The Flapper Bandit: Rebecca Bradley Rogers

The 1920s was an era of radical change in the culture. One of the major indicators was the advent of The Flapper –- young women who rejected the previous generations' notions of femininity and embraced their own ideas of modern womanhood. This of course inspired a nationwide moral panic! Enter the Flapper Bandit –– a young woman who rejected previous notions of legality and embraced her own ideas of how to rob a bank... and in the process became a national news story.

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey Hey, Elizabeth Dutt, Hey, Hey, hey, good to see
my friend.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
How you been pretty good? Pretty good?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Pretty good? Pretty good? Really good? Really neat? Yep, I
got a question for you, bride.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Asked, well, I got to ask you, how have you been?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm still here. I'm not pushing up daisies.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Above ground and getting paid.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm on the right side of the grass. It is
so question for you. Yeah, do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I do you like grilled cheese sandwiches?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I love grilled cheese.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Sandwiches, and you hate mayonnaise.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm not a fan, but it does make a good
spread on the outside, right.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
I feel like I'm the one who convinced you of that.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I think you're the one to push me over the top.
I've had it try. I tried it once before, but
I never incorporated into my game after you introduced me
to it. Now I use it.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, tell anyone I won't. It's it's I've been using
like a hybrid when I make grilled cheese for my nephew.
So you use like a little bit of butter, a
little bit of mayonnaise, and then you. You know, grill
the cheese.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Can you use it for eggs too? Because I use
butter for eggs.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, of course you use butter for eggs.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Can use mayonnaise f eggs.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
It's it's made of eggs. Sort of cannibalistic anyway, So
tillamook cheese familiar though. Yeah, They're like, we know you
love grilled cheese. Guess what what, We also know you're lazy,
So we're going to combine butter and mannaise for you.
This we got this coming at us from every you know, platform,

(01:30):
people sending.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
How does everybody find these things? I never see online.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
I don't know what it's like. If if something drops,
we know about it because emails, Instagram, blue Sky, everything, voicemail.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
The only thing the algorithm does right for me is
it shields me from all of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
So, like you know, I always find out first everywhere.
We're getting it every which way but loose right, And
so I looked it up and I'm like, this isn't
a lot of people like gross? Now it's not gross.
It was limited edition. Fifteen dollars got you a pack
of sliced cheese, a jar of this stuff. Butternaise. We're

(02:11):
calling it butnaise, and it's it's they they teamed up
with Cupie mayonnaise.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh is that a good man?

Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's good mayonnaise. And so they they, you know,
did this and it came with a little spreader. Oh
so cute. Fifteen dollars sold out online in two minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
You're getting much better at these mashups. This is now
that I think the second or third mashup that I
have not hated.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
I'd be better if I found out about these things
before they happened, and then I could try and you know,
get my grubby paws on something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
But two minutes that's crazy.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah. And then this writer for food and Wine used
it and said it was pretty good.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
So they got it. They got in that two minute window.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
No, I think because they're a writer for food they
sent them right. Yeah, of course, which hello brands right here, totally.
I'll make a grilled cheese read the word right, mash
it up anyway. That's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
It is ridiculous, Elizabeth. It is, well, you know, I
got one for you.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh nice?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Oh, no, I guess is a fun one. I think
you actually might really enjoy this. I could be wrong, though, Yeah,
I've been wrong before. Yeah, I'll probably be wrong.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
You know what happens to the best of Elizabeth?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, imagine it's the nineteen twenties.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Okay, I'm doing that right now.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
You're a young married woman and let's say you go
out one day in your model teed. You decide to
rob one little old bank in Texas, and all of
a sudden, everyone from coast to coast is calling you
the Flapper Bandit.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
This is Ridiculous Crime, A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
ice and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one hundred percent ridiculous ridiculous. Yes, Elizabeth, Yes, zaren as,
I promise I've got a fun little crime story for
you today. It's about a woman known as the Flapper Bandit. Now,

(04:23):
when I say flapper, what do you think of?

Speaker 3 (04:27):
Nineteen twenties, short haircuts, no petticoats?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Can he be even more specific? Like here, I'll give
you an example. I think of singing Sea Green Eyes.
It came from Ayward. Now I think of singing in
the rain and Debbie Reynolds when she's driving her nineteen
twenties car and then Gene Kelly is like running from
his adoring fans and he drops down from a street car,
I think, into her car, and there she is all
dressed like the ultimate twenties flapper girl, short hair, got

(04:55):
on her little hat, her little shapeless dress. So like,
do you have any images like that of like, oh, yeah,
this is a flapper I think of like a specific
well I had.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
I just keep thinking of those drawings from the era.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Oh yes, those are fun.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, fun, you know, because everyone can see them as
as I speak, those drawings, those drawings see look.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
So as you well know, the nineteen twenties were a
major turning point in the history of American women. That's
basically like when women became.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Modern, became people.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah's honestly like for the nineteen twenty American women one
for themselves, the right to vote, correct, at least white women. Now,
women also started to become a common sight on college campuses.
They became more and more involved in the workforce. Young
women ditched the Victorian and Edwardian fashions of the day.
They started wearing their hair short. They preferred, as I said,
those shapeless dresses. They weren't accentuating their curves as much.

(05:50):
They ditched the exaggerated busts from girdles and the augmented
rumps from bustles.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well, and the corset, you know, augmented the curves. That's painful,
totally couldn't breathing. Women are fating, yes now.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Some women even started in the twenties, started wearing men's
clothes like suits, you get all that, they go sotal, yes,
pants right on. So women they also leaped at the
freedom all the new technologies that were on offer. They
started watching also the new stars of the silent movies,
so they're getting new images and role models. They listened
to the radio, They drove cars, which only further liberated them.

