Dr. Joseph Moran, stunned by the blow to the back of his head, squirmed on the lakeshore beach. He was defenseless as Creepy rolled him over, removed his Colt handgun from the shoulder holster, rolled the six-shot chamber for effect, and plugged Doc in the forehead; blood gushed into the grains of sand. “Nice gun. Not much of a kick. Think I’ll keep it,” Creepy said to his colleague Fred Barker as he wiped the blood off the barrel and stuck it in the back of his waistband.

Creepy chuckled, “Let’s get Moran ready for his midnight swim. Gonna be hard without hands or feet, but the current will move him along.” The duo nudged the corpse with their shoe leather, took pulls on open beers, and retrieved a filet knife from the tackle box. Unconcerned about sterile technique or being spotted by a local who faced his own danger should he snitch; they turned the dock into an operating table and went to work. They rowed the boat into the open water, where five parts of Moran went overboard for an unpredictable destination.

Creepy and Fred joked about the crude surgical results on returning to town. “See you tomorrow,” Fred said. Creepy waved at the taillights and entered his girlfriend’s apartment building, ready for a shower.

Years earlier, Creepy Karpis showered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he developed his crime syndicate that quenched his thirst for more adrenaline rushes via lawless sprees. But he had non-violent interests as well.

**

Ray Karpowicz walked through the doors of Bishop’s Restaurant —downtown Tulsa—on a cold December day in the early 1930s. The wind from the west smelled of refineries across the river. He flashed a smile at the dame behind the cash register. She gasped, turned away from her admirer, and attended to the napkin folding on the counter behind her, looking over her shoulder to ensure he was gone. His friends gave him a hard time about this smile—the intimidating smile, one corner of his mouth raised; they called it creepy. They called him Creepy.

Creepy, a suave twenty-three-year-old, was especially appealing to vulnerable, young women who needed reassurance, maybe a long way from home, maybe low on funds.

While a Bishop’s waitress, Dorothy Slayman. The nineteen-year-old runaway from southeast Missouri took orders down the aisle; Creepy watched. The bombshell with a slender figure flirted with a hand on her hip and touched her lips provocatively with the eraser tip of her pencil while telling oil field workers and business people in suits about the daily specials.

Dorothy strolled to his table. Creepy flashed his charming smile, the one using both sides of his mouth. She relaxed.

“What’ll ya have?” Dorothy said.

“Well, I was thinking about a big steak, but it’s kinda’ early. Don’t you think? I’d want some bourbon to wash it down, and I bet you don’t have that?”

“Right. Too early, no booze,” she smacked her gum, cocked her head.

“OK. What’ll I have?”

“You could try some oysters. But we ain’t got them either. So, guess I’d go with beans and grits—a couple of eggs with bacon. Coffee, hold the cream. How’d I do?”

Creepy pushed back from the table and gave her a good look. She held her ground.

“I’m Ray.”

“Call me Dorothy.”

Again, the flirtatious glances.

“Yeah, I can smell the bacon sizzlin’. I’ll take that and a few eggs, sunny side up. Take your time. No hurry…your hair looks great, by the way.”

“Thanks…new do. Strawberry blonde. Can you tell?” she turned her head, smiling, as she strutted to place his order.

It had been a while since he’d enjoyed female affection.

Creepy returned several times over the next few days, engaged in playful banter with Dorothy,

and told her he’d be gone doing his jewelry business for a week—that he’d bring her a surprise.

Dorothy gave him a come-on smile.

“Really? Something for me?”

“Sure. Real nice.” The suitor winked.

He sat at a table alone, thinking about his next move, about his need for easy money, about the mistakes he’d made three years ago that led to his arrest and incarceration in the Kansas State Prison for armed robbery. In prison, he’d met the man who became his business partner and close friend, Fred Barker, son of a Tulsa resident, the notorious “Ma” Kate Barker.

In 1926, he was sentenced to 10 years at the State Industrial Reformatory in Hutchinson, Kansas, for an attempted burglary. He escaped with another inmate, Lawrence De Vol, and went on a year-long crime spree, interrupted briefly, while he lived with his parents after De Vol was arrested. After moving to Kansas City, Missouri, he was caught stealing a car and returned to the reformatory. Transferred to the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, he met Fred Barker, who was in prison for bank burglary. Barker was one of the notorious members of the “Bloody Barkers,” as the newspapers of the time called them.

                                                 

His reverie ended. Creepy took a look out the café window. A car pulled up. One he expected. Dorothy was busy, so a come-on goodbye missed.

Creepy put a five-dollar bill on the counter, waved at Dorothy from the sidewalk. She blew him a kiss. He took a last look and got into Fred’s car. Dorothy didn’t know their history. Dorothy didn’t know that her new interest was born Albin Raymond Karpowicz in 1908 to Lithuanian immigrants in Montreal, that a teacher in Topeka, Kansas changed his name to Alvin Karpis; easier to pronounce, she said. Dorothy didn’t know that by age 10, he owned his first gun and ran errands for local pimps and other crime figures because “that’s where the action was.” Dorothy did know she wanted the mysterious man to return, thinking they always do for a while, she thought.

**

Creepy and Fred headed a hundred miles East to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and the most prominent jewelry store in the region, Grand Jewelers. Checking into the Ward Hotel on Main Street, the pair took a room on an upper floor. From there, they had a good view of the small downtown and Grand Jewelers that would open at 10 AM when the sidewalks were empty.

After an early afternoon walk-through of the store, the Tulsans strolled into the hotel bar, smiling. “Easy money,” Fred said. They ordered a couple of charcoal-grilled steaks and a few cocktails.

Shortly before noon the next day, the boys parked their car around the corner and entered Grand Jewelers. A middle-aged man put his coffee cup on a counter, straightened his bowtie, and turned to greet his prospects. They would be there only a short time.

