America's First Great Bank Robber: George Leonidas Leslie

When people speak of the first American bank robber, typically, they think of Jesse James. While he may have been the first world famous bandit and bank robber, he was not the most prolific. That was a man named George Leonidas Leslie, the first truly great American bank robber. He was an underground figure, an outlaw folk hero who made his living robbing the original robber barons. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
And Elizabeth Dutch.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
How do you do?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
How do you do?

Speaker 3 (00:08):
How do you do?

Speaker 4 (00:09):
So?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm good, You're good. Yeah, you I'm pretty fa feeling
pretty good.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I do have a question for you, though, since you're
feeling so good, do you know it's ridiculous?

Speaker 5 (00:17):
I do?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Really, I'm not sure why this story has been bubbling
up now. It happened in twenty sixteen, and the reporting
is from twenty twenty. But you know, perhaps we were
a little bit well it's February twenty twenty, so it's
like we didn't know it was about to happen. Really
kind of sure anyway, No, but I'm just saying, like
you think about the world then, we were, we were

(00:39):
such an innocent group of people anyhow. Okay, So twenty sixteen,
December twenty sixteen, this lady she meets this guy on
a dating app. I'm not sure which one. I don't
want to besmirch. Sure, why not a dating app? Anyway,
they meet up and they, oh, let's go on a date. Okay, great,

(01:01):
and so she goes to pick him up at his parents'
house in Rhode Island and then they drove thirty minutes
east towards Massachusetts. They crossed state lines and she's like,
I'm not really sure about this guy. Like there's some
red flags popping up. He pulled out a bottle of
wine while she was driving because she picked him up,

(01:22):
and he's just chug a lugging and she's like, oh,
that's not really legal. Let's not do that. He's like, okay, well,
hold on, I got a stopping and at the bank
and get some money. So she he's like, wait right here.
So she pulls into the lot. He gets out. She's waiting.
Suddenly he comes running back, jumps in the car. He's
wearing like he's totally sweating. He's wearing sunglasses, hat, he

(01:44):
has a gun in his hands.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Got a wig on.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
He robbed the bank for one thousand dollars cash and
he gets in the car and he goes go like's oh,
and she's like she panics, Right, Well, what had happened
is he go he went into the to the bank,
He showed the teller of the gun. He demanded a
thousand dollars and he's like, I'm really hurting, man, I
really need the money. So they give it to him.
They're driving off and the cops you know, are called,

(02:08):
and they follow the car and she pulls overuse She's like, okay,
I can't even do this. He tries to hide. It's
a Nissan Maxima. He tries to hide. Why now, what's
her car?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Donh Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Anyway, So then the cops have to pull him from
the car. He spits on him. He gets into this
violent struggle. So they find a forty four caliber handgun
that was an antique that belonged to the dude's stepfather.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
And then they find the hat and the sunglasses, and
then the thousand dollars is in his wallet, so like
he robs the bank, shoves the money in his wallet
and leaves, which is incredible. So anyway, this was a
first date from hell oh right.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I think they shared this on our It's blue Sky account.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
And on Instagram. It's popped up suddenly online and like
I said, I'm not sure why it's from twenty sixteen.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Maybe it's because of the Louver heist people, because apparently
they're like a couple. Oh really, that's what I've I don't.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Know, we're going to get into that on the news.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I'm looking at all the details.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yeah. So anyways, so she gets off like she obviously
is not charged with anything, and then he got sentenced
to like four years or something like that. Maybe that's
why he got out. Well he got out in twenty twenty.
I don't know why we're hearing about it now, but
you're right, Louve No I blame the French.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I'm probably not right. I'm just going out on the
limb either way.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
First date from Hell, I like that. Why you stay
off dating apps?

Speaker 2 (03:30):
That is nuts? Just go yeah, I love that. So
many red flags.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
And sir language.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Then it was red lights of the police car. Yeah
that is good. Well I've got one for you. Yeah,
if you got a second, yes please? Okay. Now, imagine
Elizabeth being a more prolific bank robber than Jesse James.
I can't imagine, and not now like in the nineteenth
century his contemporary.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
I really can't imagine that because I was only like four.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, I know, you were very young. I thought maybe
I might be at the edges of your memory. But
either way, these days, no one remembers this dude's name.
I don't right now. This is the fate of George Leslie. Yeah,
George Leonidas Leslie. Use this architect from the Midwest turned
New York City bank robbery and Elizabeth, like I said,
prolific huh yeah. For instance, the New York Police Department

(04:19):
they estimated the between eighteen sixty nine and eighteen seventy eight,
George Leslie's bank crew committed eighty percent of the bank
robberies that occurred not in New York City but in
the United States.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Wait stop, eighty percent in the whole us of a yes.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Wild like for a decade he did eighty percent of
the bank robberies or his crew. Wow, so you know
take that, Jesse James. Anyway, this story is what I
want to tell you today because it's the strange but
true tale of George Leslie.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
I want you to tell me the story.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heists and cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Some would call it nutrageous.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Some would Elizabeth. Before we begin, I feel it's important
to kind of set and temper your expectations. I know
sometimes you can worry from time to time, sometimes so
let me just say upfront, in all of George Leslie's robberies,
not a single trigger gets pulled, no guns fired, no
dynamite gets exploded, no weaponry is used against innocent customers
or bank employees. Basically, not a single person ever gets

(05:47):
hurt or injured in the story I'm about to tell.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
You, I already love it.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I thought you would. This one's just pure fun. It's
like an all whipped cream dessert of crime. Now, okay,
now that that's clear, let's dive into a little history
and scene set. Like an April of eighteen sixty five,
the Civil War in the United States.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Ends, Yeah, April sixty five.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right, it comes to its bloody clothes with the defeat
of the Confederacy. Now, I know you know all that,
that's not the scene setting. Why I bring that up
is that at the end of the Civil War comes
this explosion in crime, and specifically the birth of bank robberies. Really, yeah, Elizabeth,
did you know that before the Civil War bank robberies
were basically not a thing that ever happened. That's not

(06:26):
to say they didn't happen. They did, they were just
super super rare, interesting Like in seventeen ninety eight, had
these two men, Isaac Davis and Thomas Cunningham, committed what
is known as the first bank robbery in US history
seventeen ninety eight. Someday I need to tell you that story.
It's a good one, but I need to clarify that technically,
that first bank robbery in US history was more of

(06:47):
a bank heist since there was no confrontation, no armed persuasion,
no violence, no force applied. Right, they just kind of
go in and steal some stuff. But it's more of
a heist.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Why do you think it is that after the Civil
War popped off?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Oh well, we'll get into I'll tell you a second.
I got answers, but first I wanted to clarify when
the first one was yeah, and then was considered the
actual first true bank robbery happened in the US in
eighteen thirty one, which, as a reminder, thirty years before
the Civil Wars, bloodshed blossoms into full bloody bloom. Now,
bank robberies definitely happened before the Civil War. We've established that,

