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July 13, 2025 33 mins

The narrative surrounding George Machine Gun Kelly, often heralded as a quintessential gangster of the 1930s, reveals a profound examination of myth-making amidst a nation in turmoil. We delve into the intricacies of his life, from his origins in Memphis, Tennessee, to his notorious criminal exploits, which were largely orchestrated by his ambitious wife, Catherine. The episode underscores the symbiotic relationship between the media, the FBI, and the public's fascination with outlaws during the Great Depression, a time when societal despair fostered an appetite for anti-heroes. As we unravel the dramatic events of his capture and subsequent trial, it becomes evident that the legend of Machine Gun Kelly was meticulously crafted, obscuring the mundane reality of his existence. Ultimately, we reflect on how the constructed persona of Kelly serves as a lens through which we can explore the broader themes of identity, morality, and the societal need for heroes, whether real or imagined.

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Takeaways:

  • The narrative surrounding George Machine Gun Kelly illustrates the interplay of myth and reality in historical crime narratives.
  • Catherine Kelly played a pivotal role in crafting the infamous persona of Machine Gun Kelly, transforming him into a public figure.
  • The Great Depression and Prohibition contributed significantly to the rise of organized crime in America during the 1930s.
  • The arrest of Machine Gun Kelly was a carefully orchestrated media event that served to enhance the FBI's public image.
  • Machine Gun Kelly's eventual capture revealed the disparity between his notorious image and his actual life as a criminal.
  • The transformation of Machine Gun Kelly from a feared gangster to a mere shadow of his former self highlights the demythologizing effect of incarceration.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:20):
Memphis, Tennessee.
September 26, 1933.
In the pre dawn darkness, abungalow on Rainer street is surrounded.
Inside, the man the newspapershave dubbed public enemy number one
is sleeping off a gin binge.
The law is closing in.
When the agents burst in, theyfind him unarmed, hungover and still

(00:42):
in his pajamas.
And in that moment, a legendis born.
As the story goes, thefearsome gangster throws his hands
in the air and cries out theimmortal words, don't shoot G men.
Don't shoot.
It's a phrase that would echothrough history, immortalizing both
the criminal and the federalagents who caught him.

(01:03):
It was the perfect dramaticend to the crime spree of George
Machine Gun Kelly.
But what if it never happened?
What if the man behind themachine gun was a fraud?
And what if the real criminalmastermind was the woman sleeping
in the next room?
Welcome to history's greatest crimes.
I'm Elena.
And I'm Michael.

(01:23):
And today we're unraveling thestory of Machine Gun Kelly.
The real gangster of the1930s, not the current pop star on
the radio.
Although the present daysinger adopted the stage name of
Machine Gun Kelly in honor ofthe infamous Prohibition gangster.
But this is a story not justof a gangster, but of a nation in

(01:43):
crisis during the Great Depression.
The birth of the modern FBIand how a myth was manufactured and
then brutally dismantled onthe world's most notorious prison
island, Alcatraz.

(02:15):
To understand a figure likeMachine Gun Kelly, you first have
to understand the world thatcreated him.
America in the 1930s was anation on its knees.
The Great Depression hadshattered the economy and with it
the public's faith in its owncrumbling institutions.
Millions were unemployed,savings were wiped out overnight.

(02:36):
And for many, the Americandream had turned into a nightmare.
That's right, Michael.
When the stock market crashedon October 24th of 1929, 10% of the
total wealth of the nationwent up in smoke.
By 1932, 25% of the workforcewas unemployed.
Thousands of people stood inline to compete for 10 or 15 available

(02:59):
employment positions.
There are stories of mendeliberately setting fire to forests
to get temporary employment as firefighters.
People lost their homes to thebanks and many lived in lean to shacks
made of scrap wood and metal.
People were so desperate anddespondent they that in the first
year of the Depression, it'sthought that about 23,000Americans

