Willie Sutton
Encyclopedia
William "Willie" Sutton was a prolific U.S.
bank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison. For his talent at executing robberies in disguises, he gained two nicknames, "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie." Sutton is known, albeit apocryphally, for an urban legend
in which it's claimed he said that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is."
. He was the fourth of five children, and did not go beyond the 8th grade of school. He turned to crime at an early age though throughout his professional criminal career he never killed anyone. Described by Mafioso
Donald Frankos as a little bright-eyed man who stood at 5 feet 7 inches, he was very talkative, chain-smoked hand rolled Bull Durham tobacco
cigarettes, and dispensed mounds of legal advice to any convict willing to listen. Inmates considered Sutton a "wise old head" in the prison population. When incarcerated at "The Tombs
" (Manhattan House of Detention) he never had to worry about assault because Mafia friends looked after him. In conversation with Donald Frankos he would sadly reminisce about the violent and turbulent days in the 1920s and 1930s while he was most active in robbing banks and would always tell fellow convicts that in his opinion, during the days of Al Capone
and Charles Lucania, better known as Lucky Luciano
, the criminal underworld was the bloodiest. Gangsters from the time period, and many incarcerated organized crime
mafia
family leaders and made
Mafiosi loved having Sutton around for companionship. He was always a gentleman, witty and non-violent. Frankos declared that Sutton made legendary bank thieves Jesse James
and John Dillinger
look like amateurs.
Sutton married Louise Leudemann in 1929. She divorced him while he was in jail. Their daughter Jeanie was born the following year. His second wife was Olga Kowalska, whom he married in 1933. His longest period of (legal) employment lasted for only 18 months.
Sutton preferred the name Bill, but police nicknamed him Willie.
He robbed about 100 banks from the late 1920s to his final arrest in 1952—with several prison terms in between; he was also a master at breaking out of prisons.
. "You can't rob a bank on charm and personality," he once observed. In an interview in the Reader's Digest
published shortly before his death, Sutton was asked if the guns that he used in robberies were loaded. He responded that he never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt. He stole from the rich and kept it, though public opinion later turned him into a perverse type of Robin Hood
figure. He allegedly never robbed a bank when a woman screamed or a baby cried.
Sutton was captured and recommitted in June 1931, charged with assault
and robbery
. He did not complete his 30-year sentence, escaping on December 11, 1932, using a smuggled gun and holding a prison guard hostage. With the guard as leverage, Sutton acquired a 13.5-meter (45 ft) ladder to scale the 9-meter (30 ft) wall of the prison grounds.
On February 15, 1933, Sutton attempted to rob the Corn Exchange Bank and Trust Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. He came in disguised as a postman, but an alert passerby foiled the crime. Sutton escaped. On January 15, 1934, he and two companions broke into the same bank through a skylight.
The FBI record observes:
Sutton was apprehended on February 5, 1934, and was sentenced to serve 25 to 50 years in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the machine gun robbery of the Corn Exchange Bank. On April 3, 1945, Sutton was one of 12 convicts who escaped the institution through a tunnel. Sutton was recaptured the same day by Philadelphia police officers.
Sentenced to life imprisonment as a fourth time offender, Sutton was transferred to the Philadelphia County Prison, Holmesburg section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On February 10, 1947, Sutton and other prisoners dressed up as prison guards. The men carried two ladders across the prison yard to the wall after dark. When the prison's searchlights hit him, Sutton yelled, "It's okay!" No one stopped him.
On March 20, 1950, Sutton was the eleventh
listed on the FBI's brand new FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
, created only a week earlier, on March 14.
In February 1952, Sutton was captured by police after having been recognized on a subway and followed by Arnold Schuster
, a 24-year-old Brooklyn clothing salesman and amateur detective. Schuster later appeared on television and described how he had assisted in Sutton's apprehension. Albert Anastasia
, Mafia boss of the Gambino crime family, took a dislike to Schuster because he was a "squealer." According to Mafia turncoat and government informant, Joe Valachi
, Anastasia ordered the murder of Schuster, who was shot to death outside his home on March 9, 1952.
Judge Peter T. Farrell
presided over a 1952 trial in which Sutton had been charged with the 1950 heist of $63,942 (equal to $ today) from a branch of the Manufacturers Trust Company in Sunnyside, Queens
, part of more than $2 million he was estimated to have stolen from various banks over the course of his career in crime. Sutton was found guilty and given a sentence of 30 to 120 years in Attica State Prison.
