Machine Gun Kelly | Straight Outta Leavenworth | 1

It's late in the evening of March 1st, 1932. On Sourland Mountain, about 10 miles north of Princeton, New Jersey, a large two-story home backs onto dense woodland. The new home is covered in a white cement wash with a roof of gray slate.

A simple front garden is penned in by a low stone wall, the kind designed to only keep honest people out. Not that anyone inside the house is worried about uninvited guests.

The mansion sits on a 350-acre estate, and the only way to get here is by taking winding dirt and gravel roads through the woods. That's how nursemaid Betty Gao got here earlier today, on those uneven, jarring roads.

She was supposed to have the day off, but her employer sent word that they needed her, so she made the journey out to the secluded home.

Now, after spending the day looking after the family's young son, Betty's ready to call it a night, but she wants to check on the baby one last time.

Around 10 p.m., she closes the book she's reading, gets up from the chair in her upstairs bedroom, and walks up the hallway to the nursery. She pushes the door open, careful not to wake little Charles.

Stepping inside the dark room, she can feel a chill coming from the French window that was left open for circulation. She pulls it closed, plugs in a small heater and approaches the crib.

Getting close, Betty realizes that she can't hear the baby breathing, and she worries that the bedclothes are covering his face. She reaches down to pull the sheet off him, and her heart gives a sickening lurch. There's nothing there.

Frantically, Betty runs her hands across the mattress, feeling all the way to the corners of the crib, but it's empty. Panicked, she goes over the night in her mind. The last time she was in here was about two hours ago when she tucked Charles in.

Anne, the boy's mother, was with her. Betty turns and rushes into the hall, heading straight for Anne's bedroom. Perhaps she heard her son stirring and came to soothe him.

As she knocks on the door, Betty tries to slow her breathing. There's no need to panic. Not just yet.

But Anne doesn't have the baby. Betty watches the color slide from the woman's face as she processes what she's being told. But then Anne perks up.

She suggests that her husband must have the baby. He's downstairs, she says, in the library. Betty nods and turns to go, making herself walk calmly.

She doesn't want to worry Anne any more than she already has. And of course she's right, Betty thinks. Little Charles Jr.

is surely with his dad. It's the only explanation that makes any sense. Still, as she rounds the corner and heads down the staircase, Betty quickens her step.

She's desperate to find this little boy. She doesn't want to think about what the alternative is if he's not with his father, if Charles Lindbergh doesn't have his son. From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

What's in a name? You probably heard that question before, but it's a relevant one to ask at the start of this series, because the guy we're talking about has one of the coolest names around, Machine Gun Kelly.

Right away, it conjures up images of a Tommy gun toting gangster who could go toe to toe with the heavyweights of his time, Capone, Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker. But was that really the case?

Was he a criminal mastermind and a grade A thug, or was he just an upstart bootlegger who got pulled into the slipstream of more cunning men? If you take away his popular nickname, does George Barnes' story look the same?

If you're asking me, my answer is no, it doesn't because George was more than his name suggests, and less. And yes, he wasn't criminal, but it's important to get history right and not just boil it down to headlines.

Besides, the headlines' name references aren't even the ones you should pay attention to. This is the first episode in our four-part series on the life and crimes of George Machine Gun Kelly, straight out of Leavenworth.

It's around 1914 in Memphis, Tennessee. George Kelly Barnes sits on a low brick wall, a cigarette in his hand, his eyes trained on an apartment building across the street. The 14-year-old kicks his heels against the bricks, bored.

He's been watching the front door of this building for the last 45 minutes, stiffening to attention every time it opens. It's never who he's looking for, though. But then, a woman opens the door from inside.

She turns back, holding it open for someone, a man in a gray suit. He steps over the threshold, then leans in for a lingering kiss. George narrows his eyes as he watches the two lovers say goodbye.

The man puts his hat on, turns, and walks quickly down the street, not even glancing in George's direction. George shakes his head, stands, and stamps out a cigarette butt.

That man was his father, and the woman whose apartment he just left was not his mother. The Barnes family first moved to Memphis about 12 years ago when George was just two. Since then, they set up a pretty nice middle class life for themselves.

George's father, George Senior, is an accountant who keeps his family comfortable in a spacious two-story house. George has wanted for basically nothing as he's grown up. He even attends good Catholic schools in his neighborhood.

But he ain't never been much for the book learning. Despite his cushy upbringing, George has always been obsessed with making money as quickly and easily as he possibly could. And he figured out that formal education wasn't the way to go.