(03:22):
committed suicide.
And we have to remember thatthe Great Depression was great and
that it lasted a long time.
Despite Democratic PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt's efforts
to create employment and boostthe economy through his New Deal
programs.
The depression lasted untilthe early 1940s.
It lasted over 10 years.
This widespread demoralizationthroughout the nation created a fertile

(03:47):
ground for a new kind of anti hero.
At the same time, the countrywas in the throes of a massive social
experiment.
Prohibition, the nationwideban on alcohol enacted in 1920 through
the 18th Amendment.
This was part of a progressiveera push during which reformers pressured
the federal government tobetter society through policies and

(04:09):
laws.
Reformers had good intentionsin establishing prohibition at the
start.
They thought that stoppingalcohol consumption would help American
families.
But prohibition, which wouldlast until 1933, had an explosive
unintended consequence.
It sure did.
As one historian put it,Prohibition practically created organized

(04:31):
crime in America, end quote.
It didn't stop people from drinking.
It just turned a legalindustry into a billion dollar black
market controlled by criminals.
Criminals like Al Capone in aprevious episode.
But this new illicit economydemanded a new kind of criminal.
The old unruly street gangsgave way to highly organized syndicates

(04:53):
that operated likecorporations, with complex logistics
and corrupt relationships withpoliticians and police.
Historians refer to thisperiod, from the 1920s through the
early 30s as the public enemyera, A time of soaring crime, racism,
mobsters, and a new breed ofoutlaw, the bank robber.

(05:14):
And the public's relationshipwith these criminals was complicated.
While the government andnewspapers decried the violence of
figures like Al Capone, thepublic often saw the more independent
outlaws in a different light.
In an era when banks wereforeclosing on family farms and life
savings vanished overnight,the men and women who robbed those

(05:36):
same banks were often cast asfolk heroes.
They became symbols ofdefiance against a system that seemed
rigged and broken.
Criminals became national celebrities.
The notoriety of gangs likeBonnie and Clyde was fueled by wild
shootouts and spectacular carchases, turning them into romantic
figures outside the law.

(05:57):
Also a previous episode.
The media, from newspapers tothe new pulp magazines, breathlessly
covered their exploits,turning them into household names.
This romanticization of theoutlaw in the 1920s and 1930s was
more than just a fascinationwith crime.
It was a symptom of the era'sdeep institutional collapse.

(06:21):
The public's embrace offigures who attacked banks wasn't
an endorsement of criminalityitself, but rather a vicarious rebellion
against the very systems,financial and governmental, that
they felt had betrayed them.
In response to the legendaryimage of gangsters, the government
attempted to offer the publicand the media a new kind of hero

(06:43):
to replace the outlaw folk hero.
This new hero was the G Man.
In that sense, thegovernment's response to criminal
activity wasn't Just astraightforward war on crime.
It was a battle for the publicnarrative about who the actual American
heroes were.
So with the Great Depressionand Prohibition going on in the background,

(07:04):
this was the stage on whichGeorge and Katherine Kelly would
carry out their illicitactivities and perform their greatest
and final act.
But who exactly was MachineGun Kelly?
I'm glad you asked.
The man who would becomeMachine Gun Kelly was born George
Kelly Barnes in Memphis,Tennessee in 1895.

(07:25):
Accounts of his family'swealth vary, with some describing
it as modest and and othersdescribing him as fairly wealthy.
What is clear is that hisearly life gave no indications of
the notorious criminal hewould grow to become.
He attended Mississippi A andM College to study agriculture.
But he soon found out that hewas a very poor student.

(07:45):
His highest grade was a C inof all things, physical hygiene.
He soon dropped out to marryhis first wife, Geneva Ramsey.
In photos from that time,George Kelly Barnes was a good looking
young man.
Tall and slender and oftenwearing a smirk on his face.
He was frequently seen insuits and ties and often with a hat.

