Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - America’s Greatest Bank Robber? Inside the Life of Pretty Boy Floyd

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Pretty Boy Floyd was a gangster you did not want to mess with, and during his spree of bank robberies he became somewhat of a folk hero for the locals, robbing the rich and giving to the poor. But Pretty Boy Floyd would face off with the cops one too many times and ultimately catch a bullet, but his story has gone down in history. In today's new video we're going to show you the rise and fall of one of histories most notorious gangsters, Pretty Boy Floyd.Contact Tim [e-mail] me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [e-mail] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69

He got in there and somehow broke out and flung himself out of a window. I have no idea how he got rid of the handcuffs. He got away. Boyd ended up running up the hill with machine gun. Took a couple shots at the deputies. That sentence was never served. Had to jump from a moving train. You know, he still wanted for escaping from his 12 to 15 years sentence.

Or it was the second person to be named public enemy number one. You know, when he was in the Wellsville area, at one point he, They got in a shootout with the Wellsville Chief of Police and two of his erstwhile deputies. And Floyd ended up running up the hill with the machine gun, took a couple shots at the deputies, and the gun jammed. And he had literally tossed it under a rabbit hutch because I don't know if you've ever picked up a Thompson, but I think they weigh about 16 pounds. it would not be something you'd want to carry if it wasn't useful to you. So he dumped it. And one of the neighborhood children who was still living at the time I got interested

explained to me how the neighborhood kids found the gun under the rabbit hutch. And this guy was still mad that they took it off of him. So he thought that he should get to keep that. But the FBI ended up with it. So, well, where, where, I mean, let's start, if you don't mind, we kind of start at the beginning of his life. Like what, you know, where was, where was Floyd born? And what was his full name? I know his mom didn't name him pretty boy. No, definitely not. The actual name is Charles Arthur Floyd. And the Floyds were from northwestern Georgia. I believe Bartow County. They were farm people, country people. At one point, I saw some suggestion that there was some distant connection to a Confederate general whose name was Floyd, who was singularly unnoteworthy in what he did for the Confederacy.

But there may be a connection there. But the family had moved to Oklahoma. A lot of times they're compared to the Jodes, you know, grapes of wrath kind of thing, although I think the Jodes were more. moving from Oklahoma to California when they were made famous in Steinbeck's novel. But there are a lot of comparisons. They were not well-to-do people, although I didn't find it interesting in talking to some of the nephews, who unfortunately have all passed now, that Charlie is the only one in the family, whoever was convicted of any serious crime.

time. In fact, one of his brothers, after Charlie died, became the sheriff of Sequoia County, Oklahoma. And one of the nephews was an accountant. And I remember him being very interested in the fact. And I kind of quizzed him. I said, nobody else was quite as colorful as your uncle. He said, oh, absolutely not. Now, his father, who was Walter Floyd, had kind of a tragic end. He was shot by somebody that he was disputing with about some personal property. Father and his wife had a store across the street, and they got into this confrontation, and the Floyd left, and the fellow that he was arguing, with, had a 4-10 shotgun cut off, and he plugged him. And he staggered across the street into his store and died right there. Now, I had always heard rumors, and I think you'll still hear him, that Charlie had just gotten out of prison at the time his father was killed. And a lot of the

writers suggest that, you know, he took care of things after the law failed to, fail to do anything to the shooter. In fact, I was reading just this morning that people still show outsiders, the remnants of an old well that is supposed to be where Charlie dumped the body of this guy. He was tried for the, for the shooting, Mills was his name. and they acquitted him. So that might be an interesting one to look into, but he, I'm sorry, why was Charlie, you said he was getting out,

he was getting out of jail. Why was her prison? Why was he in prison? Well, he, Charlie's criminal career started when he was 18 years old, and he robbed the local post office of 350, $50 worth of pennies. So that's going in at the deep end. But because of his age, they put him on probation or, you know, first-time offender

basically did not throw the book at him. But then that would have been in 1922. After that, Charlie, who did not like farm work. And this was tough times for farmers after World War I. But the only thing he could find to do was to rent himself out, you know, at harvest time and travel around with other such young men to help major farmers with their products, they're harvesting. And he really didn't like it from everything on bread. And what he did like is kind of the sense of freedom that he had. And as frequently, you know, young man doesn't like the nine to five,

type life. He made connections that were not ultimately beneficial to him. And so at one point, sometime in 1925, he and two other similar guys robbed a Kroger payroll office. And they did better than $350, but they were also immediately caught. And Charlie was sentenced to I believe it was five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary. And they had let him out on good behavior after only four years. So he was in the Jefferson City Penitentiary in Missouri, which I've seen pictures of the inmates were strikes, and the ball and chain was frequently imposed.

And it wasn't something he really wanted to ever go back to. And he had just been released from prison when his father was murdered. So it fits the tale telling to say, yeah, Charlie, you know, let the law try to take its course, but they failed. So he took care of it. But again, Michael Wallace did a lot of research on this in Oklahoma. And so there was absolutely no truth to it as far as, you know, some kind of revenge killing. So Charlie was, by that time, some of the writers think that he learned from other criminals while he was in the Missouri prison, and it certainly didn't show him the path to redemption

because he went right back to his old ways, and he got involved with other criminals. One thing about Charlie is that you never get to sense. he wasn't, you know, with the mob or anything like that, at least for most of his career. He was kind of a rural independent, and he would work with various other people. Of course, some of those people didn't have very long lives after they hooked up with Charlie, and, you know, several of them that were killed during these early years. For example, and what surprised. me when I first started to look into this is he really did get around. He was robbing banks in

Colorado. He had come to Ohio previously. And in fact, his first major bank robbery was in a little town in northwestern Ohio called Sylvania. And he knocked off the bank there. And then in May of 1930, he was arrested in Akron, Ohio. They were looking for him because of that Sylvania bank job. And they caught him. He was hiding under a bed in a questionable place. Establishment. Yes, yes. And they caught him, and they sent him back to Toledo for trial, and he was convicted again. And what's kind of interesting to me is if he was sentenced for 12 to 15 years in the Ohio State Penitentiary, and, you know, had he served that, you and I wouldn't be talking about

this. Right. It wouldn't be another colorful story for Columbiana County. But he was actually on his way to Columbus with the officers. He was handcuffed. and he talked, the officers didn't letting him use the restroom in the train car that they were in. He got in there and somehow broke out and flung himself out of a window. I have no idea how he got rid of the handcuffs, but he got away and got away clean.

And the next thing you knew, he was back in Oklahoma. So that was the last time Charlie was ever in police custody. right and i say that that sentence was never served right but it was still had to jump from a moving train that yeah but i guess that that beats doing 12 years in uh in prison yeah absolutely and the uh ohio state penitentiary at that time was certainly no uh club med i mean it was every bit as bad as the Missouri penitentiary probably worse, although he wouldn't have known that. So he escaped from that. He went back, and throughout his years, not that there were that many of them,

there's always this tendency to go back to Oklahoma, the Cooks and Hills, and Aiken's, Oklahoma, and a little town called Salaslaw. That was his home place, and he just always used that as, his place of refuge no matter where he was base of operation kind of yeah well that's that's where the family was so his mother would in fact his mother lived a long life his his brothers uh most of them lived lived to be elderly um but uh sorry i was wondering how long is his uh it just this is you know um i'm just curious how long was his crime spree Well, if you start with the Kroger robbery, which was 1925, and then roughly four years in prison, gets out, may or may not have gone after his father's killer, but the family said it didn't happen.

