39 -“Pretty Boy” Floyd –
– Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd –
Arrest: Age 26 1933, Kansas City
Born: February 3, 1904 – Died: October 22, 1934
An American Bank Robber. / Criminal Past:
In 1929, Floyd was wanted in numerous cases. On March 9, he was arrested in Kansas City on investigation, and again on May 6 for vagrancy and suspicion of highway robbery, but he was released the next day. Two days later, he was arrested in Pueblo, Colorado, and charged with vagrancy. He was fined $50.00 and sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Floyd, under the alias “Frank Mitchell,” was arrested in Akron, Ohio, on March 8, 1930, charged in the investigation of the murder of an Akron police officer who had been killed during a robbery that evening. The law next caught up with Floyd in Toledo, Ohio, where he was arrested on suspicion on May 20, 1930. He was convicted of the Sylvania Ohio Bank Robbery and sentenced on November 24, 1930, to 12–15 years in Ohio State penitentiary, but he escaped.
Floyd was a suspect in the deaths of Kansas City brothers Wally and Boll Ash, who were rum-runners. They were found dead in a burning car on March 25, 1931. A month later on April 23, members of his gang killed Patrolman R. H. Castner of Bowling Green, Ohio. On July 22, Floyd killed federal agent Curtis C. Burke in Kansas City, Missouri.
In 1932, former sheriff Erv Kelley of McIntosh County, Oklahoma, was killed while trying to arrest Floyd on April 7. In November of that year, three members of Floyd’s gang attempted to rob the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Boley, Oklahoma. Despite his life of crime, Floyd was viewed positively by the general public. When he robbed banks he allegedly destroyed mortgage documents, but this has never been confirmed and may be myth. He was often protected by locals of Oklahoma, who referred to him as “Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills”.