Fleagle Gang
Encyclopedia
The Fleagle Gang was a group of early 20th century American
bank robbers and murder
ers. They were found and executed or killed after robbing the First National Bank
in Lamar, Colorado
. Their cases were the first ever in which a single fingerprint was part of the evidence leading to a conviction. They were also suspected to have committed a series of previous bank robberies over a 10-year period.
. They planned to rob the First National Bank
.
They had hooked up at a ranch near Marienthal, Kansas
shortly before the robbery, but Jake Fleagle had been planning on robbing the Lamar bank for some time. Like many professional robbers of that time, the Fleagles, together with Abshier, had carefully scouted the bank on several occasions before the day came to actually hold it up.
The gang had maps of the roads of Prowers County, Colorado
, and the brothers had been inside the bank building and knew its layout. Abshier said they had weighed the “possibilities” and decided that it was a job for no less than four men, so they recruited Heavy Royston.
When they left Kansas on May 23, about 3 a.m., the men had license plates from Kansas
, Colorado
, Oklahoma
and California
to throw any witnesses off their track. Each man went heavily armed.
The drive took about six hours, but the plan required them to wait until the afternoon to commit the robbery. Finally, about 1 p.m., it was time to move.
In the noise and confusion of the moment, Bank President A.N. Parrish ducked into his office and pulled out an .45
he called "Old Betsy" and fired a shot at the closest bank robber from the door to his office hitting Royston in the jaw, and then by all accounts, all hell broke loose.
The bank cashier, William Garrett and Miss Vivian Potter, another bank employee, said later two of the gunmen struggled with customers and most of the gang members were shouting to their victims to either lie down or put their hands up. Abshier, who later confessed to his role in the robbery and its aftermath, recalled that;
During the struggle, the bank president, A.N. Parrish, shot Heavy Royston in the face and was subsequently shot and killed himself. Jaddo Parrish, the son of the president, was also a bank employee and was killed in the fusillade.
The bandits loaded their booty — $10,664 in cash, $12,400 in Liberty Bonds, and almost $200,000 in commercial paper
— into pillow cases and grabbed two hostages. The original plan had called for the gang to take Jaddo Parrish as hostage, because they felt that his father would not pursue them and risk his son’s life, but when Jaddo was killed, the gunmen opted to take others.
in a car chase that ended at a crossing on Sand Creek northeast of Lamar, where the robbers used rifles to disable the sheriff's car, the gang made good its escape. Ralph Fleagle was driving the 1927 blue Buick Master Six
getaway
car.
During the car chase the gang released the one-arm teller Lundgren. Kesinger pleaded that he had a wife and new baby, and asked to be let go, but the bandits refused, forcing Kesinger to ride on the floor of the back seat of the car while Royston used a pillow case to catch the blood from his wound in the front seat.
The gang arrived back in Kansas by nightfall. Royston, who had been shot by the dead bank president, needed medical attention, so the gang tricked a local doctor into coming out from his Dighton, Kansas
home at night by telling him that a young boy’s foot had been crushed by a tractor.
When Dr. W.W. Weinenger arrived at the ranch, he discovered the ruse but obviously treated Royston’s wounds. After he finished, the gang bound him up and blindfolded him, took him out of the ranch and shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun and rolled his body and his Buick into a ravine north of Scott City, Kansas
. The car and doctor's body were spotted from the air by a Colorado National Guard
airplane that had been brought from Denver to aid in the search. Dozens of citizen posses crisscrossed the counties along the Colorado border in search of the getaway car.
The Fleagle brothers took Kesinger to a shack near Liberal, Kansas
and shot him. The body was discovered about three weeks after the bank robbery.
in March 1929 his fingerprints were sent to the Bureau of Investigation (later known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation
) in Washington DC, where they were identified as Jake Fleagle and connected to the Lamar bank robbery. Ralph was arrested first in Kankakee, Illinois
and after flying back to Kansas and being booked in Lamar he was taken to Colorado Springs where he eventually confessed. Ralph agreed to provide authorities with information about the rest of the gang in exchange for the release of his two brothers Fred and Walt Fleagle. A nationwide manhunt for Jake resulted in his death in a shootout on a train in Branson, Missouri
, in October 1930 after his brother had been hung in Colorado. Royston was captured at his home in San Andreas, California, and Abshire was arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado
.
Their appeals to the Colorado Supreme Court went for naught and the men were executed over a two-week period in mid-July 1930. This was the very first time a single fingerprint had been used to convict someone of a crime, and was a major success for the FBI.
. Ralph's wife Margaret was sent packing by the Fleagle family shortly after Ralph was hung in Colorado, but there is no evidence of where she went.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
bank robbers and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ers. They were found and executed or killed after robbing the First National Bank
First National Bank
First National Bank may refer to:-Banking institutions :* First National Bank of Florida, based in Milton, Florida, with branches in Pensacola and other cities in the Florida Panhandle.* FNB Corporation of Hermitage, Pennsylvania...
in Lamar, Colorado
Lamar, Colorado
The City of Lamar is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Prowers County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 8,869 at the U.S...