Farrell suspended Sutton's sentence in December 1969, ruling that Sutton's good behavior in prison and his deteriorating health due to emphysema justified the suspension of the sentence. After the ruling was delivered, Sutton said "Thank you, your Honor. God bless you" and started crying as he was led out of the court building. Sutton still had to receive a suspension of a separate 30-year-to-life sentence he had received in Brooklyn
in 1952 and then could be released on parole from a 1930 conviction.
A series of decisions by the United States Supreme Court in the 1960s led to his release on Christmas Eve
, 1969, from Attica State Prison. He was in ill health at the time, suffering from emphysema
and in need of an operation on the arteries of his legs.
Once a free man, he spoke about prison reform
and consulted with banks on anti-robbery techniques. In an ironic display, he made a television commercial for New Britain Bank and Trust Co. in Connecticut for their credit card with picture ID on it. His lines were, "They call it the 'face card.' Now when I say I'm Willie Sutton, people believe me."
Sutton died in 1980 at the age of 79; before this he had spent his last years with his sister in Spring Hill, Florida
. He frequented the Spring Hill Restaurant where he kept to himself. After Sutton's death, his family arranged a quiet burial in Brooklyn in the family plot.
, often taught to medical students.
In his partly ghostwritten autobiography, Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber (Viking Press, New York, 1976), Sutton dismissed this story, saying:
Nevertheless, the legend has resulted in the "Willie Sutton rule," used in activity-based costing
(ABC) of management accounting
. The law stipulates that ABC should be applied "where the money is," meaning where the highest costs are incurred, and thus the highest potential of over-all cost reduction is.
portrayed Willie Sutton in "The Case of Willie Sutton", a 1952 episode of the TV-series Gang Busters
.
A reference to Willie Sutton's apocryphal quote is made in The Distinguished Gentleman
, a 1992 comedy starring Eddie Murphy
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
bank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison. For his talent at executing robberies in disguises, he gained two nicknames, "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie." Sutton is known, albeit apocryphally, for an urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
in which it's claimed he said that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is."
Life summary
Sutton was born into an Irish-American family in an Irish neighborhood in Greenpoint, BrooklynGreenpoint, Brooklyn
Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg, on the north by Newtown Creek and Long Island City, Queens at the...
. He was the fourth of five children, and did not go beyond the 8th grade of school. He turned to crime at an early age though throughout his professional criminal career he never killed anyone. Described by Mafioso
Mafioso
Mafioso may refer to:* Mafioso , a 1962 Italian crime comedy film* Mafioso , a member of an Italian mafia clan* Mafioso rap, a hip hop sub-genre...
Donald Frankos as a little bright-eyed man who stood at 5 feet 7 inches, he was very talkative, chain-smoked hand rolled Bull Durham tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
cigarettes, and dispensed mounds of legal advice to any convict willing to listen. Inmates considered Sutton a "wise old head" in the prison population. When incarcerated at "The Tombs
The Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
" (Manhattan House of Detention) he never had to worry about assault because Mafia friends looked after him. In conversation with Donald Frankos he would sadly reminisce about the violent and turbulent days in the 1920s and 1930s while he was most active in robbing banks and would always tell fellow convicts that in his opinion, during the days of Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
and Charles Lucania, better known as Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano
Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
, the criminal underworld was the bloodiest. Gangsters from the time period, and many incarcerated organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
family leaders and made
Made man
A made man, also known as a Mafioso , made guy, man of honor, or uomo d'onore , is someone who has been officially inducted into the Sicilian or American Mafia . They may also be referred to by some as a goodfella or wiseguy...
Mafiosi loved having Sutton around for companionship. He was always a gentleman, witty and non-violent. Frankos declared that Sutton made legendary bank thieves Jesse James
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He also faked his own death and was known as J.M James. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary...
and John Dillinger
John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger, Jr. was an American bank robber in Depression-era United States. He was charged with, but never convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer during a shoot-out. This was his only alleged homicide. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations...
look like amateurs.
Sutton married Louise Leudemann in 1929. She divorced him while he was in jail. Their daughter Jeanie was born the following year. His second wife was Olga Kowalska, whom he married in 1933. His longest period of (legal) employment lasted for only 18 months.
