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In a 1941 series of articles for True Detective Adventures, Nelson’s friend Fatso Negri quoted Nelson’s version of the Kidder murder. “[W]e happened to cut in ahead of another car,” Nelson said. “The driver, one of those fresh guys, cut right back in front of us. He stopped the car, got out, and came back toward us and said to me: ‘What the hell do you mean? Get out of that car and I’ll slap your face for you.’ He had taken a step or two toward us when I leveled on him and hit him. Then we had to tear out of that place.” overcoat and drew his Thompson gun. “This is a holdup!” he shouted. “Everyone on the floor!”

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In later years, Hoover became notorious for inserting into FBI files memoranda that tended to absolve himself of blame in controversial matters. The morning after speaking to Purvis, he wrote a memo to Pop Nathan that appears to be an early example of this:

Last evening I had occasion to call Mr. Purvis at Chicago to inquire of him what steps had been taken in the Chicago office toward bringing about the apprehension of Dillinger, and much to my surprise the Chicago office has done practically nothing in this matter . . . I am also somewhat concerned that the supervising officials at the Seat of Government did not take immediate steps to instruct our field offices as soon as Dillinger escaped, to put forth every effort to bring about his apprehension, notwithstanding the fact that Dillinger at that time was not known to have violated a Federal Statute. The reason I am surprised . . . is because when Dillinger made his previous escape, this Division did take steps to endeavor to bring about his apprehension, so consequently, there was no reason why we should not take similar steps when he made his recent escape.

This was remarkably disingenuous. The FBI had done next to nothing to pursue Dillinger that fall. No SAC would dare initiate a major new case without Hoover’s approval, and Hoover hadn’t given any. If the FBI was tardy in its pursuit of Dillinger that week, Hoover had only himself to blame.

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To this day, local historians have no idea who Kunkleman was or why he was filming that day. His footage of the robbery’s prelude and aftermath was later developed and shown in a Mason City theater. It then disappeared. For decades local historians tried in vain to locate Kunkleman or his fabled film. It was finally found in the hands of a Mason City camera-store owner in 1996.

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The precise date of Barker’s and Karpis’s surgeries has never been definitely established. The best guess is March 10, give or take a day.

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The bar was called the Green Lantern, named after but unrelated to Harry Sawyer’s place in St. Paul.

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Ziegler’s murder was never solved.

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The most vigorous questioning the FBI did wasn’t of anyone associated with the Barkers: it was of FBI agents themselves. When news of Dock Barker’s identification leaked to the St. Paul newspapers, Hoover exploded. He demanded to know the source of the leak, firing off a cascade of angry memos at the two most likely sources, the offices in Minneapolis and Oklahoma City. Pop Nathan interrogated several Oklahoma agents who appeared to have mentioned the fingerprints to local lawmen, who had then mentioned them to a Minnesota reporter doing research on the Barkers. The likely leaker was an agent named Herman Hollis, a former SAC in Detroit; Hollis denied it. The investigation dragged on for weeks, until Nathan admitted they would probably never find the source.

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Rosser Nalls was born in Washington, D.C., joined the Bureau in 1929, and served in many offices before his retirement in 1956. He died in 1983 at the age of eighty-two.

Rufus C. Coulter was born in Tennessee and orphaned at an early age. Without graduating from elementary school, he attended night classes and managed to obtain a law degree from the University of Arkansas. Coulter served in the FBI from 1929 to 1945 and worked for many years afterward for Motorola. He died in 1975 at the age of seventy-two.