Infamous America - BABY FACE NELSON Ep. 5 | “The Little Bohemia Shootout”

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

After two robberies that featured gun battles, the Nelson-Dillinger gang needs some time to cool off. Baby Face Nelson heads out west to do a little business, and then reunites with the gang at the Li...ttle Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin. Unbeknownst to the gang, FBI Agent Melvin Purvis has organized an ambush at the lodge. The gang shoots it out with the agents, and Nelson commits the crime that will soon make him the most wanted man in America. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. To purchase an ad on this show please reach out: blackbarrelmedia@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:13 In less than two years, Lester Gillis, aka George Nelson, nicknamed Babyface Nelson, had gone from being a chauffeur from a Reno, Nevada gambling czar, to the leader of a bank robbery crew out of St. Paul, Minnesota. Nelson had partnered with the most famous outlaw in the land, John Dillinger, just three days after Dillinger's dramatic escape from the Crown Point Jail in Indiana. Their combined crew had knocked over a bank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to the tune of $46,000, more than a million in today's money. The press had gone wild with speculation after the Sioux Falls job. No one in the bank had
Starting point is 00:00:55 identified Dillinger, but the list of suspects was short, a Dillinger gang, the Carpus Barker gang, and Pretty Boy Floyd. George Machine Gun Kelly was already behind bars at America's first federal prison Leavenworth and was just a few months away from arriving at America's most notorious prison, Alcatraz. Bonnie and Clyde were still on the loose somewhere down around Texas, but they never strayed too far from their southern routes. South Dakota would have been way out of their comfort zone. So it was almost certainly Dillinger and his less famous partner Nelson who hit the bank in Sioux Falls. The stories caught the attention of the FBI. Its director, J. Edgar Hoover, was stacking anger on top of anger. He was furious that
Starting point is 00:01:45 Dillinger had escaped Crown Point. He was furious that Dillinger had robbed a bank just 72 hours after the escape, and he was furious that Dillinger was dominating the headlines and the spotlight. Something had to be done. Dillinger had to be stopped, once and for all. Hoover was about to assign his best man to the job and take off the handcuffs, so to speak. That man, Melvin Purvis, could use whatever means necessary to find Dillinger, and he could use. use whatever force was necessary to stop Dillinger. But the headlines that angered Hoover were also starting to bother Babyface Nelson. He believed that the crew that robbed the Sioux Falls Bank was essentially his gang, with the
Starting point is 00:02:29 addition of Dillinger. Within days of the robbery, the press began to refer to the outfit as the second Dillinger gang. Every time Nelson read the name, he seethed, just as he did whenever he read descriptions of Dillinger being daring and dangerous and possessing matinee idol good looks. But even with the unrest that was starting to bubble below the surface of the gang's relationship, they managed to coexist. More bank robberies followed, including one that featured a blazing shootout in Mason City, Iowa. After a cooling off period, there was another even bigger shootout at a sleepy lakeside lodge in Wisconsin. That shootout would turbocharge the FBI's efforts and lead to the now legendary designation
Starting point is 00:03:16 that would fill headlines for the rest of 1934. Public Enemy Number One. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling the story of Lester Gillis, better known as Babyface Nelson, one of the wildest and most intriguing gangsters of the Depression era. This is episode five, The Little Bohemia Shooter. The day after the Sioux Falls job, the FBI descended on the Chicago area in the hope of finding Dillinger quickly. Melvin Purvis, the lead agent in the region, pulled resources from other high-profile cases to advance his search. But his unit was disorganized and didn't work well with local law enforcement. They were spinning their wheels in the windy city.
Starting point is 00:04:24 And there was no evidence to point the FBI in the direction of the gang's headquarters in St. Paul Minnesota, so the agents were looking in the wrong place altogether. And even if agents had been scouring St. Paul, the gang spent little, if any, time there after the Sioux Falls job. The crew quickly moved on to Nelson's second target, a bank in Mason City, Iowa, about two hours south of St. Paul. In 1934, there was no reason for the wider world to have heard of Mason City. It was a small, fairly standard farming and industrial community in the northern part of the state, about 30 miles south of the Iowa-Minnesota border. But over the course of 25 years, it would develop a level of fame far beyond its size.
