Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 479: Ma Barker Part I - A Boy's Best Friend Is His Mom

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

This week we're traveling back to the "public enemy" era of 1930's Midwest America, as we dive into the story of legendary Crime Boss and Matriarch of the infamous Barker-Karpis Gang, Ma Barker. Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

A roast as dark as the night, perfect for fueling the cryptid research and mad ravings required for your podcasting. Don't mind the red eyes, he's just trying to warn you of the bridge! The bridge! Finally, from the caffeine-addled brains of Spring Hill Jack Coffee and Last Podcast on the left, we bring you Mothman's Red Eye Blend. Yes, delicious Panama beans, go to lastpodcastmerch.com to order yours today! Hey, what's up everyone? How you doing? Ben Kissel here with Henry Zabrowski. Yeah, it's me, man!

Yeah, bro, Henry Zabrowski is smoking some of that sweet last podcast on the left, babe. Go out there and purchase yourself some. I hope you enjoy it. We have Sativa, we have Indica, and we have a hybrid, and I have to tell you, for my personal experience, they are wonderful. Super tasty, live resin, you really get the delicious, weedy taste, which is what I like, and three different experiences. You go to your local vape store and get it! Absolutely, thank you all so much for supporting the show. We absolutely love you, can't wait to see you on the road, and get that vape, put it in your brain, and have a good time.

And if you want to set your favorite weed store, give them a call and ask for them by name. Last podcast on the left, it's weed. Hail yourselves, everyone! Hail Satan! There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast on the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that?

We are family. Aw, man, I hate this. Come on, come on, say this with me. I'm having sex with my son. Aw, man. Aw, family. I'm gonna go to the bathroom, Nanny, I'm gonna go to the bathroom, Nanny. Let me suck your dick first, let's see if it's good.

Get out of here! Guys, what a fun way to start. I had a question for the both of you. Uh-huh. Okay. This is a real question that pertains to the Barker gang. My Barker! If we were all, like, your families were all like a gang of criminals, and you were a group together, you were a gang, do you think it would make it more or less difficult

if you were also having sex with them? Like, if you were, like, Marcus, you're robbing a bank with your brothers. Do you think it makes it difficult to cut up the money if you've been all having sex with each other, or do you think that that makes it easier? Uh, I would say it would make it easier, because you definitely have bigger things on your mind. Like, you're gonna be more distracted because you're thinking, oh my god, I'm having sex with my family, there's something fucking absolutely fucking awful here, so you're like, yeah, fuck it, take the extra five bucks, I don't care. That seems like a you problem. I'm gonna push back a little bit on that, I'm gonna go with the Fleetwood Mac example of what happens when families start having sex with each other.

Sure, you might get the biggest heist of your life, you might have your rumors, but in the long run... Oh, back chatter, all of a sudden Lindsey Buckingham is talking, all of a sudden Stevie Nicks has something to say. You came harder for Chris. Oh, so I think in the long run, it'll lead to total and utter destruction, welcome to the last podcast on the left, everyone, I am Ben, hanging out with Marcus. Yeah, Marcus, absolutely fucking, just absolutely jazzed that you started the show by asking that question. Me too. Jazz, I am. Me too.

And Henry's a prospect. The question. The nice thing is, in ten years, Henry's actually gonna be in charge of the census. So that'll be, make sure you fill that out, make sure you figure out who you'd like to have sex with in your family the most. I mean, if you're currently inside of your brother when I come to do the census at your home, you count as one person. You count as one. Well, isn't that true love? All right, everyone, today's topic, people have been clamoring for it.

I know I say that sometimes, but when they clamor, I tell them, I tell you when they clamor. People like Tommy Gunn material. Yeah, absolutely Tommy Gunn. Ooh, also a great name for a boxer. It's the name of a famous porn star as well. Is that right? Okay, everyone, we are on to Ma Barker. Ma Barker was a gangland figure of the 20s and 30s who allegedly ruled over the Barker Carpus gang,

which was known far and wide as one of the most dangerous, ambitious, intelligent, and successful violent criminal enterprises of the era. These guys were the real fucking deal. These were the most, some of the most dangerous people of this time period, and it's fun to get in the middle of them. Well, who was more dangerous, them or the Beagle Boys from DuckTales? Actually, the Beagle Boys were kind of based on the Barker gang. Oh, no kidding.

Whoa, isn't that interesting? But that's the thing, do you get it? Beagles. Barkers. Bark Beagle Boys. They see, look at that, he loves dogs. Now we're educating Kissel. That's right.

Finally, I'm puffing. Finally, a story from me. Whoa, characters. Yeah, you know I got one. Well, according to legend, Ma Barker was a stout cigar chomping mastermind who stole more money than John Dillinger, pretty boy Floyd, babyface Nelson, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Although beating Bonnie and Clyde wasn't much of a challenge if we're talking pure numbers.

Yeah, Bonnie and Clyde, while we love them and we love our impotent king, Clyde, we love him, we stand him, we know for a fact that they were, you know, they stood by each other's side to the very end, even though he couldn't put it inside. I don't think people say stand anymore, though. I took cares, man. I'm here now. I'm here now. I made it now.

You're out. Their relationship is very fire. It's fire. Yes, it's on fire. But they weren't good at the game, we'll say. Well, speaking of having, I think, love gotten away in their case, did it not? I don't know. I feel like in a way, their bond was different because, again, they couldn't fuck.

So a part of it was maybe, you know, who fucking knows? Maybe that actually helped being able to keep your eye on the ball. But the Barrow Gang was not very good at their jobs. The Barker-Karpus Gang, though, they really set the bar. Okay. For what you could do in the gangland era. Very good. Planning from afar, Ma Barker supposedly used her four sons as her instruments of chaos,

directing the boys throughout their lives in all the best ways to steal, cheat, rob and murder. All because it gave Ma a little tickle in her bottom to do so. You know what else? We're gonna tell you who else is giving Ma a tickle in her bottom. My first son, Herbert. Oh, my, that was my grandfather's name. Yeah, but now he's fucking me as my son. Oh, come on.

Yeah, and I got a legacy to you, young man. I switched from cigars to cigarettes to get healthy. Oh, that's probably not gonna work. No. No. I think you actually have that in reverse. Well, under Ma Barker's supposed tutelaging guidance, the Barker-Karpus Gang was so dangerous that five of the top ten criminals in the FBI's Most Wanted List were members of the two dozen strong Barker-Karpus crew.

It really is not good when your family tree and the FBI Most Wanted List combine into one thing. I don't know, man. As long as we're doing this as a family, this is what I say to Jackie. This is what I say to my mother. We're gonna be in this fucking game. We gotta be number one. We gotta be top. So, you know, the Zabrowski's are gonna start doing group rapes.

We gotta be the best. And if we're gonna be the best, we're doing lobster rolls. I don't want to think about your mother or Jackie. You have put them in a horrible situation. That's what they get. No, it is not what they get, nor do they deserve that. But again, if we were making lobster rolls, I would say the same thing. Okay, let's stick with lobster rolls, please.

Now, even though the Barker-Karpus gang operated both during and after prohibition, they didn't really run liquor, girls, and gambling like a lot of the other larger gangs the time did. See, while your George Remuses, Lucky Lucianos, and Al Capone's were making a killing bootlegging liquor in defiance of the Volstead Act. They were businessmen. I don't know. This is the business we've chose. This is where they actually served a public good. I mean, other than the fact I think you went blind from the drink. You went blind from the drink.

Extreme amounts of murder and violence that came as a result of prohibition. They would have just stuck with being the Anheuser-Busch of gangsters. It's business, sure, yeah. The Barker-Karpus gang were straight-up violent criminals who reveled in committing violent crimes for profit, and they were extraordinarily good at what they did. They were involved in bank robberies, jewelry store heists, car thefts, payroll pilfers, and most profitably, kidnappings. By the time they were all killed or caught, the Barker-Karpus gang had stolen $3 million in merchandise and cash adjusted for inflation. That's $50 million in today's cash. That is like some GTA.

That is Grand Theft Auto. That is a video game amount of money. It more than doubles the score of the infamous Lufthansa heist of 1970. Man, have you ever done any reading to the Lufthansa heist? Lufthansa. It's really interesting. That's a relaxed fit one day. I know you don't like mob stories, but I love the idea of the story of a bunch of mob guys all getting together.

They do this perfect plan. They rob Lufthansa. It was like this money exchange. All they had to do was they basically tied up five guys. They walked out with something like $8 million. It was adjusted for inflation. It was $23 million. It was a huge amount of money.

They walked out in pure cash. Then the one guy that ran it realized it was like, oh, fuck. I trusted all of these morons, liars, cheats, and thieves. Right, well, that's the problem. Yeah, and then he killed the entire group. Then he got all the money. No, he went to jail as well. Oh, okay.

Yeah, it seems to be crime doesn't pay. Actually, I don't think he ever went to jail for it. He went to jail for murder later on. Lufthansa Heights, only one person went to jail for the Lufthansa Heights. That's right. And that was the man who stole the pretzel? Yeah. Don't steal a pretzel on a German airline.

