Speaker 1: What strung the funk out my podcast hosts. I'm Robert Evans,
Speaker 1: the very hungover host of Behind the Bastards, the podcast
Speaker 1: where we tell you everything you don't know about the
Speaker 1: worst people in all of history. And this is like
Speaker 1: the ninth or tenth podcast I've introduced by warning everyone
Speaker 1: that I'm very hungover. Uh. My guest today is the
Speaker 1: wonderful Emily Yeshida of the Night Call podcast with Tess
Speaker 1: and Molly, who are guests on the Reagan Astrologer episode. Emily,
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I've been
Speaker 1: saying like it's it's it's very good of you to
Speaker 1: take over the hangover duties this morning because I've been
Speaker 1: I've been taking them over uh for most of this week.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad we could coordinate that. I'm the podcasting
Speaker 1: equivalent of that that marine who dives on a hand
Speaker 1: grenade to save his squad, but the hand grenade was
Speaker 1: drinking too much at the live podcast recording I did
Speaker 1: last night, and then eating Indian food and continue to drink.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to turn down free drinks being given
Speaker 1: to you by people who like you and think that
Speaker 1: you're cool. It's Uh, it's a tough proposition to turn down.
Speaker 1: I can I can absolutely say it beats having free
Speaker 1: drinks thrown at you by people who hate you and
Speaker 1: think that you're lame, which is my prior experience. So
Speaker 1: if I have to pick one, I will pick it now. Emily,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you? How do you? How
Speaker 1: do you feel about gangsters? Um? I'm relatively down with gangsters.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many there's so many genres of
Speaker 1: gangster across history that you know, Yeah, it's hard to
Speaker 1: say blanket, I'm into all gangsters, but sure, I'm open
Speaker 1: to gangsters. Do you do you think that, damn it,
Speaker 1: it feels good to be a gangster? Um? I actually
Speaker 1: feel like it would be. I feel like, damn it
Speaker 1: would be very stressful to be a gangster. Honestly, anytime
Speaker 1: I watch one of those like norm movies or something,
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you live every night when you're
Speaker 1: pretty sure that somebody's gonna barge in your house with
Speaker 1: a Tommy gun? Like that just seems extremely stressful? But yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does seem very stressful. Um. Would you say you're
Speaker 1: the kind of person who just sort of like you
Speaker 1: got a grab bag of FBI agents on one hand,
Speaker 1: you get a grab bag of gangsters. On another hand,
Speaker 1: you pull randomly from both bags. What do you think
Speaker 1: the odds are you wind up more sympathetic to the
Speaker 1: gangster you pull out than the FBI agent you pull out. Um,
Speaker 1: I think I'm always going to trend towards the gangster. Uh,
Speaker 1: just on principle. Well, then we're copasetic on this because
Speaker 1: I'm in the same boat, and today we are talking
Speaker 1: about a gangster, uh, and a gangster that uh, Sophie,
Speaker 1: our producer has been wanting me to write an episode
Speaker 1: about for quite a while. So that's that's the story
Speaker 1: of this day. All right, good God, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna thanks for coming up with the idea. I wrote
Speaker 1: it this on a plane, UM, so you can taste
Speaker 1: the altitude and the words. I assume now, as a
Speaker 1: recovering Oklahoman and a crime appreciator, I too have a
Speaker 1: lot of inherent sympathy for the gangsters. Particularly of the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and thirties, criminal capitalist speculators and baggers had
Speaker 1: destroyed the national economy, while reckless commercial agriculture had ruined
Speaker 1: most of the national ecology. None of the men responsible
Speaker 1: for this ever suffered any legal consequences for their crimes.
Speaker 1: Most of them got to keep living in giant mansions
Speaker 1: and getting fat off the collected labor of the impoverished
Speaker 1: American populace. When FDR tried to moderately alleviate the suffering
Speaker 1: of the American people, these folks attempted to depose him
Speaker 1: via a military coup. So I look with understanding at
Speaker 1: the people who robbed banks and burgled the businesses of
Speaker 1: the one percent, particularly during this period. Um. Now, these
Speaker 1: guys also killed a lot of innocent people with machine guns,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of hard to call them heroes. But
Speaker 1: I don't normally call any given gangster a bastard. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of my bias on this is probably due to
Speaker 1: the fact that one of the most famous gangsters of
Speaker 1: the gangster era was a cousin of mine, a fellow
Speaker 1: named pretty Boy Floyd Barnes. Oh really, pretty boy Floyd.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Yeah, he was my great grandma's first cousin.
Speaker 1: She was very proud of him, as was my grandmother. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she would talk about our outlaw blood all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's very romantic. It's so much easier to
Speaker 1: romanticize having a gangster in your family than an FBI
Speaker 1: agent in your family. It's just true. It's just something
Speaker 1: elemental about it. Yeah, I would rather be related to
Speaker 1: a gangster than a copy unless that cop is Bruce
Speaker 1: Willis in one of the four movies in which she's
Speaker 1: he's a fun cop. He gets to do fun cop
Speaker 1: things he does. Real police rarely get to ramp vehicles
Speaker 1: into other vehicles, and when they do, it's usually racist.
Speaker 1: So it's a hard one. Now. Pretty Boy Floyd was
Speaker 1: known to his fellow Oklahoman's as the sage brush Robin Hood.
Speaker 1: He got his start in crime at a j teen,
Speaker 1: stealing three and fifty dollars in pennies, or, if you
Speaker 1: believe Woody Guthrie, from beating a cop to death with
Speaker 1: a log chain for cursing in front of his wife. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing that disturbed authorities like jedeger Hoover of the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Investigation was how popular many gangsters were with
Speaker 1: the common folk. This was in part because they targeted banks.
Speaker 1: Pretty Boy Floyd was famous for robbing on the insured
Speaker 1: banks and for burning the mortgage papers of farmers when
Speaker 1: he came across them. The FBI's archives somewhat disputes that,
Speaker 1: noting while Floyd reportedly destroyed mortgage notes from a bank
Speaker 1: or two that he robbed in hopes of saving a
Speaker 1: few farmers from foreclosure, his reputation is a humanitarian or
Speaker 1: a robin Hood is undeserved. Now, they don't go into
Speaker 1: buch to tail about that. They just say, because he
Speaker 1: shot a lot of cops, Uh, he wasn't a robin Hood.
Speaker 1: But I should note here that the FBI is not
Speaker 1: the most reliable source on the lives of gangsters in
Speaker 1: this era. They're the agency that killed most of these people, um,
Speaker 1: including our current subjects of the day, Mob Barker and
Speaker 1: her sons, um. But the lives of gangsters are very
Speaker 1: deeply politicized still, and so the research I've conducted for
Speaker 1: this episode, which was not crazy extensive, I caught the
Speaker 1: Bureau in at least one lie by a mission. Now,
Speaker 1: I say all this to set it up that if
Speaker 1: you read the official FBI reports on some of the
Speaker 1: stuff we're talking about, they will contrast with the story
Speaker 1: I am telling you today. The story I'm telling you
Speaker 1: today is based primarily on the work of historians who
Speaker 1: I trust more than cops. So anyway, that's the introduction. Um.
Speaker 1: Always always robin shared banks. I just want to do
Speaker 1: out there. I mean it's hard not to at this point.
Speaker 1: If you're going to rob a bank is probably insured,
Speaker 1: but make sure your bank's insured before you rob it.
Speaker 1: That's the new T shirt Emily. Yeah, always rob and
Speaker 1: shared banks. Bastards, always be rob bean and shirt banks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you get a chance to destroy mortgage paperwork,
Speaker 1: do it, sure, Yeah banks, Yeah, burn up some loans,
Speaker 1: burn ups. It was a lot easier back when everything
Speaker 1: was on paper. Yeah, I know. Yeah, that would have
Speaker 1: been so fun. You would have really felt like you
Speaker 1: could make an impact as a bank robber. It would
Speaker 1: feel a lot more political. Oh yeah, like you're not
Speaker 1: just Point Break like trying to go surfing or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like you can actually like change a lot of people's lives. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess that is like the most political bank rubber
Speaker 1: in a in a modern movie outside I maybe the
Speaker 1: joker is like the guys in Point Break, and they
Speaker 1: just wanted to serve. They just wanted to serve that
Speaker 1: they did rob the bank. In President masks, they were
Speaker 1: the president, they were the dead president's presidents, which you know,
Speaker 1: seems mostly like a non sequit or with the rest
Speaker 1: of their whole deal. But it was fun. Had they
Speaker 1: had flair. They had flair. There was like zero politics
Speaker 1: actually going on in the movie other than if we
Speaker 1: hit this wave, I mean, it would I mean and
Speaker 1: anybody would argues other wise, is uh not somebody I
Speaker 1: want to align myself with politically. Yeah, yeah, that that
Speaker 1: is my politics is rubbing banks to hit sick waves. Now,
Speaker 1: Mob Barker is not the most famous gangster of her era,
Speaker 1: but she was at one point public Enemy number one,
Speaker 1: which is objectively the coolest title you can you can achieve. Um,
Speaker 1: I hope we all become public enemy number one at
Speaker 1: some point. Everybody gets their turn on the internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that is kind of that is kind
Speaker 1: of how Twitter works. Every day we have a new
Speaker 1: public enemy number one. Yeah, that sounds way cooler than
Speaker 1: complaining about cancel culture. It's like everybody gets their day
Speaker 1: to be public enemy number one. You can revel in
Speaker 1: it a little bit. At least it's going to happen. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm excited for my day to come when my many
Speaker 1: many crimes are finally exposed to the world. That's going
Speaker 1: to be great. Oh boy, um no, that's another thing. See,
Speaker 1: this is why I wouldn't be cut out to be
Speaker 1: a gangster. I'm already too stressed out about like just
Speaker 1: saying one wrong word at one point and getting better.
