1
00:00:02,840 --> 00:00:07,400
Speaker 1: What strung the funk out my podcast hosts. I'm Robert Evans,

2
00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:10,559
Speaker 1: the very hungover host of Behind the Bastards, the podcast

3
00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:12,960
Speaker 1: where we tell you everything you don't know about the

4
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:16,160
Speaker 1: worst people in all of history. And this is like

5
00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:19,320
Speaker 1: the ninth or tenth podcast I've introduced by warning everyone

6
00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:24,040
Speaker 1: that I'm very hungover. Uh. My guest today is the

7
00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:28,240
Speaker 1: wonderful Emily Yeshida of the Night Call podcast with Tess

8
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:31,920
Speaker 1: and Molly, who are guests on the Reagan Astrologer episode. Emily,

9
00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:34,559
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I've been

10
00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:36,360
Speaker 1: saying like it's it's it's very good of you to

11
00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:39,640
Speaker 1: take over the hangover duties this morning because I've been

12
00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:42,480
Speaker 1: I've been taking them over uh for most of this week.

13
00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:46,479
Speaker 1: So I'm glad we could coordinate that. I'm the podcasting

14
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:49,280
Speaker 1: equivalent of that that marine who dives on a hand

15
00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:52,519
Speaker 1: grenade to save his squad, but the hand grenade was

16
00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:55,600
Speaker 1: drinking too much at the live podcast recording I did

17
00:00:55,680 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 1: last night, and then eating Indian food and continue to drink.

18
00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:05,000
Speaker 1: It's really hard to turn down free drinks being given

19
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,080
Speaker 1: to you by people who like you and think that

20
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:12,000
Speaker 1: you're cool. It's Uh, it's a tough proposition to turn down.

21
00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:16,080
Speaker 1: I can I can absolutely say it beats having free

22
00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:18,440
Speaker 1: drinks thrown at you by people who hate you and

23
00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:22,800
Speaker 1: think that you're lame, which is my prior experience. So

24
00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:26,720
Speaker 1: if I have to pick one, I will pick it now. Emily,

25
00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:28,640
Speaker 1: how do you how do you? How do you? How

26
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:33,479
Speaker 1: do you feel about gangsters? Um? I'm relatively down with gangsters.

27
00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:35,640
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many there's so many genres of

28
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:39,920
Speaker 1: gangster across history that you know, Yeah, it's hard to

29
00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:42,959
Speaker 1: say blanket, I'm into all gangsters, but sure, I'm open

30
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,320
Speaker 1: to gangsters. Do you do you think that, damn it,

31
00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:51,480
Speaker 1: it feels good to be a gangster? Um? I actually

32
00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:53,360
Speaker 1: feel like it would be. I feel like, damn it

33
00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 1: would be very stressful to be a gangster. Honestly, anytime

34
00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:59,280
Speaker 1: I watch one of those like norm movies or something,

35
00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:02,080
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you live every night when you're

36
00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:05,240
Speaker 1: pretty sure that somebody's gonna barge in your house with

37
00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:10,520
Speaker 1: a Tommy gun? Like that just seems extremely stressful? But yeah, yeah, yeah,

38
00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:13,880
Speaker 1: it does seem very stressful. Um. Would you say you're

39
00:02:13,919 --> 00:02:16,359
Speaker 1: the kind of person who just sort of like you

40
00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:18,840
Speaker 1: got a grab bag of FBI agents on one hand,

41
00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:21,720
Speaker 1: you get a grab bag of gangsters. On another hand,

42
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:24,440
Speaker 1: you pull randomly from both bags. What do you think

43
00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:26,480
Speaker 1: the odds are you wind up more sympathetic to the

44
00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:29,799
Speaker 1: gangster you pull out than the FBI agent you pull out. Um,

45
00:02:29,840 --> 00:02:34,160
Speaker 1: I think I'm always going to trend towards the gangster. Uh,

46
00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:41,000
Speaker 1: just on principle. Well, then we're copasetic on this because

47
00:02:41,160 --> 00:02:43,160
Speaker 1: I'm in the same boat, and today we are talking

48
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:48,600
Speaker 1: about a gangster, uh, and a gangster that uh, Sophie,

49
00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:50,959
Speaker 1: our producer has been wanting me to write an episode

50
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,640
Speaker 1: about for quite a while. So that's that's the story

51
00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:59,240
Speaker 1: of this day. All right, good God, I'm gonna I'm

52
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:04,800
Speaker 1: gonna thanks for coming up with the idea. I wrote

53
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,560
Speaker 1: it this on a plane, UM, so you can taste

54
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:13,280
Speaker 1: the altitude and the words. I assume now, as a

55
00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:17,000
Speaker 1: recovering Oklahoman and a crime appreciator, I too have a

56
00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:19,959
Speaker 1: lot of inherent sympathy for the gangsters. Particularly of the

57
00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,680
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and thirties, criminal capitalist speculators and baggers had

58
00:03:23,720 --> 00:03:26,880
Speaker 1: destroyed the national economy, while reckless commercial agriculture had ruined

59
00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 1: most of the national ecology. None of the men responsible

60
00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:32,320
Speaker 1: for this ever suffered any legal consequences for their crimes.

61
00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:34,400
Speaker 1: Most of them got to keep living in giant mansions

62
00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:36,920
Speaker 1: and getting fat off the collected labor of the impoverished

63
00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:40,880
Speaker 1: American populace. When FDR tried to moderately alleviate the suffering

64
00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:44,200
Speaker 1: of the American people, these folks attempted to depose him

65
00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:47,040
Speaker 1: via a military coup. So I look with understanding at

66
00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:49,440
Speaker 1: the people who robbed banks and burgled the businesses of

67
00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:53,640
Speaker 1: the one percent, particularly during this period. Um. Now, these

68
00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,280
Speaker 1: guys also killed a lot of innocent people with machine guns,

69
00:03:56,320 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 1: so it's kind of hard to call them heroes. But

70
00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:05,240
Speaker 1: I don't normally call any given gangster a bastard. Um.

71
00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:07,440
Speaker 1: Some of my bias on this is probably due to

72
00:04:07,480 --> 00:04:09,400
Speaker 1: the fact that one of the most famous gangsters of

73
00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:11,840
Speaker 1: the gangster era was a cousin of mine, a fellow

74
00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:17,479
Speaker 1: named pretty Boy Floyd Barnes. Oh really, pretty boy Floyd.

75
00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:21,000
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Yeah, he was my great grandma's first cousin.

76
00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:23,960
Speaker 1: She was very proud of him, as was my grandmother. Yeah,

77
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:26,400
Speaker 1: she would talk about our outlaw blood all the time.

78
00:04:26,839 --> 00:04:29,159
Speaker 1: I mean, that's very romantic. It's so much easier to

79
00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:32,520
Speaker 1: romanticize having a gangster in your family than an FBI

80
00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:36,320
Speaker 1: agent in your family. It's just true. It's just something

81
00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:40,080
Speaker 1: elemental about it. Yeah, I would rather be related to

82
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:44,000
Speaker 1: a gangster than a copy unless that cop is Bruce

83
00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:48,479
Speaker 1: Willis in one of the four movies in which she's

84
00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:50,719
Speaker 1: he's a fun cop. He gets to do fun cop

85
00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:54,919
Speaker 1: things he does. Real police rarely get to ramp vehicles

86
00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:58,800
Speaker 1: into other vehicles, and when they do, it's usually racist.

87
00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:02,080
Speaker 1: So it's a hard one. Now. Pretty Boy Floyd was

88
00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:04,960
Speaker 1: known to his fellow Oklahoman's as the sage brush Robin Hood.

89
00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:06,600
Speaker 1: He got his start in crime at a j teen,

90
00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:09,560
Speaker 1: stealing three and fifty dollars in pennies, or, if you

91
00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,160
Speaker 1: believe Woody Guthrie, from beating a cop to death with

92
00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:15,040
Speaker 1: a log chain for cursing in front of his wife. Now,

93
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:17,960
Speaker 1: the thing that disturbed authorities like jedeger Hoover of the

94
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:21,120
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation was how popular many gangsters were with

95
00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:24,159
Speaker 1: the common folk. This was in part because they targeted banks.

96
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,479
Speaker 1: Pretty Boy Floyd was famous for robbing on the insured

97
00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:29,080
Speaker 1: banks and for burning the mortgage papers of farmers when

98
00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:32,600
Speaker 1: he came across them. The FBI's archives somewhat disputes that,

99
00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:35,680
Speaker 1: noting while Floyd reportedly destroyed mortgage notes from a bank

100
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:37,320
Speaker 1: or two that he robbed in hopes of saving a

101
00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:40,560
Speaker 1: few farmers from foreclosure, his reputation is a humanitarian or

102
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:43,520
Speaker 1: a robin Hood is undeserved. Now, they don't go into

103
00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,280
Speaker 1: buch to tail about that. They just say, because he

104
00:05:46,440 --> 00:05:49,520
Speaker 1: shot a lot of cops, Uh, he wasn't a robin Hood.

105
00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:52,240
Speaker 1: But I should note here that the FBI is not

106
00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:55,240
Speaker 1: the most reliable source on the lives of gangsters in

107
00:05:55,240 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: this era. They're the agency that killed most of these people, um,

108
00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:02,720
Speaker 1: including our current subjects of the day, Mob Barker and

109
00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 1: her sons, um. But the lives of gangsters are very

110
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:09,719
Speaker 1: deeply politicized still, and so the research I've conducted for

111
00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:12,720
Speaker 1: this episode, which was not crazy extensive, I caught the

112
00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:15,120
Speaker 1: Bureau in at least one lie by a mission. Now,

113
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:16,680
Speaker 1: I say all this to set it up that if

114
00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:19,400
Speaker 1: you read the official FBI reports on some of the

115
00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:23,000
Speaker 1: stuff we're talking about, they will contrast with the story

116
00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:25,359
Speaker 1: I am telling you today. The story I'm telling you

117
00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:27,920
Speaker 1: today is based primarily on the work of historians who

118
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:32,599
Speaker 1: I trust more than cops. So anyway, that's the introduction. Um.

119
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,720
Speaker 1: Always always robin shared banks. I just want to do

120
00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:39,440
Speaker 1: out there. I mean it's hard not to at this point.

121
00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:41,200
Speaker 1: If you're going to rob a bank is probably insured,

122
00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:43,479
Speaker 1: but make sure your bank's insured before you rob it.

123
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:48,680
Speaker 1: That's the new T shirt Emily. Yeah, always rob and

124
00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:54,760
Speaker 1: shared banks. Bastards, always be rob bean and shirt banks. Yeah.

125
00:06:54,880 --> 00:06:59,080
Speaker 1: And if you get a chance to destroy mortgage paperwork,

126
00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:02,840
Speaker 1: do it, sure, Yeah banks, Yeah, burn up some loans,

127
00:07:03,560 --> 00:07:06,760
Speaker 1: burn ups. It was a lot easier back when everything

128
00:07:06,760 --> 00:07:09,039
Speaker 1: was on paper. Yeah, I know. Yeah, that would have

129
00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:10,720
Speaker 1: been so fun. You would have really felt like you

130
00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,280
Speaker 1: could make an impact as a bank robber. It would

131
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:16,080
Speaker 1: feel a lot more political. Oh yeah, like you're not

132
00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:18,600
Speaker 1: just Point Break like trying to go surfing or whatever.