(08:06):
But despite having a niceappearance, his life after college
was a series of failures.
George and Geneva had twochildren and afterwards George struggled
to support his family.
He worked long hours as a cabdriver in Memphis for very little
reward.
The financial strain wasoverwhelming and he soon separated
from his wife.

(08:27):
Distressed and broke, GeorgeBarnes drifted into the world of
small time crime, becoming abootlegger during the height of Prohibition.
This new career led to severalrun ins with the Memphis police.
And to escape law enforcement,he changed his name to George R.
Kelly.
But even with a name change,his luck didn't get any better.

(08:49):
In 1927 he was arrested twicefor bootlegging and for vagrancy.
And then in 1928 he wasarrested again, this time in Tulsa,
Oklahoma for smuggling liquorinto an Indian reservation and was
sentenced to three years inLeavenworth Penitentiary.
By all accounts, he was amodel inmate and was released early

(09:09):
on.
Good behavior.
At this point, George Kellywas, as one biographer puts it, quote,
a small time hip pocket bootlegger.
He was a man defined really byhis failures, not his fearsomeness.
This was not the resume of afuture public enemy number one.
So George needed a catalyst.

(09:30):
He needed a director, apublicist, a mastermind.
And some people claim thatthere's a woman to blame.
My apologies for singing there.
And he found one in CatherineThorne, born Cleo Brooks in Salio,
Mississippi in 1904.

(09:51):
Catherine was an experiencedcriminal in her own right.
She had a criminal record forshotlifting and robbery.
And her third husband, abootlegger named Charlie Thorne,
had been found dead with atyped suicide note.
And this was highlysuspicious, given that it was common
knowledge that the man was illiterate.

(10:11):
But the judge looked pastthis, and Catherine was never convicted
for the murder.
So Catherine was the originalfafo woman?
Absolutely.
Catherine was beautiful,ambitious, intelligent, and had family
connections in the crime world.
In fact, she first met GeorgeKelly while he was still serving

(10:32):
time.
Catherine was from a family ofmoonshiners and was visiting relatives
in prison at the time.
And when she saw the handsome,smirking George Kelly, she saw a
man she could mold into herideal outlaw.
As soon as George Kelly gotout of prison in 1930, he married
Catherine.

(10:52):
Interestingly, the author of aseries of female focus histories,
Chris Ends, described her asscheming mole, as driven as Bonnie
Parker and Ma Barker.
A woman with the lust fordanger who masterminded the crimes
that would make them famous.
She was the one quote whopushed her husband to commit greater

(11:14):
crimes.
Her first and most importantact was branding.
She understood the power of agood story, A terrifying image.
She went out and purchasedKelly's first Thompson machine gun
and insisted that he practicedwith it, despite his apparent lack
of interest in weapons.

(11:35):
The Thompson gun, commonlyknown as the tommy gun, was first
created for military use in1918 at the end of World War I, but
it was subsequently sold tothe general public.
The models of the 1920s, gunsthat George Kelly would have used
could fire at a rate of around900 rounds per minute.
Following the gun purchase,Catherine launched a one woman public

(11:59):
relations campaign.
She began spreading storiesthat her husband was so proficient
with the gun that he couldwrite his name in bullets on a fence.
She was known to take thespent gun cartridges and pass them
around to acquaintances atunderground drinking clubs, introducing
them as souvenirs from thefearsome machine gun Kelly.

(12:20):
She boasted that he was adesperate criminal wanted in three
states for murder and bank robbery.
It was all marketing and itwas brilliant.
She crafted the entire Persona.
George Kelly Barnes was her creation.
She was the criminalimpresario who understood that in
the 1930s media landscape,myth was more valuable than reality.

(12:43):
And to be clear, this wasn't apartnership of equals.
Catherine was the strategist,the ambitious leader.
Her ruthlessness became clearlater when on the run, she tried
to broker a deal with an FBIagent to turn in her husband to in
exchange for a lenientsentence for herself and her mother.
She wasn't just with agangster, she made the gangster.

