Fix Up, Look Sharp: Willie Sutton

Oh girl, I got one for you. Yes. I was thinking about this the other day and I went and looked up because I wanted to be certain, and it was worse than I remembered. There are a bunch of names in New Zealand that are considered illegal, like illegal names like people have been denied the right to have the name Stallion or Yeah Detroit as a as a first name for a child. Another one fish and Chips. Then there was Keenan, Got Lucky and my one of

my favorites, sex Fruite. But the reason why is because I remembered. Originally there was a nine year old girl who asked the court to emancipate her, and the court said, girl we got your back. Do you know why the court was so eager because her parents had named her Telula does the Hula from Hawaii. That was her that's her name, her first name, like Telula does the Hula

from Hawaii. What's going on down there? Yeah? Now, interestingly, the ones I told you that we're made illegal were all those ones you know, sex fruit and yeah Detroit, Yeah, Detroit is fantastic. There were a couple of others that they allowed through the New Zealand legal system because you have to appeal to apply and say can I have this name if you get some strange name, and so some of the names that they permitted were twins named

Benson and Hedges. There was a girl named Midnight Shardonnay and finally, my favorite number sixteen bus shelter and permitted name. I think that I might new job needs to be the one who approves names because yeah, yeah, it's popping off down. But you know, our celebrities are pretty much like New Zealand offenders. I mean, what did Jason Lay the skateboarder name is kid Pilot inspector That's right, exactly. Yeah, who had a middle name They named the kid Treehouse

so like I can't talk. Oh so you know that I don't want to judge, but I love to judge, So go with your Those are ridiculous, thank you. You know what else is ridiculous if you got some laid on me. I do getting caught for your crimes because you just look to fly. Oh word, this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist cons. It's always murder free and one ridiculous Zarin, Elizabeth, are you familiar with Sutton's law? Yeah? Wait, is that the

one about the banks? No? That was that the Horton principle. I don't know. You robbed the banks success where the money is? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Sutton's law, Well, it comes from it's taught in medical school. Sutton's law is that when you're making a diagnosis, the first thing, first things first, you always consider the obvious. So, um, it's like the anti doctor House. I've heard that's a TV show. I don't I wouldn't know, I don't. So anyway, Sutton's law.

They want to like, you look at the obvious. Um, and the best way to diagnose and treat things as quickly as possible is to like elimitate, because this is essentially a medical albums. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras, it's like the one of the things they saying, it's a good one. The law, though, is named after

a bank robber, a man by the name of Willie Sutton. Okay, And so it was said that he was asked by a reporter why he had done the things he done did and why did he rob the banks, and he said, because that's where the money is. Exactly. He was really brazen about it. It's basically the no doi theory, and so it makes sense. So Sutton, though he would later deny having ever said that. Yeah, but then he commented, quote, if anybody had asked me, I probably would have said it.

That's what almost anybody would say. It couldn't be more obvious. So they love that expression in Washington. You always hear them say that. It's like a it's a political philosophy as well. Yeah, yeah, so exactly what is it the it's keep uh, keep it simple, stupid? Oh yeah, we kiss. Yeah. Anyway, So, um, now we have these medical students who were being taught Sutton's law, learning to take things plainly confront the obvious, all thanks to a legendary bank robber like that. Yeah,

I love him. Bank robbery influences, you know, medical science is as it should be contin you think about it, medical science started with grave robbery. So you know, I'm just saying they're getting back to the very true full circle. Leonardo da Vinci and Dicapriod Leonardo's let's scratch our chins and say who was Willie Sutton? Okay, do it three to who was was Suton? William Francis Sutton Jr. Born June thirtieth, nineteen o one, So be ready to celebrate

his birthday, Brooklyn, New York, third or five kids. He came from a really like hard scrabble tough family of Irish immigrants, and they lived in a really hard scrabble tough Irish neighborhood Brooklyn. Uh. He was taught really early on the importance of a code of silence, and he

said that influenced his entire life. So he said later when he was talking about his life that if someone was picked up by the cops, quote, all they ever got out of him was the exercise, meaning that the cops could beat a person senseless, but they would never talk. Get that workout. That's how it worked in his neighborhood. He was arrested once and the police beat him for five days straight trying to get him to name his accomplices. This is I think before some of the reforms, yea, Miranda.