133
00:07:18,760 --> 00:07:22,720
Speaker 1: Like you can actually like change a lot of people's lives. Yeah.

134
00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:25,400
Speaker 1: I guess that is like the most political bank rubber

135
00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:28,440
Speaker 1: in a in a modern movie outside I maybe the

136
00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:30,880
Speaker 1: joker is like the guys in Point Break, and they

137
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:32,840
Speaker 1: just wanted to serve. They just wanted to serve that

138
00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:37,320
Speaker 1: they did rob the bank. In President masks, they were

139
00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:41,480
Speaker 1: the president, they were the dead president's presidents, which you know,

140
00:07:41,560 --> 00:07:43,960
Speaker 1: seems mostly like a non sequit or with the rest

141
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:46,080
Speaker 1: of their whole deal. But it was fun. Had they

142
00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:50,080
Speaker 1: had flair. They had flair. There was like zero politics

143
00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:54,600
Speaker 1: actually going on in the movie other than if we

144
00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:58,760
Speaker 1: hit this wave, I mean, it would I mean and

145
00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:01,960
Speaker 1: anybody would argues other wise, is uh not somebody I

146
00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:05,400
Speaker 1: want to align myself with politically. Yeah, yeah, that that

147
00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:10,520
Speaker 1: is my politics is rubbing banks to hit sick waves. Now,

148
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,040
Speaker 1: Mob Barker is not the most famous gangster of her era,

149
00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: but she was at one point public Enemy number one,

150
00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:22,600
Speaker 1: which is objectively the coolest title you can you can achieve. Um,

151
00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:25,080
Speaker 1: I hope we all become public enemy number one at

152
00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:30,600
Speaker 1: some point. Everybody gets their turn on the internet. Yeah,

153
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:33,000
Speaker 1: I feel like that is kind of that is kind

154
00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:35,160
Speaker 1: of how Twitter works. Every day we have a new

155
00:08:35,200 --> 00:08:38,640
Speaker 1: public enemy number one. Yeah, that sounds way cooler than

156
00:08:38,679 --> 00:08:42,320
Speaker 1: complaining about cancel culture. It's like everybody gets their day

157
00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:44,520
Speaker 1: to be public enemy number one. You can revel in

158
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,360
Speaker 1: it a little bit. At least it's going to happen. Oh,

159
00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:51,080
Speaker 1: I'm excited for my day to come when my many

160
00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 1: many crimes are finally exposed to the world. That's going

161
00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:56,680
Speaker 1: to be great. Oh boy, um no, that's another thing. See,

162
00:08:56,720 --> 00:08:57,920
Speaker 1: this is why I wouldn't be cut out to be

163
00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:00,160
Speaker 1: a gangster. I'm already too stressed out about like just

164
00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:03,079
Speaker 1: saying one wrong word at one point and getting better.

165
00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:06,440
Speaker 1: Anyone realizing how often you shoplift from Costco? Yeah, oh

166
00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:10,880
Speaker 1: my god, I mean it's not yeah, you joke, I

167
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:14,120
Speaker 1: have a I have a pretty bad shoplifting pass. So okay.

168
00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:19,920
Speaker 1: You know, if if if God didn't want us to shoplift,

169
00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:26,040
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have given us pockets. And that is my justification. Yeah,

170
00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:30,319
Speaker 1: checks out hard to argue with. Now. By some accounts,

171
00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:32,920
Speaker 1: mob Barker was the among the most innovative and successful

172
00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:36,120
Speaker 1: criminal masterminds of any era. By other accounts, she was

173
00:09:36,200 --> 00:09:38,520
Speaker 1: mostly just a chef in the moral support system for

174
00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:41,520
Speaker 1: her criminal children. The FBI takes the angle that she

175
00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:44,200
Speaker 1: was not a mastermind and that she was mostly just

176
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:46,640
Speaker 1: supporting her boys, who did all of the real crime.

177
00:09:46,679 --> 00:09:49,679
Speaker 1: Thinking the bulk of the evidence seems to discredit them

178
00:09:49,679 --> 00:09:53,560
Speaker 1: on this. Uh, and I'm you know, that's enough of

179
00:09:53,559 --> 00:09:56,520
Speaker 1: my anti FBI pro gangster. Let's let's let's get into

180
00:09:56,559 --> 00:09:59,520
Speaker 1: the story. Mob. Barker's life is often summed up like

181
00:09:59,559 --> 00:10:02,640
Speaker 1: this folk see right up by the University of Florida quote.

182
00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:05,920
Speaker 1: Born in the Ozarks, she was poor in her early years.

183
00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:08,880
Speaker 1: So strong was her lust for money, furs, and bobbles.

184
00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:10,920
Speaker 1: She turned to a life of crime and led four

185
00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:14,160
Speaker 1: young sons down the same path. The eldest herman convinced

186
00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:16,400
Speaker 1: her crime does pay, so she opened up in her

187
00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:18,720
Speaker 1: own home a school of Crime for the young uns.

188
00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:21,800
Speaker 1: When they were arrested for petty infractions, she upbraided them

189
00:10:21,800 --> 00:10:24,920
Speaker 1: for getting caught. Trust the University of Florida to use

190
00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:28,840
Speaker 1: the word young UN's in a historical write up. I love,

191
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:31,080
Speaker 1: I love. I mean the idea of a school for

192
00:10:31,160 --> 00:10:33,960
Speaker 1: crime is just so cute. I mean it just sounds

193
00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:36,840
Speaker 1: so I mean, it's just very very Oliver twist of course.

194
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:39,760
Speaker 1: But um, I don't know. It seems like a fun,

195
00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:42,959
Speaker 1: fun time. It does seems like a good good night.

196
00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:45,360
Speaker 1: A podcasts the Old School of Crime, how a bunch

197
00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:47,959
Speaker 1: of different people come up and like this is how

198
00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:50,240
Speaker 1: I got free water from the city. This is how

199
00:10:50,280 --> 00:10:53,760
Speaker 1: I got that boot off my car without paying. Yeah,

200
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,320
Speaker 1: the lecture series would be incredible At the School for

201
00:10:56,400 --> 00:11:01,480
Speaker 1: crime for crime. Yeah, the school for petty petty cry Yeah,

202
00:11:01,800 --> 00:11:06,960
Speaker 1: stealing some lifesavers, yeah, the school for getting by crime,

203
00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 1: like how to sneak, how to sneak the fixings to

204
00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:11,840
Speaker 1: make your ramen palatable out of your out of the

205
00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:14,520
Speaker 1: grocery store and a jacket without getting caught. See this

206
00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:17,560
Speaker 1: is like actually stuff that I've thought about trying to

207
00:11:17,600 --> 00:11:20,000
Speaker 1: turn into a podcast at some point or another. It's

208
00:11:20,040 --> 00:11:25,240
Speaker 1: just like actual like basic poverty skills for twenty somethings

209
00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:28,280
Speaker 1: and up, like just like you know how to how

210
00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:32,520
Speaker 1: to jerry rigged things out of other things and make

211
00:11:32,559 --> 00:11:35,520
Speaker 1: it into like just so you can get by and

212
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:39,080
Speaker 1: have a less stressful life on zero dollars um. Yeah.

213
00:11:39,520 --> 00:11:42,720
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say about how to specifically

214
00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:45,960
Speaker 1: jigger the breaking down pieces of your car so that

215
00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,000
Speaker 1: the police won't notice that your registration has been expired

216
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:53,040
Speaker 1: for years. That's really critical skill, critical skills. Yeah, because

217
00:11:53,080 --> 00:11:58,120
Speaker 1: that ruined me for many like years, was my stupid

218
00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:03,080
Speaker 1: car and it's stupid registrate ship. Yeah, it's a It

219
00:12:03,120 --> 00:12:05,520
Speaker 1: says something about our society that all almost all of

220
00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:08,640
Speaker 1: our tips for living in poverty are also crimes. But

221
00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:13,280
Speaker 1: that's the story for another day, um So, my main

222
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:16,880
Speaker 1: source for this episode is Mob Barker America's Most Wanted

223
00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:20,760
Speaker 1: Mother by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Ince U E N

224
00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:22,880
Speaker 1: s S. I don't know how to pronounce that. Ince

225
00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:25,360
Speaker 1: seems to be right. It's the best right up of

226
00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:29,240
Speaker 1: this particular story that I found, and it's a fun book. So.

227
00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:34,360
Speaker 1: Arizona Donnie Clark was born on October eighteen seventy three

228
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,439
Speaker 1: in Greene County, Missouri. She was one of four children,

229
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:40,240
Speaker 1: and her childhood occurred on a small farm eighteen miles

230
00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,600
Speaker 1: from nowhere. Arizona's family called her Airy, which she seems

231
00:12:43,640 --> 00:12:53,120
Speaker 1: to have hated. Her beloved father died when she was seven. What, Sophie, what?

232
00:12:53,120 --> 00:12:57,200
Speaker 1: What's wrong with air? It's just funny that she's Arizona

233
00:12:57,240 --> 00:12:59,600
Speaker 1: and her family is like you're Airy, and she's like, no,

234
00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:05,400
Speaker 1: I'm not call me Arizona. I don't think she liked

235
00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:08,520
Speaker 1: that either, which I don't know. It's a very hippie

236
00:13:08,600 --> 00:13:12,320
Speaker 1: name for the time. Yeah, there's a raising Arizona joke there,

237
00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:14,640
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to make because I haven't seen

238
00:13:14,679 --> 00:13:18,360
Speaker 1: that movie. Uh not on a Nicolas Cage's Best or

239
00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:21,199
Speaker 1: maybe it is I don't know. He's very charming in it.

240
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:25,040
Speaker 1: But but it's about it's about crimes, and it's about

241
00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:28,200
Speaker 1: a baby. So so far, you know, it sounds like

242
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:33,880
Speaker 1: Toronto biomography. Now, uh Ari's beloved father died when she

243
00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:36,400
Speaker 1: was seven, and her mother remarried not long after to

244
00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:38,440
Speaker 1: a guy with the last name of Reynolds, who she

245
00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:41,840
Speaker 1: did not like. Now, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma,

246
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:45,200
Speaker 1: where her stepfather took up work as a cop. It

247
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:48,280
Speaker 1: would be rank speculation for me to, you know, wonder

248
00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:51,000
Speaker 1: that her stepfather's career as a police officer had an

249
00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:53,320
Speaker 1: impact on Arizona's adult life, but it's hard not to

250
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:56,160
Speaker 1: think about given what comes next. Most sources seem to

251
00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:58,920
Speaker 1: agree that she really hated her stepdad, largely because he

252
00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:01,960
Speaker 1: favored his natural born children over his wives children. So

253
00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:05,480
Speaker 1: this is one of those classic step parents stories. Um,

254
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:09,599
Speaker 1: all step parents are bastards, apparently, that's the that's the

255
00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:13,679
Speaker 1: lesson Disney taught me. That's true. It's like, you know,

256
00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:16,080
Speaker 1: but it also means you're more likely to be a

257
00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:18,360
Speaker 1: heroine in a Disney movie if you have a step parent.