(07:22):
but again, super rare. Anyway, that first official bank robbery
back in eighteen thirty one, it was a two man crew.
They robbed the bank. Their historic robbery went down in
America's financial capital aka New York City, the Big Apple. Now,
it was March of eighteen thirty one when James Honeyman
and William J. Murray used a set of homemade keys
to rob the City Bank of New York.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
As The Saturday Evening Post reported at the time, quote,
the keys, which had been made from wax impressions of
the door locks, enabled the men to let themselves into
the bank and lock the door behind themselves.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
I have such respect for people who can make homemade
keys for crime. I'd be like whittling and using get
one tooth wrong. It doesn't work, Yeah, and I would
I would not have the proper materials, so I wouldn't
even I would just kind of like sketch it from memory.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah. Well they used wax and use w Yeah. Really good. Yeah,
really good facsimile now, as a Saturday Evening Post also explains,
James Honeyman and William J. Murray emptied the vault in
several safe deposit boxes. By the morning, they had filled
several bags with two hundred and forty five thousand dollars
in banknotes and coins. That's a pretty damn good haul

(08:32):
for the first official bank robbery, because that same two
hundred and forty five thousand dollars in banknotes and coins
would be now worth nine million dollars. Dang twenty twenty
five dollars. Yeah, so they walk out with it essentially
nine point one million, and the bank robbers flee a
purple light of morning, with their stolen lootes secreted away
under like these large capes that they wore. Love it

(08:53):
is it still the fashion of the day to wear caves?
Y side note? Can you imagine if the large capes
were still fashionable.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well in certain circles as they are, Well, dude, masters.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I would be showing up to our recordings looking like
a teenage magician.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
What's stopping, is right?

Speaker 2 (09:06):
I'd be coming to the studio rocking on some stupid
big cape, silk lined on the outside, filled the team
on the outside.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
What's right?

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I can't find a good cape maker, right, I got
big dreams, Elizabeth. But you'd be like, hey, hello, Elizabeth,
Why yes, this is a new cape. Thank you for noticing.
So I have more capes in my closet than Batman
Like I would go off?

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Is what I'm saying a good cape. Every gentleman needs
a good cape, right.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
But also with the high collar too, about the whole thing,
like the early nineteenth century, Like I'm Beethoven's buddy. Okay,
let's do it anyway. That's that. It was the first
successful bank robbery in the US eighteen thirty one. Then
along comes the Civil Wars we've discussed, and suddenly bank
robberies are to pop off. So, as you said, what changed, Yeah,
what happened in the Civil War that led to our
modern era of bankrupt me.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
And I have theories, but i'd like to hear.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, well, lucky for you, I have answers. Nice. You see,
it comes down to roughly three factors. For one, there
was the nature of money at the time. As we've
just got some previous episodes, around the time of the
Civil War, banks printed their own money. That led to
this crazy rash of counterfeit money. And I'm talking like
a lot, a lot like in Abraham Lincoln's time as president.

(10:11):
It's estimated that one third of the money in circulation
in the US was counterfeit. Really one third. Wow, every
third dollar's fake. Now with so much funny money floating
around that's why Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service. Okay,
its originally the Secret Services aim, as you know, was
to protect president. I mean it was not to protect presidents,
but rather to catch counterfeiters.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Now, if you were wondering, the first paper money issued
by the US government comes about in eighteen sixty one.
Before that was all coins. This was due to a
need for currency during the Civil War, and the federal
note because people were hoarding money, so they even create
more money for the supply. These federal notes they get
printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Right, they
were mostly in charge of making postage stamps, and then

(10:53):
they all a sudden they get into paper money. They're like, yeah,
that's paper two. Now they were called back then demand notes,
since a person could go in and demand hard currency
from the US Treasury against these paper notes. And by
hard currency, I mean silver coins, gold coins, right, not
what there's a paper money is called fiat currency because
it's backed on by a promise. Essentially. Now, back then,

(11:14):
government officials they had to hand cut these bills with
paper cutters and then pull out the scissors to trim
them down. They were like hand making the dollar bill.
I love that. So these bills, also, by the way,
were huge. They were very very big, much bigger than
the modern wallet would hold. It wasn't till nineteen twenty
nine that's when we get the dollars that are printed
and size the way we think of them now.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Right.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Anyway, back to this idea of banks printing their own money.
We tend to think of banks as large institutions with
billions of dollars and trusted to their care. But that
all comes later. Back during the Civil War in the
years just after it, most banks were small. They served
their local population. Yeah, and as they said, they printed
their own money, which was backed by the hard currency.
So if you took a banknote a few counties away,

(11:57):
just a few counties away, let alone to like a
whole New state, some person or a business where you
tried to spend the money, they wouldn't know that bank,
and thus they would be like, I don't know if
I can trust this. The money is essentially no good.
Another way to think of it is early banknotes were
essentially a check written by a bank. Yeah, So folks
who didn't know that that bank, they wouldn't know if
this bank was good for the check. They're like, what's

(12:19):
this based on? So they're like, it's basically glorified ioeu. Yeah,
so you have to add in on also the other
factor travel because up before the Civil War, in their lifetime,
most folks didn't stray far from home. Where they were
born was where they were gonna die. And basically getting
around the US it wasn't easy. Either you had to
put your butt on horseback and hop around or seated

(12:39):
in a horse drawn carriage getting drug around, or riding
a river boat up the canals and river weys, or
take a sea going ship, you know, like like the
gold miners did right eighteen forty nine, they're like going
around South America to get to California.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
So it wasn't until trains began to stitch the far
flung places together that we see Americans be able to
see America. Right. So this is why at this point stage,
coach robberies are the thing to do for desperadoes because
they have what gold coins, silver coins, they got real money,
so you go in there and go give me the
lock box, yeah right, or later on it was trains
and because both of them they carried payrolls for working

(13:15):
folks like miners and lumberjacks and the folks building their
train tracks. So they had real money. If you robbed
the stage coach, you can get this hard currency. If
you go into a bank, you're getting paper money that
isn't good for a half a day's ride. Sure, right.
So Also, like if you think of like train robberies,
think like Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid. You
know where they go in and they like blow up
the safe to get the money. Yeah, that was what

(13:37):
most desperadoes were doing back in the day. Okay, so
back to early bank robberies. What changes to go from
stage coaches and train robberies to banks themselves?

Speaker 3 (13:45):
What changes?

