast. We’re taking yours and leaving ours, and we’ll give you some money to square it.” As DeVol started pulling money out of the bag to give him soon, the old man smiled and said, “So you robbed the bank did you? Well, I don’t care. All the banks ever do is foreclose on us farmers.” He went back inside and brought out the keys” They sped away. The total take on the job was $7,000.

This really illustrates the public perception of bank robbers during the depression. Farmers are losing their farms and homes to the banks left and right. Homeowners across the country are losing their asses. Almost everyone is losing their asses. But the banks still stand. Some of them are getting rich gathering up properties. And a lot of people thought, “Good for them boys. Take a little back from the banks and the government that either aren’t doing shit to help me, or, are actively fucking up my life.” I think this attitude is part of what allowed a lot of these gangs to have some of the long runs they did. The reward money was enticing but, a lot of people didn’t want to turn them in because they were somewhat viewed as folk heroes.

12. December 16th 1932: On December 16th 1932, the gang would participate in their bloodiest robbery to date. Their target was Third Northwestern Bank in Minnesota. Someone hit one of those silent alarms again and as they were leaving the bank the gang opened fired with machine guns. Two police officers were killed in the subsequent shootout, along with a bystander who was “looking at Fred too long”. The take was this time was $22,000 in cash, and $100,000 in securities. Over two million in today’s dollars. and they don’t slow down robbing.

I feel like by this point, they can’t possibly justify needing more money to keep robbing. They’ve taken the equivalent of around ten million dollars. In a short amount of time. And they still had so much robbing ahead of them.

13. December 18th 1932: On December 18th 1932, a member of the gang, Lawrence DeVol, the guy who introduced Creepy Karpis to Herman Barker’s widow, is arrested after complaints about a loud party bring police to his apartment. Upon entering they see cash wrappers that say “Third Northwestern Bank” as well as $10,000 in stolen securities. After his arrest, the gang and Ma Barker flee to Reno for some R and R.

DeVol would be charged with the murder of those police officers from the previous bank robbery and would be sentenced to life in prison. He’d act up and get himself transferred to the St Peter hospital for the criminally insane and he’d break out in 1936. Barely a month after busting out, he’d get into a shootout with police and get himself killed, taking nine bullets.

Reno was a good change of pace for the rest of the gang. They had the time of their lives there in late December of 1932 and in January of 1933, going to casinos, burning through their loot, and meeting other people in their line of work, such as a young fellow who was also on the lam after escaping prison in Illinois.

As it turned out, he grew up in the same area of Chicago that Alvin had after Alvin’s moved to Chicago from where he was born, but they’d never before met. The two became good friends, and Alvin would often eat dinner with him and his wife and children. When Alvin became ill, his new friend hooked him up with a doctor who performed a tonsillectomy for him. This young man was Lester Joseph Gillis aka “Baby-face” George Nelson, future Public Enemy Number One for the FBI, and a man who’d be gunned down by the FBI the following year in 1934.

14. February 1933: The following month, in February 1933, the gang heads back to the midwest. In April, Creepy Karpis drives down to Joplin to see his friend Herb Farmer. Farmer has two guests at his house, a man and a woman. They made Karpis extremely uncomfortable. They were Clyde Barrow and his girlfriend Bonnie Parker.

Love all of this gangster cameos! Fascinating that little ol’ Joplin, Missouri had so many notorious gangsters crashing inside it’s city limits.

15. April 4th 1933: On April 4th 1933, the gang hits a bank in Fairbury, Nebraska. Something went wrong and a tommy gun jammed as they were leaving. The shot off an entire round of 100 bullets leaving one dead and six wounded. Damn. The take was $37,000 in cash, and another $39,000 in World War One liberty bonds.

After this haul, a man named, Jack Peifer approaches the Barker- Karpis gang about a possible kidnapping for ransom. The target would be William A. Hamm, Jr, the president of the Hamm Brewing company. He was one of the wealthiest men in St. Paul. The gang spent most of May and June watching Hamm. The decided that they would nab him outside of his office and they stole a large black limousine for the job.

16. June 15th 1933: On June 15th 1933, Alvin parks the limo across the street from the brewery and they get Hamm in to the car saying it was waiting for him. Once inside, they have him sign four ransom notes that they will disperse to his friends and family. They cover his eyes, take him to their hideaway, and hold him until June 19th when the ransom is paid. Hamm was a model prisoner. Karpis in particular had come to respect him greatly. They released him in Wyoming Minnesota, asking him to wait 20 minutes before calling for help. The gang got $70,000 in ransom money. Almost 1.2 million worth of money today.