258
00:14:18,559 --> 00:14:21,720
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, having a step parent is the key

259
00:14:21,800 --> 00:14:24,440
Speaker 1: to after ninety minutes or so, winding up in a

260
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:27,920
Speaker 1: great place. Yeah. Yeah, being an orphan, having a step

261
00:14:27,920 --> 00:14:33,720
Speaker 1: parent being somebody's award. Also. Yeah. The first thing I

262
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:36,400
Speaker 1: learned from popular fiction as a kid was that the

263
00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:39,240
Speaker 1: best thing to have is dead parents, Like you really

264
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:40,960
Speaker 1: want to get those parents out of the way as

265
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:46,800
Speaker 1: soon as possible, really helps with everything. Now, Mr Reynolds,

266
00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:49,680
Speaker 1: her stepdad did not approve of the man mob Barker

267
00:14:49,760 --> 00:14:53,960
Speaker 1: fell in love with at age nineteen, George Elias Barker. Uh.

268
00:14:54,040 --> 00:14:58,120
Speaker 1: They were married on September four. Now. George was ten

269
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:01,160
Speaker 1: years older than Arizona, which in most cases would be

270
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:03,880
Speaker 1: caused for serious concerned that the much older party might

271
00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:08,280
Speaker 1: dominate the younger Uh. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, nothing like

272
00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:11,880
Speaker 1: that happened. George was soft spoken, non confrontational, and even

273
00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:15,000
Speaker 1: a bit shy. He was utterly dominated by his young wife.

274
00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:17,360
Speaker 1: For her part, Kate, which is what she was going

275
00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:19,800
Speaker 1: by at this point, was disappointed in her man from

276
00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:23,040
Speaker 1: the beginning of their relationship. Decades later, the Kansas City

277
00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 1: Star would right this. Of her upbringing, her life had

278
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,000
Speaker 1: been that of an ordinary missera farm girl, church, Sunday

279
00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:32,280
Speaker 1: school picnics, hey riots, candy polls in a little red schoolhouse.

280
00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 1: Somewhere she acquired a need for riches and personal power.

281
00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:37,640
Speaker 1: She hoped to obtain golden glory by way of her husband,

282
00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:40,560
Speaker 1: but eventually realized it could only be learned by her sons.

283
00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,960
Speaker 1: That's kind of the common right up of her. All right, yeah,

284
00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:48,720
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to me that they all write like, oh,

285
00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:52,320
Speaker 1: she wanted all these uh, superficial things, that's what she

286
00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:56,080
Speaker 1: like as if it's yeah, and it's like, well, maybe

287
00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:57,600
Speaker 1: she just grew up poor in a farm and didn't

288
00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:00,360
Speaker 1: want to be poor any Yeah, like painting this picture

289
00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:04,200
Speaker 1: of like the epitome of Americana being like, but why

290
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:07,280
Speaker 1: did she become so materialistic? It's like it's baked into

291
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:12,080
Speaker 1: being an American, especially before being poor in a farm sucks.

292
00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:17,160
Speaker 1: It's nice to have furs, like like, like all pop

293
00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:19,760
Speaker 1: cultures seems to tell us unless we try to get

294
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:22,040
Speaker 1: it by committing crimes. Well, I do feel like, I mean,

295
00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:23,480
Speaker 1: I feel like there have been some movies that have

296
00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:25,920
Speaker 1: addressed this, but like the fact that there is radio

297
00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:29,400
Speaker 1: and there's like more rapid pop culture that can be

298
00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:32,360
Speaker 1: disseminated is like why so many of these people get

299
00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:34,560
Speaker 1: into crime in the first place, and are also like

300
00:16:34,640 --> 00:16:38,680
Speaker 1: why they become celebrities become these mythical figures because they

301
00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:40,960
Speaker 1: are pop cultural figures at the time. Like that's what

302
00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,720
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Like Michael Mann's movie Um,

303
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,360
Speaker 1: Public Enemies is about, um, yeah, it's great. Yeah I

304
00:16:47,400 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 1: think I think so. And we'll get to that in

305
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,920
Speaker 1: a second. So, her husband, George, was uneducated and he

306
00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:55,200
Speaker 1: had no interest in obtaining an education. He was a

307
00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:58,640
Speaker 1: daily laborer with zero aspirations beyond working on a small

308
00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:01,720
Speaker 1: farm and making enough to serve five Kate, though, had

309
00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 1: spent enough time being poor as a little girl. She

310
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:06,240
Speaker 1: wanted more out of life, and she asked her stepdad

311
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:08,239
Speaker 1: to loan her and her husband some money so they

312
00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:11,159
Speaker 1: could start a business. Her stepfather turned them down, and

313
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:14,280
Speaker 1: she never spoke with him again. For a time, Kate

314
00:17:14,320 --> 00:17:17,080
Speaker 1: tried to push George into success. She lived as a

315
00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:20,239
Speaker 1: simple housewife and threw herself into religion. Most people who

316
00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:22,200
Speaker 1: knew her in those days say she was almost never

317
00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:24,760
Speaker 1: seen without a Bible in hand, but at home, away

318
00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:28,960
Speaker 1: from prying eyes, she developed another obsession. Outlaws. The Jesse

319
00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:32,200
Speaker 1: James Gang and the Dalton Gang were her particular favorites.

320
00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:34,919
Speaker 1: Both groups robbed banks across the same chunk of the

321
00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:37,280
Speaker 1: country where Kate had grown up. In fact, she'd even

322
00:17:37,280 --> 00:17:39,760
Speaker 1: watched the James gang right through town as a girl.

323
00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:42,480
Speaker 1: Being a woman, and this being the eighteen nineties, Kate

324
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:45,400
Speaker 1: did not have any hope of being a successful gangster herself.

325
00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:48,000
Speaker 1: Bonnie Parker had not yet fired a Tommy gun into

326
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,159
Speaker 1: that glass ceiling. So Kate found herself enamored with the

327
00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:55,000
Speaker 1: mothers of these daring criminals. According to mob Barker, America's

328
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:58,080
Speaker 1: most Wanted mother quote, the Dalton's and the James boys

329
00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:00,640
Speaker 1: were raised by strong, defiant mothers whom sure they knew

330
00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:02,600
Speaker 1: how to use a weapon and fight for what they wanted.

331
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:04,680
Speaker 1: The influence the women had on their families, and the

332
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,040
Speaker 1: devotion their sons felt towards them mothers struck a chord

333
00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:09,760
Speaker 1: with Kate. She aspired to have it in her own life.

334
00:18:11,119 --> 00:18:14,719
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody wants to raise an army of loyal,

335
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,720
Speaker 1: large adult sons to do crimes. Why are you the

336
00:18:18,760 --> 00:18:23,639
Speaker 1: president did? And look how that's work. They're not great

337
00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:26,399
Speaker 1: at it, but it's that doesn't seem to matter so well,

338
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:28,440
Speaker 1: it's all about the intention I mean, it does take

339
00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:31,240
Speaker 1: a lot of work to like first create that army

340
00:18:31,280 --> 00:18:33,960
Speaker 1: of large adult sons. So and even I mean to

341
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:38,760
Speaker 1: too can be an army. So yeah, fo is even better. Yeah,

342
00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:40,840
Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, we're all trying to raise

343
00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:43,160
Speaker 1: our own large adult sons for a life of crime.

344
00:18:43,200 --> 00:18:47,760
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to do it by radicalizing people through podcasts. Again,

345
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:50,920
Speaker 1: Robin shared banks, Sophie, could we urge people to rob

346
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:54,200
Speaker 1: banks on the show? If it's like what if it's

347
00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:59,160
Speaker 1: like my views don't reflect the views of the network. Um,

348
00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:05,160
Speaker 1: but still, Robin, sure, Banks, My my advice that people

349
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:14,760
Speaker 1: rob ensured banks is purely humor. Yeah, satire, satiretzing satirizing

350
00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:18,600
Speaker 1: bank robbers by advising people to rob banks. Yeah, it's

351
00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:22,480
Speaker 1: a wonderful satire. It's really sharp. That's that's legally bulletproof,

352
00:19:22,720 --> 00:19:26,280
Speaker 1: all right. Now. Kate and George had their first son, Herman,

353
00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:30,200
Speaker 1: on October. They had three more sons over the next

354
00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:32,800
Speaker 1: several years, ending with their fourth son, Fred in nineteen

355
00:19:32,840 --> 00:19:36,119
Speaker 1: o three. All these mouths to feed strained George's limited

356
00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:38,840
Speaker 1: ability to provide. He did manage to save enough cash

357
00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:40,520
Speaker 1: to buy a small farm, but the house on it

358
00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 1: was essentially a decrepit hovel, barely fit for human habitation.

359
00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 1: Kate was desperately unhappy with these circumstances and longed for

360
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,200
Speaker 1: something better. And it is hard not to see why

361
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,000
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the poverty in this era, we're

362
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:55,360
Speaker 1: not like talking about like a quaint little farmhouse. We're

363
00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:59,240
Speaker 1: talking about a building that's essentially made of trash wood, uh,

364
00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:02,800
Speaker 1: filled with mice and vermin and mosquitoes in the summer,

365
00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:06,760
Speaker 1: where people are basically pooping in a hole surrounded by flies. Like,

366
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:10,200
Speaker 1: it's not a great life. This is like dust bowl time.

367
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:14,480
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's bad. It's a bad

368
00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:17,520
Speaker 1: time to be a human being. Um. This is a

369
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:20,040
Speaker 1: little before that during this period, but it's still a

370
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 1: time of like unspeakable poverty. Um yeah, it's so crazy

371
00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 1: that that's like that, that's still like what we consider

372
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:30,800
Speaker 1: the modern era more more or less than that, Like

373
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,800
Speaker 1: people were living like in like the the the United

374
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:36,960
Speaker 1: States could not necessarily yet be considered a first world country.

375
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:40,280
Speaker 1: It's incredible, not by modern standards. And it is one

376
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:42,399
Speaker 1: of those things like you really you think about, you

377
00:20:42,480 --> 00:20:44,440
Speaker 1: read about, like the Great battles in World War Two,

378
00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:47,320
Speaker 1: and World War One and how like nightmarish the privations

379
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:49,680
Speaker 1: were for the soldiers. But then you have to think, like, well, okay,

380
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,840
Speaker 1: but most of them grew up like farming dirt and

381
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:55,440
Speaker 1: shipping in holes. Like it's not like this was new.

382
00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:59,200
Speaker 1: It's not like living rough was an incomprehensible concept to

383
00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: all of them. You know, a lot of them grew

384
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 1: up in cities, but a lot of them were sucking

385
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:06,400
Speaker 1: country people. The base the base level you're starting from

386
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:10,359
Speaker 1: is uh considerably different. Yeah, yeah, people are tougher in

387
00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:12,200
Speaker 1: this period of time. This is right around the period

388
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:14,800
Speaker 1: that my grandpa left home when he was seventeen. The

389
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:17,080
Speaker 1: economy collapse and his dad was like, we can't take

390
00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:20,840
Speaker 1: care of you. And he walked across two states with

391
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:22,840
Speaker 1: nothing but cornbread in his pockets to go get a

392
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:24,960
Speaker 1: job with a Civilian conservation Corps. And it's like I

393
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:26,840
Speaker 1: never had to do ship like that, Like that would

394
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:29,680
Speaker 1: have been This is like a little off topic, but

395
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 1: I've been watching the Ken Burns country music documentary and

396
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:34,119
Speaker 1: it's like filled with stories like that, Like there's a

397
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:38,680
Speaker 1: family like Walks, I think from Arkansas to California or

398
00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:40,920
Speaker 1: most of the way they walked most of the way,

399
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:43,679
Speaker 1: and it's just like, Also, it's like everybody dies at

400
00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 1: thirty and they look like they're sixty two years old,

401
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:50,240
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh my god, life life was. I

402
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:52,000
Speaker 1: don't have to go back too far for life to

403
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 1: look like that. Your average thirty one year old look

404
00:21:55,119 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 1: like Keith Richards. Yes, it was a different time. Yeah. Now.