So from before he even got to high school, he's worked at a local country club, shining shoes and caddying on the golf course. Still, even that wasn't getting him the kinds of dough George wanted.

An honest day's pay for an honest day's work, that's no fun. What he wanted was a little more dishonesty in his life. And once Tennessee became a dry state in 1909, he found the perfect money making opportunity.

Since then, George has been taking the bus across the border into Arkansas, where he buys as much alcohol as he can convince people to sell him. Then, he smuggles it home to sell it for a tidy profit.

All told, it's a hell of a better payday than what he gets from the country club, and it's more exciting, too. But his job at the club still has its value. Some of the men he caddies for are his best customers for his bootlegged alcohol.

What he's spending his money on at such a young age isn't clear, but for the rest of his life, George will be renowned as a snappy dresser with an eye for luxury.

So I wouldn't be surprised if he's picking up nice suits for himself, flashy accessories, that sort of thing. Wherever the money is going, it's clearly not enough for George.

He wants more, and now a little family drama is ripe for exploitation to help him get his way. For as long as George can remember, his father's been distant with his mother.

And a couple of weeks ago, George heard a rumor that his old man was having an affair. Ever since then, he's been cutting school early to sit outside the other woman's apartment building. Today, he finally saw it with his own eyes.

George Sr. leaving his mistress after a little afternoon delight. It's upsetting for George.

Disappointing, really, but he's a pragmatist. And in the long hours he spent staking out the apartment, he thought of a way to turn this to his advantage.

The next day, George visits his father's office to tell him that he knows all about the affair, but he's willing to cut a deal. He walks out of that office an hour later, having made a promise not to breathe a word of the infidelity to his mother.

And in exchange, he's secured a hefty increase to his allowance and permission to use the family car whenever he wants. The extra money is nice, but the car is the real bonus here.

It makes his little bootlegging operation much easier, and George starts devoting more and more time to it. Unfortunately, this doesn't escape the notice of the local police.

He's picked up multiple times throughout his high school years, but he's never charged with a crime, and he can always count on his dad to come bail him out.

It's nice to have someone in his corner, even if they're there because of a little light blackmail. In 1917, George graduates high school and enrolls at Mississippi A&M, which today is known as Mississippi State.

It's not clear why he decides to go to college, seeing as how he's never been academically inclined, but it's possible his father promises he can continue receiving his allowance as long as he stays in school.

Just like his younger years, George is a lousy student when he's at Mississippi A&M. His highest grade is a C-plus for physical hygiene, and he racks up 55 demerits in his first semester.

It seems that instead of going to class and doing his homework, George focuses his attention on attending parties and finding pretty young girls to take out on dates. One of these girls is Geneva Ramsey.

She's about a year younger than George, and he falls head over heels for her. Only problem is that Geneva's dad doesn't think much of his daughter's new suitor. So he sends her off to boarding school, hoping distance will solve the problem.

But it's no good. George has his mind set on Geneva. So, they elope in 1919.

By this stage, George has dropped out of college. He figures he's got everything he needs out of the experience. That leaves the newlyweds free to settle into married life together.

His new father-in-law is a successful contractor and sets George up with a job working out of his company's commissary. Before they know it, George and Geneva are living the American dream. They're married with a house in Memphis and a son.

But it's not enough for George. Too stable, too small, too boring. And when his father-in-law dies, George gives up his nine-to-five and goes back to the excitement and bigger paydays of bootlegging.

When he was younger, he was simply moving alcohol from one state to another.

Only now, prohibition is in effect across the country, which has made the entire enterprise much more difficult, but it's also made a lot of people very thirsty, and they are willing to pay top dollar for a drink.

So even though the authorities are paying a lot more attention to bootleggers, the potential benefits outweigh the risk of getting caught. Don't fool yourself, Geneva hates her husband's new job.

She does not like that it keeps him away from the family for days at a time. She doesn't approve of how much of his own product George is drinking, and she can't get him to heed her warnings about the danger it's putting them all in.

George doesn't understand or doesn't care that if he's sent to jail, it will leave his wife and child alone without a provider. Still, she plays the role of the dutiful wife for as long as she can.

And to try and appease his wife, George starts going by the surname Kelly instead of Barnes, hoping to throw off the authorities. It doesn't work so well.