17. September 6 1933: On September 6th 1933, finger prints are found of the Hamm ransom notes using a new technology, where scientists brushed the prints with a solution containing silver nitrate which reacted with sodium chloride in the actual prints. The prints were then tracked back to Alvin Karpis and Doc Barker and this was the very first time that this finger print gathering technique would be used to solve a crime.

18. August 30th 1933: On August 30th 1933, the gang hits a post office in South Saint Paul to steal payroll but the police show up mid heist. Doc shoots and kills Officer Leo Pavlak. A gangster, Charles Fitzgerald is also injured during the heist. He is given his share and promised 10% of future takes as part of a gangster insurance plan until he’s healed. Despite the presence of police, they still take $33,000, valued at over half-a-million today.

19. September 1933: In September 1933 the gang heads down to Chicago for a large robbery. They are going to hit a delivery to the Federal Reserve Bank. Going for a HUGE payday this time. They buy a car from Al Capone’s car guy, Joe Bergl. He installed bulletproof glass and a hidden panel in the driver’s door activated by a button in the glove box. It was a portal. When the button was pushed, it opened the portal so that a gun could be fired through the door.

20. September 22nd 1933: On September 22nd 1933, they intercept the Federal Reserve delivery, grab the money bags, and take off in less than three minutes. So far, so good. Except they fucked up big time in their heist preparation. They forgot to gas up their fancy new getaway car and they were running out of gas. They had to abandon it and carjack a new sedan. Even worse, when they got back to their hideout, they opened the bags to discover their loot was nothing but cancelled checks. They didn’t make a cent off what they assumed was going to be their biggest hit yet. Instead, they lost money renting their hideout and buying the custom car.

21. November 1933: In November of 1933, the gang heads to Reno again, this time with Harry Sawyer, a crime boss in Minneapolis, and his wife. While there, Sawyer explains to the boys that he wants their help with a kidnapping. This time the target would be Edward G. Bremer, President of the Commercial State Bank.

Karpis was hesitant to do the job. He knew the Bremer’s father was a close and personal friend to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sawyer assured the gang that his contacts in the St. Paul police department would assure it was low risk and that it would be worth the $200,000 they would get in ransom. And that’s the equivalent of a three million dollar take today.

22. January 17th 1934 : ON January 17th 1934, the gang is ready to take Bremer. They’d just stolen a car for the kidnapping. When Doc opens the driver’s side door, Bremer punches him in the face. Ballsy! He was not a model prisoner like Hamm was and Doc had to pistol whip Bremer into submission. The gang then sent out a demand that $200,000 be paid in non sequential, non marked five and ten dollar bills.

And Karpis would learn he was right to be hesitant about this kidnapping. They’d taken shit to far and it would sent the FBI crashing down upon them.

23. January 18th 1943: On January 18th 1943, the headline of the Saint Paul Dispatch read, “EDW. G. BREMER KIDNAPED; Secrecy Veils Second Major Seizure Here”.

All of the local papers ran with the story.

President Roosevelt assured the Bremer’s he would help in any way that he could and he brought up the kidnapping in one of his famous Fire Side Chats, calling it “an attack on everything we hold dear”. Federal agents were immediately sent to Minnesota to find Bremer.

Bremer’s family paid the $200,000 to free him but the money was marked. The serial number of each and every bill had been written down, and the list sent out to every bank in the country. Alvin and Fred had a hunch that the money had been marked, so they made plans to find someone who could launder it. It had taken twenty long, grueling days to get the payoff. For Alvin and Fred, it had been twenty days of Hell, listening to Bremer’s constant whining. Now that they had the money, they could be rid of him at last.

The gang sent Karpis to Reno to launder the money, but was told it was untouchable.

Due to fingerprints again. Doc, Fred, and Alvin were all named as suspects in the kinapping.

And then, in late February, in a desperate attempt to avoid capture, the boys sought out a man named Dr. Joseph P. Moran who could supposedly surgically remove one’s fingerprints for $1,250.

Check out how horrific this procedure was.

Moran operated on Alvin’s and Fred’s fingers by first taking rubber bands to reduce the blood flow in their fingertips. Then, he injected cocaine into each fingertip to dull the pain. Once this was done, he used a scalpel to peel the layers of skin off to remove the fingerprints.

Fuck! Can you imagine!?! He peeled the skin off the tips of all ten of your digits. With a scalpel. Think about all the nerve endings you have in your finger tips. think about how much a paper cut hurts on a fingertip. Now imagine the tips of all your fingers and both your thumbs being, essentially, one big paper cut. Holy shit.

