Outlaws

Billy the Kid is one of the best known characters of the Old West. Unfortunately, parts of the his life have been built on legends.

Basically, Billy was born in the east and moved west with his mother to Silver City, NM. At a young age he was jailed for a minor offense and escaped. In Bonito, Az, he killed Frank Cahilll.

Billy arrived in Lincoln, NM during a time when the Murphy-Dolan Faction and John Tunstall were trying to secure beef contracts with the military in Fort Stanton. Tunstall had befriended Billy and a number of young drifters. The conflict between the Murphy-Dolan Faction and Tunstall turned ugly. John Tunstall was killed. Angered by the death of their friend, the drifters formed a group known as the 'Regulators'. As a self-impose police force, they tried to round up the people responsible for the death of Tunstall.. Many people died during this pursuit..

The plot becomes more complicated and Billy is a wanted man. Pat Garrett becomes sheriff of Lincoln county and begins his pursuit of Billy. The cat and mouse game between these two lasts about a year and a half. Billy is cornered, but escapes. Billy is caught and sentenced to die, but escapes. Finally, Pat Garrett waits for Billy in a room at Pete Maxwell's home in Fort Sumner, NM. Billy enters and Pat Garrett fires.

Billy the Kid is buried in the old Fort Sumner Post Cemetery near present day Fort Sumner, New Mexico. There are plenty of signs directing you to the grave.

Dalton/Johnson Outlaw Gang
from 1889 to 1997



The Dalton/Johnson outlaw gang included more than a single group of the five individuals whom the citizens of Coffeyville exposed on the morning of October 5, 1892, in Kansas. In fact, there is evidence to support and to prove there was a sixth member in the raiding party and that member was female.

The history of the Dalton's began before 1892 and lives on today in the Dewey and Bartlesville area of Oklahoma and in the Houston area of Texas. Family members retain land and political powers within those regions of the country.

There are a multitude of unanswered questions remaining concerning the Daltons and their final actions in 1892. Also, a myriad of contradictions lingers, concerning the Coffeyville aftermath
and the years which followed. We now know that Minnie Johnson existed and was in truth a first cousin to Lucy and Julia Johnson. However, she was never considered to be either of the Johnson
women, who played a significant role in the gang's activities. Minnie Johnson appears briefly in the Kentucky history of the Dalton/Johnson clans and is then never recalled, except by Emmett in his writing years later, which for the most part was extremely fabricated. Documentation notes a Lucy Johnson married shortly after the Coffeyville, Kansas debacle and then moved out of the area. A daughter was born to Lucy in the late 1880's and her father was, Robert »Bob« Renick Dalton.
Years later Emmett Dalton would adopt her and regard her as his own, and her illegitimate son. Marriage records prove Julia Johnson was married five times. Four of her husbands were killed in one fashion of another, while she was nearby.

To this day, the Dalton name and family heritage lives on and thrives on the mystery started more than a hundred years ago with the deaths of Westley and Martha Johnson. The killings, attributed to the Dalton gang, did not begin at Coffeyville nor did they end with Emmett's death in 1937.

Jesse James

Of all the worlds' legendary characters, few have attracted world-wide fascination like the outlaw, Jesse James. Some call him America's Robin Hood, while others see him as a cold-blooded killer. Perhaps he was all of these things.

Jesse Woodson James was born in Kearney, Missouri on September 5, 1847. His father, the Rev. Robert James, was a Baptist minister who helped found William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo. Some people say it was the cruel treatment from Union soldiers that turned Frank and Jesse to a life of crime during the Civil War. Certainly during the war years they learned to kill while riding with William Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson. After the war, Jesse was wounded while surrendering. Within a year, Frank and Jesse are believe to have pulled off the first daylight bankrobbery in peace time. They made off with $60,000 from the Liberty, Mo. bank not far from their home, and one man was killed.