Sutton preferred the name Bill, but police nicknamed him Willie.
He robbed about 100 banks from the late 1920s to his final arrest in 1952—with several prison terms in between; he was also a master at breaking out of prisons.
Career in crime
Sutton was an accomplished bank robber. He usually carried a pistol or a Thompson submachine gunThompson submachine gun
The Thompson is an American submachine gun, invented by John T. Thompson in 1919, that became infamous during the Prohibition era. It was a common sight in the media of the time, being used by both law enforcement officers and criminals...
. "You can't rob a bank on charm and personality," he once observed. In an interview in the Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
published shortly before his death, Sutton was asked if the guns that he used in robberies were loaded. He responded that he never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt. He stole from the rich and kept it, though public opinion later turned him into a perverse type of Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
figure. He allegedly never robbed a bank when a woman screamed or a baby cried.
Sutton was captured and recommitted in June 1931, charged with assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
and robbery
Robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....
. He did not complete his 30-year sentence, escaping on December 11, 1932, using a smuggled gun and holding a prison guard hostage. With the guard as leverage, Sutton acquired a 13.5-meter (45 ft) ladder to scale the 9-meter (30 ft) wall of the prison grounds.
On February 15, 1933, Sutton attempted to rob the Corn Exchange Bank and Trust Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. He came in disguised as a postman, but an alert passerby foiled the crime. Sutton escaped. On January 15, 1934, he and two companions broke into the same bank through a skylight.
The FBI record observes:
- Sutton also executed a Broadway jewelry store robbery in broad daylight, impersonating a postal telegraph messenger. Sutton's other disguises included a police officer, messenger and maintenance man. He usually arrived at banks or stores shortly before they opened for business.
Sutton was apprehended on February 5, 1934, and was sentenced to serve 25 to 50 years in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the machine gun robbery of the Corn Exchange Bank. On April 3, 1945, Sutton was one of 12 convicts who escaped the institution through a tunnel. Sutton was recaptured the same day by Philadelphia police officers.
Sentenced to life imprisonment as a fourth time offender, Sutton was transferred to the Philadelphia County Prison, Holmesburg section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On February 10, 1947, Sutton and other prisoners dressed up as prison guards. The men carried two ladders across the prison yard to the wall after dark. When the prison's searchlights hit him, Sutton yelled, "It's okay!" No one stopped him.
On March 20, 1950, Sutton was the eleventh
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1950s
In the 1950s, the United States FBI began to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Following is a brief review of FBI people and events that place the 1950s decade in context, and then an historical list of individual fugitives whose names first...
listed on the FBI's brand new FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the...
, created only a week earlier, on March 14.
In February 1952, Sutton was captured by police after having been recognized on a subway and followed by Arnold Schuster
Arnold Schuster
Arnold L. Schuster was a Brooklyn, New York, clothing salesman and amateur detective, known for his involvement in the capture of bank robber Willie "The Actor" Sutton and for subsequently being the victim of a gangland murder by the Gambino crime family...
, a 24-year-old Brooklyn clothing salesman and amateur detective. Schuster later appeared on television and described how he had assisted in Sutton's apprehension. Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia was boss of what is now called the Gambino crime family, one of New York City's Five Families, from 1951-1957. He also ran a gang of contract killers called Murder Inc. which enforced the decisions of the Commission, the ruling council of the American Mafia...
, Mafia boss of the Gambino crime family, took a dislike to Schuster because he was a "squealer." According to Mafia turncoat and government informant, Joe Valachi
Joe Valachi
Joseph "Joe Cargo" Valachi , Italian American, also known as "Charles Chanbano" and "Anthony Sorge" was the first Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia. He is also the person who made Cosa Nostra a household name.-Career:Joseph Valachi was born in East Harlem, New York...
, Anastasia ordered the murder of Schuster, who was shot to death outside his home on March 9, 1952.
Judge Peter T. Farrell
Peter T. Farrell
Peter T. Farrell was an American judge from Queens, New York City, who served as a judge on Queens County Court and the New York Supreme Court, where he primarily handled criminal cases...
presided over a 1952 trial in which Sutton had been charged with the 1950 heist of $63,942 (equal to $ today) from a branch of the Manufacturers Trust Company in Sunnyside, Queens
Sunnyside, Queens
Sunnyside is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens, in New York state, in the United States. It shares borders with Hunters Point and Long Island City to the west, Astoria to the north, Woodside to the east and Maspeth to the south...
