THE TIT-FOR-TAT LEAVENWORTH BREAK

2/28/1930 - Authorized to be built by Congress in 1896, the Federal prison at Leavenworth grows out of the Kansas plains, designed by the St. Louis, Missouri architecture firm of Eames & Young (the same designers of the Federal prison at Atlanta), but built by prisoners marched to the site from their nearby cells at Fort Leavenworth (the construction will go on for over two decades). Nicknamed "The Big House" (or the "Hot House" due to the stifling Kansas summers), ready to tame the nation's worst criminals, the prison welcomes its first 418 prisoners in 1903 ... and immediately, many of its contained convicts beginning dreaming of ways to get beyond its acres of walls (encircling 22.8 acres, the walls of the prison are 3,030 feet long and 40 feet high, with an additional 40 feet below ground to prevent tunneling).  In 1930, two of Leavenworth's worst residents pull off one of the easiest escapes from the facility, with the help of a convict then known as George Francis Barnes, Jr., but soon to be transformed into one of the most notorious public enemies of the period ... Machine Gun Kelly.

Leavenworth From The Southwest

Barnes/Kelly

The exception to the stereotypes of the robbers and killers he will end up behind bars with, Barnes is born into a well-to-do Memphis family on July 18, 1900.  Though only an average student, there is nonetheless an emptiness of criminal acts in his childhood, and he attends school, going to high school (he drops out before graduating), and starts college (based on passing a entrance test), studying agriculture, at Mississippi State University in 1917 ... an affable young man, six feet tall in stature, that everyone that comes in contact with, seems to like.  It is at Mississippi State though where his life comes unglued.  At 19, he meets and sires two children with Geneva Ramsey (the daughter of a wealthy businessman with connections to the Mississippi governor) ... and with mouths to feed, he gets a job as a cab driver, but when that doesn't provide the funds he finds necessary for sustaining his new family, he begins to dabble in crime ... starting as a bootlegger, and to protect his parents, siblings, and his own wife and children, going by the new moniker of George Kelly.  Making good cash, it is a good occupation for Kelly until he sells a stash of hooch on an Indian reservation.  A Federal offense, he is arrested, tried, and sent away for three years, where he begins being schooled in real criminality by three of the biggest hoodlums in the country ... Francis Keating, Thomas Holden, and Frank "Jelly" Nash.

Holden & Keating

Nash

Partners that sell their armed robbery services to various Midwest criminal gangs, Keating is from a middle-class Irish-American clan, the youngest member of a family of eight (his father will die of tuberculosis when he is just seven), and before becoming a crook, a Chicago cab driver and streetcar conductor, a Navy veteran, and a husband with two young sons, while Holden, the bigger of the men by two inches and twenty pounds, is a former Stutz auto salesman and steam fitter.  They are in Leavenworth, serving 25-year sentences each for the 1926 robbery of a Port Huron and Chicago Railway train in Evergreen Park, Illinois ... a little job that nets the men $130,000.

Evergreen Park

Nash, by 1930, known as "the most successful bank robber in U.S. history" (he is thought to have robbed roughly 200 banks) comes from a family (the future outlaw has two sisters and two step-brothers) that will start hotels in several southern towns.  From 1904 to 1907, he keeps his nose clean, serving in the United States Army, but then goes wrong ... he is convicted of his first crime in 1913 at the age of 26.  In for a penny, in for a pound, in the years that follow his conviction, Nash (the "Jelly" nickname comes from being called "Jellybean" as a youth) will murder Nollie "Humpy" Wortman over $1,000 the men have stolen, convince a warden to let him out of prison to fight in WWI, take part in the WWI Battle of Belleau Wood in 1918, get sent to Oklahoma State Penitentiary for 25 years on safe cracking charges (becoming a trustee, he gets out in five), joins the Al Spencer Gang in 1922 (a former member of the outlaws that followed Henry Starr until that bandit's death in 1921, Spencer will be gunned down himself when he gets into a shootout with the police in September of 1923), participates in the last Oklahoma train robbery in 1923, and in 1924, after returning to the States after hiding out in Juarez, Mexico, is arrested and sent away on another 25 year sentence for mail robbery and assault on a mail custodian ... Federal offenses that get him sent off to the government's prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Spencer

