WEBVTT - Who Were the Baddest Bank Robbers You've Never Heard Of? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:08.600 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.560 Willis Newton and his three brothers are not, for the 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.960 most of us, as easily identifiable as Pretty Boy Floyd, 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.880 Baby Face, Nelson, or al Capone. They certainly weren't as 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.079 renowned as Bonnie and Clyde, but that may go a 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.320 long way toward explaining why Willis Newton and his gang 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.240 were just about infinitely more successful than any of those others. 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.240 For much of their career, nobody, even the cops knew 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:41.000 who the Newtons were. In a blink of about five years, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.280 in the nineteen twenties, the Newtons and an occasional accomplice 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.640 pulled off some seventy bank heists, give or take a dozen, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.239 and ripped off six trains, including a single haul of 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:55.040 somewhere around three million dollars. It remains the largest train 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.320 robbery ever. Accounting for inflation, that single three million dollar 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.959 take in nineteen twenty four would be a fifty three 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:07.080 million dollar getaway today. As old men, after their thieving 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.080 was mostly over, they surfaced in a nineteen seventy five documentary, 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.520 but coming off is both proud and practical. Willis said, 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.680 straight face to the camera, just like a doctor and 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.560 lawyers and everybody else. It was our business to do that. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.319 The youngest of the Newton brothers, Joe, even made his 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.199 way onto Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show in nineteen eighty 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.959 and was downright charming. When Carson asked him about his 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:36.119 appeal to women as a bank robber, Joe said, well, 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:37.840 if you've got a good car and a pot full 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:43.880 of money and you're a young man, yeah. However, in 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.240 nineteen seventy nine, Willis Newton, just a few months before 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.680 his death at the age of ninety, sat down in 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.880 his home in Uvalde, Texas, for a wide ranging and 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.760 sometimes contentious interview about his life and crimes with historian 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.360 and author G. R. Williamson. Before the article this episode 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.440 is based on How Stuffworks, spoke with Williamson, who walked 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.800 away from that interview with an entirely different impression of Willis. 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:11.560 He said, I truly believe he was a flat out 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:18.760 evil person. The four Newton Boys, Willis, Wiley aka Doc, Jess, 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:23.400 and Joe were the sons of poor Texas sharecroppers growing 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.840 up at the turn of the twentieth century. They mostly 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.120 left school early and fell into petty crimes and stints 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.680 in jail. Willis was about twenty five with a lengthy 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.480 rap sheet already to his name when he first robbed 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.280 a bank, making off with about four thousand, seven hundred 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.360 dollars from a job in Kline, Texas. That's about one 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.080 hundred and forty four thousand in today's dollars. And in 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.480 nineteen sixteen, with some other outlaws, Willis took a share 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.240 of around ten thousand dollars from a robbery the about 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.880 two hundred and ninety five thousand dollars today. Willis was hooked, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.000 and he eventually brought his brothers into the new family business. 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.640 Early on, as the brothers and occasional accomplices lined up jobs, 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.760 Willis laid down some ground rules. Williamson said, they were 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.240 full blown criminals. But here's the thing. Willis had the 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.200 wisdom to know that if they killed somebody, that would 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.480 change everything about how the police came after them. So 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.000 it was his mandate to his brothers that they never 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:29.320 kill anybody. It's a rule that may have been broken. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.000 They were involved in a few messy gunfights in Canada 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.360 in a rare daytime heist, they were involved in a 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.480 shootout during morning rush hour that sullied their reputation for 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:43.120 clean hits and easy getaways. But normally, with a little preparation, 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.960 plus some nitroglycerin, perhaps to blow the door off of 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.720 a safe, the Newtons would be on their way quick 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.920 and quiet, loot in hand. At its height, the gang 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.640 was the four brothers and an explosives expert by the 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.400 name of Brent Blascock, and they robbed banks and trains 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.640 across Tech, Oklahoma, through the Midwest, and even into Toronto, Canada. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.600 On at least one occasion, they robbed two banks in 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:11.840 one day. Williamson said, compared to the Newtons, Jesse and 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.560 Frank James were mere amateurs, but Cassidy was a small fry. 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.840 The Newtons made blowing safes and robbing trains a big business. 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:23.440 They wanted to fly under the radar. They didn't want notoriety. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.839 Bonnie and Clyde they had actual photographs of them, and 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.480 they did all sorts of stuff that kept taunting the police. 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.400 So did pretty Boy Floyd. Because the public did not 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.000 know what the robbers that were doing these bank jobs 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.040 and train robberies looked like. The Newtons weren't having to 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.559 run from the law. At one point, Willis said, we 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.760 wasn't mugs like Bonnie and Clyde. We was just quiet businessmen. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:50.320 What we wanted was the money. It helped too that 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.560 the Newtons mostly did their work at night. They didn't 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:58.280 generally barge into banks branching shotguns, and banks compared to today, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.320 were much easier to rob. Many of the banks of 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.640 the Newtons knocked over were in small towns with little security. 