Speaker 1: Anyone realizing how often you shoplift from Costco? Yeah, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I mean it's not yeah, you joke, I
Speaker 1: have a I have a pretty bad shoplifting pass. So okay.
Speaker 1: You know, if if if God didn't want us to shoplift,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have given us pockets. And that is my justification. Yeah,
Speaker 1: checks out hard to argue with. Now. By some accounts,
Speaker 1: mob Barker was the among the most innovative and successful
Speaker 1: criminal masterminds of any era. By other accounts, she was
Speaker 1: mostly just a chef in the moral support system for
Speaker 1: her criminal children. The FBI takes the angle that she
Speaker 1: was not a mastermind and that she was mostly just
Speaker 1: supporting her boys, who did all of the real crime.
Speaker 1: Thinking the bulk of the evidence seems to discredit them
Speaker 1: on this. Uh, and I'm you know, that's enough of
Speaker 1: my anti FBI pro gangster. Let's let's let's get into
Speaker 1: the story. Mob. Barker's life is often summed up like
Speaker 1: this folk see right up by the University of Florida quote.
Speaker 1: Born in the Ozarks, she was poor in her early years.
Speaker 1: So strong was her lust for money, furs, and bobbles.
Speaker 1: She turned to a life of crime and led four
Speaker 1: young sons down the same path. The eldest herman convinced
Speaker 1: her crime does pay, so she opened up in her
Speaker 1: own home a school of Crime for the young uns.
Speaker 1: When they were arrested for petty infractions, she upbraided them
Speaker 1: for getting caught. Trust the University of Florida to use
Speaker 1: the word young UN's in a historical write up. I love,
Speaker 1: I love. I mean the idea of a school for
Speaker 1: crime is just so cute. I mean it just sounds
Speaker 1: so I mean, it's just very very Oliver twist of course.
Speaker 1: But um, I don't know. It seems like a fun,
Speaker 1: fun time. It does seems like a good good night.
Speaker 1: A podcasts the Old School of Crime, how a bunch
Speaker 1: of different people come up and like this is how
Speaker 1: I got free water from the city. This is how
Speaker 1: I got that boot off my car without paying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the lecture series would be incredible At the School for
Speaker 1: crime for crime. Yeah, the school for petty petty cry Yeah,
Speaker 1: stealing some lifesavers, yeah, the school for getting by crime,
Speaker 1: like how to sneak, how to sneak the fixings to
Speaker 1: make your ramen palatable out of your out of the
Speaker 1: grocery store and a jacket without getting caught. See this
Speaker 1: is like actually stuff that I've thought about trying to
Speaker 1: turn into a podcast at some point or another. It's
Speaker 1: just like actual like basic poverty skills for twenty somethings
Speaker 1: and up, like just like you know how to how
Speaker 1: to jerry rigged things out of other things and make
Speaker 1: it into like just so you can get by and
Speaker 1: have a less stressful life on zero dollars um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say about how to specifically
Speaker 1: jigger the breaking down pieces of your car so that
Speaker 1: the police won't notice that your registration has been expired
Speaker 1: for years. That's really critical skill, critical skills. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that ruined me for many like years, was my stupid
Speaker 1: car and it's stupid registrate ship. Yeah, it's a It
Speaker 1: says something about our society that all almost all of
Speaker 1: our tips for living in poverty are also crimes. But
Speaker 1: that's the story for another day, um So, my main
Speaker 1: source for this episode is Mob Barker America's Most Wanted
Speaker 1: Mother by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Ince U E N
Speaker 1: s S. I don't know how to pronounce that. Ince
Speaker 1: seems to be right. It's the best right up of
Speaker 1: this particular story that I found, and it's a fun book. So.
Speaker 1: Arizona Donnie Clark was born on October eighteen seventy three
Speaker 1: in Greene County, Missouri. She was one of four children,
Speaker 1: and her childhood occurred on a small farm eighteen miles
Speaker 1: from nowhere. Arizona's family called her Airy, which she seems
Speaker 1: to have hated. Her beloved father died when she was seven. What, Sophie, what?
Speaker 1: What's wrong with air? It's just funny that she's Arizona
Speaker 1: and her family is like you're Airy, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not call me Arizona. I don't think she liked
Speaker 1: that either, which I don't know. It's a very hippie
Speaker 1: name for the time. Yeah, there's a raising Arizona joke there,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to make because I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that movie. Uh not on a Nicolas Cage's Best or
Speaker 1: maybe it is I don't know. He's very charming in it.
Speaker 1: But but it's about it's about crimes, and it's about
Speaker 1: a baby. So so far, you know, it sounds like
Speaker 1: Toronto biomography. Now, uh Ari's beloved father died when she
Speaker 1: was seven, and her mother remarried not long after to
Speaker 1: a guy with the last name of Reynolds, who she
Speaker 1: did not like. Now, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: where her stepfather took up work as a cop. It
Speaker 1: would be rank speculation for me to, you know, wonder
Speaker 1: that her stepfather's career as a police officer had an
Speaker 1: impact on Arizona's adult life, but it's hard not to
Speaker 1: think about given what comes next. Most sources seem to
Speaker 1: agree that she really hated her stepdad, largely because he
Speaker 1: favored his natural born children over his wives children. So
Speaker 1: this is one of those classic step parents stories. Um,
Speaker 1: all step parents are bastards, apparently, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: lesson Disney taught me. That's true. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: but it also means you're more likely to be a
Speaker 1: heroine in a Disney movie if you have a step parent.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, having a step parent is the key
Speaker 1: to after ninety minutes or so, winding up in a
Speaker 1: great place. Yeah. Yeah, being an orphan, having a step
Speaker 1: parent being somebody's award. Also. Yeah. The first thing I
Speaker 1: learned from popular fiction as a kid was that the
Speaker 1: best thing to have is dead parents, Like you really
Speaker 1: want to get those parents out of the way as
Speaker 1: soon as possible, really helps with everything. Now, Mr Reynolds,
Speaker 1: her stepdad did not approve of the man mob Barker
Speaker 1: fell in love with at age nineteen, George Elias Barker. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were married on September four. Now. George was ten
Speaker 1: years older than Arizona, which in most cases would be
Speaker 1: caused for serious concerned that the much older party might
Speaker 1: dominate the younger Uh. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, nothing like
Speaker 1: that happened. George was soft spoken, non confrontational, and even
Speaker 1: a bit shy. He was utterly dominated by his young wife.
Speaker 1: For her part, Kate, which is what she was going
Speaker 1: by at this point, was disappointed in her man from
Speaker 1: the beginning of their relationship. Decades later, the Kansas City
Speaker 1: Star would right this. Of her upbringing, her life had
Speaker 1: been that of an ordinary missera farm girl, church, Sunday
Speaker 1: school picnics, hey riots, candy polls in a little red schoolhouse.
Speaker 1: Somewhere she acquired a need for riches and personal power.
Speaker 1: She hoped to obtain golden glory by way of her husband,
Speaker 1: but eventually realized it could only be learned by her sons.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the common right up of her. All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to me that they all write like, oh,
Speaker 1: she wanted all these uh, superficial things, that's what she
Speaker 1: like as if it's yeah, and it's like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: she just grew up poor in a farm and didn't
Speaker 1: want to be poor any Yeah, like painting this picture
Speaker 1: of like the epitome of Americana being like, but why
Speaker 1: did she become so materialistic? It's like it's baked into
Speaker 1: being an American, especially before being poor in a farm sucks.
Speaker 1: It's nice to have furs, like like, like all pop
Speaker 1: cultures seems to tell us unless we try to get
Speaker 1: it by committing crimes. Well, I do feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like there have been some movies that have
Speaker 1: addressed this, but like the fact that there is radio
Speaker 1: and there's like more rapid pop culture that can be
Speaker 1: disseminated is like why so many of these people get
Speaker 1: into crime in the first place, and are also like
Speaker 1: why they become celebrities become these mythical figures because they
Speaker 1: are pop cultural figures at the time. Like that's what
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Like Michael Mann's movie Um,
Speaker 1: Public Enemies is about, um, yeah, it's great. Yeah I
Speaker 1: think I think so. And we'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a second. So, her husband, George, was uneducated and he
Speaker 1: had no interest in obtaining an education. He was a
Speaker 1: daily laborer with zero aspirations beyond working on a small
Speaker 1: farm and making enough to serve five Kate, though, had
Speaker 1: spent enough time being poor as a little girl. She
Speaker 1: wanted more out of life, and she asked her stepdad
Speaker 1: to loan her and her husband some money so they
Speaker 1: could start a business. Her stepfather turned them down, and
Speaker 1: she never spoke with him again. For a time, Kate
Speaker 1: tried to push George into success. She lived as a
Speaker 1: simple housewife and threw herself into religion. Most people who
Speaker 1: knew her in those days say she was almost never
Speaker 1: seen without a Bible in hand, but at home, away
Speaker 1: from prying eyes, she developed another obsession. Outlaws. The Jesse
Speaker 1: James Gang and the Dalton Gang were her particular favorites.
Speaker 1: Both groups robbed banks across the same chunk of the
Speaker 1: country where Kate had grown up. In fact, she'd even
Speaker 1: watched the James gang right through town as a girl.