(06:28):
Women also got into devices.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
You know, I love that they're already in devices.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
I know. But they started smoking cigarettes. There's all the
whole like yeah, like, but is it Paull Mall and
not Virginia Slims. Is the Virginia Slims back then? I
don't know they had the cigarette brands for women. And
then they started drinking alcohol and smoking refrit jazz clubs
and speakeasies. Pandemonium, Elizabeth now per our interests there was
also a new wave of women getting into crime. Nice, right,

(06:56):
these many changes for young women, they all get magnified
as one one thing, a moral panic. So you know,
it's like basically people were complaining young women are unrecognizable today, right,
which we did not unfamiliar to us. Now. In the
media of the day, they love to blame all the
so called nonsense on the flappers, that was the term, right,

(07:16):
So these flappers were ruining the sweetness and innocence of girlhood,
and young women were sometimes also occasionally treated like, especially
the criminal ones, is like a gangster's mall, like, oh,
now you're helping these like serious hardcore criminals. You're a
willing partner in crime, you know, like think like Bonnie
and Clyde. Right, No, that's a little early, but anyway.
Also then there was the political women, because you had

(07:38):
you know, communists and anarchists. Some were called socialists or
usually at worse was anarchists. These are all new ideas
for America to be wrestling with. Now. I took a
look back at the headlines of the day when I
was doing research for this story, trying to get my
mind right, and it's wild how nearly any young woman
who was into crime or crime adjacent was called a
flapper impress.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
So in order to kind of connect them to the
horrors of modernity. It was an easy way to stoke
that moral panic I was talking about, right, how women
were changing now, they were becoming god forbid independent. Now
enter into this nea millieu. Rebecca Bradley Rogers aka the Flapper.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Bands flapper Banda.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
She was dubbed that by newspaper men of the day,
and she is who I want to tell you about today.
Nice Rebecca Bradley Rogers born Rebecca Bradley back in nineteen
oh five and Texarkana, Texas, which by the way, has
a mirror city across the border in Arkansas called Texar
Canada Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Oh really there too, Yeah, I did not know the saying.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, it's not like cal Lexico and Mexicality. I love that,
which is much more fun. Anyway. Her friends, then family,
they all called her Becky, so we're gonna call her Becky.
At age six, in nineteen eleven, Becky's parents picked up
sticks and they moved west to Fort Worth, Texas. That's
where she attends elementary school, high school. That's also where
she meets her high school sweetheart, this ambitious, young plucky

(08:59):
lad named Otis Rogers. Remember that name, he'll.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Come back to Rogers, got it.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
After high school graduation, the young couple, they both moved
to Austin, Texas to attend the University of Texas at Austin.
While they're there in college, the pair, they pop on
down to the courthouse in Georgetown, Texas, and they get
secretly married.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Don't tell.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah. The year is nineteen twenty five, Elizabeth, and no
one knows about their secret and optials, not even the
bride's mother, who Rebecca was actually rather close with, now
officially known as Rebecca Bradley Rogers, the young co ed.
She goes ahead. She pursues a bachelor's degree in history
at the University of Texas at Austin. And I read
that her annual tuition at ut was three hundred dollars

(09:41):
a year, and she took out a loan to pay this.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
That's a lot back then.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, I looked at U because I know you're always
into this. Yes, So nineteen twenty five three hundred dollars tuition,
This is annual tuition, right, So either both semesters or whatever,
four quarters, three quarters.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
It's complicated, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Okay, anyway, it would cost fIF fifty five hundred dollars today. Wow,
it's an annual tuition full year of school. So now
if like me, you're like, we're wondering how much that
compared to the current tuition at UT.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Okay, to keep in mind, this is a public institution.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yes, Now this is for an in state student, because
that's what Becky was.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
And we're talking tuition only.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
No annual tuition costs eleven six hundred and eighty eight dollars,
so basically it's doubled.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yeah, but that's not that's not that's just the tuition.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
If you add it all up tuition, books, room and board,
as an on campus housing, you include the average really
miscellaneous school life expenses. The toll that they tell you
to prepare for life at UT for one year is
thirty two thousand dollars for in state tuition in state. Yeahs,
anyway back to nineteen twenty five.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
But you know, it's a real return on investment there.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
It wasn't easy to be a college student for a
woman in the nineteen twenty because you know, there was
a lot of limitations from professors from the just the
culture at large. So for Becky Rodgers, in order for
her to pay for school and her life as a
young married woman, she had to work a bunch of
different part time jobs, which is you know, I think
is kind of super relatable for twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, I mean, yeah, I've worked part time jobs in
college totally.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
But also just the idea that hustle culture is nothing new.
That's true, right, it just used to have a different name. Yeah,
it wasn't such like, oh, we're gonna dub this hustle
culture is just like, get a job called living.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
We put a lot of dumbnant adult no culture its.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
So what sort of part time jobs did Becky Rodgers
have to do to pay for her life and her schooling?
Great question, So glad you asked me. Well, for one,
she worked as a clerk at the state capitol in Austin, Okay,
got her right. And on campus she also had a job.
She worked as an assistant to a university professor named
Charles Ramsdell. He also was the head of the Texas

(11:53):
State Historical Association smart connect.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
For I wonder what she needed to do with that teach.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
It doesn't show up in the newspapers. No one asked her, like,
would you want to use.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Your major for me in the ghost teaching?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
I would assume, but maybe she wanted to go get
into the historical association like and do like you know,
state history. I don't re enactments could do that too.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Trying to break through that into that industry.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
It was a new industry at the time, a lot
of openings on the possibilities. Now her secret husband Otis Rodgers.
He did manage to graduate from the University of Texas,
and he made plans to attend law school with obviously
the ambition to one day become a lawyer. Sure, more
on that later, But what this means for the young
couple is that Becky Rodgers has to keep hustling while
her husband is in law school and studying for the bar.

(12:38):
She's working for for both of their feeds.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Right, That's why he got married.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
I mean, let's be real, be real. She had to
lock it down. She's like put a ring on it.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Maybe all he was like, I'm going to get away.
She can work while I go to school. Otherwise what's
he going to do.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
That's a good point, you know, living at home.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
I'm onto him.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
So he did work in the oil fields in the summer,
I can tell you that. So he was a little
bit into anyway. Becky graduates with a bachelor's degree of
her own starts working towards getting a master's degree in history.
She's like, I'm gonna double up.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Wow, Okay.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
A lot of scrimping and saving in this family hustle
and saying yesterday and all opportunities. All in all things
that were going well for the young couple. That is
until one day her mother loses her job in Fort Worth.
That's when her now widowed mother goes to Austin and
she plans to come live with her daughter, who, may
I remind you, she does not know is married. Yeah.

(13:31):
So I don't know if her mother was like old
fashioned or if she just never liked her daughter's high
school sweetheart. I don't know what the deal was.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Her mom probably was like, why don't you get your education?
And then although I don't know that, like to marry
him off early.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
I don't know, but my condolences to her on the
loss of her husband.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Can you let her know I will pass it on
so be's keeps her marriage secret from her mother, and
her mother did move in with her. Now I couldn't
find in the news stories where her husband with he
was in the house or if he was staying like
you know, with his like law school.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
But they live together.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
They did until the mother showed up. I don't know
if she if he stuck around then it's like, who's
who's your male roommate? Why do you guys kiss in
the morning?

Speaker 4 (14:09):
Tell her.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Yeah. So, with even more of a now of a
financial burden on her in order to pay for herself,
her mother, her graduate studies, her law school husband, Becky Rodgers,
takes on a new challenge, one that will, in her hopes,
earn her even more extra cash. So her professor, the
one that she worked for, old Professor Ramsdell, He decides
to spend the summer away on sabbatical in nineteen twenty six.

