Journal Notes

Ma’s days are numbered. Enter now to win a copy of

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

Ma Barker removed a tattered handkerchief from the navy blue pocketbook cradled in her lap and dabbed away a fake tear. The guards on duty at the Oklahoma Prison were disinterested in her supposed grief. Their job was to make sure the inmates at the facility moved efficiently from the visitor’s area back to their cells. Ma watched a pale-faced, stupefied guard escort her son Arthur out the room. It was mid-February 1920, and mother and son had concluded a short visit. A thick, long glass separated the convicts from the civilized world. Here, communication was done using plain, black phones minus a dial wheel, wired from one side of the glass to the other. Arthur and Ma each had their own receiver to talk through as did several other family and friends visiting their loved ones through the glass partition.

The iron-barred doors clanged shut as the last prisoner was ushered out the room. Ma sat stock-still until she heard the guard lock the door behind the inmates. As she turned to get up from her assigned seat, a heavyset guard approached her, and with flinty eyes, looked her up and down. She looked more frumpy than menacing. The coat she wore was big and bulky, frayed in spots, and a few buttons were missing. The tan, bell-shaped hat on her head had seen better days, and her hair underneath it was pinned back in a haphazard fashion. “My boys would be all right if the law would leave them alone,” she told the guard. He had no response and simply led her to the exit of the room, and she shuffled along as little old ladies do.

Two short siren blasts issued from the main building of the jail as Ma exited the complex. She glanced back at the other visitors following after her and at the stone walls topped with snaky concertina wire overhead. Once every guest had left the jail, the heavy steel doors were closed behind them.

A Cadillac sedan pulled in front of the detention center and stopped. Ma abandoned the old lady gait and hurried to the car as though nothing whatsoever was bothering her physically. She pulled off the old coat she was wearing and draped the fur wrap over her shoulders that one of the passengers inside the car handed her through the window. She opened the passenger’s side door and slid into the seat. The June 19, 1959 edition of the Amarillo Globe Times reported that the Jasper County filing clerk who witnessed Ma Barker leaving the prison saw her removing her hat and straightening her hair as the sedan drove away. “In a few moments she transformed from a somewhat feeble grandmother type to a hearty, rather spirited woman,” the clerk described.

To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Ma’s days are numbered. Enter now to win a copy of

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

When the suggestion to kidnap Edward Bremer was presented to Ma, she ordered her crew to meet and discuss the proposal. In the summer of 1933, the Barker-Karpis Gang had kidnapped William Hamm, Jr., the president of Hamm’s Brewing Company. The caper was successful, yielding the gang $100,000 in cash for the return of the millionaire. News of the kidnapping was reported throughout the country. “Money or death was the ultimatum laid down by the culprits that absconded with Hamm’s Brewing Company executive,” the June 17, 1933, edition of the Albert Lea Evening Tribune read.

William had been captive near the same location in Bensenville, Illinois, where Edward Bremer was secured away. The police had withdrawn from the case at the request of the family. They were frightened of what might happen to William if law enforcement interfered. The ransom note from the abductors warned the Hamms that William would be shot and killed if the police were allowed any involvement. A note sent to William’s father instructed him to deliver the ransom money in “$5, $10, and $20 bills.” Payment of the ransom for the release of William, the kidnappers directed, was to be made using one of the company’s beer trucks. Not only did the Barker-Karpis Gang get the full amount they were asking in ransom, but when the authorities did begin investigating the kidnapping, a rival gang was arrested for the crime.

“J. Edgar Hoover himself announced from Washington that his men had put together a solid case against the Touhy gang,” Alvin Karpis wrote in his memoirs. “The scientific evidence left no doubt at all,” Hoover said, “that the Touhys were behind the kidnapping of William Hamm.”

The ease with which the Barker-Karpis Gang was able to get away with taking William and collecting the ransom was an argument for kidnapping Edward Bremer. In late December 1933, Ma’s boys convened at William Weaver’s apartment in St. Paul to talk through the details of the abduction. Who would trail Edward to learn about his habits, routine, friends, and work associates, who would write the ransom notes, who would deliver those notes to what contact, and when the job would be done were all determined. With the exception of Arthur, whom Ma suggested might have been a little too rough with the victim, everyone performed his duties as planned.