(13:25):
So in the early 1930s,Catherine and Machine Gun Kelly were
a couple.
They moved to Fort Worth,Texas where they operated together
as bootleggers.
But not being content withbeing secret criminals, Catherine
and George Kelly, AKA MachineGun Kelly, were intent on making
themselves famous.
It wasn't long before theKelly's graduated from bank robbery

(13:48):
to the most feared crime ofthe era.
Kidnapping for ransom.
In Oklahoma City.
On the night of July 22, 1933,George Kelly and a criminal associate
named Albert Bates burst intothe home of oil tycoon Charles F.
Urschel.
Urschel and his wife Berenicewere playing a game of bridge with

(14:08):
their friends Walter andElizabeth Jarrett.
Armed with Kelly's trademarkmachine gun.
The kidnappers demanded toknow which of the men was Urschel.
When no one answered theydeclared, quote, well we'll take
both of them, end quote.
They forced both men intotheir car and after driving a few
miles, identified theirwealthy target by checking his wallet.

(14:32):
They released Walter Jarretton the side of the road and drove
Charles Urschel, nowblindfolded, to a remote farmhouse
in Paradise, Texas.
The hideout belonged toCatherine's mother and stepfather
who had agreed to watchUrschel in exchange for for a cut
of the ransom.
And the demand was astaggering $200,000, the equivalent

(14:54):
of nearly $5 million today.
And the instructions were precise.
The money was to be paid andused $20 bills.
And the family was warned notto record the serial numbers.
A warning they wisely ignored.
And to signal their compliancethe family was instructed to place
a specific classified ad inthe daily Oklahoma newspaper that

(15:16):
read, quote, for sale 160acres, good five room house, deep
well, also cows, tools,tractor, corn and hay.
But the Kelly's and theiraccomplices made a fatal mistake.
They completely underestimatedtheir victim.
Charles Urschel, thoughblindfolded for most of his nine

(15:37):
day ordeal, was not a man to panic.
He became in effect a one mandetective agency.
Meticulously collectingevidence against his captors.
He paid attention to every detail.
He memorized the sounds of thefarm, the crowing of roosters, the
squeal of pigs and otherbarnyard noises that told him he

(15:58):
was in a rural area.
He noted the distinctsulfurous taste of the well water
he was given to drink.
He counted his steps wheneverhe moved, estimated the dimensions
of the room where he was held captive.
And as he later told the FBI,he made a conscious effort to touch
every surface he could,intentionally leaving his fingerprints
as a trail for investigators.

(16:20):
But Urschel's most criticalobservation was a sound pattern.
As he would later testify, anairplane flew over the farmhouse
at precisely the same timesevery day.
Once at 9:45am and again at5:45pm he even noted that the plane
did not fly on one particularSunday, which he recalled was rainy.

(16:44):
This single, seemingly minordetail would prove to be the key
that unlocked the entire case.
Charles Urschel wasn't just avictim, he was actively working to
solve his own kidnapping.
On July 30, 1933, the Kelly'sreleased Charles Urschel in exchange
for the $200,000.
And for one man, thekidnapping couldn't have come at

(17:06):
a better time.
That man was J. Edgar Hoover,the fiercely ambitious director of
the Bureau of Investigation,soon to be renamed the Federal Bureau
of Investigation or the FBI.
The nation was in the grip ofwhat the press called a kidnapping
epidemic.
A wave of fear spurred by thesensational 1932 abduction and murder

(17:28):
of the infant son of thefamous American pilot and and military
officer Charles Lindbergh.
The public outcry from theLindbergh case had pressured Congress
into passing the FederalKidnapping act, popularly known as
the Lindbergh Law.
This legislation madekidnapping across state lines a federal
offense, giving Hoover'sagency, soon to be renamed as the

(17:51):
FBI, unprecedented power topursue criminals across the country.
The law was a cornerstone of anew federal war on crime.
Hoover saw the Urschel case asthe perfect opportunity to showcase
his new professionalized andpowerful federal force.
He had spent years reformingthe Bureau and establishing a scientific