And then the Sylvania bank job. And then the next thing that he did is he was back in Ohio. Supposedly he murdered two brothers in March of 1931. Their names were Wayne and Wallace Ash. And the reason for that, some of the authorities seemed to think that they were snitches. and that he did them in because of that. But what is absolutely established is that one of the Ash brothers was married to a woman that Floyd was interested in.

And for the rest of the life, he was in close proximity to this woman and her sister. So her name was Ash, but she and her sister's maiden names was Bayer. But they were frequently with Floyd and his various. associates. So they were with Floyd the next year in 1931 when he was in Bowling Green, Ohio, and they were casing a bank, getting ready to rob it. Okay. So these weren't two school teachers? No, no. Not at all. And according to probably the best account, Bueller was probably the one that gave Charlie his nickname. Because the family to this day

refers to him as Charlie or chalk. Right. And chalk was apparently a beer, a type of beer. I don't know if it's a manufactured type or something homemade, but he liked chalkedob beer. And so that became his

nickname. But he was labeled as pretty boy by one of the Baird sisters, different stories, you know, that the police when he was a young criminal, they said he was a pretty boy. One of the more colorful stories says that a Kansas City madam said, well, you're too pretty for these other girls.

I'll take care of you myself. Probably not true, but you'll find anything with Charlie Floyd, there's going to always be another interpretation coming down to pike. Right. and another women. But the Baird sisters were with Charlie when he was in Bowling Green, Ohio. Hey, we know you probably hit play

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Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. His associate then was a lovely fellow named Bill Miller. And I have found out since then that Bill Miller, who's nicknamed, a better nickname than Charlie, he was Billy the killer Miller and and that family came from just across the county line here in the Ohio River Valley they were from Beaver County uh Pennsylvania and Billy earned his uh gnom the plume or whatever you want to call it because he murdered his own brother over a woman uh the brother the brother's name was Alabama Joe Miller and uh he's

women are causing problems? Oh, they're causing trouble. They're causing trouble. So he was, he was definitely in the available rabble that Charlie could run with. And he was with Charlie in Bowling Green. A local officer saw that they were clearly up to no good and approached. And the net result was that Billy was killed on the spot by the officer. And then the officer, and then the officer whose name was Kastner, was shot either by Miller or by Charlie. But, so the bank never did get robbed, but they had to flee Ohio again. He went separately from the Baird sisters. They had to make their own way home.

So they seem to be talented at that. So was he just going, like, was he robbing these banks out of this? necessity or do you think he was like he would run out of money rob another bank run out you know was he a paycheck to paycheck bank robber or was he you think or was he was he was just going robbing banks every time there was an available bank he was just robbing it he he certainly wasn't loath to to rob banks i mean he uh some of the some of the accounts estimate that he robbed 50 banks during his career i think that's probably high but he hit quite a few And, you know, and, of course, it's the same kind of thing as with the Dalton's and the

Youngers and the James boys. You know, if you're robbed, you don't want to be robbed by some low life. You want, you know, the big guys to have been the perpetrators. So there were some banks that he was credited with robbing that he may never have even seen. Right. But there were certainly enough of them. And so after this, you know, he still wanted for escaping from his 12 to 15 year sentence. He's wanted for the killing of Officer Kassner in Bowling Green. And there were other officers that one of the accounts said that during his career, he killed 12 people, nine of whom were police officers. So that would certainly keep him in front of the, in front of the gun sites of any of the police. And then after this incident in Bowling Green, he went back to Oklahoma, found a new partner by necessity, and continued on a string of bank robberies throughout the Midwest, which... right i i was going to make a list of them but i just ran out of time to yesterday so it probably

wouldn't be that interesting but there were a lot well i was going to say is look even if it's half of the 50 25 banks is a lot of banks a lot of banks a lot of banks and uh you know um he he made a name for himself and but the thing that really brought him to the forefront um of the criminal world was was something that he denied he did. He denied it immediately after the event. His other newer partner denied that he was involved with it. And it was totally unlike their other normal activities, which is to go in these rural banks or small town banks

and make a quick haul for a couple thousand dollars, if that. But in 1933, Charlie was accused of participating in a major gangland incident. And again, this is unlike him because he was not mixed up with the mob for the most part. And I don't think he was at all, but he was blamed for this. And what happened is that there was a federal convict named Frank Nash who had escaped. I'm amazed at how easy it was to escape from custody. But Frank Nash was in prison on a federal rap. He was like a bookkeeper for the mob.

He had escaped and then got recaptured. And they were in the process of taking him back to prison. And the suspicion is that higher-ups in the criminal world did not want Frank to be able to go back and be interviewed at the leisure of the police and the federal authorities. And they wanted to spring him before he was back in behind bars. So they knew somehow, probably some cash applied to somebody that had variable morals. they knew that he was going to be passing through the Kansas City Union Station while they were taking him back to the prison he had escaped from. And at any rate, there was, while they were transferring him,

or the car pulled in with Nash and an FBI agent and a couple local detectives were with him, Suddenly, these other gentlemen appeared and opened fire. And they opened fire primarily with Thompson machine guns, submachine guns. Not the best item to use if you're trying to do precision work to free somebody in a car. And they killed the FBI agent. They killed two of the local deputies. and they killed Frank Nash. So if they were trying to spring him, they did a bad job of it.

And they didn't really catch anybody at the time. We know that Charlie was in the Midwest. He may have been not far from Kansas City, but he actually wrote to the government and said, I just want it known that I had absolutely nothing. to do with that right do you believe a guy that that's robbed that many banks i don't know they didn't believe it but uh well he doesn't he doesn't see was he was he shy about mentioning other crimes that he had committed i don't think he ever denied being involved in any of them he

you know he'd always put a positive spin on it which and that was kept up by his family for decades but and one of the other fellows who was alleged to have been involved with that was a a fellow named Adam Rishetti and that Roshetti was was Charlie's newest partner if you will and I guess what I would say is that after that everybody was after him right this put him in the forefront of the criminal world. And in fact, you probably have heard about, you know, the idea of public enemy number one, which was really a publicity thing that Jay Edgar Hoover dreamed up, but it was a good one. You pick out the worst guy in the country and say he's number one, we're going to get him.

And that's great as long as you get him. You're right. And the first one to be named was Dillinger. So Dillinger, you know, died on a sidewalk in Chicago outside of a theater. And so that left the, the titled position open for the next comer. And that was Charlie. Charlie was the second person to be named Public Enemy Number One. So, and he only held that title for three months until they caught him.

Well, until he came to Columbia County, but now after the Kansas City, they called it the Kansas City Massacre, which I guess killed four people with a machine gun that probably qualifies. The Kansas City Massacre thing, though, that's the one that actually made him go on the run. And he was with Adam Roshetti at the time. And Adam and him, and they had a couple gun malls, a couple girlfriends that they traveled with. Rose and Buella Baird and they were sisters and they they hooked up with them at some point between Oklahoma or between Kansas City and then they they left can't when they when Floyd found out they were they're after him you know now for this thing that happened in Kansas City he and Adam Roshetti hooked up and they went to Buffalo New York so they end up and they take

Rose and Buella with them so they go up to Buffalo New York and they hide out there for like a year and they don't do anything they don't get in any trouble they don't they don't rob any banks they they just lay low up in buffalo new york and uh after that year they decided they're going to try to go home they want to go back to oklahoma so maybe they forgot about it yeah yeah well after a year and they still didn't catch them so so they're going to try to make their way back home and uh so the lincoln highway was huge you know at that time that was the main thoroughfare to get you across the country was the lincoln highway still is today we just have different names for the roadways today you know but that route 30 the lincoln highway um they come back

through uh they decided well floyd gives uh beola uh who was his girlfriend rose was adam's girlfriend um but they give uh bula money and she goes and buys a 1928 Chevy coach blue in color and it was a really nice looking car and she buys it and they decide they're going to drive back so they start out towards Lake Erie and they come

down today it's Route 11 southbound which was Route 30 then and the Lincoln Highway and they just come down through. They really have no ties to East Liverpool per se but the Lincoln Highway comes right through here so

they end up coming down through and it's a Sunday morning about three o'clock and in east Liverpool, Ohio is right on the river. We literally are a river town. We're two minutes from West Virginia and we're five minutes from Pennsylvania. So we are actually a tri-state area in essence. I mean, we are you're able to go to three states here in a minute from each other, a couple of minutes from each other. And so route 30, Turns into Route 7, it's still the Lincoln Highway, and right here in East Liverpool is where that exchange takes place. And they're headed towards Dillon Vale, Ohio, which is Stubanville.