Hard cases all, the men do not plan on staying behind bars for the 25 years to which they've all been sentenced, and with the arrival of Kelly, they see a way of leaving.  Considered a minor league crook and not a flight risk whatsoever, Kelly is assigned to work in the Leavenworth records room where he has access to photos and fingerprints of every prison, and there, with the help of Nash and a convict named Charlie Harmon (serving time for a post office robbery that nets the outlaw a measly $174), forges trustee passes for Keating and Holden on the understanding that when he gets out, Kelly will be allowed to join the Holden-Keating crew in their next bank robberies.  Agreed, on the last Friday in February, with passes ready, Keating and Holden join a work party leaving the prison, and once outside, simply walk away, heading north for their criminal contacts in Chicago and St. Paul.  Two years later, the rest of the group will be out of Leavenworth too ... Kelly serves his sentence and is released in 1932 (authorities never connect him to the 1930 escape), Harmon is paroled in 1930, and also later in 1930, foolishly made the warden's chef and general handyman, Nash leaves the prison on an errand for his head keeper, and never comes back.

Leavenworth

True to their words, after Kelly hooks up with Keating and Holden at the St. Paul's criminal frat house, underworld boss Harry Sawyer's Green Lantern Inn, the rookie gunman is included in the robbery of the Wilmer, Minnesota bank ... a heist that along with Holden and Keating, includes master thief Harvey Bailey and killer Verne Miller, nets the group $142,000 in cash and securities, but becomes a blood bath when the residents open up on the gang (a cashier is pistol whipped for moving too slowly, two women in a crowd of 100 people are wounded when the gang blasts a machine gun their way, two outlaws are wounded, and the gang leaves town with all the windows in their escape vehicle bullet blown out).  A bloody mess, it is but a foretaste of the fates that will befall each of the former Leavenworth convicts.

Sawyer

Miller

Bailey

Seeking a less violent means of pointing cash in his wallet, and egged on by his wife Kathryn, along with partner Albert Bates, after several other bank robberies, Kelly in 1933 kidnaps Charles Urschel from the oilman's Oklahoma City house, and ransoms him for $200,000 ... a change in activity that gets the FBI on Kelly's tail. Arrested in Memphis (the outlaw will state that he never made the famous arrest utterance he is credited with ... "Don't shoot G-men! Don't shoot!"), Kelly will receive a life sentence for the crime, spends 17 years on Alcatraz as prisoner #117, and dies of a heart attack back in Leavenworth Penitentiary on his 59th birthday in 1954 (Bates will die on Alcatraz in 1948 at the age of 54, Kelly's wife Kathryn, is released from behind bars in 1958 and dies in 1985).

Machine Gun Kelly

Holden and Keating participate in several more bank jobs, working with Bailey again (during a 1931 robbery of Menomonie, Wisconsin's bank, Charlie Harmon is fatally wounded ... his widow, Paula, will become manic Freddie Barker's new girlfriend shortly afterwards), but not adjusting their life styles when they should be hiding, are caught weaponless, along with Harvey Bailey, by the FBI and a squad of police while golfing the 8th hole at the Mission Hills Country Club in Kansas City, Missouri in 1932.  Back to Leavenworth, they are then transferred to the new Federal super-prison when Alcatraz opens in 1934.  Eventually both men make it back to Leavenworth and are set free ... Holden and Keating both are paroled in the 1940s and finally break away from each other.  Keating becomes a respected florist, a St. Paul union organizer, a husband once more, and a grandfather before passing away from heart disease at the age of 79 in 1978.  Holden however reverts to his old ways, and drunk and upset after a family argument in 1949 in Chicago, shoots to death his wife and her two brothers and is made the first entry on the FBI's new Top 10 Most Wanted List of fugitives.  Caught in 1951 using the alias of John McCullough and working as a plasterer in Beaverton, Oregon, Holden is returned to prison for a life sentence that lasts all of two years, dying behind bars at the age of 58.