To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Enter now to win a copy of

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

The heat generated by the kidnapping of bank president Edward Bremer—which resulted in $200,000 in ransom being paid after the wealthy man was released on January 7, 1934—chased the Barkers, or what was left of them, into hiding. Those who stayed in the Chicago area adopted easy disguises. Alvin Karpis and Fred Barker felt it necessary to take more drastic measures as they were too well-known to the FBI. In mid-March 1934, Karpis—nicknamed “Old Creepy” because of his expressionless eyes—and Fred Barker went to the secluded office of Doctor Joseph Moran to have their fingerprints altered and faces changed.

Doctor Moran had a respectable practice until he started drinking heavily, became an abortionist, and was eventually sent to Joliet prison. When paroled, Moran was hired as a physician for the Chicago Chauffeurs’ Teamsters’ and Helpers Union and set up practice in a hotel, where he led a double life, treating gangsters as well as ordinary patients.

The night he operated on Alvin and Fred he was a physical ruin. His fumbling fingers did little more than butcher his two patients, who were injected with morphine and sent off to recuperate.

Ma Barker gave them medical attention. Though Alvin was stoical, Fred often screamed from the pain and had to be restrained forcefully. In addition to nursing duties, Ma was completing arrangements with gangster Adelard Cunin, a survivor of the North Side mob in Chicago, to launder the $100,000 the Barker-Karpis Gang received as a ransom for kidnapping W. J. Hamm Jr., the president of Hamm’s Brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota. Adelard had agreed to handle the ransom money from the Bremer kidnapping job as well.

The Chicago branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was made the busiest field office in FBI history by the depredations of numerous well-known gangs, the perpetrators of the Kansas City massacre, and the normal flow of investigations. Melvin Purvis, the Special Agent in Charge, was the nominal chief. However, that spring of 1934 the office on the nineteenth floor of the Bangers Building was also the headquarters of a Special Squad which the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, supervised personally.

Hoover’s dogged concentration on Midwest crime prompted Ma Barker to advise her sons and their outlaw companions to leave the city. She decided it was too dangerous for any member of the Barker-Karpis Gang, disguised or not, to remain in Chicago. Most of the gang scattered. By January 1935, FBI agents had disposed of Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger’s gangs. Ma’s son Arthur had also been seized by authorities.

To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Don‘t keep Ma waiting. Enter now to win a copy of

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

On January 14, 1939, immediately following an autopsy of the slain convicted kidnapper Arthur Barker, a staff member at the San Francisco Coroner’s Office made a death mask of the dead man’s face.

A memorandum written by a representative of the San Francisco division of the FBI noted that a plaster mold of Arthur’s face had to be made as close to his death as possible. “Well before bloating and the elements distort the character of expression,” the memo read. The process of making the mold was included in the note dated April 20, 1939. “Apply grease to the face and especially any facial hair, including eyebrows. Once the plaster dries layer plaster bandages mixed with water on the face. The first layer captures the details, even wrinkles, while the other layers reinforce the first. Then carefully remove the hardened mold, or negative, from the face. Finally, pour a substance like wax or a metal such as bronze into the negative to make a positive, three-dimensional death mask.”

The memo, outlining the dos and don’ts of making a death mask, was addressed to J. Edgar Hoover’s office. “This is a good death mask,” the note read. “I am arranging for a negative mold of the same to be made at once so that several copies can be made and used in the Director’s office or wherever else it may be considered desired to exhibit.”

The mask made of Arthur’s face was not the first FBI Director Hoover requested to be made. He had one poured of gangster John Dillinger in July 1934. Four masks of Dillinger’s face were made, and Hoover proudly had one on display in his office. The mask captured every detail of Dillinger’s face: the bullet wound, the scrapes from where he had hit the pavement, the bloating and the swelling from the heat and pooling blood, and even the tell-tale signs of underground plastic surgery. Arthur’s mask was just as telling. His original death mask was placed for safe keeping in the glass exhibit case on displaying moulage (the process of making molds) in the front exhibit room of the San Francisco coroner’s laboratory.

　To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Enter now to win a copy of

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

16 Jan 1935, Florida, USA — Original caption: 1/16/35-Oklawaha, Florida: Ma Barker and her son, gangster Fred Barker, in morgue of Iklawaha, Florida, after they were shot. Photograph. — Image by © Corbis

The bodies of Ma Barker and her son Fred were taken to the Pyle Mortuary in Ocala, Florida, after they were killed in the shoot–out with federal agents. On January 16, 1935, mother and son were laid on stainless steel slabs, their frames covered with sheets from their necks down. Marion County officials and federal agents posed for photographs with the dead gangsters, and reporters negotiated with morgue employees for a chance to see the well-known criminals lying in state.

