The Great
Depression was a time of grinding poverty, shanty towns, soup lines, and trains
laden with tattered hoboes looking for work.
Thousands lost their homes and farms to foreclosure. As a result, many blamed the banks for their
misfortunes. Gangsters, such as “Baby
Face” Nelson, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, Alvin Karpis, and John
Dillinger caught the public’s imagination.
Because they robbed the hated banks, they were often seen as heroes and
modern day Robin Hoods. Nevertheless,
they shot people, especially police officers and bank employees with families
to support. The money they robbed didn’t
go toward charities for the poor, but toward their own pockets.
Back then, bank
robberies were committed with an impunity that would dumbfound today’s innocent, law-abiding public. During the twenties, law enforcement in major
cities, such as Chicago, were hampered by corruption, stingy budgets, and state
and local jurisdictions that wouldn’t cooperate with each other. To make matters worse, the bank robbers were
heavily armed with submachine guns, automatic rifles, and shotguns, awesome
military grade firepower the police could barely counter. By the time police officers and sheriff
deputies gave chase, the criminals were in another state jurisdiction, holed-up
in back-alley apartments and remote farm houses, except for Bonnie and Clyde;
who mostly just lived in their car.
Their stolen money could buy a whole lot of underworld support,
especially informants who could warn them if the law was getting too
close. If you had the money and corrupt
officials that looked the other way - crime paid!
That all changed
during the early thirties with the emergence of the federal government’s crime
fighting unit - the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI. Under the leadership of a former government
attorney, J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI would become the nation’s premier law
enforcement agency. A self-disciplined,
neatness freak, who lived with his mother, Hoover surrounded himself with
suited, well-groomed, extremely loyal agents, mostly dapper Southern boys with
law degrees. However, they were also
unarmed investigators with little, if any, police experience. Hoover himself had never arrested anyone. Snappy appearances were great for newspaper
photos, but not so great for armed manhunts that could get you killed during a
gunfight. What the FBI needed to
compensate for its youthful inexperience, especially against heavily armed,
hardened gangsters, was a tough, frontier approach to law enforcement. What better place to look than Texas.
Referred to as the
“Cowboys,” these grizzled FBI agents from the Southwest weren’t anything like
Hoover’s “young and grateful” type. They
wore cowboy hats, chewed and spit tobacco, drank, and packed oversize revolvers. But more important, they could look you
straight in the eye, and without hesitation, shoot you dead. Charles Winstead, who often carried a .357
Magnum revolver, fit that type “to a T.”
Charles “Charlie”
Winstead was born in Sherman, Texas on May 25th, 1891. Unlike the buff, silent character portrayed
by the actor Stephen Lang, in the movie “Public Enemies,” he was 5 feet, seven
inches tall and weighed only 135 pounds.
Winstead was anything but silent, if riled, he wouldn’t hold back,
vocally or physically; a trait that would eventually cost him. In one incident, he struck a deliveryman who
called him an “sob” over a parking space.
Before joining the FBI, Winstead served in the army during World War I and
was a deputy sheriff in a number of Texas counties. After joining the FBI, he was sent to the
Dallas field office where he participated in unsuccessful hunts for Bonnie and
Clyde and “Machine Gun” Kelly. Though
lacking in education, Winstead had a keen insight into the criminal mind and
could conduct an investigation. His big
break came with his arrest of 1920’s bank robber Harvey Bailey in Rhome,
Oklahoma. Bailey was referred to as the
“Dean of Bank Robbers.” So successful at his profession, he opened a chain of
car washes and gas stations throughout South Chicago, eventually losing it all
in the 1929 stock market crash. In May,
1934, Winstead boarded an airplane at Dallas’ Love Field for a trip to Chicago;
he was being transferred to help hunt down the most notorious bank robber in U.
S. History - John Dillinger.
John Herbert
Dillinger could probably never remember a time when he wasn’t in trouble. Born on June 22, 1903 in Indianapolis,
Indiana, he was a bully at school and stole cars as a teenager. To avoid a further downward slide, Dillinger
enlisted in the U. S. Navy but eventually deserted while his ship, the USS Utah,
was docked in Boston Harbor. He was
later dishonorably discharged. Out of a
job, newly married, and without an
employable background, Dillinger turned to crime, robbing $50 from an elderly
grocery store owner in Mooresville, Indiana.
He was arrested and received a 10 year sentence. While incarcerated at Indiana State Prison,
he learned the basics of bank robbery from fellow inmates, stating “I will
become the meanest bastard you ever saw when I get out of here.” He was as good as his word after being
paroled on May 10, 1933. What followed
was a string of 24 bank robberies throughout the Midwest with a gang of
ex-convicts he knew in prison. To obtain needed arms and bullet proof vests, he
brazenly held-up police stations.
Dillinger’s career
came to a screeching halt when police in Tucson, Arizona arrested him while he
was hiding out. He was extradited to
Crown Pointe, Indiana to stand trial for a bank robbery in East Chicago. The jail house was reinforced with additional
guards, turning it into an armed camp. A
swarm of news reporters descended on Dillinger’s jail cell. He took full advantage of the publicity,
presenting himself as a heartfelt, working class type who only robbed banks to
make a living. “I was just an unfortunate boy who started wrong,” he told
reporters. In one news photo, he had his
elbow resting on the shoulder of the county prosecutor, as if they were the
best of friends. Dillinger’s public
stock rose further when he escaped.