, part of more than $2 million he was estimated to have stolen from various banks over the course of his career in crime. Sutton was found guilty and given a sentence of 30 to 120 years in Attica State Prison.
Farrell suspended Sutton's sentence in December 1969, ruling that Sutton's good behavior in prison and his deteriorating health due to emphysema justified the suspension of the sentence. After the ruling was delivered, Sutton said "Thank you, your Honor. God bless you" and started crying as he was led out of the court building. Sutton still had to receive a suspension of a separate 30-year-to-life sentence he had received in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
in 1952 and then could be released on parole from a 1930 conviction.
Final years
Willie Sutton stole an estimated $2 million in his career, and spent more than half his adult life in prison.A series of decisions by the United States Supreme Court in the 1960s led to his release on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
, 1969, from Attica State Prison. He was in ill health at the time, suffering from emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
and in need of an operation on the arteries of his legs.
Once a free man, he spoke about prison reform
Prison reform
Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...
and consulted with banks on anti-robbery techniques. In an ironic display, he made a television commercial for New Britain Bank and Trust Co. in Connecticut for their credit card with picture ID on it. His lines were, "They call it the 'face card.' Now when I say I'm Willie Sutton, people believe me."
Sutton died in 1980 at the age of 79; before this he had spent his last years with his sister in Spring Hill, Florida
Spring Hill, Florida
Spring Hill is a census-designated place in Hernando County, Florida, United States. The estimated population was 92,144 in 2007 by the United States Census. Spring Hill belongs to Florida's Nature Coast and is in the Tampa-St...
. He frequented the Spring Hill Restaurant where he kept to himself. After Sutton's death, his family arranged a quiet burial in Brooklyn in the family plot.
An urban legend
Sutton is famously — but apocryphally — supposed to have answered reporter, Mitch Ohnstad, who asked why he robbed banks, by saying, "because that's where the money is." The supposed quote formed the basis of Sutton's lawSutton's law
Sutton's law states that when diagnosing, one should first consider the obvious. It suggests that one should first conduct those tests which could confirm the most likely diagnosis...
, often taught to medical students.
In his partly ghostwritten autobiography, Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber (Viking Press, New York, 1976), Sutton dismissed this story, saying:
Nevertheless, the legend has resulted in the "Willie Sutton rule," used in activity-based costing
Activity-based costing
Activity-based costing is a special costing model that identifies activities in an organization and assigns the cost of each activity with resources to all products and services according to the actual consumption by each...
(ABC) of management accounting
Management accounting
Management accounting or managerial accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control...
. The law stipulates that ABC should be applied "where the money is," meaning where the highest costs are incurred, and thus the highest potential of over-all cost reduction is.
In popular culture
Actor Jay NovelloJay Novello
Jay Novello was an American radio, film, and television character actor.Born in Chicago as Michael Romano, of Italian descent, Novello began his career as a radio actor, playing Jack Packard on the Hollywood version of I Love a Mystery for a brief period, circa 1944...
portrayed Willie Sutton in "The Case of Willie Sutton", a 1952 episode of the TV-series Gang Busters
Gang Busters
Gang Busters was an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered as G-Men, sponsored by Chevrolet, on July 20, 1935.-History:...
.
A reference to Willie Sutton's apocryphal quote is made in The Distinguished Gentleman
The Distinguished Gentleman
The Distinguished Gentleman is a comedy starring Eddie Murphy. The film was directed by Jonathan Lynn. In addition to Murphy, the film stars Lane Smith, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Joe Don Baker, Victoria Rowell, Grant Shaud, Kevin McCarthy, Charles S...
, a 1992 comedy starring Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy
Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, director, and musician....
.
External links
- FBI website entry on William Sutton
- A biography
- "Willie Sutton, Urbane Scoundrel" New York Times, February 17, 2002
- Willie Sutton
- 'Willie Sutton Is Dead At 79', New York Times obituary, November 19, 1980
- Contract Killer: The Explosive Story of the Mafia's Most Notorious Hit Man Donald "Tony the Greek" Frankos by William Hoffman and Lake Headley