(14:31):
While he's gone, he leaves Becky in charge of the
Texas historicals Association. Yeah, he asked her, see if you
can grow the membership, You're really you know, charming people
like you. See if you can get more members So,
since he knows she needs to make money, Professor Ramsay
also cuts a deal he's like, you know, we're gonna
do like some real recruiting numbers here. He tells Becky,
if she can increase the membership in the Texas State

(14:53):
Historical Association, she can keep a dollar forty from the
three dollars of new membership dues almost half.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
That's not bad, right, Why didn't he just go all
the way to half?

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
He's like, it's kind of feeling like an MLM totally.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
So Becky jumps at this offer since she sees as
an opportunity to make more money, which she needs, and
so she goes all in. Well, the professor is away
on his summer time sabbatical. Becky hires part time stenographers
to type up letters of solicitation meant to draw new members.
She goes down to the library because, you know, in
order to find folks to invite to the Texas State
Historical Association, she uses the Who's Who of Texas to

(15:31):
find luminaries and rich folks to increase membership. That's smart,
super smart, right do you remember before, by the way,
just side note, before the internet, flipping through the Who's
Who book each year.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
It's such a scam. Who's Who books. Oh completely, people
pay the fortune thirty kind of they send the thing like, hey,
you know you qualify.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah. By the way, how old are we that I
can say to both of us, you remember before the internet. Anyway,
in order to pay the part time scenographers that she hires,
Becky uses her own money. She does the same thing
in order to buy office supplies and you know for
the for the stenographers, all the paper or the envelopes
with the postage. Basically, she's like a schoolteacher today. She
doesn't show get anything done her job. She's using her

(16:13):
own money.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
She's spending all the money ahead of time.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Totally. Basically good news for her is her gambit and
her ambition work out. Kind of, she's able to drum
up new members, a bunch of new members. However, she's
kind of like me with money. She doesn't keep the
best books right, so she's depositing money from the new memberships.
She's keeping the dollar forty out of the three full
dollars of membership dues. But once again, not great at bookkeeping.

(16:37):
So she's trying to keep up with the you know,
do the best with the records. But sometimes like she's
putting her own money into the State Historical Association account
for the new members and waiting for their dues to
show up. Other times she's taking money out and she's
using it to like drum up business and she loses
track Elizabeth. The funds get all mixed up. Basically, what
I'm saying is the Texas State Historical Association's ledger becomes

(17:00):
a mess with a capital M. When the professor returns
from his summer sabbatical, he discovers what she's done and
he's like this, this is not good. This is this
is really bad. He's like legally bad. So in a
letter to her friend, he writes about Becky's creative accounting.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
He say he's gossiping about her.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Oh yeah, and he's like explaining like why he had
to like basically let her go. And she wrote a
letter explaining like I didn't mean to do it, but
this is what I was doing. It was all well intended.
And so he tells his friend the girl was undoubtedly
suffering from some sort of psychosis. Last year, many of
the records were entirely gone and others said, I've been
kept at all right, Like me I got telling he's
just like I meant to write that down. It's in

(17:39):
my head. So when the correct accounting is all done,
the Texas State Historical Association determines that Rebecca owes the
group twelve hundred dollars. Wait what that would be twenty
two thousand dollars in twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
She's hiring all these people.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
So yeah, I know, right, she should have gotten some
high school students with some typewriters, like an extra class.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
She could get herself to a type.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
You're an intern.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
That's what you're working to make that manch Now, remember.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Her annual tuition is three hundred dollars per year, so
Becky now owes the Texas State Historical Association the equivalent
of four years of her annual college tuition. Be long
story short, this struggling young woman is screwed. So after
her summer debacle, Becky leaves Texas State Historical Association to
pay off her new debts as well as her rent,
her life expenses for her her mother, her husband, and

(18:28):
also her graduate program. She gets a new job in
the autumn. Becky gets a job as a stenographer.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
She was good at typing, she hired herself.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
She works at the office of Dan Moody, who at
the time was the Texas Attorney General. He's this rising
political star who within just a couple of years becomes
the governor of the state.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Who's looking to have employees guilty of financial milf.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Exactly. I guess you didn't know about that part. Anyway.
With her flashy new job, Becky still isn't making the
kind of money that she can pay off her debt
to the Texas State Historical Association, and pay off her
student loan debts and take care been her mother herself.
So she needs to get profitable. She's drowning in debt.
Welcome to being a modern independent woman's sister. So to
get a handle on her finances, Becky decides to mortgage

(19:10):
her mother's house in Fort Worth. Right, She's gonna use
the money from the mortgage home to pay off some
of her debts, but it's not enough to pay off
all of them. Plus she needs money to live. Also,
she decides to take her mother on a trip. I
think maybe to cheer her up after being widowed.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Well, you know, sometimes she don't get to do those things.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
No, But also her mother is equally bad with money,
like she was known to blow Becky's paychecks. Right. Yeah,
So when Becky returns home from her trip with her mother,
she finds that she still has all these angry creditors
waiting on their money. At this point, Becky's like, I'm desperate.
I need more money. Meanwhile, at the same time, Midwest
newspapers start having these stories that cover this new crime wave.

(19:49):
So it's a big trend. It's the heyday of bank robberies.
All of a sudden, they're becoming this thing where bad
would race into town, they'd rob a bank and then
flee over state lines, can't be pursued. Brilliant crime. This
is basically what jagg Or Hoover uses to grow the
power of the FBI in the nineteen thirties. But we're
still in the nineteen twenties. So reading the news, Becky
gets a big idea. She's like, what if I rob

(20:11):
a bank? I mean, I would solve all my problems.
That's where the money is. So Becky looks around she
finds the perfect bank to rob. Oh yes, sah nice, Okay, Elizabeth,
let's take a little break now. Use this time to
think about how things change, but they all kind of
stay the same, because how relatable is Becky's story. Becky,
we get back after these ads. We'll get to the

(20:33):
criming now, Elizabeth, we're back. Are you ready to hear

(20:57):
about how Becky Rogers becomes the Flapper Band?