Okay, we've heard of Stubinville. Dean Martin from Stubinville. So they're headed that way. It's on the other side. It's the north end of Stubinville is Dillenvale. And Adam Rischetti has a sister that lives there. Her name is Minnie Sushik. and they're going to the idea was that they were going to hook up at minnie's house probably get food

gas up do that kind of thing and then head right down through bridgeport ohio which brings you to the southern states right down the i think it's route 70 or 76 you'd all hoops up there and uh and that was their route to oklahoma but what happened is when they come through east liverpool and there's a little town three miles down the down the road from us called wellsville oh aisle. And it's, you could almost throw a rock and be in Wellsville from here. There's route seven went down. It actually has a name for the road at that section. It's called Coontz Avenue. And they were driving through there. It's three o'clock in the morning. It's foggy. And Floyd's driving the car. And he hits a telephone pole and he breaks the axle on the car. Okay,

He can't see because of the fog from the river. We still get it like that here. And so he hits a telephone pole and he breaks the axle. So he and Adam Roshetti take the bed rolls. They carried bed rolls with them everywhere they went. And they took those and there was a hillside there. We know it as the silver switch. Now, at that time, there was a brickyard that was right there at that intersection and a working brickyard.

And it's called Champion Brickworks. And there's a hillside there. house or two up on top of that hillside. So they climb the hillside with their bed rolls and their guns and they hide out under a section of rocks that's up on that hill. And the girls are going to get the car taken care of and then come back and get them. Okay. So it's three o'clock in the morning. So nobody's really open, but Buehlo walks to Wellsville and there's an all-night service station there that has a tow truck. The service station is just a gas station, though. They don't do repairs. So she does get the tow truck. It comes back and they bring the car into

East Liverpool where there is a all-night service station. They actually have men working there. So the axle is going to take, they don't just have an axle for a car like that. So they had to wait until earlier in the day and go get it. So the women never get to see them in again. They end up staying with the car down there. And throughout the morning, There's a couple of men right there. That hillside is, the spot is still there today. You could go, I think it should have a historical marker put there. But anyhow, you could go and see exactly where they hung out.

And they waited and waited and waited. And the girls never come back. And two men, now it's daylight. It's seven o'clock in the morning, eight o'clock in the morning. And two men are coming down the street. His name is Joe Fryman and his nephew. And they're coming down. There's pear trees on that hill.

side. And they have them wrapped up. It's October. It's this time of year. And they're going to check on their trees. And they see the men up there. So they walk up to the men and then they see the guns. Floyd has a Tommy gun and two 45 caliber pistols in his waistband. And Adam Machete has a 1911, 45 pistol in his waistband. But they start talking to him. And Floyd comes up with this story that he's only there they're only there to get pictures taken and they're waiting for their girlfriends and so the guys buy it you know and they said well you know to get pictures like they are they saying that are they telling them who they are and we're here to get like we're not no nobody knows who they are they're just two men and they got guns and it wasn't uncommon

you know the tommy gun you know during the war um the tommy gun become really famous but prior to that like they come out the tommy guns come out like in 1928 they were a big a big thing because of like world war one they used them they were trench getters they were made to just destroy trenches and and these men brought them home with them and people you know they had them so um they have a tommy gun and you can't hide that very well and yeah even in the even in the um the bed rolls which i was going to say it's not uncommon for people in that era to walk around with bedrolls because they were they had nowhere to stay and you're basically you're a like a hobo you're homeless and so they were so it wasn't you know it would be like a sleeping bag yeah exactly and uh so they were just hanging out up here at the rock area but the the men that talked to them they buy this story they said we're just here to check on our pear trees and um and floyd says well if you see the ladies down at the bottom the hill send them up and so they walk away well the men didn't quite buy it okay not all of it so what they did is they walked back up

towards their house. And that house that Floyd and Roshetti are at, right above them is a house. And it's still there today. It's not very good shape, but it's there today. That's the home of Lawn Israel. And he was just a neighborhood guy. Everybody knew him. And they went and they ran into Lawn. And they said, hey, you know, there's a couple men down over the hill from your house up there, hanging out. And they got sleeping up there and they got guns. And so Lawn Israel decided, well, I'm going to call the chief of police in Wellsville. because that area is actually Wellsville. So his name was John Fultz. Now, let's break there for a second

because I got to tell you about John Fultz. This guy's a character. You could do a whole story on John Fultz himself. Prior to being a policeman, he would build boats on the river. He was a shanty boat builder. So he actually would build these houseboats along the riverbank. But he would haul the prostitutes up and down the river to different encampments. And as he built the boats, he would take a boat and take the prostitutes around.

And he must have made money doing that. But this is prior to him being a policeman. Right. So, you know, it was kind of odd. Even during prohibition, I've got pictures. As a matter of fact, I even brought it today, but I have pictures that were all the whiskey stills, when they would do the raids of the whiskey stills and the crates and the barrels and since the street in Wellsville by City Hall is lined up with these things.

And his job after the tax revenue guys would leave was to destroy all that. And what he would do is go around and sell them back to him. So he's a character, this guy. Right. And now he's chief of police. I was going to say, was he elected chief of police? I don't know how that worked back then. You'd say he'd run it back then he used the money to run for chief of police and things got even better.

Well, I'm sure the, you know, the moonshiner would probably help pay his way. but he he's actually a heck of a guy if you think about it so leading back to law and Israel calling him he says I'll get there as soon as I can I'm working by myself at city hall so he deputizes a prisoner he has in jail his name was Grover Potts this guy later kills somebody and ends up killing himself too but this is years later but at this time he's a prisoner he's in jail And he deputizes them and says, you're coming with me. And another man named William Irwin, who was a pretty good guy,

and he's there cleaning City Hall or working around City Hall in Wellsville. He deputizes him, too. And so he doesn't give him any weapons. He's got a 32 caliber pistol five shot, just a little pistol. It's nothing. And he's got that tucked in his waistband when he goes to find out who these men are. Now, Law and Israel said they have done. guns, but again, it wasn't uncommon

to have a gun. Right. And they don't have a clue who they are. Just two men up on the hill. So they could have been hunting for that matter. You know, no. So he goes over and he hooks up with Joe Fryman and those guys

and they point their way and he meets up with Lawn Israel. So now you have Chief Fultz, Lawn Israel, Grover Potts, and William Merwin. So there's four men and they get up to Lawn Israel's house, and there's a pathway, down to where Floyd and Reschetti are. And he says, well, we can get to them this way easier, so they go down the pathway.