Starting point is 00:05:11 Songwriter Meredith Wilson, a Mason City native, used the town as his inspiration when he penned his Broadway play, The Music Man, which debuted in 1957, and was adapted into a smash-hit movie in 1962. On a blustery February 9th in 1959, rock and rollers buddy Holly, J.P. Richardson, who performed as the Big Bopper, and 17-year-old Richard Valenzuela, who was a teenage sensation known as Richie Valens, boarded a small plane at a Mason City airfield. Shortly after takeoff, their single-engine Beachcraft Bonanza crashed into a field,
Starting point is 00:05:50 killing the three legends of early rock and roll. But 24 years and 11 months, Before the day the music died, as singer Don McLean would call it, the Nelson Dillinger gang rolled into Mason City to plunder the First National Bank. On March 13, 1934, the First National Bank of Mason City was rumored to have $250,000 in its vault. That would be $5.7 million today. Wheelman Tommy Carroll pulled a dark-colored Buick up to the curb in front of the bank at around 2 p.m. and dropped off his five gangmates.
Starting point is 00:06:30 Nelson and Dillinger took up positions outside while Homer Van Meter, Red Hamilton, and Eddie Green entered the bank and got to work. They cursed and threatened and yelled for the people in the bank to get down. The terrified employees and customers complied. Hamilton cleared the cash drawers and made his way to the vault with a bank employee, while Van Meter and Green guarded the crowd.
Starting point is 00:06:55 Despite being a small bank in a small town, the First National had a serious security feature. Inside the building and above the front door, there was a booth outfitted with bulletproof glass. A guard was stationed in the booth, and he could supervise the whole interior. The crew knew about the feature, but the guys weren't concerned. While casing the joint, they decided there was no way that a lone guard would come out of the booth, armed with just his service revolver and take on three men with machine guns. On that point, they were right. But what they didn't know was that the guard was armed with tear gas.
Starting point is 00:07:35 The guard loaded a canister into his tear gas gun and launched it out of the cage. It struck Eddie Green in the back. He spun around and began firing at the bulletproof glass. Within seconds, the whistling canister had filled the two-story lobby with gas. In the booth, the guard was protected. In the lobby, everyone was in trouble. Homer Van Meeter hurried outside, and he and Dillinger began stopping people on the street
Starting point is 00:08:04 and hurting them together to form a human shield. Inside, Red Hamilton, coughing on tear gas, continued to load cash from the vault, even though he could barely see through the smoke and the tears that streamed from his eyes. Upstairs, in the second story of the bank, a switchboard operator named Margaret Johnson crawled to an open window for fresh air
Starting point is 00:08:29 and looked down to find a man in a trench coat standing idly in the alley. She yelled at the man that the bank was being robbed and he needed to go for help. Babyface Nelson looked up at her and answered, You're telling me, lady? Though cracking wise, Nelson saw the gas pouring out the window and knew the situation was about to get hot.
Starting point is 00:08:51 The job had hit a glitch, and the law would be there, soon. While Dillinger and Van Meter were lining up people to use as a defense, Nelson had other ideas. They wanted a crowd. He wanted to clear the street. Nelson stepped out of the alley and let loose with his machine gun, first at the storefronts across the street, then at a row of parked cars. In his indiscriminate firing, he struck Mason City School Board member R.L. James in the leg. The man fell to the sidewalk writhing in pain. Dillinger yelled at Nelson and asked what he was doing.
Starting point is 00:09:28 Nelson's only response was that he thought Mr. James was a cop. Dillinger's focus changed when he felt a pain in his shoulder. From a third floor window, a local judge had drawn a bead on Dillinger with a small pistol he kept buried in one of his desk drawers. The bullet did little damage, but it was a strong signal that it was really time to go. Dillinger fired at the window, sending the judge diving for cover. Inside the bank, Red Hamilton could hear the shouts of the men outside. He was nearly overcome by tear gas, and he could tell by the stacks of money that were still in the vault,
Starting point is 00:10:06 that they were leaving a lot behind. But he hustled outside. Van Meeter, Nelson, Dillinger, and Green loaded into the Buick. Tommy Carroll dropped the car down into drive and prepared for the getaway. The gang had several hostages on the running boards and a few in the car. Hamilton burst through the front door with bags of cash. The judge upstairs had steeled his nerves and returned to the window. He fired a single shot that hit Hamilton in the leg.