You're right. I believe it's German. You're right. It is German. Yes. Well, that $50 million, they made that in four years. And that doesn't sound like a long period of time, but four years is far longer than any other violent criminal gang of the Prohibition Depression era made it.

They made it very, very short period of time because they all either got killed or caught. Absolutely. And they did the Berserker lifestyle, which running for four years is a full on like heavy assault robbery group that kills when they can, kidnapping, high speeches. That's like, I would say that 16 years of normal human life. Sure. They aged like dogs, much like the Beagle boys. Yep.

They were dogs. And that's also after they had already been solo criminals for many years before that. It's just that Barker Carpus was the most profitable venture the Barker family ever had. This is the drill team. They're bringing the best of the best of the best of the best. Sure. But it's just sad because it's unlike the Traveling Willberies, which is probably the

least successful version of any one of their solo careers. That's true. Of course, Traveling Willberies, a very unknown group with Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Completely incorrect so far. Fantastic. It's fine though. It was fine. Now while the Barker Carpus gang isn't solely responsible for the formation of the FBI,

there were certainly one of the largest reasons behind its creation. In addition to the loot they stole, the Barker Carpus gang also killed at minimum 10 people, all in the commission of getting away with one crime or another. And those 10 people included a whole pile of cops. On the FBI's eventual version of events, Kate Ma Barker basically ran a crime college, tutoring both her foresons and their friends in various criminal activities using lessons she learned from reading true crime magazines. Oh, okay.

The one lesson I never got to was how to eat pussy underwater. Oh my goodness. Well, now that's extremely difficult because humans need oxygen and the water gets in your throat, and then will the vagina even feel the tongue? Well, that was supposedly Ma in private. In public, the FBI claimed, Ma Barker played the put-upon, constantly in crisis mother who again and again got her sons off the hook for serious crimes with nothing more than a well-placed tear and a plea to the right judge.

This is the mother you want. This is really the mother you want. I mean, that's the mother I had, to be honest. We've been talking about this in private. We very much have been. You can't punish Benjamin. He's a good kid. He's a good boy.

He's a good boy. I was just remembering last night with my long husband, Ben. But no, she's very, she is an enabler. That's why when we'll get down to- An abler? A defender? Yes. Both.

It is both. I would say enabler is by far the- It is both. It is both. But she is an interesting woman because I think, you know, because again, they try to paint her as the mastermind, and what we'll show you, I think, in this series, and as we go, and we'll talk about this again and again, she is not necessarily the mastermind, but she enjoyed the criminal life and she enjoyed the, the entrapments.

Well, as we shall see by the end of the series, while the FBI didn't need to sell the Ma Barker narrative to capture the Barker-Carpus gang, they definitely had a vested interest in making sure that the public thought that Ma Barker was a dangerous criminal genius. And I don't know why they did that, except for maybe they're trying to validate the reason why, um, spoiler alert, she ended her life in a pile of blood riddled with bullets. Oh, no kidding. Isn't that kind of fun, the way the bullets went into the blood there that was in piles? Um, I feel like also the FBI needed to validate its own existence.

Very much so. So you better prop up these people and be like, they're masterminds, and it's like, I think she just took a dump in her pants. And if anything tells you a thing about the FBI, the next series we'll be working on shows for a fact that the CIA, the most disreputable branch of the government, didn't want to work with the FBI because they didn't trust them. Yeah. Well, it was changed a little bit after 2001.

Yep. Now the real brains behind the Barker-Carpus gang, Alvin O. Creepy-Carpus, O. Creepy was his nickname? Oh yeah. O. Creepy. Yeah, we've mentioned him like this is the third time I think we've mentioned him. This is when we're finally going to get into the story of O. Creepy. They called him O. Creepy.

Fantastic. He was a little O. Creepy because he had very creepy eyes and a creepy smile. Just looking at him made you feel uncomfortable. I wish you could look at me. He does the Herman Cain smile. Do you remember the slow smile? It's like a smile that doesn't look natural on his face. 999.

Well, I love O. Creepy and I love to show on PBS when he was the interviewer. I'm thinking of Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose? I don't know what he did. Still some great interviews, but yeah, apparently he's done doing those. Yeah, well O. Creepy had a few choice words to say about Ma Barker's supposed criminal genius when he wrote his autobiography years later. According to Carpus, Ma Barker couldn't organize breakfast.

I get it though. And that is one of the highest insults you could give to a mother in that era, to organize breakfast. She's fun, mom. She orders pizza. She takes you to the fucking Discovery Zone. She's fun. Pizza bangles, man.

You probably get your room cleaned by your friend, Toastina's Pizza Rolls. You bribe them. Yeah. Remember that? It's a horrible lesson. Well, Carpus said that Ma Barker was sweet and loved her sons. Probably loved him too much. It's pretty much the last man left alive to tell the tale.

Carpus said that Ma Barker ultimately spent most of her time doing jigsaw puzzles and banging dudes. Seriously, man. Good for her. Honestly, good for her. Oh, this is also what's interesting. Yes, because maybe there's a bit of a Vias queen in this series. All Ma Barker did was collect dick.

Everywhere she went, she just lived the life. Her sons would go do all of this dirty work for her, come bring her gifts, bring her money, and then she'd just sit on it. And then when one of her sons decided they were done with whatever dick she was sitting on, she'd be like, take him, please. And then she's done with it, man. She just thought, we'll get to it. But wow, a lot of boyfriends taken care of by these sons.

She's a man. But she's a penis fly trap. She absolutely collected, as Henry said, penises. Now most likely the truth lies somewhere in between. While Ma Barker certainly wasn't directing and organizing one of the most successful violent criminal enterprises of the early 20th century, she also probably wasn't the doddering jigsaw obsessed bitty she sometimes painted to be. Instead, Ma Barker seems like a woman who just fucking loved crime.

Yeah. Cool. She loved that her boys were criminals. Love it. She loved the nice clothes and lifestyle that came from crime, and she especially loved it that if she got tired of a boyfriend, her boys, or their associates would delight in slitting the poor bastard's throat. She's a fun girl.

She's a fun girl. She's the party girl. She's a party girl. She's a part of the scene. You're going to want to make sure that she finishes, because that is one of those. You better not be a precomer. You better do exactly as she says. You're going to show up with some toys, you need to know where the clit is, and this is

1930. This is before science discovered the clit. Oh my goodness. And that was just wooden weird dildos. No, yes. He was like one of the head of those big wheels on it, and the tiny seats on it, and you go, ee, ee, ee, ee, as it goes in and out, in and out. There's an old time bicycle.

Yeah, but he had a cock on the other side of it. Oh, I see. Old timey fuck machine. Old timey fuck machine. Yeah. But even though Ma Barker was more of an accessory than a ringleader, the story of the Barker Carpus gang is still one of the most fascinating of the Prohibition Depression era, and by far one of the bloodiest.

But before we get into the tale, let's acknowledge our sources today. We've got Ma Barker, America's Most Wanted Mother by Chris Inns and Howard Kazanjian for the overall story. I mean, technically, I think that's Stormy Daniels now. The Most Wanted Mother of Stormy. Yeah. I don't know if she has any children there. Lisa.

I mean, you know. Maybe Lisa does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's not even Lisa. It's the blonde woman that she's in all of them now. Grumps. And Julie Grumps. She is one of the best because she always eats blueberry muffins during sex.

Then it comes out at the end and you're like, well, I don't know. Look at that. I've never gotten to the end of a porno. We've also got Public Enemies, America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI by Brian Burroughs. That gives us the FBI perspective. And we've got Secret Partners, Big Tom Brown and the Barker Gang by Tom Mahoney. That's for some good old Midwestern gangland intrigue that we're going to get into in

episode two. Yeah. Cool. Going to get into St. Paul, Minnesota. And how nefarious St. Paul used to be and not the home of the quilted, the quilted Afghan. You'll still die there. You could still die there pretty easily.

Oh yeah. Diabetes. Heart disease. Now really, while Alvin Karpus was without a doubt the reason why the Barker Karpus gang was ultimately so successful, the Barker brothers were the reason why the gang was so violent and bold. Take away the Barkers from this equation and Karpus doesn't have the guts or the grit to pull off such daring robberies and kidnappings.

But take away Alvin Karpus and the Barker boys, as we'll see in this first episode, just get caught over and over again. Barker boys got to add that special mix. You got to have the Bash Brothers. You got to have the Fat Goalie. You got to have that woman, girl. Sure. Are you just describing the Mighty Ducks?

Okay. The old team. So without further ado, let's get into the story of the Barker family, starting with the matriarch, the titular Ma Barker. Oh wow. Titulus. Okay. Ma Barker was born close to Springfield, Missouri in 1873 with the name Arizona Donnie

Clark. Wow. I like that name. Donnie's a good name for a girl. I like Arizona. I've never heard that before. You call her Zona. You call her Ari?

