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Karpis
Alvin Francis Karpis (born Albin Francis Karpavičius; August 10, 1907 – August 26, 1979) was a Canadian–American criminal of Lithuanian descent known for being a leader of the Barker–Karpis Gang in the 1930s. Nicknamed "Creepy" for his sinister smile and called "Ray" by his gang members, Karpis led the gang along with Fred Barker and Arthur "Doc" Barker. There were only four "public enemies" ever given the title of " Public Enemy #1" by the FBI and he was the only one to be taken alive. The other three, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson, were all killed before they could be captured. He also spent the longest time as a federal prisoner at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, serving twenty-six years. Early life Karpis was born to Lithuanian immigrants John (Jonas) and Anna (Ona) Karpavičius in Montreal, Quebec, and was raised in Topeka, Kansas. He started in crime at about age 10, running around with gamblers, bootleggers, and pimps. In 1926, he was sen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ma Barker
Kate Barker (born Arizona Donnie Clark; October 8, 1873 – January 16, 1935), better known as Ma Barker (and sometimes known as Arizona Barker and Arrie Barker), was the mother of several American criminals who ran the Barker–Karpis Gang during the " public enemy era" when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the Midwestern United States gripped the American people and press. She traveled with her sons during their criminal careers. Barker gained a reputation as a ruthless crime matriarch who controlled and organized her sons' crimes. J. Edgar Hoover described her as "the most vicious, dangerous, and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade". She has been presented as a monstrous mother in films, songs, and literature. Those who knew her insisted that she had no criminal role and that Hoover created the allegations to justify her shooting by the FBI in 1935. Later reports consistently conclude that Kate Barker's role in her sons' crimes was falsely created by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Barker
Frederick George Barker (December 12, 1901 – January 16, 1935) was an American criminal who, along with Alvin Karpis, co-founded the Barker-Karpis gang, which committed numerous robberies, murders and kidnappings during the 1930s. Barker was the youngest son of Ma Barker, all of whose children were criminals. He was killed in a lengthy gunfight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. Early life Fred Barker was born to George Elias and Arizona Donnie Clark "Ma" Barker in Aurora, Missouri on December 12, 1901. The family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1912. Barker's older brothers Herman, Lloyd and Arthur were committing crimes throughout his childhood, belonging to a gang of local delinquent youths called the Central Park Gang. The gang met in the park to plan crimes and stash their stolen goods. There, Barker met future members of the Barker-Karpis gang, including Volney Davis. He was first arrested and imprisoned in 1927 for burglary. While in prison he met A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, also known simply as Alcatraz (, ''"the gannet"'') or the Rock, was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, 1.25 miles (2.01 km) off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States. The site of a fort since the 1850s, the main prison building was built in 1910–12 as a U.S. Army military prison. The United States Department of Justice acquired the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Pacific Branch, on Alcatraz on October 12, 1933. The island became adapted and used as a prison of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in August 1934 after the buildings were modernized and security increased. Given this high security and the island's location in the cold waters and strong currents of San Francisco Bay, prison operators believed Alcatraz to be escape-proof and America's most secure prison. The three-story cellhouse included the four main cell blocks – A-block through D-block – the warden's office, visita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence De Vol
Lawrence DeVol (November 17, 1903 – July 8, 1936) was an American criminal, bank robber, prison escapee and Depression-era outlaw. He was connected to several Midwestern gangs during the 1920s and 1930s, most often with the Barker-Alvin Karpis and Holden-Keating Gangs, and was also a former partner of Harvey Bailey early in his criminal career.Newton, Michael. ''The Encyclopedia of Robberies, Heists, and Capers''. New York: Facts On File Inc., 2002. (pg. 81) DeVol is known to have killed at least eleven people during his criminal career, including six law enforcement officers. Early life Lawrence DeVol was born in Belpre, Ohio in 1903 to parents Helem and Emma (Shanks) DeVol. He moved with his parents and brother Albert to Oklahoma as a child, being raised in the Tulsa area. Lawrence's mother would later marry a second time, to William Keener, but it is unclear whether it was a circumstance of divorce or being widowed. Criminal career On May 20, 1914, Lawrence DeVol was sentenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Barker
Arthur Raymond "Doc" Barker (June 4, 1899 – January 13, 1939) was an American criminal, the son of Ma Barker and a member of the Barker-Karpis gang, founded by his brother Fred Barker and Alvin Karpis. Barker was typically called on for violent action, while Fred and Karpis planned the gang's crimes. He was arrested and convicted of kidnapping in 1935. Sent to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1936, he was killed three years later while attempting to escape. Barker is described by one writer as "a dimwit and a drunk", who was not much more than a brutal thug. However, fellow Alcatraz inmate Henri Young said of him that he was "determined and ruthless, and that once he started on anything nothing could stop him but death." Early life Barker was born in Aurora, Missouri, the son of George Elias Barker and Arizona "Ma" Barker (née Clark). ''Circa'' 1910, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Through the 1920s and 1930s, Barker, with his brothers Herman, Lloyd and Fred, com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pretty Boy Floyd
