Alvin Karpis

So we've talked a lot on this show about Midwest bank robbing gangsters from the early to mid-1930s.

And I think in my mind, the era ends in 1936, or it has up until the point where I've read your book, when Elvin Karpis was captured in New Orleans and Hoover popped out from his hiding place and made the arrest.

Oh, yeah.

And then the rest of the depression is kind of outlaw free.

All some of the most infamous names in crime

Alvin Francis Karpavicius, Alvin with a B, who would become known as Alvin Karpis, was born in Montreal, Canada on August 10th, 1907.

When he was young, his family moved to Topeka, Kansas.

By 10 years old, Alvin was already getting into trouble.

A mention of an alligator that locals called Gator Joe helped authorities track the gang to Florida's Lake Weir, where agents then asked locals if anyone was new in town.

They were quickly told about the Blackburns, a mother and her sons who were vacationing in the area.

At 5:00 in the morning on January 16th, 1935, FBI agents raided a home in Ocklawaha, Florida, where the Barkers and Alvin Karpis were believed to be hiding.

At the time, only Fred and Ma Barker were inside.

After being assured that the lines had been checked numerous times and were in fact secure, Hoover began fearing that one of his own men was feeding the story to the press.

He went so far as to instruct agents to pretend that they had captured Alvin Karpis, the nation's most wanted fugitive at the time, to see if the news would be leaked.

It never was.

The Chicago American claimed that their information came from friends of Bolton, to whom he previously had told the story.

But Fred and Arthur just kept going, escalating their crimes.

They formed the Barker-Karpis gang with Alvin Karpis, pulling off massive bank robberies and making hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom payments from high-profile kidnappings, like the Edward Bremmer kidnapping in Minnesota.

Huge, high-stakes crimes for that era.

Right.

Precisely.

They were trying to establish themselves as the ultimate law enforcement agency, and gunning down an elderly mother is a terrible optics.

Alvin Karpis himself, the co-founder of the gang, later wrote in his memoirs that Ma Barker was just an old-fashioned homebody from the Ozarks who had no part in planning any of their crimes.

Really?

Known simply as The Rock, Alcatraz was once considered escape-proof, a fortress surrounded by the icy, deadly waters of San Francisco Bay.

It was the final stop for the worst of the worst, Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Alvin Karpis, and countless others.

But beneath the bars and steel lies something darker.

Alcatraz isn't just a prison of stone.

The cops there sent him back to California for violating parole on the check cashing charge and he was ordered to serve his original 10-year sentence.

He was now doing time at the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island in Washington, and while there was taught to play guitar by Alvin Creepy Karpis, the former leader of the Barker gang.

He put Charlie on the path to what he came to believe was his real purpose in life, rock star.

Charlie was released from prison again on March 21st, 1967.

And that to me is what came out.

So if, if you were to watch, um, you know, our Ma Barker episode, when it says, "Someone's up here," or, "That was Kate," or Alvin Karpis, it doesn't sound to me like on a radio station per se.

Mm-hmm.

It sounds like it's carrying through that white noise, if you will.