Ma' Barker: A Doting Mother And Gangster Overlord

how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I've been saying like it's it's it's very good of you to take over the hangover duties this morning because I've been I've been taking them over uh for most of this week. So I'm glad we could coordinate that. I'm the podcasting equivalent of that that marine who dives on a hand grenade to save his squad, but the hand grenade was drinking too much at the live podcast recording I did last night, and then eating Indian food and continue to drink.

It's really hard to turn down free drinks being given to you by people who like you and think that you're cool. It's Uh, it's a tough proposition to turn down. I can I can absolutely say it beats having free drinks thrown at you by people who hate you and think that you're lame, which is my prior experience. So if I have to pick one, I will pick it now. Emily, how do you how do you? How do you? How do you feel about gangsters? Um? I'm relatively down with gangsters.

I mean, there's so many there's so many genres of gangster across history that you know, Yeah, it's hard to say blanket, I'm into all gangsters, but sure, I'm open to gangsters. Do you do you think that, damn it, it feels good to be a gangster? Um? I actually feel like it would be. I feel like, damn it

would be very stressful to be a gangster. Honestly, anytime I watch one of those like norm movies or something, I'm like, how do you live every night when you're pretty sure that somebody's gonna barge in your house with a Tommy gun? Like that just seems extremely stressful? But yeah, yeah, yeah, it does seem very stressful. Um. Would you say you're the kind of person who just sort of like you got a grab bag of FBI agents on one hand, you get a grab bag of gangsters. On another hand,

you pull randomly from both bags. What do you think the odds are you wind up more sympathetic to the gangster you pull out than the FBI agent you pull out. Um, I think I'm always going to trend towards the gangster. Uh, just on principle. Well, then we're copasetic on this because I'm in the same boat, and today we are talking about a gangster, uh, and a gangster that uh, Sophie, our producer has been wanting me to write an episode about for quite a while. So that's that's the story

of this day. All right, good God, I'm gonna I'm gonna thanks for coming up with the idea. I wrote it this on a plane, UM, so you can taste the altitude and the words. I assume now, as a recovering Oklahoman and a crime appreciator, I too have a lot of inherent sympathy for the gangsters. Particularly of the nineteen twenties and thirties, criminal capitalist speculators and baggers had destroyed the national economy, while reckless commercial agriculture had ruined

most of the national ecology. None of the men responsible for this ever suffered any legal consequences for their crimes. Most of them got to keep living in giant mansions and getting fat off the collected labor of the impoverished American populace. When FDR tried to moderately alleviate the suffering of the American people, these folks attempted to depose him via a military coup. So I look with understanding at the people who robbed banks and burgled the businesses of

the one percent, particularly during this period. Um. Now, these guys also killed a lot of innocent people with machine guns, so it's kind of hard to call them heroes. But I don't normally call any given gangster a bastard. Um. Some of my bias on this is probably due to the fact that one of the most famous gangsters of the gangster era was a cousin of mine, a fellow named pretty Boy Floyd Barnes. Oh really, pretty boy Floyd. That's incredible. Yeah, he was my great grandma's first cousin.

She was very proud of him, as was my grandmother. Yeah, she would talk about our outlaw blood all the time. I mean, that's very romantic. It's so much easier to romanticize having a gangster in your family than an FBI agent in your family. It's just true. It's just something elemental about it. Yeah, I would rather be related to a gangster than a copy unless that cop is Bruce Willis in one of the four movies in which she's he's a fun cop. He gets to do fun cop

things he does. Real police rarely get to ramp vehicles into other vehicles, and when they do, it's usually racist. So it's a hard one. Now. Pretty Boy Floyd was known to his fellow Oklahoman's as the sage brush Robin Hood. He got his start in crime at a j teen, stealing three and fifty dollars in pennies, or, if you believe Woody Guthrie, from beating a cop to death with

a log chain for cursing in front of his wife. Now, the thing that disturbed authorities like jedeger Hoover of the Bureau of Investigation was how popular many gangsters were with the common folk. This was in part because they targeted banks. Pretty Boy Floyd was famous for robbing on the insured banks and for burning the mortgage papers of farmers when

he came across them. The FBI's archives somewhat disputes that, noting while Floyd reportedly destroyed mortgage notes from a bank or two that he robbed in hopes of saving a few farmers from foreclosure, his reputation is a humanitarian or a robin Hood is undeserved. Now, they don't go into buch to tail about that. They just say, because he shot a lot of cops, Uh, he wasn't a robin Hood. But I should note here that the FBI is not the most reliable source on the lives of gangsters in

this era. They're the agency that killed most of these people, um, including our current subjects of the day, Mob Barker and her sons, um. But the lives of gangsters are very deeply politicized still, and so the research I've conducted for this episode, which was not crazy extensive, I caught the Bureau in at least one lie by a mission. Now, I say all this to set it up that if you read the official FBI reports on some of the stuff we're talking about, they will contrast with the story

I am telling you today. The story I'm telling you today is based primarily on the work of historians who I trust more than cops. So anyway, that's the introduction. Um. Always always robin shared banks. I just want to do out there. I mean it's hard not to at this point. If you're going to rob a bank is probably insured, but make sure your bank's insured before you rob it. That's the new T shirt Emily. Yeah, always rob and shared banks. Bastards, always be rob bean and shirt banks. Yeah.

And if you get a chance to destroy mortgage paperwork, do it, sure, Yeah banks, Yeah, burn up some loans, burn ups. It was a lot easier back when everything was on paper. Yeah, I know. Yeah, that would have been so fun. You would have really felt like you could make an impact as a bank robber. It would feel a lot more political. Oh yeah, like you're not just Point Break like trying to go surfing or whatever. Like you can actually like change a lot of people's lives. Yeah.

I guess that is like the most political bank rubber in a in a modern movie outside I maybe the joker is like the guys in Point Break, and they just wanted to serve. They just wanted to serve that they did rob the bank. In President masks, they were the president, they were the dead president's presidents, which you know, seems mostly like a non sequit or with the rest of their whole deal. But it was fun. Had they

had flair. They had flair. There was like zero politics actually going on in the movie other than if we hit this wave, I mean, it would I mean and anybody would argues other wise, is uh not somebody I want to align myself with politically. Yeah, yeah, that that is my politics is rubbing banks to hit sick waves. Now, Mob Barker is not the most famous gangster of her era, but she was at one point public Enemy number one,

which is objectively the coolest title you can you can achieve. Um, I hope we all become public enemy number one at some point. Everybody gets their turn on the internet. Yeah, I feel like that is kind of that is kind of how Twitter works. Every day we have a new public enemy number one. Yeah, that sounds way cooler than complaining about cancel culture. It's like everybody gets their day to be public enemy number one. You can revel in

it a little bit. At least it's going to happen. Oh, I'm excited for my day to come when my many many crimes are finally exposed to the world. That's going to be great. Oh boy, um no, that's another thing. See, this is why I wouldn't be cut out to be a gangster. I'm already too stressed out about like just saying one wrong word at one point and getting better. Anyone realizing how often you shoplift from Costco? Yeah, oh my god, I mean it's not yeah, you joke, I

have a I have a pretty bad shoplifting pass. So okay. You know, if if if God didn't want us to shoplift, he wouldn't have given us pockets. And that is my justification. Yeah, checks out hard to argue with. Now. By some accounts, mob Barker was the among the most innovative and successful criminal masterminds of any era. By other accounts, she was mostly just a chef in the moral support system for

her criminal children. The FBI takes the angle that she was not a mastermind and that she was mostly just supporting her boys, who did all of the real crime. Thinking the bulk of the evidence seems to discredit them on this. Uh, and I'm you know, that's enough of my anti FBI pro gangster. Let's let's let's get into the story. Mob. Barker's life is often summed up like this folk see right up by the University of Florida quote. Born in the Ozarks, she was poor in her early years.