Wanted Poster Photo Of Holden

The bloodiest goodbye though goes to Nash.  After participating in a number of robberies with Bailey, Keating and Holden, and an assorte group of members of the Barker-Karpis Gang, Nash decides he wants no part of the 1933 Barker-Karpis kidnapping of Minnesota brewer William Hamm, and with his wife Francis, takes a vacation in the criminal haven of Hot Springs, Arkansas, is arrested in the White Front Cigar Store by FBI agents and Police Chief Orrin "Otto" Reed of McAlester, Oklahoma.  Headed for a return to Leavenworth, Nash is instead killed along with four lawmen in what will be known as the Kansas City Massacre when friends try to free him in the train station parking lot ... the event that allows J. Edgar Hoover to expand and arm what will become today's FBI (it is now believed that Nash is actually killed by an FBI agent who mishandles his shotgun trying to bring it to bear on the outlaws trying to free Nash, and instead blows off the top of the bank robber's head).

Massacre

 

LAST NOTCH FOR A REALLY BAD DUDE

2/27/1909 - Wild West days dying in the new century, in Ada, Oklahoma, psychopath and professional killer James Brown Miller (nicknames include "Killin' Jim," "Killer Miller," and "Deacon Jim") closes out his murder resume with a $1,700 hit on cattle rancher and former Deputy U.S. Marshal Allen Augustus "Gus" Bobbitt.

James Brown "Killer" Miller

Born in Arkansas in 1866, Miller's life comes off the tracks early ... after a move to Texas, both parents die and he sent off to live with his grand parents, who both also die when Miller is only eight, murdered (some historians believe Miller himself killed the couple, but his youth and lack of evidence keep him from being being brought up on charges for the crime).  Third time not a charm either, he is then sent off to live on the farm of his sister and her husband, John and Georgia Coop in Coryell County, Texas.  There, on 7/30/1884, he gets in an argument with his brother-in-law, and kills Coop with a shotgun (Miller's weapon of choice) while the man is sleeping on the porch of his farmhouse.  Arrested, convicted, and sent to prison for life for the murder, Miller instead is out and on the loose shortly afterwards on a trial technicality ... ready for more killings.

Miller Gambling

A man of many masks over the years of mayhem that follow, never drinking or swearing, going to church regularly, and usually impeccably dressed, despite whatever the weather is, in a large black frock cloak (so the sheet of metal he wears as armor can best be concealed), Miller will be a cowboy, a rancher, a husband and father (marrying gunman Emmanuel "Mannen" Clement's sister, Sallie, in 1891), a deputy sheriff and marshal in Pecos, Texas, a Texas Ranger, a saloon keeper, hotel owner ... and always, a killer, sometimes for personal reasons and sometimes for money.

The Miller Family

Some proven, and some thought to be his work though never officially solved, Miller puts together a tragic resume that dwarfs the pistol antics and murders of other gunmen of the period:
*1887 - Ballinger City Marshal Joe Townsend, the killer of Miller's friend and father-in-law, Mannen Clements, is ambushed with a blast of buckshot that results in the amputation of the lawman's arm.
*4/12/1894 - Not waiting for Miller to bring his shotgun into play, in the midst of arguing over the recent murder of rancher Con Gibson (and the theft of some mules), Pecos Sheriff George "Bud" Frazier draws his pistol and shoots Miller in the right arm and groin, then empties his weapon into Miller's chest ... but Miller survives thanks to the steel plate he is wearing.
*12/26/1894 - Again, no waiting ... standing outside the town blacksmith's place of business, Miller is shot by Frazier again ... this time in the right arm, left leg, and chest ... and again is saved by his hidden armor.
*9/13/1896 - Miller ends his feud with Frazier when he finds his enemy playing cards in a saloon in Toyah, Texas ... in through the swinging doors, Miller levels his shotgun, fires, and blows off most of his head ... a justifiable homicide according to the locals.
*1896 - Joe Earp, a witness against Miller in his trial for murdering Frazier, is killed three weeks after the gunman is found not guilty ... by someone wielding a shotgun.  And shortly afterwards, the district attorney, Judge Stanley, who prosecutes the case, is poisoned to death.
*1900 - With a partner, Lawrence Angel, Miller kills two men in Collingsworth County, Texas ... murders that will go down as self defense.
*1902 - Miller encounters three men he claims are stealing cattle near the Pecos River ... two die with Winchester bullets in their brains, while the third, though wounded, is able to gallop away from the encounter.
*8/28/1902 - Miller completes a contract to kill lawyer James Jarrott for upset local ranchers who have tired of the man winning cases for a group of farmers outside the Texas town of Lubbock (a $500 killing).
*3/10/1904 - In Fort Worth, Miller tracks his next victim, Frank Fore, to the town's Hotel Westbrook, and guns the man down in the lavatory ... and again gets off using the lie of "self defense."
*8/1/1906 - As revenge for shooting and partially paralyze outlaw Port Pruitt, Miller attacks U.S. Deputy Marshal Ben Collins as the lawman is approaching his home near Emet, Oklahoma ... hit in the stomach by a load of No. 8 buckshot, Collins gets off four shots from his pistol, before being stopped by another load being fired into his face (Miller is said to have been paid $2,000 for the hit). Again, Miller is arrested for the crime but eventually released.
*2/28/1908 - Rumors persist to this day that Miller is the killer who takes out ex-lawman Pat Garrett near Las Cruces, New Mexico.  

