The Kidnap Years: by David Stout (popular books of all time TXT) 📗

seconds for the sheriff to note that Floyd and his friend Richetti were armed with a Thompson submachine gun and a pair of pistols. The sheriff was not armed, which may have been just as well. Had he been carrying a weapon and reached for it, he probably would have been killed.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened next, but it went something like this:

“Give me that machine gun,” Richetti said to Floyd. “I’ll kill him right now.” He meant the sheriff. Then he added, “I’ll kill everybody.” It was clear that Richetti, a habitual drunk, had been imbibing heavily at an hour when normal people were having breakfast.

Floyd was a calming influence, an unusual role for him. So was Richetti’s brother Joe, who was a mechanic in the garage.

Floyd and Adam Richetti had stolen a car in Oklahoma and driven into Missouri. They had robbed a bank in the town of Mexico, netting about $1,600, then headed toward Bolivar, about 170 miles to the southwest. On the way, the car broke down. Soon, a friendly farmer happened by in a truck and said he’d give the pair a ride and tow the car into Bolivar for repairs.

Had the farmer looked more closely at the stranded motorists, he might have recognized Floyd. But the farmer took no notice, which was probably lucky for him.

Once in Bolivar, Floyd and Richetti planned to get the stolen car fixed and get out of town. But the appearance of the sheriff forced a change in plans, so they gassed up Joe Richetti’s new 1933 Chevy, transferred their arsenal to it, and ordered the sheriff to get in the back seat.

Then they sped out of Bolivar, with Floyd and Richetti taking turns behind the wheel. The bandits told the sheriff he’d be safe if he helped them elude pursuers. So Killingsworth steered the pair onto back roads throughout the region.

Richetti was drinking from a bottle for part of the trip, now and then talking in a slur about killing the sheriff. Floyd kept telling him to calm down and shut up.

Suddenly, the sound of a siren behind them. Get rid of them, Killingsworth was told. He waved his panama hat out the window, signaling the chasers to cease and desist. They did, to the relief of the sheriff. He was sure local cops would be no match for Floyd and Richetti, who had better weapons (and colder blood) than the pursuers.

Killingsworth tried small talk, volunteering the information that he had a wife and a little boy. Floyd said he too had a son, Jack Dempsey Floyd, who was eleven. Though the notorious bandit spoke fondly about his boy, he didn’t seem like much of a family man. Floyd and Richetti talked about a couple of women they hoped to hook up with in Kansas City. Point us there, the sheriff was ordered.

Killingsworth obeyed, directing his captors north and west.

After a while, the duo decided to change cars to further frustrate anyone chasing them. The sheriff was ordered to get out and flag down a motorist.

Soon, a car approached. Seeing the sheriff’s star, the driver stopped. Too late, he realized the situation. Move over, he was ordered. He complied.

Leaving Joe Richetti’s car by the roadside, the bandits transferred their arsenal to the car they’d just seized and away they went, with two hostages now. At long last, Killingsworth and the other hostage were set free, unharmed, about twenty miles southeast of Kansas City, Missouri.

An embarrassing footnote had been added to Killingsworth’s career. As for the motorist whose car had been commandeered, he had an adventure story to tell for the rest of his life. Not many honest men got to keep company with Pretty Boy Floyd and live.*

But the lingering question for lawmen as the sun set over Missouri that Friday, June 16, 1933, was: What kind of mischief might Pretty Boy Floyd be planning in these parts?

*For information on the kidnapping of Jack Killingsworth, I am indebted to Larry Wood, author of Murder and Mayhem in Missouri (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2013).

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

FROM HOT SPRINGS TO SLAUGHTER

Hot Springs, Arkansas

Friday, June 16, 1933

On the very day of Sheriff Killingsworth’s misadventure, local cops and two FBI agents caught up with the fugitive named Frank Nash in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a playground for gangsters some four hundred miles southeast of Kansas City. Nash, who had escaped from Leavenworth federal prison in northeastern Kansas in 1930, was nabbed in a cigar store and pool hall run by Dick Galatas, gambling czar of Hot Springs.

In 1913, Nash was sentenced to life in prison in the state penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, for murdering his accomplice in a robbery, presumably because he didn’t want to share the loot. When America entered the Great War, Nash was granted early release so he could enlist in the army.

Nash fought in France, came home, and resumed his criminal career. In 1920, he was sentenced to twenty-five years for burglary with explosives—in other words, safecracking. Somehow, he became a trustee, which meant he could leave the walls now and then on errands, and was turned loose late in 1922. He joined a gang that robbed banks and trains. Captured in 1924 after taking part in a postal-train robbery in which a mail custodian was badly beaten, he was sentenced to twenty-five years in Leavenworth. Astoundingly, he charmed prison officials into making him a trustee again.

On October 19, 1930, he went on an errand and never returned. While at large, Nash managed to marry three times, with each of his wives apparently unaware of the other two. He robbed banks throughout the Midwest with a gang that included a Tennessee-born ex-bootlegger and robber formally named George Kelly Barnes. For some reason, Barnes dropped his surname and began to go by his mother’s maiden name, Kelly. (Eventually, he became known as “Machine Gun” Kelly for his supposed acumen with that deadly weapon.)

At 8:30 on Friday evening, June 16, just hours after his capture, Nash was