Well, Chief Fultz is leading the way and out steps Floyd with a 45 and says, put your hands up. And Chief Fultz, again, this guy, he's such a character. He says, why would I do that? I'm just going to work at the brickyard. And he says, keep your hands where I can see them, and nobody will get hurt. So they're all coming down the path now. you've got four guys coming down the path and there's Adam Roshetti laying on his bedro on his side and Fultz says to him it looks like you're taking it easy and Roshetti said

yeah and Floyd said don't listen to him he's a police shooting and all hell breaks loose so now you've got Chief Foltz with that little 32 pistol Floyd with a Tommy gun two 1911 45 pistol and Rischetti with one and two guys with nothing three guys with nothing because Long Israel's there now. So you can imagine the melee in the, this is a high weed tree section as well. So there's just chaos as the gunfire starts. This goes on so long of them shooting at each other and using the other people for cover. And nobody wanted to shoot the guys who weren't armed and shooting at them.

So they're trying to shoot around them that the three men who are unarmed get to Lawn Israel's house, which is only a few feet from them, and they get shotguns, and they come back and join the fight. Chief Fultz with that little 32 pistol. So Floyd's trying to get away at the top of the hill. He's trying to run up the hill and get away, and Grover Potts shoots at,

he's got a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun, and he shoots at Floyd, and we find out later that Floyd has one BB in the small of his back, and that probably come from Grover Potts. But he shoots on him, and Floyd turned around, and shoots Grover Potts and gets him in the shoulder and he's down and the Tommy Gun jams. So Floyd ends up tossing the Tommy Gun.

But he's still now on the run. Adam Roshetti and Chief Fultz are at each other. And Chief Fultz chases Rishetti right to Lawn Israel's house and fires his last round at Rishetti and he misses him. But Rishetti turned around and gave up. And so they capture Adam Rishetti that way. Well, they'll get the gun. Yeah, yeah. And during that melee,

Chief Fultz actually got shot in the ankle by Roshetti. So they grab Roshetti, they hook him up, they take him down, they treat Grover Potts, and they all go back to Wellsville. Floyd is on the run. He's now up on the roadway. It's called Peterson Road. It's still there today.

And it looks different today. Back then it was a big farm field. and area like that. Today the trees are grown up through there and so much. But Roshetti goes back to Wellsville and of course he's given a bunch of crappy names, you know, he's come up with all kind of different names for both of the men. Floyd's alias was always Frank Mitchell. So he threw that name up and Murphy and all the time. I just met the guy. So he gives him a line of crap. And that takes time. That's over time over there because they're also treating Fultz and treating Grover Pots too. Floyd in the meantime has made his way up that hillside and he's trying to get he's staying out of the roadway but he's trying to get away and he comes across they called him machines he come across the machine at a garage a car an automobile so he comes out of the wooded section there and he comes over and that family were the Peterson's and the streets even named Peterson Road and it was William and Thomas Peterson and they had a

a garage in there where they worked on cars and that's what they were doing and there was a friend of theirs his name was george mcmillan and george was there to get a part for his car and uh floyd comes and offers five dollars he wants a ride to youngstown ohio and he's what he wants to do his whole plan is to catch a bus he wants to get on a bus that'll take him you know down south so he wants to ride to youngstown he offers five dollars 1934 five dollars you might as well offered him a thousand. Right. So Thomas Peterson said, hell yeah, I'll take you. Well, Peterson's mother comes outside and said, you can't go anywhere. The car you're working on has to be back across to Chester, West Virginia, which is right across the river by one o'clock. This is around 1230. So George McMillan

is standing there and Floyd says, listen, I'll pay you $10. Take me to Youngstown. And McMillan says, yes, I'll take you. So he has a little model A, you know, I think it was a 29 model A. And so they jump in. Now, as they take off and go, again, I said earlier how I have the transcripts. I have the statements taken from these people. So I have George McMillan's statements. So I know every road that they took because he tells you in his statement that he did.

The statements come from the corner of inquest, either Purvis or. Hoover ordered our corner at that time after the Floyd shooting to go back and interview everybody and get their statements. That's what I have. They took a stenographer with Marianne McIntyre. Little lady had a little box and she could shorthand and she would shorthand all of the statements and then come back and type them up. I have those type statements.

So this is how we know what happened and where. Every word said at the shootout on the hill, you know, that's all in these statements and and so on. So we know that now Floyd is in the car with George McMillan and they're headed out and we know what roadways

they take to go. Meanwhile, back at Adam Roshetti, there was a sheriff in Jefferson County, which is the next county up, the highway, and he come in just on business to Wellsville and he sees all the chaos going on and he sees Adam Roshetti

and says, I've seen that guy before somewhere. So he goes out to his car and he gets a Burns detective agency book, which was just a munch shot book for bad guys across the country. And there's Adam Rischetti. There he is. And there's Floyd right with him. So this is how they identify who these men are.

And it was a sheriff from another county that just happened to come in and identify these guys. So now they know who they're looking for. So that was his NCIC. yeah exactly for that time right and and just on a pause i just recently i there's a man in arkansas that i get i get people called me from all over the country about florid and right they want to know this or want to know that this man contacts me from arkansas and he's he's very he's in his 80s and his uncle had died who worked here in east liverpool at one time back in the 30s and he was cleaning out his estate he said i've owned

place for years i just can't get around to get it and he finally does and he finds these pictures and so some of the pictures are of floyd in all of this stuff um and one of the pictures he has and he sends them all to me he sent it all to me um but one of the pictures is this man standing and they're holding a burns detective agency book and i love the fact that that may be that sheriff or may be another person that i've never been able to identify and i think i have now so i'm excited about stuff like that. But this man sent me some great pictures. Pictures we've never seen of the Conkel farm where Floyd was killed. And we'll get to that too. But there's a lot of controversy about this farm and this area and they're not sure and so on. But this is a great

picture. It marks a spot right where he died, where he was shot. But you could see the whole farm. And that's cool, too, because we've never had a picture like that. And this guy just out of the blue in Arkansas sent me this stuff. Great, great stuff. But there's this, the sheriff, and he's identified him. So the fire chief of Wellsville is sent in a fire truck to go to Lisbon, Ohio. This is our county seat, and it's also where our sheriff is, okay, and deputy. So they send him out to warn them to be on the lookout. Somehow in that time they find out that McMillan is driving and they come up looking for him and they end up at the Peterson garage and they find out George McMillan has taken the other guy in a car. So now they're looking for this Model A car

along the roadways and they're headed that way so they go to Lisbon. They outrun him in Lisbon in a fire truck and they get up there and warn the sheriff's office who puts a deputy with the policeman in Elizabeth. So the deputy was George Hayes and the policeman was Charlie Patterson. And George Hayes later becomes a sheriff of the county. But at this time, he's just a deputy. So they get together in a car and they block a roadway where they think they may come. And the place is still there. There's a restaurant right there called Pondies. And it's been there over 100 years. And there's a bridge right in front of there. And that's where they make a roadblock. so some time passes and here comes a car but it's not a model A but it turns around quickly

and takes off what had happened is Floyd and McMillan run out of gas so they're they're actually still in Wellsville they run out of gas on a place called Township Line Road in Route 45 and so they get out of the car and they walk up to the backside of a man's house his name was James Balm and he's a florist in Wellsville. So his house has a greenhouse. He's outside working at the greenhouse and they ask him for gasoline. He says, I got a brand new Nash. You can't siphon gas out of it, but I'll take you to get gas. Again, they have no idea who these men are. And McMillan's now, McMillan's just along for the ride. He's not even, you know, and trying to get it's $10. Yeah, exactly. So

they get into the car. into the Nash, brand new car. They get into this thing and they start down the roadway and Floyd's in the back seat and he sits up and puts a gun to James Balm's head and says, listen, we're not going to get gas. I want you to get off the main roadway and we're going to Youngstown,

you know, so they start that way. Well, Floyd doesn't know this area at all. And these men, pretty much, even McMillan just drove him in circles. You know, these back roads don't lead to Youngstown anywhere near it. So, but, and you know, the roadways back then,

You know, the old Model A cars had the real thin tires and they were big, big wheels. That's because the ruts and the roadways were from wagons. And so when you're looking at those cars and they're beating going down in this thing, I can't imagine crossing the country in one of these things, but they did it, you know, and they're going to, I drove this exact route in a car today, and it took me forever. And it was a rough ride in today's car. So I can't imagine a Model A or even a Nash going through this way. but they did and they start down so here they come down towards pondies on route 45 that car turns

around because Floyd sees the roadblock so he tells them turn around their back so deputy hayes and charlie patterson see that car and they thought it was odd that they spun around like that so they go after so here we have a roadway called stooksbury road and it turns into roller coaster road So as they turn off of Stooksbury, they're catching up to them, and then roller coaster road is they pull over at the Y at roller coaster road and said, let that car passes. And so the car doesn't. They pull up behind them. And Deputy Hayes says in his statement that if I wouldn't have bent down to get the door handle, I'd have been shot right between the eyes. Floyd opens fire on them.