“What can I show you guys? Is this for a wedding, anniversary, or to get out of trouble?”

“Well, we’re thinking about something in diamonds, actually,” Creepy said.

The Karpis-Barker gang approached the glass case in the middle of the store. Nestled near a collection of bracelets and necklaces with rubies and other precious stones, the diamonds blazed from the bright lights above them.

“Man, these are exactly what we’re looking for,” Creepy said.

“We don’t care what it costs. Really, we don’t. We’ll take them all,” Fred said, pulling a hotel pillowcase from under his coat.

Creepy grabbed the terrified clerk, pulled out his .45 revolver, and positioned it above the bowtie. “It’d be advisable you keep still.”

Fred rounded the end of the cases. Creepy shuffled the salesman to the back of the store, brandishing his one-corner smile. Sliding the counter’s partitions back, it took less than a minute for Fred to scoop all the diamond rings, loose stones, and an extensive collection of necklaces, broaches, and bracelets into his Ward Hotel acquisition. Fred slung the bulging bag over his shoulder, “Ho, ho, ho.”

“Thanks for the Christmas gifts, buddy,” Creepy said, shoving the captive against the wall. “Mum’s the word. Got it?”

The Desoto fired up, and Fred eased it around the corner onto Main Street. The pair waved at the salesperson as he stood outside the store, hands on hips. They cruised west, headed for Tulsey Town. The robbed man headed for a notepad and wrote down the tag number.

**

“Hey, kid. How ya’ doing?” Creepy asked as he slid into a booth.

“Just fine, Ray,” Dorothy said. “You got anything for me?”

“Sure. Made a fortune on my trip, and this is for you.”

Creepy handed the blushing teen a crushed velvet jewelry box, and she flashed a smooch at the criminal when she saw the ruby broach.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I could kiss you,” Dorothy said.

“Ah, keep it for later,” the smile flashed back at her.

The smitten teen and the gangster met at closing time and made their way hand-in-hand to her walk-up at Archer and Boston several blocks away on the “other” side of the tracks. The two-week romance led to a Justice of the Peace marriage. The newlyweds celebrated at the Tavern a couple of blocks from their home. Creepy told Dorothy that a friend of his would join them soon. A man walked into the bar. He wore a brown suit and a white shirt. He walked with a clumsy gait and sidled up to Ray. He leaned forward, looking at Dorothy, “Hey. I’m Owen, Owen Dooley. Congratulations, you two lovebirds.” It was Fred Barker. The men acknowledged the ruse with a smirk. During the brief encounter, Owen said he was in the oil industry, but she didn’t quiz him, and he didn’t offer more information. It was just a casual chat over some drinks, after all.

Later that year, Creepy and Fred were arrested for the Ft. Smith jewelry theft. Dorothy read about it in the paper. She guessed the Fred Barker mentioned was a man she knew as Owen.

Oddly, Fred Barker was never charged, and he was released. Perhaps he recognized his connection with a dangerous family. Subsequently, the judge received a note, a threat of physical misfortune directed at him and his family. The handwritten scrawl threatened that there would be consequences if Creepy, who entered a guilty plea, did not have his four-year sentence overturned. The judge arranged for Creepy’s release if Fred returned the loot from the heist.

Only one piece of the take was missing.

Fred knocked on Dorothy’s door. She let him in. The stare of the man she knew as Owen made her recoil. “Give me the broach. It’s too good for you anyway.” She took it off, handed it over. Shocked and scared, Dorothy stood in the quiet of her home.

Hours later, Creepy descended the County Jail steps. “No harm, no foul, I guess,” Creepy said to Barker upon entering Pinky’s Bar for a celebratory whiskey. The pair joked and drank too much. Creepy’s two-corner smile appeared. He never returned to his marital bungalow.

Filing for divorce in 1935, Dorothy claimed she had not seen her husband for four years. “He was on the road a lot,” Dorothy said to a Tulsa Tribune reporter, “likely raking in non-taxable revenue, leaving a bloody trail of blameless victims, and sleeping with willing women.”

Days after his release from custody, Creepy and Fred robbed a West Plains, Missouri store. Sheriff C.R. Kelly and a deputy named Kurt spotted the pair and approached their DeSoto to investigate.

“I was with Sheriff Kelly when we found the Ma Barker Gang,” Kurt wrote in his report. “They knew it was us when Kelly opened the door. Bullets came out of the blue. The Sheriff was dead.” The killers headed for a new Ma Barker hideout in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Barker-Karpis gang operated in St. Paul, Minnesota, under the protection of mobbed-up police chief Tom Brown and local organized crime figures Jack Peifer and Harry Sawyer. Sawyer had orchestrated them… See more.

Most of the Karpis Gang members were entry-level criminals, attracted to the thrill of crime and having money in their pockets during the middle of the Great Depression. The gang was a fraternal organization of sorts. The initiation consisted of participating in a heist or a kidnapping, whatever Creepy decided. Once such exception bears notice—a doctor. He became an intimate in the gang, and he was dangerous.

**

Creepy continued his penchant for young waitresses. One in particular had a thing for the handsome criminal from the Midwest. Creepy lusted for a sixteen-year-old, who served him sandwiches and smiles. She worked at Colosimo’s Restaurant in Toledo. It was smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression, and good times and thrills were few. Creepy offered a way out of the mundane, into a real-time talkie of intrigue and danger, and away from parental scrutiny. She was intrigued, charmed by his bravado and good looks. She was Dolores Delaney.

A typical midwestern girl, Dolores was not glamorous, did not know how to be glamorous, and indeed, could not afford what it took to be glamorous. Her parents worked and drank and drank and worked, leaving Dolores without supervision. She hungered for someone to pay attention to her. Creepy satisfied her needs. Dolores and her appealing demeanor, her need for attention, and her spoken interest for a taste of the wild side intrigued Creepy. It was a match.