So strong was her lust for money, furs, and bobbles. She turned to a life of crime and led four young sons down the same path. The eldest herman convinced her crime does pay, so she opened up in her own home a school of Crime for the young uns. When they were arrested for petty infractions, she upbraided them for getting caught. Trust the University of Florida to use the word young UN's in a historical write up. I love, I love. I mean the idea of a school for

crime is just so cute. I mean it just sounds so I mean, it's just very very Oliver twist of course. But um, I don't know. It seems like a fun, fun time. It does seems like a good good night. A podcasts the Old School of Crime, how a bunch of different people come up and like this is how I got free water from the city. This is how I got that boot off my car without paying. Yeah, the lecture series would be incredible At the School for

crime for crime. Yeah, the school for petty petty cry Yeah, stealing some lifesavers, yeah, the school for getting by crime, like how to sneak, how to sneak the fixings to make your ramen palatable out of your out of the grocery store and a jacket without getting caught. See this is like actually stuff that I've thought about trying to

turn into a podcast at some point or another. It's just like actual like basic poverty skills for twenty somethings and up, like just like you know how to how to jerry rigged things out of other things and make it into like just so you can get by and have a less stressful life on zero dollars um. Yeah. I have a lot to say about how to specifically jigger the breaking down pieces of your car so that the police won't notice that your registration has been expired

for years. That's really critical skill, critical skills. Yeah, because that ruined me for many like years, was my stupid car and it's stupid registrate ship. Yeah, it's a It says something about our society that all almost all of our tips for living in poverty are also crimes. But that's the story for another day, um So, my main source for this episode is Mob Barker America's Most Wanted Mother by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Ince U E N s S. I don't know how to pronounce that. Ince

seems to be right. It's the best right up of this particular story that I found, and it's a fun book. So. Arizona Donnie Clark was born on October eighteen seventy three in Greene County, Missouri. She was one of four children, and her childhood occurred on a small farm eighteen miles from nowhere. Arizona's family called her Airy, which she seems to have hated. Her beloved father died when she was seven. What, Sophie, what?

What's wrong with air? It's just funny that she's Arizona and her family is like you're Airy, and she's like, no, I'm not call me Arizona. I don't think she liked that either, which I don't know. It's a very hippie name for the time. Yeah, there's a raising Arizona joke there, but I'm not going to make because I haven't seen that movie. Uh not on a Nicolas Cage's Best or maybe it is I don't know. He's very charming in it. But but it's about it's about crimes, and it's about

a baby. So so far, you know, it sounds like Toronto biomography. Now, uh Ari's beloved father died when she was seven, and her mother remarried not long after to a guy with the last name of Reynolds, who she did not like. Now, the family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her stepfather took up work as a cop. It would be rank speculation for me to, you know, wonder that her stepfather's career as a police officer had an impact on Arizona's adult life, but it's hard not to

think about given what comes next. Most sources seem to agree that she really hated her stepdad, largely because he favored his natural born children over his wives children. So this is one of those classic step parents stories. Um, all step parents are bastards, apparently, that's the that's the lesson Disney taught me. That's true. It's like, you know, but it also means you're more likely to be a heroine in a Disney movie if you have a step parent.

So oh yeah, having a step parent is the key to after ninety minutes or so, winding up in a great place. Yeah. Yeah, being an orphan, having a step parent being somebody's award. Also. Yeah. The first thing I learned from popular fiction as a kid was that the best thing to have is dead parents, Like you really want to get those parents out of the way as soon as possible, really helps with everything. Now, Mr Reynolds, her stepdad did not approve of the man mob Barker

fell in love with at age nineteen, George Elias Barker. Uh. They were married on September four. Now. George was ten years older than Arizona, which in most cases would be caused for serious concerned that the much older party might dominate the younger Uh. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, nothing like that happened. George was soft spoken, non confrontational, and even a bit shy. He was utterly dominated by his young wife.

For her part, Kate, which is what she was going by at this point, was disappointed in her man from the beginning of their relationship. Decades later, the Kansas City Star would right this. Of her upbringing, her life had been that of an ordinary missera farm girl, church, Sunday school picnics, hey riots, candy polls in a little red schoolhouse. Somewhere she acquired a need for riches and personal power.

She hoped to obtain golden glory by way of her husband, but eventually realized it could only be learned by her sons. That's kind of the common right up of her. All right, yeah, it's it's interesting to me that they all write like, oh, she wanted all these uh, superficial things, that's what she like as if it's yeah, and it's like, well, maybe she just grew up poor in a farm and didn't want to be poor any Yeah, like painting this picture of like the epitome of Americana being like, but why

did she become so materialistic? It's like it's baked into being an American, especially before being poor in a farm sucks. It's nice to have furs, like like, like all pop cultures seems to tell us unless we try to get

it by committing crimes. Well, I do feel like, I mean, I feel like there have been some movies that have addressed this, but like the fact that there is radio and there's like more rapid pop culture that can be disseminated is like why so many of these people get into crime in the first place, and are also like why they become celebrities become these mythical figures because they are pop cultural figures at the time. Like that's what I think a lot of Like Michael Mann's movie Um,

Public Enemies is about, um, yeah, it's great. Yeah I think I think so. And we'll get to that in a second. So, her husband, George, was uneducated and he had no interest in obtaining an education. He was a daily laborer with zero aspirations beyond working on a small farm and making enough to serve five Kate, though, had spent enough time being poor as a little girl. She wanted more out of life, and she asked her stepdad to loan her and her husband some money so they

could start a business. Her stepfather turned them down, and she never spoke with him again. For a time, Kate tried to push George into success. She lived as a simple housewife and threw herself into religion. Most people who knew her in those days say she was almost never seen without a Bible in hand, but at home, away from prying eyes, she developed another obsession. Outlaws. The Jesse James Gang and the Dalton Gang were her particular favorites.