In 1923, George is caught operating a still and is sentenced to six months in a county workhouse. Geneva stands by him and is waiting for him when he returns.

In 1925, they welcome their second son, but with another child to look after, the uncertainty of George's career is too much for Geneva to bear. In 1926, after nearly seven years of marriage, she's had enough.

One day, while George is away on business, she packs a few bags, rounds up her sons, and moves back to her mother's. When he finds out that his wife's left him, George isn't angry. He can't really blame Geneva.

She's just doing what she feels is best for her. It's what he's been doing his whole life, so how could he get mad at her for doing the same thing?

And yes, he misses his kids, but fatherhood's just never brought him the same excitement that his work has.

It turns out that his career is George's number one priority, and before long, he'll graduate from small-time bootlegger to gun-toting bank robber. All right, we're done with the holidays. You might feel like you got a big spending hangover.

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18:05

Catherineʼs Shady Past

It's March 1917, around the same time as George Kelly's enrolling at Mississippi A&M. In Coleman, Texas, Cleo Mae Brooks is in her family's bathroom, holding herself up on the sink so she can see in the mirror.

A single light bulb swings gently above her as she looks at her face. Cleo turns 13 today, and she's trying to decide if she looks older. But as she turns her head from side to side, she doesn't see any difference.

With a sigh, she slides back down to the ground. She's sick of being a kid. She wants to be a grown up already.

Looking around the room, her eyes fall on a pot of her mother's lip rouge. Perfect. That'll do nicely.

In a few minutes, Cleo Brooks will emerge from the bathroom with more than just a new look. She'll declare that she no longer wants to go by her old name. She's changing it to something more sophisticated.

Now, she's Catherine. Long before she was Catherine, Cleo Mae Brooks was born in Mississippi in 1904, and the family moved to Texas when she was nine.

Soon after the move, Cleo's mother, Aura, divorced her father, and the two women struck out on their own. By the time she's 14, Cleo's going by Catherine and is enjoying the attention she gets from 16-year-old Lonnie Frye.

These kids are obsessed with each other, so they raced down the aisle in 1918, and Catherine gives birth to their daughter a year later. Almost immediately, Catherine realizes she's fallen out of love with Lonnie.

So they divorce, and she takes little Pauline to live with her mother. Now Catherine knows that without a husband, she needs to find a way to make a living, but the town of Coleman doesn't offer many employment opportunities for young mothers.

Aura is managing a hotel in town, and Catherine does a little work there, but for the next five or so years, she splits her time between Texas and Oklahoma City, where she often works in beauty parlors.

It's there, in the city, where Catherine seems to get her first taste of a life of crime. In 1925, she's arrested for stealing jewelry from the salesman she's been on a few dates with. The consequences arrive swiftly.

At just 21 years old, she's sentenced to 5 years in the state penitentiary. But just as rapidly, Catherine is given a reprieve. Her lawyer gets the conviction overturned on appeal and she's free to go.

After that close call, Catherine puts OKC in her rearview mirror and heads back to Texas to find a quieter life. What she finds instead is another husband. And possibly commits murder too.

Now, depending upon who you hear this story from, Charlie Thorne is either a plain old rancher or he's a small time bootlegger. Maybe he's a little bit of both.

He's definitely got money though, which is great for Catherine because she's developed a taste for the finer things in life.

She loves to look good, dress in the finest fashion, sport the latest hairstyles, but all the money in the world can't save a bad marriage. Catherine and Charlie fight like cats and dogs, a situation that isn't helped by Charlie's drinking.

Again, specifics for this period, very murky, and accounts differ, but some people say that when he's really drunk, Charlie sometimes threatens to kill his wife. But then again, Catherine talks a big game too.

It's clear that these two are not soulmates. In April, 1928, while she's out of town, potentially doing a little bootlegging of her own, Catherine gets word that Charlie's cheating on her.

She cuts her trip short and heads back home absolutely furious. On the way, she stops to get gas and tells the attendant that she's quote, bound for calm in Texas to kill that goddamn Charlie Thorne.

When she arrives at the ranch on April 29th, the two have it out. Charlie pulls a gun and says he's gonna kill Catherine, but she doesn't blink. She just tells him to do it already.

When it's clear he won't pull the trigger, Catherine and the housemaid go into the kitchen. Moments later, they hear a single gunshot. The two women rush into the living room to find Charlie on the floor.

A gunshot wound to the head and a suicide note by his side. At least that's the story as Catherine tells it. But here's the thing.

