Dadeville Banker Killed during an Attempted Holdup

About 1:30 in the afternoon of July 26, 1926, two young men in a 1926 Ford touring car stopped in front of the Crisp Prairie Bank of Dadeville (MO) after making several passes up and down the street in front of the bank. The taller of the two men got out of the vehicle and entered the bank. In the bank at the time were longtime banker Charley Landers, one customer, and the customer's small son. Brandishing a revolver, the tall bandit ordered all three of them into the vault.

Instead of entering the vault as ordered, Landers started toward the door of a small office at the back of the bank, and the would-be robber shot him twice in the back, once before he entered the little room and again after he'd passed through the door. Landers staggered through the room and out a rear door, where he fell to the ground.

The bandit, with the revolver still in his hand, backed out of the bank without taking any money. He walked to the waiting Ford and got in, and the vehicle headed east out of town.

Taken to a hospital in Springfield, Landers lived long enough to give a description of the man who shot him, but he died later that same evening. A large reward was offered for the apprehension of the man who killed Landers, and at least four separate men were arrested on suspicion over the next few months, but each was soon released for lack of evidence and the inability of Dadeville townspeople to identify them.

Another man was arrested on suspicion two or three years later, but he also was released after he was brought to Dadeville and people who had seen Landers's killer said he was not the man. Interest in the crime gradually waned after that, and, as far as I've been able to determine, no one was ever prosecuted for the murder of Charley Landers.

Robbery of the Bank of Pennsboro

I stated recently on this blog that seemingly every little town in America had a bank once upon a time, and the majority of them apparently got held up at one time or another. Add Pennsboro, Missouri, a small community in southern Dade County, to that list.

On November 2, 1928, a "rough-looking" man entered the Bank of Pennsboro about three o'clock in the afternoon and, flourishing a firearm, demanded that the assistant cashier, Truman Allison, show him the money. The bandit scooped up all the readily available cash, about $900, locked Allison in the vault, and made his escape in a Chrysler automobile.

A customer entered the bank just as the robber was fleeing and soon helped Allison get loose. The men went to summon law enforcement but found that the bandit had cut all the telephone wires leading in and out of Pennsboro.

Based on a description of the getaway vehicle, the Pennsboro bank bandit was traced to Springfield and identified as local businessman B. W. Baty. While being questioned at his pressing/dry cleaning shop, Baty was allowed to go into a back room, where, unknown to officers, he secured a small bottle of poison. Arrested and taken to the central police station on the evening of November 3, he committed suicide by taking the poison. Baty's family didn't think he was guilty of the robbery, because they said he didn't need the money, but all the evidence, including the license plate number of the Chrysler, pointed to his guilt.

At the time of the Pennsboro bank robbery, the town sported a population of about 75 people and had three other businesses besides the bank: a post office and two general stores. Nowadays, it's hardly a wide place in the road. It's home to a church and a couple of residences, and that's about it.

On a personal note, I mainly write historical nonfiction, but I do occasionally write fiction and have for many years. Recently I published a western novel, Return to Dry Creek (https://amzn.to/4i8bLiR) as an e-book, and in connection with the launch of that book, I'm making the first book in the series, Wild in His Sorrow (https://amzn.to/4cso8oO), which I published a couple of years ago, free to download for the next four days.

Ash Grove Bank Robbery

I've seen it suggested a couple of different times on the Internet and elsewhere that Bonnie and Clyde either were involved or very well might have been involved in the robbery of the Ash Grove (MO) bank on January 12, 1933. While it's true that the Ash Grove bank was robbed on that date, it is virtually certain that Bonnie and Clyde had nothing to do with the caper.

Around noon on January 12, two unmasked men entered the Bank of Ash Grove, and one of them asked for change for a $5 bill. As the cashier turned to make the change, both bandits drew guns and ordered the cashier, J. H. Perryman, and his assistant, Nora Anglum, to throw up their hands. One man stood guard over the two bank officials while the other one scooped up all the cash he could find. The latter bandit then forced Perryman, at the point of a gun, to open the safe, and he cleaned it out, too. 

While Perryman was opening the safe, a customer, Perry Titus, started into the bank and, seeing what he thought were two other customers ahead of him in line, turned around and started back out. However, a third bandit, who had been keeping a watch from a getaway car, ordered him back into the bank and then followed him in. Announcing that he was Pretty Boy Floyd, this third robber seemed to be in charge. He tried to get the cashiers to come up with more money, but when they swore there wasn't any more, he told his sidekicks it was time to leave. 

Making off with about $3,000, the bandits dashed to the waiting getaway car and sped out of town to the south and then west, closely pursued by a posse of three citizens, who briefly exchanged gunfire with the robbers. The pursuers finally lost track of the bandits a few miles north of Mount Vernon. 

Several men were arrested for questioning in the immediate aftermath of the Ash Grove heist, but none of the first ones picked up were held very long. 

Bonnie and Clyde were never serious suspects in the crime, but their kidnapping of Springfield motorcycle cop Tom Persell later in January led indirectly to their name being falsely associated with the crime, because after Persell was released unharmed near Joplin, he came back to Springfield and told of his adventures with the notorious Barrow gang. One of the things he said was that the driver (later identified as Clyde Barrow) mentioned something about Ash Grove during the gang's pell-mell flight along the backroads from Springfield to Joplin. This was the first intimation that Bonnie and Clyde might have been involved in the Ash Grove robbery, and apparently a few historians and would-be historians have picked up on Persell's suggestion and run with it. 

The first serious suspect arrested for the Ash Grove holdup was Jack Allen (aka Paul Fitzgerald) who was nabbed in Oklahoma about the same time Bonnie and Clyde were taking Persell for his unsolicited ride. Allen was brought back to Springfield, where he was known to local law enforcement, and lodged in jail.

In mid-March, Allen and several other prisoners broke out of the Greene County Jail and stole an automobile to make their getaway in. He was recaptured a week later after a gun battle near Harrison, Arkansas. Charged with grand larceny, based on the theft of the car, he was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

A second suspect in the Ash Grove bank robbery, Roland "Screwdriver" Haley, was identified in early April. At the time he was being held in a Palestine, Texas, jail on a burglary and larceny charge. Two or three weeks later, he broke out of jail but, like Allen, was soon recaptured after a shootout. Brought back to Missouri in late May, he went on trial in early June for the Ash Grove robbery, was convicted, and was sentenced to 25 years in the pen. After his conviction, he admitted that he was the man who, during the Ash Grove robbery, had identified himself as Pretty Boy Floyd. 

As far as I know, no one else was ever charged in the Ash Grove bank robbery. So, the identity of the third bandit remains unknown, but one thing's pretty clear: it wasn't Clyde Barrow. It's almost equally certain that it wasn't Pretty Boy Floyd either.

 

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.