So certainly he never talked five days getting whipped on, tell me who you're working with? Silence. So he got his irish up the other way, and then he had it at home, right, so that his family once gave him the literal silent treatment. Um he uh. He stole his teacher's lunch money when he was twelve, and they were His family was so appalled that he would steal a teacher's lunch money that no one in the family spoke a word to him for an entire week. He was just like a blank space to them. He said

it was the worst punishment he'd ever had. He'd rather take a beating. Yeah, I've been given not for that long. That's a week. So he's this tough little kid, right, and he swam in the East River with his friends like you know, amongst untreated sewage trash, Like yeah, he's just George Carlin medical advice exactly. So he gets out of high school when he's fifteen, and no one else in his family had ever completed their schooling, and you know, which is common at the time, but there was a

big deal for him to graduate from high school. He gets a job at a bank as an office errand boy, and like he's super chill, nice guy, personable. He becomes pals with all the cashiers, the tellers, and it was from them that he learned like the inner workings of a bank, all like the various processes and the vault protocols and such like that. So he becomes this insider. And then World War One approaches and he gets a job at a munitions factory in West Virginia, so he relocates.

So one day he's there, he gets a telegram from his mom telling him that the draft board had ordered him to report for induction. He's been drafted. He right, and he's actually, you know, pretty excited about this. So he leaves the munitions factory job heads back to New York. As he's getting off the train there, he keeps hearing people say this word that he had never heard, and he didn't know the meaning of it. Armistice, So he asked around and they're like, um, it meets the wars

over So yeah, he finds out. Um he's thrilled, but he's a little disappointed that Europe. Yeah exactly, he didn't get to go over there. Three months later, he gets arrested for the first time. He's like, well, let me get the crime and then well and listen to this. He's charged with burglary, grand larceny and abduction a fifteen year old girl named Bessie Ender. Was she into it and they just threw the book at him because you know they could, and yeah, oh yeah, So here's what happened.

He's seventeen when exactly they were in love the moment they met each other. It was just instant. And her mom had died when she was little, and her dad was like really controlling and only let her spend time with other girls. That's all who she could play with, hang out with. No boys allowed. Um. So they meet though, and they're just like stars, little hearts floating in the air around them. They're like the sid Nancy there Will

and Bessie. Yes, exactly, they knew the only way that like a sheltered girl with a single dad and the young bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks could make a go of it. They decided to elobe. So how are they going to do this? Well, they go into her dad's office and steal money. She's like, I know where the safe is, I know the combination. Let's do this. They walked out with six dollars. Yeah so little dowry. Yeah. So like all right, look, let's

start our lives together. They walk out on the street. Willie sees this guy. Excuse me, sir, um, can you tell me where the nearest marriage license bureau is? The guys like looking at him, recognizes them. It's like, okay, the man had seen a bulletin about a guy from Brooklyn who said that he'd been robbed and his daughter had been kidnapped. Willie fits the description. He turns out Willie had asked the chief of police. Chief of police immediately an So Willie gets jail, goes to trial, ordered

to never associate with Bessie again. But they're married. They didn't make it, so you know they're they're split up. They did see each other one more time, but it was an accidental thing. It was at the dance hall where they had first met. So they're there, Um, Bessie's there with a bunch of girlfriends and Willie's you know, looking cool in a corner. Um. They see each other and they like walk towards each other, like out of

a Lifetime movie. And then he says, I'm gonna leave, and if you want to talk, I'll be waiting two blocks away. And then just like cool guys out the door, which direction of two? She had to go in a two block radius. It took a long time. Um, So she shows up. She finds him right, she sniffs, she smiths the air um and then he sees that the engagement ring he'd given her was on a chain around her neck. So she's still wearing it, but just like

in secret. And she's like, you know, my father has arranged for me to marry this guy, Jack String, you know, heir to the Straying warehouses, the Crown the Crown Heights Strings, not the Crown Heights. She like, Bessie, her dad arranges us. She says her dad, Look, I'm on love with his Jack String. I mean no offense, Jack, but whatever. The Dad's like, look, you are no longer a woman of

virtue after hanging out with Willie. We know what what happened, and no one's going to marry you, so I had to arrange this brutal and so they like, well, I guess that's just how it's going to work out. And they parted ways and he was just heartbroken. Damn. Yeah, so you kind of wish around for a while. He winds up getting a job at the Ptmoors Shipyard as an apprentice burner. What was I like that. I know a lot of people have been apprentice burners. I know

some actual journeyman burners and some full unionized burners. I know you do. Um. So he's like cutting steel plates with a settling torch. Um, he's a super hard worker, really well liked. I mean that's like something you'll see is this guy is just everyone likes. This guy is a good dude. Um. He learns really quickly, picks up a ton of overtime. He had a really good work ethic. But then he starts to realize that burner knowledge might kind of mesh well with the bank knowledge that he has.