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Well, Elizabeth, the first real bank robbers were the James
Younger gang. Oh I'd of that right, aka the brothers
Frank and Jesse James and then their confederates Cole Younger
and his brothers Bob, Jim and John Younger.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Now I use that word confederate on purpose because it
works both ways. Since they weren't just buddies in Confederates.
They were also members of the Confederacy and they learned
their crime skills from the Confederacy fighting for the Confederacy,
the Gang James Younger Gang. They were Confederate soldiers who
rode with Quantraill's Raiders. Now you don't watch as many

(14:21):
Westerns as I do. You know who Quantrell's Raiders are.
So William Quantrell he led this band of Confederate guerrilla fighters.
They were known as bushwhackers, which is actually where we
get the term bushwhacker. So they were famous for these
clandestine tactics surprise and ambush. Quantrell's raiders would ambush Union
supply lines. They terrify Union scouts and patrols, you get

(14:43):
the idea. They also would steal the union mail, so
they become robbers by default, and then they would also
eventually get into robbing banks when they would raid towns
on the Kansas Missouri border. So quantrill Raiders were these
veterans of guerrilla raids, right, Jesse, James and Frank and
the younger boys. They're all going along and these guys
they're riding speedy horses. They got high powered, accurate gun

(15:05):
play because they're trying to get away in gunfights, and
they would disappear into the brush quickly as they come.
These same skills become super handy for bank robberies when
you're trying to avoid a posse.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Anyway, So after Quantrelle gets killed in battle, the James
and Younger brothers they form a new raiding party. But
then the problem for them is the Civil War is over,
so they go, you know what is not over? Not
if we say it's not over. So they form this
counter insurgency and they refuse to believe that the war
is lost, so they to fund their counterinsurgency, they start
raiding banks. They start raiding stagecoaches, trains, they rob anything

(15:38):
they can, but especially banks. This leads to the first
wave of armed bank robberies. Yeah, they're the ones who
makes it popular because they get nationwide coverage. Everybody is
blown away, right, So the James Younger Gang where the
first ever bank robbers. They set the mold for what
Americans thought of as bank robbers. Yeah, got it. Yeah,
So once Jesse James Gang planted that seed of any

(16:00):
idea in the minds of their fellow Americans, armed bank
robberies become a thing from coast to coast. Everyone's like,
why didn't I ever think of this? Let's just go
in there and ask them. They've got the money. So, however,
the most prolific bank robber of the post Civil War
era wasn't some desperate, deluded former Confederate raider. He wasn't
a stagecoach bandit or a train robber. Instead, he's this

(16:23):
mild mannered, highly fashionable, cultivated young man from the Midwest.
He was an architect who relocates to New York City
and transforms himself into a criminal genius. This crimer who
was singularly responsible for, as I said, eighty percent of
the bank robberies in the US. His name George Leonidas Leslie.
There it is aka Western George.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Western George.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
That was one of his street names. You have to remember,
the Midwest was the West in New York back then.
So who was George Leslie. That's a great question, Elizabeth.
I'm so glad, I asked, after these messages, we'll meet
the man of the hour, George Leonidas Lesson. Oh he is, okay,

(17:20):
So where were we, right?

Speaker 3 (17:23):
George Leslie?

Speaker 2 (17:24):
George George, the most prolific bank robber of the post
Civil War era.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
It's like one day he wore wranglers to school and
everyone's like, look at Western George.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Check out Western George. He's got a middle named Leonidas.
You think they worked in there somehow. Note they're like, hey,
Western George, bring over Bluetooth Bob and come over here.
So what's dude's secret that made him way more of
a criminal badass than Jesse James and his gang.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
You tell me.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
I'm so glad you asked, Elizabeth. I'm here to tell you,
as I said, George Leslie the dudes from Ohio, from
the Cincinnati area, like I said, the Midwest. His father
was a local brewer like like brood Bey, right, and
he was very successful, wealthy, all right. So he raises
his son upright, he sends him off to attend college
at the University of Cincinnati. And this is where young

(18:09):
George studies architecture, and he's good at it. He wins
top honors in his class. A very talented young architect
man with a future that seems bright, promising. Right, you
get the idea, except for there's this little thing called
the Civil War that interrupts all that. It changes everything
for him, but not in the way you might expect. Okay,
you see, his father's wealth kept George Leslie out of

(18:31):
the war. Ah, you know, back then you could pay
money to have someone else take your son's place. So
his father paid three hundred dollars to keep his son
from the battlefield. These rich families, you know, they were
doing this often. And now this wasn't possible for thousands
of young men from Cincinnati who had gone off to
war to fight and die, and many returned home either wounded,

(18:53):
or they did not return home at all, or if
they did come home and they weren't wounded, maybe they
were psychologically maimed. When they returned, they and their family
start to look down on rich kids like George Leslie. Right,
he skirted the war. He's basically seen as like a
low life, like a deserter. Yeah right, So so many
folks knew that he had spent money to avoid the wars,

(19:15):
whether his father did that. He becomes this pariah in Cincinnati,
like nobody wants to hang out with him. He's facing scorn, ridicule, resentment,
even out right violence. People like beat him up in
bars if he showed his face, as if that wasn't enough.
First his mother and then secondly his father pass away,
so now he loses his family. He's an only child,
by the way, so just after he finished his college.

(19:35):
He's alone in the world, hated by his neighbors and
his former friends. The guy's his age, he's this like
pariah figure. So he's like, what am I going to do?
This sends him into a tail spin, and he decides,
you know what, I need to find a new place
to live. I need to get a lot of Cincinnati.
I need to find a new place to reinvent myself
as Western George. So he looked to the future and

(19:56):
he took his father's fortune, or what fortune's father had
left him, and he moves to New York City. Oh okay,
that's where he plans to begin his new life. He
tells his few friends in Cincinnati who still will talk
to him, He's gonna go out there and get some
of that quote easy money floating around New York City. Yeah, totally,
but he meant that literally, Elizabeth, Oh really, yes, Because
he's twenty seven years old at the time. The year

(20:16):
is eighteen sixty nine. When he decides to relocate to
New York City. He strides into that city, this young,
well educated, modestly wealthy man with good looks manners to match. Right,
he's able to swan into New York high society for
the word go. He enjoys all that the city has
to offer.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Really, they welcome him in the usually so insular.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh no, because he's this fun character. He's like the
Count of Money Cristo rolling into town. He's got money,
he's handsome, he's independently wealthy. He's interesting, he's got good marriage.
He's smart. You know, he's not borish exactly. So he
goes in. He starts to enjoy the theater. He attends
fancy operas, He makes appearances at art exhibitions. Everywhere that's
interesting you can find George. He gets Stone also is

(21:00):
a bibliophile who boasts this fine collection of rare first
edition books to smart people respect.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Him, love it.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
He's also consulted by other book lovers and collectors for
his learned opinion, like George, what do you think of this?

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Right?