She would be known throughout her life by the much less ostentatious name of Kate. Kate. Kate? Yeah. How'd you go from Arizona to Kate? Cut down the letters. Yeah, but there's no other than the A. Added extra letters.

No point. Just totally changed the name. Fuck you. Okay. The oldest of four kids born on a farm, Kate lost her father at the age of seven and quickly gained a stepfather named Reuben. Reuben. Reuben was a police officer and considering how he and Kate despised each other, it makes

sense that she'd have a loose respect for the law. Nothing makes somebody hate the cops more than having a cop for a daddy. Yeah. Yes, well, there you go. It seems like you really liked your, liked having, you liked the perks. I was scared of my father. You had HBO. Yeah, I liked the free cable.

You had HBO for free. You had free cables. And I liked the fireworks that we got. And I liked that we got to walk into Shea Stadium whenever he wanted because he'd just show his badge and the guy would just kind of let him through. That was nice. He'd just go in the back door of JFK one time because my dad just show up. There's a lot of cool things that you can get if you have a gun.

Absolutely. A badge. Well, eventually Kate grew up to be a strong and domineering woman, so it's probably not much of a surprise that she married a shy, mild, tiny little man named George Barker in 1892. Do you think it's what it is about having a big, old, engaging woman, like a big, old woman and a tiny man? Is it really just about like riding them, riding them until he's dead?

Do you mean physically or emotionally? I mean, both. For some. I think also there's a lot of empathetic people who just like, they're ying and a yang and they connect and they complete each other because he's just like, I can go and I can order the food for us, Ma, because every time you order in the restaurant, you get into a fight. Whatever.

You order the food, okay? You order the food, you bring it back because we'll do the up top mouth food and then you're going to be doing the downstairs food. Whatever. I'll take care of ordering the food because you always call the waitstaff racial slurs. No, I just say the word slur. Okay. Now, later conjecture would say that Kate Barker lived the typical farm girl life, busied

by church, picnics and hay rides, but in private, Kate supposedly spent most of her time reading all the latest true crime stories, obsessing over the daring felonies committed by the Dalton and James gangs. You hear that girls? You listen to this episode, you become a criminal mastermind yourself. Okay. Well, it's a little bit more difficult these days, isn't it? Nah, man.

Bitcoin. Yeah. That's actually, let's, let's end it here. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Don't. Don't. NFG and Bitcoin because I haven't seen my friends screaming at each other in a bar for

the first time in like a decade and tell Bitcoin. Yep. Wow. That seems to be, it's hostile territory. It is. Yeah. Staying out of it. Yep.

Staying out of it. Yeah. Specifically though, it said that Kate Barker paid special attention in those true crime magazines to what those criminals said about their mothers, noting that all of them claimed to be raised by strong women who taught them how to fight. You don't understand. Okay. Listen, Herbert, John.

You've listened. Okay. Because some of us, we know all it takes is to believe in you. In me. Well, this is just great, mom. Thank you so much for all the advice and encouraging me to- Girl. To go kill that girl.

Kill that girl. She's got a big mouth. She's gonna say a lot of shit. So you shoot her in the fucking head. That's what a great mom you are. No, at some point, again, according to wild conjecture on both the part of the FBI and true crime journalists, Kate Barker's true crime obsession bled over into reality when she figured out she could simply birth a criminal gang all her own.

I'm gonna make my fantasy alive with my vagina. You're not supposed to think of your womb like a human smet mixer. That's what we will do. You're not supposed to do like, all right, I can create an entire goddamn gang right inside of my belly. It's kind of interesting because it's the inverse of people having kids to like work the farm or join the family business. It's like this idea of being like, wow, I could be my own matriarch of a criminal gang if

I just make waffles and get out of the way. Like if I just go and I organize my side of it, which is just birthing you, then you guys all do the rest. You say just. It's a lot of work, though. Let's respect the process. Nine months. No booze.

Are you my mom? You just... No weed. But nine months I carried you and this is the things I get. That's the things she gets? That free pool? What else have you done for her? That's what she gets.

Now it's highly unlikely that Kate Barker had children to build the gang much the same way a farmer breeds a workforce. But when her children began showing signs of criminality, she did nothing to set them on a different path. So within nine years, Kate Barker had birthed four sons. The eldest, Herman, was born in 1884, followed by Lloyd, Doc, and finally, Ma's favorite, Fred in 1903. So it's the youngest.

It is. That's right. It really is. You wouldn't know. You're the oldest, Henry. You're the middle. Yeah. You're the middle.

Yeah. Oh, that's bad. It's nicer because then they can make the big mistakes on the first one and the middle one they made like the smaller mistakes and then Jackie was allowed to do whatever she wanted. Yep. That's what it works. Wow.

That really is how it works. Trickle down freedom. Finally. Now these boys were said to be high strong mischievous children, excellent shots every one of them. And they soon learned that. When did they get the guns? Immediately.

Very early. Right out of the womb? Oh yeah buddy. Yeah. And they soon learned that no matter how much trouble they got into, Ma would always show up to bail them out and tell them that none of it was their fault. She is a good mother. It's hard, man.

This is again. This is where you get a kisshole. Really? This is also awful, mother. Sometimes societal rules are not just because it's the law, doesn't mean it's moral. Look how triggered. Look how triggered he's become. But no, like this mother sometimes makes the Tiger Woods, right?

It does make like champions, but also it makes Donald Trump Jr, right? It makes it too. It makes a highly ineffectual corrupt person. So that's like what's the other. It's like one is somebody who actually flourishes and the other person realizes, oh, they'll love me no matter what I do. So I'm just going to scam my way through life. That's a good point.

It can go either way. No. Yeah. Now by accounts, when George Barker mildly and ineffectively tried taking guidance of his unruly sons, Ma showed a quote, feline intensity that told her husband that no one but herself should be her son's mentors. And in her eyes, they could do no wrong. I could see her just grabbing his head and just spiking it against the side of a wall.

And they're all like, feline intensity, like, whoa, it's just, no, it's domestic abuse from a woman. Okay. The boys, I got a call from principle. What you holding? Hold my pocket. Hold my pocket. So one of our boys bit the nipple off of another boy and then he chewed it in front

of him and he said something about how. Wait a second. You mean my son's getting arrested for making his own bubblegum? Let me get down here and show them what these kids can do. Okay. I swing this back and forth and I just knock people over back and forth. Yeah. He said he learned it from watching you.

To her neighbors, Ma Barker was somewhat of an unknown quantity because she rarely socialized with anyone but her one friend, Gertrude Farmer. You know, you tell me Gertrude isn't the best fucking friend of all time. I don't know. Gertrude is, no, she's a lockbox. I don't know. You can tell Gertrude, you can tell a Gertrude anything. It is amazing to hear a woman like Ma Barker because my mom's had like a revolving set

of like best friends because it's whoever is the new person that hasn't betrayed her. You know what I mean? Okay. Your mom thinks people betray her because they cancel lunch. Yes. But Ma Barker, I'm very surprised she could keep one friend for forever. That's kind of nice. Yeah.

That's a Gertrude. Yeah. With everyone else Ma Barker spoke to, she was cordial, but she rarely initiated conversation. Got to go to her. Bit of a sphinx. Sure. Now, in 1910, just as the mischievous nature of the Barker boys was starting to turn criminal, George Barker moved his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Now, at the time, Tulsa was an oil boom town, which was good news for local hoodlums. Oh, yeah. These oil boom towns introduce a large group of transient young men with a high tolerance for risk into an environment built to quickly take away the large paychecks they earn week after week. Of course, we know the quickest way to part someone from their money is vice. And with vice comes violence and crime. No, with vice comes dancing and smiling.

Well, it can be a lot of fun as well, but they're not with a little sprinkle of vice in life. It's very needed. But Ma Barker, you know these people. Right. Aren't these the roughnecks? Yeah. You know roughnecks.

I mean, yeah. All over Texas, like a lot of young people are like 18 years old. You go work in the oil and you got big money. We talked about this quite a bit during the Billy the Kids series. Yeah, exactly. That's right. Oh, no. Yeah.

No, I know plenty of roughnecks. I've known plenty of roughnecks throughout my life. But yeah, some roughnecks are great and some are highly violent, very unpredictable individuals. Yeah. That's the thing. But that's what's fun. Much like oil. About high, high intensity personalities.

I do like those types of people. Like people who can turn on the dime every once in a while because then it keeps a friendship fresh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not unnerving and horrifying. No.

No. Now the Barker boys were townies and Tulsa was the perfect environment for them to start their criminal career. According to the FBI, though, this is also where Ma Barker decided to enact her plan of creating her home brood gang. I think that we got 50-50 here. I think it's a bit of a chicken and the egg. I think that she, she wanted to feel a sense of status.

I think that very early on, Ma Barker had a sense of status that she wanted to achieve. That she looked at her environment and she's like, Gertrude's fine because Gertrude makes me feel fancy. Right? Gertrude's fantastic. She boosts me. She boosts me. She's my ally.