By all accounts, Charlie Thorne was a literate. So it doesn't seem possible that he could write a note that specifically instructs the reader not to blame anyone else for his death, right? Still, that little detail is overlooked by the authorities.

The death is ruled a suicide, which means that Catherine's free to make another fresh start. This time with an inheritance of 10 to $15,000. Now today, that would be between 180 and 275 grand.

She takes that money and buys herself a bungalow and a nice part of Fort Worth for 12,000, then spends the rest of the money on a maroon LaSalle. By now, Catherine Thorne is quite happy with her lot in life.

She's got a comfortable house, a fashionable car, and an enviable wardrobe. Despite committing at least a couple of crimes, and probably more than that if we're being honest, she's still got her freedom.

In her mind, there's no downside to living on the wrong side of the law. But unlike Catherine, George Kelly's luck is about to run out.

23:50

Prison Life First Heist

By the time Catherine's moving into her brand new home in Texas, George is settled into new digs of his own. Over the years, he's been arrested several times for his bootlegging exploits in the rural Southwest.

It's a crime that's generally forgiven in the area provided the right people get their payoffs, but he still served a little hard time in her New Mexico penitentiary. Then, in January 1928, he made a big mistake.

That month, he was caught smuggling alcohol onto a Native American reservation. And because reservations are federal land, that made it a federal crime.

Unfortunately for George, the feds were less susceptible to bribes than the local authorities, and he was sentenced to three years in Leavenworth.

It's here behind bars where George first meets Catherine when she comes to visit an uncle, or it's where they reconnect after their paths crossed some time earlier. Like I said, there are conflicting accounts about parts of this story.

But the important thing is that the two of them start exchanging letters while George is locked up. That means they're primed to fall in love soon.

For now, let's put a pin in George and Catherine's budding romance to talk about two other pivotal details. The first of these and arguably the most important one is the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

That October, there's a sharp decline in the prices on the New York Stock Exchange, which has a catastrophic impact on the US economy as a whole, and eventually triggers the Great Depression.

Obviously, this all happens while George is still in Leavenworth, and he has nothing to do with the crash. Hell, I don't think he even has any investments.

But the economic landscape of the US informs a lot of the decisions coming down the pike, so it's good to know about it now. The second thing we need to go over is George's social life in prison.

See, he's locked up with a bevy of criminal heavyweights, mostly bank robbers, including Frank Nash and Harvey Bailey, who will both play small roles in this story down the line, and Thomas Holden, who will one day be the first man to make the FBI's

10 most wanted list. Up until this point, George has mostly made his money as a bootlegger. He's been doing it since he was a teenager.

But as the 1920s draw to a close and the economy gets worse, the American people's tolerance of prohibition is growing thin. So bootlegging might not be a profitable business for much longer.

George might not have been a great student, but he's a smart guy, smart enough to know that when he gets out of prison, he'll need to find a new way to make money.

These new friends of his, some of the best bank robbers of the time, tell George they'll be happy to bring him in on their heists once they're all on the outside.

But this offer isn't completely altruistic, because George has something these men need. As one of Leavenworth's model prisoners, he's earned the position of a trustee.

Okay, if you don't know, a trustee is a prisoner who's afforded certain privileges and freedoms the higher security inmates don't enjoy. They're sometimes even allowed to walk through the gates to perform chores or errands.

With his decent level of education, George is assigned to work in Leavenworth's record-keeping department. And you can see where this is going, right?

In February 1930, a group of inmates use forged trustee passes to walk out of Leavenworth's gates and never come back. Some people suspect George of being behind the scheme, but no one makes any formal accusations.

That means he's still got a squeaky clean record, and is released about six months later in early July 1930. And after more than two years cooped up in prison, 35-year-old George Kelly is ready for some more excitement.

It's July 15, 1930, less than two weeks after George was released from Leavenworth. In southern Minnesota, the Bank of Willmar is pretty busy. No surprise there, it's one of the wealthiest banks in town.

But that reputation makes it a prime target. Right around noon, three or four men dressed in suits and hats get out of a four-door sedan and enter the bank, guns drawn.

Another guy, George Kelly, stands guard at the door while his comrades order everyone inside onto the floor. Without firing any bullets, the bandit secures $70,000 in cash from the safe, along with another 70 grand in paper securities.

But one of the bank's employees manages to trip the alarm. So by the time the thugs are heading to their waiting getaway car, cops have arrived on the scene. They're joined by a few armed locals who are excited for a chance to play vigilante.