He's like, have torch will travel. So in four he became an apprentice to Edward Doctate, a master burglar and safecracker, like, check us out, I know banks, I know burning Yeah, they were burning in it was it okay. So Tate had this rule when it came to safe cracking, always work out of town, don't work at home. So the first time they worked together was in Boston. They broke into a drug store to crack open the safe um. Sutton was like, you know, apparently they worked in New

York together, Pennsylvania. So Tate and his crew, including Sutton, they pull off jobs all over the East Coast. It was good while it lasted, but you know, he was only with Tate for like a year. They parted ways in Over the next five years, Sutton just goes into overdrive. He robs a bunch of places. He's working by himself at this point. He would pick up like one or two guys here or there. Yeah he's got like he does banks, jewelry stores, a life insurance company, a florist store. Yeah, yeah,

he's going the Tom McCann. Nothing was safe. He goes into. Any time they've got like a register or safe, he's on it. So it was the October robbery of the Rosenthal and Son jewelry store that led to his first major arrest. So he gets all dressed up as a telegraph man. Hello, that's that's how they sound. And he goes all the casual like up to the store. Hello,

there was a singing telegram man. Yes, yes, So the porter opens the door for the telegram and really pulls out a gun and works with that little round pillbox hat and like a little short jacket, A little short jacket looks like maybe like and no pants of course, of course, want to pure appropriately picture it. That's what it is. So he forces his way, and he's got this accomplice, Marcus Bassett with him, who's a Bassett Hound. He's got a dog dressed up as a telegram so

they pushed their way in. He's got a gun. He forces his way in. I should note that like he carried a gun on all these things, but it was never loaded. Yeah, I'm smart, you know. So, um, each employee as they are arrived for the day, he'd find out what their job was and if they had access to the safe and then if they didn't. And they're arriving at work, he has like he has like a clipboard. He's like name position, okay, and do you know no, you don't tie them up over there. He's got like

a partition rope next. So he as they come in, they're like that, you know, I'm just the window wiper. I don't know to a bank in a while. Have you is a jewelry store, whatever jewelry store. Every jewelry store has a window wiper, a lot of glass. You got a fair point there. So they're like, come on and like so he ties them up over the side until someone who comes in. It's like, yeah, I can

do the safe. I mean, I don't know which is wiser to say yeah, I can do it and just get rid of it, or be like, I have no idea, I just vacuum here. True. So he finds someone who could open the safe. They come in, he forces them to open her up, gets out with a hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars worth of jewelry. That's like two and a half million dollars today. That's a fat score. Yeah.

And so there were apparently like undisclosed clues at the scene of the robbery that led the detectives to Sutton and Bassett. Um. The cops trailed Bassett's wife to a diner where she was meeting up with Sutton, and Sutton gets arrested and sentenced to thirty years in Sing Sing prison, just north of New York City, right on the banks of the Hudson. When we come back, I'm gonna let you know how Sing Sing panned out for Willie Sutton's Aaron Elizabeth, welcome back. Thank you, glad you could join

me quite the host. Thank you, thank you so much. Please have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Number three so I don't know if I'm next, No, no, no, okay, you're gonna have to wait. When we left off, Willie Sutton gaining cred as a serious robber man. That's the officials been sent up to Sing Sing Sing Sing robber man. He had an accomplice. Um, they just robbed a jewelry store for almost a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in jewelry. Um.

He gets caught sent to Sing Sing. Here's the thing. He escaped from Sing Sing December eleven. So he remember he's just thirty years so he lasts like to um. He and another inmate, guy named John Egan, they used hack saw blades to remove the lower bars of their cell. I can't be easy. No, cannot imagine that's easy because if you just have the blades, because you got to figure out a way to hold the blade and going

back and forth. Right now, at this point, like Sutton because of his work with doctorate, he's a skilled lock pick. But I guess that they're like, we just got a star way out of this one. But so they cut out of cells and then Willie uses his lock pick

skills to go through the subsequent doors. Um. There is speculation that he had inside help from a prison guard, but it's it's cooler to imagine that he just pulled a bobby pin out of his hair or a Kirby grip for those across the pond, and just made quick quick work of the locks. That's way more fun. Get

no help. Um, So Willie and John Egan, they're creeping out when they run into a trustee, and a trustee is an inmate who is it has a job, and it's usually like if you don't have a violent crime and you've been like well behaved, you know they'll let you do it. Um run into him. They tie him up and left him in the basement under the mess hall and just kept going They're like, don't tell a word, and he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

So they tie him up. Then they find two ladders and they tie them into one ladder using wire and they go over the west wall. So um. And then at that time of night, the area really wasn't under the watch of guards like the one that they jumped out of, and they had to get a way car waiting for him because Willie's wife had visited a couple of days before, and the two of them cooked up this whole plan. So at this point, he's married, he's gotten over Bessie. You can see my face. I'm over here.