For the next 15 years, the James boys roamed throughout the U.S. robbing trains and banks of their gold, building a legend that was to live more than a century after Jesse's death. Jesse married his own first cousin after a nine-year courtship. She was named for his own mother, Zerelda, and he called her Zee for short. They had two children, Jesse Edwards and Mary.

The Pinkerton Detective Agency was called in to help catch the famous desperadoes. Once during a nighttime raid on the family home outside Kearney, Mo., a firebomb was tossed into the log cabin. When it exploded, it tore off the hand of Jesse's mother, and led to the death of his half-brother Archie.

Jesse reached his Waterloo in September, 1876, when his gang, including the Younger brothers, took on the bank at Northfield, Minn. Within minutes the town people returned fire. All except Frank and Jesse were either killed or were wounded and captured.

Frank James also married, and their wives tried to get them to take on a more normal life. With a $10,000 reward on his head, Jesse moved to St. Joseph, Mo., with his family in the fall of 1881 to hide out. On Christmas Eve, Jesse and Zee moved their family into a small house atop a high hill overlooking St. Joseph. Living under the assumed name of Tom Howard, Jesse rented the house from a city councilman for $14 a month. He attended church, but did not work for a living.

During the winter of 1882, Jesse tried to buy a small farm in Nebraska. But in April, he was short of cash. All of his earlier gang members were either dead or in prison, but Jesse recruited Bob and Charlie Ford to help him rob the Platte City bank. The Ford brothers posed as cousins of Jesse James, but actually were not related to Jesse at all.

The $10,000 reward on Jesse proved too appealing. While Jesse stood on a chair in the family home at 1318 Lafayette Street in St. Joseph to dust and straighten a picture, Bob and Charlie Ford drew their guns. Bob Ford put and end to the James Legend with a single bullet to the back of the head on April 3, 1882.

The Ford brothers attempted to collect the reward. Instead, they were charged with murder. They were sentenced to hang, but were pardoned by Governor Tom Crittenden. Two years later Charles Ford committed suicide and Bob Ford, the »dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard, and laid poor Jesse in his grave,« was himself killed in a bar room brawl in Creede, Colorado, in 1892.

Jesse James was a moral paradox. He was a good father and family man, and was religious in his own way. Whether he stole from the rich and gave to the poor, or just kept it all, has never been decided.

Jesse James died in 1882, but the legend of Jesse James continues more than a century beyond his death. Today Jesse and Frank James are among the best-known Americans in the world.

ALPHONSE CAPONE, aka. AL, SCARFACE
CONTEMPT OF COURT


Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1899, of an immigrant family,
Al Capone quit school after the sixth grade and associated
with a notorious street gang, becoming accepted as a
member. Johnny Torrio was the street gang leader and
among the other members was Lucky Luciano, who would
later attain his own notoriety.

About 1920, at Torrio's invitation, Capone joined Torrio in
Chicago where he had become an influential lieutenant in the
Colosimo mob. The rackets spawned by enactment of the
Prohibition Amendment, illegal brewing, distilling and
distribution of beer and liquor, were viewed as "growth
industries." Torrio, abetted by Al Capone, intended to take full advantage of
opportunities. The mobs also developed interests in legitimate businesses, in the
cleaning and dyeing field, and cultivated influence with receptive public officials, labor
unions and employees' associations.

Torrio soon succeeded to full leadership of the gang with the violent demise of Big
Jim Colosimo, and Capone gained experience and expertise as his strong right arm.

In 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, seriously wounded in an assassination
attempt, surrendered control and retired to Brooklyn. Capone had built a fearsome
reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the period, struggling to acquire and retain
»racketeering rights« to several areas of Chicago. That reputation grew as rival gangs
were eliminated or nullified, and the suburb of Cicero became, in effect, a fiefdom of
the Capone mob.

Perhaps the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, might be regarded
as the culminating violence of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or
associates of the »Bugs« Moran mob were machine-gunned against a garage wall by
rivals posing as police. The massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone mob,
although Al himself was then in Florida.

