Today’s video is sponsored by Rise of Kingdoms,
an epic strategy game where you choose one of eleven historic kingdoms to take from a
lone clan to a powerful civilization. Each has their own architectural style, powerful
units, and legendary commanders like Sun Tzu and Julius Caesar! I’ve chosen Genghis Khan and by strategically
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and sweep across Europe again, conquering vast lands one by one like Genghis Khan himself,
a ruthless figure well-known for his power, militar y tactics, and brutality.. Now there’s a guy even Machine Gun Kelly
would be scared to mess with. Join over fifty million players and get details
on their upcoming giveaway by checking out the link in the description! September 26, 1933. It ain’t even dawn yet when Kathryn pokes
me. I groan and roll over; I’m sleeping off
a bottle of gin. “Someone’s in the house,” she whispers. I listen. There’s a faint noise from the hallway. I suddenly remember that I didn’t lock the
door when I brought the newspaper in. I untangle myself from the blankets and motion
for her to stay put. I’ve just gotten out of bed and picked up
a pistol when the bedroom door flies open. A police raid. How do you rob a bank? It ain’t just sticking a gun in the teller’s
face. You gotta have some panache. Saunter in, dressed real smooth. Wait until any old ladies leave the building. Maybe tip your hat at a pretty dame. Then nice as you please, pull out your convincer
and inform the clerk that it’s a stick up. Me? I have a special holster for my Tommy gun,
so I can draw it with style. I always chuckle at the panic on the clerks’
faces. I’m in charge, I have complete power over
them and I’m gonna take their moolah. Ma, God rest her soul would be so disappointed
to see me robbing banks. She wanted me to go to school, maybe become
an insurance agent like Pop or some other respectable job. For kicks I used to shoplift and run liquor
for bootleggers. But because of Ma after high school I got
on the straight and narrow and went to Mississippi A&M College to study agriculture. Dropped out after 4 months. Books just weren't for me. From the start, Pop and I didn’t get on
much. I never minded him. Me leaving school was the last straw. Pop turned his back on me, then Ma died. Never again did I set foot back in my Memphis
childhood home. By then some coppers were sniffing around
on account of my old activities. I dropped the Barnes from my name and became
George Kelly to beat the heat. And also to keep my family out of it. I couldn’t do anything right in Pop’s
eyes, but I could change my name. The only good thing to come out of my college
days was meeting Miss Geneva Ramsey. And she soon became Mrs. Kelly. We eloped and had two boys. I really did try to stay on the straight and
narrow--I worked as a commissary clerk, drove a taxi, farmed goats, but there never seemed
to be enough money to keep us afloat. I slipped back into a little petty theft and
bootlegging on the side, all for the good of the family of course, but Geneva didn’t
like that. She left - and took my sons with her. That’s when I fell into bootlegging full-time. My poor old heart was aching and you gotta
fill your life up with something. For me it was gin, girls, and guns. I lived it up. I had run-ins with the coppers here and there. Caught some fines, and once I got a few months
vacation at the state pen in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Hazards of the job. When they caught me selling booze on an Indian
reservation near Tulsa they finally were able to make it stick. In 1928, I was sentenced to 3 years at Leavenworth. After that, I promised myself that the law
would never lock me up again. The police shine their flashlights in our
eyes and point shotguns at us. Kathryn bolts up in bed and screams. I’m outnumbered. I put down the postol. ‘Don’t shoot G-men!,” I say, as I raise
my hands. It’s over. As much as I hated Leavenworth, I learned
a lot of tricks there. I made several acquaintances - mobsters, bank
robbers, bootleggers, trigger men, cardsharks. Not long after I got out, I met Kathryn. I was at a speakeasy and there was this glamorous
girl. She was running around with some local big
shot. From the start, I aimed to take her away from
him. I had a good way about me where I could talk
round people, especially girls. Soon we were married - I was her fourth husband. Many people said she did in her third. Now I ain't sayin she killed her husband,
but I ain't sayin she didn't kill him either. If a man’s fool enough to let a pair of
gams get one over on him, well then he got what was coming to him. Kathryn was the one who gave me my first machine
gun, a .45-caliber Thompson. There’s rumors that I never handled a gun
before that, that Kathryn made my reputation, but nobody made me, but me. I’d been shooting since I could walk. Even as a boy, I could knock a dime off a
dead man's eye at 20 paces. The recoil of the machine gun did take some
getting used to though. Kathryn and I stayed at her ma’s place for
a while, the Shannon Ranch near Paradise, Texas. We spent a lot of time roaming the fields
and I practiced shooting nearly every day, blasting walnuts and tin cans off fence posts. I ain’t bragging when I tell you I got so
good that I could write my name in bullet holes. Then I hooked up a couple of pals I met in
prison for some stick-ups. In less than two years, I did 6 bank robberies
and a few other jobs. I did stick ups from Texas to Minnesota, and
back again, shooting my name into walls and signs. Sometimes Kathryn came along, but she wasn’t
much use during a robbery. But boy could she could spin the tale over
drinks afterwards. It was a good time, we were living high on
the hog. The coppers search each room in the house. Kathryn is caterwauling, making up lies, telling