Speaker 2 (21:12):
And so, George Leslie. He also begins to attend high
society balls and fancy Smanchi Gallas because they're trying to like,
you know, marry a mark. You need to meet my daughter.
Oh yeah, my cousin's going to be in town soon. Right.
So he's young, he's rich, he's loving life. It's like
this hip, independently wealthy Midwesterner waltzes into New York society
and he's got a cheat code for the city. People

(21:33):
are just like, who is this guy? But for George Leslie,
keep in mind, he's not working. He's so wealthy, he's
not getting a job. Yeah, so how is he making
his name if not as a well paid architect building
that first generation of tall buildings in New York. Yeah,
He's like, well, you know, I'm gonna get into a crime.
He doesn't tell anybody this, but that's his plan. So

(21:54):
he wants to get in on this whole bank robbery
game that he's been seeing in the newspapers. You know,
the Frank James Younger gang out there. They got this
whole thing where you rob a bank.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
That sounds fine.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
I want to try that. So once this young bon
vivant ingratiates himself in a New York society, he learns
where the fat cat New Yorkers keep their gold, their silver,
their jewelry, their cash and bonds and securities. What bank
do you bank with? He learns where all the money
is New York. Right, They all tell oh, he's got
to go down to City Bank of New York and
blah blah blah. So once he learns where they bank,

(22:26):
it becomes this shopping list for his crimes. Sure, remember
I said he's a trained architect. Well he puts all
those same skills to work as a bank robber. He
basically becomes the nineteenth century Danny Ocean. He's like Ocean's
eleven but with carriage, rides.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Right oceans exactly.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Since he's learned by the wealthy keep their money and
their jewels, he's like, I'm gonna rob those places. So
and being a trained architect, he's like, let me be
smart about this. So before he robs a bank, he
pulls the blueprints for the buildings, and if no blueprints
are available, he just draws up his own blueprints. Sure,
so he'd visit the bank in question, pretend to be
an interested depositor, and he's a rich swell so they're like, oh, sir,

(23:02):
you got to go see our security deposit boxes. So
then he gets a tour of the vault, and then
also he tours the whole bank. He takes mental notes.
Then he returns home, he gets out that blue paper
and starts drafting up a blueprint amazing. He blots out
all the key points of interest, namely entrances and exits,
obviously hallways where the bullpens of tellers and bank employees
are located the whole thing, and also obviously where the

(23:24):
vault is most important. But since he planned to work
under the cover of darkness, he'd also include any major
furniture statues like you know, sofas, whatever you might bump
into in the dark. So he's got it all. And
I remember how he said bit of an amateur bibliophile. Yeah,
well he was a reader and he was studious. So
he familiarizes himself with all the various popular bank vaults,

(23:46):
all the locking mechanisms, everything. Yale has just basically invented
locks that are now used for vaults, so this is
a new technology. So he's reading up all the technical
information he can find. He's got all the security medas
that are popular at the time in his head.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Now well, and he has cover because he can say,
I'm an architect totally, and that's why I'm ordering all
of these manuals and guides and such.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
You get it. So he becomes his expert in bank security.
Thus he has no need for like loud, dangerous dynamite
like the Frank James Jesse James would do right. He
avoids dynamiting bank vaults open because this is not a
good choice for a crowded New York City bank. It's
also good standard practice for a bank robber because as

(24:31):
the desperadoes out west were finding, it was hard to
know how much dynamite to use. So sometimes they would,
you know, try to blow up in a safer a vault,
and they'd use way too much and they'd blow up
the money inside. The other times there was another danger
they'd blow themselves up. So it was like a real
right exactly. So he was like, that's less of an ideal.

(24:51):
So meanwhile, studious George Leslie, he starts creating models of
the bank vaults he wants to practice on, like inside
his house. He makes fake bank vaults. It just builds
them up.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
I've I've seen that a couple of the stories that
we've told each other. Here He's like, have the model
to run through totally, it's super smart.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
You have the money, you've got the time, you got
the space. So he spends like a week or more
practicing how to get into the vault in the dark,
and he practices how to throw the tumblers of the
bank vault. Right, he's getting really good.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
He goes further than that, and he likes to have
you know, one of his crew on the inside to
kind of help smooth things over, so he would get
his man. A job at the bank usually has like
a security guard or the night watchman what they they
were called at the time, and possibly as a teller
or a bank porter that people are carrying all these
heavy loads of coins shit. So being a rich kid
bank Robert or you know, about to be, he likes

(25:42):
to also have fun with his crimes. So he called
his bank scores pudding. He's like, oh, this looks like
great pudding, right. He never want any overlooked detail to
spoil the.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Pudding, No, God forbid.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Once he's certain he can beat the vault, crack the safe,
and he knows the whole layout of the bank, then
he brings in a crew to practice at his home.
He's like, I want to show you guys something, and
so he has all these drawing schematics ready up on
the boards, ready to explain, like you go here, you
go here, you stand here. The night watchman will be
doing this, and then he's like, okay, now come into
my scale model. We're going to practice this. And he
would have the lights offered that gouts, you know, the

(26:17):
candles blown out, and then in pitch darkness he would
stand to the side and judge them and take notes
like Okay, actually, Bob, you need to be a little
bit faster at your footwork. And so afterwards he's giving
them the rundown about how they can all improve. This
guy is so out of his time. He's super smart.
New York banks do not see this coming. They used
to be like rough housing guys with guns and dynamite.
Along comes George Leslie. So for his first big job.

(26:40):
It goes down in eighteen sixty nine, which coincidentally was
the same year he first arrived in New York. Didn't
take him last time, got right to it, put his
foot right in it. He pulls his first bank job
at the Ocean National Bank Elizabeth. It was rich pudding,
Oh was it? Yes? According to the December twenty fourth,
nineteen twenty seven edition of The New Yorker, George Leslie
and his Crew Steel seven hundred and eighty six thousand,

(27:03):
eight hundred and seventy nine dollars from the Ocean National Bank.
Huge first score. And two well I know you like
to know this, God, yes please, and twenty twenty five dollars.
That would be eighteen point seven million dollars goe first
bank robbery, and he basically pockets damn near nineteen million dollars.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
That is some figgy pudding, right, So.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Clearly he's cut out for the crime game. He's like, oh,
I'm good at this.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
That's your first out of the gate.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, boom.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
He could stop. That's his one, his first in his last,
big score.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
He could be he could be done. He could go
over to Europe and just troodol around.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
The contra, right, That's what I would do.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
But he likes the action. So the very next year
that his now blooming criminal career almost comes to a
premature end because, like I said, he likes the action.
So he and another criminal were robbing a jewelry store
in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Luck wasn't with them that day. This
was a rough pudding. You know, perhaps he hadn't done
all this insane necessary prep for this job. Because they

(27:57):
get caught breaking in. The two men are promptly arrested. However,
like I said, he's a wealthy man. This saves him
from the fate that befalls his partner in crime. Did
you see, Philadelphia and New York polite society are intimately
and closely related in linked at this point in time,
So the fat Cats and Swells all know each other.
And so George Leslie is able to lean on his

(28:19):
connections in New York polite society to get bailed out.
His partner, just a run of the mill criminal, has
no such connections, so he gets sentenced to two years
in prison, while George Leslie basically just forfeits his bail,
hops the state lines and it's God's good problem. Just
lost some money. Basically, it's just like I was. Father
bought him a get out of war card.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
But it didn't damage his reputation in New York.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
No, He's like, oh, there's a misunderstanding. I was in
the jewelry store. They thought we were trying to break
down with this common criminal. They must have mistook me exactly,
you know. So from this point on he trains and
prepares his crew, but he says, I'm not going to
be with you for the job, so you guys have
to know this intimately backwards and forwards, and we're gonna
go over it and over it and over it till you

