Back in the day if you wanted to become a “Public Enemy Number One” you really had
to work for the title and the man we are going to talk about today definitely put in the
effort to earn it.
He started small and ended his career with a series of crimes that would go down in American
history.
In the 1930s stories pervaded the U.S. public landscape about this expert machine gunner
and his crime sprees.
The authorities were always one step behind as Machine Gun Kelly robbed banks across the
country, from Texas to Mississippi to Washington to Iowa.
But these robberies would pale in comparison to his last brazen misadventure.
Let’s now see how all this unfurled.
He was born on July 18, 1895, in Memphis, Tennessee, and given the name George Kelly
Barnes.
What we know about his childhood is that unlike many other master criminals of the time, he
wasn’t born destitute and his family were said to be fairly wealthy and his upbringing
traditional.
Little else is known about his early life, but we know that he got into Mississippi State
University and took a course in agriculture in 1917.
He wasn’t a good student, however, with his best grade being C-plus and that was only
for good physical hygiene.
He was a troublesome student and rarely on the good side of the university staff.
Studying wasn’t for him and when he met a young woman named Geneva Ramsey he decided
enough was enough and quit his education.
The two got married very quickly and had two sons.
Now the prodigal son had to fend for himself and for his new family, which wasn’t easy.
First he took a job as a cab driver in Memphis, but this wasn’t paying the bills.
He was just 19 and things weren’t easy, so he looked for other avenues to make some
quick cash.
It seems his wife wasn’t happy about living hand to mouth and she divorced him, leaving
young Kelly broke and heartbroken.
So, what do you do when you are stone broke, down on your luck, and you live in the prohibition
era?
Well, one option is becoming a gangster and that’s exactly what George decided to do.
He became a bootlegger, a purveyor of illegal alcohol.
This didn’t go unnoticed by the Memphis police and soon George had made a name for
himself.
This was of course not good for a man whose family were notable wealthy folks, so he decided
to change his name to George R. Kelly.
He then headed out West to seek fortune, which would soon turn into infamy.
On his journey he managed to evade arrest and gain a reputation in the underworld and
it wasn’t until 1928 until the law finally got the better of him.
That year the cops arrested Kelly for smuggling alcohol into an Indian Reservation and he
was sentenced to three years at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas.
After doing his time, and we should say as a model prisoner, George got out and quickly
met a woman who you could say helped create the legend.
Her name was Kathryn Thorne.
Before that she had gone by Cleo Mae Brooks, and eventually she’d become Mrs. Kelly.
We should say something about this woman because she’s an integral part of the Machine Gun
Kelly story.
She already had a colorful history of her own before she met George, including having
already been married three times.
Her last husband wound up shot dead with a suicide note left next to him, nothing too
out of the ordinary.
The problem was, he was illiterate.
It’s widely believed Kathryn had murdered him, but she was never convicted of the crime.
One of the investigators was sure she’d done it, and she had even been overhead prior
to his death, saying that she wanted him dead.
She was certainly working outside of the law when she met George, and as you’ll see,
she just got worse.
When she met Kelly she was the mistress of another criminal, a small time bootlegger
named Steve Anderson.
After her dalliance with Kelly the two soon became inseparable and in 1930 they were married
in Minneapolis.
Here’s where the tale of a garden variety crook turns into the stuff of legends.
As the story goes, Kathryn decided to go out and buy a gift for her new husband.
That present turned out to be a Thompson submachine gun.
She told her lover to go out into the open and practice with it and become an expert
at using it.
He dutifully did what he was told, and once he could use the gun Kelly soon began his
crime spree of robbing banks with his trusty weapon.
Let’s remember that before this Kelly was what you might call an up and coming criminal,
but with his wife’s help he soon gained a fierce reputation as a notorious machine
gun wielding robber.
She wanted her husband to have this great reputation and it’s said in her bid to market
him she even went around local underground drinking clubs where gangsters frequented,
handing out spent cartridges, telling people “here’s a souvenir from the man known
as Machine Gun Kelly.”
He robbed quite a few banks, but it wasn’t until 1933 that his name became known all
across America when the FBI made him Public Enemy Number One and put out wanted posters
for him that described his as an “Expert Machine Gunner.”
It was that same year that the husband and wife team along with an associate hatched
their biggest crime yet.
Their plan was to kidnap a wealthy oil tycoon from Oklahoma City named Charles Frederick
Urschel.
Here’s how it went down.
It’s July 22, 1933, and Urschel is playing bridge at his luxury residence with his friends.
Their wives are there, too.
Kelly storms into the party, his machine gun in hand, and at his side is his accomplice
Albert L. Bates, another seasoned criminal.
This was no ordinary stick up, and the men now looking down the barrel of America’s
most famous gun are told they are leaving the game otherwise someone’s head is going
to be blown off.
They take Urschel and his friend Walter R. Jarrett from the house and force them into
the car outside.
At this point the kidnappers don’t even know which man is Urschel.
They drove as fast as possible out past the city limits and when they were far away from
people the two men were told to get out their wallets.