(18:14):
crime lab, a centralizedfingerprint file and rigorous training
for his agents.
These new skilled agents ofthe Bureau became famous for their
attention to cases, especiallythose of espionage or organized crime
and other high profile crimes.
By the late 1920s these agentshad become popularly known as G men,

(18:35):
slang for government agents.
In fact, the earliest citationin the Oxford English Dictionary
for the American usage of theterm came in 1930 in a biography
of Al Capone.
So J. Edgar Hoover was makinggreat strides as the director of
the Bureau of Investigations.
However, we have to be carefulnot to glorify his efforts too much.

(18:58):
In 1919, then 24 year oldHoover played a leading role in the
first Red Scare which led tomany deportations of first generation
immigrants without due processfor supposedly supporting communism
or communist ideas.
And then in 1921, when he wasappointed the fifth director of the
Bureau of Investigation, hefired all the female agents and banned

(19:22):
the future hiring of them.
That ban lasted until 1972when Hoover died.
Yikes.
But good or bad, in 1933, J.Edgar Hoover had the perfect High
profile crime to cement therole of the FBI and the G men as
America's premier crimefighting agency.

(19:42):
He took a personal interest inthe Urschel kidnapping case, pulling
his best agents off of othermajor investigations to lead the
manhunt for Kelly.
The FBI's investigation was amassive multi state effort, a textbook
example of the Bureau's newnational reach.
A key element of theirstrategy was tracking the $200,000

(20:06):
in ransom money.
Before the money wasdelivered, the FBI had meticulously
recorded the serial numbers ofevery single $20 bill.
These numbers were thencirculated to banks and financial
institutions across the country.
It didn't take long for thetrap to spring.
Soon, the marked bills startedpopping up.

(20:27):
A bundle of them appeared at abank in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where
an accomplice tried toexchange them for a cashier's check.
More bills were used topurchase 125 cases of whiskey.
The money trail led agents toa sprawling web of accomplices to
money changers and safehouses, but slowly and surely tightening

(20:47):
the net around the Kelly gang.
While the money trail washeating up, agents were working with
the clues provided by Charles Urschel.
His detailed sensory accountwas invaluable.
The airplane sounds he had socarefully memorized corresponded
perfectly with the dailyflight path of an American Airways

(21:07):
plane that flew between FortWorth and Amarillo, Texas.
This, combined with otherclues like the sulfurous water, allowed
investigators to pinpoint thelocation of the hideout.
On August 12, 1933, federalagents raided the ranch in Paradise,
Texas, arresting Catherine'smother and stepfather.

(21:28):
With their network collapsing,George and Catherine Kelly were now
on the run.
Interestingly, during thistime that the authorities were chasing
them, Catherine tried tobroker a deal with an FBI agent for
a lenient sentence for herselfand her mother in exchange for turning
in George.
This deal never went throughas the FBI captured both George and

(21:49):
Catherine before the dealcould be finalized.
The nationwide manhunt finallycame to a dramatic end on September
26, 1933, at a bungalow inMemphis, Tennessee, the home of a
friend.
In the early morning hours,FBI agents conducted a raid during
which George and KatherineKelly were taken into custody.

(22:11):
The popular story, the onepromoted heavily by Hoover and the
FBI for decades, is that acornered and terrified machine gun.
Kelly, without his trustymachine gun, surrendered with the
now immortal cry, don't shoot,G men.
Don't shoot.
It was a powerful piece ofpropaganda, casting the FBI agents
as fearless heroes who hadbrought a notorious public enemy

(22:33):
to his knees with nothing more than.
Their authority but the truthas pieced Together from forgotten
interviews and internaldocuments is far less dramatic and
much more interesting.
One of the arresting agents,William Rohrer, gave a telephone
interview to a ChicagoAmerican reporter just hours after
the capture.