Starting point is 00:10:37 Hamilton fell to one knee and then hobbled into the car. He dove inside and the gang tore out of Mason City. They were pursued for a short time, but ultimately their getaway. was far less eventful than the heist. The cash from the Mason City job totaled $52,000. It certainly was not the hall they had expected, but at more than $8,500 per man, they could afford to take some time off, and they needed a few weeks apart. Hamilton and Dillinger had to recuperate, and Nelson had some business to attend to in Reno, Nevada. Some historians also speculate that the gang just needed a break from Nelson's reckless hot-headedness.
Starting point is 00:11:26 The plan was to meet back in the Chicago area in the second week of April. Nelson packed up and headed west, along with his old bootlegging buddy John Paul Chase. Nelson brought his wife, Helen, and his kids and his mother along for the trip. They had grown accustomed to asking Nelson as few questions as possible about his business. And that was the paradox of Babyface Nelson. He was a violent outlaw, but unlike many of his peers, he was also a family man who wanted his family close by, even if the trip was for business and not pleasure. On this particular trip, the business was helping out some old friends.
Starting point is 00:12:08 William Graham had given Nelson his first job when he arrived in Reno in 1932. The well-connected King of Gambling, along with his partner James McKay, had welcomed Nelson back after Nelson's time as a bootleggar for Joe Parenti. When Nelson left Reno and headed back to the Midwest, he promised to help Graham and McKay if needed. And they needed him now. A man named Roy Fritch, who worked at a bank that was owned by Graham and McKay, had turned state's evidence.
Starting point is 00:12:44 He was set to testify regarding a mail fraud scam that could end Graham and McKay's reign over Reno. Nelson had told several people that he wouldn't let that happen. Although it remained a mystery as to why for many years, Fritch never gave that testimony. He disappeared and was never heard from again. Babyface Nelson was never charged with any wrongdoing, but most people, including the FBI, assumed Nelson killed Fritch and disposed of the body. The day after the last reported sighting of Roy Fritch, Nelson and his son,
Starting point is 00:13:20 family headed north along the Pacific coast to Seattle. They stayed with Nelson's sister before returning to St. Paul, Minnesota. It was a relatively short trip, with a seemingly specific purpose, but a lot had happened back home while Nelson was gone. There had been a shootout between two lawmen and Dillinger and Van Meter at Dillinger's apartment. The outlaws had escaped, but soon afterward, Dillinger's girlfriend, Billy Fershett, had been picked up and was being charged with harboring a criminal. Capturing Dillinger's girlfriend was good, but Dillinger's escape was a harsh reminder that a month had passed, and Melvin Purvis and his agents had hardly laid eyes on the robber. But in the spring of 1934, the FBI was fighting
Starting point is 00:14:09 a crime war on multiple fronts. Dillinger was the top target, but agents were also hunting Pretty Boy Floyd and an associate after the Bureau publicly declared them the prime suspects in the Kansas City massacre the previous summer. Unfortunately, that hunt was also coming up empty. Nearly a thousand men had scoured the southwest, but there was no sign of Floyd. The only bright spot for the FBI was when agents stumbled upon a maid who identified her employer as Eddie Green, a member of Babyface Nelson's gang. Agents found Green, mortally wounded him in a gunfight, and took him.
Starting point is 00:14:49 his wife Beth into custody. Under interrogation and the threat of serious jail time, Beth filled FBI files with information about various criminals her husband had worked with through the years, including George Babyface Nelson. At the same time, federal agents swarmed Chicago looking for Dillinger. With all the heat coming down, the gang needed a place to regroup and lay low. They met at Lewis Sarnocki's Roadhouse, 45 minutes outside Chicago. The lodge and its adjoining club, the Crystal Ballroom, were well-known criminal havens on the road between Chicago and St. Paul. Nelson and his wife had stayed there plenty of times. The problem was, law enforcement knew about the joint just like everybody else. The gang could make a pit stop there, but it couldn't stay long.