(29:03):
know it better than the back of your hand, to speak.
So he becomes a mastermind at this point.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
So he stays home, he works with the fences to
have a way to get them all paid once this
crew pulls off the successful bank job. Because, like I said,
smart guy, he knows what we always say, you need
to have the fence. You can't just steal diamonds and
try to sell them on the street. You're gonna get
somebody who can move that stuff. So he gets over
the fact he won't get the thrills of the job.
So now he just gets into enjoying the pudding. All right.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Well, in the logistics of it, totally, yeah, I said,
smart guy.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
He likes the challenge.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
So one of his first big bank jobs goes down
in eighteen seventy six. In January of eighteen seventy six,
George Leslie gets his mind fixed on enjoying a bowl
of pudding otherwise known as the Northampton National Bank in Northampton, Massachusetts.
For this job, he gives his crew a code name.
He calls him Rufous.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
You guys are all rufous something good.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Very nice. I couldn't do that now, like all this operations,
I shouldn't have, but I did. It's this well practiced,
elegant criminal operation, right. George Leslie has his crew aka Rufus,
arrive in town weeks before the planned robbery. He has
his crew surveiled the bank's employees, establish their daily routines,
the cashiers, the night watchmen, everybody. Then he also has

(30:22):
to clock the deputy sheriff, like what's his patrol? Like,
get it down where you know exactly where he's gonna
be at eleven, you know, at one am whatever. So
once he has them all clock and everybody, he uses
that info to come up with areas that they can
use as stash spots if they run into problems, and
that way they can come back to their money, you
get their stolen loot. And then they also come up
with hiding places for the actual guys, like you can

(30:44):
go and be here, nobody will be looking for you.
So they got hiding spots for the money and for
the criminals. And then if the coast is clear, they
can gather up their stolen loot and flee. But they're
all gotten gains. So he's got it down right. You know,
he's got the here's your exit scenario, here's your backup
exit scenario. Here's your plans. See you get the idea. Yeah,
but that's not all. George Leslie also has one of
his crew pose as a vault inspector sent out by

(31:07):
the company to check the safety of their equipment. Because remember,
he's an expert in this, so he knows all the
right language. So the guy goes out there. He cons
the bank manager into letting him take a wax imprint
of the vault.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Key stop it.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
That same guy also convinces the bank manager to entrust
the combination to the lock of the vault to just
one employee so that way will be safe.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
That's the worst bank manager.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
So they pick this bank cashier. The bank manager doesn't
know they pick a cashier. They're like, he needs to
know because he'll be here on Monday. Just tell him
and then he'll tell you. Yeah, so the plan is
working perfectly. They put it into motion. Now all that's
left to do is rob the bank. But rather than
me tell you about it, I'd like you to close
your eyes as a close and I'd like you to
picture it. It's just after four pm on a Monday afternoon.

(31:55):
The date is January twenty fifth, eighteen seventy six. You, Elizabeth,
are a bank cash on his way home. It was
an uneventful day and now you're enjoying a wintertime walk.
The town is covered in soft and gentle white. Your
boots crunch the freshly fallen snow. The eaves of homes
you pass are decorated with icicles. The cheeks of the

(32:15):
townsfolk you greet are all rosy from the cold, and
you cannot wait to get home to your wife and
enjoy a warm dinner with her. When you reach your home,
your wife has a hearty stew ready to gather you
to dine and discuss the goings on of the day.
After you eat, you spend the evening hours reading, and
since it's wintertime, you both retire early to bed, and

(32:35):
just after midnight you are awoken in bed by masks,
strange masks. It looks like, yes, it is men's underwear
with holes cut in the drawers for eye holes. That's
odd and in fact rather terrifying. But whatever could these
men want? You wonder as they tie you and your
wife and your five children up. They lead you all

(32:56):
into another room. You notice that when the men speak
to each other, they used numbers instead of names to
refer to each other. One of the underwear masked men
demands that you tell him the combination to the lock
of the bank vault. You resist at first, but then
you finally relent and tell them a string of numbers.
They ask you to repeat it. You try to remember
what you just said, but you can't. They know you're lying.

(33:19):
After they threaten you and your family with harm, you
tell them the actual combination to the vault. You think
that's only half of the security measures. They'll still need
the key to the vault. What you don't know is
they already have the key to the vault anyway. The
men stay at your home until four am, and then,
knowing that the night watchmen would be headed home, the

(33:39):
men all leave headed to the bank, only they take
you with them. You all march through that same snowy
winter wonderland and the quiet of the morning. What you
don't know is that a couple hours later, your ever
resourceful wife frees herself from being tied up and She
rushes out of your home and shouts you all to
hear they're taking my husband. They're rubbing the ban they're

(34:00):
at the bank. Please help my husband. At this point,
it's half past six on a Tuesday morning. Townsfolk are
out and about. They hear your wife's screams. The townsfolk
rush to the bank to stop the robbery in progress,
and when they arrive they find it's far too late.
The bank robbers are gone and so is the town's savings.

(34:21):
Oh god, George Leslie's crew aka rufus. These men with
their underwear masks, the men who went by numbers. They
get away with a huge score, Elizabeth, I'm talking a
big bowl of pudding. In total, it was one point
six million dollars in cash, gold, silver, stocks, bonds.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
You're kidding Those New.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
England townsfolk have been saving for day. Yeah, and if
you convert that to twenty twenty five dollars, this latest
bowl of pudding would be worth forty eight point four
million dollars today day hot damn right. Wow, that's a
huge haul. In fact, it was the record for a
robbery in the US up to that day by a

(35:04):
long shot. And again suck at Jesse James, you small
time punk. Of course, records are made to be broken,
which George Leslie and his crew did with their next bank.
But first, Elizabeth, let's take a break and after these messages,
we'll get back to the robin. Yel Elizabeth, you're ready

(35:43):
for more bank robbing and record setting. So, after that
Northampton job goes so well, George Leslie sets the sights
on his next bank job. It's one he's been planning
for three years. His latest pudding is the Manhattan Savings Institution,
located at the corner of Broadway in Bleaker Street. Okay, right,

(36:03):
so the year is eighteen seventy eight, and the story
goes after his record setting Northampton job, the Manhattan pudding
is supposed to be his last job to get out. Yeah,
you know it. So it's meant to be his crown jewel. Right,
this is like my crowning achievement. Look at this record setting, right,
biggest bank robbery score ever. He plans to rob the

(36:23):
fat cats of New York, the robber barons who are
making all the money in the second half of the
nineteenth century. He's like, I'm gonna take them those punks
so the bank's customers who keep security deposit boxes at
the Manhattan Savings Institution. They have names like John D. Rockefeller,
Andrew Carnegie, for Nelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Fucking the o

(36:44):
j Robber Barns. So like, if he can pull this
one off, George Leslie believes it'll forever seal his name
in the underworld as the king of all bank robbers. Sure, so,
after this job, he plans to leave New York for good.
He'll head out west, grow old with the country, and
his wife had already decamped to Philadelphia, so she's out
of the area. That way he can focus on his

(37:05):
last and greatest job. Okay, also on his mistress, but
we'll get into that later. Oh dear, yes boy, well
if we call that prefacing. And sure now the fateful
day for his last great bank robbery except for October
twenty seventh, eighteen seventy eight. His crew is led by
a man named Shang Draper. Okay, the full crew is
Shang Draper, Red Leary Wooster, Sam Paris, the two Jimmies

(37:30):
Jimmy Hope and Jimmy Brady, as well as Abe Cochley,
Johnny Dobbs, and finally, Banjo Pete Emerson.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
Ban Joe Pete. That also kind of sounds like an
old timey baseball lineup.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Doesn't it. I was just about to say, like, if
I was an old timey crimer, I would so want
a fun name like that, like.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Ban Joe Pete. What would your name be?