(22:54):
In that interview, he saidthat it was Catherine who actually
used the term.
As she was being arrested,Rora recalled, she cried like a baby.
She put her arms around Kellyand said, honey, I guess it's all
up for us.
The G Men won't ever give us a break.
Other accounts, including someearly press reports, say that Kelly,

(23:17):
badly hungover, simplystumbled out of his bed and mumbled
something like, quote, I'vebeen waiting for you all night.
The official FBI reports fromthe time make no mention of Kelly
saying g Men at all.
But it seems the more colorfulversion was simply too good of a
story to let the facts get inthe way.

(23:39):
The myth was far more usefulto Hoover than the mundane reality.
This episode reveals afascinating, almost symbiotic relationship
between Hoover's FBI and andthe outlaws they hunted.
Hoover needed larger than lifevillains to justify his agency's
expanding power and budget,and the media was more than happy

(24:01):
to create them.
In turn, the FBI's highprofile war on crime amplified the
gangster's notoriety, creatinga feedback loop of myth making.
The capture of Kelly wasn'tjust an arrest.
It was a carefully managedmedia event that designed to replace
the outlaw hero with the G Manhero in the public consciousness.

(24:24):
The likely fabrication of thefamous quote demonstrates that Hoover
was also a master of public relations.

(24:50):
The trial of George andKatherine Kelly was a national spectacle.
One of the first federalcriminal trials where newsreel cameras
were allowed inside the courtroom.
Beginning in the 1910s, themedia began to produce newsreels,
short films documentingcurrent events.
And this became a popular formof entertainment and information

(25:13):
for the general public thatthey could view at local movie theaters.
So as all of America waswatching in the courtroom, drama
itself did not disappoint.
Charles Urschel himself tookthe stand, calmly and precisely recounting
his entire kidnapping ordeal.
In a moment of high drama,Catherine's own grandmother was brought

(25:35):
forward in a wheelchair totestify against her, causing Catherine
to break down into tears.
But the most striking featureof the trial was the contrast between
the two main defendants.
Catherine was defiant and poised.
Ever the performer, she wasfashionably dressed and seemed to
relish the media attention.

(25:55):
Posing for cameras multipletimes after her conviction, she famously
sneered, quote, anyone wouldhave been convicted in this court
if they'd brought my dog inhere, he would have got a life sentence
too.
George Kelly, on the otherhand was the shell of his fearsome
public image.
He had been on bread and waterdiet in jail and had been pistol

(26:17):
whipped by an agent after analtercation in the courthouse.
So entering the courtroom, hehad a swollen temple and blood trickling
down his face.
The man whose identity wasbuilt around a machine gun sat silently
through the proceedings.
He never took the stand in hisown defense.
In his closing argument, thedistrict attorney Herbert Hyde framed

(26:38):
the case as a battle for thesoul of the nation.
Speaking to the jury and tothe newsreel cameras, he declared,
quote, we are here to find ananswer to the question of whether
we shall have a government oflaw and order or abdicate in favor
of machine gun gangsters.
If the government cannotprotect its citizens, then we had

(26:59):
frankly better turn it over tothe Kelly's.
End quote.
On October 12, 1933, the jurytook less than one hour to find both
George and Catherine Kelly guilty.
They were sentenced to life in prison.
George Kelly was initiallysent back to Leavenworth penitentiary,
But he couldn't resist boasting.

(27:19):
He bragged to the press thathe would escape, break his wife out
of prison, and they wouldspend Christmas together.
The federal government decidedto take these boasting threats seriously.
In August of 1934, Kelly wasput on a train and transferred to
a new, inescapable federalpenitentiary built on an island in
San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz.

(27:42):
He arrived on September 4,1934, as inmate A Z117, part of one
of the first large group ofprisoners to be housed on Alcatraz.
Popularly known as the Rock.
Alcatraz was designated to bethe end of the line, a place to break
the spirits of America's mostnotorious and incorrigible criminals.