Starting point is 00:15:44 Sernaki knew the perfect place to hide for a while. He scribbled a note, sealed it in an envelope and gave it to Nelson. Sarnaki instructed the gang to head to Wisconsin. Five hours north of Chicago, off State Road 51, they would find a lakeside resort called the Little Bohemia Lodge. They should hand the note to the owner, Earl Winnatka, and he would take care of them. It was a quiet, picturesque location in the north woods,
Starting point is 00:16:13 and best of all, they wouldn't see a cop for days. Babyface Nelson, his wife Helen, and Tommy Carroll arrived at the Little Bohemia Lodge around 5 p.m. on Friday, April 21st. Nelson introduced himself as Jimmy to the lodge's owner and handed over the sealed letter. Earl Winnatka found Nelson to be friendly, even chatty. But he found it strange when he handed the note back to Nelson, and Nelson took great care to tear it to shreds before tossing it into a bin. Gang member Homer Van Meter and his girlfriend, along with her Bulldog, were already having a drink at the bar.
Starting point is 00:16:58 As was Red Hamilton, fully healed from the gunshot to the leg he had suffered on the Mason City bank heist. A friend of Nelson's named Pat Riley was also there. Riley, who was younger than the rest, was most likely there to run errands for the gang. Dillinger arrived with a chorus girl about an hour later. Earl Winnatka and his wife were only in. mildly suspicious of the group at that point. Earl swore that the last man to arrive looked familiar, but mostly he and his wife were just thrilled to have a packed lodge for the weekend. Business was always scarce until the weather warmed and tourists came to enjoy the lake.
Starting point is 00:17:41 The gang moved into their rooms on the second floor of the lodge, except for Nelson. He and Helen had been given the adjacent private cabin. Friday night passed quietly. The gang ate dinner, drank in the bar, and played cards with Earl Winatka. But the next morning, after breakfast, Winnatka asked the man everyone called Johnny to speak in private. Winnetka had come across a copy of the Chicago Tribune newspaper. As it was most days in the spring of 1934, Dillinger's picture was front and center. Dillinger didn't deny who he was when Winnatka confronted him. He assured the proprietor that they would only be there a few days.
Starting point is 00:18:24 days, and they were not planning any crimes in the area. They just wanted to rest and relax. Dillinger promised to make it worth Wannock's trouble. Both men agreed, but Dillinger then told Nelson about his chat with the owner. They decided they should keep an eye on Wannotka and his wife, and also monitor anyone using the lodge's only phone, which was in the bar room. After that, Dillinger, Nelson, and Van Meter spent the rest of the day taking target practice. They invited Wannocka to join. Although the man was scared for his family and his own life and his livelihood, he couldn't pass up the chance to be able to say he had gone shooting with some of the most famous outlaws in America.
Starting point is 00:19:09 Later in the day, Wannotka's boy, Earl Jr., was outside playing with the family dogs and asked Nelson if he wanted to play catch. Nelson agreed and told the kid to fetch some baseball mitts. It was fun at first, but after Nelson purposefully whizzed the ball too hard and hurt Earl Jr.'s hand, the boy quit and went inside. The boy complained of the bully to his mother. Nan Wannotka confessed to her husband that she was growing weary of their renters. Her feelings only grew worse when her husband confided to her
Starting point is 00:19:45 who they really were. The couple were scared, but they knew they had to get word to the authorities, and not just the local cops. It was already clear that using the phone at the lodge was too risky. They decided they should play it cool until morning. Nan's brother-in-law, Henry Voss, was coming by. They could slip him a note,
Starting point is 00:20:06 and he could get to a nearby phone and make a call. Saturday night passed much the way Friday night had. dinner, dancing, cocktails, and cards. On Sunday morning, Nan Winnatka slipped her brother-in-law the note that was nestled into a pack of cigarettes. The note stated who was at the lodge and added a plea from the Wannotkas to keep their family out of harm's way. Henry Voss left after breakfast, as did Nelson and Tommy Carroll. The pair had decided to take a Sunday drive through the nearby towns and look for banks that needed robbers. Pat Riley, Nelson's errand boy, also took one of the cars.
Starting point is 00:20:48 He was sent to restock their ammo supply. Dillinger caught Earl Winnatka outside the lodge as the cars pulled away. He handed Wannocka an envelope that contained $500 in cash. That's more than $11,000 today. A tidy sum for three-night's stay. Dillinger thanked Wannock for his hospitality and told the owner they'd be checking out of the little Bohemia Lodge, first thing Monday morning.