While Jarrett was also in the oil business and quite wealthy himself, Kelly only wanted
Urschel, so Jarrett was let go unharmed, but not before taking the $51 dollars out of his
wallet.
They drove to a farmhouse in Paradise, Texas, where they kept Urschel hostage.
The two men put out the word that if Urschel was ever to be seen alive again a ransom had
to be paid of $200,000.
That was a lot of money at the time, the equivalent of around four million dollars today.
The FBI has since published the ransom letter.
In part it went like this: “You will pack TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS
($200,000.00) in USED GENUINE FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES OF TWENTY DOLLAR DENOMINATION in a suitable
LIGHT COLORED LEATHER BAG.”
There is also a threat of course, which reads:
“REMEMBER THIS — IF ANY TRICKERY IS ATTEMPTED YOU WILL FIND THE REMAINS OF URSCHEL AND INSTEAD
OF JOY THERE WILL BE DOUBLE GRIEF — FOR, SOME-ONE VERY NEAR AND DEAR TO THE URSCHEL
FAMILY IS UNDER CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE AND WILL LIKE-WISE SUFFER FOR YOUR ERROR.”
Believe it or not, the Urschel family decided to pay the money and eight days after the
patriarch was kidnapped the cash was dropped off in 20 dollar bills at LaSalle Hotel in
Kansas City.
The next day the gangsters made good on their word and let Urschel go at a place called
Norman in Oklahoma.
There the wealthy businessman nonchalantly walked into a restaurant and called for a
cab.
He was pretty unfazed by the ordeal, and for good reason.
You see, Urschel didn’t make all of that money by being stupid, and during his kidnapping
he was staying vigiliant and collecting information on his assailants.
At no time could he see through his blindfold, but all the time he was listening to the sounds
around him.
He knew for instance when an airplane passed overhead each day, and this would prove valuable.
He made sure to leave his fingerprints everywhere, and when possible he catalogued how many steps
it took him to get somewhere.
He knew how long he’d traveled in a car and when it stopped for gas.
All this was so he could give some description to the FBI as to where he might have been
kept.
It was a huge case, too, and J Edgar Hoover put his best men on it.
With the help of Herschel and his formidable memory the FBI soon had a list of possible
places where Herschel might have been kept.
They soon descended on the Paradise farmhouse and found that people were there, but not
who they were expecting.
The FBI discovered Robert and Ora Shannon, and Harvey Bailey, who had been using the
farmhouse as a safehouse of their own after committing a robbery.
They also had some of the cash from the kidnapping, around $700 according to the FBI.
Of course Kelly hadn’t just waited around once he had the cash.
He and his wife started hopping from state to state in an attempt to throw off law enforcement.
The group at the farmhouse were arrested, and more arrests would follow because kidnapping,
staying hidden, and getting rid of vast amounts of money takes a lot of people.
Several arrests were made, including people charged with money changing.
The hunt was now on for the masterminds of the kidnapping, and the Kelly’s weren’t
happy about what was going on.
As others were arrested, they sent letters to the Urschel family, as well as attorneys
and judges, warning that they were coming to get them.
In August, Kelly’s accomplice from the kidnapping, Bates, was arrested in Denver, Colorado, with
$660 and a machine gun on him.
At around this time the FBI was discovering the stolen bills all over the USA and was
making various arrests, but the Kellys were still nowhere to be seen.
But you can only run for so long.
In the early hours of September 26, 1933, after receiving a tip, a residence in Memphis
was raided where the fugitive couple were finally found.
The great Machine Gun Kelly was without his gun, and as the legend goes, he shouted to
the agents, “Don’t shoot, G-Men!
Don’t shoot, G-Men!”
Apparently he had a terrible hangover after a big night and he was caught while still
in his pajamas.
Nightgown Kelly just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The couple was taken to Oklahoma City and on October 12, 1933, George and Kathryn Kelly
were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
In all, twenty-one people were convicted for crimes related to the case.
This included six life sentences and other sentences making up in total 58 years, two
months, and three days.
Kelly was taken to Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, and his wife was taken to a federal prison
in Cincinnati.
In prison, Kelly often bragged that he’d escape and the authorities didn’t take this
lightly.
In 1934 he was transferred to a new prison, a place no one could break out of.
Soon Kelly would get a new nickname, inmate number 117 at his new home, Alcatraz.
Behind bars Kelly was actually said to be a model inmate, taking jobs and keeping his
head down.
He apparently felt remorse for his crimes and on several occasions wrote to the Urschels.
This didn’t help him, though, and he would remain in prison for the rest of his life.
In 1951 he was transferred back to Leavenworth and died three years later on his birthday
from a heart attack.
Kathryn managed to finish her sentence and was released in 1958.
After years behind bars she didn’t return to a life of crime and got a job as a bookkeeper
at a nursing home and hospital in Oklahoma.
The widow of Machine Gun Kelly died in 1985 at the age of 81.
What do you think about the story of Machine Gun Kelly?
Is his life of crime worthy of the fame his name has carried through the years?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video The American Who Climbed the Ranks of the
Chinese Mafia.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.