The investigative jurisdiction of the Bureau of Investigation during the 1920s and early
1930s was more limited than it is now, and the gang warfare and depredations of the
period were not within the Bureau's investigative authority.

The Bureau's investigation of Al Capone arose from his reluctance to appear before a
Federal Grand Jury on March 12, 1929, in response to a subpoena. On March 11, his
lawyers formally filed for postponement of his appearance, submitting a physician's
affidavit dated March 5, which attested that Capone, in Miami, had been suffering
from bronchial pneumonia, had been confined to bed from January 13 to February 23,
and that it would be dangerous to Capone's health to travel to Chicago. His
appearance date before the grand jury was re-set for March 20.

On request of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Bureau of Investigation Agents obtained
statements to the effect that Capone had attended race tracks in the Miami area, that
he had made a plane trip to Bimini and a cruise to Nassau, and that he had been
interviewed at the office of the Dade County Solicitor, and that he had appeared in
good health on each of those occasions.

Capone appeared before the Federal Grand Jury at Chicago on March 20, 1929, and
completed his testimony on March 27. As he left the courtroom, he was arrested by
Agents for Contempt of Court, an offense for which the penalty could be one year and
a $1,000 fine. He posted $5,000 bond and was released.

On May 17, 1929, Al Capone and his bodyguard were arrested in Philadelphia for
carrying concealed deadly weapons. Within 16 hours they had been sentenced to
terms of one year each. Capone served his time and was released in nine months for
good behavior on March 17, 1930.

On February 28, 1936, Capone was found guilty in Federal Court on the Contempt of
Court charge and was sentenced to six months in Cook County Jail. His appeal on
that charge was subsequently dismissed.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department had been developing evidence on tax
evasion charges – in addition to Al Capone, his brother Ralph »Bottles« Capone, Jake
»Greasy Thumb« Guzik, Frank Nitti and other mobsters were subjects of tax evasion
charges.

On June 16, 1931, Al Capone pled guilty to tax evasion and prohibition charges. He
then boasted to the press that he had struck a deal for a two-and-one-half year
sentence, but the presiding judge informed him he, the judge, was not bound by any
deal. Capone then changed his plea to not guilty.

On October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted after trial, and on November 24, was
sentenced to eleven years in Federal prison, fined $50,000 and charged $7,692 for
court costs, in addition to $215,000 plus interest due on back taxes. The six-month
Contempt of Court sentence was to be served concurrently.

While awaiting the results of appeals, Capone was confined to the Cook County Jail.
Upon denial of appeals, he entered the U.S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, serving his
sentence there and at Alcatraz.

On November 16, 1939, Al Capone was released after having served seven years, six
months and fifteen days, and having paid all fines and back taxes.

Suffering from paresis derived from syphilis, he had deteriorated greatly during his
confinement. Immediately on release he entered a Baltimore hospital for brain
treatment, and then went on to his Florida home, an estate on Palm Island in Biscayne
Bay near Miami, which he had purchased in 1928.

Following his release, he never publicly returned to Chicago. He had become mentally
incapable of returning to gangland politics. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore
psychiatrist, after examination, both concluded Al Capone then had the mentality of a
12-year-old child. Capone resided on Palm Island with his wife and immediate family,
in a secluded atmosphere, until his death due to a stroke and pneumonia on January
25, 1947.