Speaker 1: Being a woman, and this being the eighteen nineties, Kate
Speaker 1: did not have any hope of being a successful gangster herself.
Speaker 1: Bonnie Parker had not yet fired a Tommy gun into
Speaker 1: that glass ceiling. So Kate found herself enamored with the
Speaker 1: mothers of these daring criminals. According to mob Barker, America's
Speaker 1: most Wanted mother quote, the Dalton's and the James boys
Speaker 1: were raised by strong, defiant mothers whom sure they knew
Speaker 1: how to use a weapon and fight for what they wanted.
Speaker 1: The influence the women had on their families, and the
Speaker 1: devotion their sons felt towards them mothers struck a chord
Speaker 1: with Kate. She aspired to have it in her own life.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody wants to raise an army of loyal,
Speaker 1: large adult sons to do crimes. Why are you the
Speaker 1: president did? And look how that's work. They're not great
Speaker 1: at it, but it's that doesn't seem to matter so well,
Speaker 1: it's all about the intention I mean, it does take
Speaker 1: a lot of work to like first create that army
Speaker 1: of large adult sons. So and even I mean to
Speaker 1: too can be an army. So yeah, fo is even better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, we're all trying to raise
Speaker 1: our own large adult sons for a life of crime.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to do it by radicalizing people through podcasts. Again,
Speaker 1: Robin shared banks, Sophie, could we urge people to rob
Speaker 1: banks on the show? If it's like what if it's
Speaker 1: like my views don't reflect the views of the network. Um,
Speaker 1: but still, Robin, sure, Banks, My my advice that people
Speaker 1: rob ensured banks is purely humor. Yeah, satire, satiretzing satirizing
Speaker 1: bank robbers by advising people to rob banks. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a wonderful satire. It's really sharp. That's that's legally bulletproof,
Speaker 1: all right. Now. Kate and George had their first son, Herman,
Speaker 1: on October. They had three more sons over the next
Speaker 1: several years, ending with their fourth son, Fred in nineteen
Speaker 1: o three. All these mouths to feed strained George's limited
Speaker 1: ability to provide. He did manage to save enough cash
Speaker 1: to buy a small farm, but the house on it
Speaker 1: was essentially a decrepit hovel, barely fit for human habitation.
Speaker 1: Kate was desperately unhappy with these circumstances and longed for
Speaker 1: something better. And it is hard not to see why
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the poverty in this era, we're
Speaker 1: not like talking about like a quaint little farmhouse. We're
Speaker 1: talking about a building that's essentially made of trash wood, uh,
Speaker 1: filled with mice and vermin and mosquitoes in the summer,
Speaker 1: where people are basically pooping in a hole surrounded by flies. Like,
Speaker 1: it's not a great life. This is like dust bowl time.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's bad. It's a bad
Speaker 1: time to be a human being. Um. This is a
Speaker 1: little before that during this period, but it's still a
Speaker 1: time of like unspeakable poverty. Um yeah, it's so crazy
Speaker 1: that that's like that, that's still like what we consider
Speaker 1: the modern era more more or less than that, Like
Speaker 1: people were living like in like the the the United
Speaker 1: States could not necessarily yet be considered a first world country.
Speaker 1: It's incredible, not by modern standards. And it is one
Speaker 1: of those things like you really you think about, you
Speaker 1: read about, like the Great battles in World War Two,
Speaker 1: and World War One and how like nightmarish the privations
Speaker 1: were for the soldiers. But then you have to think, like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: but most of them grew up like farming dirt and
Speaker 1: shipping in holes. Like it's not like this was new.
Speaker 1: It's not like living rough was an incomprehensible concept to
Speaker 1: all of them. You know, a lot of them grew
Speaker 1: up in cities, but a lot of them were sucking
Speaker 1: country people. The base the base level you're starting from
Speaker 1: is uh considerably different. Yeah, yeah, people are tougher in
Speaker 1: this period of time. This is right around the period
Speaker 1: that my grandpa left home when he was seventeen. The
Speaker 1: economy collapse and his dad was like, we can't take
Speaker 1: care of you. And he walked across two states with
Speaker 1: nothing but cornbread in his pockets to go get a
Speaker 1: job with a Civilian conservation Corps. And it's like I
Speaker 1: never had to do ship like that, Like that would
Speaker 1: have been This is like a little off topic, but
Speaker 1: I've been watching the Ken Burns country music documentary and
Speaker 1: it's like filled with stories like that, Like there's a
Speaker 1: family like Walks, I think from Arkansas to California or
Speaker 1: most of the way they walked most of the way,
Speaker 1: and it's just like, Also, it's like everybody dies at
Speaker 1: thirty and they look like they're sixty two years old,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh my god, life life was. I
Speaker 1: don't have to go back too far for life to
Speaker 1: look like that. Your average thirty one year old look
Speaker 1: like Keith Richards. Yes, it was a different time. Yeah. Now.
Speaker 1: For his part, George Barker seems to have done his
Speaker 1: best to provide for his family. His best just wasn't
Speaker 1: very good. He worked long hours and spent all of
Speaker 1: his free time with his children, teaching them how to
Speaker 1: fish and hunt. Thanks to George, the Barker boys all
Speaker 1: grew up as fabulous shots. Kate, who was renowned to
Speaker 1: be a great chef, taught them how to cook. She
Speaker 1: also handled discipline for the family by her own insistence.
Speaker 1: Whenever George would attempt to discipline any of their kids,
Speaker 1: she'd shout him down until he backed off. The Kansas
Speaker 1: City Star in nineteen thirty six described the young family
Speaker 1: thus lye she Ma attended church regularly, dragging her brood
Speaker 1: after her. George, her husband went as well. He was
Speaker 1: a mild, ineffective, quiet man who seemed somewhat bewildered by
Speaker 1: his domineering wife. This was especially true when he attempted
Speaker 1: to assume guidance of the growing boys. There was a
Speaker 1: feline intensity about Kate's determination that no one but herself
Speaker 1: should be their mentor, and in her eyes, they could
Speaker 1: do no wrong. Mob Barker socialized with very few people.
Speaker 1: She was cordial when spoken to, but rarely initiated a conversation.
Speaker 1: Neighbor and fellow churchgoer, Gertrude Farmer, was the only woman
Speaker 1: with whom she spent time. Gertrude and Ma were described
Speaker 1: by Web City residents as odd and unapproachable. Maybe everybodyiels
Speaker 1: just sucked. But the Barkers lived in Webb City, Missouri
Speaker 1: for the early years of their children's lives, where they
Speaker 1: met the Farmer family, whose patron, William, was a small
Speaker 1: time con artist. He was no better at earning a
Speaker 1: living than George, but he did have many half and
Speaker 1: quarter true stories of outlaws and conmon that he regaled
Speaker 1: the Barker children and Kate. With the Barker kids quickly
Speaker 1: developed a reputation for being little criminals, damaging property, stealing,
Speaker 1: and fighting. Kate Barker was reasonably happy with this. Her
Speaker 1: only real issue was when her children got caught So yeah,
Speaker 1: less than number one at school for school for petty crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, don't get caught committing the petty crimes. Now.
Speaker 1: George was worried for his boys, and he moved the
Speaker 1: family to Tulsa, Oklahoma in nineteen ten as a way
Speaker 1: to get them out of their bad environment. The city
Speaker 1: was a boomtown, though, which means it was as filled
Speaker 1: with criminals as the Barker family living room, so this
Speaker 1: is probably a bad move on his part. Now, the
Speaker 1: Barker home and Tulsa was even worse than their previous
Speaker 1: home in Webb City. The floor was just boards over dirt,
Speaker 1: the windows were all shattered, and the bathroom was a
Speaker 1: shack with a whole on the ground. Flies covered everything
Speaker 1: anytime it wasn't freezing. Kate continued to be miserable in
Speaker 1: these circumstances, and her children's early memories were likely full
Speaker 1: of her lambasting Charles for his failure to provide for
Speaker 1: the family. So the boys began to strategize, scheming up
Speaker 1: ways to bring in money via less than legal roots.
Speaker 1: They had watched their father try and fail for years
Speaker 1: to make a decent living on the straight and narrow
Speaker 1: crime they decided seemed a lot smarter, which you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, who would not arrive at these conclusions. It's
Speaker 1: it's hard to fault. Like the logic here was kind
Speaker 1: of seems like obeying the laws for assholes, yea, or
Speaker 1: like that's for a different generation, you know. I feel
Speaker 1: like there's always some kind of generational shift like that,
Speaker 1: Like what he doesn't take adverts without me talk? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sophie is telling me that I don't take ad breaks
Speaker 1: without her telling me, and I will have her No, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's accurate. Sophie interrupted you, Emily, which is very rude
Speaker 1: of her, But she didn't in order to make sure
Speaker 1: that we had an ad break, which is very polite
Speaker 1: of her. Sorry, I didn't realize what it was for Sorr.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I need to, It's okay. In
Speaker 1: order to make up for this, Emily, would you like
Speaker 1: to plug a random product of your own, of your
Speaker 1: own desire, something you like, or a service, or a crime.
Speaker 1: You can plug anything at this point, plug a good crime.
Speaker 1: I'm what's a good product that I love right now?