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Pirate Jack McDuff, I thought about it. It's based on
the jazz man brother Jack McDuff. Right, I thought that was.
I'm like, I'll be Pirate Jack McDuff because hes already
taken brother Jack mcduf.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
I like it.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
What about you? What would your old time.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Thought of it? I don't know. I think I'd be
like Cinnamon Sally.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
I like that spicy, Yeah, exactly. So. At this point,
George Leslie has done his usual thorough preparations. He's created
a blueprint of the building. He's cased the place. He
knows all the ins and outs, he knows the brand
and the model of the vault save. He knows everything.
But uncharacteristically, he considers using a small dynamite charge to
blow open the vault, but eventually he rules that out

(38:30):
since the noise of the blast might actually catch the
airs of the employees, but also the guests at the
hotel next door to the bank, because this is a
really nice part of downtown Manhattan. So there's this place
called the Saint Charles Hotel and they've got swells there
and they got nothing to do. They're working, so they'll
be home. So not to mention. The blast might also
arouse the suspicions of the janitor of the bank, one

(38:51):
mister Lewis Wirkle, who lives in the basement of the bank.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Oh, you're kidding, along with his family, Elizabeth, Oh you're kidding.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Those are the live work conditions of someone in eighteen
seventy eight. The janitor who's got a steady job at
the bank, Yeah, still has to live in the basement
of the same bank with his family.

Speaker 5 (39:09):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Anyway, George Leslie decides, we don't want to disturb poor
mister Lewis Wirkle and his family at the basement with
some dynamite, so instead he opts to drill a hole
in the safe and then hide the hole with putty.
He's gotten really good at doing this, but now to
do this to be able to drill the hole and
then hide to a putty, Yeah, he leans on his
position in the New York City High Society. He arranges

(39:31):
a job at the bank for one of his crew,
Patrick Shevlin, by talking to the bank's president. He's like, oh,
I've got somebody'd be perfect for you. Sure, So he
and his crew now chill and they wait until they're inside.
Man Patrick Shevlin becomes a trusted employee, and so after
six months pass, George Leslie goes to the bank after
hours one day and he meets the night watchman, one
Patrick Shevlin, who lets him into the bank. He's like

(39:54):
just a come morning right in, sir, and Patrick Shevlin
then watches the bank from the front door while George
Leslie gets to work. He drills right into the vault safe.
He checks the tumblers, he sets the lock so he
knows the positions of the tumblers that will unlock the vault.
Then he putties over the hole. So now he's basically
got the vault safe to be like a push button operation.

(40:15):
And when he's done, the night watchman just lets him
on back out. He's like planned robbery now all set.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
Here, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
But George Leslie makes one tiny mistake. He forgets to
re randomize the tumblers, or even better, to set them
back to where they were than day before, since he
forgets to return the tumblrs to how he had found them.
The next business day, the bank employees try to open it.
They can't open the safe. He has messed up the
safe's internal mechanisms. So they contact the manufacturer and have

(40:43):
a whole new lock plate sent out and installed. So
when George Leslie comes back on his final rounds of recon,
he's like, wait a minute, that's a new lock plate.
I didn't do that.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Oh no.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
So he's like, well, I guess we're gonna have to
smash her way in. So by this point he's changed
up his crew. He's been debating working with a new
because he's not sure about these guys, but he's like,
that's too much of a hass. I'm gonna go back
to the guys I know. So he has Shang Draper
and some of his og crew, the two Jimmies and
Abe Cokeley and Banjo Pete Emerson.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
They're Banjo Pete, are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (41:12):
He can humbu tune to keep all the spirits high.
So they're joined by a new guy, some muscle guy
called Bill Kelly. Okay, good irishman. Right, And at six
o'clock on this fateful Sunday morning, October twenty seventh, eighteen
seventy eight, George Leslie's crew all of them wearing masks.
I don't know if they were underwear mask. It's kind
of fun.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Ladies underwear this time O silky like bloomers.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Oh right, yeah, we got the ruffles on the edges.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
So whatever they're wearing, they sneak into the Manhattan Bank
and now they've bribed a beat cop to stay away.
So the guy who's walking the beat, he's just like,
I'm gonna walk over here and go get myself some
penny candy. Yeah, so he does as the money tells him.
He goes to get themself some penny candy or whatever.
The crew really now only has to worry about the
night watchman, who they don't because he's one of their crew. Sure,

(41:58):
so that's out. This leaves only the janitor, mister Lewis
and his family living in the basement of the bank
as the only chance that they could run into some
pain in the neck and bystander.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
So when they hit the bank. The crew goes there first,
they go right down to the basement apartment and like
it's like the crack of dawn on an autumn morning,
the janitor gets woken up by this masked crew. Same
as like what happened to you?

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah, the heart is horrible for me and my family.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
I bet it was traumatizing.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
My wife was really especially with.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
The stained underwear on their faces.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah, the skid marks my kids. My kids were trying
to like emulate it.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah, you guys didn't even have a term Hershey Highway
yet because it was before Hershey. Exactly what is this?
So the hard man they tie him up, his wife up.
They also tie up his wife's mother, his mother in law,
so they're all bounding gag together. The muscle Kelly, he
stays in this basement apartment to keep an eye on him,
you know, keep him from acting a fool. Sure, the
rest of the crew they head up to the bank vault.
They start working to open it, and they're using, like

(42:56):
I said, brute force, so think like sledgehammers, chiselsry bars.
I was gonna say that that it takes them three
full hours, and as you've said in the past, you
need a thermal lance and a powerful jet, yes, but
those don't exist. No, So they have to use the
pry bars, the sledgehammers, and just straight sweat of the brown.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Muscle exactly, good old fashioned muscle.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
They finally, after three hours, they managed to muscle their
way into the vault.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Then they start to have to pry open the few
security deposit boxes right right, right, so they do. They
manage to do that too, and they load up what
they can into these tasteful smart leather satchels. Because remember
they're in a really expensive part of man exactly. So,
and it's morning when they're going to walk out, so
and be like, I'm on my way to the office, right,
So they all have now briefcases that they're just loading
up with stocks and bonds and silver coins and gold coins.

