EVIL PSYCHOPATHS (True Crime) (33 page)

Ma Barker

The name Ma Barker is probably familiar to most people due to the Roger Corman movie
Bloody Mama
. Her villainous actions and those of her four equally violent sons, earn a place in the annals of evil psychopaths. Together, Ma Barker and her boys terrorised midwest America in the 1930s, robbing banks and taking lives at will. There is no doubt that she was the driving force in the family and the bond was so strong, her sons were happy to follow where mother led.

Ma Barker was born in Springfield in 1872 and she was no stranger to the crimes of the Wild West. Her childhood hero was the outlaw Jesse James and it hit her hard when he was shot and killed in 1882. Kate, as she was known, was not a pretty teenager, and struggled constantly with her weight. She was flattered when she received the attention of a local farm labourer, George Barker, and even more thrilled when he asked her to become his wife.

They had four boys – Herman, Lloyd, Arthur ‘Doc’ and Freddie, who was the youngest and most definitely Ma Barker’s favourite. The family lived in an impoverished state in a house which was little better than a shack. From an early age, Ma Barker started to hone her little criminals into shape. It wasn’t long before the Barker boys caught the attention of the police, and Ma would have to use her very best persuasive skills to get her boys out of jail.

There was no doubt who wore the trousers in the Barker household, and by 1927, a very downtrodden George decided he couldn’t take any more, and walked away from his family. Ma Barker decided she preferred the attention of women and it is rumoured that her boys all favoured homosexuality.

By the early 1930s, the Barker family had moved on to more serious crime, such as bank robberies. It wasn’t until a sixth member of the gang arrived, Alvin Karpis, that their escapades took on a more serious nature. Already a hardened criminal, Karpis met Freddie Barker when they were both serving time in the Kansas State Penitentiary. Freddie was in prison for killing a policeman during an attempted theft of a car and, sharing a cell with Karpis, initiated the young Barker boy into more lucrative criminal activities.

When the pair were released, together with the remainder of the Barker family, they formed one of the most notorious criminal gangs of the 1930s – the Karpis-Barker gang. Not only did they start robbing banks on a regular basis, they also started hijacking mail deliveries and also turned to the more profitable business of kidnapping. The gang would not hesitate to kill anyone who got in their way, even if they turned out to be an innocent bystander.

They carried out their first kidnap in 1933, asking for an astonishing ransom figure of $100,000 for their victim, wealthy Minnesota brewer William Hamm. Flush with success, the gang upped their stakes and demanded $200,000 for their next kidnap victim, a banker by the name of Edward Bremer Jr. Ma Barker was the mastermind behind the snatch, and spent several months planning each stage. She worked out every precise detail and gave each of her boys a specific task. On 17 January 1934, Bremer dropped his daughter off at school and then headed off towards his office. His car was ambushed by Arthur Barker who held a gun to his head when he was forced to stop by red traffic signals.

The gang forced Bremer to sign the ransom demand, but attempts to retrieve the cash were botched on more than one occasion. Arthur became really frustrated and came close to killing Bremer. It was only his brother Freddie that talked him out of killing their victim, pointing out that they wouldn’t receive any ransom if he was dead. The cash was eventually delivered on 17 February 1934 and Bremer was reunited with his family. He was one of the few men to escape from the clutches of Ma Barker and her gang.

This kidnap, however, turned out to be a big mistake, as Edward Bremer was a friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The president was keen to stamp out this type of crime and instructed the FBI to deal harshly with any offenders. In response, the FBI employed highly trained ‘flying squads’ who specialised in hunting down public enemies, including the infamous John Dillinger.

The big mistake Ma Barker and her boys made was when they decided to eliminate George Ziegler. Ziegler was one of the masterminds behind the kidnapping of Bremer, but had become a problem to the gang by bragging about his exploits and drawing attention to himself.

On 22 March 1934, Ziegler was brought down by the Barker boys as he walked out of his favourite restaurant in Cicero, Illinois. The assassins were not careful when disposing of the corpse, they forgot to check Ziegler’s pockets which contained valuable information about Ma Barker and her boys. This information was valuable to the FBI and they set about picking off each member of gang, one by one.

The first one of the gang to be apprehended was Arthur ‘Doc’, who was captured by the FBI on 8 January 1935. He was sent to Alcatraz where he was shot and killed when he attemped an escape.

The FBI managed to track down Ma and Freddie to a cottage they were renting in Lake Weir, Florida. Ma would not give up without a fight and managed to hold them off for four hours, using her favourite weapon, a machine gun. Ma Barker and her beloved Freddie were both killed, but they went out in a blaze of glory.

Lloyd served twenty-five years for murder but was freed in 1947. Shortly after his release he got married, but unfortunately for him his wife stabbed him to death in 1949.

Herman Barker was wounded in a gun battle with rival gang members, and rather than let them finish the job they started, he killed himself with his own gun.

Few people mourned the passing of Ma Barker and her boys. Many believed that she had given birth to sons of the Devil, but there is no doubt that she was an evil psychopath who passed on her love of killing and violence to her sons.

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This 2011 edition published by Canary Press,
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ISBN: 978-1-907795-34-3

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Anthony Prudente on behalf of Omnipress Limited

Table of Contents

Title Page

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE: Psychopathic Killers in History

Countess Erzsébet Báthory