Once he was finished, he bandaged their fingers. And once the cocaine wore off, the pain was of course excruciating. At this point, if he was smart, the doctor left town for a few weeks. Not good to put two of America’s most dangerous, homicidal gangsters in an excruciating amount of pain. The pain supposedly nearly drove Fred insane. And for him, it didn’t even work. His fingerprints grew back. The surgery did supposedly work for Alvin. Neither one of them could feed themselves, shave, etc for weeks without help. Guessing wiping their ass became a bit of a struggle as well.

The gang buried the marked Bremer loot for safe keeping. But when they went to dig it up later, the realized that water had gotten in to the bags and soaked to money. They dried it out, but a lot of it was left stained. Stained and marked. Not good. They contacted a gangster in Gross Point, , named Cassius “Cash” McDonald to see if he could launder it.

He said he could launder the money in Cuba for fifteen percent. And launder it he would. But it took forever.

After the difficulty of this job, and the heat it brought in national federal law enforcement attention, the gang decides to lay low for awhile.

Creepy Karpis, with Delores, heads to Cuba.

Fred Barker and Ma move down to Lake Weir . They live under the alias of the Blackburns. Doc Barker heads to Chicago with a girlfriend.

24. January 8th 1935: On January 8th 1935, Doc Barker is arrested while hiding out in Chicago. Special agent Earl J. Connelley, the Fed who also took down Baby Face Nelson, had tracked him down. Doc attempted to flee but slipped on a patch of ice when he was running away. He was unarmed. All he could do was look up and smile sheepishly at one of the agents, a new guy who had just recently joined the Division of Investigation, , who asked him, “Where’s your heater Doc?” Doc answered, “It’s up in the apartment.” And Walsh replied, “You’re lucky Doc. Ain’t that a hell of a place for it?”

After all his tough guy shoot outs, Doc didn’t put up a fight this time with no weapon to fire, and he was taken quietly.

Back at Doc’s apartment, federal agents found lots of weapons and ammunition, including a Thompson submachine gun. When the serial number of the gun was traced, it was proven to have been the Thompson stolen from Officer Yeoman’s patrol car during the South Saint Paul, Minnesota robbery that left Officer Leo Pavlak dead. The agents also found a map of Florida with a red circle drawn around the Ocala, and the area around Lake Weir where Fred and Ma were staying. Also found was a letter from Ma Barker.

In her letter she had told Doc all about the alligator the locals alternatively called “Big Joe”, “Gator Joe” or “Old Joe”. Fred had gone out trying to bag this monster. Gator Joe was estimated to be about sixteen feet in length, and was said to be of the oldest alligators in that area. He had been seen for years. The agents all read the letter, looked at each other and smiled. They too, would go hunting for Old Joe.

Ma and Fred had been living large in Florida. Ma loved their cottage and Fred’s biggest pleasure in life was fishing. His biggest obsession was catching a 3 legged 16 foot alligator named BOJANGLES! Just like our 3 legged, one-eyed Hell hound and prophet of Nimrod! Praise Bojangles!

No. It was, of course, Old Joe. Fred went on frequent fishing trips with some of the neighbors. When they told him all about Old Joe, he lit up like a Christmas Tree and asked them all about him. He wanted to be the one to bag the beast so one day, he bought a small hog from a local farmer, killed it, then towed the hog behind his boat as bait as he circled the lake. He hoped Gator Joe would come after it so he could shoot him with his Thompson.

I love how he goes from fishing to dragging a dead hog behind a boat in hopes of attracting an alligator to shoot with a machine gun. That has to be the most aggressive form of “fishing” I’ve heard of.

“What kind of fishing you doing? Fly-fishing? Casting bobbers off the dock? Trolling?”

“Tommy-gunning actually?”

“Huh. Not familiar with that technique. What kind of bait you using? Nightcrawlers? Grasshoppers? Spinners?”

“Nah, I use a hog. Drag it’s big, fat ol’ corpse behind the boat.”

25. January 16th, 1935: On January 16th, 1935, at 5:30 AM, fourteen federal agents surrounded the cottage. Thinking the people in the house intended to come out and surrender, Connelley stated for Fred to come out first. But instead suddenly, the muzzle of a Thompson machine gun appeared from the upstairs southwest bedroom window. Fred first fired about 50 rounds at Connelley, who took cover behind a tree. Agent White returned fire. Fred then rushed downstairs and fired from the front door with a rifle. White, armed with a .351 Winchester semiautomatic rifle, returned fire. Connelly then fired into the house with his 30-06 Springfield rifle. Again, machine gun fire rained down from the window, then sporadically from different windows throughout the upstairs.