. Their cases were the first ever in which a single fingerprint was part of the evidence leading to a conviction. They were also suspected to have committed a series of previous bank robberies over a 10-year period.
Planning
On May 23, 1928, Ralph Fleagle, his brother Jake, George J. Abshier, (a.k.a. Bill Messick), and Howard “Heavy” Royston, came in to Lamar, ColoradoLamar, Colorado
The City of Lamar is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Prowers County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 8,869 at the U.S...
. They planned to rob the First National Bank
First National Bank
First National Bank may refer to:-Banking institutions :* First National Bank of Florida, based in Milton, Florida, with branches in Pensacola and other cities in the Florida Panhandle.* FNB Corporation of Hermitage, Pennsylvania...
.
They had hooked up at a ranch near Marienthal, Kansas
Marienthal, Kansas
Marienthal is an unincorporated community in Wichita County, Kansas, United States. The post office was established March 18, 1902. Its ZIP code is 67863. The town was founded in 1892 by a group of immigrant Germans from Russia; they named it after their previous hometown of Marienthal, Russia...
shortly before the robbery, but Jake Fleagle had been planning on robbing the Lamar bank for some time. Like many professional robbers of that time, the Fleagles, together with Abshier, had carefully scouted the bank on several occasions before the day came to actually hold it up.
The gang had maps of the roads of Prowers County, Colorado
Prowers County, Colorado
Prowers County is one of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county is named in honor of John W. Prowers, a leading pioneer in the lower Arkansas valley region. The county population was 14,483 at U.S. Census 2000...
, and the brothers had been inside the bank building and knew its layout. Abshier said they had weighed the “possibilities” and decided that it was a job for no less than four men, so they recruited Heavy Royston.
When they left Kansas on May 23, about 3 a.m., the men had license plates from Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to throw any witnesses off their track. Each man went heavily armed.
The drive took about six hours, but the plan required them to wait until the afternoon to commit the robbery. Finally, about 1 p.m., it was time to move.
The Robbery
E.A. Lundgren, a one-armed teller at the bank was waiting on a customer when he saw the men come into the bank and heard one shout, “You sons-a-bitches get them all up!” and another yell, “Hands up!”In the noise and confusion of the moment, Bank President A.N. Parrish ducked into his office and pulled out an .45
.45
.45 may refer to:* .45 ACP, a cartridge designed by John Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic .45 pistol and eventually the M1911 pistol adopted by the United States Army in 1911* .45-70, a cartridge developed at the U.S...
he called "Old Betsy" and fired a shot at the closest bank robber from the door to his office hitting Royston in the jaw, and then by all accounts, all hell broke loose.
The bank cashier, William Garrett and Miss Vivian Potter, another bank employee, said later two of the gunmen struggled with customers and most of the gang members were shouting to their victims to either lie down or put their hands up. Abshier, who later confessed to his role in the robbery and its aftermath, recalled that;
- “I grabs hold of the man standing alongside of me, shoved him to the floor; told him to get down. I wanted them out of the way of the bullets.”
During the struggle, the bank president, A.N. Parrish, shot Heavy Royston in the face and was subsequently shot and killed himself. Jaddo Parrish, the son of the president, was also a bank employee and was killed in the fusillade.
The bandits loaded their booty — $10,664 in cash, $12,400 in Liberty Bonds, and almost $200,000 in commercial paper
Commercial paper
In the global money market, commercial paper is an unsecured promissory note with a fixed maturity of 1 to 270 days. Commercial Paper is a money-market security issued by large banks and corporations to get money to meet short term debt obligations , and is only backed by an issuing bank or...
— into pillow cases and grabbed two hostages. The original plan had called for the gang to take Jaddo Parrish as hostage, because they felt that his father would not pursue them and risk his son’s life, but when Jaddo was killed, the gunmen opted to take others.
Escape
The gang, along with hostages Edward A. Lundgren and a teller named Everett Kesinger, headed out to the car by a back door and roared out of town. After fending off the sheriffSheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
in a car chase that ended at a crossing on Sand Creek northeast of Lamar, where the robbers used rifles to disable the sheriff's car, the gang made good its escape. Ralph Fleagle was driving the 1927 blue Buick Master Six
Buick Master Six
The Buick Master Six was an automobile built by the Buick Motor Division of General Motors from 1925 to 1928. It was powered by a Buick Straight-6 engine and available as either Sedan and Touring models. It was Buick's high-end offering, above the Standard Six.-References:* Slauson, H. W.; Howard...
getaway
Getaway
Getaway is Australia's longest-running and most popular holiday and travel television programme. Debuting on 14 May 1992, it is currently broadcast on the Nine Network and TLC...
car.