I'm like, wait, is best No, Bestie's got a boring life. So they get in the getaway car. Four days into their newfound freedom, Sutton and Egan, they get to work. No time to waste. You know, is there in these banks aren't going to rob themselves? I've heard that about banks. Yeah, Target Manufacturers, Trust Company. Yeah. So on December fifty two, Willie Egan and then these two other dudes that they picked up headed into the bank. So you said December

what day? So like four days after he breaks out, four days, four days right, he's like, I need some some road money exactly, and he's just itching for it. So the four of them they get in there. They have revolvers, a machine gun, and tear gas and this is like the twenties, right, It's like a Thompson machine gun is one of those. Yeah, that's the sound it made because they didn't have bullets in it. Um, So that's what they had to yell, po po um. So

they walk out with thirteen thousand dollars pretty good. They had a getaway driver waiting, not the wife, someone else, and as they left to like tossed the tear gas grenade behind them into the bank for good measure, yours and then exactly. So the next bank job was the corn Exchange National Bank and Trust in Philadelphia. My bank corn Exchange. So that was on February three. So Sutton he gets dressed up as a postman and he talks

his way into the bank before it opened. He tells the banker, look, I really I got to deliver this man, manager, like, I I got I have so much corn on the cob in my truck, so that there's corn in this bank. And that's the corn Exchange. So they're like, I've got corn and then I exchange it for corn? Can I get baby corn? Change? Yeah? You want it broken up? Can I get these cobs of corn broken up into

baby corn? Do they do? Is baby corn? That's just like an eighties thing baby Cornyea, I think it's pretty much not really a thing anymore because it's like, not I'm gonna go get a can of it, just go to town on it sitting the driveway. Um anyway, so where was that corn exchange? So they are like, we've really got to deliver this mail, bro And they're like, okay,

come on in, it's corn time. And so then Willie and Egan they tie the guard up and they wait for the bank manager to arrive to open the vault. Here's the problem. The bank guard total pro He gets loose, and not just that, he gets his hand on one of their tear gas bombs blue like sets it off. So Willie and Egan they had to make a run for it. They didn't get any sweet corn. They just like, wait a minute. So the guard sets it off for

all of the Yeah. He was just like yeah, he was like we're one, Like we're all going down with the ship here. I just want about it here. So, yeah, foiled. Later that same month, Willie he goes after another bank, the Lafayette National Bank in New York. Um. He had to give up on that one too the day of because Egan didn't show up at the getaway car. Where was Egan in the morgue he got he was shot

and killed in a shooting at a speakeasy. So I'm going to count that as point five percent murder because yeah, but it was not part of the story, wasn't. It wasn't Willie Sutton who did it. It was like, it's an adjacent it's point five it's a half a percent, okay, okay. As then Willie like after that, he just cools his heels for six months. He's rocked by this. It's upsetting, it's traumatic. Yeah. So but like he at the same time, he just couldn't resist the robbing in the ceiling. Well,

you know, you gotta do what you could. Yeah, So a lizard can't be and stop being a lizard exactly. So here's the thing I should mention that Willie had a certain philosophy the how of bank robbing. So he told the people who was robbing everything he was going to do. He laid it all out, like, here's what's going to happen. Your joker coworkers are going to come in and I'm going to very respectfully ask them what they know. And he did it in like a super

calm way. Don't forget he's got this really magnetic cool personality that people don't automatically like yeah, robbery. Yeah, And he felt like alleviating stress would keep people obedient and less likely to do something stupid. They're going to make better decisions. Yeah, and he's giving them a little bit of control, like I'm gonna let you exactly people, and I am all about find the calmest way to do something, eliminate the stress, be chilled. So yeah, that is my

life skull. Uh So. Someone who witnessed one of the robberies said that it was kind of like going into the movies, except the usher had a gun one time, like, your seat is right here down, I'm gonna ask him to say, I have this gun, You're gonna need to sit I'm coming back. So one time there were these three painters that arrived unexpectedly while he was brobbing a bank.