She's my number one. Right? And then everything else around her. She's your ride or die. Sir, I've heard that. And she is the type of person that realized when she looked at her sons, they're like, hmm, they're not good at a lot. They're not good at a lot.

But they do seem to have a lot of energy and I just wanted like, I want them to do whatever they can do. But like also realizing, oh, we're in this boom town. Money is what makes the world go round and it's not about just going sick and doing all this fucking oil work. That's dangerous, it's stupid and long. There's other ways you can make money. From what J. Edgar Hoover later claimed, the Barker home in Tulsa became a meeting place

for local ne'er-do-wells, a crime school that trained young punks in the art of felonious behavior before sending them out to wreak havoc on the polite world. That's too organized to make sense. Yeah. See him putting lipstick all over his face, just thinking about it. Criminals hate school. Yeah. Well, he can go to crime school.

Now supposedly, Ma would hang back and for a fee, she would act as a boy's alibi if he was ever caught for the crime. Ah, cool. Yeah. He was inside of me the whole time. Oh, God. Nine months, Zachary. She also allegedly provided the names and addresses of people she believed had more than they

deserved and can therefore part with some of their possessions. I actually don't disagree with that idea of her. I don't think that that's outside of the parameters of Ma Barker. Oh, yeah. You had that person as more than they deserve, go steal it from them and bring it back to me because I deserve it for what? Doing nothing? It's for me.

It's for me. Okay. So there was no crime school filled with hoodlums and thieves doing the bidding of a matriarchal mastermind. Instead, the Barker boys were just a group of young punks who hung out at the public park in Tulsa. Do you think that this was a different time they'd do skate vids? I don't think they might do skateboarding yet.

I don't think skateboarding was invented yet. No, it's what I'm saying. In a different time. It was a different time. Do you think if they had skateboards, then we'd have gangsters? Hmm. Probably would skateboard. Maybe that's why crime went down in the 90s is because skateboarding got by.

No, skateboarding was a crime. That's what I'm saying. But then you flipped it around and all of a sudden now skateboarding is not a crime. So therefore you flip everybody that used to be a criminal being a skateboarder to being somebody very creative. I remember when every parent thought if their kids watched X games, they were going to be gay. Yeah.

They were just like, I don't know. It's sponsored by Mountain Dew. Well, at the public park, the Barker boys met other young hoodlums with like minds and eventually they formed their first horde named after the place where they all met. They called themselves the Central Park Gang. Whoa. Cool. Okay.

Sure. Now the Central Park Gang will just suck your dick for $10. Well, isn't that nice? No, that's the Bramble Boys. The Bramble Boys. Now, I suppose it is tempting to think that Ma Barker was raising her four sons to be criminals because all four did indeed become violent felons, if not straight up murderers if the situation called for a killing.

But really, it just seems like it all started with Herman Barker, the oldest. And once he started getting in trouble, every brother after him followed all because Ma Barker always came to the rescue. I think it might have been just because he set the example of how a person lives that sometimes people do just like, you know, you look at your family and now like Herman started doing all of this criminal activity. Right. They look at him and they're like, what if, like, I don't know, like maybe that's the

way to go. Yeah. It seems like Ma was into it. My older brother did musical theater and then when I was a senior in high school, I also did a play. See? And you played? I was in babes and arms, I played a character, I wasn't cast in it, but the person that cast

broke his leg. Whoa. So you just got in? Then I got in. How'd they find you at the end? I auditioned. Oh. What did you audition with?

Myself and my voice and my head. Did you sing a song? Yeah. Do you remember what song you sang? And there she goes down the road. Is this the song? You're just making stuff up. I don't remember anything more than two weeks ago.

Little toes. Little toes. I blame the teacher. There she goes with her little toes. He has not been right since he was sort of his son, was over January this year. Hey, man, it changes your brain, dude. It does. I couldn't have come up with little toes if I didn't know.

No, you're right. Little toes, little toes. You know what? I might write a musical accompaniment to little toes. I would love to do a collaboration with you for dry January, Ben. Yes. I'm already getting work. It's flipping, it's only been 11 days since no alcohol and I already got a new gig.

See? See? That's right. It's happening right in front of our ears. Oh, yeah, man. And you'll get all the royalties. Yes. Little toes is going to be so big.

It could be. I'm here. I get a third. You know that. No matter what. Whatever you guys touch. I know. I know.

I know. Well, Herman was the first Barker boy arrested, going down for attempted robbery at the age of 16. In that instance, he'd gone into a drug store and hid in the basement so he could spring out after closing time. It's cool. But was instead discovered in possession of burglar tools by a clerk before the doors were even locked.

Can I ask you a question? Because now there's several people that do get arrested in the story for burglar tools. Do you know what they mean by burglar tools? Is it just like a crowbar and something else? Like, how do they look at you and say, oh, these are burglar tools? Yeah, these are definitely going to burglar. There's nothing else you could do with these. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like. Well, Ted Bundy was, he was arrested for owning burglar tools. Yes. It was the first time he got arrested. Yeah. So it's, yeah, rope, crowbar, like acid, like, you know, acid to burn stuff.

Sure. Woman's dress. A big cat costume so you can pretend to be a cat. Well, that might be good, actually. Yeah. Well, that's not, that's not who we're looking for. That's a cat. Yeah.

And then you, you're like, I simply couldn't rob the, I'm a lady. Wow. And you just, you have a big floppy hat on and the cop's like, it's a nice outfit. And then all of a sudden he's taking pictures with them. You're there and all of a sudden you're, you're addressing this lady and you got to go back to his house and you got to pretend to be a lady by like, tucking it back and then like, you know, only showing me your butthole and then that's, you know, and then all of a sudden you're his wife.

I think that's how James Corden got the late show. That's the only way possible. Yeah. Always going by the principle, all cats can talk. Most cats won't talk. Most cats won't talk. Love that sketch. Love that sketch.

And in a scene that will play out about a dozen times during the course of this episode, Ma Barker pled with the authorities telling them that none of Herman's actions were really his fault. It's not his fault. Well, whose fault is it? The wind. The wind. I blame the pharmacy for being so robbable.

Oh. It's like big breasts. How are you not supposed to motorboat them? Yeah. All right, Ma. As a result, Herman was released to commit more crimes. Now he tried going straight for a bit, getting a job as a cook in Springfield, Missouri, but there he was arrested for assault, and was again sprung after Ma cried Herman to

freedom. I know. I know my son. He walks normally with doofus in front of him, and that person must have walked into his hands. I know my son. Look at these. Oh, Ma.

Look at these. Yeah. Snap it back and forth. Wow. That's horrifying. Well, you said he was a chef. I mean, aren't they supposed to... A cook.

A cook. He's not a chef. He's a cook, but you said he got busted for assault. Well, maybe they was just trying to flavor the food. They would have got him for a pepper if there was evidence. Yeah, they got him for assault instead. That is great. That is fucking great.

I wish we could get him for a guacamole over here. I'm warning you. It's a guacamole over here. I'm done. Well, 30s agreed to spring Herman just as long as he returned to Tulsa, but within months, Herman came back to Springfield to burglarize jewelry stores. He was again caught, but this time he was sentenced to four years in prison where he met another criminal with the appropriate name, Ed Kahn.

You have to be a criminal. That's amazing. You have to be a criminal. A criminal, a car salesman, or a pilot for some reason. Maybe. Now, one thing you got to know about the Barker boys is that they were physically very small. Oh, they were? Capable.

Huge. No, very small. None of them, none of them were above five foot five. What? Yep. Yeah. They were most of them were five foot four. Why does it make them scarier?

It's like a roaming gang of Chihuahua pit bulls. It is a roaming gang of me. They're all fucking, they're, it's rogues. That's why dwarf rogue is really good character to play in D&D. Yeah. And the Barker gang would use their small stature to their advantage time and again. Now, luckily, Ed Kahn was also a tiny boy. So Ed and Herman hid in a small airlock type cage between the cells and the jail bullpen

so they could jump out and surprise their jailer. Like ghoulies. Yeah. I would just be like, can you stop jumping out of me, please? Sometimes. Stop doing this. Us as a bunch of little people, honestly, we should all get together and we act like gremlins.

No one can stop us. That's right. Too much fun. I know. You stepped out. At just the right moment, grabbed three revolvers from the jailer's office and fled. Herman, Barker, back to Tulsa and Ed Kahn disappeared to the mists of time. Never heard of him again.

Well, a few months later, Herman teamed up with another criminal to rob a jewelry store, a pool hall and a clothing store in Billings. But since this was higher profile, Herman was caught in Columbus, Montana. This is the whole story. This whole story is filled with the famous name of a city in another state and another belonging. Columbus, Montana. Columbus, Montana.

Columbus didn't even come close to Montana. No. I mean, he didn't come close to America, but he wouldn't have liked Montana. He was near Cleveland. Yeah. And he was therefore sentenced to six to 12 years, making him the first Barker boy to do a long stretch in the joint. While Herman cooled his heels momentarily, the other three Barker boys were one by one

becoming reckless, dangerous criminals in their own right. Just like my brother. Yeah. On Independence Day, 1918, Arthur Barker, a.k.a. Doc, stole a Ford Roadster from the front of a federal building in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The car theft was quickly followed by an arrest. And while Ma Barker planned to do the same song and dance routine begging for her son's freedom.