Both groups robbed banks across the same chunk of the country where Kate had grown up. In fact, she'd even watched the James gang right through town as a girl. Being a woman, and this being the eighteen nineties, Kate did not have any hope of being a successful gangster herself. Bonnie Parker had not yet fired a Tommy gun into that glass ceiling. So Kate found herself enamored with the

mothers of these daring criminals. According to mob Barker, America's most Wanted mother quote, the Dalton's and the James boys were raised by strong, defiant mothers whom sure they knew how to use a weapon and fight for what they wanted. The influence the women had on their families, and the devotion their sons felt towards them mothers struck a chord with Kate. She aspired to have it in her own life. I mean, everybody wants to raise an army of loyal,

large adult sons to do crimes. Why are you the president did? And look how that's work. They're not great at it, but it's that doesn't seem to matter so well, it's all about the intention I mean, it does take a lot of work to like first create that army of large adult sons. So and even I mean to too can be an army. So yeah, fo is even better. Yeah, I mean, in a way, we're all trying to raise our own large adult sons for a life of crime.

I'm just trying to do it by radicalizing people through podcasts. Again, Robin shared banks, Sophie, could we urge people to rob banks on the show? If it's like what if it's like my views don't reflect the views of the network. Um, but still, Robin, sure, Banks, My my advice that people rob ensured banks is purely humor. Yeah, satire, satiretzing satirizing bank robbers by advising people to rob banks. Yeah, it's a wonderful satire. It's really sharp. That's that's legally bulletproof,

all right. Now. Kate and George had their first son, Herman, on October. They had three more sons over the next several years, ending with their fourth son, Fred in nineteen o three. All these mouths to feed strained George's limited ability to provide. He did manage to save enough cash to buy a small farm, but the house on it was essentially a decrepit hovel, barely fit for human habitation. Kate was desperately unhappy with these circumstances and longed for

something better. And it is hard not to see why when we're talking about the poverty in this era, we're not like talking about like a quaint little farmhouse. We're talking about a building that's essentially made of trash wood, uh, filled with mice and vermin and mosquitoes in the summer, where people are basically pooping in a hole surrounded by flies. Like, it's not a great life. This is like dust bowl time. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's bad. It's a bad

time to be a human being. Um. This is a little before that during this period, but it's still a time of like unspeakable poverty. Um yeah, it's so crazy that that's like that, that's still like what we consider the modern era more more or less than that, Like people were living like in like the the the United States could not necessarily yet be considered a first world country.

It's incredible, not by modern standards. And it is one of those things like you really you think about, you read about, like the Great battles in World War Two, and World War One and how like nightmarish the privations were for the soldiers. But then you have to think, like, well, okay, but most of them grew up like farming dirt and shipping in holes. Like it's not like this was new. It's not like living rough was an incomprehensible concept to

all of them. You know, a lot of them grew up in cities, but a lot of them were sucking country people. The base the base level you're starting from is uh considerably different. Yeah, yeah, people are tougher in this period of time. This is right around the period that my grandpa left home when he was seventeen. The economy collapse and his dad was like, we can't take care of you. And he walked across two states with nothing but cornbread in his pockets to go get a

job with a Civilian conservation Corps. And it's like I never had to do ship like that, Like that would have been This is like a little off topic, but I've been watching the Ken Burns country music documentary and it's like filled with stories like that, Like there's a family like Walks, I think from Arkansas to California or most of the way they walked most of the way, and it's just like, Also, it's like everybody dies at thirty and they look like they're sixty two years old,

and it's like, oh my god, life life was. I don't have to go back too far for life to look like that. Your average thirty one year old look like Keith Richards. Yes, it was a different time. Yeah. Now. For his part, George Barker seems to have done his best to provide for his family. His best just wasn't very good. He worked long hours and spent all of his free time with his children, teaching them how to fish and hunt. Thanks to George, the Barker boys all

grew up as fabulous shots. Kate, who was renowned to be a great chef, taught them how to cook. She also handled discipline for the family by her own insistence. Whenever George would attempt to discipline any of their kids, she'd shout him down until he backed off. The Kansas City Star in nineteen thirty six described the young family thus lye she Ma attended church regularly, dragging her brood

after her. George, her husband went as well. He was a mild, ineffective, quiet man who seemed somewhat bewildered by his domineering wife. This was especially true when he attempted to assume guidance of the growing boys. There was a feline intensity about Kate's determination that no one but herself should be their mentor, and in her eyes, they could do no wrong. Mob Barker socialized with very few people. She was cordial when spoken to, but rarely initiated a conversation.

Neighbor and fellow churchgoer, Gertrude Farmer, was the only woman with whom she spent time. Gertrude and Ma were described by Web City residents as odd and unapproachable. Maybe everybodyiels just sucked. But the Barkers lived in Webb City, Missouri for the early years of their children's lives, where they met the Farmer family, whose patron, William, was a small

time con artist. He was no better at earning a living than George, but he did have many half and quarter true stories of outlaws and conmon that he regaled the Barker children and Kate. With the Barker kids quickly developed a reputation for being little criminals, damaging property, stealing, and fighting. Kate Barker was reasonably happy with this. Her only real issue was when her children got caught So yeah, less than number one at school for school for petty crime.

Yeah yeah, don't get caught committing the petty crimes. Now. George was worried for his boys, and he moved the family to Tulsa, Oklahoma in nineteen ten as a way to get them out of their bad environment. The city was a boomtown, though, which means it was as filled with criminals as the Barker family living room, so this is probably a bad move on his part. Now, the Barker home and Tulsa was even worse than their previous

home in Webb City. The floor was just boards over dirt, the windows were all shattered, and the bathroom was a shack with a whole on the ground. Flies covered everything anytime it wasn't freezing. Kate continued to be miserable in these circumstances, and her children's early memories were likely full of her lambasting Charles for his failure to provide for the family. So the boys began to strategize, scheming up ways to bring in money via less than legal roots.

They had watched their father try and fail for years to make a decent living on the straight and narrow crime they decided seemed a lot smarter, which you know, I mean, who would not arrive at these conclusions. It's it's hard to fault. Like the logic here was kind of seems like obeying the laws for assholes, yea, or like that's for a different generation, you know. I feel like there's always some kind of generational shift like that,

Like what he doesn't take adverts without me talk? Oh? Yeah, Sophie is telling me that I don't take ad breaks without her telling me, and I will have her No, Yes, that's accurate. Sophie interrupted you, Emily, which is very rude of her, But she didn't in order to make sure that we had an ad break, which is very polite of her. Sorry, I didn't realize what it was for Sorr.

I didn't know if I need to, It's okay. In order to make up for this, Emily, would you like to plug a random product of your own, of your own desire, something you like, or a service, or a crime. You can plug anything at this point, plug a good crime. I'm what's a good product that I love right now?