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.799 Williamson said, Remember, the only communications in the nineteen twenties 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.640 was telegraph and telephone, no Internet, no national database of fingerprints, 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.640 no national database of mug shots or anything like that. 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.800 So they could pull these things off and nobody knew 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.800 it was the Newtons. In between jobs, when it was convenient, 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.080 they'd go back to the family home in Uvalde and 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.640 lay low until they needed more money. Williamson said the 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.279 general opinion of the people in Uvalde at the time 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.320 was that all the Newton boys were near Dowells. They 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.440 were probably up to criminal activity, but nobody knew that 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:46.400 they were the robbers. When they were on business trips 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.560 outside of Texas, they'd stay in the nicest hotels and 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.120 eat at the best restaurants. At least two of the 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.440 brothers regularly attended sporting events like the Kentucky Derby and 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.960 Indianapolis five hundred. They spent lavishly until their money ran low, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.520 then planned the next job. The Newton Gang's biggest heist, 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.240 that three million dollar one, was also the one that 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.160 brought them down. It was a train robbery outside of Chicago, Illinois, 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.919 on June twelfth of nineteen twenty four. The Newtons, along 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.800 with Glascock and a few newcomers, stopped a train on 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.239 its way to dropping off cash to several banks along 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.719 its route. The gang quickly loaded sixty three bags of 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.200 loot into four stolen cars, but in the confusion of 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.320 the nighttime raid and after a train brakeman escaped and 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.800 alerted authorities, Glasscock mistook Doc Newton for a guard and 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:40.680 accidentally shot Doc several times. The men all got away, 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.240 placing the wounded dock atop bags of cash, but authorities 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.680 quickly found the men. A corrupt postal inspector who was 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.440 in on the job gave himself away under wire tap, 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.920 a tip that led authorities to the doctor who had 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.599 treated the wounded. Doc Willis made it across the border 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.640 into Mexico, and Jesse escaped for a while to Texas 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.839 with about thirty five thousand dollars that's six hundred and 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.440 twenty one thousand dollars today, money that was never officially 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.280 found and is the source of some local legends about 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:15.360 buried treasure. But at the time, within months everyone involved 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.080 was arrested and headed to trial, including the convalescing Doc, 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:23.200 who was taken into the proceedings on a stretcher. However, 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.920 although eight men were convicted in the end, and the 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.640 amount of money that they stole was enormous, most of 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.840 their sentences were light and all were eventually released on 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.160 good behavior. Later in life, Doc and Willis tried to 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:38.720 rob a bank in Rowena, Texas, when Doc was well 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.920 into his seventies and Willis was eighty, But the Newton 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.360 brothers spent the rest of their lives mostly on the 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.760 right side of the law. Their exploits are now often 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.040 considered when the Newtons are acknowledged at all, as brothers 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:56.239 simply trying to make a living. Willis told his documentarians, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.040 I knew all them bankers was rich, and they didn't 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.760 care about hurting us poor farmers. So why should I 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.720 care about hurting them? Why shouldn't I steal from them? 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:11.120 It's just one thief stealing from another. But the romanticized 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.400 story as told by Willis, his brothers, and many historians, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.680 isn't necessarily the true one. Williamson points out that in 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:20.560 at least a few of their robberies a lot of 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.400 gunplay was involved, and the lack of planning could have 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:27.280 been disastrous. He said, a majority of the times when 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.720 they got into these robberies where they actually had guns 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.120 out and so forth, they screwed up so bad they 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.400 should have been killed. Willis was good at planning, but 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:41.160 the execution sometimes was completely out the window. In his research, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.600 Williamson uncovered damning newspaper accounts of a shootout during one 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.360 of their train robberies in Illinois, in which he claims 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.160 a black porter by the name of Moon died three 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.040 days after the robbery from gunshot wounds. Though the Newtons 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.800 swore they never killed anyone, that may not have been 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:02.199 the case. The last living member of the gang, Joe, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.360 died in nineteen eighty nine. Today, the Newtons retain their 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.240 status as folk heroes to many. There was even a 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.719 dramatized film made about them in nineteen ninety eight, and 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.920 they remain unquestionably the most successful bank robbers the country 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:22.120 has ever seen. Joe told Carson in nineteen eighty we 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:29.959 was crazy for doing it, but you're young then. Today's 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.160 episode is based on the article the Newton Boys were 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:34.400 the Baddest bank robbers You've Never heard of on how 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.680 Stuffworks dot Com, written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.520 production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.480 and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.640 my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:58.800 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.