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B
 Arthur R. "Doc" Barker
(1899-1939) - A member of the Barker-Karpis Gang, Arthur was the son
of Ma Barker. He was born in Aurora,
Missouri to George E. and Kate Barker
on June 4, 1899. By the 1920s he, along with his brother Fred, and Alvin Karpis
started to commit crimes such as theft and robbery. On July 18, 1918
Barker was arrested for stealing a car and was sentenced to prison in
Joplin,
Missouri. On
February 19, 1920, he escaped from prison and began to commit armed
robberies and murdered two people. On January 15, 1922, he robbed a bank
in Muskogee,
Oklahoma and
was sent to the
Oklahoma
State Prison. However, for some reason, he was released five months later on
June 21, 1922. On January 16, 1935, Fred and Ma Barker were killed by the
police and a year later Arthur Barker and Alvin Karpis were captured and
sent to
Alcatraz. On the night of January 13, 1939, Barker with Henri
Young and Rufus McCain attempted to escape from
Alcatraz. Their plans
failed and Barker was shot and killed by guards. Young and McCain were
recaptured and sent to solitary confinement.
Barker-Karpis Gang
(1931-1934) - This gang began when Alvin Carpis and Fred Barker met
while incarcerated in a Kansas prison. Both were released in 1931 and soon
hooked up to commit night time burglaries in jewelry and clothing shops.
When Arthur Barker was released from prison in 1932, he joined the others
and soon they were adding bank robbery to their list of crimes. Also
joining them in the crime spree were brothers Herman and Lloyd Barker.
Barker and Karpis were meticulous in their planning and often added
additional individuals who had specific types of hold-up skills or other
criminal experience needed for a job. In 1932, Karpis could name 11 banks
they had robbed, but the number was probably actually higher. By rotating
their members, this caused greater difficulty for the
FBI in apprehending
them.
The gang soon added kidnapping to their long list of
crimes, starting with William Hamm, heir to the Hamm brewery in
June, 1933. After receiving the $100,000 ransom, they returned Hamm
safely. The gang next kidnapped
Edward Bremer, a bank president and son of Adolf Bremer,
president of the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company, in January, 1934. For this
crime, they received $200,000 ransom. Bremer, who had significant
political connections soon brought the
FBI down in force.
One of the gang's
major undoings was when they killed their own gang member, George
"Shotgun" Ziegler. Ziegler, who had been one of the masterminds of the
Bremer kidnapping, began to brag about the kidnapping to several
underworld associates, telling them that he was the genius behind the
kidnapping. As a result, his fellow gang members shot four slugs into
Ziegler as he was coming out of his favorite restaurant in Cicero,
Illinois
on March 22, 1934. The corpse was left and
FBI
agents found names, aliases, addresses and other valuable information in
Ziegler's pockets, soon leading to the deaths or capture of the main
members of the gang.
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Arthur Barker was captured on
January 8, 1935, and sent to
Alcatraz, where he was killed in an escape
attempt in 1939. Just one week later agents tracked down Ma and Fred
Barker in Lake Weir, Florida On January 16th and in the gunfight that
ensued, both Ma and Fed were killed. A short time later, Alvin Karpis
nearly met his death when the
FBI tracked him down in Atlantic City, New
Jersey. However, Karpis and Harry Campbell managed to shoot their way to
an escape. He continued his crimes with others and managed to rob a train
in Garrettsville, Ohio of $27,000. He was eventually captured and
sent to
Alcatraz, where he served the longest
sentence ever at the notorious prison (25 years, 1 month.)
He was eventually released on
parole in 1969, wrote a book and moved to Spain in 1873. He died there
on August 26, 1979.
Barrow Gang (1932-1934) - Well known
outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Midwest and
Texas
during the
Great
Depression,
the gang included Clyde Barrow and his girlfriend, Bonnie Parker,
Marvin "Buck" Barrow and his wife, Blanche, W.D. Jones, Henry Methvin,
Raymond Hamilton, Joe Palmer, and Mary O'Dare. Though the gang was best
known for multiple banks they robbed, they actually preferred to rob small
stores and gas stations. During their two year spree, they killed at least
nine law officers and were thought to have killed others.
Bennie Iva "Blanche" Caldwell
Barrow (1911-1988) - The wife of Marvin "Buck" Barrow and a member
of the Barrow Gang. She was the only child of Matthew Fontain Caldwell and
Lillain Bell Pond, born in Garvin,
Oklahoma on
January 1, 1911. When she was still very young, her parents divorced
and she was raised by her father, who made his living as a logger, farmer
and minister. When she was 17 years-old, her mother arranged for her
to marry a much older man named John Callaway, who had money and promised
to reward both Blanche and her mother. However, soon afterwards Blanche
ran away and while hiding from her husband in Dallas County,
Texas, she
met Buck Barrow. Just a few days after meeting, Barrow was shot and
captured following a burglary in Denton,
Texas. He was
sentenced to five years in the
Texas State
Prison System but escaped in March, 1930.
On July 3, 1931, Blanche and Buck were married in
Oklahoma and
she soon began to accompany her husband on a number of armed robberies.
However, she did not like the criminal life and along with other members
of the Barrow family convinced Buck to turn himself in, which he did on
December 27, 1931. He then resumed his sentence and was released on March
22, 1933. Upon his release, the couple joined up with Buck's younger
brother Clyde, Bonnie Parker, and W. D. Jones in
Joplin,
Missouri
where he participated in several armed robberies. Though Blanche did not
participate in the robberies, she was present during the gun battle in
Joplin,
Missouri on
April 13, 1933, in which two law officers were killed. She was also
present in the gunfight that occurred on July 19, 1933 at the Red Crown
Tourist Court near Platte City,
Missouri.
Both Blanche and Buck were wounded but managed to escape with Bonnie,
Clyde, and W. D. Jones. Escaping to Dexter, Iowa, they were pursued and
another gun battle occurred on July 24th, in which Buck was wounded again.
Both Buck and Blanche were captured, but Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barker, and
W. D. Jones, all wounded, were able to escape. Buck died at Kings
Daughters Hospital in Perry, Iowa on July 29, 1933, of complications
involving from the wounds he received in the two gunfights.
Blanche was extradited to Platte County,
Missouri to
stand trial and was sentenced to ten years in the
Missouri
State Penitentiary. After serving six years she was released and moved to
Dallas,
Texas. In
1940, she remarried to a man named Eddie Frasure. Eddie died in 1969 and
Blanche died from cancer on December 24, 1988. She was buried in Dallas's
in the Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas under the name "Blanche B.
Frasure."
Continued
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