(43:45):
At one point, this patrolman New York City beat cop
one who they didn't pay off, but happened to be
strolling home. He sees some suspicious stuff going down in
the bank on a Sunday morning. Yeah, work screen is up.
They got like a screen blocking off the area that
they're working. He noticed that he knows it's like shadows
moving around. So one of the crew is this fast
thinking guy, old Abe Cochley. He starts dusting and acting

(44:07):
as if they're merely just doing weekend renovations, and then
he gives the big friendly wave in a high to
the cop from inside the back. The cops sees this,
and he's now satisfied he knows what's going on. There's
given the bank a new little jushing, a new look
for the over the weekend.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
He was acting like he knew exactly.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
And we've said this numerous time. The key with cops
is give them a story they can understand while walking
or driving past. Right, This pretty much always works because
you know, they're like, oh, what's going on there? I
know what's going on, and off they go. So this
guy he heads on home. So the crew they gather
up their tasteful smart leather satchels and they head out
into the New York morning. They even stop by and
they meet the beat copy in that area and they

(44:45):
give him one of the satchels. And so now this
dirty patrolman's walking home with a smart satchel too, right,
some fresh pudding. Now the crew gets away with two
point seven million dollars in cash and securities from the
Manhattan Savings Institution. Fat cat's money. They got like Rockefeller stocks,
They've got Jay Gould's bonds. So this becomes the new

(45:07):
record for a bank job in the US. And I
did the conversion for Elizabeth in twenty twenty five dollars.
That would be eighty eight point nine to nine to
six million dollars.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Great date.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
They walked out with eighty nine million dollars, which just
goes to show you it pays well to rob the robber.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Barry, Sure it does.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
They got the money where the money is. Yeah, So
about an hour after the robbery is over and done with,
the janitor, Lewis wirkle wriggles himself free and he runs
over to the barber shop that's in the hotel next
door on the ground Florida at the Saint Charles, and
he tells everyone the bank has just been robbed, and
now words spreads, and then eventually cops show up and yeah,
it's too late, they're gone.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
The New York Times would call this the most sensation
all in the history of bank robberies in this country.
The New York Herald said it's a masterful bank job.
Pulled off by one of the very special bank robbers.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
I wonder if one of the responding cops was the
dirty beat cop and he shows up carrying the leather bag.
Oh my god, you guys, what happened? That's crazy?

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Oh I should have left this someone. So since this
was now the largest bank robbery in US history, and
since it was the fat Cat's money that was stolen,
the NYPD makes it priority number one to find this
crew and publicly bust these bank robbers. Remind everyone, mostly
the robber barons, that their money is safe in New
York Bank, Right. So the detectives, they're like, they got

(46:26):
they hit the streets, they work their informants, Elizabeth, They're
they're beating up snitches, looking for anything they can. These
snitches are only too happy to say it was the
George Leslie Crewe sure they just name them because everybody
on the underworld knows who it was. They're like, yeah,
he was working from a George Leslie plan. He calls
it pudding, you know, just bust it down. NYPD is like,
who's George Leslie? You mean that rich playboy the ones

(46:48):
is always in the theater. You're Talking't be so This
is when the NYPD learns that the full scope and
breadth of unknown criminal mastermind George Leslie has been bedeviling
them for nearly a decade. Old Western George is finally unearthed,
if you will, they hear how he's been behind most
of the recent high profile bank robberies in the New
York Pennsylvania, New Jersey area, when not really New Jersey,

(47:11):
more Massachusetts. Yeah, so the snitches starts singing full arias
and whole operas of snitching. Oh well, then he did
this bank and then that bank, and then you got
to remember Northampton that was a record setday. So this point,
George Leslie becomes nationally famous as the greatest living bank
robbery gets his dream. But that's a problem with that
because now everybody knows it. The courts, though, can't prove

(47:32):
it even though everyone believes it. So the trouble for
George Leslie is that while his fame grows, like I
said earlier, he planned to switch up and start a
new gang. Yeah, well, that causes little tension and rift
because his old gang kind of hurt about this. He
also did another mistake. Remember I said how he had
a mistress. Yeah, well, that wasn't just any mistress, it
was the young wife of one of his old crew.

(47:53):
Come on, now, the guy named Shang Draper.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
What an idiot.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
While he's romancing Babe Draper, the twenty one year old
old wife of one of his crew, he also starts
planning new robberies with his new crew, and then one
of his new plans with his new crew fails and
his new crew makes mistakes and folks get busted. Consequently,
his old crew loses faith in him. He's just not
the same old Western George, and eventually, angry about him

(48:18):
sleeping with his wife and the fact he's no longer
got his magic touch, Shang Draper decides to set up
George Leslie. So one day, George Leslie shows up at
this bar in Brooklyn, a saloon called Murphy's Saloon, which
I have to assume was like a Western cowboy themed bar.
I mean, like, I don't know if they had a
lot of saloons in Brooklyn at the time.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
He was a common thing.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Do they have theme bars and Murphy's.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
It sounds like a good Irish bar.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Yeah, they would be like a pub then, right, this
is specifically a saloon.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
I think that they had saloons.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Okay, I don't. Just sounded kind of western with the
slinging doors and everything. I'm imagining like.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Showgun place to whistle.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
But did. But they had other bars and pubs. So
why call it a saloon that's kind of a Western thing.
Why not collecting show girls.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Let's say it was a theme bar. They were all black.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
There we go, thank you, hop on MyD Everyone was
a Brooklyn theme bar in eighteen seven.

Speaker 3 (49:09):
Tenders were dressed like Dallas cowboy cheerleaders. Yeah, they had
short shorts and white boots and a kicky hat, big
handlebar mustaches like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Of course, I like your imaginings, I know. So they're
in this Brooklyn theme bar, this saloon anyway, Murphy's Saloon
in Brooklyn. He gets past a note and George Leslie
checks this handwriting and he recognizes it instantly. On this note,
it's in a woman's hand. In fact, it's the handwriting
of his side piece, Babe Draper.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
She has this note slipped to George that her husband
Shang doesn't catch any wind of it. He has like
one of her friends drop it off.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Dot her eyes with hearts.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
I let's say yes, just like the bar, the saloon exactly.
So she asked him to meet him one last time
because she's heard word he's planning and blowing town now
that the heat's on him. Sure, right, but she he
also has this one last new big bank job set
up and he's coming up. She wants maybe just one
more night of love with him before he leaves town.

(50:09):
So what do you think George does? Does he go
and go and meet his side?