BIBLIOGRAPHY REGARDING AL CAPONE

1. »Farewell, Mr. Gangster!« Herbert Corey, D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., New
York, New York, 1936

2. »The FBI Story,« Don Whitehead, Random House, New York, New York, 1956

3. »Organized Crime In America,« Gus Tyler, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 1962

4. »The Dillinger Days,« John Toland, Random House, New York, New York, 1963

5. »The Devil's Emissaries,« Myron J. Quimby, A. S. Barnes and Company, New York,
New York, 1969

6. »Capone,« John Kobler, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, New York, 1971

7. »Mafia, USA,« Nicholas Gage, Dell Publishing Company, Inc., New York, New York,
1972

8. »The Mobs And The Mafia,« Hank Messick and Burt Goldblatt, Thomas Y. Crowell
Company, New York, New York, 1972

9. »Bloodletters and Badmen,« Jay Robert Nash, M. Evans and Company, Inc., New
York, New York, 1973

10. »G-Men: Hoover's FBI in American Popular Culture,« Richard Gid Powers,
Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, Illinois, 1983

The story of the HOTEL CONGRESS FIRE OF 1934 and the events leading up to the
CAPTURE OF JOHN DILLINGER and his gang.



PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1

For thirteen violent months back in the 1930's John Dillinger and his gang swept through the Middle
West – and not before or since has one criminal fascinated or frightened so many people. Dillinger has
come to symbolize PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER 1. The crime world of the Depression was unique – it
could rob almost at will (the Indiana State Police, for instance, had only forty one members, including
clerks and typists) and it could find haven in »open« cities whose officials bought peace with protection.
Multiple bank robberies, wild chase scenes, daring prison breaks and violent machine gun battles...all
were part of a crime wave unparalleled in our modern history. John Dillinger's brief but significant career
as an outlaw was the culmination of years of abuse, rebellion and finally
revenge. Before his first release from the Indiana state prison he was
»schooled« by its most dangerous inmates and in return, once he was free
he engineered their escapes. From an amateur whose robberies often
verged on the comic, he quickly became an accomplished criminal. His
early publicity was an attempt by police to create jealousy in the gang, but
Dillinger soon lived up to his notices. His daring escapes – single handed at
Crown Point, for instance, or through the death defying fire of FBI agents
at Little Bohemia Lodge – and his countless bank robberies made his name
a household word. He eluded the lawmen of several different states and the
growing power of the FBI until a unique set of circumstances, including the
fire at the Hotel Congress and his subsequent arrest in Tucson, led to his
death on the sidewalk in front of a Chicago movie house.

TUCSON 1934

Tucson, a city of about 30,000, still had one foot in its colorful pioneer past. Iron hitching posts dotted
Congress Street. It was a friendly, free-and-easy western town with three well-run houses of prostitution
operating openly. Tucson was growing with phenomenal speed because of its climate, yet it too had been
hard hit by the Depression, and tourists were made to feel especially
welcome. This was the city the Dillinger gang chose to »lay low« in, to
escape the »heat« back east. Little did they realize how hot Tucson can
get.

THE HOTEL CONGRESS FIRE

Early in the morning of January 22,1934, an oil furnace in the
basement near the elevator shaft caught fire. From that point the fire
shot rapidly up the elevator shaft and began to spread on the then
existing third floor. (The elevator was located where the present
entrance to the Tap Room is). Glued to her telephone switch box,
Mrs. Nelson, the day desk clerk, stuck to her post awakening guests
and summoning them from their rooms. As she completed her calls
on the second floor, flames reached the telephone system and cut off
communications. Soon fire workers and police hurried along the
corridors. Guests, awakened by the shouted warnings of »FIRE!«,
rushed from their rooms and escaped to the street, many of them only partly clad. Among the registered
guests, all under aliases, were John Dillinger and six of his notorious gang members: Mr. & Mrs. Frank
Sullivan – a.k.a. John Dillinger & Billie Frechette Mr. & Mrs. James Taylor – a.k.a. Harry Pierpont and
Mary Kinder Mr. & Mrs. Art Long a.k.a. Russell Clark & Opal Long J.C.Davies – a.k.a. Charles Makley
These seven took an extremely long time to get their luggage together and when they finally went to exit
the hotel, the hallways were filled with smoke, the stairs and elevators in flames; the Dillinger gang was
trapped. Not a moment too soon, an aerial ladder of the firemen swung up to the window ledges of the
third floor. With the aid of members of the fire department, the four men and three women descended
the ladders to the street. On the urgent request of Davis and Long, along with a generous $12 tip, firemen
William Benedict and Kenneth Pender went back up to the third story rooms and rescued the luggage
that had almost cost the seven their lives. In carrying the luggage down, Benedict and Pender found that
several pieces were extremely heavy. It was revealed later on, when police took charge of them, that the
expensive suitcases contained a fine collection of machine guns, pistols, ammunition and bullet proof
vests. Three days after the fire, Benedict and Pender, finishing routine duties at the station, were reading
a copy of True Detective Mysteries. On the page devoted to Line-Up, they
recognized the face of the man who had tipped them so generously to
rescue his luggage. His name was Russell Clark – wanted for bank
robbery, murder, prison escape and a member of the feared Dillinger
Gang. After notifying the police, Makley was also identified from police
photo files and the department then suspected what had previously been
unimaginable; Dillinger and his gang were in Tucson. Following the fire,
Dillinger, Frechette,Pierpont and Kinder moved into a motel on South
Sixth. Clark, Makley and Long moved into a comfortable one story house.

