The life and death of gangster Handsome Floyd - an enemy of the American state and a favorite of the people

Not only every nation has its own Robin Hoods, but also every epoch. For Americans in the 30s, Charles Arthur Floyd, nicknamed Handsome Floyd, became such an outlaw hero. The FBI identified this gangster as "public enemy number 1", and ordinary Americans considered him a real hero. Of course, he was never a noble robber, but he still differed from his fellow craftsmen for the better.

Charles Arthur Floyd was born on February 3, 1904 in the small town of Bartow, Georgia. In 1911, his family moved to Oklahoma, where our hero went to school. After that, the Floyds sought happiness and work in Arkansas and Kansas, never staying anywhere for a long time.

For the first time on the path of crime, young Charles Floyd began in 1922. The first loot of the 18-year-old debutant robber was an unimpressive 3 dollars and 50 cents. In 1924, the young man fell madly in love with a girl named Ruby Hardgrave, whom he immediately married. The crisis that played out in the country, accompanied by unemployment, left Charles no choice. The young wife had to be provided for and he started robbing again.

Just a year later, Floyd was arrested in St. Louis for robbing a cash collector. It was a big case by the standards of that time, which brought the gangster 11.5 thousand dollars and the first five-year term. In 1930, Charles was released from prison and almost immediately sat down again, this time for 12 years. He robbed a bank and it was stupid to expect leniency from the court. But the young bandit did not need anyone's participation. The day after settling into the Ohio State Penitentiary, he escaped from there.

Two failures in a row cooled Floyd's ardor a little. He realized that the third term could be very long, if not lifelong. Therefore, the bandit decided to act carefully and assemble a gang for raids. There were plenty of people willing to rob banks in a country shaken by the financial crisis. Floyd's gang from 1931 to 1932 worked very productively and robbed 51 banks!

There were periods when the dashing gang went "to work" 2-3 times a week! Floyd and his henchmen acted brazenly and although they tried not to kill anyone, there were deaths. The first victim of the gangsters was police officer Ralph Kastner. A cop tried to stop Floyd and his cronies from robbing a bank in Bowling Green, Ohio. In the shootout, a bullet hit Kastner in the head, killing him outright.

A couple of months later, in Kansas City, Floyd personally shot the brothers Wally and Ball Ash with a revolver. Their corpses were pushed into a car, doused with gasoline and set on fire. In the same "vintage" 1931, Charles killed federal agent Curtis Brooks with a .45 caliber revolver and seriously wounded his partner. After that, in the city of McIntosh, Oklahoma, bandits shot former Sheriff Erv Kelly who got in their way.

By this time, Charles had already become the hero of the headlines and received the nickname Handsome Floyd. The gangster sincerely hated this name. He was given it after one of the witnesses described the robber leader as "just a boy - a pretty boy with cheeks like apples."

But ordinary Americans liked the name Handsome Floyd. The gangster himself quickly became a legend and a real Robin Hood for citizens exhausted by loans and mortgages. Charles's gang not only robbed banks, but also destroyed all the documents that fell into their hands. The robbers made real bonfires out of bills of exchange, mortgages on houses and loan agreements. Along with the smoke, the debts of farmers and townspeople also went into the sky.

Driving away from another gutted bank, Floyd played to the public and threw bundles of money out of the car window, which were immediately scattered by onlookers. Handsome Floyd never hid his face, was emphatically polite and tried not to harm ordinary bank visitors. These moments further contributed to the growth of his popularity.

On June 17, 1933, a treacherous crime with several deaths occurred in Kansas City. While trying to free gangsters detained by the FBI, three policemen and a federal agent were killed in a shootout. The participation of Handsome Floyd in this event has not been proven so far. But then he was officially declared the organizer of the mass murder and began to be considered "public enemy number 1."

Charles Floyd denied involvement in the murders and even wrote a letter to the newspaper, but it didn't help. The ring around the gangster and his gang was getting tighter and tighter, and each subsequent robbery was harder than the previous one. The cities where Floyd and his guys checked in were teeming with policemen and plainclothes agents who were given the command to shoot at robbers without warning.

On November 23, 1932, during one of the robberies, three gang members were shot dead. The leader himself barely escaped with his feet, abandoning the money he had obtained at a high price. Handsome Floyd was saved by a bulletproof vest, which he prudently wore under his coat. After this failure, the gangster had to look for new partners and they became 23-year-old Adam Richetti and 19-year-old Eussi Eliot.

With new accomplices, Floyd committed several successful robberies. But the bandit understood that he had gone too far and his craft had become too dangerous. The gang decided to change the sphere of criminal activity. On June 16, 1933, Floyd, Richetti and Elliott took several hostages for ransom, but did not finish the job and released everyone.

On June 17, 1933, at the Kansas City train station, the police tried to detain three suspicious men. The gangsters staged a shootout, killing two policemen and two FBI agents and wounding another. At the same time, a well-known gangster in the city, Frank Nash, died. Floyd was again declared guilty, although there was no evidence against him.

On August 29, 1933, Floyd and Richetti robbed a bank, taking 3 thousand dollars from the cash register. After that, they decided to quit and went to their girlfriends Rose Ash and Bolech Bird in Buffalo, New York. There, two bandits lived quietly and peacefully for a whole year, attending movies and having fun in local bars.

But the quiet life quickly bored the gangsters and Charles and Adam decided to go traveling. They had no money, so on October 10, 1934, they went to rob the bank again. The case burned out, the bandits got a good jackpot, but at the same time they killed two cops again.

With their pockets full of money, Floyd and Richetti, as well as their friends, got into the car and set off. But on October 18, near the city of East Liverpool, their car ran into a pole in the fog. Having sent their girlfriends to the city for technical help, the gangsters stayed in the car on an empty road.

A wrecked car with two well-dressed guys attracted the attention of local farmer Joe Fruman, who was passing by. The vigilant man went to the local sheriff and told about the suspicious couple. On the evening of October 19, 1934, the police, led by Sheriff John Fulz, arrived at the place indicated by Fruman, where they found Floyd and Richetti. Charles immediately opened fire with a revolver and a submachine gun, and Adam, panic-stricken, ran into the woods.

Seeing the futility of a shootout with a large enemy, Floyd also took to his heels. During the chase, he managed to shoot the sheriff in the leg, after which he disappeared into the dark. Adam Richetti was less lucky — he got lost in the woods, and he went out on a roundup a couple of hours later. He was immediately arrested.

Handsome Floyd went out to a secluded farm in the morning, where he tried to get food and less flashy clothes. But the whole neighborhood was already cordoned off by the police and the FBI, and soon agents appeared on the farm. Among them was the famous agent Melvin Purvis, who became famous as one of the liquidators of the previous "public enemy number 1" John Dillinger.

Firing back from the machine gun, Floyd rushed into the woods, but it was clearly not his day. A bullet fired by police officer Chester Smith hit the gangster in the stomach. Charles fell on the grass, but did not even think to give up. He tried to pull a revolver out of his pocket and the cops had to work hard to disarm and twist the physically strong bandit.

At first, it seemed to everyone that Floyd's injury was not too dangerous, but it soon became clear that the prisoner was getting weaker by the minute. One of the FBI agents, seeing that the end was near, began to ask Charles about the "Kansas City massacre." But the Handsome Man refused to testify. His last words were: "I'm Charles Floyd, I think you killed me, go to the devil...". After that, he immediately expired.

The funeral of the American Robin Hood Charles Arthur Floyd took place on October 26, 1934 in Akins, Oklahoma. The popularity of the gangster was so great that 40 thousand people came to see him off on his last journey.