I mean, honestly, I feel like I've plugged this so many times on Nightcall, but like I love a neutro bullet, and I desperately want a Night Call to be sponsored by neutro bullet because I would like do an entire podcast about the neutro bullet and all the wonderful uses for it. I could start up like a school for crimes, but just just like using the neutro bullet. Um anyway,

that's my that's my endorsement of a product. Well, I would like to endorse my new behind the Bastard's branded Actual bullets, which are the first gluten free ammunition on the on the open market. So by a neutral bullet, by some gluten free Bastards bullets. It's always so frustrating when you you have to kill somebody but they have exactly exactly and that's not okay. You're going to shoot someone with Celiac's disease. Use gluten free bullets. Yeah, that's

it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do. And the other right thing to do is to listen to these ads products. We're back. We're back, returning from some amazing ads. Just just uh, what was your favorite one? My favorite one was the ad for uh carjacking police vehicles. I really I enjoy that one. I I never thought of that as a realistic product. And I'm glad. I'm glad that the fine people at Procter and Gamble suggested that because it would be a

crime if I suggested that. Yeah, um, really upstanding people over there, and Procter and Gamble pen thank you Procter and Gamble for urging all people to hijack police vehicles. Again, Procter and Gamble, um, the only what do they make? Shampoo? Shampoo like shampoo like? Yeah, drug store products. I suppose home cleaning products. Yes, as the fine people at Procter and Gamble say, by Procter and Gamble do crimes? Um, well, Procter and Gamble was like had a satanic panics scandal

around it, you remember, they sure did. They did because they love the devil. That's confirmed. Yeah, so they love crimes and the devil. So the devil's a busy guy and he has dandruff and he doesn't have time to use multiple different shampoo. So Practor and Gamble two and one dandruf shampoo is really you know, that's where the Devil's at the devil is in your psoriasis. Alright, So back to the Barker family. Between nineteen ten and nineteen eleven,

all four Barker boys made the Tulsa police blodder. The Joplin Globe broke in nineteen thirty nine that the boys were known as the town toughs. Before they were out of school, their home became a meeting place for ne'er do wells, a crime school so successful that many of those who congregated there graduated to try it on a bigger scale under a variety of assumed names. Now, how much Mob Barker was involved in the training of her children and the training of other criminals here is up

for debate. What's known is that whenever one of her kids would get in trouble, she would write in for the rescue. She was famously charismatic and good at talking to lawmen and judges. Mom would usually argue that her children were just high, strong, and not nearly as bad as town gossip made them out to be. Plus, she argued the police were unfairly targeting her family. She insisted repeatedly that if the cops left them alone, her boys would behave she seemed to have been really good at,

like just haranguing police and judges into letting her kids go. Um, I love high sec energy as the explanation, it's not, it's like it feels very contemporary. It feels like something that somebody at like a hippie school in Brentwood would would say about their kids to get them out of trouble. He's just very very high strung a paraphrase warn Zevon, They're just excitable boys. Yeah, yes, yeah, So in private, Kate Barker took on a different tact when her young

son Hermann, was arrested and confessed to committing crimes. She is reputed to have told him that confessing to anyone but God was a sign of weakness. She expected her sons to never snitch or admit wrongdoing. Instead, they should keep their mouth shut and do their time. So that's that's mom Barker. Yeah. Before before long, a small community of criminals began to a less around Mab Barker and

her sons. They became known as the Central Park Gang because they hung out in Tulsa's Central Park, not the not the one that's famous. Um yeah, now the Barker house was their other main gathering point, and it quickly became a popular haunt for local crime doers. According to the Joplin Globe, partnerships and crime were engineered in both locations by Ma, who sometimes charged a fee for thieves to use being in her presence as an alibi when

a crime was perpetrated. Sometimes she conspired with lawbreakers for the sheer warped joy of it. It sounds to me like she's basically Airbnb for crimes. Like I'm looking to commit a crime and she'll be, oh, here's here's a place you can do it. Here's someone who can help you. Yeah, she's like an incubator. She's like an incubator for crimes, like real like Silicon Valley pioneer. Um, that's that that that's that's essentially what's going on. Yeah. Um, she's the

the famous one of those investors. She's the Peter Teal of know, Peter Teels, the Peter Teal of crimes. Um, she's just mob barker. But yeah so is Peter. No, that's giving him too much credit. Peter Tell is not the mob barker of Silicon Valley. No, no wishes. Yeah yeah, yeah he wishes who is the Mom Barker of Silicon Valley. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, somebody who knows more about Silicon Valley um, which has probably more bastards per capita

than uh Tulsa at this time period. Uh it's yeah, they can they canna let us know because at least these Tulsa bastards, these are honest crimes. Nobody's nobody's making Twitter here now. Once her sons were old enough to pull off real capers, they started bringing in real money for the first time in her life. At just over age thirty, mob Barker started to enjoy the finer things for coats, jewelry, bathrooms with a functional door and windows.

And she grew and again this was finery back in the day, and hip hop got so materialistic and they just started wrapping about doors and winter. Yeah, Phitty sent Bragg into all of us about the knob on his bathroom door, like a goddamn king go to the bathroom in private. Yeah. As she grew used to finery and crime, Kate began directing the efforts of her sons, handing them the names and addresses of people in Tulsa who were doing a little too well, in her opinion, and deserved

to be relieved of their wealth. Tulsa police officer Harry Stiege would later told reporters her boys were slippery, young hoodlums. She adored her children, but apart from Fred, didn't consider them to be especially clever, which is always true of large adults. Sons in their crimes, they're they're they're never as good at it as the parents. Yeah, now, mob Barker's sons committed a truly astonishing amount of petty crime

in this period. Between all of the bank robberies, jewel store heists, department store robberies, and kidnappings, the total number of capers probably numbered into of thousands. Many of these were complex and ambitious schemes, but the majority of them were really dumb. Barker boys would be busted more than once because they stole distinctive fine clothing and then worried around town after robbing it, or because they left said clothing behind the scene of a crime. There's multiple hats

that get Barker boys arrested. Oh my god, I want to see these hats. Yeah, they've got to be pretty spectacular. I mean, what's like, what's a noteworthy hat in nineteen what gears this like, Yeah, it's like the light nineteen ten, nineteen fifteen, something like that. I mean, it might just be that their hat wasn't a pile of dirt on their head, and that son of a bitch his hands made of fabric. He's got to be robbing. Yeah. So in nineteen fifteen, Herman was the first of mob Barker's

sons to be arrested on suspicion of attempted theft. He was the first son to leave home to in. His criminal history on his own was wide ranging, but only partly successful. By nineteen seventeen, he had robbed a number of jewelry stores and banks, and was wanted in several states. As their children, one by one embarked on their own criminal careers, mob Barker became something of a mother to

countless other bank robbers in Oklahoma. According to the book Mom Barker, among the fugitives Harvard at the Farmer's Home where bank robbers Al Spencer, Frank Nash, and Ray Terrell, and train robbers Earl Thayer, Francis Keating, and Thomas Holding. These accomplished lawbreakers and a number of other wrongdoers would eventually use the Barker's tiny Tulsa home as a safe house.