Speaker 3 (21:00):
I am ready.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
So there's this town just north of Boston called round Rock, Texas.
In this sleepy little town, there's a bank called Farmers
State Bank that becomes Becky's perfect target for a one
woman bank job. Doesn't bring in any of those scenographers
in for this. She's like, I'm taking that bank down
by myself. So one day, when she has some time
to herself, she drives her model T Coop north from

(21:21):
Austin to case the joint. The date is Wednesday, December eighth,
nineteen twenty six.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
When she hits town, Becky tells the locals what her
name is, Grace Lofton. It just makes up a cover, right,
So she arrives in town and to this Texas small
town locals, she's this very fashionable, modern young woman of
the roaring twenties. Yeah, so basically she's a threat to
all the hold deer. Now anyway, Becky tells anyone who
will ask that I'm a writer. I'm a journalist. I'm

(21:48):
working for this newspaper down in Waco. They're like, okay,
big city girl with modern problems, right, So this Texas
small town the locals did kind of put them at ease.
She asked them about farm business, like something really that
they know. She asks how's the latest cotton harvest because
that was like the big cash crop in that area
at the time. So for a few days she's following
this same routine. Becky goes down, arrives at the bank,

(22:10):
she mills around the lobby. She asked the local farmers
questions about how's the cotton harvest? Right, because it's December,
so she's like asking them how they've just done, what
they're looking forward to planning next year. If they're reluctant
or suspicious of this modern, young flapper girl, she tells them, oh, no,
it's for an agriculture report. And the newspaper down in
wake Up people were like, Okay, I'm glad they're covering

(22:30):
the issues we're facing. Nobody ever comes down here to Round.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Rock and how.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
We're doing now. She wants readers to know how hard
life is for this farming community. And as you know,
the dust Bowl is coming well into view at this
point in this area. And this is just before the
Wall Street crash in twenty nine, but farmers in places
like Texas are already feeling the economy tanking. So Becky
says she wants people to know about their struggles, and
they're like, thank you, sister, But anyway, so, like I said,

(22:56):
this is of course all just her cover. Meanwhile, she's
actually surveilling the bank. She's busy to getting like a
read on. You know, when's the best time to rob
the bank vault.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
After two days of her news gathering, Becky decides there's
no perfect time to bust this bank. People are coming
in at odd hours, there's nothing regular. I can't figure
out a nice window. So she decides, Okay, what's the
next best way to do this. She's like, I got it.
I need to stage a diversion. Oh okay, so well
everyone's looking the other way. Boom, She'll pop in, rob
the bank, hop at, get into her model t zip

(23:26):
away bing bang, boom. Problem solved. Yeah, Becky looks around.
What's a good diversion? She decides, what are people afraid of? Oh? Yeah,
of course fire.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Wait, so she's still in Texas here round Rock tex
She didn't go across state line.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
No, no, that she's not good at bank robbing. She
only goes like twenty thirty miles away. Right, So she
finds his vacant I.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
Feel like at night, she went back to her room
and actually wrote the article for the paper, just.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
To really have a like a strong cover, so she
can show people, like, here's the copy I'm working on.
How did you spell that last name? Leftowitz? So she
finds his vacant residence near the bank, right, and so,
on Friday, December tenth, nineteen twenty six, Becky decides it's
time to change her financial luck.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Let's stack some felonies exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
So she goes down. She goes to a local star.
She buys just two things, matches in coal oil. Oh,
and then just before the bank closes, Becky sneaks into
a vacant house. And then she sets the vacant structure
on fire. Now, however, unbeknownst to Becky, the next door neighbor,
a busy body woman, sees this young woman duck into

(24:31):
the empty home. Ten minutes later, she sees that same
modern young woman leaving a rush. The flapper hops in
her Model T Coop and speeds away, and then all
of a sudden, that's not suspicious enough. Moments later, the
empty house erupts in bright red flames. There's puffs of
smoke coming out of the windows.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Little fire bug.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
So meanwhile, a few blocks away, Becky's now enacting part
two of her grand plan. She parks her Model T
Coop and leaves it, running rushes into the bank, exclaims
fire fire. Becky's s outs for all to hear, right,
and but her worried screams bank employees are nonplus They're like,
stuff burns? Is it my house? And I don't care?

(25:09):
So no one from the bank leaves, just your diversion.
As Becky would later recall, quote, I told them I
was sure I saw a house of fire up the street,
but they didn't seem to be paying any attention to it.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
They're like, you have no idea, how oft?

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, this is Texas, baby, so burns the wind starts fired.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
So just like her big grand plan of a disversion failing. Now,
she's like, what's a girl to do? So Becky just
stands there in the lobby. She doesn't know what to do.
So she waits for closing time at the bank. Maybe
she can just like slide in right at the last minute.
That doesn't work. The vault gets shut locked for the night,
and you know, they have a time lock. So she's like,
this isn't opening till tomorrow. She's like, I missed my chance.

(25:52):
So there's no way to force her way into the
vault rob the place. So, I mean, this is her
first time. She's a newcomer at this, right, So she's like,
I should go home and think harder about how I'm
gonna do this. So, frustrated, Becky drives back home to Austin.
She's got to make like, you know, dinner for her
mother and her husband now, So the next day, she
hops back in her model Tea coop, sneaks away from Austin,
drives back up to round Rock, the town where she

(26:13):
started a fire. Now, once he's there, she goes back
to milling about asking people questions, gee, looking for some
kind of opportunity to rob the bank. However, now she's
a full on person of interest. Well yeah in this
small town, Yeah, she's the only stranger. And she comes
out of the flaming building. So now the locals are
asking your questions like weren't you in that house down

(26:34):
on Rainy Street?

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Or hold the questions about the cott, and I got
questions for you.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Yeah, I got questions of my own now before the
lock and get involved. Becky hops back into her Model
T Coop and splits down. So it's the only good
decision she's made so far.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Oh, I keep saying, Oh, it's one thing after another.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Becky drives back to Austin, but she doesn't stop. I
don't think she wanted to go home and make dinner
for her mother and husband again, since she just keeps going.
She drives right past Austin. She continues south for fifteen miles.
She gets this little town called Buddha, Texas. Buda Texas, Okay.
She takes the newly constructed San Antonio Highway. So Buddha
Texas another sleepy little Texas town. And like round Rock,

(27:10):
it also has a farmer state bank. She's like, I
recognize that bank. She's loyal totally. So the bank is
like it's part of a stringer commercial buildings. It's located
near railroad tracks, just like you know. She's like, oh,
I think that there's not going to be as many
high witnesses if I start another fire. So the bank
catches the eye of Becky, right, so she's like, this
looks like an easier score. Becky leans on her university education.