CAPTURED

Coincidentally, on the night preceeding the hotel fire, Mr. Long (Russell Clark) ran into two other hotel
guests at a local Tucson night spot. These men, Mr. Rosen and Mr. Russalsaw claimed that Long greeted
them like long lost friends. He was a bit tight, and more than a bit talkative. His talk – and very
convincing talk – ran to easy money...and how it could be made with a machine gun. The story of easy
money, machine guns and robbed banks remained vivid in the minds of Rosen
and Russalsaw. They had also seen Long and his party spend money freely
and had noticed one other significant fact: Every male member of the party
was armed. The same day that the firemen discovered »Mr. Long« in a True
Detective Line-Up, Rosen and Russalsaw approached patrolman Harry Lesly
as he was walking his beat and told him about the armed men and robbery
talk they had encountered a few nights before. Lesly, half convinced that the
men he was told about were bent on robbery, stepped into a nearby call box
and rang the station. This information, combined with the firemens
identification of Clark, convinced the chief of police that they had struck pay
dirt. Not only pay dirt; Rosen and Russalsaw knew the address of Clark,
Makley and Long. At the house near the University (the house still stands at
927 Second Avenue North) a stake out ensued. A new Studebaker sedan was parked near the house.
Someone was in residence and the police did not have long to wait. A short, stocky man, neatly dressed,
came out accompanied by a woman. They stepped into the Studebaker and drove off toward downtown.
The police followed. When the Studebaker stopped at an electrical store where both the man and the
woman entered, it was noted that the man limped. The officers followed them in and told the man that he
was under arrest as a fugitive from justice. This man, who claimed to be J.C.Davies, was brought into the
police department and, through fingerprinting, identified as Charles Makley. The woman was an
»aquaintance« he had met the night before. She was released. It was decided to »force« the stake out
further by sending an officer Sherman up to the house as a stranger or salesman in search of an address.
With envelope in hand, he stepped up on the porch and rang the bell. The door swung open and a
woman asked what he wanted. Sherman, half extending the letter, said that he wanted to see a "Mr.
Clark". At the same he stepped forward and swung the door fully open and, to his surprise, Clark was
just inside! Drawing his pistol, he told the startled Clark to throw up his hands. But instead, Clark
grabbed the cylinder of the pistol and a fight ensued. The two men whirled each other about the room
while the woman tried to grab and kick the officer. Clark dragged Sherman into the bedroom where
under the pillow lay his own .38 automatic. Suddenly officers Ford and Eyman sprang through the
doorway and Ford, pistol in hand, struck twice, accurately, against Clark's head. Clark, dazed by the
blows, reeled to one side and dropped his grip on Sherman's gun. The subdued gangster and the woman
were handcuffed and loaded into the police car. They were soon identified as Russell Clark and Opal
Long. Shortly after the arrest of Clark and Long, officers Nolan and Eyeman were driving down South
Sixth on a tip that Pierpont and Dillinger were staying at a motel there. As they were driving, Nolan
recognized a Buick going the opposite direction that fit the description of Pierpont's car. The officers
made a U turn, caught up to the car and sounded their horn. The Buick pulled over. Eyeman approached
the vehicle and apologetically pointed out that Pierpont didn't have a visitor's inspection sticker,