And so now they're shooting back. Here's a twist. James Baum, the guy who's an innocent guy. It's his brand new car, which ends up with a bunch of bullet holes in it. James Baum just tries to get out of the car and run back to the police. And they shoot him in the leg. Charlie Patterson shoots him with a sought-off shotgun in the leg, puts him down. And he has nothing to do with anything.

He's an innocent guy. And George McMillan, when Floyd gets out, he uses him for cover. And he ends up pulling him to the front of the car. And Floyd runs into the woods. this is his getaway right that section of woods is called spence's woods because there was a farm there called spence's farm and so they know it is spencer's wood and floyd's gone it's pouring down rain now it's about 536 o'clock in the evening it's getting dark it's again it's this time of year so it's getting dark out and those guys when they shoot a bomb they capture george macmillan thinking he's part of floyd's deal

and he's not and he pleads with him that it's i have nothing to do with it i just was going for the ride i mean he's going to pay me for a ride they don't believe him and they put him in a car and they leave they leave mr balm laying on the roadway and said another police car will come and get you he's bleeding to death on the side of the road so they put mcmillan in the car and they start back and eventually he he convinces them that listen you know we had nothing to do with this and so they turn around and they come back and the neighbors are all tended to Mr. Balm and so they get the story from them

there and they ended up not arresting those guys and that but Floyd's gone so when you see pictures of like all them posseys lined up and I have I don't know if you want me to show you this stuff or not but I have pictures of the possees all

posing with their guns and you would think you picture pitch forks in the back of the pickup truck and stuff that really happened Now they know who they're looking for in the words out. So you had guys just jumping in trucks and with their gun and their pitchports and coming out looking for Floyd. But nobody will go in the woods. Right.

You know, that's. Of course they want to get him too. He's killed how many police officers. So the police are motivated to get this. Oh, yeah. Well, they want to capture him. They know who it is now. You know, so he's public enemy number one.

And here he is in our little area, you know. Right. It's exciting. Yeah. it is it's a big deal so overnight this Floyd's in the woods and he he makes his way we find out later and I have all the information he follows the towpath of beaver creek little beaver creek which is actually a scenic river you know today and it's a beautiful place but he follows one of the tow pass to this and he ends up the next morning now this is again when he gets in the woods

it's six o'clock seven o'clock at night and there's a it's a long way for him to go And nobody's going in the woods. So what they're doing is those posseys are driving all the roadways all night long and just waiting for somebody to pop out of the woods on the roadway. And Floyd, it's like 11 o'clock, 10.30, 11 o'clock in the morning, he pops out of the woods at a place called, it's on Bell School Road. The farmer's house was the Robinson Farm. and the daughter Mabel Robinson and her dad lived there, Robert Robinson, and they're just farmer.

And he pops out, he's filthy, he's hungry, and they have an apple orchard. So she's out dealing with the apples or the orchard. And he pops out and he asked if, you know, if she would feed him. And she went in the house and she wouldn't let him all the way in the house, but let him wash up on a porch. had a couple sandstone steps right there and he sat on the steps and she made him two fried egg sandwiches and she just made ginger cookies so he's uh she brings him out a couple ginger cookies the sandwiches he sits on the steps and he eats him before he leaves she gives him a couple apples from the orchard and he wants to ride to youngstown and they don't even own a machine they

don't own a car at all so they can't help him right he thanks him and he starts on his way so and that's significant later i'll tell you why when we get to that too but um so he's he's on his way about an hour and a half later he ends up at the conchal farm the famous farm where he dies okay so it's but it takes about an hour hour and a half um he comes to the back door the conch was was this the woman that he gave the money to the one that just fed him not not that woman he didn't there's no regular there's no information that he fed or paid these people Yeah. But they took care of them. They let him, you know, wash up. They don't know him from who. They just figure he's a tramp, you know. So while this is going on, now that posse that's out and after he leaves the Robinson farm, and now it takes about an hour and a half of him staying off of the main road and hiding in the weeds as he's traveling, Robert Robinson, the lady that fed him's dad is talking to the neighbor. And the neighbor is, his name is Clyde Birch.

And Clyde Birch is a constable for St. Clair Township, police. And he knows what's going on. And so when Robert Robinson was talking to Clyde, Clyde says, you've got to get in my car. We've got to go tell the feds who are over, they're just two miles down the road. So, and he knows that. So they get in the car together.

They drive over to what's known as a White House filling station on Route 7. and they hook up with two federal agents. And they tell him, hey, listen, this guy is a stranger, but my daughter just fed him over on Bell School Road. So those agents, again, to take a step back, Melvin Purvis has now arrived here. Okay, so he's in town now. He flew in from Chicago.

He was actually in Chicago. And so he took a quick plane, which was a half-hour flight to get here. so he and a couple other agents are already here and they've already tried let's go back to adam rachetti they tried to go and interview adam rachetti and chief fultz the character he won't let him he says you're not talking to him we're not letting anybody talk to him they shot me he shot me and he's going to go to jail over that and get go through court before anything else happens and melvin pervis is telling him listen we need you know he's wandered for the kansas city master all this other stuff and they won't do it

Folks will not give him up for anything. And today, that's different, you know, as well as I do. The FBI just take over, you know, but they didn't do that back then. They didn't have jurisdictional power like that. I was going to say, I think there was even, were they even allowed to carry weapons unless Well, they were at this time, this is where that all started, you know, with these bandits like this that they were, they started carrying all that stuff and training how to use a Tommy gun and so on.

You know, Hoover started after Dillinger's deal, they started all of that kind of training. So they become what we know is the FBI. Back then, they were just girl agents. You know, they were attorneys. Yeah. They were all attorneys with guns, you know. So they trained and they learned, you know. But so here's Fultz, and he's not giving him up for nothing, this character, you know.

And so Purvis gets so mad at him, he ends up coming to East Liverpool. And East Liverpool is a much bigger city at that time. You know, we're actually a happening place at that time. East Liverpool, Ohio, was a pottery capital of the world. At one time, we had over 200 potteries working at one time here. So most people had never heard of East Liverpool, but you have. You just don't know it. If you flip your dinner plates over, they're probably hauled China or Homer Laughlin China.

You heard a fiesta wear. That's all us. That's all made here. So most of your fine China was PS&T and KTK, Noles, Taylor, Noles, China, and that's all made here. So that was our industry, you know, it was the pottery industry. That and the steel mills in Midland, that's right, crucible steel and so on. That was our only industry here. So we were a happening, booming town.