(27:32):
She uses the same gambit. Becky claims to be a
young reporter working on an agg report for a local paper.
This time she mixes it up. She's like, people knew
about that Waco paper, So she goes, yeah, the Beaumont Enterprise,
like East Texas, which is about her choice. So now
I haven't really described what Becky looks like. Yeah, so
she stood five feet too, so she's petite. She weighs

(27:52):
about ninety pounds. She's often described as being this attractive
young woman in brown hair. But unlike those like fast
big city girls, those actual truth flappers, she wears homemade
dresses that she sows herself when she's True Texas. So
Becky has though the same confidence of these modern young women,
even in her homemade dress. She may not look like
a flapper, but she damned your acts like one.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Right.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
So, relying on her cover story, Becky again once again.
She's interviewing the local merchants, the farmers bank employees. She
asks everyone about the local cotton crop. After she collects
her sound bites and quotes for her story, Becky asks
the bank employees for a little favor. She's like, can
I use one of your typewriters just to like type
up my notes and work on my story for the paper.
And it's two male bank employees. They're charmed by the

(28:34):
attractive young woman and they invite her to join them
behind the teller's cage, like, yeah, you can use this
typewriter right over here. So basically Becky is now sweet
talked her way behind the bank teller's security cage.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, So she gets situated starts typing up her notes. Meanwhile,
it's slow, no customers are in the bank. One of
the bank tellers needs to like, you know, clean up
his all the deposit slips, so he goes to make
a deposit in the safe in the bank's vault, and
when he opens the vault door, sweet little attractive twenty
one year old Becky Rodgers realizes this is my moment.
So she pulls out a thirty two caliber automatic pistol,

(29:07):
whoa aims it at the two bank employs. The two
male bank tellers, Frank Jamison and j R. Howe. They're
both stunned to see the business end of a gun
pointed at them, especially in the hands of this cute
female reporter who's just a little slip of a thing.
So Becky orders the bank tellers to open the safe
inside the bank vault, and she says to him, dig

(29:27):
that money out. Real flapper talk. Now, since she has
the gun is encouragement. The bank tellers do as they're told.
Once inside the bank vault, Becky sies like two stacks
of cash, and she shoves this money in her purse.
It's about somewhere. I saw different amounts. Some people said
two thousands, some people said one thousands, some people said
twelve hundred dollars. So it's enough that she will take

(29:48):
care of the money she owes right, So it's like
a little bit more than one thousand dollars, all in
brand new five dollar bills. So at this point, Becky
worries about the bank teller. So she asked the bank tellers,
I leave you in this vault. Is there enough air
for you to survive for like a half hour. They're like, yeah, sure, yeah,
no problem. Yeah. She's like, like you it won't just
be like ten minutes to pass out.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
No, it'll will instantly suffocate, So they look bil Hower.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
She closes the door, locks them in the vault. Then
she like, you know cool and call me Steve the Queen.
She crosses over through the bank, steps outside, walks over
to her Model te coop fires that bad boy to life,
and then she shimmys and shakes her way right out
of town in her Model Tea. This is now her
second attempted bank robbery, this time total success. Becky is
elated nice and she knows like. She's like, okay, I

(30:35):
need not to speed. I'm just gonna I don't want
to get caught doing something dumb. So she gets back
on the new San Antonio Highway and heads north back
home to Austin. She's like, now I can make dinner
for my mom and I husband. Meanwhile, back at the bank,
a mere ten minutes after they're locked inside, the two
bank employees they managed to use a screwdriver to free
themselves from inside the bank vault. I was reading this,

(30:56):
I'm like, what kind of janky bank fault do they have?
You can open it? So then I realized people aren't
ever trying to break out from inside of a dot
need the best security. But you know what, it's probably
actually even like a way for an employee gets trapped.
It's like an actual ship release. Yeah, anyway, I don't know.
They get they get free. The two bank employees they
hop on the phone. They proceed to alert law enforcement

(31:18):
in all four cardinal directions that the bank's just been
robbed and be able to look out for a young
woman moving through the world by herself driving a model
T Coop. There's also one other important detail some of
the suspicious locals, because of course Becky draws an ire.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
You go into any small town, oh yeah, you know,
and you're not from there, they're going to clock you immediately.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Oh yeah. So they were like definitely mad dog in
her right. And they not only did that, they memorized
her license plate. Yes, so they're like, oh yeah, her
license plate is eight one zero dash eight six three
and say, yeah, the two bank employees they give this
detail to the police. The police put out an APB
for this woman driving a model T Coop with license
plate eight one zero eight sixty three. The flapper girl,

(32:02):
you just rob the local Farmers State bank, right, So
now will Becky escape the Texas Sheriffs, the Texas Rangers,
they're all gonna be hot on her pursuit. Well, rather
than me answer that question, Elizabeth, I'd like you to
close your eyes close, and I'd like you to picture it.
It's a crisp, quiet day in Texas in December of

(32:23):
nineteen twenty six, at the moment the thrill of speed
whips through the open window of your model T Coop
as you shimmy and shake down a two lane Texas highway.
And you, Elizabeth, are the notorious young modern woman turned
bank robber Becky Rodgers. You're enjoying a satisfied smile to yourself,
thinking back to the look on the faces of those
two dupe bank employees when you aimed your thirty two

(32:45):
caliber automatic pistol at them and demanded cash from the vault.
You weren't sure you get away with it, but you did. It,
all went perfectly well, and now all you need to
do is just get back home to Austin. However, you
take your eyes off the road for just a moment
as you reach into your purse to look again at
that stolen loot. The answer to your felonious prayers, the

(33:05):
money looks like a happy future for you and your husband,
even your mother. And that's when you hear it, the
sucking sound of a car tire going off the road
and into the mud that runs alongside the road. The
car tire pulls your model t Coop off the road
and boom, just like that, You're stuck in the mud,
left behind after a wintertime storm. You're done for, You're

(33:27):
sure of it. How can your luck turn so fast?
You don't know what to do. How could this happen?
There's no way you can get out by yourself. It
was all going so well. You're on the brink of
hot tears wetting your cheeks. Then you see it, a
horse drawn wagon. Looks like yes, it is a dairyman
bringing milk to market. You thank your lucky stars is.

(33:48):
The horse drawn wagon pulls closer and closer. You wave
down the dairyman. He waves back. The horse drawn wagon
pulls closer and then finally pulls to a stop. Ask
why howdy? Everything okay there, young lady? You explain that
you were driving along alone and you were silly. You
took your eyes off the road just for a second.