The battle continued on for about three more hours, with Fred firing sporadically as if to conserve ammunition. The agents concentrated the majority of their fire towards the upstairs southwest bedroom where most of the shots had come from. Finally, about 11:30 the firing had ceased. After a considerable amount of time elapsed, Connelley asked the cottage’s caretaker, a gentleman named Willie Woodberry, to attempt to gain entry and see what the situation was inside. He’d been hired by Ma and stayed in a small outbuilding on the property. He didn’t like the idea, but they jokingly bribed him with $20 if he’d go in to check on them. Poor bastard. Risking being lit up with a Tommy gun seems like a shitty way to make twenty bucks.

But, really wanting twenty bucks, he reluctantly agreed. And he found both Ma and Fred. He saw Ma first. She was lying dead on the floor in the fetal position, barefooted, on her left side just inside with her back against a closet door. Her hands were under her face. She had caught three bullets in the chest, and one had gone straight through her heart, killing her almost instantly. Fred was lying dead face down in the middle of the room at the foot of one of the two beds in the room. His body riddled with numerous bullets.

Many people were appalled that the Feds had shot an unarmed woman and this is where the narrative of Ma Barker as ringleader came from. Hoover had the FBI push this narrative, and a lot of people think he did so to get the public back on the FBI’s side. If people thought she was an unarmed woman just overly loyal to her criminal sons, it looks pretty bad for the FBI to shoot her. However, frame her as the criminal mastermind of the entire cop- killing, bank-robbing, human-shield using run, and the shooting seems more than justified.

In the biography Alvin “Creepy” Karpis would write years later, he said, “The idea that Ma was the brains behind our five years of holdups and crimes is strongly entrenched in North America. In books, kid’s comics, detective fiction, and movies, and, for that matter, in every other entertainment outlet Ma has been described as a genius of crime for so long that nobody will ever believe what she was to us….a simple woman and the mother of Freddie and Doc. Ma was always somebody in our lives….She was somebody we looked after and took with us when we moved from city to city, hideout to hideout……. Her participation in our careers was limited to one function. Whether she was aware of it or not, Ma made a nearly foolproof cover for Freddie and me and Doc. When we traveled together, we moved as a mother and three sons. What could look more innocent?”

Harvey Bailey, another gangster era bank robber who’d met Ma numerous times stated that, “The old woman couldn't plan breakfast. When we'd sit down to plan a bank job, she'd go in the other room and listen to Amos and Andy or hillbilly music on the radio."

After Fred and Ma’s death, George Barker, who’d never finalized his divorce with Arrie, sued the government for the estate of his estranged wife and children. He received $1,200. Roughly $20,000 today.

In the cottage, the Feds found quite the little stash of weapons. She may not have been a mastermind, but Ma sure as shit knew what her boys were all about and didn’t seem to condemn their lifestyle one bit. Based on her own childhood fascination with Jesse James and his gang, she knew damn well who they were and she knew what she added to their organization. She may not have been the leader, but she was a de facto member of the Barker-Karpis gang for sure.

In the cottage, law enforcement found two 1921 Thompson machine guns with the serial numbers filed off, a fully-loaded fifty- cartridge drum for Thompson Machine gun. They found another empty fifty-cartridge drum, a 100-cartridge drum loaded with 70 bullets. They found a stock for another Thompson Machine gun, a Colt .45 pistol damaged by a bullet hitting handle. Another undamaged Colt .45 automatic pistol. Nine separate 45 automatic pistol clips. One 380 Automatic Colt Pistol. Five 380 automatic pistol clips. One Browning 12 gauge Automatic Shotgun. One Remington 12 gauge pump shotgun. And a Winchester 33 calibre lever-action rifle missing it’s serial number. Quite the cache for one man and is innocent old mama.

26. January 20th 1935: By January 20th 1935, Alvin Karpis is the only core member of the Barker-Karpis gang who’s still both alive and free. He’s in Atlantic City where he nearly gets arrested and does get in a gun fight with some cops. His girl, Delores, gets shot in the leg and then captured and arrested. Karpis and an associate escape and steal a 1934 Pontiac Special and skip town.

Near Allentown Pennsylvania, they’re driving behind a 1934 Plymouth with a doctor’s emblem on the rear bumper and they pulled alongside the car and yelled at the driver. “State Police! We want to talk to you!” When the driver pulled over, Karpis’s associate quickly jumped in and commandeered the car, and made the driver move over into the passenger’s seat. He followed behind the Pontiac until they came to a side road. Alvin parked and left the Pontiac running and jumped into the Plymouth. They then drove away.