405
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:02,760
Speaker 1: For his part, George Barker seems to have done his

406
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 1: best to provide for his family. His best just wasn't

407
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: very good. He worked long hours and spent all of

408
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,000
Speaker 1: his free time with his children, teaching them how to

409
00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:12,719
Speaker 1: fish and hunt. Thanks to George, the Barker boys all

410
00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 1: grew up as fabulous shots. Kate, who was renowned to

411
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:17,800
Speaker 1: be a great chef, taught them how to cook. She

412
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,639
Speaker 1: also handled discipline for the family by her own insistence.

413
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,680
Speaker 1: Whenever George would attempt to discipline any of their kids,

414
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,879
Speaker 1: she'd shout him down until he backed off. The Kansas

415
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 1: City Star in nineteen thirty six described the young family

416
00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 1: thus lye she Ma attended church regularly, dragging her brood

417
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 1: after her. George, her husband went as well. He was

418
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 1: a mild, ineffective, quiet man who seemed somewhat bewildered by

419
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 1: his domineering wife. This was especially true when he attempted

420
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:44,439
Speaker 1: to assume guidance of the growing boys. There was a

421
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 1: feline intensity about Kate's determination that no one but herself

422
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: should be their mentor, and in her eyes, they could

423
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,960
Speaker 1: do no wrong. Mob Barker socialized with very few people.

424
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:56,160
Speaker 1: She was cordial when spoken to, but rarely initiated a conversation.

425
00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: Neighbor and fellow churchgoer, Gertrude Farmer, was the only woman

426
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: with whom she spent time. Gertrude and Ma were described

427
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:07,360
Speaker 1: by Web City residents as odd and unapproachable. Maybe everybodyiels

428
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,760
Speaker 1: just sucked. But the Barkers lived in Webb City, Missouri

429
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: for the early years of their children's lives, where they

430
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: met the Farmer family, whose patron, William, was a small

431
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: time con artist. He was no better at earning a

432
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: living than George, but he did have many half and

433
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,120
Speaker 1: quarter true stories of outlaws and conmon that he regaled

434
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 1: the Barker children and Kate. With the Barker kids quickly

435
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 1: developed a reputation for being little criminals, damaging property, stealing,

436
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: and fighting. Kate Barker was reasonably happy with this. Her

437
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: only real issue was when her children got caught So yeah,

438
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:42,680
Speaker 1: less than number one at school for school for petty crime.

439
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, don't get caught committing the petty crimes. Now.

440
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,439
Speaker 1: George was worried for his boys, and he moved the

441
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: family to Tulsa, Oklahoma in nineteen ten as a way

442
00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: to get them out of their bad environment. The city

443
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: was a boomtown, though, which means it was as filled

444
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: with criminals as the Barker family living room, so this

445
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: is probably a bad move on his part. Now, the

446
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,959
Speaker 1: Barker home and Tulsa was even worse than their previous

447
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: home in Webb City. The floor was just boards over dirt,

448
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: the windows were all shattered, and the bathroom was a

449
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: shack with a whole on the ground. Flies covered everything

450
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: anytime it wasn't freezing. Kate continued to be miserable in

451
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: these circumstances, and her children's early memories were likely full

452
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: of her lambasting Charles for his failure to provide for

453
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,239
Speaker 1: the family. So the boys began to strategize, scheming up

454
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: ways to bring in money via less than legal roots.

455
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: They had watched their father try and fail for years

456
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: to make a decent living on the straight and narrow

457
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: crime they decided seemed a lot smarter, which you know,

458
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: I mean, who would not arrive at these conclusions. It's

459
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: it's hard to fault. Like the logic here was kind

460
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: of seems like obeying the laws for assholes, yea, or

461
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: like that's for a different generation, you know. I feel

462
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 1: like there's always some kind of generational shift like that,

463
00:24:55,080 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: Like what he doesn't take adverts without me talk? Oh? Yeah,

464
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 1: Sophie is telling me that I don't take ad breaks

465
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: without her telling me, and I will have her No, Yes,

466
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: that's accurate. Sophie interrupted you, Emily, which is very rude

467
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: of her, But she didn't in order to make sure

468
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:16,879
Speaker 1: that we had an ad break, which is very polite

469
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 1: of her. Sorry, I didn't realize what it was for Sorr.

470
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I need to, It's okay. In

471
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: order to make up for this, Emily, would you like

472
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,120
Speaker 1: to plug a random product of your own, of your

473
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: own desire, something you like, or a service, or a crime.

474
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: You can plug anything at this point, plug a good crime.

475
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: I'm what's a good product that I love right now?

476
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I feel like I've plugged this so

477
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: many times on Nightcall, but like I love a neutro bullet,

478
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 1: and I desperately want a Night Call to be sponsored

479
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 1: by neutro bullet because I would like do an entire

480
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 1: podcast about the neutro bullet and all the wonderful uses

481
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: for it. I could start up like a school for crimes,

482
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: but just just like using the neutro bullet. Um anyway,

483
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: that's my that's my endorsement of a product. Well, I

484
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:05,159
Speaker 1: would like to endorse my new behind the Bastard's branded

485
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: Actual bullets, which are the first gluten free ammunition on

486
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: the on the open market. So by a neutral bullet,

487
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,959
Speaker 1: by some gluten free Bastards bullets. It's always so frustrating

488
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: when you you have to kill somebody but they have

489
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: exactly exactly and that's not okay. You're going to shoot

490
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: someone with Celiac's disease. Use gluten free bullets. Yeah, that's

491
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 1: it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing

492
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:33,159
Speaker 1: to do. And the other right thing to do is

493
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: to listen to these ads products. We're back. We're back,

494
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: returning from some amazing ads. Just just uh, what was

495
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 1: your favorite one? My favorite one was the ad for

496
00:26:55,800 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 1: uh carjacking police vehicles. I really I enjoy that one.

497
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: I I never thought of that as a realistic product.

498
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:05,719
Speaker 1: And I'm glad. I'm glad that the fine people at

499
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble suggested that because it would be a

500
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: crime if I suggested that. Yeah, um, really upstanding people

501
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,919
Speaker 1: over there, and Procter and Gamble pen thank you Procter

502
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: and Gamble for urging all people to hijack police vehicles. Again,

503
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble, um, the only what do they make? Shampoo?

504
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: Shampoo like shampoo like? Yeah, drug store products. I suppose

505
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: home cleaning products. Yes, as the fine people at Procter

506
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: and Gamble say, by Procter and Gamble do crimes? Um, well,

507
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble was like had a satanic panics scandal

508
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: around it, you remember, they sure did. They did because

509
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: they love the devil. That's confirmed. Yeah, so they love

510
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 1: crimes and the devil. So the devil's a busy guy

511
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: and he has dandruff and he doesn't have time to

512
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: use multiple different shampoo. So Practor and Gamble two and

513
00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: one dandruf shampoo is really you know, that's where the

514
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: Devil's at the devil is in your psoriasis. Alright, So

515
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 1: back to the Barker family. Between nineteen ten and nineteen eleven,

516
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: all four Barker boys made the Tulsa police blodder. The

517
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: Joplin Globe broke in nineteen thirty nine that the boys

518
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 1: were known as the town toughs. Before they were out

519
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 1: of school, their home became a meeting place for ne'er

520
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: do wells, a crime school so successful that many of

521
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: those who congregated there graduated to try it on a

522
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 1: bigger scale under a variety of assumed names. Now, how

523
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: much Mob Barker was involved in the training of her

524
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,439
Speaker 1: children and the training of other criminals here is up

525
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: for debate. What's known is that whenever one of her

526
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: kids would get in trouble, she would write in for

527
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: the rescue. She was famously charismatic and good at talking

528
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: to lawmen and judges. Mom would usually argue that her

529
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: children were just high, strong, and not nearly as bad

530
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: as town gossip made them out to be. Plus, she

531
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: argued the police were unfairly targeting her family. She insisted

532
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: repeatedly that if the cops left them alone, her boys

533
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: would behave she seemed to have been really good at,

534
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: like just haranguing police and judges into letting her kids go. Um,

535
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: I love high sec energy as the explanation, it's not,

536
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: it's like it feels very contemporary. It feels like something

537
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: that somebody at like a hippie school in Brentwood would

538
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: would say about their kids to get them out of trouble.

539
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: He's just very very high strung a paraphrase warn Zevon,

540
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: They're just excitable boys. Yeah, yes, yeah, So in private,

541
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 1: Kate Barker took on a different tact when her young

542
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: son Hermann, was arrested and confessed to committing crimes. She

543
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: is reputed to have told him that confessing to anyone

544
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: but God was a sign of weakness. She expected her

545
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: sons to never snitch or admit wrongdoing. Instead, they should

546
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: keep their mouth shut and do their time. So that's

547
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: that's mom Barker. Yeah. Before before long, a small community

548
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: of criminals began to a less around Mab Barker and

549
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: her sons. They became known as the Central Park Gang

550
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: because they hung out in Tulsa's Central Park, not the

551
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: not the one that's famous. Um yeah, now the Barker

552
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: house was their other main gathering point, and it quickly

553
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: became a popular haunt for local crime doers. According to

554
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: the Joplin Globe, partnerships and crime were engineered in both

555
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: locations by Ma, who sometimes charged a fee for thieves

556
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: to use being in her presence as an alibi when

557
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: a crime was perpetrated. Sometimes she conspired with lawbreakers for

558
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: the sheer warped joy of it. It sounds to me

559
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: like she's basically Airbnb for crimes. Like I'm looking to

560
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: commit a crime and she'll be, oh, here's here's a

561
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: place you can do it. Here's someone who can help you. Yeah,

562
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: she's like an incubator. She's like an incubator for crimes,

563
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: like real like Silicon Valley pioneer. Um, that's that that

564
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: that's that's essentially what's going on. Yeah. Um, she's the

565
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: the famous one of those investors. She's the Peter Teal

566
00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: of know, Peter Teels, the Peter Teal of crimes. Um,

567
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: she's just mob barker. But yeah so is Peter. No,

568
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: that's giving him too much credit. Peter Tell is not

569
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 1: the mob barker of Silicon Valley. No, no wishes. Yeah yeah,

570
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: yeah he wishes who is the Mom Barker of Silicon Valley.

571
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, somebody who knows more about

572
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley um, which has probably more bastards per capita

573
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: than uh Tulsa at this time period. Uh it's yeah,

574
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: they can they canna let us know because at least

575
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: these Tulsa bastards, these are honest crimes. Nobody's nobody's making

576
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: Twitter here now. Once her sons were old enough to

577
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: pull off real capers, they started bringing in real money

578
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: for the first time in her life. At just over

579
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: age thirty, mob Barker started to enjoy the finer things

580
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: for coats, jewelry, bathrooms with a functional door and windows.

581
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: And she grew and again this was finery back in

582
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: the day, and hip hop got so materialistic and they

583
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: just started wrapping about doors and winter. Yeah, Phitty sent

584
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: Bragg into all of us about the knob on his

585
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: bathroom door, like a goddamn king go to the bathroom

586
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: in private. Yeah. As she grew used to finery and crime,

587
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: Kate began directing the efforts of her sons, handing them

588
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: the names and addresses of people in Tulsa who were

589
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: doing a little too well, in her opinion, and deserved

590
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: to be relieved of their wealth. Tulsa police officer Harry

591
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: Stiege would later told reporters her boys were slippery, young hoodlums.