(34:10):
You leave out the part about clocking stolen loot. The
dairy man. He offers to help pull you out of
the mud, and you are quick to accept his kind offer.
As the local milkman hops down and ties his wagon
to the front end of your Model T Coop, you
say a little prayer that no cops drive by. Once
the dairy man is set, he tells you he's gonna
give the horses a signal to pull, so try not

(34:31):
to fall out. You grip the steering wheel and you
aim the car tires back at the road. The dairy
man yells yeah yeah to his team of draft horses.
The tremendously thick horses heaved too, and you feel their strength.
As your Model T Coop yanks forward. The dairyman shouts again.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
A second good tug at your Model Tea Coop. It's
pulled back on to the dry road. You thank the
dairyman with a big smile. He tells you it was
his honor and pleasure to help a fair and maiden
in distress. He unhooks his team of horses from the
front end of your Model Tea and he tells you
keep your eyes on the road, little lady, and you
should be fine. You thank him again. You start up

(35:11):
your car engine. He waves you good buy. As you
hit the gas. Your model Tea Coop shimmys and shakes
its way on down the road. So back on the road.
Elizabeth Becky stops again at a cute little confectionery shop.
She buys herself a box of candy. Wait, job well done.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
She's on the run from the police, and she's like.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
I need, I need, I need some chocolates.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
I need a chocolate covered caramel.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
I gotta be honest, though she doesn't plan to eat
the sweets. In fact, I don't even know if she
throws him out, but she empties the box of candy
and she secrets her thirty two caliber automatic pistol on there.
And then she puts in the one thousand or so
dollars of the stolen bank job loot, and puts that
in the candy box of.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Candies, and she put a.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Big heart, like a big end. Yeah. So then she
takes the candy box to a department store to be
wrapped up as a gift. Smart girl.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Now she's suddenly smart.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Now she's thinking. Once it's gift wrapped, Becky takes the
box of candy and heads to the Austin Post Office.
That's where she plans to send the fakes box of
candy to herself at the university. Okay, as Becky recalls it, later,
I told the man at the window it was an iron.
Some women would call a gun an iron, so you see,
I didn't yarn about it. I addressed the package to

(36:23):
the university station because I didn't want it to get
back too soon. Amazing exact, she now secured her gun
and her stolen loot in the mail. Backy drives over
to her local garage. She asked the guy there to
give her car a wash and she'll come and get
it later. The reason is simple. There's all this drying
mud from when she got stuck in the mud in
the side of the farm road. This, Elizabeth is her

(36:44):
big mistake, well other than robbing the bank, right, but so,
because there's this eagle eyed patrolman walking around, he spots
the license plate of the model T coop license plate
eight one zero dash eight sixty three. It matches the
APB for the bank robber down in Buddha. The Austin
rollman walks over to a little phone, calls in two
other police officers come out and join them. Together, they

(37:05):
create an improvised sting operation. Oh no, all three high
there and they wait for the person to come back
and claim this car. Now, if Becky had checked the
local newspaper, the Austin Statesman, she would have seen that
her bank job, the one she pulled in Buddha, was
already in the news. Yeah, they had it by the afternoon.
The evening extra right, the Austin Statesman runs a story
with the headline Flapper seventeen takes two thousand dollars in

(37:27):
currency at gunpoint. Eyewitnesses that estimated her to be younger
than she was. Obviously, she's this is the little thing.
So they see this cute, petite bank robber and they go,
that's a high school girl. So Austin Statesman also mints
the phrase that becomes Becky Rodgers's new nickname, her gnom
de crime. The paper dubs her the Flapper Bandit. Now,
instead of reading up on her bank job, Becky instead

(37:49):
walks over to her apartment, the one she shares with
her mother. She freshens up, and when it's time, she
walks back to get her car from the garage. When
she returns to the garage around five point thirty in
the afternoon to pick up her freshly washed and wax
a little model t coop. That's when she sees three
cops waiting for her. They spring their trap. They arrest Becky.
Down goes the Flapper Bandits, one successful boom. Things are

(38:11):
about to get way worse before they get any better
for old back one bank job. That's all. It's all
Flapper band everything.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
I still I'm impressed with how quickly that story made
the wire, right.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I was too. Now, Elizabeth, let's take a little break
and after these messages, we'll see how this all plays
out for the Flapper Bandit. And we're Elizabeth, yes, we are,

(38:53):
so you digging the Flapper band I love this right,
It's like such a mix of like, yeah, go Becky,
all back, It's a roller coaster, Okay, So you ready
hear how the Flapper band It makes out when she
gets dropped into Texas.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Justice, I am ready.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
And also, by the way, she's now about to become
a national news headline. So once she's busted by the
Austin p D, the local Texas papers try to get
their journalistic arms around her story and like, what is
going on with modern young women, only it's not so
nicely put. Now they're robbing banks. So anyway, the newspaper
men they hit up her college and they interview anyone
who claims to know Becky Rodgers. The Fort Worth Star

(39:28):
Telegram they published this story that reports that her former
friends and classmates are all stupefied by the news that
Little Becky Rodgers is in the notorious Flapper Bandit not
little Becky Rodgers, the history major. So they insist that
the Becky they know would never do anything like that.
So there was also a little side to Becky Rodgers
at her friends and former classmates never really got to know. Yeah,

(39:51):
not just like the robbing the bank's part, but she
also had a really dark sns of humor because the
local Texas law enforcement they did get to know this
unknown side of Becky.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Oh really yes.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
On the way down to San Marcos. But down there
in Hayes County, it's like the Sheriff's taking her to
arrain her. The sheriff's man named George Allen, doesn't really
matter anyway, he's driving along with Little Becky Rodgers, and
along the way they passed through Buddha and sheriff would
later tell newspaper reporters that when she saw Buddha again,
Becky quote burst out laugh and it said, I have

(40:22):
a whole lot to live down, but not as much
as those men back there who let a little girl
hold them up with an empty gun. Oh, she had
no bullets in her gun, and she's bragging about it.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Come on, don't talk.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
I know your audience back. So the next day, following
her arrest and arraignment, her employer comes in bails her out.
So the like, yeah, we're talking the which employer? This
is the thing. I think it's the professor, not the
attorney general. So are for employer? Yeah, So there are
more charges coming because a few days later she's arrested again.

(40:58):
Why great question.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Elizabeth request The folks from around.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Rock recognize her as the flapper arsonists to hit their
town and felonies.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Now.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
I love that she's got an attitude about it too, Right, girl,
you're the one in the police car, in.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
The box, in cuffs. You got on them metal bracelets.
So the county arraigns Becky on charges of arson. In
September nineteen twenty seven, her first trial begins down in Georgetown,
which is the county seat for Williamson County, located here
in central Texas. At this point, her story has gone national.
The headlines they're coming fast, furious. Everybody's loving the story.

(41:34):
This like plucky little Becky Rodgers, aka the Flapper Bandit.
That's what everybody from coast to coast is reading about
the trial of the Flapper Bandit. In the courtroom, the
jurors have to listen to eyewitness accounts. They're trying, you know,
they're told not to follow the news stories. I don't
know how well they do. Anyway, they're considering the evidence.
And then after they do all of this and they're
listening to eyewitness accounts, listening to the police listening. They're

(41:56):
considering all the evidence. They retired to the jury room
to deliberate, but the jurors cannot come to a decision,
a unanimous decision. The trial ends with neither a conviction
or an acquittal. As a result, a second trial is scheduled.
They're like, we're going to have to do this all
over again, jury exactly. So meanwhile, Becky's put on trial
for the gun charges from the bank robbery and Buddha.