(28:06):
According to a warden whoworked there during his time, his
life at Alcatraz was largely uneventful.
The fearsome public enemybecame the model inmate.
He worked in the prisonlaundry and held an administrative
job in the industries office.
He played bridge on the weekends.
He even served as an altar boyin the prison chapel.

(28:26):
He became deeply remorseful,writing letters to Charles Urschel
begging for his forgiveness.
The letters went unanswered.
To his fellow inmates atAlcatraz, hardened criminals like
Al Capone and Doc Barker, thefearsome machine gun Kelly was a
complete joke.
They saw right through thebravado that Catherine and the press

(28:49):
had created.
He was constantly boasting,telling big fish stories about robberies
he'd never committed andmurders he'd never done.
A fellow inmate later recalledhow Kelly earned a new, more fitting
Nickname.
He said that Kelly told bigfish stories.
So the cons called him Pop GunKelly, after cork guns that were

(29:11):
popular with kids.
The guys didn't take him seriously.
The man whose entire identitywas built on a powerful weapon was.
Was now named after a child's toy.
Another inmate who sailed nextto Kelly remembered him as an intelligent
man who loved to read.
But his most prominent memorywas of Kelly's petty side.

(29:33):
Nearly every night, Kellywould accuse his neighbor of snoring,
reach out of his cell and slaphim on the head with a magazine.
This was the pathetic realityof the great public enemy.
The transformation of MachineGun Kelly into Pop Gun Kelly perfectly
illustrates the psychologicalpurpose of Alcatraz.

(29:53):
The prison was designed notjust for incarceration, but for the
systemic dismantling of thePublic enemy Persona.
The island of Alcatraz wasdesignated as a federal prison in
1934, and it was designed tohold prisoners who continuously cause
trouble at other federal prisons.
Most prisoners were notoriousbank robbers and murderers, and the

(30:15):
staff at the prison werehighly trained in security, but not
rehabilitation.
There was little hope foranyone jailed there of making it
out anytime soon.
By stripping away the tools oftheir trade the guns, the fast car,
the media attention andsubjecting them to a rigid, monotonous,
isolating routine, Alcatrazrevealed the ordinary, often pathetic

(30:40):
men behind the myths.
Kelly's story shows that thegangster image so potent in the outside
world could not survive thebrutal, demythologizing realities
of the rock.
After spending 17 years onAlcatraz as an inmate, George Machine
Gun Kelly was quietlytransferred back to the Leavenworth

(31:01):
Prison in Kansas.
There, three years later, hedied of a heart attack on his 59th
birthday.
When none of Kelly's familyclaimed his body, Catherine's stepfather,
who had finished his own 11years in prison, had him buried in
his family plot in Cottondale, Texas.
A simple, small headstone thatstates George B. Kelly 1954 marks

(31:27):
his final resting place.
After Catherine Kelly wassentenced in 1933, she and her mother
served 25 years together andat a women's correctional establishment
in West Virginia before beingreleased in 1958.
She changed her name back to Lara.
Cleo worked as a bookkeeper inan Oklahoma hospital and lived quietly

(31:47):
in obscurity until her deathin 1985.
In the end, the story ofMachine Gun Kelly is the story of
an era.
He was a small time crook, afailure at almost everything he tried,
who was inflated into alegendary figure by an ambitious
wife, a sensationalist pressand a public desperate for anti heroes.

(32:10):
He was the perfect villain forJ. Edgar Hoover's rising FBI.
A larger than life publicenemy whose capture could be spun
into a tale of federal triumph.
For the heroic G Man.
He was a man defined by two guns.
The Thompson submachine gunthat gave him his fearsome manufactured

(32:31):
name.
And the pop gun that definedhis pathetic, unraveled reality.
His story shows us that in thetheater of crime, the myth is often
more powerful, more dangerousthan the actual man.
I'm Elena.
And I'm Michael.
Until next time.
Stay curious.

(32:53):
Sa.
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