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yes, of course he does.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
You know he does. Elizabeth leaves Murphy's Saloon on the
hunt for some stolen pleasure, and a little while after,
George Leslie receives the love note from Babe Draper. This
New York City cop, a patrolman, is out doing his rounds.
He's out of a place called Tramp's Rock, right, just
love that name. It's right there at the county line
between Westchester County and New York County at the Bronx River, Elizabeth,

(50:36):
George Leslie is he's not out there, just like taking
a nap on Tramp's Rock. When they discover him, he's dead. Yeah,
he's lying there next to and next to his head
is his pearl handled pistol, double barreled pearl handled pistol.
That turns out Babe Draper was known to carry because
he gave it to her.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
What.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yes, Now, we do have our ninety nine percent murder
free guarantee. Yeah yeah, but this is will say, one
of those one percent exceptions, or maybe it's not, oh,
because technically it's considered an unsolved crime, so that.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
I don't think he died of natural cause.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
I don't think so either. Anyway, based on what the
New York Cops learned from the snitches and the word
on the street in the underground, the detectives are able
to identify all of George Leslie's crew for the Manhattan
bank job, and one by one they all get busted,
all except George Leslie.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
Since he's dead, he's like got the the eternal busting exactly.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
He's been put down.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Yeah, so's the deep pudding like that.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
So one of the Jimmy Jimmy Hope and the muscle
Bill Kelly they get tried, they're convicted and sentenced to
prison terms long ones. Meanwhile, Abe Cochley and Old Banjo
Pete Emerson they're also both caught and tried and they
avoid conviction because both are acquitted for a lack of evidence. Okay,
the crooked patrolman, he gets named by somebody, He goes

(51:53):
to the court, he gets tried, but he's wiy because
I guess he's been a dirty cop for a while
because he bribes a juror and he gets a quit it.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
So very few of them actually end up doing prison times,
mostly just Jimmy Hope and the muscle Bill Kelly.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Surprisingly, the cops are able to recover all but fifteen
thousand dollars of the stolen little because what they stole
was mostly securities, which they had a hard time moving
now that George Leslie was dead. They hadn't thought about
the fence. Sure, how do we get rid of j goldstocks?
They don't know what to do with Rockefeller's bondw so
the course. Obviously, George Leslie never pulls another bank job

(52:28):
because he's dead. But George Leslie leaves the game as
the most prolific bank robber ever in US history, makes
his contemporary bank robber the most famous bank robber of
the day aka Old Jesse James look like a small
potatoes Missouri chunk.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Oh yeah, completely, he was doing big numbers, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Eighty nine mili. So what's a ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
I was thinking about, you know, when we're saying, like
we have this rash of bank robberies beginning post Civil War,
and I always like to think about you know, you
talk a lot about hinge points in history, sure, but
you look at World War One being this time when
rules kind of went out the window and people thought,
there's just chaos is raining, and you've got chemical warfare.

(53:16):
You got all these things that you never understood or.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Believed to be industrial scale war.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Right, and so it felt like there were absolutely no rules.
Everything's going crazy. But then coming out of that, you
get jazz, you get like modern art data is all
this abstract stuff. You get incredible theater coming out of it.
So where people are saying, I don't I don't care
about the rules, I'm just going to break the rules.
And so you look back and you think, like with

(53:44):
the Civil War, you had a lot of the immigrants
who are coming over. They couldn't pay the money to
not fight, so they're landing in New York and being
conscripted right there.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
A lot of them get their citizenships. Yes, they get okay,
you're a citizen. And also you're in the.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Army, and so you feel like, okay, so you're you're
drawn into the army if you can't afford it, whether
you're just fresh to the country or not, you're sent
down to this place that is totally foreign to you
South and they were just laying waste. I mean, they
were raiding and just stealing stuff. And then you think, okay,
So on the other side of that, you've got people
in the South who aren't they don't you know, they're

(54:21):
not slave owners, they're not plantation owners.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
They're just poor.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
They're dirt farmers, and they're just you know, and they're
getting totally raided and they're pushed into this. The rules
are out the window, and so you can see where
like that kind of you know mentality. Then you got
more and more people going west and thinking forget about it,
Like you've got the railroad, You've got all these means,
why do I have to stick to these rules that
mean nothing?

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah, no one else is following them. Why a sucker?

Speaker 3 (54:48):
So that gets me thinking that, you know, other times
in our lives when we think, God, there are no
rules anymore, no, you know, maybe we will come through
this with benefits of like losing you know, things that
are constricting creativity. Sure, not necessarily for bank robbery, but
you know, and that you then swing around where people say, okay,

(55:08):
we've got a social contract again. We're as a society,
we're gonna agree to a certain thing.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
The history does it follows like penduloum.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
It's a pendulum swing.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
It's not ever like a straight line that goes for
everyone direction.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
But I hadn't thought about that in terms of the
Civil War sparking all of this crime. Oh yeah, and
this lawlessness because you think, like, okay, what are the
rules like the countries at war with itself? You know,
soldiers are coming through and they're stealing everything we have
and we're blowing stuff up, and you know we're supposed
to be on the same side, but you know, I'm

(55:41):
pulled into a traitor's side just by where I live.
So that's my takeaways here, and what's yours?

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Ah mine? Is I love any story that makes a
confederate here like Jesse James look like a punk.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Oh, I love that, which.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
I kind of I have intimated numerous times in the
telling of this. So I would like more people to
know about George Less who robbed from the Fat Cat
Robber Barons. Let him be a folk hero of crime
as oppose as the Jesse James and Quantrill's.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Radio Quandtris raiders. Like they didn't think the war is over.
I'm like, there are still people today.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, I was trying not to say that. I'm like,
this is a very common thought. The Confederacy played the
long game. So you in the move for a talkback
to watch this all dust sweetly? Oh my god, I love.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
Get Hi Zarin and Elizabeth. This is Cassidy. Every Tuesday
or Thursday, I tend to say something to my husband's
like I have great news. Ridiculous Crime is a production
of iHeart Radio, meaning there's no episode. And now it's
to the point where if I say I have great
news and it is Tuesday or Thursday, he will say,

(56:55):
is Ridiculous Crime a production of iHeart Radio? And I
say yes, so on love the show.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Oh my god, that just made my day. A couple
having an inside bit about that. Oh my god, it's
so good. My heart just skipped a beat. Thank you both,
Thank you so much. Fun Uh please go the iHeart
app download it, leave a talk back. Maybe you can
hear your voice here and also make our heart skip
a beat because that was Cassidy you killed it. Yeah.

(57:24):
You can also obviously go online to Ridiculous Crime. It's
We're on Blue Sky and Instagram and we have our
account Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube where they have the
shows and there's like an animated version, not like the
whole thing, but you'll see it. It's like you can listen.
It's a great place to listen if you want, if
you prefer YouTube. Yeah, and we obviously also obviously have
our website ridiculous crime dot com where you can get

(57:46):
merch and you can see some of the finest art
and web design around.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (57:53):
Oh, you can email us if you like it, ridiculous
Crime at gmail dot com. We love to hear your
emails read aloud by the interns, so to that as.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
Well, from the other side of a closed door. We
shove them into the broom closet, read the emails.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Don't tell anybody then, don't tell HR or Admiral iHeart
Well Banks are listening. We will catch you next crime.
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett,
produced and edited by our resident George Leonidas, Leslie Blueprint

(58:28):
collector Dave Coust and starring Anneli's Rucker as Judith. Research
is by Jesse James, Anti fan club co presidents Marissa
Brown and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song is by our
house band, Fat Cats and the Robber Barons aka Thomas
Lee and Travis Dutton. The host wardrobe provided by Bonny
five hundred, guest harn makup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre.

(58:49):
Executive producers are Bank Apartment managers Ben Bolin and Noel Brown.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Ridicious Crime Say It One More Time Ridiquious Cry. Ridiculous
Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from
iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.