When the cops found the Pontiac, they would think Alvin and Harry ran out of gas and were on foot.

The man whom they’d carjacked, Dr. Horace Hunsicker, turned out to be a pleasant fellow who told them he had been visiting his parents and was returning to the Allentown hospital. He said if he were gone for a few hours, no one would miss him. He seemed to actually be intrigued with this sudden adventure, and the three got along as though they were old buddies, mostly because Karpis didn’t tell him who they really were at first. The doctor’s emblems on the bumpers worked like a charm. The boys ran into a police roadblock on the way towards Altoona, but when the cops saw the doctor’s emblems, they waved them on through. Finally, they reached Ohio. They stopped at the Grange Hall in Wadsworth, where they took Dr. Hunsicker into the basement and tied him up near the furnace where he would stay warm. By this time, he realized who they were, and was afraid they were going to kill him. But they told him not to worry, and stuck a $50 dollar bill in his breast pocket so that he had money to return home.

27. November 7th 1935: On November 7th 1935, Karpis is back at it. He assembles a new gang and robs a mail truck for The take was $72,000 in cash, and $53,000 in bonds. Another big haul. The equivalent in over two million of today’s dollars.

28. September 1935: In September of 1935, Creepy Karpis commits what will be his last robbery. He and his new gang robbed a mail train expecting to get $180,000, but they had the day wrong and ended up with only $34,000 in cash and $12,450 in bonds. And unbeknownst to him, the Feds were closing in.

29. May 1st, 1936: On May 1st, 1936, a team of federal agents surrounds the apartment that Alvin Karpis is staying in. They bring him out and subdue him. “One of them shouted, “We’ve got him, Chief! It’s all clear!” From the corner of his eye, Alvin saw two men approach who had been waiting in the wings out of sight. He looked up as they drew closer, and recognized them immediately.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson had both travelled to to be there for the arrest of Public Enemy Number one. J. Edgar Hoover - gotta Suck him someday. He was the Director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972. And he didn’t step down in 1972. He died at the age of 1977. Allegedly, part of why he stayed in power for damn near 50 years was because even President’s were afraid of him. He had dirt on everyone. He was also rumored to be the lover of Associate Director Tolson. The two bachelors rode to and from work together, ate lunch together, worked together, and even vacationed together. When Hoover died, he left his estate to Tolson and Tolson moved into his home. Dude also lived his entire life in Washington D.C. Would be an interesting bio for sure.

30. August 1936 to April 1962: As for Karpis, he’d spend the next 26 years in prison. From August 1936 to Aril 1962, he’d be incarcerated in the newly constructed Alcatraz, a place I toured once when visiting San Francisco. He’d join the other remaining living member of the Barker-Karpis gang, Arthur “Doc” Barker who was already imprisoned there, serving a life sentence for the kidnapping of Edward Bremer.

He’d serve the longest sentence out of any Alcatraz prisoner. And, as I said before, he met a young Charles Manson in Alcatraz, who was briefly imprisoned there before the Manson Family murders, and supposedly helped him learn how to play guitar.

31. 1939: In 1939, Doc Barker tried to escape from Alcatraz. Of course he did! The Barker boys didn’t just quietly serve their sentences.

On January 13, 1939, Barker and fellow inmates Dale Stamphill, Henri Young and Rufus McCain all attempted to escape. Henri Young would later say of Barker, "he was one of America's most dangerous men. I knew, however, that he was determined and ruthless, and that once he started on anything nothing could stop him but death. I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have with me on a break from Alcatraz."

This is pretty intense.

The four men had been placed in the segregation unit for troublesome prisoners. Barker and his associates sawed through four sets of prison bars, concealing the daily damage with makeshift putty.

When they finally broke through, they climbed over the high walls of the prison under cover of a foggy night and made their way to the beach. The four then split up into two pairs. Barker and Stamphill tried to swim out together towards San Francisco, but were pushed back by the tide.

How much would that fucking suck? You actually make it out, undetected, from your cell in Alcatraz, America’s most secure prison. You saw your way out of your cell. You make it out. And then you can’t swim to the San Francisco shore - you can see it! I’ve been on and taken pictures of downtown San Francisco. It feels like you could totally make it. But, as they said on the tour I was on, the water is deceptively cold in the bay and the current deceptively strong. It can be done, and has been done, but only by very experienced, very proficient swimmers. Doc Barker may have been tough as dirt, but he wasn’t Michael Phelps.