Using a hand-carved wooden handgun, dyed with shoe polish, he made a
clean getaway without a shot being fired.
Afterwards, the bank robberies continued.
It was all too
much for the FBI to ignore and simply pass on to local law enforcement. Under famed Special Agent Melvin Purvis, the
Chicago FBI office ramped up the search for Dillinger; who suffered a leg wound
while robbing a bank in Mason City, Iowa.
A break came when the owner’s wife of the Little Bohemia Lodge, near
Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, notified authorities of Dillinger’s
presence. Dillinger, recovering from his
leg wound, hid out in an upstairs bedroom along with fellow gang members,
including the violent, hot-tempered “Baby Face” Nelson. Purvis and his agents quietly surrounded the
lodge. Their plan unraveled when the car
of a lodge customer came down the driveway. The agents yelled at the driver to
stop, but he couldn’t hear them because he had turned on the car’s radio. The agents opened fire, killing the innocent
driver and alerting the gangsters inside the lodge. Machine gun fire erupted from the lodge’s
upstairs windows, holding off Purvis’ men long enough for Dillinger and his
gang to escape out back, scattering into the nearby woods. “Baby Face Nelson” shot and killed an agent
before stealing his car and getting away.
Overly sensitive toward public criticism and the political repercussions
that followed, Hoover pulled out all the stops to get Dillinger - dead or
alive.
After Winstead
landed, he was driven to the Chicago office to meet Purvis and fellow members
of the newly created “Dillinger Squad.”
It became obvious to squad members; they were not here to capture Dillinger, but kill him. Agents fanned out across the Midwest to question
Dillinger’s family and close associates with no results. A multitude of potential informants
telephoned, but usually proved unreliable.
After months of searching, a reliable informant was finally found, a
former madam from the Chicago underworld.
Known in crime
lore as “The Lady in Red,”Ana Sage was a Rumanian immigrant who had a talent
for managing whorehouses. Starting out
as a “five and dime” prostitute at the Harbor Bay Inn in East Chicago, she
eventually ran the place after the owner was sent to jail for selling hard
liquor. Sage was so successful that the
Harbor Bay Inn became a well-oiled, established den of inequity at the going
rate of $2 a tumble. In 1923, she rented an entire hotel for her operation, the
forty-six room Koster Hotel, later referred to as “The Bucket of Blood” for all
the knife and gunfights that occurred inside.
East Chicago’s corrupt police force kept her out of jail until her luck
finally ran out. Indiana’s reform-minded
governor referred her to the federal immigration authorities for
deportation. With no whorehouses to run,
Sage resided in a number of Chicago apartments she also used for call girl
operations. Among her girls was Polly
Hamilton, a pretty sandwich shop waitress.
Introducing himself as “Jimmy Lawrence,” a clerk at the Chicago Board of
Trade, Dillinger began dating her.
Facing deportation and knowing the real identity of Polly’s boyfriend,
she decided to inform on Dillinger in exchange for not being deported. The FBI
agreed to the exchange after Sage told them her, Hamilton and Dillinger would
attend a movie theater on July 22, 1934.
She would be wearing an orange skirt to signal their arrival. FBI agents surrounded the Biograph Theater
along with members of the Chicago Police Department. Purvis would light a cigar to signal
Dillinger’s exit from the theater.
Shortly after the movie ended, Dillinger came out of the theater; Purvis
lit his cigar. Dillinger noticed their
approach and tried to escape down an alley.
Winstead and two other agents opened fire with their handguns. The steady-handed Texan fired the fatal shots
that killed Dillinger. One struck him in
the back of the neck and exited just below his right eye. Curiosity seekers surrounded the body. Using their newspapers and handkerchiefs,
they sopped up the blood as souvenirs.
Winstead received
a letter of commendation from Hoover.
After helping track down “Baby Face” Nelson, he returned west, serving
in FBI offices at El Paso and Albuquerque. Winstead had little use for Hoover’s
imperious demeanor, telling one rookie, “Everyone at headquarters knows Hoover
is an egomaniac, and they all flatter him constantly. If you don’t, you’ll be noticed.” It was a female news reporter that ended
Winstead’s FBI career. Resentful of her questions, he insulted her and accused
her of being a Communist after she downplayed America’s war effort during World
War II. Always sensitive toward the
press, Hoover demanded an apology from Winstead. Instead, Winstead did what any
prideful Texan with a disdain for federal popinjays would do. He told him to, “Go to hell !” Afterwards, he resigned from the FBI on
December 10, 1942, four years short of receiving tenure for government
retirement. Winstead served as a captain
in Army Intelligence during the war. He
was also briefly in charge of security during the secret A-bomb testing at Los
Alamos, the “Manhattan Project.” Before
retiring and taking up horse ranching, he was employed as a sheriff’s deputy
and private investigator in New Mexico.
Charles B. Winstead died of cancer on August 3, 1973 and was cremated at
Albuquerque’s Fairview Park Crematory.
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