Long Lane Bank Robbery

Apparently, every little town in the Ozarks (and America as a whole) had a bank once upon a time. Take Long Lane, a small community in Dallas County, Missouri, for example. I didn't realize Long Lane was big enough to have ever had a bank, but it did. In fact, the bank got held up in December of 1932.

About nine o'clock on the night of the 22nd, two unmasked men, pretending to want some gasoline for their car, called at the apartment of Milam Bledsoe, cashier of the First State Bank of Long Lane. The apartment was located above the Bledsoe store, and the store adjoined the bank. Opening the door, Bledsoe recognized his unwelcome visitors as the same culprits who'd tried to rob him two weeks earlier, and he at first refused their demand to go with them. The two men brandished guns and, confirming that Bledsoe had thwarted them in an earlier attempt to rob the bank, said they meant business this time and were here to get the money. One of the men escorted Bledsoe to the bank at gunpoint, while the other gunman followed with the other three hostages in tow. 

The gunmen made Bledsoe open the safe for them, took about $1,000 in loot, and locked the cashier and the other three hostages in the vault. The bandits then dashed outside, where one or two other men waited in a getaway car. The vehicle, described only as light colored, was last seen heading west toward Buffalo.

The next day, Jack Ryan was arrested in Buffalo on suspicion of having participated in the Long Lane heist, and later that same day, Paul "Blackie" Bagby and Lloyd McKinney were arrested in Springfield. Bagby was a confessed liquor runner who had supposedly boasted at one time of being a lieutenant of Al Capone, and McKinney had recently been raided by federal officers. McKinney, however, proved an alibi and was released. Ryan and Bagby, meanwhile, were held on unrelated charges so they could be further investigated for the bank job, even though Bledsoe failed to positively identify either man when the suspects were brought before him. Both men were later charged in the bank robbery after Mrs. Bledsoe tentatively identified Bagby as the man who'd held her husband at gunpoint.

Bagby was tried on the bank robbery charge in April 1933, found guilty, and sentenced to ten years in prison. The bank charge against Ryan, meanwhile, was dropped for lack of evidence, but he was convicted on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon and given a six-month jail sentence.

Later, Bagby was granted a new trial and a change of venue to Webster County, and he was set free on bond pending the new trial. He jumped bond but was recaptured in Illinois in early September 1933. Turned over to his bondsman, he again failed to appear when his new trial was called a second time. A new date for the trial was set, and the bondsman assured authorities that Bagby would appear this time. When the suspect didn't show up yet again, the bond money was confiscated.

Bagby finally showed up in Springfield in May 1934 and turned himself in to his lawyer. He was taken to Marshfield and lodged in the county jail there. As it turned out, Bagby shouldn't have pressed his luck by asking for a new trial. He was tried at Marshfield later that same month and given a 25-year sentence in prison. Denied a new trial, he was transported to Jefferson City in June. 

Apparently, no one else was ever charged in the Long Lane bank robbery.