They were there to paint um Willie so chill and chatty that the painters just like obeyed when he instructed them to lay out the drop pluts get to work there. And so he's got all these people tied up and got a gun on him. He's like just yeah, set up, guys, and like he joked with them about how he wished that bank robbing had as strong a union as the painters did, and he like he made sure everyone had

a good time. He's just like, you know, cutting up, working working out bits with were talking about four inch block brushes. So like by the time Sutton and the team and finished robbing that banks, the painters had already completed painting one wall, like they and they were happy about it. Like you know what, we all we all totally. So there's Willie looking to rob another bank, um with the patented Willie Sutton chill method, and he did right.

He decides to hit another corn exchange, this time in New York. So he dresses up as a cop and they all thought he was a male stripper. He's dresses the birthday um. He tells all the bank employees to sit and wait while the combination holders to the vault. We're coming to work. I'm not imagining. That's the dance music behind it. I need you guys to all do but I can't. The music so infectious. So the bank manager and then the head teller each had half of

the combinations. He's got to wait for those two to show up. Once they get there, he forces them to open the vault. His gang made out with almost four thousand dollars, which is like five dollars today, half a mill. That's not a bad day at all. He liked the corn Exchange in Pennsylvania though, so that was New York, but that one in Pennsylvania was just calling to him. The remember Attila and Bruce. He robbed a couple of places twice. You know, he just really want to nail it.

He's get nostalgic. You're like to go back there and do that again. We live in this one. He kind of flugged the first one. He's like, I just I won't feel right until I just completed do it right. So he decides to try again at the corn Exchange in Pennsylvania January for thirty four. So this time, though he drops in through the skylight, he's mixing it up. He gets in, he tells the guard to let the employees in. As usual, he loves popping in before the

work they starts. He's an early riser. And then he and his accomplices handcuffed, and they didn't tie them up. Now they handcuff him near the vault. Bank manager arrives, forces him to open the vault. They get away with dollars, so you know they're making good cash on this. Um. I bet he had his heart set on additional corn exchanges, but it wasn't to be because the cops caught his accomplices. So like a month later, they bust into Willie's apartment

in Philadelphia. They pinched him for escaping, sing, sing and robbing all the corns. He gets tried, the sentence to fifty years, but then the sentences later converted to life in prison. Since he was a fourth time offender, they locked him up. You'll like this, Zaren. Between ninety six and ninety seven, he made six escape attempts from prison, with two of the six being successful. I like this like every other year he's like, okay, time to give it a shot, Give it a shot, so that my

favorite is August sunshine on my face. Come on, let's do this and they go yeah, and they jumped in the air to frame August one. I love this. He Um spends what must have been an incredible amount of time making a fake head in hand in preparation for this. So he uses plaster, He gets a bunch of hair from the prison barber, and he creates a seriously lifelike fac simile of his own head. It's amazing. I don't know how he got the bigness in your own shaping

is so impressive. It looks so good. It's not like all you know, Yeah, no, this is it's crazy. He makes a hand that looks super realistic. It's like if I had it more time, I had another career. Well right, so like he has the hands kind of poke out from under the blanket to make it look realistic. He makes these decoys, He sets everything up to sneak out. However, Um, there were some other inmates who were working on their

own separate escape plan at the time. Oh yeah, they were all going on concurrently, and they didn't they didn't look at the calendar and schedule these out. Oh you're doing years, okay, well then I'll put mine off for like two weeks, okay, Um and those guys weren't subtle.

So Willie is like in the process of doing the sneakings when the alarms go off and the guards are coming after the escapees, and he has to like sneak backwards, frustrating that worked so long, and some jacket and he runs back to his cell and asked to act like nothing happened. But he's got a head in the hand and the bed with them, and they're like, son, okay, so what's super cool is that the war the son of the warden At that time, he later appeared on

Antiques Road Show with the head in the hand. Yes, it's in like a custom wooden box that has a label of Providence. It's amazing. It was like a couple of grand and you can see he was kind of disappointed because I thought it was it's priceless, but really it's priceless. Yeah, no, it's amazing. It's amazing. So Willie tries and fails again to escape. In April oft he and eleven other inmates spent eleven months digging a ninety

nine ft tunnel. So they're all into like the multiples of eleven eleven eleven months, nine ft tunnel, but like a ninety nine ft tunnel is like el Chopo level. You need like actual scaffolding instructure to bar collapses. So it's almost a year of work, but it goes down the drain in minutes because they were almost immediately caught. And so at that point they transfer him from Eastern State Penitential. They make it out, but they get caught once they get out of the mid tunnel. Yeah, and

they're like back in there. They just flooded the tunnel and they had to swim back out. Um no, I don't know how it all went down. Okay, So he gets transferred from Eastern State penn in Philadelphia to Holmesburg County Prison in Philadelphia, and that's where he made his final escape February two So he's got two years later,