In addition to the farmers homestead, Ma charged them in a modest fee to hide out at her place, where she kept the fugitives fed and steered authorities in a different direction if they came nosing around. So her their kids leave the nest to start committing crimes and she

turns into like a hostel for other criminals. Basically, Now, is this like kind of I mean, I'm sort of surprised to hear that her sons go on to commit their own crimes because like, I know that, I know that you said that the FBI is telling of the story is that she wasn't really a mastermind. But it also sounds like they're pretty dumb. They're very dumb, and their individual criminal careers, uh, in this period are nothing impressive. It's not until they kind of come back together that

they start doing the ship they got famous for. But you know, yeah, there's any kids going to try to fly the roost and see if he can rob banks without his mom. That's just normal parenting. Now. Herman was imprisoned after a robbery gone bad and mob Barker blamed his partner in the robbery, George White, on the endeavor, mostly on the strength of the fact that he had received half the sentence for the same crime. She was convinced the judge had been lenient on him due to

his family wealth. Reporters at the time suspected that this is what convinced her that quote, justice could be bought or sold. Um, it seems like to me that this is something she'd always believe. That's usually how you'll see it written up. It did, however, help to solidify her attitude towards wealthy families, but we'll get to that later. By nineteen eighteen, all of mob Barker's children had graduated

to serious crimes. They were not always smart crimes. In July of that year, Arthur Barker stole a Ford roadster belonging to an Apartment of Justice employee employee parked directly in front of a federal building. He was caught almost instantly. Mob Barker attempted to talk her son out of jail, but he escaped on his own and was then arrested

again almost immediately. Kate did succeed. Mob Barker got the charges against him dropped, probably by bribing police officers to destroy the evidence of his obvious crimes, but he was arrested again a year later for stealing another Ford roadster. This kid, you can't stop this kid from stealing police vehicles. Yeah, he's got to have his roadsters. He's got to have his fucking roadster. Yeah. Oh my god, I would be

so mad. Yeah, I pick a different brand. I mean, maybe it was just Fords at the moment, but yeah, certainly, after Arthur was jailed, sulfuric acid and a saw were smuggled into the prison where he was held. He and sixteen other prisoners escaped. It's not known who smuggled these items in, but it was almost certainly mob Barker. So she's again, she's good at talking to cops, she's good at bribing, she's good at like burning a hole through

a prison. Yeah, or what is that? What happened? Like they just like acid and so yeah, I think they weakened the bars with acid and then sawed through them. No one was good at making jails back in those days. People were bad at almost everything in the in the early nineteen hundreds. Well that's good then if you're bad at crimes and you've wind up in jail. Then you're in a jail that they were bad at making, and you can get exactly. You just have to be good

at getting out of the bad jail. Yeah, the history of the early nineteen hundreds is just a bunch of incompetent people fucking up around each other. Yeah. Now, while her sons committed a range of crimes, mob Barker continued to run her farm as a safe house for gangsters. She acted as something of a fixer, helping loan criminals find other people to partner with and take jobs with. She was known to have a good eye for the most corrupt cops and judges in town and how much

it would cost to bribe them. The Kansas City Star later wrote, criminals from a dozen pin of h injuries sought out mob Barker. Only two things were lacking at mars liquor and women. A man was a fool to drink, she said. Likewise, he's a fool to run around with women. Sooner or later they put the law on him. So she's not not a fan of other women. Um, well, that's surprising because the roads are thinking. The only thing way I could justify it in my mind was that

he was drunk. He may have been drunk. Possibly, I guess he was out of the house, so yeah. Now, George Barker, mob Barker's husband, did not thrive under his wife's new occupation as a mass crime helper. While his children were still mostly in the house, he gave up on challenging them with their constant lawbreaking and let mob Barker mostly handle the discipline. When neighbors would come up to him and complain about his children stealing ship, he

would say some variation of talk to their mom. She handles the kids. Kate Barker had never been very happy in her marriage, although from what I've read, George was pretty far from a bad guy, but he was a giant whimp and far from the kind of successful that mob Barker wanted, and she grew more comfortable with hard crime and dangerous men. Her husband grew even less appealing, so she cheated on him constantly with all manner of youngsters.

Unlike George, these were passionate men and they had money to burn. They showered her with presents and took her out on the town. Everyone in Tulsa, including George knew what was going on, but the man who wouldn't stand up to his own wife about their children committing an endless series of crimes was not about to confront actual veteran murderers about taking his wife out to the movies.

You know, George, he's the kind of line like mos right, she makes the right call, like this guy passionate men with deep pockets, Yeah, yeah, versus the guy who couldn't buy you a door to the bathroom. I mean, it's Sophy's showing me a picture of mam, which I think must have been well, no, she's probably given the time period, he's probably picture. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty incredible to imagine her like being taken out on the town by these like wellingsters. Like the problem is like a month

after age nineteen. Everyone back then looked like they got hit in the face by a train. Yeah, she's seen some life, but like all the more reason for her to fucking take these guys up on on their whining and dining. Yeah, it sounds fun. Sounds fun now. By the mid nineteen twenties, George had fucked off to Joplin, Missouri, and abandoned his family and it's hard to blame the guy mob. Barker, for her part, barely seemed to notice.

FBI records from the twenties and early thirties note that she was romantically involved with a number of criminals who bought her drinks and treated her like royalty. Now, yeah, one of the down sides about having a bunch of crime sons is that they tend to get killed. Um, you know, yeah, and just stealing like Life savers. I don't know why I keep coming back to the Life series and must be some like dumb shoplifting thing I witnessed as a child, Just like, how dangerous is that?

The most ambitious thing you've stolen from? Okay, good, good good? That just feels like the crime number one. I think my best theft was figuring out how to disassemble and steal a plunger from Walmart when I was like nineteen and in my first place and needed one but had no extra money. Oh wait, a plunger just plug? Yeah? What but I mean, okay, sure did you like? So you took off the plunger part and you stick the

dowel the rod part down your pants or something. Yeah, and you put the other part in your pants too, but once it's disassembled, you can like kind of flatten it in there. Yeah. Man, Like the the era of baggy bag eear pants from men is also like very conducive for shoplifted. It's harder when your skinny jeans. Um. Yeah, it has helped. I also had a lot of like drank a lot of lunches when I was poor, by just walking around the grocery store drinking whatever they had

that had protein in it and leaving it behind. Yeah, I mean, hey man, it was hard times. I mean yeah. No, Whole Foods is basically like a buffet, right you can just like oh yeah, get get whatever you want and then walk around and like look at some products. Well you eat. You gotta sample that ship before you decide whether or not to pay. Also, now that Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, I feel no guilt. I feel

no zero zero Sorry. Yeah, this podcast is brought to you by Whole Foods, and Jeff Bezos specifically funds this podcast. Uh Jeff Bezos who says, always eat all of the grapes in the bag um before you always rob and shirt banks. Famous Jeff Bezos quote. Now Mob Barker's first son to die was her oldest boy, Herman. He'd flown furthest from the nest and he built a gang himself that robbed a number of jewelry stores and made off with tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise. Their method

of robbery was actually kind of ingenious. They snuck into crawl spaces or cut holes in the roof in order to drop down mission impossible, like from the ceiling. For a while, police were flummixed, but then Herman left his hat at the scene of a crime, and police tracing back to the store and sell so where he purchased it. Not the only time a hat would would doom a barker boy. Oh my god, these guys, why are they doing crimes and hats. Stop wearing hats. Maybe maybe stop

wearing hats to crimes. Fashion and chin strap for it. If you really need it for like style or cover or something. Then you know, it's amazing, amazing to think of an age when hats were so deregulated that you'd be like, well, nobody, I'm not going to commit crimes without a hat. I mean, the crime will be committed outside. I must have my hat. What am I a savage.