Charles Arthur Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934), nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber. He operated in the West and Central states, and his criminal exploits gained widespread press coverage in the 1930s. He was seen positively by the public because, during robberies, he burned mortgage documents, freeing many people from their debts. He was pursued and killed by a group of Bureau of Investigation (BOI, later renamed FBI) agents led by Melvin Purvis. Historians have speculated as to which officers were at the event, but accounts document that local officers Robert "Pete" Pyle and George Curran were present at his fatal shooting and also at his embalming. Floyd has continued to be a familiar figure in American popular culture, sometimes seen as notorious, other times portrayed as a tragic figure, even a victim of the hard times of the Great Depression in the United States. Floyd is viewed by many as a prime example of a real life anti-hero. Early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baby Face Nelson
Lester Joseph Gillis (December 6, 1908 – November 27, 1934), also known as George Nelson and Baby Face Nelson, was an American bank robber who became a criminal partner of John Dillinger when he helped Dillinger escape from prison in Crown Point, Indiana. Later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that Nelson and the remaining gang of bank robbers were collectively "Public Enemy Number One". The "Baby Face Nelson" nickname derived from Gillis being a short man with a youthful appearance; however, in the professional realm, Gillis's fellow criminals addressed him as "Jimmy". A violent bank robber, Lester Joseph Gillis has killed more agents of the FBI than any other criminal. FBI agents fatally wounded Baby Face Nelson in The Battle of Barrington (27 November 1934), fought in a suburb of Chicago. Early life Nelson was born Lester Joseph Gillis, a son of Flemish Belgian immigrants on December 6, 1908, in Chicago, Illinois. He was arrested on July 4, 1921, at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torremolinos
Torremolinos () is a municipality in Andalusia, southern Spain, west of Málaga. A poor fishing village before the growth in tourism began in the late 1950s, Torremolinos was the first of the Costa del Sol resorts to be developed and is still the most popular in the region. On the western shore of the Bay of Málaga and in front of the Sierra de Mijas from Málaga, it is served by the A-7 motorway, which bypasses the city to the north, the Cercanías commuter train and Avanzabus. In 2013, it had 69,389 inhabitants, making it the sixth largest city in the province. The township has an area of . Areas of the town are dotted with older high-rise residential buildings and hotels, but height limitations on new developments and a significant number of original old town properties have kept the town centre much more open than other popular resorts such as Benidorm and Fuengirola. As the name Coast of the Sun implies, Torremolinos enjoys one of the best climates in Europe. It has l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sharecropping System
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a higher economic and social status. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law. The French '' métayage'', the Catalan '' masoveria'', the Castilian ''mediero'', the Slavic ''połownictwo'' and ''izdolshchina, the Italian mezzadria'', and the Islamic system of ''muzara‘a'' (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping. Overview Under a sharecropping system, landowners provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper, and usually provided other necessities such as housing, tools, seed, or working animals. Local merchants usually provide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lansing, Kansas
Lansing is a city in Leavenworth County, Kansas, United States. It is situated along the west side of the Missouri River and Kansas-Missouri state border. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 11,239. It is the second most populous city of Leavenworth County and is a part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. The Lansing Correctional Facility (formerly the Kansas State Penitentiary), which includes the state's main maximum-security prison, is located in Lansing. History Lansing is named for James Lansing, a pioneer settler. Formerly William Lansing Taylor, James changed his name upon his enlistment in 1862 as a hospital steward in the 7th Kansas Cavalry. Following the Civil War, he earned a position at the new state penitentiary in Kansas as a hospital steward. He later resigned and opened a general mercantile store, which held the post office and an apothecary business, in the area called “Town of Progress”. “Doc Lansing”, as he became known, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeastern Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 126,587. The city, laid out in 1854, was one of the Free-State towns founded by Eastern antislavery men immediately after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Bill. In 1857, Topeka was chartered as a city. The city is well known for the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case '' Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', which overturned '' Plessy v. Ferguson'' and declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. History Name The name "Topeka" is a Kansa-Osage word that means "place where we dig potatoes", or "a good place to dig potatoes". As a placename, Topeka was first recorded in 1826 as the Kansa name for what is now called the Kansas River. Topeka's founders chose the name in 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Platte County, Missouri, Platte counties, with a small portion lying within Cass County, Missouri, Cass County. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090, making it the sixth-most populous city in the Midwestern United States, Midwest and List of United States cities by population, 38th-most populous city in the United States. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Terr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
