Thank you for coming along with ON-THE-SPOT FILMS! We're on our way today to Memphis, Tennessee. We're trying to locate the boyhood home of "Machine Gun" Kelly, the FBI's Public Enemy Number One, back in the '30s. Now, some say that George Kelly Barnes was born in Memphis in 18 & 95, but his son said, in a book, that Kelly was actually born in Chicago in 1900; and that the family moved to Memphis when George was only 2. Unlike other noted gangsters of that era - like John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde - they all grew up in poverty. However, George Kelly grew up in an upper middle-class family in this upscale neighborhood, especially upscale back in 1920s. Now this, his home here, is located at 1992 Cowden Avenue: C-o-w-d-e-n. Now, George's daddy was an insurance executive and had a strained relationship with his son, because his son became an embarrassment to the family for such stunts as selling bootleg whiskey from the trunk of his car while still in high school, and being arrested by Memphis police, and then having to depend on his daddy's connection to keep him out of jail. Now George went to Idlewild Grammar School, and went to Central High School in Memphis. George's mother, who was Elizabeth - Kelly was her maiden name - Kelly Barnes - passed away just a few months before George graduated from Central. Now, some people believe that George took the name Kelly to protect his family's reputation from his illegal acts. Now, George did try college, but that didn't last very long. But, fortunately, he did meet his future wife, Geneva Ramsey, the daughter of a Memphis businessman. Now, after marryin' Geneva, George tried several jobs. . . He tried everything from driving a cab to selling insurance. Nothing seemed to work for George. So, he returned back to his old ways that he had discovered while in High School: bootlegging. Geneva threatened to leave unless George gave up his bootlegging, and especially his unsavory characters that he associated with in that business. Now she left him several times, but he would always talk her into coming back; but now, finally, after enough, she took the two boys that they had together, left, and then divorced George. Now after Geneva left, George was in and out of jail; so much so that he was well-known by the Memphis police; so he decided it might be best if he carried his bootlegging career somewhere else. So George went to Oklahoma City, and went to work for a bootlegger there by the name of "Little Steve" Anderson. Now, "Little Steve" had a girlfriend by the name of Katherine Thorne. Now, Katherine looked really good, so it wasn't long 'til Katherine and George developed a romance. . . and finally they took "Little Steve"'s new Cadillac and his favorite dog and they left Oklahoma; went and joined some of George's underworld friends that he had met while serving time for bootlegging to Indians at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and, with encouragement from his now-wife, Katherine, George was transformed from a small-time bootlegger into "Machine Gun" Kelly, a big-time bank robber. Now, although bank robbing was a lucrative profession, it was also dangerous. So, on the 30th of November, 19 & 32, George, Albert Bates, and Eddie Doyle robbed the Tupelo Savings Bank of $38,000 in Tupelo, Mississippi. Now, George Kelly and Albert Bates had already decided to go into a more profitable business - kidnapping. Now, their first couple attempts did not work out too well; they kept kidnapping people that didn't have enough money to pay them, and they had to let them go. But, on July the 22nd, 19 & 33, Katherine got her stated wish: the kidnapping of Charles Urschel, a wealthy Oklahoma City oil man, propelled "Machine Gun" Kelly to the top of the FBI's most-wanted list. George and his bank-robbing partner, Albert Bates, rushed into the Urschel Oklahoma City mansion wielding a machine gun and pistols. They found Urschel and his wife playing bridge with their friends, Walter Jarrett and his wife. Now, the kidnappers couldn't figure out which one was Charles Urschel, so they took both men! However, by the time that the kidnappers reached the south side of Oklahoma City, they had finally figured it out, so they let Walter Jarrett go. They blindfolded Urschel and drove. . .to Paradise, Texas, where Katherine's mother, Ora, and her husband, Robert "Boss" Shannon, had a farmhouse. Now, this is it. They held Charles Urschel in the little extended room that you see there on the back. After one week, they had received the largest payoff ever - $200,000; and, true to form for George "Machine Gun" Kelly, his prisoner was released unharmed. Unfortunately for the kidnappers, Urschel was extremely helpful to the FBI in locating the Shannon farm, so, soon, Boss Shannon, Ora, and others were arrested and tried and sentenced to life in prison. Now, Katherine and George was still on the run for the next two months; however, when law enforcement learned that the Kellys might be staying in Memphis, staying at a friend's house, John Titchenor's, at 1408 Rainier St. In the early morning hours of 26 September, 1933, FBI agents and Memphis police stormed this house. With Memphis police in the lead - as it was at that time, FBI agents were not allowed to carry weapons. Now, there are different stories as to what happened next. John Tichenor stated that Kelly had stepped out to get the morning newspaper and forgot to lock the front door back. He had gone to the bathroom, and was in the bathroom when the raid took place. Another story was that Kelly come to the front door with a gun in his hand, and the Police commander stuck a shotgun in his belly, and he dropped his pistol and said, "Don't shoot, G-Men!" One story was that Katherine was passed out and Kelly was half asleep from the night's drinking. Now, this is George Kelly being taken from the Shelby County jail in Memphis on his way to trial in Oklahoma City. In trial, Katherine - and everyone else, too - tried to convince the court that George first forced her into a life of crime, and that she knew nothing whatsoever about the Urschel kidnapping and certainly did not write the kidnap and ransom note! George and Katherine were both sentenced to life in prison. Now, she loved the notoriety, and. . . she really expected that her looks and charm. . . to be - to win the day. But after two hours, they were found guilty. Now, George "Machine Gun" Kelly spent the rest of his life in Federal Prison - as a model prisoner, and in 19 & 51, he was transferred from Alcatraz, where he had been for the last 17 years, back to Fort Leavenworth; and, on his birthday, on the 18th of July, 19 & 54, George "Machine Gun" Kelly died of a massive heart attack. Now, here's a newspaper account of his body being taken off the train in Paradise, Texas; and this is Robert "Boss" Shannon at Kelly's funeral. It's believed that he actually paid for Kelly's. . . for his funeral. Now Kelly is buried at the Cottondale Cemetery near Paradise, in Cottondale, Texas. Now, his stepdaddy-in-law, Robert "Boss," had received an early pardon for his Democratic connections, thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt; and Katherine, and her mother Ora were released in June of 1958, four years after George's death. Katherine was 54 years old when she was released. Now, it's been said that Katherine was convicted mostly on the evidence provided by a hand-writin' analysis expert hired by the U.S.District Attorney in Oklahoma, testifyin' she had written the ransom note, and Katherine was not allowed to hire her own expert; but after several years in prison and hiring a new attorney, it was discovered that the FBI and U.S. District Office in Oklahoma had suppressed evidence in Katherine's case. Four days, they said, before the Kellys were apprehended in Memphis, the FBI was trying to decide who-all was involved in the kidnapping, so they had their FBI handwriting analysis expert to look at the ransom note, and he reported that Katherine did not write the note; and that's one of the reasons she and her mother were let out. Now, after Katherine and Aura's release, Katherine took a bookkeeping job in an Oklahoma City hospital in order to stay close to her mother; and, after her mother's death, they say that Katherine become a recluse - and she died in 1985, at the age of 81.