Miller

Back in Oklahoma the following year, Miller takes a contract from three cattlemen (his fee for the killing is $1,700), Jesse West, Joe Allen, and Berry Burwell, to take out the rancher they are feuding with, former Deputy U.S.Marshal Allen Augustus "Gus" Bobbitt of Ada, Oklahoma.  On 2/27/1909, Miller chooses an ambush site, conceals himself near Bobbitt's house, and when Bobbitt returns home with hired man Bob Ferguson, opens up on his target with both barrels of his shotgun.  Hit in his left side and riddled by buckshot, Bobbitt is dead within an hour, but not before identifying Miller as his killer (and offering $1,000 for his capture) ... an identification also made by Ferguson, and 19-year-old Oscar Peeler, who for $50 from Miller, had earlier taken the murderer out to Bobbitt's ranch.

Bobbit

It will be Miller's last murder.  Word out on the culprit, Miller is tracked down by the Texas Rangers, arrested near Fort Worth, extradited back to Oklahoma, and along with the men who hired him, goes on trial in April.  Record known of Miller escaping retribution for his murderous deeds (his lawyer, Moman Pruitt, has won acquittals in 304 of the 342 murder trials he's tried), at around three in the morning of 4/19/1909, between 200 to 50 concerned citizens break into the jail (sources vary, and no one wanted to be identified), overpower the two guards on duty, and pull the men out of their cells for a necktie party ... which takes place almost immediately in an abandoned livery stable behind the Ada town jail.  Begging for mercy, the three ranchers do their fatal air dance and then it is Miller's turn.  Cool as a cucumber in the face of certain death, Miller asks his antagonists for three favors before he is hung ... for his wife to be given his diamond ring, and too make the jump into eternity wearing his black hat and his black frock coat.  Ring and hat requests are granted, but the coat is denied. Ready, Miller states, "Let the record show that I've killed 51 men. I'm ready now.  You couldn't kill me otherwise.  Let her rip," before stepping off the box he has been standing on.  

Headlines

Dead at the age of 42 ... Miller and his three confederates pose for a party picture that is sold as a postcard in Ada for years and years ... none of them are mourned.

Miller In Hat At Left

BIG TROUBLE IN LINCOLN COUNTY

2/18/1878 - A single death on this day proves to be the spark that ignites what Western historians call the Lincoln County War ... a battle between rival factions for control of the New Mexican region that will last until July of 1878, see numerous back-and-forth revenge killings, feature a five-day siege of a Lincoln store, and turn an unknown young cowboy named William Bonney (or Henry McCarty if that is your preference) into the outlaw legend, Billy the Kid.