I'm a slave for you. No, Ma. I'm a slave. I don't know. You don't gotta fight. I'm a slave. That's a pretty good rendition of a song that comes out in 90 years. Come on.

That's pretty good, though. Doc escaped jail before Ma could finish her routine. Doc was recaptured, but this time waited for his mother to convince police to let him go. Mom, do you think you could try and do the slave for you, dance again for these cuffs? Just one more time, please. I got you a snake. Slave. Ma Barker, you were amazing.

To be fair, he could have just said, all cars look the same back then. But what if you don't know it's your car? He was like a 15-year-old dirtbag from a different city. He wasn't ready. You remember, he's just getting his bones right now. They're all just learnings, criminal ropes right now. Now remember, Ma Barker, she'd go in, she'd do the cry and cry routine, get the boys out of jail.

She'd do it again and again and again. And this may or may not be true, but decades later, a filing clerk remembered what's watching Ma Barker leave jail with what he called an old lady gate. Come now, come now, let's go. Just me and my best friend going to the bakery. Oh. Ali, I've got an improv comedian, but I'm not one. No, indeed you're not.

But after she was out of sight of the cops, she transformed from a feeble grandmother type to a rather spirited hearty woman. First of all, my grandmother used to do what my Oma was in town because my American grandmother, she used to have the wheelchair, she used to have the walker, but she never needed the walker. No, no, no, no. Same thing with my grandmother. She never needed the walker.

And then as soon as my Oma would show up, she would be like, oh, spry, because she was competition. Yes, it's weird how that happens. But then my grandmother's pants would always just, again, fall down even when she was sitting. Just like her grandson. Yep. No, weird. Chris.

Yeah, my brother. No, we keep our pants on. We're a pants family. I don't know. I've seen him in some outfits. I've seen your Instagram likes. Well, Ma was also, according to the FBI, romantically involved with various Tulsa neighborhood criminals because they all subscribed to the same loose morals.

Hey, man, fun people. Fun people. Once speakeasies became popular in the 1920s, one could supposedly find Ma Barker spending her time with any scalla wag who happened to come along just so long as they barter drinks and treated her like royalty. And that's one thing me and Ma Barker have in common. Yeah. I mean, they're treating her great.

They're buying her drinks. Buying her drinks, man. I'll provide the company and the tits. Leave her. Let her have some fun. Staying in the romance realm, Ma Barker was also said to be extremely jealous any time one of her sons brought a woman around, telling all the new gals that her sons would eventually turn on them, all so she could keep her boys to herself.

That is weird, isn't it? That's very, I don't know what it is about moms who do this. It's very weird. I recognize this behavior. This idea of them hanging out and Kim taking a piss, just being like, yeah, ain't gonna be around for very long. That's scary. That's like, what was the little nerd boy from the movie It, well, especially in the 1990s

version, where the mom was very overprotective. Yes. Yes. But she's weird. This is battery acid. You slime. She definitely has an obsession with her sons. Why would anyone, like, obviously you're supposed to love your children.

I get that. But there always has to be like, I still wish you weren't here. There has to be that undercurrent of life. It would be kind of nice if we were just together alone again without the kids. Yes. But they were also just as attached to her as she was attached to them, but kind of maybe in and out. Do you think it's one of those things, like, you know, they say that some women have orgasms

when they have a baby. Oh my goodness. And they actually have to, because it gives them good feelings so they have another baby. Do you think maybe her orgasms were too strong when she had babies and that it like, if she imprinted on the babies. The only time she ever scored it is when she gave birth, is what you're saying. Maybe. Well, all I know is if you're a man and you're in the room with your wife or your girlfriend

or the random woman that you knocked up. Don't you even say you pleasure the woman while they're giving birth? No. Don't you orgasm? What do you do? You also orgasm. As a compliment. So what do you do?

Because that otherwise they'd feel alone. But how do you do that? But yeah, how do you know it's paining? Oh honey, don't worry. I will orgasm with you. But listen, but how do you tell whether or not she orgasms, do you have to go, did you go? Do you call it going?

Did you go already? And then you have to go like, I guess my turn and bring my daughter over here. No, no, you have to masturbate. That's what I mean. Yeah, you have to masturbate, but you also have to masturbate on the slide so as to not make the nurses uncomfortable. Nurses have seen it all. They really have.

Yeah. Now after Doc Barker was released from his first arrest, I'm here with you, boys. I'm here with you. No, I don't see nurses. I can't even. No, that's going to be your future wife. They've seen a lot. Now after Doc Barker was released from his first arrest, he stole two more roadsters and

found himself back in the Tulsa County jail. From there, he and 17 other prisoners escaped on Valentine's Day 1920 using a handsaw and sulfuric acid. These guys are really crazy. It's really crazy how like they all jumped it. They were so hard to keep a hold of. They have these instincts immediately. They're so aggressive.

After cutting through the cell doors, the prisoners made their way to the roof where they found a 130 foot rope waiting for them, which they used to shimmy down the side of the building to freedom. Now no one knows for sure who got the boys these implements to escape, but some historians do actually think. You know, like if I can legend aside that Ma Barker probably did participate in at least delivering the implements. This is what I'm saying.

She is not innocent. She is a part of this game. She's helping her family. Yes. She's helping her kids out. Now, Doc was caught again five days later, but this time Ma Barker pleaded directly to the owner of one of the roadsters. You know that this is a dumb painted car.

You know that it's bad. Well, it's a very fancy car. You just let my son have it. You just need to let him have it. She rung her hands, sobbed and made the car owner so uncomfortable that he withdrew his complaint just to get her out of the room, get out, wait for me, get away from me. Dude, I'm looking at a 1920 roadster. These cars are freaking dope.

They are really cool. Yeah. I like roadsters. Yeah. Those were the cars that I think Clyde Barrow preferred roadsters because at this, because this is the time when cars are actually starting to get really fucking fast. Did you still have to crank up the top of that? No, no, no, no, a roadster, because that's one of the advantages that roadsters had at

this time, especially when she started in the mid-20s is because you could just hop in, just turn the key and you had a V8 engine under the hood on these fucking roadsters. These things could haul ass comparatively at least, but every cop in America, most of them were still driving fucking Model T's that you did have to crank in that went barely, meaning of what? Fucking 40 miles an hour? But that's why the Barrow gang lasted for as long as they did, was because Clyde's driving skills, his famed driving skills and the idea of being able to outrace the cops.

Meanwhile, Herman Barker had been released from state prison in Montana on parole and had tried going straight by getting a job as a dishwasher. No, man. That is not the job that's going to make you go straight. The only job that's going to make you go straight literally is like, I test ice cream at the roller coaster factory. I don't think that's a job. Or being like a rockstar.

Yeah, but that's also, that didn't even exist yet. Super easy job to get a hold of. I'm just saying, it's very difficult to go from I've got banks. Marcus watched dishes. Yeah, but look at it, he got out of it immediately and honestly, now that he knows what he knows about his career and when I watched Marcus as a dishwasher, let's all face it, okay? Let's face it. He was good at it.

He didn't have his ardent in it. Yeah, I thought he had his ardent in it. I saw him do it. I saw him do it. Well enough. Yeah, he did. He washed the dishes. Do you ever see any dirt on the dishes?

I didn't really inspect them. I mean, our friend Madeleine definitely came to the back and yelled at me a couple of times for taking one smoke break too many, but you know, I did okay otherwise. Yeah. You weren't like a dishwasher at heart. No, so you have to smoke as a dishwasher. You have to smoke. Come on.

Yeah, yeah. Well, by summertime, however, prohibition had begun and Herman got in on the ground floor by working with a bootlegging gang out of Minnesota. But as I said, bootlegging was never really a business that the Barker boys caught into. And by September, Herman and another convict robbed a jewelry store for $4,000 in merchandise. The accomplice got away, but Herman was once again arrested. What is wrong with him? He's just not good at getting away.

He's not good at it. He's not good at it yet. Now, despite being below five foot five, Herman was known as a highly intimidating inmate in prison. He always wore a scowl and barely spoke without cursing and across his chest was a rather disturbing tattoo that read, a boy's best friend is his mom. That's truly how you avoid attention in prison. Oh no, a boy's best friend is his mom.

Yeah, man. That was the tattoo he had on his chest. On his chest. God, what is wrong with these people? They swore he loved his mom and he was bad at crime. I don't even know what my mom would do if I showed up with that tattoo. Well, for the jewelry store robbery, Herman was sentenced to 10 years in prison. But after Ma Barker wrote an impassioned letter to the parole board telling a lie that George

Barker was sick and couldn't work, Herman came back home. This is so good. She's so good at it. She really is good at it. She's very good. I think a boy's best friend is his mom. I mean, starting to think, I think you might be right. Especially if all your other friends died in 9-11.