592
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: She adored her children, but apart from Fred, didn't consider

593
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: them to be especially clever, which is always true of

594
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: large adults. Sons in their crimes, they're they're they're never

595
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 1: as good at it as the parents. Yeah, now, mob

596
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: Barker's sons committed a truly astonishing amount of petty crime

597
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: in this period. Between all of the bank robberies, jewel

598
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: store heists, department store robberies, and kidnappings, the total number

599
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: of capers probably numbered into of thousands. Many of these

600
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: were complex and ambitious schemes, but the majority of them

601
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: were really dumb. Barker boys would be busted more than

602
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: once because they stole distinctive fine clothing and then worried

603
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: around town after robbing it, or because they left said

604
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: clothing behind the scene of a crime. There's multiple hats

605
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: that get Barker boys arrested. Oh my god, I want

606
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: to see these hats. Yeah, they've got to be pretty spectacular.

607
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: I mean, what's like, what's a noteworthy hat in nineteen

608
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: what gears this like, Yeah, it's like the light nineteen ten,

609
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, something like that. I mean, it might just

610
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 1: be that their hat wasn't a pile of dirt on

611
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: their head, and that son of a bitch his hands

612
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 1: made of fabric. He's got to be robbing. Yeah. So

613
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen, Herman was the first of mob Barker's

614
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: sons to be arrested on suspicion of attempted theft. He

615
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: was the first son to leave home to in. His

616
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: criminal history on his own was wide ranging, but only

617
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: partly successful. By nineteen seventeen, he had robbed a number

618
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: of jewelry stores and banks, and was wanted in several states.

619
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: As their children, one by one embarked on their own

620
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: criminal careers, mob Barker became something of a mother to

621
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: countless other bank robbers in Oklahoma. According to the book

622
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 1: Mom Barker, among the fugitives Harvard at the Farmer's Home

623
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: where bank robbers Al Spencer, Frank Nash, and Ray Terrell,

624
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: and train robbers Earl Thayer, Francis Keating, and Thomas Holding.

625
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: These accomplished lawbreakers and a number of other wrongdoers would

626
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,320
Speaker 1: eventually use the Barker's tiny Tulsa home as a safe house.

627
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: In addition to the farmers homestead, Ma charged them in

628
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 1: a modest fee to hide out at her place, where

629
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: she kept the fugitives fed and steered authorities in a

630
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: different direction if they came nosing around. So her their

631
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 1: kids leave the nest to start committing crimes and she

632
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: turns into like a hostel for other criminals. Basically, Now,

633
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: is this like kind of I mean, I'm sort of

634
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: surprised to hear that her sons go on to commit

635
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:46,840
Speaker 1: their own crimes because like, I know that, I know

636
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: that you said that the FBI is telling of the

637
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: story is that she wasn't really a mastermind. But it

638
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 1: also sounds like they're pretty dumb. They're very dumb, and

639
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: their individual criminal careers, uh, in this period are nothing impressive.

640
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 1: It's not until they kind of come back together that

641
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: they start doing the ship they got famous for. But

642
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, there's any kids going to try to

643
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 1: fly the roost and see if he can rob banks

644
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: without his mom. That's just normal parenting. Now. Herman was

645
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: imprisoned after a robbery gone bad and mob Barker blamed

646
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: his partner in the robbery, George White, on the endeavor,

647
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: mostly on the strength of the fact that he had

648
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,279
Speaker 1: received half the sentence for the same crime. She was

649
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: convinced the judge had been lenient on him due to

650
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: his family wealth. Reporters at the time suspected that this

651
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: is what convinced her that quote, justice could be bought

652
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: or sold. Um, it seems like to me that this

653
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 1: is something she'd always believe. That's usually how you'll see

654
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:42,839
Speaker 1: it written up. It did, however, help to solidify her

655
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: attitude towards wealthy families, but we'll get to that later.

656
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighteen, all of mob Barker's children had graduated

657
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: to serious crimes. They were not always smart crimes. In

658
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: July of that year, Arthur Barker stole a Ford roadster

659
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: belonging to an Apartment of Justice employee employee parked directly

660
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: in front of a federal building. He was caught almost instantly.

661
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:04,399
Speaker 1: Mob Barker attempted to talk her son out of jail,

662
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: but he escaped on his own and was then arrested

663
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: again almost immediately. Kate did succeed. Mob Barker got the

664
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: charges against him dropped, probably by bribing police officers to

665
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: destroy the evidence of his obvious crimes, but he was

666
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: arrested again a year later for stealing another Ford roadster.

667
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: This kid, you can't stop this kid from stealing police vehicles. Yeah,

668
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: he's got to have his roadsters. He's got to have

669
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: his fucking roadster. Yeah. Oh my god, I would be

670
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: so mad. Yeah, I pick a different brand. I mean,

671
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 1: maybe it was just Fords at the moment, but yeah, certainly,

672
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: after Arthur was jailed, sulfuric acid and a saw were

673
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: smuggled into the prison where he was held. He and

674
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: sixteen other prisoners escaped. It's not known who smuggled these

675
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 1: items in, but it was almost certainly mob Barker. So

676
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: she's again, she's good at talking to cops, she's good

677
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: at bribing, she's good at like burning a hole through

678
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: a prison. Yeah, or what is that? What happened? Like

679
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 1: they just like acid and so yeah, I think they

680
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 1: weakened the bars with acid and then sawed through them.

681
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,439
Speaker 1: No one was good at making jails back in those days.

682
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: People were bad at almost everything in the in the

683
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. Well that's good then if you're bad

684
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: at crimes and you've wind up in jail. Then you're

685
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:19,759
Speaker 1: in a jail that they were bad at making, and

686
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: you can get exactly. You just have to be good

687
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: at getting out of the bad jail. Yeah, the history

688
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: of the early nineteen hundreds is just a bunch of

689
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: incompetent people fucking up around each other. Yeah. Now, while

690
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 1: her sons committed a range of crimes, mob Barker continued

691
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: to run her farm as a safe house for gangsters.

692
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: She acted as something of a fixer, helping loan criminals

693
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: find other people to partner with and take jobs with.

694
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: She was known to have a good eye for the

695
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: most corrupt cops and judges in town and how much

696
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,719
Speaker 1: it would cost to bribe them. The Kansas City Star

697
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: later wrote, criminals from a dozen pin of h injuries

698
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,359
Speaker 1: sought out mob Barker. Only two things were lacking at

699
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 1: mars liquor and women. A man was a fool to drink,

700
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: she said. Likewise, he's a fool to run around with women.

701
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,839
Speaker 1: Sooner or later they put the law on him. So

702
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: she's not not a fan of other women. Um, well,

703
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: that's surprising because the roads are thinking. The only thing

704
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: way I could justify it in my mind was that

705
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 1: he was drunk. He may have been drunk. Possibly, I

706
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 1: guess he was out of the house, so yeah. Now,

707
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 1: George Barker, mob Barker's husband, did not thrive under his

708
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: wife's new occupation as a mass crime helper. While his

709
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: children were still mostly in the house, he gave up

710
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 1: on challenging them with their constant lawbreaking and let mob

711
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: Barker mostly handle the discipline. When neighbors would come up

712
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: to him and complain about his children stealing ship, he

713
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 1: would say some variation of talk to their mom. She

714
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: handles the kids. Kate Barker had never been very happy

715
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 1: in her marriage, although from what I've read, George was

716
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: pretty far from a bad guy, but he was a

717
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: giant whimp and far from the kind of successful that

718
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: mob Barker wanted, and she grew more comfortable with hard

719
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,240
Speaker 1: crime and dangerous men. Her husband grew even less appealing,

720
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: so she cheated on him constantly with all manner of youngsters.

721
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: Unlike George, these were passionate men and they had money

722
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 1: to burn. They showered her with presents and took her

723
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: out on the town. Everyone in Tulsa, including George knew

724
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,359
Speaker 1: what was going on, but the man who wouldn't stand

725
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: up to his own wife about their children committing an

726
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: endless series of crimes was not about to confront actual

727
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,920
Speaker 1: veteran murderers about taking his wife out to the movies.

728
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: You know, George, he's the kind of line like mos right,

729
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 1: she makes the right call, like this guy passionate men

730
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 1: with deep pockets, Yeah, yeah, versus the guy who couldn't

731
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: buy you a door to the bathroom. I mean, it's

732
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 1: Sophy's showing me a picture of mam, which I think

733
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: must have been well, no, she's probably given the time period,

734
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 1: he's probably picture. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty incredible to

735
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 1: imagine her like being taken out on the town by

736
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: these like wellingsters. Like the problem is like a month

737
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: after age nineteen. Everyone back then looked like they got

738
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: hit in the face by a train. Yeah, she's seen

739
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,359
Speaker 1: some life, but like all the more reason for her

740
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: to fucking take these guys up on on their whining

741
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: and dining. Yeah, it sounds fun. Sounds fun now. By

742
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen twenties, George had fucked off to Joplin, Missouri,

743
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: and abandoned his family and it's hard to blame the

744
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:19,760
Speaker 1: guy mob. Barker, for her part, barely seemed to notice.

745
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: FBI records from the twenties and early thirties note that

746
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:25,479
Speaker 1: she was romantically involved with a number of criminals who

747
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 1: bought her drinks and treated her like royalty. Now, yeah,

748
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: one of the down sides about having a bunch of

749
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 1: crime sons is that they tend to get killed. Um,

750
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and just stealing like Life savers. I

751
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:43,879
Speaker 1: don't know why I keep coming back to the Life

752
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: series and must be some like dumb shoplifting thing I

753
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: witnessed as a child, Just like, how dangerous is that?

754
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: The most ambitious thing you've stolen from? Okay, good, good good?

755
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: That just feels like the crime number one. I think

756
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: my best theft was figuring out how to disassemble and

757
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 1: steal a plunger from Walmart when I was like nineteen

758
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 1: and in my first place and needed one but had

759
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: no extra money. Oh wait, a plunger just plug? Yeah?

760
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: What but I mean, okay, sure did you like? So

761
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: you took off the plunger part and you stick the

762
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: dowel the rod part down your pants or something. Yeah,

763
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: and you put the other part in your pants too,

764
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: but once it's disassembled, you can like kind of flatten

765
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 1: it in there. Yeah. Man, Like the the era of

766
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,879
Speaker 1: baggy bag eear pants from men is also like very

767
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: conducive for shoplifted. It's harder when your skinny jeans. Um. Yeah,

768
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 1: it has helped. I also had a lot of like

769
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 1: drank a lot of lunches when I was poor, by

770
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: just walking around the grocery store drinking whatever they had

771
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: that had protein in it and leaving it behind. Yeah,

772
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 1: I mean, hey man, it was hard times. I mean yeah. No,

773
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 1: Whole Foods is basically like a buffet, right you can

774
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: just like oh yeah, get get whatever you want and

775
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,879
Speaker 1: then walk around and like look at some products. Well

776
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: you eat. You gotta sample that ship before you decide

777
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: whether or not to pay. Also, now that Whole Foods

778
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: is owned by Amazon, I feel no guilt. I feel

779
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:22,840
Speaker 1: no zero zero Sorry. Yeah, this podcast is brought to

780
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:27,040
Speaker 1: you by Whole Foods, and Jeff Bezos specifically funds this podcast.

