Wednesday, January 9, 2013

TWO YOUNG BROTHERS LEAVE

1/5/1932 - Escaping from the murders of the six law enforcement officers they have just killed that will come to be known as the Young Brothers Massacre (or the Brookline Shootout), Jennings and Harry Young avoid the fire of Motorcycle Officer Cecil McBride, newly arrived at the brothers' farm as part of a rescue team, as they run through a field of corn to safety.  Behind them they leave a scene of chaos and irate Missouri authorities who soon put together a huge manhunt of city police departments, constables, railroad detectives, the state police, the American Legion, the National Guard, and any citizen willing to take orders and hoist a weapon.


                            
                                                              McBride

Moving to the place they will least be expected, the pair make their way into the nearby town of Springfield and steal a Ford Coupe ... then they are off for Texas where they have been running a major car theft ring.  Driving at high speed, the killers go into a ditch and wreck their vehicle near the town of Streetman, Texas.  Helped by passerby H. D. Carroll in removing the car from the ditch, the men abandon their transportation to the farmer who makes several discovery which he soon relates to the police ... the car contains a shotgun and a rifle and is missing its license plates (soon discovered nearby - Missouri 363-662).  Information relayed to Springfield, soon all of Texas joins Missouri in being on the lookout for the criminal brothers.  It does not take long for the bandits to be located.  

        
            The escape vehicle and Carroll

Hitchhiking their way south, the brothers make Houston and rent a room, but there their escape ends.  

                
                          The criminal Young Brothers (Paul not involved in the shootings)

Reading his Tuesday morning paper, carpenter J. F. Tomlinson is horrified to discover that the two men he has gladly rented a room in his house to the day before are the fugitive Young Brothers.  Calling Percy F. Heard, the Houston Chief of Police with the information, a raiding party is rapidly put together and sent to Tomlinson's bungalow at 4710 Walker Avenue.  This time the Youngs will be confronted by officers carrying revolvers, shotguns, machine guns, rifles, grenades, tear gas bombs, and gas masks.  Shortly after 9:00 am, gas bombs are thrown into the room the outlaws are occupying ... then Lieutenant Claude Beverly and Officers Peyton and Bradshaw go into action.  Fired on from a back bathroom, the lawmen answer with their own bullets and shotgun blasts until eventually they hear a weak voice announce, "We're dead, come on in."  And indeed the brothers are, killing each other instead of dying from the wounds inflicted upon them by the Houston police ... a brief 72 hours after callously murdering six Missouri lawmen eight hundred miles away, Harry and Jennings Young are themselves killed, and only their immediate family mourn the deaths.

              
                   Harry being transported to the hospital ... and the house on Walker Avenue

                
                                                        Swiss cheesed Jennings
                    
                                   Harry                                                Jennings


2 comments:

  1. check out the docudrama on Vimeo, it's called Come On In We're Dead

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  2. I've been looking for information on this for years. Benjamin Cecil McBride was my grandfather. It's one of the few stories I remember my father telling me about.

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