Oh my god. In June seven, n Herman and a partner stole a car from a dealership in Fairfax and wound up in a high speed chase that ended in Kansas. Herman escaped while his partner was caught, but Herman was caught hours later buying another hat. Are you kidding me? Yeah? These these Barker boys that they're fucking hats. Yeah, always a problem. It's like very looney Tunes. And you know, the cops let him keep the hat. They're like, no, you can't put a man in prison without a hat.

What don't we He's got to have his phone call in his hat. Yeah. Now, mob Barker bailed Herman out, and for a time he was able to be in the wind again. But even though he'd just been busted for grand theft auto and was wanted in questioning for two bank robberies, Herman decided to plan a third bank robbery. On January seventeenth, Herman and several partners broke into the First National Bank of Jasper, Missouri. They made off with a pile of lute, but the authorities were hot on

their trail, and a thirty minute gun battle ensued. Herman was wounded and arrested, but he was out again on bail by August, which I guess this was a time when you could shoot at the police and get out on bail. That is incredible. Yeah. While he was out on bail for his third robbery, he and a partner decided to rob an ice plant. Uh. They stole two dollars from the safe and fled the scene next. According to the book, mom the ice. What about all the ice?

I it t Yeah, probably if you get caught. I guess the side is, if you get caught stealing ice, you just keep on the run until the ice melts. Like you ain't got no proof. Yeah, exactly, got a wet car. I just love driving wet I mean, but I wouldn't put it past this guy honestly and be like, oh, we're gonna do what ice ice? Like probably per pound, the stupidest thing you could. You could be worst crime

to engage. All right, So I'm gonna quote the book mob Barker talking about what happened after the ice heist, motorcycle officer J. E. Marshall and his partner Frank Bush spotted the gangster's car speeding through town at two in the morning. After a short pursuit, the getaway vehicle stopped at Officer Marshall approached the car to confront the offenders.

Herman was driving, and when the police off user got close enough to look inside the vehicle, he grabbed the officer around the neck, leveled a gun against his face, and fired two shots. Officer Marshall died instantly, so this provoked a chase, and herman was wounded badly During an automotive firefight. He and his partner crashed their car, and

overcome with pain, Herman Barker shot himself dead. Mob Barker grieved deeply for her oldest boy and used some of her ill gotten gains to buy a four foot tall marble headstone for herman. Some lawman would later write that Herman's death caused mob Barker to turn her back entirely on morality, but this seems to be theatric drama or the time herman died. Ma had been a criminal mastermind for nearly a decade, but the death of her oldest

son did have a major impact on her. Mob Barker would not in the future be content to let her children funk up at planning their own crimes. She had bigger plans for them, grander plans Minnesota ear plans. And this brings us to the greatest type of scum and villany in the history of the United dates the city of St. Paul. I knew you were going to say St. Paul terrible place. Terrible Wait really compared to Tulsa? Well?

Actually yeah, I mean I can't speak for St. Paul today, but during the Great Depression it was famous for being a haven for gangsters. And you know what else is a haven for gangsters? Emily, the products and services that support this podcast. We're back. Products, done, services, service. Uh boy, howdie, I'm a big fan. Alright, speaking of things I'm not a fan of, let's talk about St. Paul, the crime city. Uh, apologies to the people of St. Paul, Minnesota. No apologies.

The only city I apologized to is Pittsburgh. Um, but nothing for St. Paul. Bring it on? Not true today? The city of city Yeah, consistencies everything, and St. Paul was consistently filled with criminals then and probably now, I assume um today the city of St. Paul is most famous for, I I don't really know is Sophie Minneapolis being next to Minneapolis. But back in the day, it was the crime capital of America. I'm gonna quote from

the Minnesota Post. St. Paul in the late twenties and early thirties was known as a crux haven, a place for gangsters, bank robbers, and bootleggers from all over the Midwest to run their operations or to hide from the FBI. The concentration of local organized crime activity prompted reformers and crime reporters to call for a clean up of the city in the mid nineteen thirties. So it used to be an interesting place at some point, is what I'm getting at here. Has there been a good crime movie

set in St. Paul? I don't know, probably need a good Saint Paul movie. I don't watch a lot of Yeah, yeah, they get on at one of Now. St. Paul earned its reputation as the sanctuary for criminals in the Midwest with the help of corrupt politicians and police chiefs who agreed to turn a blind eye to gangster's underground activities,

which included smuggling, racketeering, and gambling. This collaboration began in nineteen hundred with what was known as the Layover Agreement, an unofficial contract between criminals and Chief of Police John O'Connor. The Law and Crime and St. Paul worked out a deal. Criminals would minimize the murders they committed in town and give the cops a chunk of their profits. In exchange,

the police would warn them about upcoming FBI raids. This became known as the O'Connor system and represents quite possibly the most ethical chapter in the history of American law enforcement. Now, mob Barker and her remaining kids moved to St. Paul in the early thirties, and for the next couple of years, Mob Barker would be the grand dam of crime in

that town. Along the way, she adopted a gangster friend of one of her sons, Alvin Carpass, the former Marble's Champion of Kansas, who was nicknamed Old Creepy for his dead soulless eyes. Yeah that's a hell of a sentence. Can I Is it too late to go with him for Halloween? I just like an image is incredible. You just have a gun and a pile of marbles. Yeah, Old Creepy, You like what I can do with this gun?

Imagine what I can do with these marvels, kidd. Ma loved Old Creepy and spent many a night out on the town of Saint Paul. Yeah, so the old Creepy Alan Carpass and Mob Barker essentially combined their powers to build a gang consisting of Alvin and Ma's sons, with Ma as kind of the master mind. In June, Alvin and Ma attended the Chicago World's Fair. It is there reportedly that Mob Barker first told Alvin that she and her boys would be the vanguards of a new era

of crime, bank robberies beneath our dignity. She said, bigger game is in our future first, but it led to her last words. Now That bigger game was kidnapping and ransoming the children of wealthy families. In nineteen thirty two, the baby of Charles Lindbergh, famed American aviator and fascist piece of ship, had been kidnapped by persons unknown. While the baby was found dead six months later, and probably had died that very night, UH, an innocent man named

Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the crime in nineteen thirty four. UH. The guilty parties were never caught and almost certainly made off with tens of thousands of dollars and a baby murder Scott free. This was all widespread knowledge in the criminal community in nineteen thirty two, when Jack Piper, head of the Holly Hawks casino and St. Paul, went to