781
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 1: Uh Jeff Bezos who says, always eat all of the

782
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 1: grapes in the bag um before you always rob and

783
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: shirt banks. Famous Jeff Bezos quote. Now Mob Barker's first

784
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 1: son to die was her oldest boy, Herman. He'd flown

785
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:46,800
Speaker 1: furthest from the nest and he built a gang himself

786
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:48,919
Speaker 1: that robbed a number of jewelry stores and made off

787
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: with tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise. Their method

788
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: of robbery was actually kind of ingenious. They snuck into

789
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: crawl spaces or cut holes in the roof in order

790
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: to drop down mission impossible, like from the ceiling. For

791
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: a while, police were flummixed, but then Herman left his

792
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 1: hat at the scene of a crime, and police tracing

793
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: back to the store and sell so where he purchased it.

794
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,719
Speaker 1: Not the only time a hat would would doom a

795
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: barker boy. Oh my god, these guys, why are they

796
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 1: doing crimes and hats. Stop wearing hats. Maybe maybe stop

797
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: wearing hats to crimes. Fashion and chin strap for it.

798
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: If you really need it for like style or cover

799
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: or something. Then you know, it's amazing, amazing to think

800
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: of an age when hats were so deregulated that you'd

801
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: be like, well, nobody, I'm not going to commit crimes

802
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: without a hat. I mean, the crime will be committed outside.

803
00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 1: I must have my hat. What am I a savage.

804
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 1: Oh my god. In June seven, n Herman and a

805
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 1: partner stole a car from a dealership in Fairfax and

806
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: wound up in a high speed chase that ended in Kansas.

807
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: Herman escaped while his partner was caught, but Herman was

808
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 1: caught hours later buying another hat. Are you kidding me? Yeah?

809
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: These these Barker boys that they're fucking hats. Yeah, always

810
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: a problem. It's like very looney Tunes. And you know,

811
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: the cops let him keep the hat. They're like, no,

812
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: you can't put a man in prison without a hat.

813
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: What don't we He's got to have his phone call

814
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: in his hat. Yeah. Now, mob Barker bailed Herman out,

815
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: and for a time he was able to be in

816
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: the wind again. But even though he'd just been busted

817
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: for grand theft auto and was wanted in questioning for

818
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 1: two bank robberies, Herman decided to plan a third bank robbery.

819
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 1: On January seventeenth, Herman and several partners broke into the

820
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 1: First National Bank of Jasper, Missouri. They made off with

821
00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:40,319
Speaker 1: a pile of lute, but the authorities were hot on

822
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: their trail, and a thirty minute gun battle ensued. Herman

823
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: was wounded and arrested, but he was out again on

824
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: bail by August, which I guess this was a time

825
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: when you could shoot at the police and get out

826
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: on bail. That is incredible. Yeah. While he was out

827
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: on bail for his third robbery, he and a partner

828
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 1: decided to rob an ice plant. Uh. They stole two

829
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,760
Speaker 1: dollars from the safe and fled the scene next. According

830
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: to the book, mom the ice. What about all the ice?

831
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: I it t Yeah, probably if you get caught. I

832
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: guess the side is, if you get caught stealing ice,

833
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 1: you just keep on the run until the ice melts.

834
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: Like you ain't got no proof. Yeah, exactly, got a

835
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: wet car. I just love driving wet I mean, but

836
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it past this guy honestly and be like, oh,

837
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 1: we're gonna do what ice ice? Like probably per pound,

838
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,880
Speaker 1: the stupidest thing you could. You could be worst crime

839
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:43,959
Speaker 1: to engage. All right, So I'm gonna quote the book

840
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,280
Speaker 1: mob Barker talking about what happened after the ice heist,

841
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:50,719
Speaker 1: motorcycle officer J. E. Marshall and his partner Frank Bush

842
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: spotted the gangster's car speeding through town at two in

843
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: the morning. After a short pursuit, the getaway vehicle stopped

844
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: at Officer Marshall approached the car to confront the offenders.

845
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: Herman was driving, and when the police off user got

846
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 1: close enough to look inside the vehicle, he grabbed the

847
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:04,959
Speaker 1: officer around the neck, leveled a gun against his face,

848
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: and fired two shots. Officer Marshall died instantly, so this

849
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: provoked a chase, and herman was wounded badly During an

850
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: automotive firefight. He and his partner crashed their car, and

851
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: overcome with pain, Herman Barker shot himself dead. Mob Barker

852
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: grieved deeply for her oldest boy and used some of

853
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 1: her ill gotten gains to buy a four foot tall

854
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: marble headstone for herman. Some lawman would later write that

855
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: Herman's death caused mob Barker to turn her back entirely

856
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: on morality, but this seems to be theatric drama or

857
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: the time herman died. Ma had been a criminal mastermind

858
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: for nearly a decade, but the death of her oldest

859
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 1: son did have a major impact on her. Mob Barker

860
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: would not in the future be content to let her

861
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 1: children funk up at planning their own crimes. She had

862
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: bigger plans for them, grander plans Minnesota ear plans. And

863
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: this brings us to the greatest type of scum and

864
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: villany in the history of the United dates the city

865
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: of St. Paul. I knew you were going to say St.

866
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: Paul terrible place. Terrible Wait really compared to Tulsa? Well?

867
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, I mean I can't speak for St. Paul today,

868
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 1: but during the Great Depression it was famous for being

869
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: a haven for gangsters. And you know what else is

870
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: a haven for gangsters? Emily, the products and services that

871
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 1: support this podcast. We're back. Products, done, services, service. Uh boy, howdie,

872
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. Alright, speaking of things I'm not

873
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 1: a fan of, let's talk about St. Paul, the crime city. Uh,

874
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,919
Speaker 1: apologies to the people of St. Paul, Minnesota. No apologies.

875
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 1: The only city I apologized to is Pittsburgh. Um, but

876
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: nothing for St. Paul. Bring it on? Not true today?

877
00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:09,279
Speaker 1: The city of city Yeah, consistencies everything, and St. Paul

878
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: was consistently filled with criminals then and probably now, I

879
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: assume um today the city of St. Paul is most

880
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: famous for, I I don't really know is Sophie Minneapolis

881
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 1: being next to Minneapolis. But back in the day, it

882
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 1: was the crime capital of America. I'm gonna quote from

883
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Post. St. Paul in the late twenties and

884
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 1: early thirties was known as a crux haven, a place

885
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: for gangsters, bank robbers, and bootleggers from all over the

886
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: Midwest to run their operations or to hide from the FBI.

887
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 1: The concentration of local organized crime activity prompted reformers and

888
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:41,840
Speaker 1: crime reporters to call for a clean up of the

889
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 1: city in the mid nineteen thirties. So it used to

890
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: be an interesting place at some point, is what I'm

891
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 1: getting at here. Has there been a good crime movie

892
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 1: set in St. Paul? I don't know, probably need a

893
00:48:54,760 --> 00:49:01,439
Speaker 1: good Saint Paul movie. I don't watch a lot of Yeah, yeah,

894
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 1: they get on at one of Now. St. Paul earned

895
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 1: its reputation as the sanctuary for criminals in the Midwest

896
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: with the help of corrupt politicians and police chiefs who

897
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: agreed to turn a blind eye to gangster's underground activities,

898
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 1: which included smuggling, racketeering, and gambling. This collaboration began in

899
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred with what was known as the Layover Agreement,

900
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: an unofficial contract between criminals and Chief of Police John O'Connor.

901
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 1: The Law and Crime and St. Paul worked out a deal.

902
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: Criminals would minimize the murders they committed in town and

903
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 1: give the cops a chunk of their profits. In exchange,

904
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 1: the police would warn them about upcoming FBI raids. This

905
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: became known as the O'Connor system and represents quite possibly

906
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: the most ethical chapter in the history of American law enforcement. Now,

907
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 1: mob Barker and her remaining kids moved to St. Paul

908
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:51,760
Speaker 1: in the early thirties, and for the next couple of years,

909
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: Mob Barker would be the grand dam of crime in

910
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 1: that town. Along the way, she adopted a gangster friend

911
00:49:57,800 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker 1: of one of her sons, Alvin Carpass, the former Marble's

912
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,880
Speaker 1: Champion of Kansas, who was nicknamed Old Creepy for his

913
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 1: dead soulless eyes. Yeah that's a hell of a sentence.

914
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: Can I Is it too late to go with him

915
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 1: for Halloween? I just like an image is incredible. You

916
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 1: just have a gun and a pile of marbles. Yeah,

917
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 1: Old Creepy, You like what I can do with this gun?

918
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: Imagine what I can do with these marvels, kidd. Ma

919
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 1: loved Old Creepy and spent many a night out on

920
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:35,400
Speaker 1: the town of Saint Paul. Yeah, so the old Creepy

921
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 1: Alan Carpass and Mob Barker essentially combined their powers to

922
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: build a gang consisting of Alvin and Ma's sons, with

923
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:48,240
Speaker 1: Ma as kind of the master mind. In June, Alvin

924
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:50,719
Speaker 1: and Ma attended the Chicago World's Fair. It is there

925
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 1: reportedly that Mob Barker first told Alvin that she and

926
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: her boys would be the vanguards of a new era

927
00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 1: of crime, bank robberies beneath our dignity. She said, bigger

928
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:06,319
Speaker 1: game is in our future first, but it led to

929
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:11,520
Speaker 1: her last words. Now That bigger game was kidnapping and

930
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:15,439
Speaker 1: ransoming the children of wealthy families. In nineteen thirty two,

931
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:18,800
Speaker 1: the baby of Charles Lindbergh, famed American aviator and fascist

932
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,839
Speaker 1: piece of ship, had been kidnapped by persons unknown. While

933
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: the baby was found dead six months later, and probably

934
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 1: had died that very night, UH, an innocent man named

935
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 1: Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the crime in nineteen thirty four. UH.

936
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:33,680
Speaker 1: The guilty parties were never caught and almost certainly made

937
00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 1: off with tens of thousands of dollars and a baby

938
00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:38,840
Speaker 1: murder Scott free. This was all widespread knowledge in the

939
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 1: criminal community in nineteen thirty two, when Jack Piper, head

940
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 1: of the Holly Hawks casino and St. Paul, went to

941
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 1: Fred Barker and Alvin with a plan. He knew the

942
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: schedule and travel roots of thirty nine year old William

943
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: ham Jr. And he felt like the man's family would

944
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: pay handsomely if their heir was kidnapped. Now, if you

945
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,360
Speaker 1: don't hail from the center northerish parts of the country,

946
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:02,799
Speaker 1: Ham's is a hilariously named mediocre beer that's better than

947
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:06,720
Speaker 1: being sober, but not a whole lot better. Uh. William

948
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 1: Hams Jr. Was the scion of this beer dynasty and

949
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: a very wealthy man. Jack basically told the Barker gang

950
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: that they could make a lot of money if they

951
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 1: stole him. He asked for ten percent of the total

952
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: take for his help. So the gang kidnapped ham fairly easily,

953
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, they treated him well. Four days

954
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: after his capture, his hundred thousand dollar ransom was paid

955
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 1: and he was returned unharmed to his family. The cost

956
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 1: of the ransom was relatively minor in the scheme of

957
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: the families four point five million dollar fortune. When he

958
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: was returned to his family, William told a local paper,

959
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 1: although it was a trying experience, I was treated with

960
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 1: the utmost respect and courtesy. But like the old adage,

961
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:44,360
Speaker 1: home sweet home is the best place of all. So

962
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 1: Ham seems to say, like, yeah, they were all right. Um,

963
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: feel like he's just shy of being like, I wish

964
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 1: I could have stayed forever. It was so much. I

965
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: wish I could have stayed forever. Food was great. Yeah. Now,

966
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: the ham family had asked authorities to hold back on

967
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 1: doing anything while their kid was kidnapped, and the police

968
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: had agreed. Um, I'm gonna read a quote from the

969
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 1: interview that William Hamm gave the Decatur Harold after he

970
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: had been freed. Um him only saw his captors, but dimly.