(42:17):
So the first trials. The arson second trial ends up
being the gun charges. Keep in mind, armed robbery in
Texas at this time was a capital offence as she's
facing the death penalty.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Oh dear, Oh yeah, yeah, real bad.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
I don't even think she did any reading. I guess
for somebody who studies history, she was not.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
Too up on the present they used to do it.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah, well, she should know, like downtownas what.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Her area of emphasis was in her studies research.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
So the national newspapers at this point are having a
field day with this story about this girl down in
Texas is about to get sent to the electric chair
for like robbing one bank. So as the Oregon Daily
Journal reports with their choice headline flapper abandon and shadow
of the electric chair. Oh no, her after sitting in
the gallery for the first trial, her secret husband Otis Rodgers,

(43:05):
who's now been unmasked as her legal husband, decides to
put his education to the test. He joins his wife's
defense team and he fights to free as young bride.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
I can't tell that this is a good idea.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Oh, I not tell you. Since it's a capital offense,
the court takes it quite seriously, as does her husband.
He's like I don't want to lose her to the chair.
And since it's difficult to secure it unbiased jury, her
second trial gets relocated to a new county, Fayette County,
in this town called Lagrange. Doesn't really matter anyway. Oh yeah,
so December, Oh there you go, look at you cultured

(43:38):
pretty much. December seventeenth, nineteen twenty seven. The jurors are
listening to eyewitness testimony, they weigh the evidence. They listen
to her husband's closing arguments.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Which are.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
It's great, going for maximum drama. He tells the jury
if they convict his wife, hanger high.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Wait what y he says in court?

Speaker 2 (44:02):
And I quote hang her high? And then I, as
the son of my life sinks to setting, will come
to cut her down and bury her with the last
of my dreams, a victim of man's inhumanity to man.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
The way to make it about you, right.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Like maybe talk about the purpose anyway. So he was
a member of the debate team in college, so he's
like trying to bring to bear all the eloquence and
drama he can muster.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
He wins under his belt.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Apparently he was really good that he had, like he
had like trophies and stuff. So after his closing argument,
the jurors retired to deliberate. This time, the jurors are
able to come back with a clear decision. Well, I
guess what it.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Was, uh curtains for Becky.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Guilty of sin. So way to go there. But I
don't want you to worry, Elizabeth. They do not hang
her high. Okay, So there's no like state murder in this,
even though her.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
Own husband, slash since attorney, was like, you know what, guys,
kill my client if you think she's guilty, just kill
her right here in front of me. Hold the body.
I'll pull down on her boots and then we can
all talk about me and how tragic this is for me.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
What a sad boy I am. So instead of dropping
her into the hot seat of the electric chair, the
judge sentences Becky to fourteen years in the state pen.
Her husband Otis immediately appeals the decision.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
She's like, no, no, no, I told you kill her.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
The appellate trial is heard by the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals in Austin, like the state capitol, so far
more than a member of the defense team, her husband
now becomes her lawyer. Oh gets rid of the other
ones like I can do it. It's all my own.
You guys help me.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Bast like entertainers have a spouse as a manager. It's
not a good.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Idea, he alone argues before the state appeals court. He
attacks the legal grounds on which his wife's convictions rest
and the legal argument that was leveraged by the DA.
Her husband's defense this time is stellar. He claims his
wife is insane. Well, he leans into this suspicions that
all these modern young women, these crazed flapper girls, and Elizabeth.

(46:04):
It works beautifully. The appeals court overturns the previous ruling,
but the couple there still aren't done with their legal fight,
because remember, she's got arson charges too. So Becky is
retried on the previous charges of armed robbery that she
has right. So, in May of twenty nine, Becky stands
trial in Lagrange, Texas for the armed robbery that went
down in Buddha. Now, before her new trial gets going,

(46:28):
the judge opts to stop the trial.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Why because she crazy?

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Great question, Elizabeth, Yeah, I know. The judge says, it
would now be impossible for her to get an unbiased
jury in Fayette County because she's already been tried there
everyone knows about her. I know you guys have all
been reading the newspapers. So he moves a trial to
New Bronfels in Comal County or Comyle County. In September
nineteen twenty nine, aged twenty four, Becky sits for her

(46:52):
third trial for armed robbery twenty four years Yeah. This time,
her twenty seven year old husband, Otis Rodgers becomes her
lead defense lawyer again. For his team, he brings along
two of his law school classmates.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Couple buddies.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah. The press has a field day with this. The
counselors are dubbed the quote youngest ever defense team to
quote try a capitol case in Texas, like these crazy kids, right.
The main legal argument for the youngest ever defense team
to try a capitol case in Texas is the same
as before. They argue that their client is insane. Yeah,
at least at the time of the robbery. Still national

(47:27):
news sensation years into this at this point, Yeah, sure,
the Flapper bandit is selling papers from sea to shine
and sea across the Nited States. Right when the trial
reaches its conclusion in late September twenty nine, the case
of the Flapper bandit confounds the jury of her peers,
as the Carbondale Free Press in Carbondale, Illinois reports on
its front page failed to convict flapper, bank robber or insane.

(47:51):
The Asheville Citizen Times in Asheville, North Carolina keeps it
more sucsync with their front page headline. It reads flapper
bandit victor and fourth court trial. In these places, although
the prosecutor had argued that quote insanity is a disease
that criminals get when they are caught, the jurors see
it differently. Her husband's legal wranglings in the insanity defense

(48:15):
that he tries, it works, it frees his wife. Yeah,
otis Rogers very keenly uses expert opinions of three psychologists
to like leverage all the biases and stereotypes of the day.
He basically uses sexism to paint his wife as a crazy,
young modern woman. The defense works brilliantly. Even the judge
falls victim to it. He says that Becky Rodgers is

(48:35):
quote too attractive to be a bank robber. As he
put it, quote, she was so pretty that there is
no way she could be a criminal.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Well, right there, I mean that's how you tell good air.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, you're like you look at the criminal. You're like,
is she hot? Definitely not a criminal, can't be a criminal.
Must have quit. So in the end, must have quit,
thank you. So they convinced not of the twelve jurors
that Becky Rodgers is indeed legally insane, at least temporarily,
because they don't put her in the state hospital. They're

