ALCATRAZ HISTORY - George "Machine Gun" Kelly (#117 AZ)
©2002 RJ BestALCATRAZ HISTORY
George "Machine Gun" Kelly (#117 AZ)
One of the most famous gangsters of the Prohibition era, George
"Machine Gun" Kelly was born George Kelly Barnes on July
18, 1895, to a wealthy family in Memphis, Tennessee. Nothing in
Kelly's childhood suggested the life of crime that lay ahead of him.
By the time he was 19, Kelly took up with a small time gangster
and started a new career as a bootlegger. After being arrested on
several occasions for illegal trafficking, Kelly decided to leave
Memphis and head west. He adopted the new alias of George R. Kelly to
help preserve the respect and name of his upstanding family back home.
By 1927, Kelly had already weathered several arrests and served
various jail sentences. In 1928 he was caught smuggling liquor into
an Indian Reservation and was sentenced to three years at Leavenworth
Penitentiary. Kelly made lots of friends at Leavenworth and left
prison in touch with some of America's best bank robbers. Now his
talents expanded to include bank robbing in addition to bootlegging.
Kelly started over in Oklahoma City where he met Kathryn Thorne,
a seasoned criminal in her own right. Kelly and Kathryn became inseparable
and married in Minneapolis in September 1930. Under Kathryn's influence,
Kelly's crime sprees earned him the prestigious status of "Public
Enemy Number One." Many historians (and fellow inmates of Kelly)
believe that Kathryn was the creator of the "Machine Gun Kelly"
image. Some believe she even masterminded several of the successful
small bank robberies Kelly pulled off throughout Texas & Mississippi.
In July of 1933, Kathryn and Kelly kidnapped wealthy oil tycoon
& businessman Charles Urschel. Urschel was released when a family
friend paid the requested $200,000 and the FBI took the nefarious
couple into custody on the morning of September 26, 1933. Reportedly,
he threw his hands up in the air and cried "Don't shoot, G-men!"
as he surrendered to FBI Agents. He is credited for coining the
phrase "G-men."
Kathryn and Kelly each received life sentences. Kelly was transferred
to Leavenworth in Kansas, and Kathryn was transferred to a federal
prison in Cincinnati. Kelly bragged to the press that he would escape,
break out his wife and they would spend Christmas together. Officials
took his threats seriously and in August 1934, Kelly was expedited
by train to Alcatraz. Arriving on September 4, 1934, he was among
the first groups of prisoners to the island.
At Alcatraz, Kelly supposedly boasted about crimes he never committed,
yet the warden considered him a model prisoner. He took a job as
an altar boy in the prison chapel, worked in the laundry, held an
administrative role in the industries office for a long period,
and generally served out his time quietly.
George "Machine Gun" Kelly was returned to Leavenworth
in 1951 and died of a heart attack on his birthday in 1954. Kathryn
was released from prison in 1958 and took a job at an Oklahoma hospital
as a bookkeeper.
FBI site detailing the facts around Kelly's life of crime:
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/kelly/kelly.htm
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