So then they tried to quickly build a raft from bits of wood lying around the beach, tying the wood together with strips of cloth from their shirts. They hoped they could make a serviceable raft before they were spotted, but then they were spotted by a guard in a watch tower when the fog briefly cleared. The guard ordered them to "throw your hands in the air", but Doc and Dale Stamphill ignored him so the guard opened fire, hitting them in the legs. And then another burst of fire from a patrol boat wounded the still trying to escape Barker in the head.

Barker was recaptured and died shortly afterwards from his wounds. Stamphill, Young and McCain were also recaptured and sent to solitary confinement

32. 1969: Karpis did not try and escape and ended up getting released on parole in 1969 and was deported to Canada, although he initially had difficulty obtaining Canadian passport credentials because of not having fingerprints.

He settled in Montreal and published his memoirs in 1971 and then published another memoir in 1980 in Spain where he’d lived since 1973. He died of what was originally thought to be a sleeping pill suicide in 1981 at the age of 72. It was later ruled to be natural causes.

Crazy that he caused all that mayhem, became the FBI’s public enemy number one, and got to live out his golden years in Spain as a successful author.

With the last member of the Barker-Karpis gang dead, I guess we’re done with today’s Timesuck Timeline.

PAUSE TIMESUCK TIMELINE OUTRO

VI. Conclusions A. So - that’s the tale of the Ma Barker gang. Or at least what can be condensed into less than two hours. There’s really not a lot more meat to it than that, because Ma didn’t keep a diary and neither did her boys. Karpis was the only one to really give an inside account of what happened and he wouldn’t do that until many years later, and, he’d write mostly about further details regarding individual crimes. He didn’t really dive into the relationship between Ma and the Barker boys.

I did watch an interview he gave after he was released from prison, long after all the Barkers were dead, and he claimed that Ma was just a country bumpkin who liked listening to “hill billy programs” on the radio and doing jig saw puzzles. He called her a “holy roller” and claimed she never even read the newspapers. Claimed she knew they were all criminals, obviously, but never participated directly in the killings. And, after being released, after all the Barkers dying, I don’t know why he’d lie about that. He seems very candid in the interview, admitting to having no remorse, not considering himself much of a tough guy, and saying others have attributed 14 killings to him over the course of their robberies, neither admitting or denying those murders.

So, do I think Ma was a mastermind? I don’t. No witness ever puts her as being present during an actual robbery, so she wasn’t active that way for sure. And, no criminal who ever encountered the gang ever referenced her being a part of any planning. Not once. Only Hoover and the feds pushed that narrative.

I also don’t think she was anything close to some sweet ol’ lady. And, in a way, she did kind of mastermind the crimes. She masterminded them years before her sons became robbers and murderers. When she first glorified previous bank robbers to the point her sons also idolized them. When she enabled them early in their criminal careers. And, she travelled with them and according to accounts, went out and lived it up alongside them in Reno and other places. She seemed happy to spend that blood money.

So - actual mastermind? No. Good mom and innocent citizen. Also no in my book.

And now it’s time for some top five takeaways!

PAUSE TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS INTRO

VII. Top Five Takeaways 1. Number one. The FBI estimated that the Barker-Karpis stole a total of $1.5 million dollars. The equivalent of TWENTY-EIGHT MILLION in 2018 dollars.

2. Number two. All four of the Barker boys met a violent end. As did Ma Barker. They might have accumulated some interesting stories, but in the end, they all paid the price for the lives they led.

3. Number three! Creepy Karpis did NOT meet a violent end. After all that, he still got to die a free man. Chilling out in Spain, no less. But, he did serve the longest sentence in Alcatraz history - 26 years. So, even he didn’t exactly have an aspirational life.

4. Number four! Highly unlikely that Ma Barker was the active mastermind of the Barker gang. There is no evidence whatsoever that that was the case. Much more likely an invention of J Edgar Hoover to ease public concern over her violent demise. However, she did raise four criminals and she did at the very least, enthusiastically enable them as they pursued cop-killing, bank- robbing, human-shield using careers as Depression era gangsters. So, I don’t feel even a little bad for how she left this world.

5. Number five - new info! Remember Boney M? That 70s Euro- Caribbean funk/ troupe that sang Rah Rah Rasputin? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvDMlk3kSYg 1:36 - 1:57

Remember that classic?? That was actually a huge hit for them. Well, the also wrote a song called “”. Not sure why they went with Baker instead of Barker, but it is clearly about Ma Barker and her boys. It topped the music sales charts in Germany and peaked at number 2 in the UK in 1977, behind only ’s . It was the number one song in Belgium for all of 1977. Haha! Check this shit out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6eKmqSEa0 :57 - 1:22

PAUSE TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS OUTRO

VIII.Closing announcements A. Ma Barker Gang - fully sucked. Lot of crime to Suck today but we fit it all in our mouths.