During the car chase the gang released the one-arm teller Lundgren. Kesinger pleaded that he had a wife and new baby, and asked to be let go, but the bandits refused, forcing Kesinger to ride on the floor of the back seat of the car while Royston used a pillow case to catch the blood from his wound in the front seat.
The gang arrived back in Kansas by nightfall. Royston, who had been shot by the dead bank president, needed medical attention, so the gang tricked a local doctor into coming out from his Dighton, Kansas
Dighton, Kansas
Dighton is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,038.-19th century:...
home at night by telling him that a young boy’s foot had been crushed by a tractor.
When Dr. W.W. Weinenger arrived at the ranch, he discovered the ruse but obviously treated Royston’s wounds. After he finished, the gang bound him up and blindfolded him, took him out of the ranch and shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun and rolled his body and his Buick into a ravine north of Scott City, Kansas
Scott City, Kansas
Scott City is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,816.-Geography:Scott City is located at...
. The car and doctor's body were spotted from the air by a Colorado National Guard
Colorado National Guard
The Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is a state agency of the Government of Colorado. It supervises both the Colorado National Guard , and non-military state safety agencies.The Department consists of the Department of Military Affairs, and the Division of Veterans' Affairs, and...
airplane that had been brought from Denver to aid in the search. Dozens of citizen posses crisscrossed the counties along the Colorado border in search of the getaway car.
The Fleagle brothers took Kesinger to a shack near Liberal, Kansas
Liberal, Kansas
Liberal is the county seat of Seward County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 20,525.- History :S.S. Rogers built the first house in what would become Liberal in 1872. Rogers became famous in the region for giving water to weary travelers...
and shot him. The body was discovered about three weeks after the bank robbery.
Manhunt
The gang divided the loot and separated, with Abshire driving Royston to Minneapolis, Minnesota to be seen by a dental surgeon. After reaching Minneapolis each man went to a different area of the country with Abshire going to Grand Junction, Colorado, Royston to San Andreas, California and Ralph to San Francisco, California. It took police about 13 months to track down the owner of the single latent fingerprint left on the windows of Dr. Weinenger’s car. When Jake was arrested in Stockton, CaliforniaStockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
in March 1929 his fingerprints were sent to the Bureau of Investigation (later known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
) in Washington DC, where they were identified as Jake Fleagle and connected to the Lamar bank robbery. Ralph was arrested first in Kankakee, Illinois
Kankakee, Illinois
Kankakee is a city in Kankakee County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 25,561, and 26,840 as of a 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Kankakee County...
and after flying back to Kansas and being booked in Lamar he was taken to Colorado Springs where he eventually confessed. Ralph agreed to provide authorities with information about the rest of the gang in exchange for the release of his two brothers Fred and Walt Fleagle. A nationwide manhunt for Jake resulted in his death in a shootout on a train in Branson, Missouri
Branson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
, in October 1930 after his brother had been hung in Colorado. Royston was captured at his home in San Andreas, California, and Abshire was arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado
Grand Junction, Colorado
The City of Grand Junction is the largest city in western Colorado. It is a city with a council–manager government form that is the county seat and the most populous city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction is situated west-southwest of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. As...
.
Legal Process
The three were tried first in Lamar, Colorado, and in a sensational series of trials in October and November 1929, and all of them were sentenced to hang.Their appeals to the Colorado Supreme Court went for naught and the men were executed over a two-week period in mid-July 1930. This was the very first time a single fingerprint had been used to convict someone of a crime, and was a major success for the FBI.
Treasure
Even today treasure hunters scour the west looking for the caches of loot supposedly buried by skinflint Ralph Fleagle. Credible rumors, but little proof, abound about unrecovered loot buried in California, Kansas and possibly Missouri. There is evidence that Ralph invested much of his money, and possibly owned an apartment building in San Francisco, where he had been living before being arrested in Kankakee, IllinoisKankakee, Illinois
Kankakee is a city in Kankakee County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 25,561, and 26,840 as of a 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Kankakee County...
. Ralph's wife Margaret was sent packing by the Fleagle family shortly after Ralph was hung in Colorado, but there is no evidence of where she went.
Sources
- Abshier v. People, No. 12,558., Supreme Court of Colorado, 87 Colo. 507; 289 P. 1081; 1930 Colo. LEXISLexisLexis may refer to:*Lexis , the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon*Lexis *Lexis.com, part of the LexisNexis online information database-People with the name:...
258, June 9, 1930 - Royston v. People, No. 12,559., Supreme Court of Colorado, 87 Colo. 529; 289 P. 1077; 1930 Colo. LEXIS 259, June 9, 1930
- Fleagle v. People, No. 12,580., Supreme Court of Colorado, 87 Colo. 532; 289 P. 1078; 1930 Colo. LEXIS 260, June 9, 1930
- The Fleagle Gang, by N.T. Betz ISBN 978-1420817614 (2005 Authorhouse)