Letters From Alcatraz - Michael Esslinger [162]
Arnold Kyle
Kyle had also served time for committing several robberies in various communities throughout California before he met Joe Cretzer. Remarkably, Kyle and Cretzer had endured similar childhoods. Kyle too was born in Montana, his parents had separated when he was only three, and as a result he and his siblings had been raised by their grandparents. He moved in briefly with his father and stepmother, but because of family friction, he soon found himself boarded in a home for orphans at only eleven years of age. At fifteen he was convicted of petty larceny and placed in the Montana State Industrial School. Kyle would later marry Joe’s sister Thelma.
Joe Cretzer’s sister Thelma would marry Arnold Kyle, as did Kyle’s sister Edna who later married Joe.
Edna Kyle ... k.a. Kay Stone Wallace)
Cretzer was unexpectedly paroled almost at the same time as Kyle, and immediately upon their release, the two young men quickly returned to their criminal habits. On the run once again, the fugitives found shelter with Arnold’s younger sister Edna Kyle who was now living in Pittsburg, California. Edna was no stranger to organized crime circles and under her alias of Kay Stone Wallace she had made her own mark in the flesh trade. Edna and Joseph soon fell in love and they became inseparable. The two were ultimately married in Flagstaff, Arizona on April 17, 1930.
The trio then continued their illegal escapades, helping to operate Edna’s house of prostitution. For several years the business continued to thrive with little interference from the police. Then on June 23, 1936, the four outlaws violently robbed the American Trust Company in Oakland, making off with over five thousand dollars in cash. However, the robbery did not go off smoothly and during their exit they engaged in a fierce gun battle with a police officer. They then moved their base of operations to Los Angeles and ran a prostitution racket at the Garden View Hotel. During the years 1936-1937 they ran the Fern Hotel in San Pedro which proved to be another lucrative prostitution venture. When their accomplice Jack Croft accidentally shot himself during a robbery, they left him behind and headed back home to Northern California.
In January of 1938, things began to sour when a nineteen-year-old Montana farm girl named Jeanne Walters was arrested in a Berkeley hotel, and relayed a compellingly torrid tale of being abused in a white slave ring. Walters told police that she had been unwillingly sold as a prostitute and she named Kay Wallace as one of the gang leaders and as the owner of the Bruno Hotel where the illicit activities usually took place. The police subsequently exposed a statewide prostitution ring and it was discovered that Kay was one of the key players. Another woman also accused Kay, stating that she was only seventeen years old when Wallace had forced her into prostitution. The investigation further revealed that Cretzer had beaten the woman severely after she withheld some of her earnings. In an FBI Report dated February 24, 1940, it is stated that Cretzer beat her so severely that he knocked out several of her teeth and left her with numerous cuts and bruises. Law enforcement officials quickly intervened, shutting down the brothel and seizing the hotel assets. Kay jumped her ten-thousand-dollar bail, and the trio then began a bank-robbing spree that would take them from Southern California up into Seattle.
It was at about this time that Cretzer and Kyle teamed up with two other professional bank robbers, John Hetzer and Jim Courey, who were well known for their “quick style” robberies. Their method was to rush in, clear out a few cash drawers, and then rush out, usually spending no more than one or two minutes inside