zaren closure. I want you to picture it. You're doing time in Holmesburg County Prison in Philly for stealing a truck and going around shoplifting food and essential items and distributing them off the back of the truck to the poor and needy. I should have got more gas before I did. See how I made you a good jail bird. I like that, thank you. So it's a cold evening at the prison, the wind howls outside the walls and

snow whips through the air. You have two weeks left on your sentence and you're just counting the hours at this point, am You hear a thump of some louder coughing. People start yelling when an inmate is having an asthma attack, and the guards start shouting for help. You know, though, that the inmate and question does not have asthma, and that that isn't what an asthma attack sounds like, so you watch as the inmates starts to like comically gasp

for breath. There's no doctor on duty, so some of the guards have to load them up and run him to the hospital. There are now just two guards on your whole cell block, and you hear the unmistakable sound of a saw. Some inmates are cutting their way out of their cells. One of the men pulls out a gun, which you figure must have been smuggled in with the

hacks off. They take the remaining guards hostage, shuffle them down the corridor, forced them to unlock some other cells, and in one of those cells sits none other than Willie Sutton. So the inmates they stripped down the guards and put on their uniforms and leave the guards tied up. They then grabbed two ladders and tied them together. Well, I would think that it wouldn't be wise to leave two long ladders lying around a prison. And this seems to be a common theme, like there's two two ladders

in a spool of heavy wire. I don't know something. So anyway, everyone makes their way to the prison wall. Don't forget huge snowstorm outside. Suddenly the spotlight hits them from the tower and it focuses in on the two guys dressed as guards. Sutton yeels, it's okay, we just have to do some repairs. Not bad. You know what they did. They acted like they knew and they just kept on doing what they were doing, so it wasn't even like they paused to get an Okay, you know,

we're just making some repairs. And then just exactly they were supposed to be there, so they make their escape. It was the first prison break since the place opened in Yeah, they're out on the road and a milk truck rumbles by, so they carjack it and actually they common deer. They celebrated by toasting each other with bottles of milk. They were super excited. The milkman who was in there complained that he was going to get his pay docked for all the milk. So Willie gives him

five bucks. He's like, knock yourself out. He's a freeman until his ultimate capture five years later, so he stopped for five years. He did two more bank jobs between that escape and his eventual capture, and both were at branches of the Manufacturers Trust Company, and the first one was in Queens. He got sixty thou from that one, and the other ones in New York City. That one failed because members of his crew were captured before they could finish the job. And but all told, he stole

approximately two million dollars in his career. Let's take a break. When we come back, I'm going to tell you how he wound up back in the clink. Hey, Aaron, so good those ads right, I'm just tucking my wallet back in my pants because I was just buying three things. You were really, really good. I'm just gonna go back and listen to more later, just over and over. Not enough. We don't have enough in this That's why we refused to pay for YouTube. Is I just want the ads, yea,

And what would I do without? Yet that's why I love network television. Yeah, same, I don't watch TV, but I mean if you did, that's what you would watch. So Willie Sutton much like yellow Kid Vile. While Willie Sutton loved dressing sharp, so I find that to be a commonality in the convent. And he's yeah, he's like

really gregarious and and friendly and looks good of the walk. Yes, yes, well I think you have to have that in order, you know, if you look all like disheveled people are, you gotta give him some show and you gotta say, hey, look I know where I'm going. Look at me. You want to see where I'm going? Right? You wanted on this. So he has his skill at bank robbing, He created disguises,

he has super charming manner. He always looks sharp. He earned him the nickname the could Yeah, great artistic talent. They also called him slick Willie. And so why does that combination always well, yeah, but I mean prior to the Slick Willie, like Bill Clinton got the slick will from Willie Sutton, like it would just be a yeah, probably, but the idea of it's like Willie, who was the first slick Willie. Yeah, and why is like and is

he free? Is it an innuendo? I'm sure it is. Yeah, everything is an innuendom if you wanted to be so. In order to track and don't forget, okay, he's escaped from prison, he's on the run. In order to track him down in his element, the wanted poster that they put up, they distributed to Taylor's and so like, you know, we've talked about criminals before who get plastic surgery. He got. He did that. He got plastic surgery to try and change his appearance, very common mid century. It was like

the thing, cut me up, let's do this. In the end though, it doesn't matter, because it was his love of fashion that was his ultimate undoings. For so many of us, this has been true, isn't that so? In ninety two, almost five years to the day after his snowy escape, a Taylor's son, twenty four year old Arnold Schuster, recognized Sutton on the New York subway and he looked at his immaculate dress knew right away, He's like, this has to be him. Arnold had seen the wanted poster

in his dad's shop. But he was also like he kind of fancied himself an amateur sleuth. Yeah, so for the win once again. So um Arnold follows Sutton to a gas station in Brooklyn and where Sutton, Willie was there to buy a car battery, you know, just popping out for an errand um Arnold rings the fuzz. Willie Sutton scooped right up. So he was carrying a thirty eight caliber gun in a handmade holster. But you know, went quietly, like, didn't put up any kind of fight.