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I feel like I've plugged this so
Speaker 1: many times on Nightcall, but like I love a neutro bullet,
Speaker 1: and I desperately want a Night Call to be sponsored
Speaker 1: by neutro bullet because I would like do an entire
Speaker 1: podcast about the neutro bullet and all the wonderful uses
Speaker 1: for it. I could start up like a school for crimes,
Speaker 1: but just just like using the neutro bullet. Um anyway,
Speaker 1: that's my that's my endorsement of a product. Well, I
Speaker 1: would like to endorse my new behind the Bastard's branded
Speaker 1: Actual bullets, which are the first gluten free ammunition on
Speaker 1: the on the open market. So by a neutral bullet,
Speaker 1: by some gluten free Bastards bullets. It's always so frustrating
Speaker 1: when you you have to kill somebody but they have
Speaker 1: exactly exactly and that's not okay. You're going to shoot
Speaker 1: someone with Celiac's disease. Use gluten free bullets. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing
Speaker 1: to do. And the other right thing to do is
Speaker 1: to listen to these ads products. We're back. We're back,
Speaker 1: returning from some amazing ads. Just just uh, what was
Speaker 1: your favorite one? My favorite one was the ad for
Speaker 1: uh carjacking police vehicles. I really I enjoy that one.
Speaker 1: I I never thought of that as a realistic product.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad. I'm glad that the fine people at
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble suggested that because it would be a
Speaker 1: crime if I suggested that. Yeah, um, really upstanding people
Speaker 1: over there, and Procter and Gamble pen thank you Procter
Speaker 1: and Gamble for urging all people to hijack police vehicles. Again,
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble, um, the only what do they make? Shampoo?
Speaker 1: Shampoo like shampoo like? Yeah, drug store products. I suppose
Speaker 1: home cleaning products. Yes, as the fine people at Procter
Speaker 1: and Gamble say, by Procter and Gamble do crimes? Um, well,
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble was like had a satanic panics scandal
Speaker 1: around it, you remember, they sure did. They did because
Speaker 1: they love the devil. That's confirmed. Yeah, so they love
Speaker 1: crimes and the devil. So the devil's a busy guy
Speaker 1: and he has dandruff and he doesn't have time to
Speaker 1: use multiple different shampoo. So Practor and Gamble two and
Speaker 1: one dandruf shampoo is really you know, that's where the
Speaker 1: Devil's at the devil is in your psoriasis. Alright, So
Speaker 1: back to the Barker family. Between nineteen ten and nineteen eleven,
Speaker 1: all four Barker boys made the Tulsa police blodder. The
Speaker 1: Joplin Globe broke in nineteen thirty nine that the boys
Speaker 1: were known as the town toughs. Before they were out
Speaker 1: of school, their home became a meeting place for ne'er
Speaker 1: do wells, a crime school so successful that many of
Speaker 1: those who congregated there graduated to try it on a
Speaker 1: bigger scale under a variety of assumed names. Now, how
Speaker 1: much Mob Barker was involved in the training of her
Speaker 1: children and the training of other criminals here is up
Speaker 1: for debate. What's known is that whenever one of her
Speaker 1: kids would get in trouble, she would write in for
Speaker 1: the rescue. She was famously charismatic and good at talking
Speaker 1: to lawmen and judges. Mom would usually argue that her
Speaker 1: children were just high, strong, and not nearly as bad
Speaker 1: as town gossip made them out to be. Plus, she
Speaker 1: argued the police were unfairly targeting her family. She insisted
Speaker 1: repeatedly that if the cops left them alone, her boys
Speaker 1: would behave she seemed to have been really good at,
Speaker 1: like just haranguing police and judges into letting her kids go. Um,
Speaker 1: I love high sec energy as the explanation, it's not,
Speaker 1: it's like it feels very contemporary. It feels like something
Speaker 1: that somebody at like a hippie school in Brentwood would
Speaker 1: would say about their kids to get them out of trouble.
Speaker 1: He's just very very high strung a paraphrase warn Zevon,
Speaker 1: They're just excitable boys. Yeah, yes, yeah, So in private,
Speaker 1: Kate Barker took on a different tact when her young
Speaker 1: son Hermann, was arrested and confessed to committing crimes. She
Speaker 1: is reputed to have told him that confessing to anyone
Speaker 1: but God was a sign of weakness. She expected her
Speaker 1: sons to never snitch or admit wrongdoing. Instead, they should
Speaker 1: keep their mouth shut and do their time. So that's
Speaker 1: that's mom Barker. Yeah. Before before long, a small community
Speaker 1: of criminals began to a less around Mab Barker and
Speaker 1: her sons. They became known as the Central Park Gang
Speaker 1: because they hung out in Tulsa's Central Park, not the
Speaker 1: not the one that's famous. Um yeah, now the Barker
Speaker 1: house was their other main gathering point, and it quickly
Speaker 1: became a popular haunt for local crime doers. According to
Speaker 1: the Joplin Globe, partnerships and crime were engineered in both
Speaker 1: locations by Ma, who sometimes charged a fee for thieves
Speaker 1: to use being in her presence as an alibi when
Speaker 1: a crime was perpetrated. Sometimes she conspired with lawbreakers for
Speaker 1: the sheer warped joy of it. It sounds to me
Speaker 1: like she's basically Airbnb for crimes. Like I'm looking to
Speaker 1: commit a crime and she'll be, oh, here's here's a
Speaker 1: place you can do it. Here's someone who can help you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like an incubator. She's like an incubator for crimes,
Speaker 1: like real like Silicon Valley pioneer. Um, that's that that
Speaker 1: that's that's essentially what's going on. Yeah. Um, she's the
Speaker 1: the famous one of those investors. She's the Peter Teal
Speaker 1: of know, Peter Teels, the Peter Teal of crimes. Um,
Speaker 1: she's just mob barker. But yeah so is Peter. No,
Speaker 1: that's giving him too much credit. Peter Tell is not
Speaker 1: the mob barker of Silicon Valley. No, no wishes. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah he wishes who is the Mom Barker of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, somebody who knows more about
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley um, which has probably more bastards per capita
Speaker 1: than uh Tulsa at this time period. Uh it's yeah,
Speaker 1: they can they canna let us know because at least
Speaker 1: these Tulsa bastards, these are honest crimes. Nobody's nobody's making
Speaker 1: Twitter here now. Once her sons were old enough to
Speaker 1: pull off real capers, they started bringing in real money
Speaker 1: for the first time in her life. At just over
Speaker 1: age thirty, mob Barker started to enjoy the finer things
Speaker 1: for coats, jewelry, bathrooms with a functional door and windows.
Speaker 1: And she grew and again this was finery back in
Speaker 1: the day, and hip hop got so materialistic and they
Speaker 1: just started wrapping about doors and winter. Yeah, Phitty sent
Speaker 1: Bragg into all of us about the knob on his
Speaker 1: bathroom door, like a goddamn king go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: in private. Yeah. As she grew used to finery and crime,
Speaker 1: Kate began directing the efforts of her sons, handing them
Speaker 1: the names and addresses of people in Tulsa who were
Speaker 1: doing a little too well, in her opinion, and deserved
Speaker 1: to be relieved of their wealth. Tulsa police officer Harry
Speaker 1: Stiege would later told reporters her boys were slippery, young hoodlums.
Speaker 1: She adored her children, but apart from Fred, didn't consider
Speaker 1: them to be especially clever, which is always true of
Speaker 1: large adults. Sons in their crimes, they're they're they're never
Speaker 1: as good at it as the parents. Yeah, now, mob
Speaker 1: Barker's sons committed a truly astonishing amount of petty crime
Speaker 1: in this period. Between all of the bank robberies, jewel
Speaker 1: store heists, department store robberies, and kidnappings, the total number
Speaker 1: of capers probably numbered into of thousands. Many of these
Speaker 1: were complex and ambitious schemes, but the majority of them
Speaker 1: were really dumb. Barker boys would be busted more than
Speaker 1: once because they stole distinctive fine clothing and then worried
Speaker 1: around town after robbing it, or because they left said
Speaker 1: clothing behind the scene of a crime. There's multiple hats
Speaker 1: that get Barker boys arrested. Oh my god, I want
Speaker 1: to see these hats. Yeah, they've got to be pretty spectacular.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's like, what's a noteworthy hat in nineteen
Speaker 1: what gears this like, Yeah, it's like the light nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, something like that. I mean, it might just
Speaker 1: be that their hat wasn't a pile of dirt on
Speaker 1: their head, and that son of a bitch his hands
Speaker 1: made of fabric. He's got to be robbing. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen, Herman was the first of mob Barker's
Speaker 1: sons to be arrested on suspicion of attempted theft. He
Speaker 1: was the first son to leave home to in. His
Speaker 1: criminal history on his own was wide ranging, but only
Speaker 1: partly successful. By nineteen seventeen, he had robbed a number
Speaker 1: of jewelry stores and banks, and was wanted in several states.
Speaker 1: As their children, one by one embarked on their own
Speaker 1: criminal careers, mob Barker became something of a mother to
Speaker 1: countless other bank robbers in Oklahoma. According to the book
Speaker 1: Mom Barker, among the fugitives Harvard at the Farmer's Home
Speaker 1: where bank robbers Al Spencer, Frank Nash, and Ray Terrell,
Speaker 1: and train robbers Earl Thayer, Francis Keating, and Thomas Holding.
Speaker 1: These accomplished lawbreakers and a number of other wrongdoers would
Speaker 1: eventually use the Barker's tiny Tulsa home as a safe house.