President McKinley and President Tap would vacation here. That was at that time, you know, that was a, this place was a really, big place that, you know, happening. So anyhow, Purvis ends up at, we have a hotel called the Traveler's Hotel, and he made that his home base, his headquarters. And there's a big historical sign there today telling you that, but the hotel's still there. So he sets up there. Well, those agents, when Robert Robinson and Clyde Birch show up at the gas station, they get a phone and called Purvis at the Travelers and tell him, hey, we think we know where he's at. He's out here, you know.

So Purvis turned around to an agent who's at the Travelers and says, listen, get a hold of the East Liverpool police and see if they can send some guys out to help us. This is the only reason East Liverpool is involved in this at all. All of this other stuff has happened outside of East Liverpool. But this is what gets us involved in it. So they make a phone call up to City Hall. Our police chief is Hugh McDermott. He calls in Chester Smith, Herman Roth in Curley Montgomery.

And these are the four guys that, matter of fact, these are the four guys right here that they end up calling to go help. Okay, so those guys get into a car. Chief McDermick gives out the weapons. This is how we know what in their statement, who's carrying what weapon. So Chief McDermott has a 38 pistol. police special. He gives Herman Roth and Chester Smith, the 3220 Winchester rifle, and Curley Montgomery is carrying a 12-gate shot man.

They get into a car. There's no Tommy guns involved with the city police, you know. So although we owned two of them at the time, they just didn't know what they were getting into, you know, so they went arm like that. And they get into a car and they make it out to the White House filling station and the feds are gone. but the people at the gas station said the car was loaded with a couple guys they just went down the road so the city guys catch up to melvin pervis and his guys and there's four of them there's melvin pervis agent hopton agent hall and agent mckee all in that car and so they honk at them stop them they find out that curly montgomery knows all of the farmers out that way so he says listen follow me I know all the farms and how to get to them.

So they do. So the city police is leading the way now. And you got two cars, you know, loaded down with, and you can see them hanging on the floorboards, you know, and stuff like the running board. So they're headed down the highway like that. And they're just going farm to farm now, trying to catch up to the guy that they fed at the Robinson farm.

In the meantime now, back to Floyd, Floyd ends up crossing the roadway. Bell School Road. He crosses the roadway and makes his way to the Conkle Farm. He sees a machine and the park behind the corn crib. So he makes his way to the back door. Ellen Conkel is a widow. She's in the house and he knocks on the back door and tells her he was hunting and he got lost. And she didn't buy it. She's a farm, you know, she knows better. He's in a suit. I was going to say he's probably not where he's probably wearing a suit. Yeah. He's not. He's not a gun. Well, he doesn't have that. That's right.

But you're not hunting with a 45. Yeah. Yeah, no. And two of them, as a matter of fact. So he's got two of them tucked down in his belt. And then he could tell that she realized he's not telling the truth. And he said, to be honest with you, I got drunk and I got separated from my brother. And I'm just trying to find my way back.

And so she lets me in. And he's hungry. You know, the two egg sandwiches wasn't enough. He's been on the run for a couple days now, you know, or a day and a half. So she feeds him two pork drops, some mashed potatoes and some rice pudding. And he doesn't like the rice pudding. But he tells her that this meal was fit for a king. This is where he pays her the dollar.

And she doesn't want it. This is a farm lady that could use it. And she doesn't want it. But he put it under the plate for her anyhow. And there's talk of that later where she kept the dollar and framed it and so on once they find out who he is. But he's just a tramp there. He doesn't know. Made her nervous, though.

And her brother, Stuart Dyke, is out in the field with his wife, Florence, and they're husking corn out. It's a cornfield. So they're out there working. And he asked her, he says, I like to get a ride to Youngstown. And she says, well, I don't drive, but my brother can maybe take you, but we'll have to wait for him to come in. And he asked for the newspaper and a book of matches. And he says, can I wait by the car? and she said sure you know so he goes down and gets in the car they think that he was going to steal it

you know but he doesn't he gets in the car and stewart dyke sees this guy you know over by this car so he stops what he's doing he goes to ellen conkel and he talking to his sister and she said i don't know who he is but you know he's kind of strange making me nervous he wants to ride to youngstown and it's now 530 in the evening again and uh he uh he steward dyke isn't going to drive to youngs sound that's actually a good drive especially back then so he talks to him and he's asking for the ride to the bus and he says i can't take you that far but i can take you to clarkson and clarkson's a little town two miles down the road so he he says okay and he says there's a bus that comes once a day to clarkson so he's good with that so they get into the car and stuart dyke's wife florence gets

in the car too and they're going to ride down the street a couple miles and take him there and just as Now, today, if you go out to the Conquale Farm, which we get a lot of visitors out there. And there's a historical sign, of course, now. And even today, you can do the QR code and it tell you the story. But today it's a big horseshoe. You can come in and go out, you know, it didn't exist like that then. So he's, the car is parked behind a corn crib, and he's going to back up to the garage and then go out the driveway. Just as they back up, here comes our guys, the both police cars pull into the farm,

because they're going farm to farm. Right. The farm prior to this was the Anderson farm, and Mr. Anderson's out in the field, and they stopped and asked him, have you seen anybody? And Anderson said, I saw a stranger walking in the field down below,

and they said, well, how do you know he's a stranger from that far away? And they said, because he didn't have a hat on. And, you know, men wore hats. Right. You didn't. That was out of the ground.

So that actually gave him away more than anything, just not having a hat on. And so that prompted them to go to the next farm, which is the Conkle farm. And so as they start to back out, here come the two cruisers or cars. And Floyd orders Stewart Dyke to park behind the corn crib again. So as he pulls up in there, he gets out of the car. And Stuart Dyke's actually cussing him now because now he's got his gun out. And Stewart realizes this guy's a bad guy.

And they don't know who he is. Now the police do, but Ms. Conkul and. Stuart don't have a clue. So they can see now our guys see him and they get out of the cars. And if you can picture this, you've got eight men now. You've got four city and four feds. And they're all out. Now they're circling that corn crib.

And Floyd decides to take off and try to make it. There's a garage right there. Tries to get behind the garage and he's headed for the woods. There's a wooded section behind the house and he's trying to get to it. And he never one time shoots at him. He's kind of running zigzag as you can imagine. and he's just trying to get away Floyd is very athletic

he's 30 years old he's built like he moved the car when they run out of gas by himself and those cars weren't light you know so he's very athletic and very fast and he's trying to get away and as he's running out there they yell for him to stop

and he doesn't do it and they open fire on him and later Ellen Concoe says there had to be a hundred rounds fired out of him but there's never any talk that the Tommy guns there were two Tommy guns used by the two of the feds and there was never any talk that they were used fully automatic okay but but you could hail of bullets is going on and Floyd goes down and he gets up and he runs maybe 15 more feet and he falls again and he stays down the guys catch up to him and curly montgomery actually

takes the pistol out of his hand and herman roth the other policeman that gets there takes one out of his belt and so they start talking to him and purvis comes up and this is where a lot of controversy comes in. But Purvis comes up to him and says, you're pretty boy Floyd. And he said, I'm Charles Arthur Floyd, you son of a bitch. And he used other language too throughout. He cussed him a lot. And he said, he's tried to question him about the Kansas City master. And he said to hell with the union station. I wasn't there. And he's dying. I mean, he's shot. Right. So there's, again there's backstories to all of this but uh floyd you know they open fire on him and you got eight men shooting at him over a hundred rounds and he's shot twice he's hit twice but he's got six