them that I threatened to kill her, that I made her come with me. The police haul her off to the bathroom to
let her get dressed. I convince them to let me put on some clothes
too. Two feds in overcoats stand guard, aiming
their shotguns at me while I get into my pants. I reach for my nice coat, but a copper snatches
it out of my hands. In fact, they’re packing up all our stuff,
taking Kathryn’s furs, fancy dresses and the pearls I bought her. I ask what they are arresting me for? A copper punches me in the mouth. “Charles Urschel ring a bell?” he says. I taste blood. “Oh yeah, that.” I spent days plotting with my partner Albert,
along with Kathryn, on how to kidnap the millionaire oilman Charles Urschel. I wasn’t gonna screw this up like last time. About a year and a half before, my pal Eddie
and me tried this scheme on a South Bend Indiana banker named Howard Woolverton. One night we forced his car off the road and
kidnapped him and his wife. Later we released Mrs. Woolverton with a ransom
note, demanding $50,000. We took Howard’s glasses, blindfolded him,
and for the next 2 days drove him around northern Indiana. He kept pleading with us, telling us that
he didn’t have the money. And after a while we got to believing him. We let him go on the outskirts of Michigan
City, when he promised to raise the money and pay. We never got a single dime, not even when
we threatened him over the phone afterwards. I went back to robbing banks for a while. But things got hot, and a couple buddies of
mine got gunned down. One of the hazards of the job, I guess, but
I still decided to give kidnapping another shot. This time Kathryn and I hooked up with my
old bank robbing partner Albert Bates. On the night of July 22, 1933, guns drawn,
Albert and I paid a visit to the Urschel mansion at 327 N.W. 18th Street in Oklahoma City. The Urschels were playing bridge with another
couple on their porch. The ladies started to scream. I pointed my gun at them and threatened to
blow their heads off if they didn’t shut up. That’s when we realized we didn’t know
which man was Charles and wouldn’t you know it? The men wouldn’t tell us. So we snatched the both of them and drove
a few miles outside of town. We pulled over and made them give us their
wallets. Bingo! We took $50 dollars from Walter Jarret’s
wallet, before letting him go. We blindfolded Charles and took him to Shannon
Ranch where we kept him handcuffed to a chair. Meanwhile we sent letters to his wife and
some of his friends demanding $200,000 in $20 bills in exchange for Charles’ safe
return. Our plan worked, per our instructions the
ransom was packed in a leather bag and handed over to one of our friends near the LaSalle
Hotel in Kansas City. 9 days after we had kidnapped him, we drove
Charles to a barbecue stand near Norman, Oklahoma and released him. After that, we returned to the ranch, divied
up the ransom money and split. I guess Mrs. Urschel called some newfangled
national kidnap hotline and was able to get in touch with none other than the head of
the FBI himself, J. Edgar Hoover! Apparently the Feds had been the ones who
managed the response to our ransom. They had marked the money and noted serial
numbers before it was delivered. Within a few days, three pals of mine who
helped with the kidnapping got caught in St. Paul, Minnesota when they tried to use the
marked twenties. When Charles made it home he was interviewed
by FBI special agents. We didn’t treat him badly at the ranch and
he had kept his wits about him the whole time. He couldn’t see, but by God could Charles
listen and remember. Somehow, based on the noises he heard, the
feds were able to figure out he was kept at the Shannon Ranch. They went there looking for me and Albert
there but we were long gone by the time they got there The feds arrested Kathryn’s Ma
and stepdad though. Our plan had been to go somewhere nice--Cuba…
maybe out to California… or even down to Mexico. I wanted to see Kathryn dip her pretty toes
in the Gulf. But that required a lot of money. We now knew the ransom money was hot, so we
buried most of our share - over $70,000 - in Texas at a ranch owned by one of Kathryn’s
uncles. Hoover wanted media attention for the newly
formed FBI so he decided to make an example of us and started a nationwide manhunt. We traveled to Cleveland, then Detroit, then
Chicago. I sent Charles Urschel a threatening letter
telling him to get the feds to back off. It wasn’t fair that the Feds were keeping
Kathryn’s family locked up in an attempt to lean on us. We went to Davenport, Des Moines, then back
to Chicago. We wore disguises, sometimes Kathryn wore
a red wig. I dyed my hair red and then later bleached
it. We also traded cars along the way. Everyday on the radio there were reports about
me being a menace and a murderer. A public enemy. I had never killed anyone in my life! All because I liked to carry around that machine
gun. Anything to turn the public in the police's
favor. We ended up in Memphis at the home of my old
buddy John. I was drinking heavily and fought a lot with
Kathryn, it was stressful knowing that any minute the whole thing might come down on
us. The Fed even found our buried share of the
ransom money. It’s getting light when the coppers lead
me out of the house, my hands cuffed behind my back. My poor Caddy sits lopsided in the driveway. Coppers let the air out of my tires. The street is blocked with police cars. They sent a whole army just to capture two
people. Some confused neighbors have come out to see
what the ruckus is about. “I’m Machine Kelly,” I say and then
a copper pushes my head so I can duck down and get into the model B. Don’t forget, civilization is calling you
to battle, immortalize your journey! Download Rise of Kingdoms and get details
on their upcoming giveaway at the link in the description!