B. Big thanks to the Timesuck Team! Harmony Vellekamp, Jesse Dobner, Reverend Doctor Josh Krell, Alex Dugan, the Bit Elixir Team, Danger Brain, Merch Maestro Erik Radaker, and Queen of the Suck Lynze Cummins.

Huge thanks ONCE AGAIN to Bojangles Research Department OG Heather Rylander for doing a bang-up, shoot-em up job on the Ma Barker Suck. The topic was also Heather’s idea. And Bojangles, Nimrod, and Lucifina are pleased. Lucifina loved Creepy Karpis and the Barker boys - she found ‘em sexy as Hell!

C. Knights Templar! Coming up next Monday, the Knights Templar! You Space Lizards should feel confident that I’ll do this topic justice, since, according to Icke’s psychic, Carol Clarke, there’s a good chance I was a Knight’s Templar in a previous life.

The Knights Templar was a large organization of devout Christians with a mission: to protect European travelers visiting sites in the Holy Land while also carrying out brave military operations. A wealthy, powerful and mysterious medieval order that has fascinated historians and the public for centuries, tales of the Knights Templar, their financial acumen, their military prowess and their work on behalf of Christianity still circulate throughout modern culture.

After Christian armies in 1099 captured Jerusalem from Muslim control during the Crusades, groups of pilgrims from across Western Europe started visiting the Holy Land. Many of them, however, were robbed and killed as they crossed through Muslim- controlled territories during their journey.

Around 1118, a French knight created a military order along with eight relatives and acquaintances, calling it the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon—later known simply as the Knights Templar.

The group developed a reputation as fierce fighters during the Crusades, driven by religious fervor and forbidden from retreating unless significantly outnumbered.

The Templars built numerous castles and fought—and often won— battles against Muslim armies. Their fearless style of fighting became a model for other military orders. They became incredibly wealthy and powerful at their height, operating outside the jurisdiction of whatever nation they were in. They were like a nation unto themselves.

Non-combatant members of the order, who formed as much as 90% of the order's members, managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, developing innovative financial techniques that were an early form of banking, building its own network of nearly

Roughly 1,000 fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land, and arguably forming the world's first multinational corporation

Some people believe they went underground after Pope Clement V dissolved the order in 1312 and still exist in some form today.

Lot to suck on. Back to medieval Europe we go and I’m excited.

D. Quick Suicide note! Before we move on to the updates, quick reminder to get help if you’re feeling low. Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade - two more high profile suicides last week. Don’t wait to get help. Call 1 800 273 8255 if you are remotely entertaining the idea of suicide. Don’t send yourself into Nimrod’s butthole.

E. And now - it’s time for those Timesucker Updates!

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IX. Timesucker Updates

A. Pronunciation: Timesucker Jimmy Sherman writes in with a direly needed pronunciation update. There’s a fairly common word I’ve fucking up on a regular basis for decades. Here’s the knowledge Jimmy shares:

Message: Dude. I’ve let it slide about 5x now. It’s not “post-humous” it’s pos-choo-mus. [pos-chuh-muh s] Weird word I know, go to dictionary.com and click the speaker phone icon after you search a word- it will pronounce all of the non-proper nouns you struggle with. Keep sucking, show has been very strong recently. Great topics, dense topics that you organize and lay out very nicely. Yours truly, Jimmy

Thank you, Jimmy! I was really butchering that one. Damn. Had no idea. Clearly!

B. Sharks do bite dicks: Ben Epstein sends in the next update. An important safety announcement regarding sharks and dicks.

Message: Hey Mother Sucker, Hear This, I have been listening for your podcast for almost a year now, and I still remember when my rock climbing guide, Steve open my eyes to the suck. Well, i re- listened to you Megalodon episode today and then scrolled through the news. Remember your fear of the ocean and especially one involving sharks. The one about getting your dick and balls ripped off. That happened to a Brazilian teen yesterday, June 4th. I now would not swim in Brazill. Just letting you know, Keep on sucking, Ben ps. by the way loving Maybe I'm the Problem

Thank you Ben! Glad you’re enjoying the new album. Just spoke with Romanus Records today about the vinyl release of Maybe I’m the Problem this summer. I’m pumped.