The officers and their unofficial deputies start firing on Kelly and his friends, who all manage to get into the car. But it's not a clean escape.

One of the gangsters is armed with a Thompson machine gun and fires into the crowd of people who gathered to watch the excitement. Two women catch bullets, but neither is fatally wounded.

Meanwhile, the getaway car is riddled with bullet holes as it careens down the street. Samuel Stein, commonly known to police and other gangsters as Jew Sammy, is shot in the head and is dead before the sedan reaches the city limits.

The car pulls over, and Sammy's buddies push him out onto the road, where his body lands with a soft, dull thud. One less guy to split the profits with. As he sits in the back of the car, heart-pounding, blood-pumping George is lost for words.

He's never seen someone die before. It's terrifying, thinking about how it could have been him. If he'd been just a few inches to the left, or if Sammy had ducked at just that second, hmmm.

Still, he can't shake the feeling of exhilaration. Those few minutes were the most exciting moments of his entire life, and all that money, that $140,000 they grabbed should be worth over $2.5 million today.

So, even before they've made it to safety, George Kelly is ready to do it all again.

30:19

Marriage Kidnap Plot

Soon after his first bank robbery, George takes another big risk. Since getting out of Leavenworth, he's been helping a guy called Little Steve Anderson with his bootlegging operation.

And Little Steve's business and romantic partner is none other than George's old pen pal, Catherine Thorne. George finds being around Catherine intoxicating. She's so chic and daring.

And Catherine likes just about everything about George, the way he dresses, his roguish good looks, the money he makes. One night in September 1930, when Steve's away on business, George picks Catherine up for a night on the town.

They're at a restaurant. When out of the blue, George says they should get married already. Never one to turn down a dare, Catherine agrees.

So that same night, they grab all of her stuff from Steve's place, then drive to Minneapolis to get hitched. After that, they head to Dallas for a quick honeymoon.

George takes his new bride shopping, treating her to an all-new wardrobe, so she looks her best for him. But after a few days, it's time for George to get back to work.

His wife has champagne taste, which means he's got banks to rob, and a name to make for himself. American Criminal, I'm here to tell you, 2026 is the year to launch your business.

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Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast.

33:31

Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tell-me-lies-official-podcast/id1865164234

artwork representing URL
What's the most unhinged thing of season three?

Steven, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone face consequences.

It's intoxicating.

The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show.

So nothing you would expect.

Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, January 6th, and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies, January 13th on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

It's April 8th, 1931 in Sherman, Texas, 70 miles north of Dallas. A little before 3 p.m., a group of well-dressed men pull up in a black Buick right outside the Central State Bank.

Each of the men, about three or four of them, is armed with a pair of handguns, and none of them is wearing a mask.

The men get out of the car and head inside the bank where they calmly but forcefully order every employee and customer to head for the back of the building.

A couple of the guys clear out everything from the teller cages, and then they force everyone to get into the vault. It's over in minutes. The robbers get back in their car and make a clean getaway.

They drive nearly 200 miles east where they meet 35-year-old George Kelly. He's waiting for them in a Cadillac. Once his comrades slide into the caddy, George hits the gas.

As clean a getaway as they could have hoped for. In all, George and his buddies have made off with over 30 grand in cash, gold and treasury certificates. Adjusted for inflation, that would be worth in the region of 600 grand today.

And don't forget, the Great Depression is ravaging the country's economy.

Having that much money stolen is devastating for the Central State Bank, the town of Sherman, and is downright embarrassing for the local sheriff, whose office is directly across from the bank.

But for men like George Kelly, it's just another day at work. By the time he helps pull the Central State Bank job, it's been about six months since George eloped with Catherine.

In that time, he's participated in a few other daylight robberies, adding to his ill-gotten wealth with each one. But Catherine's got an eye for the finer things in life. Fast cars, luxurious furs, glittering jewels.

And, to be fair, George is much the same. He likes to dress sharp, drink the best liquors, and collects Cadillacs. Even in the Depression, none of that stuff comes cheap, so he's got to keep at it.

But for all that, he gets a thrill out of pulling these heists. George is certain that he can make even more money by dabbling in a different kind of crime that's becoming more popular lately. Kidnapping.

Every couple of weeks, it seems, you can open up the newspaper and find a story about a wealthy businessman being snatched off the street or taking a gunpoint from his home and then held for ransom.