Between the sheets, they planned their life forever. Kids weren’t part of the mix, but sex resulted in pregnancy. Creepy arranged and paid for the underaged playmate to abort their love child via an obliging physician. Promising he’d be back, Creepy left Dolores convalescing to return to Tulsa to recruit colleagues from the pool of up-and-comers at Sixth and Peoria, Central Park. He had a plan—a plan to get rich.

Creepy sat on a park bench, watching four toughs try to impress each other with mock fighting and swearing. One stepped back from the boyish fray and looked down the path. Creepy waved him over. The youngster walked towards the man with coal-black eyes and a brown fedora cocked to the side. They stared at each other, neither blinking.

“You lookin’ for work?” Creepy said.

The hood lit a cigarette and looked back at his pack. Shook his head.

“Suppose so. Whatcha got in mind?” he said.

“What’s your name?”

“Harry.”

Well, Harry, meet me at Lou’s in half an hour. Leaves those chumps here. You know Lou’s diner up the street?” Creepy said.

“Yeah.”

“My friends call me Ray.”

“OK, Ray. See ya.” Harry took a couple of quick puffs and crushed out his cigarette.

Lou’s was a modest, free-standing structure with a white-washed lapboard outer surface featuring three tables and a counter of a half-dozen stools. On one side of the cafe was a sign with large, black capital letters, LUNCH. That’s it.

Harry walked into Lou’s and passed several customers working on their egg salad sandwiches. The white menu board above the order counter showed limited selections. Harry took a quick look around the room. In the corner, he connected with Ray. The recruit ordered chili with beans and a cup of coffee and plopped down a pair of quarters.

Harry weaved between two tables to Creepy and lowered himself into a chair. Creepy put his sandwich down, took a drink of coffee, and casually smacked his lips. The process began without superficial banter. Creepy was in charge.

“So, tell me about yourself.”

Lou brought the chili and coffee.

Harry tucked the paper napkin in his shirt collar and dipped his spoon into the steaming mass. The prospective employee launched into his professional skills.

“Well, mostly, I steal oilfield equipment. Dropped a winch on my leg a while back; now they call me Limpy.

“I’d preferred you got into a gunfight and the other guy got a lucky shot.”

Harry took a bite. Not in any hurry, gazing left and right, the interviewee surveyed nearby listeners. Harry looked at Creepy and weighed his words. He flipped his hand in a carefree manner.

“Well, I have been shot at, alright.” Creepy nodded in recognition. Harry pressed.

“Ever been arrested?” Creepy asked.

“Yeah. I got sloppy when I was 16. Got busted for burglary and theft. But I escaped. Then robbed some banks, and they put me back in the Tulsa County Jail. I left, sort of on my own.” Harry bragged.

Resourceful and unafraid, thought Creepy.

Creepy squinted and looked beyond the aspirant, watching the bustle of the noontime traffic on 6th Street. He returned to the assessment with a questioning tone, not sure Harry was special.

“What else have you done? How could you be helpful to me?”

“Well, I know how to use nitroglycerin.”

Creepy did not flinch. His poker face showed nonchalance about having a crew member who knew how to blow up banks, cars…people. Creepy calculated. Did he like Harry’s credentials? Did he like Harry? He tilted his head and stuffed more bologna sandwich into his mouth. Quiet. Chewing on the last bits, Creepy stuck out his hand, and Harry took it. Both smiled, showed lunch between their front teeth. This was the start of a long-term partnership and friendship.

Over time, Harry became Creepy’s right-hand man. The duo traveled south to lay low between sprees to avoid the law. Harry and Creepy vacationed in Saratoga, Florida, where they hustled girls who relished men who operated on justice’s shady side.

Grace Goldstein, a madam of hookers, latched onto Karpis, and Harry settled for one of Grace’s girls, Connie Morris. The thirty-five-year-old Grace had peroxide blonde hair and operated several brothels. She had contacts at all levels of society and rented hideouts for the duo when the heat got close. “I’ll take it for you,” she promised, “I got courage.” Put to the test, she did not cave in during occasional interrogations.

Grace heard all the details of Creepy’s reign of terror that earned the criminal-coveted title of Public Enemy #1. He bragged that between 1931 and 1935, he spearheaded three kidnappings, more than ten murders (authorities thought it more), countless bank robberies, and train and mail truck holdups. The fact that Creepy remained at large despite J. Edgar Hoover and his new FBI detectives still hunting for him was a source of anger for Hoover and pride for Creepy. He was the King of Crime. Damn straight. He’d come a long way. He was proud and empowered. He laughed confidently with his friends. He took pleasure in fabricating Hoover stories to anyone in earshot and told Grace the excitement he felt when a criminal adventure was underway.

Grace loved it, sashaying arm and arm with her beau as they flaunted the law, strode down Florida streets, and ate in local restaurants; she adored him and cherished her public and private moments with Creepy. But he had work to do, and Creepy gassed up the car for a trip to Tulsa.

Five recruits from Central Park became a part of the Karpis-Barker gang, who participated in bank heists along the road to a St. Paul, Minnesota hideout. The safe house was a respite, a shelter from police—the chief Tom Brown was on the take—and a lair to plan the gang’s subsequent crimes. Karpis reunited with former associate Harry Sawyer, who lived in St. Paul, where he was a bootlegger during Prohibition. He was the St. Paul Jewish-American organized crime boss who developed underworld ties to local breweries.

The Sawyer enterprise kidnapped William Hamm of Hamm’s Brewery on June 15, 1933. Hamm was released four days later for $100,000 ($2.3 million in 2024 dollars).