suggesting he get one or he'd be stopped by every other officer in town. »I'll even ride down with you.«
he said, getting into the back seat. It was filled with luggage and he had to sit on a suitcase. Little did he
know that it contained a machine gun, several revolvers and ammunition. Fooled by Eyeman's easy
manner, and not knowing the fate of his partners in crime, Pierpont decided to bluff it out. Eyeman rode
downtown with a pistol pointed at Pierpont's back. Pierpont walked right into the trap, not suspecting a
thing until he saw the luggage of Makley and Clark in Chief Wollard's office. He whirled and grabbed for
the gun under his left arm. Eyeman drew faster. »Drop it.« Pierpont obeyed, but his right hand went for
a second gun in his belt. Eyeman rammed his gun in Pierpont's ribs while another officer grasped his
arms. Dillinger's »trigger man« was put behind bars. It was dusk when a new stake out team arrived at
the house on Second Avenue North where, it had been decided, Dillinger might show up. Everyone's
timing couldn't have been better coordinated. As officer Walker went around to the broken-down back
door and officer Herron was parking the car, Dillinger and Billie Frechette drove by, made a U turn and
stopped in front of the house. They had just returned from a sight- seeing trip and, of course, had no
idea that their companions were in jail. Billie waited in the car while Dillinger approached the house to
see if it was the right address. Hearing footsteps, he turned and saw a short, stocky man. In the dim
twilight he thought it was Makley, but it was Herron coming up behind him. Just as Herron drew his .38,
Walker kicked open the screen door and shouted »Stick em' up!« Dillinger slowly put up his hands and
marched off the porch to the sidewalk. Billie was ordered out of the car and told to put her hands on her
head. As Dillinger was searched his hands began to slowly drop. Walker, noticing his moves, pulled the
hammer back on his gun. »Reach for the moon!«, he said. »Or I'll cut you in two.« Dillinger obeyed,
muttering, »Well I'll be damned.« In the space of five hours, without firing a single shot, the police of
small town Tucson had done what the combined forces of several states and the city of Chicago had tried
so long and unsuccessfully to do. Dillinger was extradited by plane to Chicago where he was placed in the
county jail at Crown Point. A month later he stunned the nation by
single-handedly escaping prison with a pistol carved fron an old washboard
and blackened with boot polish.

THE LADY IN RED

On July 22, 1934, five months after his bold prison break, Dillinger was
exiting the Biograph Theater in Chicago with two women. One of them was
Anna Sage wearing a signal red dress. Threatened with deportation by FBI
agent Marvin Pervis, Anna, a Romanian brothel runner and long time friend
of the gang's, had been forced to inform them of Dillinger's whereabouts.
Never given a chance to surrender, John Dillinger was gunned down by
Pervis and other FBI agents in front of the theater. His street execution was
witnessed by throngs of bystanders, many of which dipped their skirts and
handkerchiefs in Dillinger's blood. For months after the shooting, pieces of
blood soaked cloth and vials of blood could be purchased on the streets of Chicago. Anna was given
$5,000 reward money and promptly deported to Romania.

Information for this article was taken from »The Dillinger Days«, by John Toland; »Bloodletters and Badmen«, by Jay
Robert Nash; »True Detective Mysteries«, 1934, cover story by Tucson Chief of Police C.A.Wollard. Compiled and edited
by Gary Patch, 1995.