holes in him so this is where my um c s i people come in and say okay wait a minute you know he's shot twice but got six holes you know so he's running and one round actually goes into his forearm and comes out his forearm right goes into his side and out of his side so he's got four holes with one round you know and the other one's actually in the side too and comes out a little higher in the back and that's actually the one that kills him he uh it takes out his pancreas and ribs and and some other stuff in there um so he's bleeding out is basically what he's doing there um they try to question him like that well pervis when he starts cuss and pervis quist questioning and he gets stewart dyke ellen's brother and one of his agents and they take off in the car and they go to clarks

use a phone. They said they were going to use, to call an ambulance for him, because he's alive. He's laying there alive. So they're going to call an ambulance. But what Purvis does is he gets to the phone and he calls Uber. And he tells Hoover that he got it. You know, and this is right out there. This is a month almost to the day of getting Dillinger. So he calls Hoover and he tells him, I got him. We got him here in Ohio. And he comes back. And in the meantime, our chief, McDermott and a couple of the policemen are talking to him and McDermott says, you know, how bad are you hit? And he says, you got me twice. You know, I'm going. But he asks about ad, meaning Adam, Rischetti, called him ad. And then he said it again, but he called him Eddie,

like E-T-T-Y, Eddie for Rishetti. And he just wants to know about him. And then he asked who tipped them off, how you found him, you know. And he ends up. said, I'm going, and he dies. So he lived 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes after he was shot. And Purvis isn't even there. Purvis is up the road calling Hoover. So they pick him up and they carry him down towards a roadway and they put him under a tree. And that's where they're waiting when Purvis comes back.

And he said, well, hell, just put him in the car and we'll take him back to Liverpool. So they prop up Floyd's body in the back seat of a car and the two city policemen sit right beside. in the back holding him up and driving down to east liverpool and which is you know definitely a different time yeah i don't want the car now it's full of blood in a bad scene but floyd uh they take him down to a the funeral home at the time was called the sturgis funeral home ernie sturgis was the funeral director um and uh ernie wasn't around so the funeral the other funeral director's name is frank dawson so frank dawson and the frank dawson and the up taking the body in and now you can imagine again the excitement of this here's public enemy number

one the words getting out that you know here's floyd and we got him and he's dead and we have him here in town and people started coming and so they hurried up and frank dawson uh hurried up and embalmed him when they should have autopsied first and instead they embalmed him and they sewed him up and so there was always a controversy about what size of round had hit him, who hit him, who shot him. Not that it mattered, but it did to them. They want to know if the FBI killed him or the city guys killed him. And we have one guy in the city, Chester Smith, the tall guy in the picture, I showed you. He claimed, I'm a marksman. He was a marksman in the war. And he claimed, I shot him with the 3220 Winchester rifle in the arm purposely because he knew Purvis couldn't, who he met 10 minutes prior to

This. So, you know, and we rebutted that. That's part of the reason we wanted to do this. I wanted to film these transcripts, not the grandma's stories. You know, in two years time, I found out that Pretty Boy Floyd drove through East Liverpool, Ohio. He ate everybody's food and he shot everybody's barn. Okay. So everybody's grandmother fed Floyd. You know, it's those kind of stories. And I still get them. And so I wanted to, I wanted to film the documentary based on the, transcripts and not not all the stories there's a lot of backstories and a lot of little things that I found out as I was doing the research that those family stories were true you know there really was this is how I found out Mabel Robinson I didn't have any pictures of this woman I had no idea and I spoke to one of her family members and and he said yeah I've got pictures of her and my grandmother you know she used to tell us exactly what she fed him and so so you know we got information from the family stories you sure every time she's made like a you know whatever she made she's like that's the same meal i served that's it watch

her back yeah yeah and i mean he grew up with those stories and you know you hear i mean you kind of blow it off after a while i get so many people everybody i'd talk to and the man uh one of the men that helped with the film uh dave dunlap owns 28 parallel productions that's a man that was with me at the prime con um he and i met him through another documentary that we we filmed called 759 Dresden about a murder that had happened here it's a cold case here so we filmed that documentary and while we were doing that i said i'd like to film something on these transcripts so uh we end up doing that and we brought in uh one of our the president of our historical society's name is tim brooks he's an attorney just retired but he's also a historian for the city and he was a big

he was the go-to pretty boy floyd guy um and so he's been published in different magazines and stuff and uh Tim actually come in and he has all of the story of Floyd growing up. So that would be that that side of Floyd. If you wanted to know anything about him as a kid or what he did, Tim Brooks would be the guy. So there was the three of us when we put this together. And then we, like I said, I spent two years researching those transcripts every inch of them. So I knew exactly where and I went to those places and we found stuff that people had no idea still existed and so on.

So it turned out really good. It played in Amazon Prime. It's played in the movie theaters here locally. And I sell those DVDs constantly. So I don't know if you got one when you were down there, but I'll send you one. No, I don't even know. How would I even play a DVD? See, that's what we're running into.

Yeah. Nobody has a DVD player anymore. But you can put it in a computer. It'll play in a computer. And actually, if you have a hard, well, if you have a hard drive. Yeah, I was going to say, you need to sell a, SD cards. Yeah, well, that's our new thing.

We're streaming. The first documentary we did that, we stream that. The problem with streaming this one is it has special features. And we don't want to lead them out. You can actually read the transcripts in the DVD. So if you put it in a computer, you could read it word for word. And you know, when we were talking about James Cagney and these guys earlier, they really talk that way.

I'm going to fill in full of lead. And when you read these transcripts, they're talking about. that so it's fascinating to you know just to read him alone but um the whole story of floyd you know he's just a different kind of gangster you know i do have a picture which is fascinating and uh just to touch base on this um i got a young picture of floyd posing with clyde burrow and that's that's unique because um Floyd didn't want anything to do with gangs and that Bonnie and Clyde tried to try to get Floyd to run with him and he didn't want to do it. And they were young then, you know, but he didn't want to do it, but they got a

picture to get. And that picture is, you only see it every once in a while out there, but I have it in my collection. And I love that picture because it's kind of that you see a young Clyde and you see a young Floyd and they're both dressed to the hilt with their fedores and posing together. And it's pretty cool. What about the mask, the death mask? You showed me the desk mask at CrimeCon. I've actually got one sitting right there. So there's a, let me finish with Floyd in the field. They take him down. Go ahead.

No, that's okay. They take him down the funeral home, and they start doing this right away, and they put him up for display in the window. How can you get even more of everything you love about Porter with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard? Enjoy more freedom, more flexibility, more rewards, more of all the things you love. Need I say more? Get your ticket to more? with the new BMO ViPorter Mastercard and get up to $2,400 in value

in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash V-I. Porter to learn more. And once the word gets out to his mother in Oklahoma, she sends a Western Union telegram back saying, please don't show him. Send him to a reputable funeral director and send me the amount of money

it's going to cost to send his body back to Oklahoma. Floyd had $122 in his pocket. That's a lot of money, 1934. He had $122 in his pocket. He had a black onyx ring on his finger. He had a pocket watch that on the end of the pocket watch has a coin, and that coin has notches in it. And it was like a dollar, like a silver dollar.

And it had 10 notches. Floyd had killed 11 men, but there's 10 notches in this coin. And they believe that's for every man that he killed. and he just never got to do the 11th one. But they have that stuff. So all of that stuff shipped back home. Later, we get to meet Glendon Floyd, who is Floyd's nephew.