Speaker 1: In addition to the farmers homestead, Ma charged them in
Speaker 1: a modest fee to hide out at her place, where
Speaker 1: she kept the fugitives fed and steered authorities in a
Speaker 1: different direction if they came nosing around. So her their
Speaker 1: kids leave the nest to start committing crimes and she
Speaker 1: turns into like a hostel for other criminals. Basically, Now,
Speaker 1: is this like kind of I mean, I'm sort of
Speaker 1: surprised to hear that her sons go on to commit
Speaker 1: their own crimes because like, I know that, I know
Speaker 1: that you said that the FBI is telling of the
Speaker 1: story is that she wasn't really a mastermind. But it
Speaker 1: also sounds like they're pretty dumb. They're very dumb, and
Speaker 1: their individual criminal careers, uh, in this period are nothing impressive.
Speaker 1: It's not until they kind of come back together that
Speaker 1: they start doing the ship they got famous for. But
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, there's any kids going to try to
Speaker 1: fly the roost and see if he can rob banks
Speaker 1: without his mom. That's just normal parenting. Now. Herman was
Speaker 1: imprisoned after a robbery gone bad and mob Barker blamed
Speaker 1: his partner in the robbery, George White, on the endeavor,
Speaker 1: mostly on the strength of the fact that he had
Speaker 1: received half the sentence for the same crime. She was
Speaker 1: convinced the judge had been lenient on him due to
Speaker 1: his family wealth. Reporters at the time suspected that this
Speaker 1: is what convinced her that quote, justice could be bought
Speaker 1: or sold. Um, it seems like to me that this
Speaker 1: is something she'd always believe. That's usually how you'll see
Speaker 1: it written up. It did, however, help to solidify her
Speaker 1: attitude towards wealthy families, but we'll get to that later.
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighteen, all of mob Barker's children had graduated
Speaker 1: to serious crimes. They were not always smart crimes. In
Speaker 1: July of that year, Arthur Barker stole a Ford roadster
Speaker 1: belonging to an Apartment of Justice employee employee parked directly
Speaker 1: in front of a federal building. He was caught almost instantly.
Speaker 1: Mob Barker attempted to talk her son out of jail,
Speaker 1: but he escaped on his own and was then arrested
Speaker 1: again almost immediately. Kate did succeed. Mob Barker got the
Speaker 1: charges against him dropped, probably by bribing police officers to
Speaker 1: destroy the evidence of his obvious crimes, but he was
Speaker 1: arrested again a year later for stealing another Ford roadster.
Speaker 1: This kid, you can't stop this kid from stealing police vehicles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got to have his roadsters. He's got to have
Speaker 1: his fucking roadster. Yeah. Oh my god, I would be
Speaker 1: so mad. Yeah, I pick a different brand. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it was just Fords at the moment, but yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: after Arthur was jailed, sulfuric acid and a saw were
Speaker 1: smuggled into the prison where he was held. He and
Speaker 1: sixteen other prisoners escaped. It's not known who smuggled these
Speaker 1: items in, but it was almost certainly mob Barker. So
Speaker 1: she's again, she's good at talking to cops, she's good
Speaker 1: at bribing, she's good at like burning a hole through
Speaker 1: a prison. Yeah, or what is that? What happened? Like
Speaker 1: they just like acid and so yeah, I think they
Speaker 1: weakened the bars with acid and then sawed through them.
Speaker 1: No one was good at making jails back in those days.
Speaker 1: People were bad at almost everything in the in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. Well that's good then if you're bad
Speaker 1: at crimes and you've wind up in jail. Then you're
Speaker 1: in a jail that they were bad at making, and
Speaker 1: you can get exactly. You just have to be good
Speaker 1: at getting out of the bad jail. Yeah, the history
Speaker 1: of the early nineteen hundreds is just a bunch of
Speaker 1: incompetent people fucking up around each other. Yeah. Now, while
Speaker 1: her sons committed a range of crimes, mob Barker continued
Speaker 1: to run her farm as a safe house for gangsters.
Speaker 1: She acted as something of a fixer, helping loan criminals
Speaker 1: find other people to partner with and take jobs with.
Speaker 1: She was known to have a good eye for the
Speaker 1: most corrupt cops and judges in town and how much
Speaker 1: it would cost to bribe them. The Kansas City Star
Speaker 1: later wrote, criminals from a dozen pin of h injuries
Speaker 1: sought out mob Barker. Only two things were lacking at
Speaker 1: mars liquor and women. A man was a fool to drink,
Speaker 1: she said. Likewise, he's a fool to run around with women.
Speaker 1: Sooner or later they put the law on him. So
Speaker 1: she's not not a fan of other women. Um, well,
Speaker 1: that's surprising because the roads are thinking. The only thing
Speaker 1: way I could justify it in my mind was that
Speaker 1: he was drunk. He may have been drunk. Possibly, I
Speaker 1: guess he was out of the house, so yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: George Barker, mob Barker's husband, did not thrive under his
Speaker 1: wife's new occupation as a mass crime helper. While his
Speaker 1: children were still mostly in the house, he gave up
Speaker 1: on challenging them with their constant lawbreaking and let mob
Speaker 1: Barker mostly handle the discipline. When neighbors would come up
Speaker 1: to him and complain about his children stealing ship, he
Speaker 1: would say some variation of talk to their mom. She
Speaker 1: handles the kids. Kate Barker had never been very happy
Speaker 1: in her marriage, although from what I've read, George was
Speaker 1: pretty far from a bad guy, but he was a
Speaker 1: giant whimp and far from the kind of successful that
Speaker 1: mob Barker wanted, and she grew more comfortable with hard
Speaker 1: crime and dangerous men. Her husband grew even less appealing,
Speaker 1: so she cheated on him constantly with all manner of youngsters.
Speaker 1: Unlike George, these were passionate men and they had money
Speaker 1: to burn. They showered her with presents and took her
Speaker 1: out on the town. Everyone in Tulsa, including George knew
Speaker 1: what was going on, but the man who wouldn't stand
Speaker 1: up to his own wife about their children committing an
Speaker 1: endless series of crimes was not about to confront actual
Speaker 1: veteran murderers about taking his wife out to the movies.
Speaker 1: You know, George, he's the kind of line like mos right,
Speaker 1: she makes the right call, like this guy passionate men
Speaker 1: with deep pockets, Yeah, yeah, versus the guy who couldn't
Speaker 1: buy you a door to the bathroom. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: Sophy's showing me a picture of mam, which I think
Speaker 1: must have been well, no, she's probably given the time period,
Speaker 1: he's probably picture. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty incredible to
Speaker 1: imagine her like being taken out on the town by
Speaker 1: these like wellingsters. Like the problem is like a month
Speaker 1: after age nineteen. Everyone back then looked like they got
Speaker 1: hit in the face by a train. Yeah, she's seen
Speaker 1: some life, but like all the more reason for her
Speaker 1: to fucking take these guys up on on their whining
Speaker 1: and dining. Yeah, it sounds fun. Sounds fun now. By
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen twenties, George had fucked off to Joplin, Missouri,
Speaker 1: and abandoned his family and it's hard to blame the
Speaker 1: guy mob. Barker, for her part, barely seemed to notice.
Speaker 1: FBI records from the twenties and early thirties note that
Speaker 1: she was romantically involved with a number of criminals who
Speaker 1: bought her drinks and treated her like royalty. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the down sides about having a bunch of
Speaker 1: crime sons is that they tend to get killed. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, and just stealing like Life savers. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I keep coming back to the Life
Speaker 1: series and must be some like dumb shoplifting thing I
Speaker 1: witnessed as a child, Just like, how dangerous is that?
Speaker 1: The most ambitious thing you've stolen from? Okay, good, good good?
Speaker 1: That just feels like the crime number one. I think
Speaker 1: my best theft was figuring out how to disassemble and
Speaker 1: steal a plunger from Walmart when I was like nineteen
Speaker 1: and in my first place and needed one but had
Speaker 1: no extra money. Oh wait, a plunger just plug? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What but I mean, okay, sure did you like? So
Speaker 1: you took off the plunger part and you stick the
Speaker 1: dowel the rod part down your pants or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you put the other part in your pants too,
Speaker 1: but once it's disassembled, you can like kind of flatten
Speaker 1: it in there. Yeah. Man, Like the the era of
Speaker 1: baggy bag eear pants from men is also like very
Speaker 1: conducive for shoplifted. It's harder when your skinny jeans. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has helped. I also had a lot of like
Speaker 1: drank a lot of lunches when I was poor, by
Speaker 1: just walking around the grocery store drinking whatever they had
Speaker 1: that had protein in it and leaving it behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, hey man, it was hard times. I mean yeah. No,
Speaker 1: Whole Foods is basically like a buffet, right you can
Speaker 1: just like oh yeah, get get whatever you want and
Speaker 1: then walk around and like look at some products. Well
Speaker 1: you eat. You gotta sample that ship before you decide
Speaker 1: whether or not to pay. Also, now that Whole Foods
Speaker 1: is owned by Amazon, I feel no guilt. I feel
Speaker 1: no zero zero Sorry. Yeah, this podcast is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Whole Foods, and Jeff Bezos specifically funds this podcast.
Speaker 1: Uh Jeff Bezos who says, always eat all of the
Speaker 1: grapes in the bag um before you always rob and
Speaker 1: shirt banks. Famous Jeff Bezos quote. Now Mob Barker's first
Speaker 1: son to die was her oldest boy, Herman. He'd flown
Speaker 1: furthest from the nest and he built a gang himself
Speaker 1: that robbed a number of jewelry stores and made off
Speaker 1: with tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise. Their method
Speaker 1: of robbery was actually kind of ingenious. They snuck into
Speaker 1: crawl spaces or cut holes in the roof in order
Speaker 1: to drop down mission impossible, like from the ceiling. For
Speaker 1: a while, police were flummixed, but then Herman left his
Speaker 1: hat at the scene of a crime, and police tracing
Speaker 1: back to the store and sell so where he purchased it.
