Doc Barker was Killed While Escaping from Alcatraz - January 13, 1939

This week (January 12-18) in crime history – Malcolm X’s daughter was arrested for conspiracy to kill Louis Farrakhan (January 12, 1995); Doc Barker was killed while attempting to escape prison (January 13, 1939); Old West lawman Wyatt Earp died (January 13, 1929); Notorious traitor Benedict Arnold was born (January 14, 1741); Bill Cosby’s son was murdered (January 16, 1997); Moon Maniac, Albert Fish was executed (January 16, 1936); The Great Brinks Robbery (January 17, 1950); Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was arrested in drug sting (January 18, 1990). 

Highlighted Crime Story of the Week -  

On January 13, 1939, Arthur "Doc" Barker was killed while trying to escape from Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay. Barker, of the notorious "Bloody Barkers" gang, was spotted on the rock-strewn shore of the island after climbing over the walls. Despite the fact that guards were ordering him to surrender, Barker continued tying pieces of wood together into a makeshift raft. As he waded into the water, the guards shot and killed him. Doc Barker, along with his brothers Herman, Lloyd, and Fred, and their mother, the infamous Ma Barker, formed one of the more formidable criminal gangs of the 1920s and 1930s. Carrying out a series of bank robberies and kidnappings throughout the Midwest, Ma shrewdly paid off officials in towns all over the region, allowing the gang to avoid the law for long stretches of time. 

In 1934, with their pictures in all of the newspapers, Doc and Fred Barker tried to change their appearance through plastic surgery. They enlisted Dr. Joseph Moran to conduct the operations, including removing their fingerprints. But the plan was a disaster, and each ended up with terrible scars and infected fingers. Dr. Moran was adopted into the gang as a matter of necessity, but when he started to talk about their activities to a prostitute, the Barkers killed him. On January 8, 1935, FBI agents, led by Melvin Purvis, captured Doc Barker in Chicago, Illinois. As he searched Barker, Purvis reportedly asked, "Where's your gun?" Barker replied, "Home—and ain't that a place for it?" Eight days later, Fred and Ma Barker were pinned down at their hideout in Florida. A massive gun battle left both of them dead. 

Check back every Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.” 

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author of Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

 

 http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mayhem-Shocked-California-1849-1949/dp/0764339680/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1421080134&sr=8-3&keywords=michael+thomas+barry

Sein Fein Leader Michael Collins is killed (1922) & Ma Barker gang robs Federal Reserve Truck (1933)

On this date in 1922Irish revolutionary and Sinn Fein politician Michael Collins is killed in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland.

 

In the early part of the century, Collins joined Sinn Fein, an Irish political party dedicated to achieving independence for all Ireland. From its inception, the party became the unofficial political wing of militant Irish groups in their struggle to throw off British rule. In 1911, the British Liberal government approved negotiations for Irish Home Rule, but the Conservative Party opposition in Parliament, combined with Ireland's anti-Home Rule factions, defeated the plans. With the outbreak of World War I, the British government delayed further discussion of Irish self-determination, and Collins and other Irish nationalists responded by staging the Easter Up-Rising of 1916. In 1918, with the threat of conscription being imposed on the island, the Irish people gave Sinn Fein a majority in national elections, and the party established an independent Irish parliament, Dail Eireann, which declared Ireland a sovereign republic. In 1919, Collins led the Irish Volunteers, a prototype of the Irish Republican Army, in a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces. Two years later, a cease-fire was declared, and Collins was one of the architects of the historic 1921 peace treaty with Great Britain, which granted autonomy to southern Ireland. In January 1922, Sinn Fein founder Arthur Griffith was elected president of the newly established Irish Free State, and Collins was appointed as his finance minister. He held the post until he was assassinated by Republican extremists in August 1922. 

On this date in 1933, the notorious Ma Barker gang robs a Federal Reserve mail truck in Chicago, Illinois, and kills Officer Miles Cunningham.

 

Netting only a bunch of worthless checks, the Barkers soon returned to a crime with which they had more success—kidnapping. A few months later, the Barkers kidnapped wealthy banker Edward Bremer, demanding $200,000 in ransom. After Kate Clark married George Barker in 1892, she gave birth to four boys: Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Freddie. Ma Barker, as Kate was known, was ostensibly responsible for discipline in the family, but she let her boys run wild. She defended her children no matter what they did, saying, "If the good people of this town don't like my boys, then the good people know what they can do." All the Barker boys became involved in crime during their childhood: In 1922, Lloyd robbed a post office and received a 25-year sentence in federal prison; that same year, Arthur "Doc" Barker got a life sentence in Oklahoma for killing a night watchman, though later it would turn out that he was innocent; Freddie was next to see the insides of a holding cell after robbing a bank. While he was serving time in Kansas, Herman committed suicide in the midst of a heated gunfight with police after robbing a bank in Missouri. Herman's death inspired Ma Barker to pressure authorities to release her other sons, and Doc and Freddie were set free. With Ma masterminding their criminal enterprise, the Barkers were at the center of the Midwest's burgeoning criminal community. When they tired of bank robberies, the Barkers tried their hand at kidnapping. Their first victim, William Hamm, earned the gang $100,000 in ransom. Although the Bremer abduction in 1933 produced twice as much, it brought them a lot of heat from federal authorities. With the FBI on their trail, Doc and Freddie attempted plastic surgery. But this half-baked idea left them only with disfiguring scars, and Doc was captured in early 1935. Doc, who was later killed while attempting to escape from Alcatraz in 1939, refused to talk to authorities, but police found papers in his hideout that led them to Ma and Freddie in Lake Weir, Florida. After a ferocious shootout lasting 45 minutes, the Barkers lay dead from the fusillade, machine guns still at their sides. Twelve years later, Lloyd Barker was finally paroled. He too met a violent demise, but not at the hands of the police, his wife shot him dead in 1949. Father George Barker, who was never part of the Barker gang, was the family's sole survivor.