Fred Barker and Alvin with a plan. He knew the schedule and travel roots of thirty nine year old William ham Jr. And he felt like the man's family would pay handsomely if their heir was kidnapped. Now, if you don't hail from the center northerish parts of the country, Ham's is a hilariously named mediocre beer that's better than being sober, but not a whole lot better. Uh. William Hams Jr. Was the scion of this beer dynasty and

a very wealthy man. Jack basically told the Barker gang that they could make a lot of money if they stole him. He asked for ten percent of the total take for his help. So the gang kidnapped ham fairly easily, and by all accounts, they treated him well. Four days after his capture, his hundred thousand dollar ransom was paid and he was returned unharmed to his family. The cost of the ransom was relatively minor in the scheme of

the families four point five million dollar fortune. When he was returned to his family, William told a local paper, although it was a trying experience, I was treated with the utmost respect and courtesy. But like the old adage, home sweet home is the best place of all. So Ham seems to say, like, yeah, they were all right. Um, feel like he's just shy of being like, I wish I could have stayed forever. It was so much. I

wish I could have stayed forever. Food was great. Yeah. Now, the ham family had asked authorities to hold back on doing anything while their kid was kidnapped, and the police had agreed. Um, I'm gonna read a quote from the interview that William Hamm gave the Decatur Harold after he had been freed. Um him only saw his captors, but dimly. The windows of the house in which he was placed

in a second floor room were boarded up. I never saw the men because I didn't have on my goggles, and they made me turn my face towards the wall when they came into the room. They were very nice to me, I asked for anything I wanted and ordered anything I wanted. The metals were good and simple, and I think elaborate. But whoever did the cooking knew their way or on the kitchen, that was almost certainly Mob Barker. Now, the FBI did not catch onto the fact that the

Barker family was behind this caper. Instead, they arrested another gangster too, He who was innocent of this crime by at least some accounts. Too. He was tortured by the law enforcement in an attempt to get him to admit his guilt. He refused and eventually killed himself in jail. Interestingly enough, the FBI leaves this story out of its account of the arrest of the Barker gang. Yeah, but I'm just I'm splitting hairs here. Now, the Barker gang

was very well at this point. The Hams caper was their highest profile crime of this period, but they also continued to rob banks at a pretty ridiculous rate. Meanwhile, Mob Barker continued to manage the fine details of the gang, reportedly going so far as to drive the getaway roots before major crimes to ensure every aspect of the plan was mapped out to her satisfaction. She did not draw the line at just micromanaging the business aspects of her gang.

According to the book Mob Barker, she also kept a strong hand in the romantic lives of her sons and adopted sons. Quote. Members of the Barker Carpass gang who were close to mad generally kept the women they were seriously involved with away from her. It was a crazy system, Alvin admitted years later, and often created friction with our women, who couldn't understand why we were so careful with her feelings.

The boys preferred to avoid Ma's jealous anger. They were devoted to her and considered her contribution to their organization invaluable and something they would not jeopardize. Not only did she recruit in school the hoodlums who joined the group, but she was always a full proof cover for the gang. Ma could project an innocence and wholesomeness to the rival the Whistler's mother, but she could be fire an obstinate.

So yeah, that's that. That that's Ma. She won't let you have a girlfriend, but she'll get you out of trouble with the cops. You've got to keep your mind on crimes. You gotta keep your mind on crimes. I mean, makes sense, makes sense now. Ma was a complicated person, and while she was a domineering field within the criminal underworld, she operated out of her homes. She was also vulnerable to being victimized by abusers in her own romantic life.

Starting in the late nineteen twenties, she dated a man named Arthur Dunlop. What started as emotional support in the wake of her first son's death evolved into a profoundly abusive relationship. Arthur was basically the opposite of George Barker. He refused to work or contribute to the family finances in any way, but he was also a powerful personality

who constantly derided and physically abused Kate Barker. The Barker boys hated Arthur, but for a while, they tolerated him because their mothers seemed to love him for some inexplicable reason. Arthur moved with the family to St. Paul, but soon after they began their kidnapping game, he started to make trouble. Arthur was no gangster, but he loved to go out drinking on the town and brag about the crimes of the Barker Carpas gang, even though he had nothing to

do with those crimes. Yeah, now he's a piece of shit, piece of Yeah, I take back what I said about passionate men with deep pockets. Yeah, well he didn't. He was just taken their money, right, bragging. Yeah, just commit your own crimes. Yeah, I have a decency to commit your own crimes. And I don't know, it's always it's always a bummer when when your significant other tries to take credit for your career. Yeah. Absolutely, He's like, how

who would compare him to as celebrities? Um hm, He's like, he's like Kevin Federline, He's the Kevin Federline story. Yeah, that's that's yeah, a meaner Kevin Federline. Although I'm sure that cover federal Line wasn't that nice of a person. I don't know, history's greatest monster. Um So, when Arthur's bragging finally got loud and boisterous enough that multiple criminal friends of the family warned mob Barker, she finally agreed that he had to go. Fred and Alvin shot him

dead and disposed of the corpse. Ye. By January four, the Barker gang was ready to try their luck at another high dollar kidnapping. Their next subject was Edward George Brimmer Jr. The scion of a wealthy banking family. By this point, the Great Depression was well underway, and the whole country was filled with rage at the corrupt bankers who had brought calamity down on the heads of the nation.

While the heir to the Ham's beer fortune had been treated well, Brimmer was beaten badly and repeatedly by the Barker Gang, particularly by Fred Barker, who hated bankers. According to the book Mob Barker, the gang did not keep him blindfolded at all times at the hideout, and he was able to observe things which were later to be of assistance in identifying the place where he was held captive. The men who held him captives spoke with various accents French, German, Italian.

At one point he heard the voice of an older woman praising the criminals holding him hostage, saying, now you're thinking, boys, now you're thinking. Mr Brimmer assessed it was the voice of Mom Barker. I mean, why did why did they not blindfold him? It seems like a major oversight. I mean, I'm I'm all for beating up a banker, at least have the have the foresight to blindfold him. I mean they were usually their faces and stuff were covered, so

he wasn't able to identify him. And that like the they were speaking in different accents, but like there weren't actually a bunch of different nationalities. They were just trying to confuse him. I would love to hear all those accents, like I love to all of their attempts at an Italian and French and German accent. Yeah, I want to know what a bunch of fucking uh criminal gangsters in Minnesota in the nineteen thirties think of German sounds like,

I bet it's hilarious now. Eventually, the Brimmer family paid two thousand dollars for the return of their son, and this left the Barker Carpass gang fantastically wealthy, but by this point they had committed too many serious crimes to not be considered public enemies. After the Bremmer heist, the Barker Carpus gang scattered to the four winds across the nation and several other continents in an attempt to have

aid justice. Two of mob Barker's sons tried the most extreme method imaginable to heighten from the law that decided to undergo dangerous experimental surgery to change their faces. And yeah, this is a terrible story Barker again, Yeah, it's real bad. An ex convict named Joseph P. Morn was in charge of the procedure, which involved looping elastic bands tightly around the gangster's fingertips at the first joint and injecting cocaine into each of their fingers and thumbs using a scalpel.