And with law enforcement agencies largely operating independently, investigating these cases is incredibly difficult.

Local detectives aren't necessarily communicating with other counties, and state and federal-level bureaus are still in their infancy.

So while investigators and beat cops do what they can, that's not always enough to rescue a kidnapping victim from their captors. That means wealthy families are forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in ransoms.

George Kelly sees all this going on and figures he's a smart enough guy to pull this kind of thing off. Pick the right target, and he could afford to cool it with the robberies.

They're exciting, sure, but definitely risky, and he always has to split the money with a bunch of other guys. Kidnapping needs a lot fewer people.

So, with dreams of a big windfall, George gets together with his friend and occasional crime partner, Eddie Dahl. In early 1932, they select their target, monitor his schedule, and make their plan. Then they make their move.

It's late in the evening of January 27th. Howard Wolverton and his wife, Florence, have just left the theater in South Bend, Indiana.

52-year-old Howard's behind the wheel of their Piercero, and they're on their way home when the car behind them speeds up as if it's going to overtake them.

Seeing this, Howard eases off the gas a little and is stunned when the other car suddenly veers towards him. He spins the steering wheel, bringing his own vehicle to a shuddering halt on the shoulder.

Then, just as Howard's asking Florence if she's okay, there's a gun pointing through the window. The man holding it, George Kelly, orders Florence to get out of the car.

She does as she's told, and another man, that's Eddie Dahl, hands her a ransom note. George slides into the back seat behind Howard and tells him to drive.

Then Eddie tails in his own car, leaving Florence by the side of the road, reeling from the speed at which everything just happened.

So, for a little context, Howard's the secretary treasurer of a local steel company, and his father was a bank president. So George and Eddie figured that he's got plenty of money to pay a ransom.

So, as they tell Howard while he drives into the darkness, and as they wrote in their letter to Florence, they're holding him for 50 grand. And they want the money left for them in a designated spot within 24 hours.

With the clock ticking, George directs Howard to the edge of town. Then, they move into the other car with Eddie. They blindfold Howard and proceed to drive a winding path through northern Indiana.

They figure if they're on the move, they'll be harder to track. And that part of the plan works pretty well. The ransom part?

Not so much. Florence Wolverton gets herself home and calls the police to let them know what's happened. By the next morning, the stories all over the local papers and everyone in Indiana has heard about the kidnapping.

That means plenty of people have their eyes peeled for sightings of Howard. Meanwhile, Howard's telling George and Eddie that his family just don't have that kind of money. Remember, this is happening in the Great Depression.

Everyone stretched pretty thin. And sure enough, when the 24 hours are up, George heads to the spot they ordered Florence to leave the money and nothing is there. Now George and Eddie are getting worried.

They can't keep driving around the state like this. Somebody's gonna spot them. So they start negotiating with their captive.

Eventually, they come to a number that Howard says he can make work, 8,000. They write out a promissory note, have him sign it, and then let him go. Just like that.

It's not the 50 grand they were hoping for, but it's still a lot of money for a day's work. You know, if Howard keeps his promise. But Howard's got no intention of paying his kidnappers that money.

He gets back home, tells the press an abbreviated account of his ordeal, and declares the whole thing over. He tells the police he didn't see or hear anything that'll help him identify his captors, and that's that.

Over the coming weeks, George and Eddie call the Wolverton House again and again, demanding that Howard pay them the money he promised. But no matter how much they threaten this guy, Howard refuses to give them a dime.

Maybe he knows that they're all talk. They're not killers. If they were, they probably would have offed him when it was clear his wife wasn't going to meet their demands.

Resigned to their failure, George and Eddie eventually stop calling Howard and chalk the whole thing up as a frustrating learning experience. If they ever plan a kidnapping again, they'll do things differently.

They'll choose their target more carefully, think through their timeline better. Next time, George thanks, he'll get his money.

41:44

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From Airship, this is the first episode in our series on George Machine Gun Kelly. On the next episode, George and Catherine start planning what will become one of the most famous kidnappings of the 20th century.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode. A few we can recommend are George Machine Gun Kelly by Bart L. Largent, The Year of Fear by Joe Urschel, and Hopman's Ladder by Richard TK.

Hill Jr. This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details, and while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is a co-production of Airship and Evergreen podcasts. It's hosted, edited, and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz. Audio editing and sound design by Sean Ruhlhoffman.

Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan. Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson, and Lindsey Graham.