Taking a page out of the Sawyer playbook from his successful ransom-kidnapping of Hamm, the Karpis-Barker hatched a plan. One that would double the take and involve another beer maker, Edward Bremer, the Schmidt beer brewery and bank owner, with whom Sawyer had a contentious relationship involving alcohol, according to Bremer’s wife, Julie.

After several weeks of scouting and planning, working hand-in-hand with former Karpis associate Harry Sawyer, the gang was poised for its most complicated and lucrative undertaking. Sawyer and Creepy set the 1935 abduction Bremer in motion. It became a step toward their doom.

“Hurry, honey. Can’t be late to school,” said Bremer. “I have your sack lunch. Hurry, please. I have an important meeting. Have to be on time.”

“OK, Daddy. Just putting my snow boots on,” she said.

They entered his Cadillac V-16 and sped down the circle drive to the snow-packed street. Bremer made the drop-off and headed for downtown St. Paul…date with tragedy about to unfold. Bremer hustled down the street, unaware. It was January 17, 1934.

The sun ricocheted off the fresh. Bremer was lost in his thoughts when two men approached from behind. A tough and “Doc’ Barker—brother of Fred—confronted him. “Doc” repeatedly pistol-whipped Bremer, who was thrown into the back seat of his car and blindfolded. Bremer’s bleeding stained the delicate fabric of the luxury automobile. But the thug could not start the vehicle. They jerked the blindfold off, and Bremer showed them the starter. If he hadn’t, would the kidnap end there? Would they kill him next to the blanket his daughter had used for warmth on the trip to school?

Karpis held Bremer in Bensenville, Illinois, just outside Chicago, for three weeks. Fred wanted to kill him. Karpis and “Doc” intervened. When the loot bag arrived, Edward was driven to a deserted road with a few dollars. Money was no object.

The Bremer abduction and payout netted $200,000 ($4.6 million 2024 value; in red-dye marked bills), and the gang split up to launder the proceeds in Cuba, Chicago, and Reno. Laundered carelessly by a punk doctor in Chicago who wanted to worm his way into the gang, Joseph P. Moran, MD, told Creepy he’d be glad to take care of it. The ink-stained bills proved to be the demise of the remaining Barker family, Karpis, and all their henchmen.

When the gang separated after splitting the Bremer ransom, Karpis drove to Toledo. Fred and Moran moved with him. Creepy settled into the apartment of his moll for three years, Dolores, who was pregnant again. The three steered clear of each other for a couple of weeks before deciding to have a few beers at the Casino Club outside of town.

Moran arrived late, drunk on his ass, all butch, and quite feisty. He insulted Creepy and Fred. They suggested a ride to Lake Erie for some nighttime fishing. Moran hoped for the best, but it was not to be.

The trio emerged from the Ford along the sandy shoreline. The youngest boy of Ma Barker pushed a wobbly Moran towards the water’s edge. Moran knew he was in trouble and hoped they might just rough him up, teach him a lesson.

Walking from the car to the beach, Creepy trailed behind, picked up a rock, and bashed the back of Moran’s head. The full moon brightly lit the spectacle of the dazed man groveling on the gravel.

“Just stay put, you bastard,” Fred commanded.

“Hey, come on. Damn, that hurt. I’m sorry, really sorry. Just a little drunk, ya’ know?”

“You may be a little soused, but you are a lot stupid. Running your mouth. Acting like a big shot,” Creepy said.

“It won’t happen again. Honest.”

“You make a good point,” Creepy said.

The stunned Moran was defenseless as Barker rolled him over, removed the Colt from Moran’s shoulder holster, rolled the six-shot chamber for effect, and plugged Doc in the forehead; blood gushed into the grains of sand.

“Nice gun, “observed Creepy, “Not much of a kick. Think I’ll keep it.” He wiped the blood off the barrel and stuck it in the back of his waistband.

Fred pulled out a flask and handed it to Creepy, who took a swig and handed it back. “Nice shot, by the way,” Fred said as they lipped a cigarette. Fred lit his friends’, then his. It was a clear night. They took a look at the stars for a moment.

Creepy chuckled, “Let’s get Moran ready for his midnight swim. Gonna be hard without hands or feet, but the current will move him along.” The duo nudged the corpse with their shoe leather, took pulls on open beers, and retrieved a filet knife from the tackle box. Unconcerned about sterile technique or being spotted by a local who faced his own danger should he snitch; they turned the dock into an operating table and went to work. They rowed the boat into the open water, where five parts of Moran went overboard for an unpredictable destination.

The two joked about the crude surgical results on the way back to town.

“Probably should have sharpened the butcher knife first,” Creepy laughed.

“Well, I’m glad you killed him first. The idiot would have screamed bloody murder. Get it?”

“Sure. He’d probably call for his mama. Screech like a stuck pig!” Creepy laughed again.

“We made a real mess of that one leg: hack, hack, hack. But we got it,” Fred said.

Fred dropped his friend at Dolores’s apartment, “See you tomorrow.”

Creepy waved at the taillights and entered the building, ready for a shower. Trouble was in the neighborhood.

Alerted the feds were near, Creepy and Harry, along with their female companions, fled in their Chrysler sedan, using side roads to reach Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Dan-Mor rooming house. And they weren’t always together.

Sitting down for lunch and feeling frisky, Creepy and Harry charmed a waitress at the Boardwalk Café in the Traymore Hotel with winks and compliments. Initially pleased, her demeanor changed when she overheard their references to recent crimes. A local mobster had beaten the brother of the server for refusing to work for his gang. The young lady wanted revenge and ratted to the FBI about Creepy and Harry.