Billy The Kid

The conflict that will cost many lives and fortunes before its completion, results from antagonisms that develop when the control of the area's ranching and dry goods interests (and contracts to supply the military with beef) begin to be challenged in 1876 by a disparate triumvirate seeking to break the monopoly ... a threesome made up of wealthy 24-year-old English businessman John Tunstall, 35-year-old Canadian lawyer and merchant Alexander McSween, and 53-year-old cattle rancher John Chisum (his spread contains over 100,000 cattle).  A very formidable group facing a ruthless foe in the form of what is called "The House" ... a name for the members of those in support of the ongoing criminal activities of the Murphy-Dolan interests in New Mexico.
  
Tunstall, McSween, and Chisum

Named for its creator, 47-year-old Lawrence Murphy from Ireland, and his business partner, 30-year-old Union Army veteran James Dolan, the Murphy-Dolan gang makes big money off the region starting in 1869 with the establishment of L. G. Murphy & Co. Soaking local farmers and ranchers with high prices as the only game in town (with their tentacles into the entire territory as part of what is called the "Santa Fe Ring" that includes rancher Thomas Catron, a rancher with a spread of 3,000,000 acres, who also happens to be attorney general, district attorney William Rynerson, territorial judge Warren Bristol, and territorial governor Samuel Beach Axtell) ... and wanting their monopoly to remain as is, they are not happy when their rivals open J. H. Tunstall & Co. in 1876. Not happy to the extent that when their foes won't back down, they begin hiring as cowboys, outlaws and killers from the Seven River Warriors, the Jesse Evans Gang (of which Billy the Kid was a former member), and the John Kinney Gang (actions that Tunstall and friends react to by hiring their own gunmen, a group that will call themselves The Regulators and includes the Kid, Tom O'Folliard, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Richard Brewer, Frank McNab, Charlie Bowdrie, Jim French, George and Frank Coe, and Doc Scurlock).   
   
Murphy, Dolan, Catron, And Jesse Evans (With Friend)

Mix those circumstances with "we were here first" attitudes, one side being composed mostly of Irish Catholics, while the other come from Protestant backgrounds, the fact that McSween once served as a Murphy-Dolan lawyer, and a trumped up case (later dismissed) that results in a court order to attach McSween's assets, and the bloodshed that will take place becomes inevitable ... especially when the court order is misused to also grab the assets of the Tunstall ranch.

Lincoln, New Mexico

Posse dispatched on 2/18/1878 to put Tunstall out of business one way or another, when the gunmen for Murphy-Dolan arrive at the ranch and find its owner not home, a smaller group leaves the ranch and goes in search of Tunstall and any of his cowboys seeking trouble.  Unaware of what is happening back at the ranch, Tunstall and a group of his ranch hands, that includes Billy the Kid, are leisurely riding to Lincoln with a small group of nine horses. Pursued and caught a few miles out of town in an area of scrub timber, the posse opens fire without warning on Tunstall and his men, scattering the riders (who gallop off to a hillside overlooking the trail into town).  Brave to a fault or just plain stupid, instead of escaping into a better position also where he can defend himself, Tunstall stays with his horses and surrenders to the "deputies" that confront him ... Jesse Evans, William Morton, and Tom Hill.  But surrender isn't what the trio is looking for and Tunstall is gunned down by a rifle bullet to the chest and a revolver (a killing witnessed by his men on the hill) round through the back of his head.  Killing complete, the trio then fires Tunstall's pistol and arranges the body to match the story the men will tell of the rancher resisting arrest ... a story bought by authorities under the control of the Murphy-Dolan faction, no charges are filed against the threesome for Tunstall's death.

Tunstall

War!  Tunstall's murder incites both sides into an open clash that will have Morton and Hill (and Frank Baker) murdered near Blackwater Creek in another "attempted escape" killing of individuals already disarmed and in custody (Morton will be shot ten times, and Hill goes down with five pieces of lead in his body), the ambush assassination by Billy and his Regulator buddies of Lincoln Sheriff William Brady and Deputy George W. Hindman (blaming the pair for Tunstall's death), the deaths of Buckshot Roberts (Murphy-Dolan) and Richard Brewer (Tunstall) in a gun battle at a trading post called Blazer's Mill, a gunfight at the local Fritz ranch that results in the death of Frank McNab, gunnings in Lincoln that take the lives of several Murphy-Dolan men, and the five-day Battle of Lincoln that results in the death McSween as he flees his burning home and store.  Weary of the killings, many of the bitter combatants already dead, and the United States government involved in the form of a new governor being appointed by President Grant (Civil War general and soon-to-be Ben Hur author, Lew Wallace) and sent to New Mexico to put the war to an end, the clash peters out in July of 1878 (Murphy will grab all of Tunstall's ranch, but dies of cancer soon after, while Dolan drinks himself to death on his ranch by the age of 49) without a clear cut winner.

