Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [131]
Herman left the Barker household and continued his criminal antics while traveling through the Midwestern States. He was arrested several times and ultimately landed himself in prison, serving moderate terms for grand larceny and robbery. Fred Barker would also leave the family homestead, and venture out to pursue his own career in crime. He would eventually join forces with Herbert Farmer, who owned a renowned chicken ranch with his wife near Joplin, Missouri, and over the years they would harbor several fugitives, including Bonnie and Clyde. Farmer would later find himself sentenced to serve time on Alcatraz after being convicted as a conspirator in the famous 1933 Kansas City Union Station Massacre, an event which had a profound impact on the image of the American gangster. As Hoover described it, the Massacre was a “turning point in the nation's fight against crime.” The savageness of the attack had stripped away the glamour and romantic mystique of the early gangster era, and U.S. Attorney General Homer Cummings had used the Massacre as a pretext for proclaiming the Federal government’s “war against crime.”
The Fourth of July would seem an ironic date for Doc Barker to establish his role as a public enemy of the nation, but as fate would have it, on July 4, 1918 he stole a government vehicle in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was quickly apprehended. Doc somehow managed to escape from the county jail and then for nearly two years he maintained a low profile, working as a glass blower and later on a labor detail. On February 19, 1920 Doc was captured and charged in connection with the escape. He pleaded guilty, and was released less than a year later. On January 21, 1921 Doc and his longtime friend Ray Terrill were arrested for the attempted armed robbery of a bank firm in Muskogee – Doc under the alias Claud Dale and Ray under the alias G.R. Patton. Surprisingly, Doc was released in June of 1921 without any formal charges being brought against him. Only two months later, on August 26th, Doc and his old companion Volney Davis allegedly murdered James J. Sherrill, a security watchman at Tulsa’s St. John’s Hospital, during a break-in. On February 10, 1922 Doc and Volney were given life sentences for this crime, and were sent to serve their time at the State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma. Volney would escape in 1925, and he quickly started building his resume for Alcatraz. It was rumored that Doc was innocent of the murder and another criminal would claim responsibility several years later.
Despite the raging criminal activity of her young sons, Ma Barker continued to defend them vehemently, with unrelenting requests for their release. However, Ma did not extend the same loyalty to her husband George, whom she had married when she was only fifteen. In 1927 Ma Barker left her husband for a man known as Arthur Dunlop. He carried a low reputation in the community as a drunkard and an arrogant and illiterate nomad. It was further rumored that the Barker Boys were resentful of Dunlop, who apparently did little more than freeload and boast about the criminal escapades of his youth.
Herman Barker had also found himself deep in the criminal life, roaming the Southwest with the Kimes-Terril Gang, robbing banks, stores, and other establishments. In late January of 1928, Herman and several accomplices broke into an Oklahoma bank, and under the cover of night, made off with a cash safe containing nearly $45,000. On a tip from a witness, police quickly raided their hideout