In a hail of bullets, the four fugitives worked their way down the hotel’s stairs. The gun battle was vicious. Creepy shot a policeman in the face, and Harry wounded several others during a brief standoff. Errantly shot in the thigh by Harry, Dolores and Harry’s girlfriend were nabbed and arrested. Dolores was charged for her complicity in the Bremer kidnapping. Creepy and Harry left for Florida while Dolores was treated for her wound and questioned at length. Mourning the loss of her companion, she gave the cops little information. Subsequently, Dolores was temporarily moved to Philadelphia, where, several months later, the child she conceived with Karpis—a son—was born.

Returned to court, Dolores ultimately received a five-year sentence for harboring Karpis. The two lovers never saw each other again. She could not determine his whereabouts, and he never looked back. There was no correspondence, no phone calls, simply nothing.

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Karpowicz of Chicago, adopted the infant, christening him Raymond Albin Karpowicz, but called him Ray, and Ray, Sr. did not respond. There was no correspondence, no phone calls, simply nothing again.

Few of the Karpis-Barker gang involved with the Bremer crime were free men when Creepy and his buddy, Harry Sawyer, returned to Florida. They already knew that some of their organization, after a short stay in Havana, were nabbed by the Feds and charged with making a money laundering deposit in Cuba. Despite the bad luck associated with Cuba, Creepy, Fred, Arthur, Ma Barker, and Sawyer moved to Cuba. Time passed. Creepy and the rest decided they had done all they could on the island and felt it safer to return to the States.

Creepy sought suitable accommodations before returning. He called his old squeeze Grace, who didn’t hold a grudge for Creepy’s lack of attention. She picked up her phone receiver and sat on the vinyl-covered kitchen chair to listen to her old friend on the other end. It was short and sweet.

“Can you get a safe place for the five of us,” muttered Creepy.

“Sure. Give me a few days… How have you been?”

“Good. Good. Call me back in two days.” The line went dead.

Creepy and the others became unsettled as they waited for the return call. Would Grace be an ally again, or did she need to bail herself out of some trouble with information about the remainder of the Karpis-Barker gang sunning in Havana and smoking Cuban cigars? The phone rang. Grace had come through, and Creepy believed her.

“Just rented a place for a month… middle of Florida, Lake Weir—13250 East Highway C-25. Write that down. Two-story house, fireplace, screened front porch, huge trees. Good fishing, too.”

“Good fishing, huh? Left our filet knife in Lake Erie, so, heh, heh… thanks, Grace.”

“I’ll meet you there in three days.”

“Three days. Could we spend a little time together?

“Sure. It’s only a couple hours from Saratoga. I’ll bring my new dress.”

 Several weeks after the tryst between one-time lovers, Karpis and two other gang members left for Chicago, leaving Fred and Ma Barker while they contemplated their next move. Creepy did not visit his son, Ray. It was too dangerous. Several days later, the roof caved in.

FBI agents surrounded the house on Lake Weir. Unaware of the recent departure of the three, the heavily armed enforcers ordered Fred Barker and Karpis to surrender. Barker’s reply was a burst from a Thompson machine gun. Then, another from a different window. The agents retreated and lobbed smoke bombs into the house. News of the gunfight spread and dozens of local people came to watch, enjoying picnics as bullets flew.

After five and half hours, the government boys ran low on ammunition, and the house residents had not fired for several hours. The FBI commanded an estate handyman, Willie Woodbury, to put on a bulletproof vest, and he reluctantly entered the house. Woodbury found only two dead bodies—Fred and Ma—in the front, upper left bedroom with a Tommie gun between them. Like Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, and other criminals who made front-page news, their bodies were on public display. Perhaps those ogling were traumatized people who wanted to view the deadly revenge, or maybe they just wanted to see bullet-riddled bodies? The Barkers moved from the display case to a storage facility for nine months before their relatives buried them in Welch, Oklahoma.

FBI Director Hoover had a Douglas D2 airliner with its league-leading cruising speed of 190mph on the ready. In late April 1936, he assembled an FBI headquarters staff, several DC newspaper men, and a photographer to be prepared to leave town at any moment for a firsthand witnessing of the arrest of Public Enemy No. 1. To make sure he was well-coiffed for the reporting of the Karpis bust, he had his finest suit cleaned. He reportedly spent thirty minutes with a haberdasher, choosing a new hat for the occasion.

On Friday, May 1, Hoover—still reveling in the success of his Barker triumph at Lake Weir a year earlier—and his entourage hurried to catch the D2 for New Orleans to arrest Tulsa gangster and Public Enemy No. 1 Creepy Karpis. While the Fed boss flew towards the scene, FBI men staged a movie set around the corner from the impending altercation—a rooftop camera and another shielded by a panel truck; the available light was considered. A mic on a long boom rested against a cast-iron balcony of a home in the French Quarter.

As Hoover landed, an execution team of twenty-six federal agents formed a web around a Jefferson Parkway building where they knew Creepy was hiding. Unexpectedly, Creepy and one Freddie Hunter sauntered out of the building and climbed into their car. Creepy got behind the wheel. The cameras started to roll, and the boom operator ran toward the car.

Agents quickly surrounded the automobile; two Feds lay on the hood, pointing their Tommy guns directly at the occupants. The situation was well in hand when Hoover was motioned to approach the driver-side window.

“Get outta’ the car. You’re under arrest, Karpis,” Hoover barked.

“Well, what’ll ya know? It’s J. Edgar himself. You running for office?”

“Shut up. Somebody cuff him for crying out loud.”

The only “collar” of Hoover’s career involved ordering the handcuffs be placed on Karpis. Only there were none. The G-men were armed for a bloody shootout, not an arrest. The nation’s most dangerous criminal—wanted for murder in fourteen states—was cuffed with an agent’s necktie and taken prisoner.

It was fitting that Creepy would spend most of the following three decades in the vilest and most dangerous federal penitentiary, Alcatraz, the infamous Rock, as Prisoner 325.