971
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: The windows of the house in which he was placed

972
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: in a second floor room were boarded up. I never

973
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: saw the men because I didn't have on my goggles,

974
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: and they made me turn my face towards the wall

975
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: when they came into the room. They were very nice

976
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 1: to me, I asked for anything I wanted and ordered

977
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: anything I wanted. The metals were good and simple, and

978
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: I think elaborate. But whoever did the cooking knew their

979
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,839
Speaker 1: way or on the kitchen, that was almost certainly Mob Barker. Now,

980
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: the FBI did not catch onto the fact that the

981
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: Barker family was behind this caper. Instead, they arrested another

982
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: gangster too, He who was innocent of this crime by

983
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: at least some accounts. Too. He was tortured by the

984
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 1: law enforcement in an attempt to get him to admit

985
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 1: his guilt. He refused and eventually killed himself in jail.

986
00:53:48,160 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, the FBI leaves this story out of its

987
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: account of the arrest of the Barker gang. Yeah, but

988
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,759
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm splitting hairs here. Now, the Barker gang

989
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: was very well at this point. The Hams caper was

990
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:04,439
Speaker 1: their highest profile crime of this period, but they also

991
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 1: continued to rob banks at a pretty ridiculous rate. Meanwhile,

992
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 1: Mob Barker continued to manage the fine details of the gang,

993
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: reportedly going so far as to drive the getaway roots

994
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 1: before major crimes to ensure every aspect of the plan

995
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 1: was mapped out to her satisfaction. She did not draw

996
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:22,800
Speaker 1: the line at just micromanaging the business aspects of her gang.

997
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,200
Speaker 1: According to the book Mob Barker, she also kept a

998
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 1: strong hand in the romantic lives of her sons and

999
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:32,239
Speaker 1: adopted sons. Quote. Members of the Barker Carpass gang who

1000
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: were close to mad generally kept the women they were

1001
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 1: seriously involved with away from her. It was a crazy system,

1002
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:39,839
Speaker 1: Alvin admitted years later, and often created friction with our women,

1003
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:42,320
Speaker 1: who couldn't understand why we were so careful with her feelings.

1004
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:45,359
Speaker 1: The boys preferred to avoid Ma's jealous anger. They were

1005
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: devoted to her and considered her contribution to their organization

1006
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,839
Speaker 1: invaluable and something they would not jeopardize. Not only did

1007
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:52,919
Speaker 1: she recruit in school the hoodlums who joined the group,

1008
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: but she was always a full proof cover for the gang.

1009
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,839
Speaker 1: Ma could project an innocence and wholesomeness to the rival

1010
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 1: the Whistler's mother, but she could be fire an obstinate.

1011
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that. That that's Ma. She won't let

1012
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 1: you have a girlfriend, but she'll get you out of

1013
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:08,839
Speaker 1: trouble with the cops. You've got to keep your mind

1014
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: on crimes. You gotta keep your mind on crimes. I mean,

1015
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:18,760
Speaker 1: makes sense, makes sense now. Ma was a complicated person,

1016
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:21,920
Speaker 1: and while she was a domineering field within the criminal underworld,

1017
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,759
Speaker 1: she operated out of her homes. She was also vulnerable

1018
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: to being victimized by abusers in her own romantic life.

1019
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:29,759
Speaker 1: Starting in the late nineteen twenties, she dated a man

1020
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: named Arthur Dunlop. What started as emotional support in the

1021
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:35,960
Speaker 1: wake of her first son's death evolved into a profoundly

1022
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:39,880
Speaker 1: abusive relationship. Arthur was basically the opposite of George Barker.

1023
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 1: He refused to work or contribute to the family finances

1024
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:45,360
Speaker 1: in any way, but he was also a powerful personality

1025
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:49,360
Speaker 1: who constantly derided and physically abused Kate Barker. The Barker

1026
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 1: boys hated Arthur, but for a while, they tolerated him

1027
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,240
Speaker 1: because their mothers seemed to love him for some inexplicable reason.

1028
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: Arthur moved with the family to St. Paul, but soon

1029
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: after they began their kidnapping game, he started to make trouble.

1030
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: Arthur was no gangster, but he loved to go out

1031
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:05,319
Speaker 1: drinking on the town and brag about the crimes of

1032
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 1: the Barker Carpas gang, even though he had nothing to

1033
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 1: do with those crimes. Yeah, now he's a piece of shit,

1034
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 1: piece of Yeah, I take back what I said about

1035
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: passionate men with deep pockets. Yeah, well he didn't. He

1036
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: was just taken their money, right, bragging. Yeah, just commit

1037
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 1: your own crimes. Yeah, I have a decency to commit

1038
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:31,399
Speaker 1: your own crimes. And I don't know, it's always it's

1039
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 1: always a bummer when when your significant other tries to

1040
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: take credit for your career. Yeah. Absolutely, He's like, how

1041
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 1: who would compare him to as celebrities? Um hm, He's like,

1042
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:49,760
Speaker 1: he's like Kevin Federline, He's the Kevin Federline story. Yeah,

1043
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:53,839
Speaker 1: that's that's yeah, a meaner Kevin Federline. Although I'm sure

1044
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: that cover federal Line wasn't that nice of a person.

1045
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:01,880
Speaker 1: I don't know, history's greatest monster. Um So, when Arthur's

1046
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: bragging finally got loud and boisterous enough that multiple criminal

1047
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:09,240
Speaker 1: friends of the family warned mob Barker, she finally agreed

1048
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: that he had to go. Fred and Alvin shot him

1049
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 1: dead and disposed of the corpse. Ye. By January four,

1050
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: the Barker gang was ready to try their luck at

1051
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: another high dollar kidnapping. Their next subject was Edward George

1052
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: Brimmer Jr. The scion of a wealthy banking family. By

1053
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 1: this point, the Great Depression was well underway, and the

1054
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: whole country was filled with rage at the corrupt bankers

1055
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,520
Speaker 1: who had brought calamity down on the heads of the nation.

1056
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 1: While the heir to the Ham's beer fortune had been

1057
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: treated well, Brimmer was beaten badly and repeatedly by the

1058
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:43,040
Speaker 1: Barker Gang, particularly by Fred Barker, who hated bankers. According

1059
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: to the book Mob Barker, the gang did not keep

1060
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: him blindfolded at all times at the hideout, and he

1061
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:49,080
Speaker 1: was able to observe things which were later to be

1062
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 1: of assistance in identifying the place where he was held captive.

1063
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 1: The men who held him captives spoke with various accents French, German, Italian.

1064
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 1: At one point he heard the voice of an older

1065
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,760
Speaker 1: woman praising the criminals holding him hostage, saying, now you're thinking, boys,

1066
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: now you're thinking. Mr Brimmer assessed it was the voice

1067
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:08,000
Speaker 1: of Mom Barker. I mean, why did why did they

1068
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 1: not blindfold him? It seems like a major oversight. I mean,

1069
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 1: I'm I'm all for beating up a banker, at least

1070
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:19,960
Speaker 1: have the have the foresight to blindfold him. I mean

1071
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: they were usually their faces and stuff were covered, so

1072
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: he wasn't able to identify him. And that like the

1073
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 1: they were speaking in different accents, but like there weren't

1074
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: actually a bunch of different nationalities. They were just trying

1075
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:33,720
Speaker 1: to confuse him. I would love to hear all those accents,

1076
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 1: like I love to all of their attempts at an

1077
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:40,280
Speaker 1: Italian and French and German accent. Yeah, I want to

1078
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:44,200
Speaker 1: know what a bunch of fucking uh criminal gangsters in

1079
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,760
Speaker 1: Minnesota in the nineteen thirties think of German sounds like,

1080
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 1: I bet it's hilarious now. Eventually, the Brimmer family paid

1081
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars for the return of their son, and

1082
00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: this left the Barker Carpass gang fantastically wealthy, but by

1083
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: this point they had committed too many serious crimes to

1084
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 1: not be considered public enemies. After the Bremmer heist, the

1085
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:08,920
Speaker 1: Barker Carpus gang scattered to the four winds across the

1086
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: nation and several other continents in an attempt to have

1087
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: aid justice. Two of mob Barker's sons tried the most

1088
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:17,200
Speaker 1: extreme method imaginable to heighten from the law that decided

1089
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:23,560
Speaker 1: to undergo dangerous experimental surgery to change their faces. And yeah,

1090
00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 1: this is a terrible story Barker again, Yeah, it's real bad.

1091
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:31,840
Speaker 1: An ex convict named Joseph P. Morn was in charge

1092
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:34,919
Speaker 1: of the procedure, which involved looping elastic bands tightly around

1093
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 1: the gangster's fingertips at the first joint and injecting cocaine

1094
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: into each of their fingers and thumbs using a scalpel.

1095
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: The doctor would then script a skin completely off the digits.

1096
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:45,240
Speaker 1: The work of Dr Moran did to remove the scars

1097
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: on Alvin's face was equally as barbaric and unpleasant. In

1098
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 1: the end, the extreme discomfort proofd to be a waste

1099
00:59:50,200 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 1: of time and money. According to the FBI report dated

1100
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:56,160
Speaker 1: November nineteenth, nineteen thirty six, Fred Barker was a braving

1101
00:59:56,200 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 1: maniac due to the pain. Dr Moran performs other services

1102
00:59:59,560 --> 01:00:01,440
Speaker 1: for the gang, such as laundering some of the kidnap

1103
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:04,400
Speaker 1: money through his Chicago practice. Dr Morn suffered from the

1104
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: same problem of running his mouth. He drank too much,

1105
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,040
Speaker 1: which made him especially talkative. He bragged to a couple

1106
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 1: of prostitutes in his company, that he was a big

1107
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 1: doctor from Chicago who could erase fingerprints and change people's appearances.

1108
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:17,520
Speaker 1: His actions weren't tolerated for long by the Barker Carpass gang.

1109
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 1: He was warned to be quiet, but to fight orders

1110
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:21,600
Speaker 1: by stating, I have you guys in the palm of

1111
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 1: my hand. When I guess what happened to this guy?

1112
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:28,959
Speaker 1: I got, got got, Yeah, you got you got killed

1113
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: really fast? Yeah yeah. Alvin and Arthur Barker, acting on

1114
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 1: Ma's orders, guns Dr morn down in July four. They

1115
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:39,560
Speaker 1: buried him in a hole under a pile of lie.

