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The hitchhikers were Depression refugees, an itinerant Oklahoma farmer named Luther Arnold; his wife, Flossie Mae; and their twelve-year-old daughter, Geralene. They had been thrown off an uncle’s farm outside Ardmore following a bank foreclosure and had been hitchhiking across Texas ever since, living off odd jobs and handouts.ah They eagerly accepted the ride from the red-haired woman in the blue gingham dress.

“What are y’all doing?” Kathryn asked after a bit.

“Just hiking,” Arnold said. “I’m looking for anything that will feed three hungry people.”

Kathryn oozed sympathy. She said she might be able to help. They drove on to the town of Cleburne, where they stopped at a tourist camp for the night. Kathryn paid for everything. The next morning she took Flossie Mae and Geralene into town and bought them housedresses. When they returned to the tourist camp, Kathryn took Luther Arnold aside.

“I like you people, and would like to fix it so you could make a little money,” she said. “Can I trust you?”

“Absolutely,” Arnold said.

“What would you people think if I told you who I am?”

“Go ahead,” Arnold said. “You can trust us.”

“I’m Kathryn Kelly—no doubt you’ve read about me in the papers,” she said. “Mr. Arnold, I am going to place a big trust in you.” She handed him $50 and told him to take the bus to Fort Worth, contact her attorney, Sam Sayers, and find out whether he had struck a deal with government prosecutors.

Arnold agreed. When he reached the lawyer’s office, Sayers said there had been no progress on any deal. When Arnold returned to Cleburne that night, Kathryn began to think. Sayers was a Texas attorney who wouldn’t know the Oklahoma environs where her mother was to be tried. She asked Arnold if he knew an Oklahoma attorney she could hire, and Arnold said he did, a lawyer in Enid. The next morning Kathryn dropped Arnold outside Fort Worth with $300 and a note instructing Sayers to give him a car she had left with him. Arnold was to proceed to Enid, hire the attorney for her mother, then drive south to San Antonio, where Kathryn said she would leave instructions for him at the post office’s General Delivery window.

This time things didn’t go as planned. When Arnold phoned Sayers, the lawyer wasn’t in. Arnold wasn’t disappointed. In fact, he was growing happier by the minute. After a month of tramping across Texas, begging for food and shaving in gas station bathrooms, he was free in a big city, his pockets full of cash. Outside the bus station Arnold asked a Yellow Cab driver where a man could buy a drink. The driver took him to a bar, where Arnold ordered a beer. Afterward Arnold felt even better. He asked the barkeep where he could obtain some female companionship. The barkeep stepped to a telephone, called a number, and in no time a girl showed up. She said her name was Mae.

Arnold and Mae got along so well he bought an entire case of beer. He took it with him back to Mae’s apartment, where the two made themselves at home. After a while Arnold was feeling so good he asked Mae if she had any friends. Before long a girl named Hilda arrived.ai Together Arnold and his two new lady friends and their case of beer enjoyed a long evening.

The next morning Luther Arnold succeeded in reaching Sam Sayers, who drove out to meet him with Kathryn’s Chevrolet. Arnold took the car, loading his two lady friends into the rumble seat, and drove to Enid, where he hired the lawyer for Kathryn’s mother. Arnold and the girls drove on to Oklahoma City and registered at the city’s nicest hotel, the Skirvin, where they began a loud party.11 By the next morning several attorneys Kathryn had hired also arrived at the Skirvin.

It was then, on Saturday, September 9, that Gus Jones received a tip that the attorneys were meeting with an emissary of Kathryn Kelly’s at the Skirvin. Luther Arnold was placed under surveillance. Apparently there was some debate whether the hard-drinking Arnold was really mixed up in the Kellys’ affairs. The quality of surveillance that weekend reflected this ambivalence. On Monday