He denied who he was until fingerprinting confirmed his identity. You got me, Um, They on him. He also had like almost eight thousand dollars in small bills that's like cargo pockets. And then they later searched his house and found like three grand in cash and another thirty eight So you know, he was strapped up by the way, he only lived three blocks from police headquarters. Uh. So, this detective was quoted as saying that Willie Sutton was

the nicest crook he ever locked up. UM. Reporters were absolutely dying to know how did you evade capture? Um? And he said that he never contacted any old friends or any family. Something we've talked about with these guys. Um, he wasn't a big drinker, so he didn't make mistakes. He didn't make mistakes, and yeah, I didn't get drunk and tell people's stuff. He quit gambling and he avoided women. He was became rather monastic. Um. He said his life was a lot like prison, that he sat alone in

his room reading all day. So he escapes prison to live in a prison of his own making. Yeah, but and he said that he really enjoyed reading about all the copycat bank robberies. That said that he was the mastermind behind it because he wasn't involved. He's like, I'm not doing any of this stuff. Now here's this episode's

other half a percent murder. So remember Arnold Schuster, the Taylor's son who spotted soon he got shot and killed outside of his home in two and it was um umberto Anastasia, like Albert Anastasia, the mafia boss of the Gambino crime family. Um, he was absolutely irate that Sutton was captured because of a rat. Now, Sutton had no gang ties, no exactly professional curt Someone rat it on him and he orders a hit on Schuster, and you know he's the head of murder inc a hit. It's like,

all right, it's got happened with Flourish exactly. So that's what happens. Willie has absolutely nothing to do with it, doesn't know what's going to happen. I'm sure you probably wouldn't even agree to it and wanted to it's all. This is revealed by Joe Velachi, mafia renegade first government informant. So according to Velachi, Anastasia saw Arnold being interviewed regarding his part in Sutton's capture, became enraged and allegedly said, quote,

I can't stand squealers. Hit that guy, just like as he's watching the news, like that guy out of here, he's like mafia Elvis's shooting the TV. Like well. So Sutton finds this out and is absolutely heartbroken. Remember he never had bulletin. It's a chill guy, one of your school and it was like fair play, you know, like, okay,

you caught me. Um. He tried to give. Willie tried to give ten thousand dollars of his own personal savings as a reward to capture Schuster's killer, but the police persuaded him not to There like, that's not going to look right, that's going to be weird. We didn't tell you right now, that's about that's weird for all of us. And then I'm dangerous for you. So let's not um. So yeah, but he was just devastated by that. Um. At the time of his arrest, Willie still owed one

life sentence plus a hundred and five years. How do they work out? Never understand like six life sentence. Well, okay, well you're reincarnated, got to come back to prison. He spent half his adult life in prison. He's not a good way to spend half your adult life. But while he's incarcerated, he wrote two books about his life. Getting ready for his book That's all Everyone does, he wrote I Willie Sutton like I Claudius, I Willie Sutton. That was published in nine, and then he wrote Where the

Money Was There? It is seventy six. They're actually really interesting accessible reads, like they read pretty well. Um, it's two more for the book club. We have got a big um. He didn't have any interest in writing about his life until the police officers are told him, like totally disgusted that kids were running up to him chanting we want Sutton like the kids loved him, and then the cops said, you know, the kids are making a

hero of you. This is this is messed up. It bothered Willie that kids thought he was someone to look up to. Wrote the book as like a cautionary tale. He all the money that he made was given to organizations that helped troubled wayward kids. So he didn't want people to follow in his footsteps. Yeah. Yeah, So in nineteen sixty nine, his health was pretty poor, and he had also been a really model prisoner. So despite that life plus so he made it through the summer. Love

is real hard on the prison. They let him out Christmas Eve nineteen sixty nine on compassionate release um, and he went on to become a figurehead for prison reform, really passionate about it. He also acted as a consultant on theft prevention for banks, so he would talk them through like these are the weak spots, like the equivalent of a white hat hacker. But so in seventy he stars in a television commercial for Connecticut's new Britain Bank