Speaker 1: Not the only time a hat would would doom a
Speaker 1: barker boy. Oh my god, these guys, why are they
Speaker 1: doing crimes and hats. Stop wearing hats. Maybe maybe stop
Speaker 1: wearing hats to crimes. Fashion and chin strap for it.
Speaker 1: If you really need it for like style or cover
Speaker 1: or something. Then you know, it's amazing, amazing to think
Speaker 1: of an age when hats were so deregulated that you'd
Speaker 1: be like, well, nobody, I'm not going to commit crimes
Speaker 1: without a hat. I mean, the crime will be committed outside.
Speaker 1: I must have my hat. What am I a savage.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. In June seven, n Herman and a
Speaker 1: partner stole a car from a dealership in Fairfax and
Speaker 1: wound up in a high speed chase that ended in Kansas.
Speaker 1: Herman escaped while his partner was caught, but Herman was
Speaker 1: caught hours later buying another hat. Are you kidding me? Yeah?
Speaker 1: These these Barker boys that they're fucking hats. Yeah, always
Speaker 1: a problem. It's like very looney Tunes. And you know,
Speaker 1: the cops let him keep the hat. They're like, no,
Speaker 1: you can't put a man in prison without a hat.
Speaker 1: What don't we He's got to have his phone call
Speaker 1: in his hat. Yeah. Now, mob Barker bailed Herman out,
Speaker 1: and for a time he was able to be in
Speaker 1: the wind again. But even though he'd just been busted
Speaker 1: for grand theft auto and was wanted in questioning for
Speaker 1: two bank robberies, Herman decided to plan a third bank robbery.
Speaker 1: On January seventeenth, Herman and several partners broke into the
Speaker 1: First National Bank of Jasper, Missouri. They made off with
Speaker 1: a pile of lute, but the authorities were hot on
Speaker 1: their trail, and a thirty minute gun battle ensued. Herman
Speaker 1: was wounded and arrested, but he was out again on
Speaker 1: bail by August, which I guess this was a time
Speaker 1: when you could shoot at the police and get out
Speaker 1: on bail. That is incredible. Yeah. While he was out
Speaker 1: on bail for his third robbery, he and a partner
Speaker 1: decided to rob an ice plant. Uh. They stole two
Speaker 1: dollars from the safe and fled the scene next. According
Speaker 1: to the book, mom the ice. What about all the ice?
Speaker 1: I it t Yeah, probably if you get caught. I
Speaker 1: guess the side is, if you get caught stealing ice,
Speaker 1: you just keep on the run until the ice melts.
Speaker 1: Like you ain't got no proof. Yeah, exactly, got a
Speaker 1: wet car. I just love driving wet I mean, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it past this guy honestly and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do what ice ice? Like probably per pound,
Speaker 1: the stupidest thing you could. You could be worst crime
Speaker 1: to engage. All right, So I'm gonna quote the book
Speaker 1: mob Barker talking about what happened after the ice heist,
Speaker 1: motorcycle officer J. E. Marshall and his partner Frank Bush
Speaker 1: spotted the gangster's car speeding through town at two in
Speaker 1: the morning. After a short pursuit, the getaway vehicle stopped
Speaker 1: at Officer Marshall approached the car to confront the offenders.
Speaker 1: Herman was driving, and when the police off user got
Speaker 1: close enough to look inside the vehicle, he grabbed the
Speaker 1: officer around the neck, leveled a gun against his face,
Speaker 1: and fired two shots. Officer Marshall died instantly, so this
Speaker 1: provoked a chase, and herman was wounded badly During an
Speaker 1: automotive firefight. He and his partner crashed their car, and
Speaker 1: overcome with pain, Herman Barker shot himself dead. Mob Barker
Speaker 1: grieved deeply for her oldest boy and used some of
Speaker 1: her ill gotten gains to buy a four foot tall
Speaker 1: marble headstone for herman. Some lawman would later write that
Speaker 1: Herman's death caused mob Barker to turn her back entirely
Speaker 1: on morality, but this seems to be theatric drama or
Speaker 1: the time herman died. Ma had been a criminal mastermind
Speaker 1: for nearly a decade, but the death of her oldest
Speaker 1: son did have a major impact on her. Mob Barker
Speaker 1: would not in the future be content to let her
Speaker 1: children funk up at planning their own crimes. She had
Speaker 1: bigger plans for them, grander plans Minnesota ear plans. And
Speaker 1: this brings us to the greatest type of scum and
Speaker 1: villany in the history of the United dates the city
Speaker 1: of St. Paul. I knew you were going to say St.
Speaker 1: Paul terrible place. Terrible Wait really compared to Tulsa? Well?
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, I mean I can't speak for St. Paul today,
Speaker 1: but during the Great Depression it was famous for being
Speaker 1: a haven for gangsters. And you know what else is
Speaker 1: a haven for gangsters? Emily, the products and services that
Speaker 1: support this podcast. We're back. Products, done, services, service. Uh boy, howdie,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. Alright, speaking of things I'm not
Speaker 1: a fan of, let's talk about St. Paul, the crime city. Uh,
Speaker 1: apologies to the people of St. Paul, Minnesota. No apologies.
Speaker 1: The only city I apologized to is Pittsburgh. Um, but
Speaker 1: nothing for St. Paul. Bring it on? Not true today?
Speaker 1: The city of city Yeah, consistencies everything, and St. Paul
Speaker 1: was consistently filled with criminals then and probably now, I
Speaker 1: assume um today the city of St. Paul is most
Speaker 1: famous for, I I don't really know is Sophie Minneapolis
Speaker 1: being next to Minneapolis. But back in the day, it
Speaker 1: was the crime capital of America. I'm gonna quote from
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Post. St. Paul in the late twenties and
Speaker 1: early thirties was known as a crux haven, a place
Speaker 1: for gangsters, bank robbers, and bootleggers from all over the
Speaker 1: Midwest to run their operations or to hide from the FBI.
Speaker 1: The concentration of local organized crime activity prompted reformers and
Speaker 1: crime reporters to call for a clean up of the
Speaker 1: city in the mid nineteen thirties. So it used to
Speaker 1: be an interesting place at some point, is what I'm
Speaker 1: getting at here. Has there been a good crime movie
Speaker 1: set in St. Paul? I don't know, probably need a
Speaker 1: good Saint Paul movie. I don't watch a lot of Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they get on at one of Now. St. Paul earned
Speaker 1: its reputation as the sanctuary for criminals in the Midwest
Speaker 1: with the help of corrupt politicians and police chiefs who
Speaker 1: agreed to turn a blind eye to gangster's underground activities,
Speaker 1: which included smuggling, racketeering, and gambling. This collaboration began in
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred with what was known as the Layover Agreement,
Speaker 1: an unofficial contract between criminals and Chief of Police John O'Connor.
Speaker 1: The Law and Crime and St. Paul worked out a deal.
Speaker 1: Criminals would minimize the murders they committed in town and
Speaker 1: give the cops a chunk of their profits. In exchange,
Speaker 1: the police would warn them about upcoming FBI raids. This
Speaker 1: became known as the O'Connor system and represents quite possibly
Speaker 1: the most ethical chapter in the history of American law enforcement. Now,
Speaker 1: mob Barker and her remaining kids moved to St. Paul
Speaker 1: in the early thirties, and for the next couple of years,
Speaker 1: Mob Barker would be the grand dam of crime in
Speaker 1: that town. Along the way, she adopted a gangster friend
Speaker 1: of one of her sons, Alvin Carpass, the former Marble's
Speaker 1: Champion of Kansas, who was nicknamed Old Creepy for his
Speaker 1: dead soulless eyes. Yeah that's a hell of a sentence.
Speaker 1: Can I Is it too late to go with him
Speaker 1: for Halloween? I just like an image is incredible. You
Speaker 1: just have a gun and a pile of marbles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Old Creepy, You like what I can do with this gun?
Speaker 1: Imagine what I can do with these marvels, kidd. Ma
Speaker 1: loved Old Creepy and spent many a night out on
Speaker 1: the town of Saint Paul. Yeah, so the old Creepy
Speaker 1: Alan Carpass and Mob Barker essentially combined their powers to
Speaker 1: build a gang consisting of Alvin and Ma's sons, with
Speaker 1: Ma as kind of the master mind. In June, Alvin
Speaker 1: and Ma attended the Chicago World's Fair. It is there
Speaker 1: reportedly that Mob Barker first told Alvin that she and
Speaker 1: her boys would be the vanguards of a new era
Speaker 1: of crime, bank robberies beneath our dignity. She said, bigger
Speaker 1: game is in our future first, but it led to
Speaker 1: her last words. Now That bigger game was kidnapping and
Speaker 1: ransoming the children of wealthy families. In nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: the baby of Charles Lindbergh, famed American aviator and fascist
Speaker 1: piece of ship, had been kidnapped by persons unknown. While
Speaker 1: the baby was found dead six months later, and probably
Speaker 1: had died that very night, UH, an innocent man named
Speaker 1: Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the crime in nineteen thirty four. UH.