Doc, meanwhile, was arrested again, this time in Coetta, Oklahoma, after he and a small group of thieves tried robbing a bank by digging a tunnel with picks, shovels, and nitroglycerin they'd stolen from a hardware store. The plan had been for two men to watch in the alley behind the bank while the other two dug the hole. But Doc and his buddies made the mistake of dressing too well. Oh. The cops were suspicious when they saw four dudes in business suits hanging around a back

alley in the middle of the night. So they searched the guys. Yeah, man, that's exactly who's fucking suspicious, man. They always say, like, I'm suspicious with my mesh shirts and my no pants on. Meanwhile, like, I think a bunch of guys in suits need to be rolled around by the police. Oh, good point. I learned a lot about bank robbers. I interviewed Larry Lawton, America's number one bank robber.

I'm sorry, jewelry store robber, and he has some great YouTube videos I interviewed him on top of that. And he has one video about how to do it, how to properly case. And these guys did make some massive mistakes. We should rob someone. Well, we are not going to be good at it. My God. It really requires, man.

It requires, like, you actually have to be kind of smart. Yeah, you do. You have to be very, you have to have attention to detail, something that none of us really have. He talks about the detail. Don't go in. Someone's in there. You have to go to the store when someone's in there.

No need. You have a next person. Wait till they leave. I'm the distraction. Number one. When the search, cops found four pistols and all their burglary implements. So Doc Barker briefly went back to jail. Again, though, Ma was quite convincing, so Doc was set free while his accomplices went

to prison. Wow. So she, the accomplishment, she really was the difference. Yep. Yeah. In the early days, yeah, she really was. Now, by this point, Ma Barker had gotten Doc and Herman out of half a dozen crimes, if not more, and there was still plenty of pleading left in her future.

The son she wasn't able to help, however, was her second son, Lloyd. It's hard to help a Lloyd. Yeah. Nicknamed Red because he had red hair. Sure. Lloyd was more of a follower than an instigator. And while the other Barker boys could seemingly get out of anything, Lloyd went down and stayed down on his very first arrest.

In June of 1921, Lloyd and four other members of the Central Park gang robbed a mail wagon in Kansas, reaping $3,000 in Liberty Bonds. After fleeing, the gang was caught while trying to steal a car in Miami. And remember, Miami, Oklahoma. Miami, Oklahoma. Now there's also a Miami, Texas, except you say it Miami. Yeah, Miami. I know that.

That is like, we can't just imagine being like, we're going on vacation, spring break is going to be amazing. Miami. We got tickets to Miami. They were super cheap for some reason. I have no idea why. Oklahoma. Oh, and then you show up and then it's immediately like, I don't think they have a plantain here.

Oh, interestingly and tragically for Lloyd, Ma Barker did not use the same tactics that had worked for Doc and Herman, possibly because Lloyd was one of her favorites. Ma lost her head a little bit. She was stern and domineering instead of pitiful and sympathetic. She demanded that her son be let loose because he'd done nothing wrong. You get him out of there right now. That is my son. I made that bullet.

Ma, I really. I have milk for him. Yeah. I remember when you used to sing for us, but now you're just screaming at him. I will have my son. Okay. Now this was very much the wrong move because instead of letting him go, the judge moved Lloyd to another jail further away, found him guilty and sentenced him to 25 years and

11 worth penitentiary where Lloyd shared grounds with Carl Pansram. Oh my God. So what are you in for? I rape everything. I will break you on the floor of my dark imagination. I've wrapped a jewelry store. Cute. Yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of cute compared to what you did with everyone. Let's just skip ahead of all the pleasantries and get to the rape. Oh yeah. No, while he was in prison and this is something, this is why people say, why Henry's making so many mom has sex with the son's jokes and this is really the only reason why that people have this rumor. As if he needed a reason to make those jokes, but this is nice to actually give them a,

to give them a home is kind of nice. People joke about me. People say, oh, Henry, oh, he's crass. I come up with jokes, educated jokes from the source material. Yes. This is all written, put together. I'm a master. I'm a master at historical jokes.

You've been in prison for 25 years. You're in solitary confinement right now. Oh, this is all a bit of fantasy in my deranged mind. Reportedly, Lloyd wrote letters to his mother in a tone that was described as almost sexual by Detective Harrison Moreland, writing for master detective, he was writing for master detective magazine. Well, Detective Harrison Moreland was, he said that he, the tone in the letters was like a sweetheart.

Like, you know, you would think that he was writing to his girlfriend and not his mother. And this of course led to speculation that Ma Barker had sexual relations with her sons, but only her second and fourth, never her first or third. Is that a compliment or a diss to the third and first? The implication is that they would have if she wanted to, but the knowledge comes from the fact that the second and fourth kids were her favorites. But again, no proof here. It's just a little disgusting.

Yeah, there's no pictures of her like sucking her son's dick or anything like that. Well, it's a different time to bring somebody in. You have the big old cameras and stuff. It's just different. Rule 34. You don't know what happens out there now. I don't know what kind of content like that is out there now. That's true.

I'm certain there is some. Oh no, Ma. What are you doing? Oh no, Ma. What's happening? Stop with all that stuff, please God. But to wrap up Lloyd's story, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, did most the fucking time, was granted parole in 1938, worked as a cook in a prisoner of war camp in Michigan

during World War II, and was murdered by his wife in 1949 during a mental break. She bled not guilty by reason of insanity and died in 1986 at the Colorado State Insane Asylum. It's really his story. He murdered his wife. No, she murdered him. Like it's a very interesting story. Murdered by his wife.

Yeah. It's very interesting because it's this crazy end, because he did manage to kind of like go straight and do the shit, and he was the last surviving Barker boy, and you said it's the end. And so when she shot him, it was kind of, it was a scandal. It was. Yeah. Yeah, all the neighbors, it was like they'd all been, like they were as surprised as they

could be, as if you said like D.B. Cooper was my next door neighbor, like they all freaked out, like holy shit, a Barker boy was living here this entire time. They didn't even hear anything, not even, not even on a full moon, they didn't hear him. No. A Barker, with the barking of the dogs, the dogs barking of the moon. So that's one Barker brother down, three to go. Now up to this point, the Barker boys had committed a lot of crimes, but had never seriously

hurt anyone, or at least they had never been charged with hurting anyone. That however, changed on August 26th, 1921, in the commission of a safe robbery. That night, Doc and his accomplices planned to yag the safe at the Fuller Construction Company in Tulsa, but they were intercepted by a 68 year old night watchman named Thomas Sherrill. Without a moment's thought, Doc and his accomplice pulled their pistols and fired, killing Sherrill with a shot to the chest and a shot to the head. Oh, he already made it to 68, which is like 120 in that era.

Yeah, man. He had such a good, long life. Ah, he should have retired at 65. It's hard. Yeah, it's hard, man. I just, you know what's funny? I don't necessarily worry about dying as a murder victim. I just worry about dying as a murder victim as an old man.

Seriously. I don't want to be killed. You made it so long. Yeah, I don't want to make it to 75 and then get murdered. I really don't. I just like, or be a part of like some massive, like, you know, the great molasses explosion too. There's a new giant molasses explosion that actually happened recently, a sugar factory

or something exploded. I don't want to die in like, you know, like a fun new thing that Osha that has to create a bunch of new rules for. No, I don't want to. It reminds me of that documentary, fantastic documentary, Orion. Oh, yeah. All about the Elvis impersonator, the man who took over for Elvis, prolonged in the myth that Elvis was still alive, but a fantastic doc.

Saying taking over for Elvis, that's a bit of a stretch. That's what, that's what they wanted him to do. He stole. He did not steal it. He did not steal it. Don't touch it. Watch the doc again. I watch it every night.

Watch the doc again. I watch it every night. You watch it every night? Oh, I watched it once. You didn't even remember what song you sang in the high school audition that you did for the one musical. Little toes, little toes, there she goes, walking away, wish she was walking towards me today, but turns out.

Keep going. His fake song keeps going. Turns out. Little toes. Little toes got a scramble. Little toes got a scramble. Well, it took police months to catch up with Doc Barker, but once they did, even Ma Barker's copious tears could not get her son out of a murder charge.

He was found guilty and was subsequently sentenced to life at the Oklahoma State Prison. Now, according to FBI reports that probably aren't true, Ma became obsessed with getting Doc out of jail and was at the time working to expand the membership of the Central Park gang with her two remaining sons. Yeah. So it's just her and her two kids. Yeah. I don't think that she was trying to expand the gang.

I think that she was. No. Yeah. I don't think that that is a part of this. I think that she like, she just was happy that her, she had some sons still burglarizing things. Yeah. But even if Ma wasn't hatching a master plan, Doc eventually would be released.

Yeah. He would get out of a life sentence and it would be sooner rather than later. In the meantime though, there was still Herman and Ma's youngest and favorite son, little Fred. Yeah. He's cute. Yeah. Little Freddy.