The doctor would then script a skin completely off the digits. The work of Dr Moran did to remove the scars on Alvin's face was equally as barbaric and unpleasant. In the end, the extreme discomfort proofd to be a waste of time and money. According to the FBI report dated November nineteenth, nineteen thirty six, Fred Barker was a braving maniac due to the pain. Dr Moran performs other services for the gang, such as laundering some of the kidnap

money through his Chicago practice. Dr Morn suffered from the same problem of running his mouth. He drank too much, which made him especially talkative. He bragged to a couple of prostitutes in his company, that he was a big doctor from Chicago who could erase fingerprints and change people's appearances. His actions weren't tolerated for long by the Barker Carpass gang. He was warned to be quiet, but to fight orders by stating, I have you guys in the palm of

my hand. When I guess what happened to this guy? I got, got got, Yeah, you got you got killed really fast? Yeah yeah. Alvin and Arthur Barker, acting on Ma's orders, guns Dr morn down in July four. They buried him in a hole under a pile of lie. So that's good. Uh so wait, so it didn't even work though the fingerprint removal it removed the fingerprints that the guys had on them, but it also like drove one of them crazy and uh made them look as

if they'd been horribly burned. And it was obvious like, well, you clearly tried to have your fingerprints removed. Look at your get your hands, Oh my god, so stupid. Really, this is just incredible, Like who's good, who's well? When we're finished, we should go through a ranking of like who's actually good at their job? And this because there aren't that many people now speaking of not being good

at their job. It took the FBI until after this point to actually get their ship together and realized that the Barker Gang was behind the kidnapping of several of America's wealthiest citizens. J Edgar Hoover declared Kate mob Barker to be the brains of the gang's operation and the most dangerous woman in America. The dogs were out, and the Barker family days were numbered. Flesh with cash and fleeing the law, they made their way to the only

true home of all dangerous, unhinged criminals, Florida. Fred his mother, and a few other sympatheticos rented a house in Lake Weir and attempted to lay low until the heat died down.

What happened next is a matter of historical debate. Since this is my podcast, the version of the story I've decided to believe is the one that involves a three legged alligator named Old Joe, as the story goes, at least according to one Chicago Tribune article written in the nineteen eighties based on some of the few living people who remembered these events. By January of nineteen thirty five, the FBI had found one member of the Barker Carpass

gang in Chicago, Arthur Barker. When they arrested him in his hotel room, they found the partially burnt reminants of a letter from Mob Barker. In the letter, Mob Barker had written that wherever they were hiding, it was good hunting for a three legged alligator called Old Joe. So to their credit, the FBI had some good investigators, and they combed the numerous swamps of the American South until they found some yokels who keyed them in on where

this three legged alligator lived Lake Weir, Florida. After that point it was only a matter of refining for the Bureau to lock down the last few Stateside reminants of the Barker Gang. Mob Barker and her son Fred next. According to the Chicago Tribune, on the morning of Wednesday, January fift nineteen thirty five, fifteen agents swooped down on a large frame house on the shores of Lake were

on the outskirts of this Florida citrus belt town. When the shooting ended four hours later, they found Mob Barker sixty three dead in an upstairs room, one arm cradling a submachine gun, the other cradling her dead son Fred two. Oh my god, went out like a fucking g That's tough as hell. Yeah, machine gun in one arm, dead son on the other. It's a pretty good way to go. If, um, that's that's great. I'm glad that. I'm glad that it ended in Florida, as all crime stories must end, as

all crime stories in and most begin. Yeah. Yeah, but I like that we did a detour through through Minneapolis because I will um differ with you on the point that I do think Minnesota is a lovely state and uh as part of the great patchwork of America. So I'm glad that I'm I'm glad that they found a home there. I'm going to war with both Minneapolis. Well, no,

just st Party's sorry, Paul, Yeah whatever. I mean, you know, if somebody's gonna get actually mad at me if I say whatever, same if but yeah, Minny Appleans will get mad. Nobody and nobody in Florida is going to get mad at us saying that all Floridians are criminals like everyone every Yeah, if you live in Florida, you know what you are. It's like Australia, you've elected to this lifestyle. You didn't know one forced you to live in Florida.

That's where you go if you want to be a criminal or you want to be friends with a three legged alligator. Yeah. Wow, well this was amazing. I have a lot of respect to her, honestly, and I feel like I feel like, I mean, I don't I guess I don't know well enough to know where you would find the seams in this, but I do kind of feel like the FBI is sort of undermining her by trying to say that she's not the mastermind here. I mean, yeah,

like what, like who who would the mask? She seems If not the mastermind, she's a great instigating force and that's like just as important to be uh moral support and um, you know, provide food and shelter for your gang of criminal sons and not sons. I don't know. I mean that's his that's his important as being the mastermind.

I agree, Yeah, I I think that, Um, I don't know, there's this like impulse and law enforcement to kind of like reduce any sort of the myth making around these figures, which which never works, Like the you can't stop you can't stop people from fundamentally wanting to side with the charismatic criminals over the g min. Uh. It's it's it's the same reason Scarface is more popular than uh, I

don't know a movie about whoever the shot scarface? Um, and it it always I guess it's more beneficial to be like, oh, all these crimes are stupid done by idiot people, which have to be fair, A lot of these seem like pretty stupid crimes done by idiot people. But that version of events definitely is less romantic. I mean, it's at least funny, but it's not like, oh, I want to grow up to be like that in the same way that like having a criminal mastermind who's like

plotting all these amazing bank robberies or whatever. That that feels more like something that someone might be tempted to emulate. Uh, if given hard enough times. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I I stam mob barker. I mean what, She's not a bastard, she's uh, she's a hard working mom and then eventual single parent, just doing her best to survive in tough times, doing her best to survive in this

workaday world. In the door for the damn bathroom. You know that's I mean, I feel like all all great careers start with, you know, wanting a door for your bathroom. Uh yeah, yeah, Well Emily, speaking of doors for the bathroom, Uh, do you have any anything you'd like to plug? Uh? Well, you can listen to Nightcall on this very podcast network. I co hosted with Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch as you said, uh, previous guests on this podcast. So we

we have new episodes every Monday. And yeah, I'm getting ready to record with them later today, So I'm I've got a real podcast marathon day today. But um yeah, we're on We're on social media, Nightcall podcast or nightcallo depending on what platform it is. It's inconsistent, which is stupid of us. Um me me, actually I'm the inconsistent one.

But and then I'm on Twitter personally at I'm on Twitter personally at Ashida just my first and lasting Yeah, public enemy number one, public enemy number one, not if you want to be public, Well that's going to do it for Behind the Bastards today. Um you can find us on the internet. Behind the Bastards dot com where you can find the sources for this episode. You can

find us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastard's Pot. You can find me on Twitter at I right okay uh, And you can find crime in your heart when you look down the aisles of an Amazon owned grocery store. Um, this podcast is not indoors committing crimes. Thanks, thank you, Sophie. Are we are we safe legally? Now? Is the lawyer happy? Don't commit don't commit a crime, don't commit a crime, not commit a crime. Yeah, multiple crimes. That that's that.

The words of this guest do not necessarily uh reflect the wishes of this podcast.