The deceased outlaws were the town’s top attraction for eight months. Their iced-down bodies, riddled with bullet holes, were still and bloated, waiting for somebody to come bury them. The FBI encouraged the Barkers’ extended stay in Florida, hoping that gang members still at large might drop by to make sure the two gangsters were indeed Ma and Fred Barker. No gang members showed, but tourists came from all over the country to view the bodies.

George Barker, Ma’s estranged husband, was notified of the death of his wife and son on January 17, 1935. The January 18, 1935, edition of the Springfield Daily News noted that George, now sixty-seven, wasn’t interested in hearing about the pair. “I don’t care when and how Fred and Kate are buried,” he told reporters. “I don’t care to have them brought back here. I wouldn’t care to attend the funeral. I’d like to be left out of all this. They chose their path some years ago and I followed mine. I haven’t seen any of them in years.”

George was a solitary man who had worked at a gas station and as a caretaker of a campground in Joplin, Missouri, since he and Ma had gone their separate ways in 1928. An article in the October 14, 1935, edition of the Pulaski Southwest Times reported that George rarely, if ever, spoke to his estranged wife and children. He was visited often by law enforcement agents who speculated that members of the Barker-Karpis Gang might use his home and business as a place to hide from the law. George’s friends and neighbors said he was honest and upright and that his only solace came in knowing that at least one member of the family remained respectable.

“After the Barker boys began to get in ‘big time’ crime they tried to lure their father away from Joplin,” the Pulaski Southwest Times article read. “They told him he would not have to worry anymore about money the rest of his life. George, however, chose to remain in Joplin barely earning enough to live on.”

The government strongly encouraged George to assume the legal responsibility for taking care of burying his family. It wasn’t until George learned that Ma and Fred would be given a pauper’s funeral and laid to rest in Florida that he decided he wanted to bring them home. The problem was he didn’t have money for his estranged wife and son to be transported to Oklahoma to be buried next to Herman. It would take George several months to gather enough funds to get the job done.

In the meantime, George learned that he and another gentleman named Frank Dixon were named co–administrators of Fred’s estate. The money discovered at the Florida home where Fred and Ma were killed had been confiscated by the FBI. The serial numbers on the bills did not match those on the ransom money from the Bremer kidnapping, but the bureau had a reasonable expectation that the cash had been acquired from some illegal activity. The government would not release the funds to Fred’s estate and refused to give George a receipt for it.

　To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Enter now to win a copy of

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

Fifteen federal agents stood in rapt silence outside the home of Mrs. Blackburn and her son in Lake Weir, Florida. Mrs. Blackburn was really Ma Barker. At 5:32 in the morning on January 16, 1935, an investigator had knocked on the front door of the house and shouted, “We are Department of Justice men. Come on out!” He heard naked feet patter along an inside hallway and doors on the second floor of the home opening and closing. The FBI believed Ma and Fred were inside the house but were not certain if anyone else was with them.

The agent who had dared approach the two-story residence walked backwards to a spot behind one of the many oak trees on the property. He exchanged a glance with the other agents under cover around him. Their lips were grim, their hands loose upon their machine guns. No one said a word for several long moments. Finally, Ma responded to law enforcement’s demand that she and her son, Fred come out.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Federal officers,” the lead agent replied.

More time passed; then Ma called out, “All right, go ahead.”

The special agents interpreted the remark to mean that Ma and Fred were going to surrender, but they were wrong. Fred suddenly appeared in the front doorway, bare-headed, in a white shirt and gray trousers, and with a spitting machine gun. As Fred’s bullets crashed toward the agent, Ma’s high shrill voice came like a cry of doom: “Let ‘em have it!” Fred’s machine gun fire was answered by tear gas bombs, rifle fire, and machine-gun fire from weapons in the hands of FBI agents.