Fred's cute. Little Fred. Freddy Fricka. Yeah. Yeah. Freddy Fricka. Freddy Fricka. Being the youngest, Fred wanted nothing more than to follow in his brother's criminal

footsteps and as such, his criminal career also started in car theft. But Fred's first interaction with the cops got him a bullet in the leg. Hey man, you got to learn early. These guys also got shot a lot. Yeah. Okay. You have to think too about all of these gangland types. They all get shot multiple times and just keep coming back.

It seems like you could, at that era, seems like you could die from a bullet in the leg and crash into another. Oh yeah. You could. You definitely could. The next year, Fred and six other Central Park gang members robbed another mail truck near again Miami, Oklahoma. Soon after, Fred and another outlaw robbed $600 from a group of men playing poker at an auto

repair shop in Tulsa. For the poker heist, cops tracked Fred down and shot him in the hand after he surrendered, presumably for talking shit. That's why someone gets shot after they get surrendered. I imagine. I imagine. Yeah, especially this time period. And now.

All right. He was sentenced to five years in a reformatory, got released after just two, and was immediately arrested again for robbing a bank and forging a money order. They just kept going. Wow. They weren't good. They weren't good. They weren't good.

Take a breather for a second. But it's like, I guess, in show business where you just love it so much, you keep coming back, you know, no matter how many times you get rejected. Yeah, but it's totally different because they're robbing stuff. I'm saying, you know, sometimes acting feels like highway robbery. It really does. It's around this time. I mean, that's the thing.

We've been talking about Ma Barker this entire time. Right. George Barker is still there. He's just hanging out. The quiet husband. The quiet husband is just hanging out like watching his homicidal kids and his homicidal blind wife, you know, just do all of this shit. I'm not going to lie.

That is fun. You have your PBRs. You just sit there and like, what you guys working on? Another robbery, huh? Oh, my family is crazy. You become Jim Jones's father. You just sit there and watch everyone going to have fun. You have chaos all around you.

He hated it. He was overwhelmed with it because he was not a criminal himself. And he was also overwhelmed with his inability to do anything about it because he was very shy. He was very quiet. And his sons were fucking psychopaths. Put down the tommy guns. If you would all just, with your robberies, if everyone could just, can't we all just

sit around the radio and imagine Indians? Shut up, dad! Shut up, dad! I know it's not as... Well, yes. Hey, dad. Yes? What is this?

Oh, your dick is out of your pants. I hate this. You idiot, dad. I hate this family. You look at my dick. I hate it. I made that dick. Yeah.

You look like yours, dad. Yes. Fantastic. Well, George just cut his losses. He just packed up and moved to Joplin, Missouri. I'm just kidding. I think that's great. Don't be shy.

I would rather be in a hurricane or tornado alley than live in this family. Yes. Yeah. Well, Maid said was largely indifferent to George's exit because all she really cared about was her boys and what sort of excitement their criminal activity could bring her way. Oh, yeah. See, by the time George left, prohibition enforced by the Volstead Act had been in effect for about six years.

Boom. Boom. As a result, bootlegging had produced the biggest crime wave America had ever seen, both in terms of people breaking the law by drinking alcohol and in terms of bootleggers committing heinous crimes in the pursuit of selling alcohol. Sweet, sweet booze, man. Don't ever take it from me. Don't you take it from me, God, I'm out.

No one's taking it from you. And while the Barkers never really gotten to bootlegging, as I said, the resources that the federal government spent enforcing the Volstead Act and in fighting the new scourge of organized crime, that meant that the authorities were stretched extremely thin. It's almost like something called the War on Drugs. War on Drugs. Where they didn't do anything. It was a lot of time.

And they were still corrupt. It ruined a lot of lives. It did. It ruined a lot of lives. They had a lot of money for some people, too. And then, including the government as well, selling illegal drugs in order to make money for their black budget like operations. Yeah, big pharma, thank you, for all the death.

So it's in this environment that the Barker boys started committing crimes together, starting with a bank robbery in Washington, Arkansas, in December of 19... What? That's how it is. ...in December of 1925. Remember, I'm from a town called Rochester, Texas. It just happens out there. I know.

And they're always way worse than the original city, because Rochester, Texas, somehow is worse than Rochester, New York. Yeah. I know. Nobody there. Although, Miami, Oklahoma, I bet you there's like a dive that's really fun. I bet you could have a good night in Miami, Oklahoma. Yeah, there's like 500 people there.

There's no... There's one place that would be fun. Gotta have at least three... That's the role of Texas. You gotta have at least 3,000 people to really support a bar, and even then, it's only gonna go for two or three years before everyone gets too drunk and weird, and you have to close it again. That's so sad.

Yeah, it's like a Facebook group. Aw. Yeah. Well, in that December 25 robbery, one gang member was shot during the getaway, but the boy still came away with $7,000. They almost got caught when Fred tried exchanging some of the stolen coins for cash in Ohmulgee, Oklahoma. But since there was no physical proof connecting Fred to the robbery, he got away once again.

By 1926, Herman and Fred began building their gang even larger to pull off even more impressive heists, along with six other Central Park gang members. Herman and Fred stole cash, jewels, and other merchandise, totaling $100,000 in just three months. Damn. That totals in today's value, $1.5 million. Yeah, y'all. They're really starting...

Now, they're starting to get a hold. They're trying to catch on, trying to figure out how to do it. Herman and Fred, using their diminutive size and hoping to avoid complicating violence, made entry into stores through crawl spaces or by cutting a small hole in the roof and dropping through the ceiling. It's why Gently is crucial. He's crucial in the heist. And you have to remember, that's why he's...

And also, when it comes down to it at any time, you could put a big hat on him, give him a big lollipop. They're kids. They're kids. Tom Cruise. Absolutely. Mission was possible because he was so tiny. Oversized pants, like they're walking around in their father's clothes, and they go like,

my mommy, with my daddy, and it isn't too late, and all of a sudden, they're like, I can fucking lighten you up with a bunch of Tommy. Fantastic. The only slip-up was when Herman dropped a hat at one of the crime scenes, which police tracked back to Herman through the store where he bought it. But after a well-placed bribe paid for by those same robberies, Herman was set free after five days in jail. That's what we call capital.

Capital. And we now understand, is that if you use this to foster, because it was what we'll get to in the second episode, the Barker gang, they paid everybody off as soon as they could. They were job creators. Creators. Honestly, grease the wheels. Give the money. You got to.

Got to. Now, the Barker gang very quickly, like once Alvin Karpus came into it, they figured out that the way you stay out of jail is by making friends with the establishment. Make sense. You get into corruption. That's where the money is. Corruption. Oh, yeah.

Not in your petty vandalism. Absolutely. Fred, however, was not as lucky as Herman in getting out of these crimes. After being caught with the exact same amount of money as had just been stolen from the furniture and butcher shop, Fred was sentenced to five to 10 years at the Kansas State Penitentiary. So at this point, three of the four Barker boys were in prison, Lloyd and Fred for robbery and Doc for murder. But despite being alone, Herman did not slow down.

And if anything, both his robberies and his recklessness increased with the commission of each crime thereafter. Between December 1926 and January 1927, Herman robbed a jewelry store in Oklahoma, robbed a bank on Christmas Eve, robbed another bank on New Year's Eve in Arkansas, and robbed another bank in Jasper, Missouri. And all of this with a new wife named Carol, who seemed to have no problem tagging along. Again, don't try to change somebody. If you're with somebody, the whole point is to find somebody who's into the things you're

into as well. Yeah, absolutely. Because they say, oh, my crazy matches his crazy. Yep. And then you wear a shirt saying like, I'm with stupid. They get it. They pointed at each other. They're both stupid.

Yeah. They have stupid kids. Yeah. And then they're just growing. And they vote. We can vote stupid. And those stupid kids have more piles of piles of kids than they all vote. Yeah.

That's awesome. So happy everyone's stupid. On that last job in Jasper, though, Herman was shot and arrested, but escaped two weeks later by slithering up through a skylight in the jail's roof. Cool. Wow. From there, Herman got even more reckless. And in July, things spun completely out of his control.

After trying to cash travelers checks in Wyoming that he'd stolen from a bank in Buffalo, Kansas. I don't. I don't. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

We're lazy. Americans are lazy. The pioneers were lazy. They wanted to go name a new place where they can re-succeed in a place that they failed. They went to Buffalo to try to start a rubber factory. They fucked up. So they moved to Buffalo. And they made it new.

They moved to Kansas. They made a new Buffalo. So it's like, now we're doing rubber. Absolutely. You can, if you can make it in New York, Idaho, you can make it anywhere. In Idaho. In Idaho. Yeah.

Manhattan, Kansas. Oh. Kansas. Yeah. You can do very well in Kansas. Well, Herman got the cops called on him in Wyoming by a clerk who didn't believe that Herman's real name was R.D. Snodgrass. That sounds like when I'm making up a name for a bit.