 Hooked to the end of a Western Pacific train, a passenger car of twenty hardened criminals, handcuffed to their seats, pulled out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, bound for San Francisco and the island of Alcatraz. Creepy waited a bit before he turned to face and address his criminal compadre and close friend Harry, across the aisle, four rows back. Limpy’s thinning hair and deathlike pallor made him look much older than when the two had last seen each other a few years ago.

“Hey, Limpy. How ya doin’?”

“Eh, not so hot. Being cooped up has done me in some. Good to see you, though.”

“Hey, shut up, you two,” a burly guard warned them. “I can make your trip pretty uncomfortable… your choice.”

Creepy winked at Limpy as if to say it would be alright as he turned square in his seat and watched out the large, round window, one of only three on each side. Through Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, those with the views must have savored the visual moments of freedom, soon out of sight but not out of mind, soon into the shadow of the Rock.

Creepy felt their railcar cellblock shunted onto a long pier jutting into San Francisco Bay. He shot a glance at Harry, his trademark smile in full force. “Here we go.”

“Take a good look, you bastards,” the huge, uniformed guard yelled to the shackled residents of the launch as it bounced through the chilly, fifty-degree waves. Up ahead, dozens of guards armed with large-bore rifles and machine guns lined a catwalk along the perilous cliffs below the three-story, maximum-security prison that housed America’s most irredeemable criminals.

It was going to be “old home” week for Creepy. Tulsa’s Central Park hoodlums—’Curley’ Davis and Doc Barker—awaiting his arrival—were already fitted with Alcatraz heavy wool long johns and coveralls with their name and Alcatraz prisoner number sewed on.

Creepy settled into his 8′ x 5.5′ cell. The eight-foot ceiling sported a twenty-watt light bulb, and his bunk, suspended by chains and dressed in two white sheets and two folded blankets, sat next to the toilet and wash basin. A one-foot wooden shelf ran across the back of the space. Creepy took inventory of its items: a safety razor, an aluminum cup for water, a mirror made of highly polished metal, a toothbrush with a container full of toothpowder, a bar of playmate soap, nail clippers, a sack of Stud smoking tobacco and a corncob pipe, a roll of toilet paper, a can of brown shoe polish, a green celluloid eye shade, a whisk broom, and the rule book that dictated appropriate conduct for inmates. He sat on the bed and looked through the bars onto a wide corridor called Broadway that ran the length of the building between the three-tiered rows of cells divided into four cellblocks.

Creepy was on Fish Row, which was reserved for new arrivals whose cells faced other cons with identical accommodations across Broadway, according to Creepy’s conversation with his future biographer, Robert Livesey. “An old guy, Alfred Bates, came around. He took a fall with Machine Gun Kelly for a ransom job and came to St. Paul with forty Gs to have it changed into “cool” money. Alfred didn’t look so hot. Besides wearing prison clothing, he seems to be under much strain. He was there to give me a library card to fill out. That’s his job, librarian. He said to me, “Hello, Ray.” All my close friends and associates on the outside call me Ray, even after twenty-six years in Alcatraz. So did all of them on the Rock.”

“What kind of place is this?” Ray put to his old acquaintance.

“It’s more like an insane asylum than a prison,” whispered Alfred, “talking is not allowed. Remember that…no noise, none.”

“Who is here?”

Alfred points to other cells, the volume of his voice even lower, “Machine Gun Kelly… there’s some of your old crew—Volney Davis and Doc Barker.”

“They look like hell, so thin, and the life drained out of ’em. How could these guys reach this state?”

“Gotta go. No conversation is allowed,” and he moved to the next cell with his library card spiel to another “fish.”

The guards in the gun cages on the end walls looked like they would enjoy mowing down prisoners. Likely, it would not take much to set them off. The door to the mess hall was below the cages.

A guard yelled, “At the sound of the bell, stand up at the front of your cell.” The bell rang, and the clash of steel echoed down Broadway as cell doors opened for all the cons except for the “fish.” They stepped out of their cells. A second whistle blew, and 250 men shuffled toward the dining hall like sleepwalkers. No one spoke. Moments later, the doors of the “fish” opened, and Ray headed for another first experience, lunch on the Rock. “They looked like a group of zombies. The only noise was the clatter of forks on aluminum trays. Never seen anything like it. I saw “Scarface” Al Capone, emaciated, pasty, and yellowish, at a table. He seemed to be in a daze.”

All the cons worked. Ray worked sewing clothes, baking, and cooking meals. Near the end of his nearly three decades on Alcatraz, he worked in the administrative office doing cost accounting for the facility. That is, he worked at an assigned position when he was in isolation, the “hole,” which frequently happened for fighting, cursing a guard, threatening cons on the exercise yard, organizing work strikes, food strikes, and general disruptive behavior. Ray spent up to a year and a half in the hole several times. Once given a chance to return to his cell if he apologized for his behavior, the incorrigible Karpis spat on the Warden. Back to the hole he went.

Over the years, Ray endured numerous trips to the facility’s hospital for severe back pain from doing manual labor in the industry building and from frequent bouts of arthritis. Decades of abuse, depression, and hopelessness wore him down.

The wardens came and went, and Ray disliked them all. Tired of the combative approach, he became less argumentative, less troublesome, more a model prisoner. His fifty-year-old body frequently hurt, and his contrary outbursts took too much of an emotional toll.

**

After twenty years on the Rock, authorities felt Karpis sufficiently rehabilitated to transfer him off the island back to Kansas. In 1958, Karpis rode in a prisoners’ railcar from Alcatraz back to Ft. Leavenworth for a prison reassignment in a more comfortable environment. Before he left, Alcatraz administrators updated his prison photos. Nearly a quarter of a century had taken its toll on the Tulsan. A receding hairline fronted a short flattop haircut. His creepy smile was reduced to a horizontal fold. His right eye seemed swollen, nearly shut, but his jawline remained angular and handsome. His Dustin Hoffman-like nose projected in the side view.