Starting point is 00:21:21 Henry Voss's first call was to a friend in law enforcement in Milwaukee. The friend told him that calling local or even state police would be futile. He needed to get in touch with the U.S. Justice Department. However, that wasn't an easy task in general, and even worse, on a Sunday morning. It took him several hours of being put on hold and transferred before he finally spoke to a U.S. Marshal in the Chicago area. The marshal told Voss to expect a call from the man who could help. When the call arrived, Voss found himself on the line with Melvin Purvis,
Starting point is 00:21:58 senior agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office. The man you want is here, Voss told Pervis. The two men spoke briefly, and Purvis told Voss to stay in the vicinity of a nearby airport. FBI agents from St. Paul and Chicago would be in the air soon. Agents from around the Great Lakes region dropped whatever they were doing and mobilized. Purvis spoke with FBI Director Jay Edgar Hoover in Washington. Hoover authorized whatever Purvis needed and then underscored the importance than Dillinger not slipped through their hands.
Starting point is 00:22:35 It was already midday. Purvis needed to be on the ground in Wisconsin and en route to the lodge by sundown. By mid-afternoon, the dining room and bar at the Little Bohie. Langemia Lodge were filling up. Dillinger asked if it was normal, and Wannotka told him that they ran a popular $1 dinner special on Sundays, and it drew quite a crowd. That gave Dillinger pause. Nelson and Carol were out casing banks, so Dillinger conferenced with Van Meter.
Starting point is 00:23:10 They decided the group should leave that night, once it got dark, instead of the next morning. Van Meeter spread the word to the other gang members and their dates. Dillinger requested an early dinner from the Wannotkas and said they would all be leaving that night. When Nelson returned, he was happy to hear about the plan, but reminded Dillinger that they couldn't leave until Pat Riley came back with their restock of ammo. After a late afternoon walked down the lakefront with Helen, Nelson posted up at the lodge's bar and hung out with the crowd of locals. As always, Nelson loved a lively joint, but steered clear of any liquor.
Starting point is 00:23:49 his teetotalling didn't stop him from buying drinks for local fishermen and lumberjacks, and it didn't stop him from lavishly tipping the bartenders. While Nelson enjoyed the party, 50 miles away, Melvin Purvis and 15 agents were meeting with local law enforcement. They commandeered transportation from a local car dealership and began formulating a strategy. Henry Voss provided a hand-drawn diagram of the area around the lodge. The plan was to surround the lodge on three sides and use the lake front as a fourth flank. The gang would have no way out.
Starting point is 00:24:29 Just after 8 p.m., a caravan of agents reached the turnoff to the Little Bohemia Lodge. They drove the 200 yards of muddy ground to the lodge with their lights off. Purvis ordered the agents to put out their cigarettes and keep sharp. As they inched closer to the lodge, Pervis was convinced no one had seen. seen them, and they would have the drop on Dillinger and the gang. Then, Earl Winnatka's dogs started barking. The agents watched as three figures ambled out of the lodge and toward a parked Chevrolet. They piled in, and the driver reversed the car and pulled a quick U-turn. To the agents, with fear, anticipation and adrenaline pumping through their veins, it almost
Starting point is 00:25:15 certainly looked like the three men were attempting a quick getaway. Someone yelled at a fire and about a half a dozen agents sprayed the car with machine gun rounds. Shattered glass flew everywhere and the bullets ripped through the car. A loud pop came from the engine and the car limped to a stop. A back door flew open and a single man bolted into the woods. Agents rushed the car. One man inside was severely wounded and the driver was dead. The men were not gangsters. They were a cook and two gas station attendants. And the reckless driving had not been because they were trying to escape, it was because they were drunk.
Starting point is 00:25:57 They had only been at the Little Bohemia to enjoy the $1 dinner special. Less than a minute into the raid, Melvin Purvis' team had injured one civilian and killed another. They had sprung the trap too early, given away their presence, and still hadn't seen the outlaws. Babyface Nelson had retired to the cabin adjacent to the lodge, while Helen, the other women, and the rest of the gang had stayed down in the bar drinking and
Starting point is 00:26:29 dancing. They were all curious why Pat Riley had not returned with their restock of ammo, but they were not worried enough to leave without him. Nelson was lying on the bed when he heard a sound he knew well, the ear-splitting thunder of machine-gun fire. He leapt up and went straight for his weapon. He opened the door of the cabin just enough to see the courtyard in front of the lodge, jammed with what he was sure were federal agents. Some were crowded around a Chevy that had been ripped to shreds by gunfire. Nelson took a bead on a group of G-men and let off a few rounds. As the agents fanned out, Nelson realized there were more of them than he thought.