(49:06):
just like, it was a moment, she just got a
little crazy. Then flappers to go, lord, remember look at it.
She wears the homemade dresses. She can't be all crazy.
So they vote to a quote on criminal charges. The
remaining three jurors they wanted a guilty verdict. They're like, no,
she's a high guilty. Nope. So the trial concludes, hung
Jerry again. Flapper Bandit gets off All in all, Becky
Bradley Rodgers. She's now faced four trials for bank robbery

(49:29):
and for arson and collectively beats them all. The local
journalists and court watchers put forward their theories of what
went wrong? How come we couldn't like bust the Flapper Bandit.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
They opine about how modern times are radically changing what
is considered reasonable and what is considered insane nic and
it's making it difficult to see her cure a guilty
verdict against the Flapper band is.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
It's so difficult.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
So there's editor of the local new Bronfells Herald newspaper.
He writes the quote, there seems to be a very
wide bread sentiment that failure and four attempts to convict
probably means the conviction can never be secured. This newspaper
editor also suggests a quote, it would seem that justice
tempered with mercy matt will apply here. So they basically

(50:14):
are like, once again, if she's fit, we got so. Basically,
he determines that the jurors are going to keep taking
pity on the Flapper Bandit for being a misguided modern
young woman, or they'll be persuaded by the innocence of
her beauty. And either way they're like, no electric chair
for her.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Yeah, save becks exactly.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
So eventually the two Texas counties they concede defeat. In
September twenty nine, Williamson County ends their prosecution. They're like,
we're not going to another trial. The next month, the
stock market falls and the Great Depression begins. So the
era of the Flapper Girl comes to a swift and
sudden end. Sure news stories. They move on. Texas Justice, however,
does not because it takes the folks down in Hayes

(50:52):
County longer to get over the whole armed bank robbery.
Four years later, in nineteen thirty three, they're like, okay, fine,
we will not come up with another case, so they
let her go on the armed robbery charges. So now
Rebecca Bradley Rodgers, aka the Flapper Bandit, walks free on
all charges. The very next day she joins the ranks
of motherhood. Becky gives birth to her first child with

(51:15):
her courtroom badass of a husband, Otis Rogers. Yeah, they
greet a baby girl into the world, which becomes the
first of their three children. As their family grows larger
and larger, the Flapper Bandit puts her rough and rowdy
ways behind her. She settles down, gets to work for
her husband in his office as his legal secretary. Meanwhile,
his reputation in textsll legal circles begins to grow and grow.

(51:38):
Otis Rodgers becomes known as the little giant who quote
always got in the last word. Oh yeah, people liked
him anyway. King Short total short king energy, the flapper
bandit and her little short king of a lawyer husband.
They remain happily married until the time of her death
in nineteen fifty. Wow, at the very young age of
forty five.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Wow, the very next.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Year dies what neither of them makes it to the
age of fifty?

Speaker 3 (52:03):
What happened?

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I wish I could give you the answers they just.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
I wish she could yea.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
For a few years back in the Roaring twenties, this
pair were a viral national sensation, and together they kind
of embodied the dizzying spirit of this radical decade. As
the Flapper Bandit Becky Rodgers, basically she challenges what America
expected from its young women. She stokes the flames of
moral panic, and then she settles down and becomes a
dutiful wife and mother and her husband's secretary. Right.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
I thought for sure that she'd get off and then
like they would have her on like stage shows, going
around touring.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, no, She's like, but I suppose if.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
When the economy tanks, those things aren't.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
So Once the depression hit, all these stories of the
twenties are just dead on arrival, right, So they basically
discovered there was really nothing ever to worry about with
the Flapper Band and all the moral panics or for not,
they were just selling newspapers other than, of course, Becky's
difficulties with bookkeeping, which does the pair Merrit hadn't mentioned,
But there you go. So what's a ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Oh my goodness. You know we talk about planning execution.
What's gonna you know, thinking it through. Becky obviously was
a smart lady. Yeah, uh not street smart, crime smart. Yeah.
And I'm also really fascinated as to why they both
passed away so young.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
But yeah, it was a little bit like I didn't
want to dwell on their deaths. Yeah, sorry, I can't
provide you with answers. Maybe check out newspapers dot com.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
I think I'm going to look her up dig around
an ancestry. Yeah, that's your ridiculous takeaway.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Mine is like I wish people would realize that moral
panics are always about the moment and it's just a
paper thin thing and do not fall like I know that,
Like you have to respond when people are saying like
these people need to be thrown in the ocean or
whatever they're saying in the moral panic. Sure, but just
know that this too will pass. Yeah, you know, because
it's really not attached to anything, and as soon as
the world changes, they're on to a new thing exactly,

(53:56):
and then they're worried about like what's going on in
Europe or right? So you ready to wash this all
down with say a delicious talkback? Produce a d Can
you favor us with one?

Speaker 4 (54:08):
Oh God, I love you.

Speaker 5 (54:20):
Hi. My name is Kat. I currently live in New
Hampshire and I just wanted to thank Zarn for bringing
up the movie Clifford. My sister Liz and I watched
it repeatedly as children. We never broke our VCR, but
I think we might have broken our parents' spirits a
little bit with how frequently we watched it. Thank you

(54:44):
for the unlock of that core childhood memory.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Lots of love to all of you.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
I love it. I love to be in service of
an unlocked memory that is great. Clifford is a great
one spirit. If you have a VCR on the VHS day,
pop that bad boy, you know break some spirits well. Obviously,
as you can tell, we love your talkback, so please
go to the iHeart app download it. Leave us a talkback.
Maybe you get to hear your voice here. We'd like

(55:11):
to hear it. You can also find us online a
Ridiculous Crime on Instagram, Blue Sky. We have our account
Ridiculous Crime Pod pod pod on YouTube if you prefer,
you can listen along there. We also have our website,
which Elizabeth was just nominated for the best portal for
all your Minnesota fishing needs. You're kidd Ridiculous Crime dot.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Com and where else would you go?

Speaker 2 (55:33):
I don't know. I don't know where they're.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Going and who are we up against?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
So please also emails. We love your emails. Emails if
you want a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. We've
been getting some gobins lately, so thank you all. We
love the rude dudes look forward to reading your missives.
So that's all we got for you today. Thanks for listening,
and we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime his

(55:59):
host by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, Produced and edited
by Friend to all Felonious Flappers mister Dave Kusten and
starring Annelie's Rucker as Judith. Research is by our Crack
Legal Team Marissa Brown and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song
is by the best little band in Texas to jazz
up your speakeasy. The syncopated centers Thomas Lee and Travis

(56:20):
Dutton host wardrobe provided by Bondany five hundred guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and to mister Andre. The executive
producers are the directors of the Texas State Ridiculous Historical Association,
Ben Bolin and Noel Brown.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
Why say it one more time? We cry?

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.