At the beginning of his jail time, Creepy spent several months at the federal prison in Ft. Leavenworth before being shipped to San Francisco. While back at Ft. Leavenworth and within easy reach of Chicago, Creepy’s twenty-three-year-old son, Ray, and his new bride paid a surprise visit to his father at the Kansas penal institution. “Then I saw them,” Creepy remembered in his autobiography “On the Rock,” co-authored with Robert Livesey and released in 1980. “It is as if I am looking at myself in the mirror,” he said.

Brought to the visitation cell, the two men stood opposite and sized each other up. The wife found a corner chair to watch their interaction. A chubby, self-important acting guard stood with his arms folded as he leaned against the door, projecting his best no-big-deal face to the room.

The awkward first moment passed. The men shook hands before sitting across a table. Neither man had a rehearsed opening line, it seemed. Creepy broke through.

“So, who’s the little lady?”

“This is my wife, Alice. We’ve been married for two years.”

“Oh. Good to see you. The first time, ya’ know?”

Both laugh nervously.

“What brings you here?”

The son looked toward the guard. “Well, I’ve heard about things and hoped to get some of it cleared up for my own sake. I’ve seen my mom a few times, and she said you guys have never talked since she was arrested, since I was born, and your parents have said you never asked about me in letters or anything.”

“Right. Never did. Didn’t think you want to hear from me.”

“Really? Well, you may be right about that. But what about my mother? How could you  not care enough to check on her?” Ray, Jr. said.

“Well, we kinda went our separate ways. Dolores spent five years in prison, and I have been on the Rock for several decades. Ya’ kinda forget what people look like even. I mean, I liked her, but…”

“But what?” the son yelled. “She stood up for you, made sure I would be okay with Grandpa and Grandma. Then, nothing from you!” The son put his hands on the tabletop and partially raised up as if he might come after Creepy.

The guard grabbed the visiting Ray by the shoulders and slammed him back into the chair. “You sit, boy,” the officer demanded. “Don’t try that again, or I will find a room for you just down the hall. Get it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t you ever touch me again.

Creepy observed this exchange, thinking, My son not only looks like me but he’s also got rage like I used to have.

Alice consoled Ray, who wanted no part of her solace and waved her back to her chair. Alice sobbed quietly, hoping to avoid her husband’s ire now and later. And younger Ray was through with this rendezvous. He stood and faced the guard.

“Well, fatso, I think I have had enough.”

 A club hit him hard in the shin, and Ray crumpled to the concrete. The guard slid back the peep window, “Let us out of here and get the Warden. Now!”

During their visit, did the presence of this special guard infuriate the younger Ray, or were the guard and Alice the scapegoats for this displacement of pent-up anger toward his father? On the way out, the younger Ray lost his temper with the Warden, resulting in his permanent banishment from the facility.

Ft. Leavenworth also did not want his father there. The gang leader returned to Alcatraz: same railcar, same welcome speech.

Months later, a new deputy warden and a guard of cell block two stopped in front of Ray’s cell. Ray avoided talking with them by jumping up to brush his teeth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them stand there for minutes before leaving. Finally, Ray thought.

The guard returned. “I need to tell you something. I have to inform you that your mother died.” “OK,” Ray acknowledged and returned to the sink for a drink of water. The guard left him alone.

Thoughts filled Ray’s head, Jeez. I wonder if Ray Jr. was there. How’d she die? I should have stayed in touch. Eh, too late now. My old man was a pain in the ass, but mom…she seemed to be on my side, even with all the trouble. Maybe they will let me call Ray, Jr.? Nah. I’m just gonna let it be.

The tragic death of his mother caused Ray to change. Determined to avoid other prisoners’ problems, he vowed his remaining time on the island was just for him, that he would no longer act like Creepy. He was just Ray in all aspects of his life. Touched by his recent loss and continued progress, the Warden moved him to a cell away from Broadway, across from the barbershop. He permitted Ray to learn the steel guitar. The Warden was Mr. Madigan.

When Madigan moved to the prison on McNeil Island in Puget Sound to fill in for the former Warden involved in a sex scandal, he maintained occasional communication with Ray, a person he felt deserved a break. One he could not get on the Rock. The fact was no one was paroled from Alcatraz. Didn’t happen. Madigan fought all the powers of the prison system and gained permission to move Karpis to McNeil, a facility that housed many prisoners who waited for parole. He was on the home stretch of incarceration. Yet, the wheels of his release moved slowly for a few years.

Shortly after his pre-release transfer to McNeil Island, Ray met a quiet, meek inmate named “Little Charlie,” a devout believer in the Church of Scientology. The younger man begged to learn the steel guitar. He preferred “rock’ n roll” songs to Ray’s country western; he mastered them quickly. Charlie later became infamous as Charles Manson, the leader of the Manson Family cult that killed a pregnant actress, Sharon Tate, in Los Angeles, along with four of her friends, followed by the group killing two more innocents the next night.

Manson and Ray lived in the same dormitory and became mess hall dates. They were both short-timers, nearing parole. They ribbed each other. The elder laughed at Manson’s meaningless diatribes against having to shave or get up in time for his work detail, but Manson’s underlying demeanor troubled Ray, who was a different man than the one who, years ago, would have nodded in approval even mentored the younger’s crime plans. On balance, Ray was not impressed with Charlie’s radical twist to blend his religious beliefs with his interest in violence.

They sat on a bench in the yard, and Charlie regaled Creepy with his new ideas.

“I want to be a god. I think I can round up a bunch of stray cats who’d love a life of drugs, music, sex, and life on a ranch away from their parents and the law. I think I can be like a mayor, a god, kinda, who calls all the shots. Whadda’ ya’ think?” Charlie said.