And yes, tragically, a Brazilian teen did just die the death I’m most afraid of. His cock and balls were bitten off by what was most likely a Tiger shark off the coast of Brazil. HOLY SHIT. Jose Ernestor da Silva was swimming near the city of Recife where he was attacked.

Holy shit. What an unbelievably terrible way to go. Careful in the waters. Sadly, life guards were in the middle of telling him to come in closer to the shore when he was attacked, because they had spotted sharks in the area he was swimming.

C. Wrong about DNA?: Next up - an important point is raised by Timesucker Trent Bates about the government’s ability to examine our DNA, in reference to last week’s Golden State killer suck.

Message: Dear, Dr. Rev. Time Suck Fuck, I'm writing to you about the DNA crime fighting that you were so enamored by in the Golden State Killer podcast. In the "Idiots of the Internet" section, you were immediately dismissive of concerns about lost of DNA privacy with the old adage of "If you have nothing to hide, then it doesn't matter". What a poor rebuttal. Obviously, helping crime enforcement find killers is great, just like how domestic spying is great for finding terrorists, and Facebook's targeted advertising is great for getting products to consumers. It's the unintended uses that make others and myself worry about this Brave New World we are living in. The most immediate fear that I have is that insurance companies may be able to use information that a far flung family member has added to a random website to find medical faults and charge clients more. Maybe I'm paranoid, maybe I've read too many dystopian novels, but I'm not as starry-eyed about this technology as you are. Technology doesn't often grow as we think it will (who would have guessed that Facebook ads could have greatly affected a presidential election back when the site debuted). Also update in an update, the poem Ozymandias (Ozzy-man-dye-us) was written by Percy Shelley not his wife Mary. Bryan Cranston as Walter White has a great reading of this poem. Thanks for all the Suck -Nimrod's Apostle Trent Bates

Thank you, Trent! Yes. You raise great points. While I do like the use of DNA in regards to more accurately catching the correct perpetrators of crimes, and catching more of them, other uses could be terrible and new legislation will need to be created to protect us. However, on the flip side of what you’re saying about people being charged more for medical care, couldn’t other people actually get much cheaper care if they don’t have a history of any genetic illness. It’s tricky. Eventually, couldn’t genetic screening possibly make things more fair for both company and customer? It would need to be regulated to do so, but, just like it’s not someone’s fault that they’re going to need very expensive medical care the rest of their life, it’s also not the company’s fault either. It goes both ways.

Tricky issue. Not sure how to handle it fairly.

D. Cool Golden State Killer fact comes in from Cameron Hageman today.

I just remembered that on the Charles Manson episode you mention Corcoran state prison. It was hilarious how you pronounced it. You said core-core-an. It’s pronounced core-kren. I just got married about a month ago and her father is a Sgt at that prison. The golden state killer could very well end up there if he is convicted. Thought it was a cool fact. Anyway keep sucking.

That is cool, Cameron - thank you!

Thanks to all of you for the messages you send in each week!

PAUSE TIMESUCKER UPDATES OUTRO

X. Goodbye! A. Have a great week everyone. Don’t race for the state line if you rob a bank this week. It doesn’t matter - they can keep pursuing you. Don’t rob a bank at all. Focus instead on how you need to keep on suckin’.

Works Cited

Farris, D. (2016, August 11). A 1930s gang on the move & involved in crime. Retrieved March 17, 2018, from http://edmondlifeandleisure.com/a- s-gang-on-the-move-involved-in-crime-p13220-76.htm

Night Watchman Elisha Lenore Hagler. (n.d.). Retrieved March 15, 2018, from https://www.odmp.org/officer/reflections/5903-night-watchman- elisha-lenore-hagler

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian

The Barker-karpis Gang:: An American Crime Family by W. D. Smith and Tony E. Stewart

Reicher, M. (2014, July 14). O'Connor Layover Agreement. Retrieved March 15, 2018, from http://www.mnopedia.org/thing/oconnor-layover- agreement

SMITH, W. D. (2016). BARKER-KARPIS GANG: An American Crime Family. S.l.: WILLIE SMITH. https://www.historyonthenet.com/how-many-people-died-in-ww1/ https://www.history.com/topics/prohibition https://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Unemployment_During_the_Great_Depression https://www.history.com/topics/1929-stock-market-crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Grove,_Missouri https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1701/herman-barker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimes-Terrill_Gang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_State_Prison#Old_Prison_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Barker http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=BA038 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_State_Penitentiary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Barker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_DeVol https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=2&year=1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Grove,_Missouri https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends https://www.history.com/topics/prohibition http://guides.lib.jjay.cuny.edu/c.php?g=288390&p=1922564