Speaker 1: The guilty parties were never caught and almost certainly made
Speaker 1: off with tens of thousands of dollars and a baby
Speaker 1: murder Scott free. This was all widespread knowledge in the
Speaker 1: criminal community in nineteen thirty two, when Jack Piper, head
Speaker 1: of the Holly Hawks casino and St. Paul, went to
Speaker 1: Fred Barker and Alvin with a plan. He knew the
Speaker 1: schedule and travel roots of thirty nine year old William
Speaker 1: ham Jr. And he felt like the man's family would
Speaker 1: pay handsomely if their heir was kidnapped. Now, if you
Speaker 1: don't hail from the center northerish parts of the country,
Speaker 1: Ham's is a hilariously named mediocre beer that's better than
Speaker 1: being sober, but not a whole lot better. Uh. William
Speaker 1: Hams Jr. Was the scion of this beer dynasty and
Speaker 1: a very wealthy man. Jack basically told the Barker gang
Speaker 1: that they could make a lot of money if they
Speaker 1: stole him. He asked for ten percent of the total
Speaker 1: take for his help. So the gang kidnapped ham fairly easily,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, they treated him well. Four days
Speaker 1: after his capture, his hundred thousand dollar ransom was paid
Speaker 1: and he was returned unharmed to his family. The cost
Speaker 1: of the ransom was relatively minor in the scheme of
Speaker 1: the families four point five million dollar fortune. When he
Speaker 1: was returned to his family, William told a local paper,
Speaker 1: although it was a trying experience, I was treated with
Speaker 1: the utmost respect and courtesy. But like the old adage,
Speaker 1: home sweet home is the best place of all. So
Speaker 1: Ham seems to say, like, yeah, they were all right. Um,
Speaker 1: feel like he's just shy of being like, I wish
Speaker 1: I could have stayed forever. It was so much. I
Speaker 1: wish I could have stayed forever. Food was great. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the ham family had asked authorities to hold back on
Speaker 1: doing anything while their kid was kidnapped, and the police
Speaker 1: had agreed. Um, I'm gonna read a quote from the
Speaker 1: interview that William Hamm gave the Decatur Harold after he
Speaker 1: had been freed. Um him only saw his captors, but dimly.
Speaker 1: The windows of the house in which he was placed
Speaker 1: in a second floor room were boarded up. I never
Speaker 1: saw the men because I didn't have on my goggles,
Speaker 1: and they made me turn my face towards the wall
Speaker 1: when they came into the room. They were very nice
Speaker 1: to me, I asked for anything I wanted and ordered
Speaker 1: anything I wanted. The metals were good and simple, and
Speaker 1: I think elaborate. But whoever did the cooking knew their
Speaker 1: way or on the kitchen, that was almost certainly Mob Barker. Now,
Speaker 1: the FBI did not catch onto the fact that the
Speaker 1: Barker family was behind this caper. Instead, they arrested another
Speaker 1: gangster too, He who was innocent of this crime by
Speaker 1: at least some accounts. Too. He was tortured by the
Speaker 1: law enforcement in an attempt to get him to admit
Speaker 1: his guilt. He refused and eventually killed himself in jail.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, the FBI leaves this story out of its
Speaker 1: account of the arrest of the Barker gang. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm splitting hairs here. Now, the Barker gang
Speaker 1: was very well at this point. The Hams caper was
Speaker 1: their highest profile crime of this period, but they also
Speaker 1: continued to rob banks at a pretty ridiculous rate. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Mob Barker continued to manage the fine details of the gang,
Speaker 1: reportedly going so far as to drive the getaway roots
Speaker 1: before major crimes to ensure every aspect of the plan
Speaker 1: was mapped out to her satisfaction. She did not draw
Speaker 1: the line at just micromanaging the business aspects of her gang.
Speaker 1: According to the book Mob Barker, she also kept a
Speaker 1: strong hand in the romantic lives of her sons and
Speaker 1: adopted sons. Quote. Members of the Barker Carpass gang who
Speaker 1: were close to mad generally kept the women they were
Speaker 1: seriously involved with away from her. It was a crazy system,
Speaker 1: Alvin admitted years later, and often created friction with our women,
Speaker 1: who couldn't understand why we were so careful with her feelings.
Speaker 1: The boys preferred to avoid Ma's jealous anger. They were
Speaker 1: devoted to her and considered her contribution to their organization
Speaker 1: invaluable and something they would not jeopardize. Not only did
Speaker 1: she recruit in school the hoodlums who joined the group,
Speaker 1: but she was always a full proof cover for the gang.
Speaker 1: Ma could project an innocence and wholesomeness to the rival
Speaker 1: the Whistler's mother, but she could be fire an obstinate.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that. That that's Ma. She won't let
Speaker 1: you have a girlfriend, but she'll get you out of
Speaker 1: trouble with the cops. You've got to keep your mind
Speaker 1: on crimes. You gotta keep your mind on crimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: makes sense, makes sense now. Ma was a complicated person,
Speaker 1: and while she was a domineering field within the criminal underworld,
Speaker 1: she operated out of her homes. She was also vulnerable
Speaker 1: to being victimized by abusers in her own romantic life.
Speaker 1: Starting in the late nineteen twenties, she dated a man
Speaker 1: named Arthur Dunlop. What started as emotional support in the
Speaker 1: wake of her first son's death evolved into a profoundly
Speaker 1: abusive relationship. Arthur was basically the opposite of George Barker.
Speaker 1: He refused to work or contribute to the family finances
Speaker 1: in any way, but he was also a powerful personality
Speaker 1: who constantly derided and physically abused Kate Barker. The Barker
Speaker 1: boys hated Arthur, but for a while, they tolerated him
Speaker 1: because their mothers seemed to love him for some inexplicable reason.
Speaker 1: Arthur moved with the family to St. Paul, but soon
Speaker 1: after they began their kidnapping game, he started to make trouble.
Speaker 1: Arthur was no gangster, but he loved to go out
Speaker 1: drinking on the town and brag about the crimes of
Speaker 1: the Barker Carpas gang, even though he had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with those crimes. Yeah, now he's a piece of shit,
Speaker 1: piece of Yeah, I take back what I said about
Speaker 1: passionate men with deep pockets. Yeah, well he didn't. He
Speaker 1: was just taken their money, right, bragging. Yeah, just commit
Speaker 1: your own crimes. Yeah, I have a decency to commit
Speaker 1: your own crimes. And I don't know, it's always it's
Speaker 1: always a bummer when when your significant other tries to
Speaker 1: take credit for your career. Yeah. Absolutely, He's like, how
Speaker 1: who would compare him to as celebrities? Um hm, He's like,
Speaker 1: he's like Kevin Federline, He's the Kevin Federline story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's yeah, a meaner Kevin Federline. Although I'm sure
Speaker 1: that cover federal Line wasn't that nice of a person.
Speaker 1: I don't know, history's greatest monster. Um So, when Arthur's
Speaker 1: bragging finally got loud and boisterous enough that multiple criminal
Speaker 1: friends of the family warned mob Barker, she finally agreed
Speaker 1: that he had to go. Fred and Alvin shot him
Speaker 1: dead and disposed of the corpse. Ye. By January four,
Speaker 1: the Barker gang was ready to try their luck at
Speaker 1: another high dollar kidnapping. Their next subject was Edward George
Speaker 1: Brimmer Jr. The scion of a wealthy banking family. By
Speaker 1: this point, the Great Depression was well underway, and the
Speaker 1: whole country was filled with rage at the corrupt bankers
Speaker 1: who had brought calamity down on the heads of the nation.
Speaker 1: While the heir to the Ham's beer fortune had been
Speaker 1: treated well, Brimmer was beaten badly and repeatedly by the
Speaker 1: Barker Gang, particularly by Fred Barker, who hated bankers. According
Speaker 1: to the book Mob Barker, the gang did not keep
Speaker 1: him blindfolded at all times at the hideout, and he
Speaker 1: was able to observe things which were later to be
Speaker 1: of assistance in identifying the place where he was held captive.
Speaker 1: The men who held him captives spoke with various accents French, German, Italian.
Speaker 1: At one point he heard the voice of an older
Speaker 1: woman praising the criminals holding him hostage, saying, now you're thinking, boys,
Speaker 1: now you're thinking. Mr Brimmer assessed it was the voice
Speaker 1: of Mom Barker. I mean, why did why did they
Speaker 1: not blindfold him? It seems like a major oversight. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm all for beating up a banker, at least
Speaker 1: have the have the foresight to blindfold him. I mean
Speaker 1: they were usually their faces and stuff were covered, so
Speaker 1: he wasn't able to identify him. And that like the
Speaker 1: they were speaking in different accents, but like there weren't
Speaker 1: actually a bunch of different nationalities. They were just trying
Speaker 1: to confuse him. I would love to hear all those accents,
Speaker 1: like I love to all of their attempts at an
Speaker 1: Italian and French and German accent. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: know what a bunch of fucking uh criminal gangsters in
Speaker 1: Minnesota in the nineteen thirties think of German sounds like,
Speaker 1: I bet it's hilarious now. Eventually, the Brimmer family paid
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars for the return of their son, and
Speaker 1: this left the Barker Carpass gang fantastically wealthy, but by
Speaker 1: this point they had committed too many serious crimes to
Speaker 1: not be considered public enemies. After the Bremmer heist, the
Speaker 1: Barker Carpus gang scattered to the four winds across the
Speaker 1: nation and several other continents in an attempt to have
Speaker 1: aid justice. Two of mob Barker's sons tried the most
Speaker 1: extreme method imaginable to heighten from the law that decided
Speaker 1: to undergo dangerous experimental surgery to change their faces. And yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a terrible story Barker again, Yeah, it's real bad.
Speaker 1: An ex convict named Joseph P. Morn was in charge
Speaker 1: of the procedure, which involved looping elastic bands tightly around
Speaker 1: the gangster's fingertips at the first joint and injecting cocaine
Speaker 1: into each of their fingers and thumbs using a scalpel.