“I think it’s crazy, kid. Get out of here in one piece. Get a real life.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

Ray had a goodbye lunch with Manson in 1969.

“What’s the plan?” queried Charlie.

“Gotta go to Canada. Never completed my US immigration papers. Head for Toronto. I have some savings there,” Ray chuckled.

“Savings, I bet. Then what?”

“Well, I kinda’ like the weather in Spain. I might end up there…and the ladies are beautiful.”

Ray’s four years in Toronto were delightful. The handsome, reformed killer with a distinctive smile and a gift for gab was a cause célèbre, a poster child of civility, a novelty for the rich who relished brandishing Ray as an extra value for the donors at nonprofit galas. He did not seek out the attention, yet he always showed up.

“I love it here,” Ray shared with adoring community leaders and the attending journalists. They toasted each other—flashbulbs exploded, and the newspapers had their feature.

Somehow, he afforded to live well. Perhaps he had some ill-got money earning interest at the Bank of Ontario for the last thirty-three years? Maybe he transferred some Bremer funds from Havana to Toronto? Who’d be tracking marked bills three decades after the crime?

In 1973, after four years of acclimating to everyday life and tired of the public limelight, Ray sought sunshine and a simpler life. He considered his dream country to be Spain.

Ray legitimately had some savings from his first book, Public Enemy No. 1: The Alvin Karpis Story, co-written with Bill Trent and released in January 1971. Within the text, the former No. 1 wrote Ray that he was likely the best in the business from 1931 to 1936. He provided candid details and startling revelations. His words seemed intent on making himself a folk hero, a regular guy who lived on the wild side during a wild time—just part of a fraternal, if violent, organization.

“The book,” Karpis wrote, “is basically the story of what went on among us better-known thieves of the Depression Era and also what seemed to make us tick.”

Buoyed by a $20,000 movie option for that book (renewed in 1975), Karpis moved to the sunny Spanish Costa del Sol city of Torremolinos. He made notes for a second book as he sat beside the pool at Sofico while amusing himself with a series of girlfriends. Ray always had a different female staying with him in the apartment…for months, he enjoyed a wealthy woman about twenty years younger who drove her Jaguar sports car on the winding roads along the Mediterranean coast to entertain her man. She paid for trips to the South of France or a week-long cruise on her yacht with an attentive staff.

 While in Canada reading the manuscript of his upcoming book, On the Rock, Ray stayed at his author Livesey’s home, this time bringing a different girlfriend, Nancy, from Chicago. Permitted by his guest, Livesey invited several of his writer buddies to chat with the former Public Enemy No. 1. Wrapped in a heavy wool cardigan, Ray was elated to have a larger audience. Tired from the long trip, he tried to hold court to impress. The four in the room knew the gentleman’s failing health; his slouched posture and diminished voice reinforced that reality.

Sitting in the living room, Ray expounded, “Shoot, I have no regrets for my past actions,” he wagged his head slowly from side to side, trying to put up an unrepentant façade for the folks. Ray claimed Alcatraz had done nothing to reform him. “I’m still a gangster between my ears.” He looked at everyone in the room. “Not really. Heck, I am no threat these days. Couldn’t hold a gun up if I tried,” the gathering laughed and exchanged glances.

Encouraged by the reaction, Ray fired off an odd criminal salvo, trying to reel his admirers back into the notion of him still having a potential fling at criminal behavior and getting away with it. Leaning forward from his couch position, he wheezed for a moment…then launched into something in the back of his mind: an imaginary robbery of the Banco Coca near his apartment in Spain. Ray claimed it the “perfect score” with two side-by-side banks teeming with money during the tourist season. “Easy to break in at night and empty both vaults,” he said. Recreating his best ‘Creepy’ persona, Ray raised his right hand and touched the tips of his thumb and first finger, squinted, then snarled in his best Italian dialect, “Bada–bing… Bada-boom.” And his admirers hooted.

After returning to Spain, Livesey and Ray had a regular dialog about the book. Karpis lived a modest and calm existence in Torremolinas. He bought fresh vegetables, cold meats, and bread from street vendors. Ray continued his uncomplicated and peaceful existence. Yet, he had concerns.

During one of their phone calls, Ray told his author-friend their book needed to plug a financial hole. “Listen, Robert, it’s costing me more to live here than I thought. I paid a buck for a loaf of bread,” lamented Ray, “I may run out of money before long.” His usual sense of humor seemed vacant despite the recent announcement that On the Rock would be in bookstores in early 1980.

Livesey received a call on August 26, 1979, from a neighbor of Ray, a retired British intelligence officer, who told him Ray had died the night before and that he had found him in his apartment. There was a flourish of lousy journalism about his demise. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Ray committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. The sensational story spread across the country, and those who knew him best were skeptical.

Yet, was it false? Undoubtedly, Ray would have considered ending it all and accomplished that during his 33 years in prison. Why now when, it seemed, so many good things were happening to him? Yes, his son continued to shun him, the Spanish media continued to press him about how many people he murdered, the indisputable fact of insolvency faced him, and he knew of a “perfect score.” Still, he could not pull the trigger…but suicide?

Days later, the Sun-Times retracted that notion, admitting that the 71-year-old died of natural causes.

 

**

 

Alvin “Creepy” Karpis robbed banks, knocked off payrolls, kidnapped rich men, and killed his share of innocents during the Depression ’30s. He was good at it. Karpis shared the spotlight with other gangsters like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Like his running mates, Karpis was a desperado who faced numerous gunpoint confrontations with cops. Ones he always won.

Given a different set of circumstances, Karpis might have traveled another path. He declared he “might have turned out to be a top lawyer or maybe a big-time businessman…held the highest job there was in any line of police detective work.”

Could be. Still, there was that mutilated body of his colleague, Moran, that washed onto the shores outside Toledo.

 

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