Across the way from the white house, Mrs. A. F. Westberry was awakened by the roar of gunfire. It seemed to come from all sides of her house; it was close up, and it seemed to shake the building. In abject terror, she jerked herself to a sitting position as bullets crashed through her closed bedroom door and buried themselves in the head of her bed. She later told newspaper reporters:

“I got out of bed…opened the door a crack, and more bullets came through the window and hit the face of the door above my head. I looked out the window and saw the yard was full of men. From Mr. Bradford’s house across the road there was a lot of shooting. I could see streaks of fire from the guns. I could see the blazes from the men’s guns on the outside. There was a lot of rapid fire like machine guns. My daughter was in bed. I broke open the back window of our room and told her we had to get out. About that time some more bullets came smacking through the dining room window and hit the wall.

To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

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Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

The Barker boys…

All they were or hoped to be they owed to their mother.

Kate Barker wanted the nice things of life: the lovely home, the fine clothes, and lots of money in the bank. She ended up with a police slug in her heart and $10,200 in her wallet.

According to FBI records Kate Barker was an overbearing mother who somehow lost her bearings on the path of motherly love. In attempting to guide, she misguided. In trying to spread affection, she nurtured hate. The rational sense of motherly duty was warped by her desire to get the most and fastest for her boys.

The boys got this:
Son Herman was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1927 after a shootout with a Kansas traffic officer.
Son Fred was riddled with eleven gunshot wounds in a police fight and died alongside his mother in 1935.
Son Arthur (called Doc) was killed in 1939 during an attempted breakout of Alcatraz.
Son Lloyd was slain by his wife in 1949 when she claimed he had threatened her and the children.

That was the legacy of Ma Barker, a woman who saw crime as a means to an end but who never counted on things ending like they did.

To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

It’s the scariest giveaway ever.

Enter now to win a copy of the new book

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Everything Ma Barker’s fugitive sons grew up to be they

owed to their mother.

Kate Barker wanted the nice things of life: the lovely home, the fine clothes, and lots of money in the bank. She ended up with a police slug in her heart and $10,200 in her wallet.

According to the FBI records Kate Barker was an overbearing mother who somehow lost her way on the path of motherly love. In attempting to guide, she misguided. In trying to spread affection, she nurtured hate. In her attempts to fulfill a warped sense of motherly duty, she literally loved her sons to death. Ma Barker was a woman who saw crime as a means to an end, but who never counted on things ending like they did.

To learn more about Ma Barker and her boys read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.

Latasha Sandoval is the winner of the Ma Barker giveaway! She’ll receive a copy of the new book Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother,

a gift basket filled with goodies that would make Ma Barker proud,

and a two-night stay in one of Ma’s favorite getaway cities, Reno, Nevada.

Another Ma Barker giveaway will be take place in October. Stay tuned.

Only one day left to enter to win a copy of the new book

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother

along with a Ma Barker gift package which includes a two night stay at one of

Ma’s favorite hideout cities, Reno, Nevada.

In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

Cold wind and spitting rain assaulted patrons outside the Rialto Theatre in downtown Chicago in late April 1934. Inside, smartly uniformed ushers escorted excited moviegoers to their seats. They hurried along the plush, carpeted aisles, chattering about the film they were about to see and the violent weather that had threatened to keep them away. The ticket-holders paid little attention to anyone outside the friends or family with them. Ma, Fred, and Alvin were pleased by the moviegoers’ preoccupation. Although the three weren’t trying to hide their identities, they did not want people to take undue notice of them. They sat quietly in their seats, waiting for the movie to begin. A hush fell over the audience when the lights were dimmed and the projector came on. Fred sunk down in his seat, and Alvin draped his arm affectionately around Ma’s shoulders.

A Universal International Newsreel flashed on the giant screen in front of the group. The footage included a press conference of German foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath denouncing France for “destroying at a single blow the result of lengthy negotiations for disarmament,” a report about the death of American sportswriter and editor Joe Vila, and an announcement about the American government’s war against dangerous and criminally prolific gangsters.

A shot of a federal agent reviewing a stack of files appeared on the screen. The names on the tops of the file folders read Charles A. Floyd alias “Pretty Boy,” Homer Van Meter, Vernon C. Miller, and John Hamilton. The agent reached inside a couple of the folders and removed photographs of some of the men. A clip of heavily armed federal investigators racing to their vehicles to chase after thugs followed the criminals’ pictures. “G Men fight to protect citizens from dangerous lawbreakers,” a banner across the bottom of the screen read. “These men are public enemies,” the next banner announced. More pictures were shown—John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Fred Barker, and Alvin Karpis. “Remember, one of these men may be sitting beside you.”

To learn more about Ma Barker and the Barker-Karpis Gang read

Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.