Ruford T. Hamburger. Yeah. It sounds like my name is Johnny Carson. Well, Herman ran, but eventually a deputy named Osborn caught up and pulled him over. When deputy Osborn went to open Herman's door, though, Herman pulled his 32-caliber revolver and fired twice, then sped off to leave the deputy die on the side of the road. Now, apparently Herman's wife, Carol, was a little freaked out by this spur-of-the-moment murder.

Right. But after a brief scuffle, she stuck with him. There's something about family. There's a lot of Vin Diesel in this story, right? Yeah. When these people get together and it's like family. It is like family, like oligarchy. We're going to be fucking, like, we're together, we're in this together.

Because when it comes down to it. But I don't think that she knew that was going to happen. No, absolutely not. But still, then afterwards, well, now he's a murderer, so no, I kind of have to stay with him because what if he fucking tells me? Right. And then you're like, you're going to locked in. But they all kind of understood him.

They created this line where they were like, no, no, no, we're not going down. We're not going down ever. Right. And it started very, very early, where it's like they wanted to keep this going, even though it sounds like Robin Banks is a really hard job. Yeah. I think if you get one, stop. I guess.

That's very lucky. But for the murder, Herman got a hundred dollar bounty put on his head and became the second Barker boy to take a life. This it seemed was the impetus that sped Herman Barker to his doom. A month after the murder of Officer Osborne, Herman and a couple of outlaws named Charlie Stallcup and Porter Meeks broke into the office of an ice plant. They beat the Night Watchman half to death and came away with a paltry $200. Names used to be better, man.

Hold on a second. It was, it was an, they just made ice. Yeah. They made ice. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. They just made ice.

No. Well, that's the thing. You needed ice because you had an ice box in your house to keep things cold. And so you had to replace it with a gigantic block of ice like once a week. Wow. I'd see enough for an ice plant. So you had to name a factory ice. Okay.

Before we came up with proper refrigeration, where we just gone. So back in the days to make those big ice plants and I haven't seen my mind. I don't know if they'd have a lot of cash on hand. No, it's ice. It's just water. Ice. People paid good money for it. Yeah.

It couldn't have been that expensive. Well, this was not the gang's lucky night in more ways than one because the night watchman proved to be of sterner stuff than they thought. And he managed to call the police just as the gang was driving away. At 2 a.m., the cops caught up to Herman Barker and his accomplices for a late night high speed chase. Yes. Eventually though, Herman stopped the car and yet another highly reckless move that came

with an even more reckless follow up plan. When the two officers chasing Herman got close to the car, Herman reached out the window and grabbed one of them by the collar. Jesus. He then pulled the cop close and shot the officer twice in the face. Dude, that's how I used to play fucking Halo, dude, all close and fucking personal, dude. It's just like that. Getting all fucking close and personal, man.

It's just like you and your underwear Superstone playing a video game. Yeah, bro. It's just like that. Well, the other officer then opened fire, hitting Herman and Charlie Stallcup while Porter Meeks broke and ran. You guys are crazy. You guys are all crazy. Get the fuck out of there, man.

Herman got hit in the chest while Charlie got shot in both of his thighs, his right arm and his right hand. That other cop was a fucking good shot. That's a good ass shot. Yeah. Driving away erratically because of the blood loss, Herman eventually lost control and hit a tree near an all night hamburger stand. What would I do to be a hamburger right now?

It'd be nice. He got out of the car, but rather than being taken back to prison, Herman Barker took his revolver and shot himself in the head at the age of 33. Damn. Outside of the hamburger stand? Yeah, man. You know some people just sitting there with their milkshakes just being like, man, that's fucking crazy.

It's crazy. Not in the hamburger stand, huh? Also, why are we here at three o'clock in the morning? Just having fun. Just getting out here. We've been robbing the hamburger stand all night and then I realized when it came down that I'd actually rather make a hamburger and some milkshakes for you and my friend. Right.

The no city official in Oklahoma would allow the body to be buried in their state at first, but eventually the Barker family lawyer, a Cherokee named Quanna Parker McGee, negotiated a plot for Herman in Welch, Oklahoma. Oh. Interestingly, Carol, Herman's wife, had to attend the burial in secret and not just because she was still wanted by authorities in connection with Herman's first murder, who she reportedly was more afraid of was Ma Barker, who had threatened Carol with bodily harm because Ma believed that it was Carol, not Herman, who had shot Officer Osborn with

the revolver. My boy would never do something like that, even though he's had a whole life of criminality. Yeah, it seems exactly what your boy would do, Ma. No. Yes. No, yes. It's what women do. Always betray.

Women should please officers. Women always betray. How can you be right and wrong? I'm a mother. Not a woman. I see. So, at this point, the Barker crime family seemed to be at an end before it even began. Lloyd Barker was imprisoned for the next 25 years out of the game.

Herman Barker was, of course, dead. Doc was imprisoned for murder in Oklahoma, and Fred was in Leavenworth doing five to ten. But it's at Leavenworth that Fred Barker met the special sauce that the Barker gang needed this whole time, the brains to go along with the guts. This man was Alvin O'Creepy Karpus, and that's where we'll pick back up for part two with some of the most daring and deadly bank robberies of the 1920s. Wow.

So, it seems like they are starting off a little bit behind the eight ball here. They're all incarcerated. One is dead. Ma doesn't know what's going on. She's alone. She's twiddling around being. Yep. Oh, my goodness.

This story is going to get absolutely insane. It already has been. But I do love about the stories again. These are like, this is the American criminality that, like, because we'll see people just get obsessed with these stories too during the time period. I believe them, man, because can you imagine, like, thank God, we're not them, but also it's just crazy to hear about. I actually really think it's fascinating in the time period that the idea of there

being like famous criminals, like they adopted from the old West mentality, like this idea that these gunmen were something that people were all, like, interested in and they would give, they would talk to the press and they would drive back and forth. It was a very interesting time period. Yeah, who's your favorite criminal? John Dillinger or Pretty Boy Floyd, you know, that type of, like those types. And there's like children having those conversations too. It's fucking insane.

And then again, every time, you know, how many times have we, were you asked that question in 2018? Why true crime now? And it's just being like, no, why true crime always. Always. And forever. Yeah. So much for listening.

We can't wait to see y'all in Texas this weekend. I'll tell you one thing, Austin was a gosh darn hoot. Oh, are you saying that you better, oh, we know that for certain. Remember that one time, Marcus, where you did that thing on stage in Austin and you did that other thing on stage in Austin? Do you remember when we human centipeded each other and Kissel was in the middle? No, I would be in the, you have to be in the middle because of corners. Yeah.

Corners. God, that's the worst position. Yeah. Actually, no, that's the thing. Him being in the middle actually makes the corners harder. Yeah, exactly. We're not going to be able to. Yeah.

Henry has to be in the middle. Henry, you've got to be real. Henry, you've got to be real. No, you have the most turning right. No, I don't. Look at how much. Look at how I can turn. No, the accordion that's on a double bus, the accordion in the middle.

No, you don't even know. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. The accordion in the middle and also think about a semi. You don't put the fucking trailer in front, do you? No. You put it in the back.

I'm not the trailer. I want to be Dr. Dieter Laser, you're trying to catch yourself out of this. Yeah. Whatever, man. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for supporting everything we're up to over here. We hope you're doing well out there. Can't wait in February.

Just another reminder. We will be going wide so you can get it on. You can get it on. You can get it on. You can get it on. Soundbasket, whatever your podcast bullshit is also, and on Spotify will continue to be on Spotify. We are mostly going to be on Stitcher.

We're going to be everywhere. Everywhere. We're going to be everywhere. Everywhere you want to be. We're everywhere you want to be, baby. Nothing's changing with the Patreon. Everything's exactly the same. It's an incredible deal.

Everybody's happy. We're ready to crush you. You're good. You're just, you're, who are you trying to convince? Me. Me. No, honestly. I feel great.

All right. Oh, and don't forget. Soul Plumber number four is out there. It's out there and ready to be bought. And a lot of comic book stores definitely have copies. Like they reordered number one and they got all four copies. In fact, here in Greenpoint, if you want to go to Action City Comics, I know Eric out there has all the issues.

If you're a New York City dinners in and you're looking to catch up on Soul Plumber. Get those motherfuckers. Fantastic. Action City Comics out in Greenpoint. Great place. Awesome. All right, everyone. Thanks for listening.

Hail yourselves. Hail Tatum. Oh, hell yeah. Magustalations, everybody. Take care of yourself out there. He can't be hail me, huh? Come on. He can't be hail you.

This will come over here. You know, I heard it was bad if you can't feel your pulse in your ankles. It's bad. It's diabetic. No, but I can feel it. I checked. So check. I'm good.

You should check it at home. Yeah. Okay. It's kind of a random, random. Yeah. I'm just thinking about it. I'm just thinking about it. I'm scared.

Okay. But I'm fine though. I'm feeling. I can feel the pulse. Check your ankles. Yep. And let us know what you think about them. Yes.

No. Yep. It's bumping. Great. I'm feeling it. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors, you can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.