and Trust company. Uh, they had the world's first ever credit card with the account holders photo on it. Remember when they did that again, like in the yeah you have the picture I don't know on the back of the card. Um. So he's in this commercial. He had two lines. One said they call it a face card and then the other Now when I say I'm Willie Sutton, people believe me. The commercial and the announcer says, tell him Willie Sutton sent you. So new Britain bank and trust,

small bank, small ad budget. Uh, they're competing against all these major banks with monster marketing departments. How could they get the most exposure for this new, groundbreaking product with the least amount of money. So this Louis van Lewen, president of the Van Lewin advertising agency, has this idea, let's use a famous bank robber. And the bank is immediately like, no, what is wrong with you? Where did

we find this guy? And they kick him out. But then they like start thinking about it, like, actually, that's kind of dope, come back, come back. What is just so crazy? It just might work. So they shoot the commercial over the course of two weeks in Miami, which is where Sutton lived at the time. Um, he said of the experience, quote it's an unusual relationship, all right, but it's a very pleasant way to make money, which I got. You know, hey, hey, you're handed to him.

He himself really didn't understand why he loved robbing banks so much that I was just trying to get to this. He did it. He did it even when he didn't need the money. Was compulsion. Yeah, but he said after a successful robbery, he didn't feel happy about it. He felt disappointed. And he said he once read a Clarence Darrow quote popping up again for us here that resonated with him. Quote the expectation of doing something gives you much more happiness than you can ever get from actually

doing it. To the fantasy that is pleasing more than the reality. And yeah, that that that energy, that like adrenaline of it. Yeah, everything is perfect in your imagination. And he said to me, the money was the chips, that's all, okay. Yeah. He died at the age of seventy nine in Florida and he's buried in Brooklyn and the family plot um our researcher Andrea brought up something

really interesting. Um She wondered how different his life would have been if he had gone to war, either like he was too young for World War One, incarcerated throughout all of before he got to the World War One. Then he's in prison for World War Two, and that was something that he really wanted, Like could he have gotten his adrenaline that way? Um, what if he had been able to marry Bessie, That's my question. I think

that would have been good for us. Like, so he could have been a hero in like maybe two World wars, possibly like a sergeant York. You don't know, Yeah, it could have been a husband and a father. Don't forget then like when he's on the run, he doesn't he has no relationship. I don't know what happened to the wife that he comes to monastic after Bessie essentially, yeah, when he was but she kind of like floats off

into ether on these Um. I mean the thing is like we could we could think about this for almost every person on earth, you know, just like what are those moments, those defining moments that if it had gone a different way, Like how your life could have gone in a totally different direction, both good and bad. You know. But it's interesting when you see someone's life plotted out like that. You know, these two like big turning points of a life. I'm of a mind that with Willie Sutton.

I'm not sure that marriage or military service would have changed who he was. I think that he would have maybe had different outlets, but I think that like there was something in him that drove him to do this. But I think that the point is well made that the military service combat, it requires everything of a person, so they are their experiences like the you know, although how you filter out life, you know that that process

gets changed when you're in combat. Were're gonna be like trying to stay alive, so you're gonna be taking in all your information so you're fully alive, just like robbing a bank, you're fully alive. So I think that being fully live sensation would have satisfied and he could have found that hard wiring and it would have given him whatever that sensation he was chasing after, and then he would have had that as the framework that's how you

get that feeling. And instead he doesn't. He goes to crime and then he says, this is how I get that feeling. So I think that if he would have found a framework for that feeling, he would have picked that framework and not shifted. I don't think the crime from what you described, it sounds like a gave him any moral pleasure. He wasn't fighting against the man. If we talked about all these people who have enemies there, who they're always robbing in a sense, and he doesn't

seem to be one of those. It seems that he's trying to wrestle with himself. It's an interesting character totally, way more than just his willly sudden principle. They always just here referred to him like he's always been boiled down to basically a criminal philosopher. Yeah, and that's where the money, like, you know, but there's so much more behind him, So it gets I like, I like his story gives you a lot to think about. Uh that that's all I have as far as Willie Sutton goes.

That's me for today. Thank you, Thank you. I invented him completely out a whole cloth, just kidding. Um. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Email us if you want a ridiculous crime at gmail dot com and other than that, tune in next time. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by Dapper Dave coust In,

chief designer of the eponymous house of Coustan. Coulture Research is by felonious fashion influencer Andrea's song Sharp and Tier. The theme song is by the tailoring Empire of Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben What's Your In? Scene Bowland and Noel Why do You Want to Know? Brown Dass Quiet Say It one more Time? We Dequeous Crime.

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