Speaker 1: The doctor would then script a skin completely off the digits.
Speaker 1: The work of Dr Moran did to remove the scars
Speaker 1: on Alvin's face was equally as barbaric and unpleasant. In
Speaker 1: the end, the extreme discomfort proofd to be a waste
Speaker 1: of time and money. According to the FBI report dated
Speaker 1: November nineteenth, nineteen thirty six, Fred Barker was a braving
Speaker 1: maniac due to the pain. Dr Moran performs other services
Speaker 1: for the gang, such as laundering some of the kidnap
Speaker 1: money through his Chicago practice. Dr Morn suffered from the
Speaker 1: same problem of running his mouth. He drank too much,
Speaker 1: which made him especially talkative. He bragged to a couple
Speaker 1: of prostitutes in his company, that he was a big
Speaker 1: doctor from Chicago who could erase fingerprints and change people's appearances.
Speaker 1: His actions weren't tolerated for long by the Barker Carpass gang.
Speaker 1: He was warned to be quiet, but to fight orders
Speaker 1: by stating, I have you guys in the palm of
Speaker 1: my hand. When I guess what happened to this guy?
Speaker 1: I got, got got, Yeah, you got you got killed
Speaker 1: really fast? Yeah yeah. Alvin and Arthur Barker, acting on
Speaker 1: Ma's orders, guns Dr morn down in July four. They
Speaker 1: buried him in a hole under a pile of lie.
Speaker 1: So that's good. Uh so wait, so it didn't even
Speaker 1: work though the fingerprint removal it removed the fingerprints that
Speaker 1: the guys had on them, but it also like drove
Speaker 1: one of them crazy and uh made them look as
Speaker 1: if they'd been horribly burned. And it was obvious like, well,
Speaker 1: you clearly tried to have your fingerprints removed. Look at
Speaker 1: your get your hands, Oh my god, so stupid. Really,
Speaker 1: this is just incredible, Like who's good, who's well? When
Speaker 1: we're finished, we should go through a ranking of like
Speaker 1: who's actually good at their job? And this because there
Speaker 1: aren't that many people now speaking of not being good
Speaker 1: at their job. It took the FBI until after this
Speaker 1: point to actually get their ship together and realized that
Speaker 1: the Barker Gang was behind the kidnapping of several of
Speaker 1: America's wealthiest citizens. J Edgar Hoover declared Kate mob Barker
Speaker 1: to be the brains of the gang's operation and the
Speaker 1: most dangerous woman in America. The dogs were out, and
Speaker 1: the Barker family days were numbered. Flesh with cash and
Speaker 1: fleeing the law, they made their way to the only
Speaker 1: true home of all dangerous, unhinged criminals, Florida. Fred his mother,
Speaker 1: and a few other sympatheticos rented a house in Lake
Speaker 1: Weir and attempted to lay low until the heat died down.
Speaker 1: What happened next is a matter of historical debate. Since
Speaker 1: this is my podcast, the version of the story I've
Speaker 1: decided to believe is the one that involves a three
Speaker 1: legged alligator named Old Joe, as the story goes, at
Speaker 1: least according to one Chicago Tribune article written in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties based on some of the few living people
Speaker 1: who remembered these events. By January of nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 1: the FBI had found one member of the Barker Carpass
Speaker 1: gang in Chicago, Arthur Barker. When they arrested him in
Speaker 1: his hotel room, they found the partially burnt reminants of
Speaker 1: a letter from Mob Barker. In the letter, Mob Barker
Speaker 1: had written that wherever they were hiding, it was good
Speaker 1: hunting for a three legged alligator called Old Joe. So
Speaker 1: to their credit, the FBI had some good investigators, and
Speaker 1: they combed the numerous swamps of the American South until
Speaker 1: they found some yokels who keyed them in on where
Speaker 1: this three legged alligator lived Lake Weir, Florida. After that
Speaker 1: point it was only a matter of refining for the
Speaker 1: Bureau to lock down the last few Stateside reminants of
Speaker 1: the Barker Gang. Mob Barker and her son Fred next.
Speaker 1: According to the Chicago Tribune, on the morning of Wednesday,
Speaker 1: January fift nineteen thirty five, fifteen agents swooped down on
Speaker 1: a large frame house on the shores of Lake were
Speaker 1: on the outskirts of this Florida citrus belt town. When
Speaker 1: the shooting ended four hours later, they found Mob Barker
Speaker 1: sixty three dead in an upstairs room, one arm cradling
Speaker 1: a submachine gun, the other cradling her dead son Fred two.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, went out like a fucking g That's
Speaker 1: tough as hell. Yeah, machine gun in one arm, dead
Speaker 1: son on the other. It's a pretty good way to go. If, um,
Speaker 1: that's that's great. I'm glad that. I'm glad that it
Speaker 1: ended in Florida, as all crime stories must end, as
Speaker 1: all crime stories in and most begin. Yeah. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I like that we did a detour through through Minneapolis
Speaker 1: because I will um differ with you on the point
Speaker 1: that I do think Minnesota is a lovely state and
Speaker 1: uh as part of the great patchwork of America. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I'm I'm glad that they found a
Speaker 1: home there. I'm going to war with both Minneapolis. Well, no,
Speaker 1: just st Party's sorry, Paul, Yeah whatever. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody's gonna get actually mad at me if I
Speaker 1: say whatever, same if but yeah, Minny Appleans will get mad.
Speaker 1: Nobody and nobody in Florida is going to get mad
Speaker 1: at us saying that all Floridians are criminals like everyone
Speaker 1: every Yeah, if you live in Florida, you know what
Speaker 1: you are. It's like Australia, you've elected to this lifestyle.
Speaker 1: You didn't know one forced you to live in Florida.
Speaker 1: That's where you go if you want to be a
Speaker 1: criminal or you want to be friends with a three
Speaker 1: legged alligator. Yeah. Wow, well this was amazing. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of respect to her, honestly, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I feel like, I mean, I don't I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know well enough to know where you would
Speaker 1: find the seams in this, but I do kind of
Speaker 1: feel like the FBI is sort of undermining her by
Speaker 1: trying to say that she's not the mastermind here. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: like what, like who who would the mask? She seems
Speaker 1: If not the mastermind, she's a great instigating force and
Speaker 1: that's like just as important to be uh moral support
Speaker 1: and um, you know, provide food and shelter for your
Speaker 1: gang of criminal sons and not sons. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's his that's his important as being the mastermind.
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, I I think that, Um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's this like impulse and law enforcement to kind of
Speaker 1: like reduce any sort of the myth making around these figures,
Speaker 1: which which never works, Like the you can't stop you
Speaker 1: can't stop people from fundamentally wanting to side with the
Speaker 1: charismatic criminals over the g min. Uh. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: the same reason Scarface is more popular than uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know a movie about whoever the shot scarface? Um,
Speaker 1: and it it always I guess it's more beneficial to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, all these crimes are stupid done by
Speaker 1: idiot people, which have to be fair, A lot of
Speaker 1: these seem like pretty stupid crimes done by idiot people.
Speaker 1: But that version of events definitely is less romantic. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's at least funny, but it's not like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want to grow up to be like that in the
Speaker 1: same way that like having a criminal mastermind who's like
Speaker 1: plotting all these amazing bank robberies or whatever. That that
Speaker 1: feels more like something that someone might be tempted to emulate. Uh,
Speaker 1: if given hard enough times. I don't know. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I I stam mob barker. I mean what, She's not
Speaker 1: a bastard, she's uh, she's a hard working mom and
Speaker 1: then eventual single parent, just doing her best to survive
Speaker 1: in tough times, doing her best to survive in this
Speaker 1: workaday world. In the door for the damn bathroom. You
Speaker 1: know that's I mean, I feel like all all great
Speaker 1: careers start with, you know, wanting a door for your bathroom.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, Well Emily, speaking of doors for the bathroom, Uh,
Speaker 1: do you have any anything you'd like to plug? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: you can listen to Nightcall on this very podcast network.
Speaker 1: I co hosted with Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch as
Speaker 1: you said, uh, previous guests on this podcast. So we
Speaker 1: we have new episodes every Monday. And yeah, I'm getting
Speaker 1: ready to record with them later today, So I'm I've
Speaker 1: got a real podcast marathon day today. But um yeah,
Speaker 1: we're on We're on social media, Nightcall podcast or nightcallo
Speaker 1: depending on what platform it is. It's inconsistent, which is
Speaker 1: stupid of us. Um me me, actually I'm the inconsistent one.
Speaker 1: But and then I'm on Twitter personally at I'm on
Speaker 1: Twitter personally at Ashida just my first and lasting Yeah,
Speaker 1: public enemy number one, public enemy number one, not if
Speaker 1: you want to be public, Well that's going to do
Speaker 1: it for Behind the Bastards today. Um you can find
Speaker 1: us on the internet. Behind the Bastards dot com where
Speaker 1: you can find the sources for this episode. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastard's Pot. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at I right okay uh,
Speaker 1: And you can find crime in your heart when you
Speaker 1: look down the aisles of an Amazon owned grocery store. Um,
Speaker 1: this podcast is not indoors committing crimes. Thanks, thank you, Sophie.
Speaker 1: Are we are we safe legally? Now? Is the lawyer happy?
Speaker 1: Don't commit don't commit a crime, don't commit a crime,
Speaker 1: not commit a crime. Yeah, multiple crimes. That that's that.
Speaker 1: The words of this guest do not necessarily uh reflect
Speaker 1: the wishes of this podcast.