The Money That Brought Down Laura Bullion

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The Last Ride: Outlaw Laura Bullion and the Wild Bunch

It was November 1901 and Laura Bullion and Ben Kilpatrick thought they had successfully disappeared into the crowds of St. Louis. Registered at the Laclede Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Rose, the Wild Bunch couple lived comfortably and ventured out mainly at night, spending money taken in the Great Northern Railway robbery.

Then Kilpatrick made one costly mistake.

On November 4, 1901, he purchased an $85 watch at the Globe Loan Agency, paying pawnbroker Max Barnett with four $20 bills. The next day, Barnett took the money to Mechanic’s National Bank. Teller Victor Jacquemin recognized something suspicious about the notes and compared their serial numbers with those on a Pinkerton Detective Agency circular.

They matched the money stolen in the Great Northern robbery.

The discovery set detectives on the trail of Kilpatrick and ultimately Laura. When authorities closed in, they found thousands of dollars in stolen banknotes connected to the robbery. Laura maintained that the money had been given to her and denied knowing anything about the holdup, but the evidence told a far more complicated story.

The serial numbers on a handful of $20 bills had accomplished what posses and Pinkerton detectives had struggled to do: they helped bring down Laura Bullion and Ben Kilpatrick.

Read the complete story in The Last Ride: Outlaw Laura Bullion and the Wild Bunch, available wherever books are sold.

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