And he would come back to East Liverpool and he would do talks. And he would sign autographs and tell you stories. And he would bring all that stuff with him and stuff, which was pretty cool, you know, pretty fascinating. But the death mask. So while Floyd's in the funeral home, again, I told you the history. history of East Liverpool is the pottery industry. So they called, I believe it was Homer Lockland, China. They called the mold maker to come over from Homer Lockman and, or maybe you hauled China, one of the local potteries. And he come over and they, the mask are made out

of what's called slip. Okay, slip is what makes your coffee cups and your saucers and dinner plates. It's a liquid. And then it's formed, you know, pressed and then they fire it. Well, this particular mask I have behind me is a second. It's not a first. The very first mold, when I say that, the very first mold broke. The very tip of the nose stayed in the other half when they took it apart. It stayed in there, just the tip. So they went ahead and made five masks out of that mold and gave them out to like the chiefs of police and the people that were involved. And then from there, they moved that mold off to the side and they put plastic over Floyd's face. poured slip over it made a whole other mold and that's what this is okay this mask and the nose on this one is smooth and that's how you can tell the difference so if you ever come across the Floyd mask it's got a rough tip of the nose it's probably one of the first five originals now Tim Brooks as I mentioned earlier he has one of the originals and then also in Wellsville deputy Hayes that was involved in the shootout with him he was given one of the first original

mask and when he passed away his estate sale they had that mask for sale and a local policeman bought it and it's on display in wellsville but that's an original mask a lot of people don't realize what death masks were for and why they did that and they actually go back to the 17th century you know they did that stuff um they made it out of clay then you know and they would do that because now back then it was just to honor whoever a lot of times it wasn't everyday folk that they didn't do somebody influential um but you could get it done if you had the money you know to to do that later like at this time they would do this and um like i can't imagine grandpa's grandpa's face on the mantle but you could have it if you wanted to you know and well the whole thing

is morbid like propping him up so everybody can come by and see him and you know all this this stuff is it seems morbid now, but what's morbid, you know, back then it's, you know, there's lots of things that we would, now we would go, oh my gosh, I can't believe you would do that. But if you think back in the Victorian ages, they would wire a dead person back up with children and pose with them for a picture. And not everybody could afford photography when that was out. So this was a cheaper route. And you had something to remember your loved one by. So you kept it and you displayed it, you know, somewhere. But I get in trouble for the pictures i have of the dead guy laying around everywhere you know so i can't imagine then you know

with a death mask on your mantle but but they did that uh abraham lincoln has a death mask uh matter of fact while we were filming this documentary tim Brooks gets a call from the FBI and they want a copy of Floyd's death mask and Tim said well i sent you one 20 years ago and uh and they said well they can't find it or whatever so Tim sent one of his to the FBI they made a mold of it or a copy of it. And in return, they sent back a mold of John Dillinger's. And so, so I have that now in the police museum. Tim thought that would be cool to, you know, put it in the police museum. So it's on display there, which is morbid. You know, you see the scars in his face when he hit this pavement. You know, they killed him in Chicago. And when he fell on the sidewalk,

it busted open his cheeks. And the scars are still there on it, you know, on his death mask. So, but it's pretty cool that I have it. And people, you know they love that stuff dillinger was a different kind of guy you know dillinger was bad news and you know he not that floyd was a good guy but in realms of bad people he did what he had to do right dillinger did things he didn't have to do you know baby face nelson was just crazy you know george nelson was his name and he that's who they went after um after floyd uh he was the next public enemy number one and they end up uh killing him shooting him in a ditch somewhere, but two of the agents that were involved in killing Floyd were also killed by babyface Nelson.

And then there's a little backstory about Nelson didn't like Floyd at all. And he even says in between after Floyd died and before they got Nelson, he's quoted as saying that it's a good thing the Fed's got him because if I ever run across it, I'd kill him myself. So he didn't like Floyd for whatever reason, you know, but he was another one. Did Floyd not like the name Pretty Boy? he got that name there's two two stories about that one you know he was actually a very handsome man and he was short stocky but he was athletic and he had rosy cheeks and so a couple prostitutes one of the stories right a couple prostitutes had made said how much he's a pretty boy and uh it stuck and he didn't like he didn't like being called that at all and that's that's quoted throughout that

you know nobody wants to be called pretty boy and be a gangster I guess right but but he uh and then the other was just young girls that he did know when he was growing up called him pretty boy there was talk that he hung out in the houses of ill repute right at times you know so he uh but again he was so well liked it didn't matter it didn't matter what he did he anywhere he went he was well he was taken in if you watch you ever see the movie public enemy yeah with johnny depth it's so historically wrong i couldn't watch it drove me banana Because the opening scene shows Melvin Purvis shooting Floyd in an apple orchard with a long gun. And none of that happened.

Right. And it didn't happen that before they killed Dillinger happened after Dillinger. So even put the killing of Floyd at the end of the movie, now you're a little more historically correct. And it just drove me bananas. I couldn't do it. Well, what's funny, too, is like how hard is it to just get the accurate, you know, even the types of gun? Like, they always do that. And it's like, why wouldn't you have just gone with the real?

story. Oh, well, you know, we changed it. But I can get, I get you watch some movies and they'll combine characters or they'll combine scenes because you can't fit 10 hours of, you know, of, of that person's life in two hours. So some things just get eliminated and some things can be combined. But when you're just manufacturing scenes completely, that, that didn't need to be manufactured. Like, would have taken the same amount of time to use the correct equipment. Yeah. How hard is it to find a Tommy gun? How hard is it to find? Right. Those things are available. There's a, even today, I like, I just, I just, there's a part of the museum, part of the police museum. And what my goal is, is besides educating, you know, locals and educating children, I, uh, I like to get it out there a little bit further. It's like what you're doing for me right here. You know, this is great. This is networking to the best as far as I'm concerned. And, um, part of the thing. is like i just had a guy come in he's he's been involved and i don't know all of it but he's been

involved in a poetry prize writing or article or a book or what have you but he's he's very well he writes very well and i don't know if he's the one that got the prize or or he's just involved in a story that did but either way super nice guy he come into the the museum and he wanted to do a story on floyd so i get interviewed all the time like that so i told him whatever he wanted to I said, no, I'll tell. And I did. And then he called me a few times and he said to how, you know, he needed this information or that information, told him. And then I get the article, which is very well written. And I love it. And it's part of the Ohio history connection, which is a big, for museums, it's a huge thing and a huge deal. It's in there. And the one guy, the McMillan guy, I told you,

that drove Floyd everywhere. It's well documented about McMillan and all kinds of stuff. And he calls in McMullen and that drives me bananas. It's like, how can you do that? His name's not McMullen and all through it, McMullen. And there is a family, which I didn't touch with you, but there's a there's a family of McMullen, but they were women. And they owned a barn and Floyd when he was going down that towpath ends up at the Robinson farm. He goes through their farm to get there. And there's one little article about them and they're the McMalins. And so it's like, that's confusing to somebody you know so it's not right and it's it's not so bad but it's not right you know and that stuff drives me nuts well cool well listen is there anything else do you uh you feel like

we didn't touch on or no i mean if you want to visit the east liverpool police museum i mean it's free you know it's i have a donation box in an old call box that you drop you know whatever you want in there but you don't have to bring your family call me get a date and we'll set it up and you know it's all about educating you know people so um it's a lot of history of the city along with the police department it's a lot of fun we have you can dress up as a gangster and get your picture taken get your mug shot taken you know we do that kind of stuff a little interactive you know and uh and people come from everywhere so if you're in this area ever if anybody is and you want to do it hook up with me you know and call me you can get me at uh the east liverpool

police department or st clair township i i spent 22 years as a policeman for east liverpool in the last four years with St. Clair Township, which is still East Liverpool. It's just a little township outside of us. And so I'm an active policeman, so I'm not hard to find. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching the interview. If you enjoyed it, do me a favor and subscribe to the channel. Hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Leave me a comment about what you think about the interview and check the description box. And we're going to leave any social media links or any links to the story and to the museum. So I really appreciate you guys watching.

See you.