1116
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:42,840
Speaker 1: So that's good. Uh so wait, so it didn't even

1117
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: work though the fingerprint removal it removed the fingerprints that

1118
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: the guys had on them, but it also like drove

1119
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 1: one of them crazy and uh made them look as

1120
01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:56,920
Speaker 1: if they'd been horribly burned. And it was obvious like, well,

1121
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: you clearly tried to have your fingerprints removed. Look at

1122
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:04,600
Speaker 1: your get your hands, Oh my god, so stupid. Really,

1123
01:01:04,680 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 1: this is just incredible, Like who's good, who's well? When

1124
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:09,880
Speaker 1: we're finished, we should go through a ranking of like

1125
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 1: who's actually good at their job? And this because there

1126
01:01:11,880 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: aren't that many people now speaking of not being good

1127
01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:18,360
Speaker 1: at their job. It took the FBI until after this

1128
01:01:18,440 --> 01:01:20,760
Speaker 1: point to actually get their ship together and realized that

1129
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: the Barker Gang was behind the kidnapping of several of

1130
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 1: America's wealthiest citizens. J Edgar Hoover declared Kate mob Barker

1131
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:30,200
Speaker 1: to be the brains of the gang's operation and the

1132
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:33,000
Speaker 1: most dangerous woman in America. The dogs were out, and

1133
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 1: the Barker family days were numbered. Flesh with cash and

1134
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 1: fleeing the law, they made their way to the only

1135
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:42,919
Speaker 1: true home of all dangerous, unhinged criminals, Florida. Fred his mother,

1136
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 1: and a few other sympatheticos rented a house in Lake

1137
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,120
Speaker 1: Weir and attempted to lay low until the heat died down.

1138
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:51,160
Speaker 1: What happened next is a matter of historical debate. Since

1139
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 1: this is my podcast, the version of the story I've

1140
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 1: decided to believe is the one that involves a three

1141
01:01:55,440 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: legged alligator named Old Joe, as the story goes, at

1142
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:01,560
Speaker 1: least according to one Chicago Tribune article written in the

1143
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties based on some of the few living people

1144
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:06,800
Speaker 1: who remembered these events. By January of nineteen thirty five,

1145
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:09,320
Speaker 1: the FBI had found one member of the Barker Carpass

1146
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:12,400
Speaker 1: gang in Chicago, Arthur Barker. When they arrested him in

1147
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: his hotel room, they found the partially burnt reminants of

1148
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:17,480
Speaker 1: a letter from Mob Barker. In the letter, Mob Barker

1149
01:02:17,520 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: had written that wherever they were hiding, it was good

1150
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:24,000
Speaker 1: hunting for a three legged alligator called Old Joe. So

1151
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:27,400
Speaker 1: to their credit, the FBI had some good investigators, and

1152
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: they combed the numerous swamps of the American South until

1153
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 1: they found some yokels who keyed them in on where

1154
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:36,800
Speaker 1: this three legged alligator lived Lake Weir, Florida. After that

1155
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:38,600
Speaker 1: point it was only a matter of refining for the

1156
01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 1: Bureau to lock down the last few Stateside reminants of

1157
01:02:41,000 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 1: the Barker Gang. Mob Barker and her son Fred next.

1158
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:48,200
Speaker 1: According to the Chicago Tribune, on the morning of Wednesday,

1159
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:51,800
Speaker 1: January fift nineteen thirty five, fifteen agents swooped down on

1160
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: a large frame house on the shores of Lake were

1161
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:56,920
Speaker 1: on the outskirts of this Florida citrus belt town. When

1162
01:02:56,920 --> 01:02:59,520
Speaker 1: the shooting ended four hours later, they found Mob Barker

1163
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 1: sixty three dead in an upstairs room, one arm cradling

1164
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 1: a submachine gun, the other cradling her dead son Fred two.

1165
01:03:07,640 --> 01:03:10,600
Speaker 1: Oh my god, went out like a fucking g That's

1166
01:03:10,640 --> 01:03:14,400
Speaker 1: tough as hell. Yeah, machine gun in one arm, dead

1167
01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 1: son on the other. It's a pretty good way to go. If, um,

1168
01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:22,000
Speaker 1: that's that's great. I'm glad that. I'm glad that it

1169
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 1: ended in Florida, as all crime stories must end, as

1170
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:29,840
Speaker 1: all crime stories in and most begin. Yeah. Yeah, but

1171
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:32,760
Speaker 1: I like that we did a detour through through Minneapolis

1172
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 1: because I will um differ with you on the point

1173
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:39,240
Speaker 1: that I do think Minnesota is a lovely state and

1174
01:03:39,440 --> 01:03:42,680
Speaker 1: uh as part of the great patchwork of America. So

1175
01:03:43,520 --> 01:03:45,880
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I'm I'm glad that they found a

1176
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: home there. I'm going to war with both Minneapolis. Well, no,

1177
01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:54,560
Speaker 1: just st Party's sorry, Paul, Yeah whatever. I mean, you know,

1178
01:03:54,600 --> 01:03:56,400
Speaker 1: if somebody's gonna get actually mad at me if I

1179
01:03:56,440 --> 01:04:01,560
Speaker 1: say whatever, same if but yeah, Minny Appleans will get mad.

1180
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 1: Nobody and nobody in Florida is going to get mad

1181
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 1: at us saying that all Floridians are criminals like everyone

1182
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:10,760
Speaker 1: every Yeah, if you live in Florida, you know what

1183
01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:15,760
Speaker 1: you are. It's like Australia, you've elected to this lifestyle.

1184
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:18,960
Speaker 1: You didn't know one forced you to live in Florida.

1185
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:20,880
Speaker 1: That's where you go if you want to be a

1186
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:22,680
Speaker 1: criminal or you want to be friends with a three

1187
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 1: legged alligator. Yeah. Wow, well this was amazing. I have

1188
01:04:30,800 --> 01:04:32,959
Speaker 1: a lot of respect to her, honestly, and I feel

1189
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 1: like I feel like, I mean, I don't I guess

1190
01:04:35,280 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 1: I don't know well enough to know where you would

1191
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:40,480
Speaker 1: find the seams in this, but I do kind of

1192
01:04:40,520 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 1: feel like the FBI is sort of undermining her by

1193
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:47,640
Speaker 1: trying to say that she's not the mastermind here. I mean, yeah,

1194
01:04:47,640 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 1: like what, like who who would the mask? She seems

1195
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:54,360
Speaker 1: If not the mastermind, she's a great instigating force and

1196
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:59,920
Speaker 1: that's like just as important to be uh moral support

1197
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:04,560
Speaker 1: and um, you know, provide food and shelter for your

1198
01:05:05,600 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: gang of criminal sons and not sons. I don't know.

1199
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:13,480
Speaker 1: I mean that's his that's his important as being the mastermind.

1200
01:05:14,720 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, I I think that, Um, I don't know,

1201
01:05:18,440 --> 01:05:21,520
Speaker 1: there's this like impulse and law enforcement to kind of

1202
01:05:21,560 --> 01:05:24,280
Speaker 1: like reduce any sort of the myth making around these figures,

1203
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: which which never works, Like the you can't stop you

1204
01:05:28,440 --> 01:05:31,240
Speaker 1: can't stop people from fundamentally wanting to side with the

1205
01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: charismatic criminals over the g min. Uh. It's it's it's

1206
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:39,920
Speaker 1: the same reason Scarface is more popular than uh, I

1207
01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:44,640
Speaker 1: don't know a movie about whoever the shot scarface? Um,

1208
01:05:44,680 --> 01:05:47,840
Speaker 1: and it it always I guess it's more beneficial to

1209
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:50,280
Speaker 1: be like, oh, all these crimes are stupid done by

1210
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:52,200
Speaker 1: idiot people, which have to be fair, A lot of

1211
01:05:52,200 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 1: these seem like pretty stupid crimes done by idiot people.

1212
01:05:55,760 --> 01:06:01,280
Speaker 1: But that version of events definitely is less romantic. I mean,

1213
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:03,240
Speaker 1: it's at least funny, but it's not like, oh, I

1214
01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:05,760
Speaker 1: want to grow up to be like that in the

1215
01:06:05,800 --> 01:06:08,400
Speaker 1: same way that like having a criminal mastermind who's like

1216
01:06:08,400 --> 01:06:11,280
Speaker 1: plotting all these amazing bank robberies or whatever. That that

1217
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,640
Speaker 1: feels more like something that someone might be tempted to emulate. Uh,

1218
01:06:14,760 --> 01:06:20,919
Speaker 1: if given hard enough times. I don't know. Yeah, I mean,

1219
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 1: I I stam mob barker. I mean what, She's not

1220
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:30,240
Speaker 1: a bastard, she's uh, she's a hard working mom and

1221
01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:33,480
Speaker 1: then eventual single parent, just doing her best to survive

1222
01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:36,520
Speaker 1: in tough times, doing her best to survive in this

1223
01:06:36,600 --> 01:06:39,960
Speaker 1: workaday world. In the door for the damn bathroom. You

1224
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 1: know that's I mean, I feel like all all great

1225
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:47,600
Speaker 1: careers start with, you know, wanting a door for your bathroom.

1226
01:06:48,080 --> 01:06:54,040
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, Well Emily, speaking of doors for the bathroom, Uh,

1227
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:58,240
Speaker 1: do you have any anything you'd like to plug? Uh? Well,

1228
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:03,480
Speaker 1: you can listen to Nightcall on this very podcast network.

1229
01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:06,200
Speaker 1: I co hosted with Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch as

1230
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: you said, uh, previous guests on this podcast. So we

1231
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:15,960
Speaker 1: we have new episodes every Monday. And yeah, I'm getting

1232
01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:18,720
Speaker 1: ready to record with them later today, So I'm I've

1233
01:07:18,720 --> 01:07:21,720
Speaker 1: got a real podcast marathon day today. But um yeah,

1234
01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 1: we're on We're on social media, Nightcall podcast or nightcallo

1235
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:31,240
Speaker 1: depending on what platform it is. It's inconsistent, which is

1236
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:35,000
Speaker 1: stupid of us. Um me me, actually I'm the inconsistent one.

1237
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 1: But and then I'm on Twitter personally at I'm on

1238
01:07:39,960 --> 01:07:45,600
Speaker 1: Twitter personally at Ashida just my first and lasting Yeah,

1239
01:07:45,680 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 1: public enemy number one, public enemy number one, not if

1240
01:07:51,320 --> 01:07:56,080
Speaker 1: you want to be public, Well that's going to do

1241
01:07:56,120 --> 01:07:58,360
Speaker 1: it for Behind the Bastards today. Um you can find

1242
01:07:58,440 --> 01:08:00,600
Speaker 1: us on the internet. Behind the Bastards dot com where

1243
01:08:00,600 --> 01:08:02,360
Speaker 1: you can find the sources for this episode. You can

1244
01:08:02,400 --> 01:08:04,680
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastard's Pot. You

1245
01:08:04,720 --> 01:08:07,720
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at I right okay uh,

1246
01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:10,640
Speaker 1: And you can find crime in your heart when you

1247
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:15,520
Speaker 1: look down the aisles of an Amazon owned grocery store. Um,

1248
01:08:15,560 --> 01:08:20,479
Speaker 1: this podcast is not indoors committing crimes. Thanks, thank you, Sophie.

1249
01:08:20,520 --> 01:08:23,080
Speaker 1: Are we are we safe legally? Now? Is the lawyer happy?

1250
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 1: Don't commit don't commit a crime, don't commit a crime,

1251
01:08:31,680 --> 01:08:39,360
Speaker 1: not commit a crime. Yeah, multiple crimes. That that's that.

1252
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:45,200
Speaker 1: The words of this guest do not necessarily uh reflect

1253
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:46,840
Speaker 1: the wishes of this podcast.