Starting point is 00:27:12 There was no way he was going to get Helen from the lodge, and he would be easy to surround in the isolated cabin. He also knew he had a little chance to escape in a car. Even if he could make it to one of the cars, the agents were blocking the road. He would have to flee on foot. When he went out the back of the cabin, he could hear cautious footsteps, crunching the leaves as agents approached the cabin. He assumed the only way out was to head for the lake.
Starting point is 00:27:43 He ran toward the water and soon discovered what the FBI hadn't known. A thin stretch of coastline ran along the edge of the lake. It was overgrown with tall grass. and littered with a dead wood, but it was passable. Nelson trudged south. It was slow going, but he figured if it was slow for him, it was slow for any pursuers as well. It took him almost 30 minutes to make it just half a mile,
Starting point is 00:28:09 but then he saw a lakefront home with lights on. He crawled up an embankment and walked with unusual calmness into the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Lang. He ushered the bewildered and frightened color, into their Chevy coop. He put Mrs. Lang in the back and forced Mr. Lang into the driver's seat. Nelson slipped into the passenger seat and kept his gun trained on Mr. Lang. He told Lang to drive to a town called Woodruff about 20 miles down the road. But Nelson and his hostages didn't make it very far. The Chevy's engine died just as they turned on to the main road. Nelson forced
Starting point is 00:28:51 the couple out of the car and pushed them toward the nearest house. house with lights on. Nelson instructed Mr. Lang to knock on the door of his neighbor, Alvin Corner. Corner opened the door and began to ask Lang if he had heard the gunfire coming from the little Bohemia when he suddenly had the muzzle of Nelson's gun in his face. Nelson told Corner they were all going to take a drive to Woodruff. Nelson tried to corral his additional hostages out and into Corner's car. But then to his dismay, he saw the headlights of another car coming up the driveway. But it was more than just bad timing or an inconvenience, because in the car were two FBI agents and a local constable. After Nelson had made his escape, the FBI had briefly
Starting point is 00:29:42 fired on the lodge. A few more civilians had come out with their hands raised, but then there was no activity inside. Melvin Purvis, wary of any additional non-combatants being injured and assuming that Dillinger was still inside, decided to wait. He wanted everyone out with as little shooting as possible. So, Pervist asked a constable to take two agents to the nearest phone. The agents were supposed to call the airport where a team with tear gas equipment was landing. The team needed to get to the lodge as fast as it could. The agents and the constable had driven away from the lodge, and as it turned out, the nearest place that might have a phone was the home of Alvin Corner. As the car pulled up to the coroner home,
Starting point is 00:30:29 the lawman saw the unusual sight of half a dozen people all cramming into Coroner's family car. As the lawman rolled up to the group, Nelson jumped out and leveled his machine gun at them. Nelson ordered the agents out of the car, but he didn't give them a chance to comply. He opened fire on Agent Jay Newman, who hit the ground immediately.
Starting point is 00:30:51 Nelson turned the gun on Agent Carter bomb and shot him three times in the neck. Constable Carl Christensen ran for the tree line, but Nelson shot him twice in the back and he fell into a ditch. Nelson put three more rounds in him for good measure. Nelson abandoned his former hostages and jumped into the agent's car. He roared down the gravel driveway, hit State Road 51, and disappeared into the night. His adventure was nowhere near over, but at that point he was out of immediate danger. Agent Newman, injured but still alive, made his way into the coroner's home and called the tear gas team, which headed for Little Bohemia. Agent Baum died of his wounds before any help could arrive.
Starting point is 00:31:41 With Baum's death, Babyface Nelson cemented his status as a top target of the FBI. John Dillinger had robbed more banks and made more headlines, but George Babyface Nelson could now claim to have one thing on his criminal resume that Dillinger didn't, the murder of a federal agent. Next time on Infamous America, the FBI's string of near misses comes to an end. The first public enemy number one falls, and then the second, and then Babyface Nelson becomes the most wanted criminal in the country. But his reign will be short.
Starting point is 00:32:21 and come to a bloody end. That's next week on the final episode of the Babyface Nelson story here on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials,
Starting point is 00:32:46 and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Jamie Lyko, original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell media on Twitter.
Starting point is 00:33:18 And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America podcast. Thanks for listening.

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