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Nelson shoved Mrs. Thompson into the lobby and demanded she hand over a six-carat blue-diamond ring, a bracelet lined with 40 diamonds, and a brooch set with 140 small stones; the three pieces were later valued at $18,000. When Nelson ran for their car, Mrs. Thompson fainted.

Not until years later would FBI agents, after debriefing Nelson’s former partners, link him to a pair of bloody unsolved crimes in late November 1930. According to Stanton J. Randall, a member of the Nelson gang interviewed by the FBI in 1934, Nelson was the leader of a group of eight men who entered a roadhouse on Archer Avenue in suburban Summit in the early-morning hours of Sunday, November 23. Mary Brining, a twenty-two-year-old University of Illinois student, was singing “The Kiss Waltz” to a roomful of dancers in a smoky back room when the men burst in the front door, shotguns and pistols drawn. The gang’s leader, later described by newspapers as an “unmasked youth of about 18”—presumably Nelson—pushed the bartender and another man into the back room, where Nelson stood in the middle of the dance floor shouting, “Everyone up! Face the walls!”

As his men began to rob the patrons, Nelson shoved the tavern’s owner against a wall. Nelson then yelled for a gang member to turn up the lights, but in the confusion the gang member apparently hit the wrong switch: the room went completely dark. Just then, the owner’s dog, a Great Dane, attacked Nelson, biting him in the leg. Nelson fired at the dog. Other gang members panicked and began firing wildly in the darkness. A railroad detective named James Mikus emerged from the bathroom and began firing at the robbers.

Chaos ensued. In less than a minute three young women were dead or dying, including the singer, Mary Brining; three others were badly wounded. “Let’s get outta here!” Nelson shouted, and the gang ran out the front door. Mikus, though wounded, limped to his car and gave chase, but lost Nelson’s gang in traffic.

Three nights later Nelson’s gang burst into a tavern on Waukegan Road in the northern suburbs. Only three men were in the bar: the owner, Frank Engel; a waiter; and one of Engel’s friends, a twenty-seven-year-old stockbroker from a prominent North Shore family named Edwin R. Thompson, who had stopped by for a late dinner after visiting his sick wife in the hospital. When Nelson ordered the trio to raise their hands, Thompson made the mistake of smiling nervously. “Don’t smile, you!” Nelson snarled, then raised his shotgun and fired a single blast into Thompson’s chest. Thompson fell dead. “Guess we ain’t tough, eh?” Nelson said as he stood over Thompson’s body. He turned to Engel, who stood, stunned. “Now open that safe!” Nelson shouted. Engel did as he was told, handing Nelson the $125 inside. “Come on, let’s go!” Nelson shouted, and it was over.

Police finally arrested most of the gang in February 1931. Nelson was arrested at an apartment in Cicero. In the single article the Chicago Tribune devoted to his arrest, he was identified as George “Baby Face” Nelson, the first time his new nickname made it into print.6 Convicted of one robbery, Nelson drew a sentence of one year to life in the state prison at Joliet.

In February 1932, Nelson was taken in handcuffs to the town of Wheaton, just west of Chicago, where in a quick trial he drew a second sentence of one year to life. Late on a Wednesday afternoon, February 17, a prison guard named R. N. Martin led Nelson to the train back to Chicago. Reaching Chicago an hour later, they transferred to the southbound train. At Joliet, Martin pushed Nelson into a yellow cab for the short ride to the prison. Just as the cab approached the prison on Collins Street, Nelson produced a pistol; apparently someone had slipped it to him on the train. “If you move I will kill you,” he told Martin. “Now unlock the handcuffs.”

Nelson put the pistol against the cab driver’s temple and said, “You continue on to Chicago and do exactly as I tell you.” In the suburb of Summit, Nelson ordered the driver to pull to the side of the road beside a