Sheriff Brady

The End Of The Battle Of Lincoln

There is however one huge living loser when the war ends (but not for long) ... Mr. William Bonney, who will surrender to authorities under the promise of a pardon by Governor Wallace for providing testimony about the murder of attorney Huston Chapman by members of the Murphy-Dolan faction, have the pardon reneged on, form a gang of rustling outlaws, see his best friend, Charlie Bowdre, killed when Sheriff Pat Garrett and posse mistake him for the Kid, get caught, tried for the murder, and be sentenced to death for the Brady ambush (legend has the judge sentencing Billy to hang until he is "dead, dead, dead," to which the outlaw responds, "Go to hell, hell, hell."), and kill Lincoln deputies James Bell and Bob Ollinger escaping the Lincoln jail, before being killed by Garrett at the home of Pete Maxwell on 7/14/1881 at the age of only 21.

Garrett

Newly Discovered Photo Believed To Be Of Billy The Kid

2/18/1878, and with the murder of rancher John Tunstall, the Lincoln County War begins!

The Kid And Richard Brewer

THANK YOU, OFFICER LEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2/15/1978 - Near the state line of Alabama and Florida, one of the most heinous criminal careers in American history comes to an end by way of a routine traffic stop for speeding.

Ted Bundy

Born Theodore Robert Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home For Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946, the boy who will grow up to be serial killer Ted Bundy is messed up early (his youngest sister will wake up from a nap and find himself encircled in knives, with her three-year-old brother silently grinning at her from the foot of her bed!) ... born out of wedlock to a 22-year-old department store clerk named Louise, Bundy never finds out who his real father is (a sailor, an Air Force veteran, there are even rumors later that grand dad is the real father, no one is quite certain as one Lloyd Marshall is named on the birth certificate), and grows up believing his grandparents are his parents and that his mother is his sister. Bad upbringing and bad genes, Sam, the grandfather, is an Archie Bunker in the flesh, without any laugh track whatsoever ... a man who hates blacks, Italians, Catholics, and Jews, beats his wife and the family dog, when he can catch them, swirls neighborhood cats about by the tail before launching them towards the stratosphere, throws his youngest daughter down a flight of stairs for the sin of oversleeping, and speaks aloud to unseen entities.  Meanwhile, his grandmother escapes from her home situation with excessive drinking (Bundy will claim later to be hammered on booze for most his killings), develops a fear of going outside, and periodically undergoes electro-convulsive "shock" therapy when she gets too depressed.  After a name change from Cowell to Nelson, Mother/Sister Louise and her son flee to Tacoma, Washington to live with her cousins, Alan and Jane Scott in 1950.

Mother & Son

Stepfather & Ted


In Washington, it appears the family will live out the American dream as Louise meets (at church) and marries Johnny Culpepper Bundy, a hospital cook that adopts young Ted, but it is just a facade that masks the slow madness that is gradually transforming the youngest Bundy into a monster.  Though liked by area friends, the youth keeps mostly to himself and spends many evenings wandering the neighborhood, going through trash cans, looking for nude pictures of women and crime magazines that he enjoys for their descriptions of sexual violence.  He also discovers he enjoys torturing animals, drawing pictures of dead women in his school notebook, stealing cars, and going skiing as often as possible using stolen equipment.  Weird, but not wanton, Bundy becomes a murderer shortly after he discovers his sister is actually his mom (though some members of law enforcement believe his first killing is 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr in 1961), and his college girlfriend, Stephanie Brooks, dumps his ass.  Dual shocks needing insane rectifying, young women start disappearing from whatever vicinity Bundy is occupying in the early 1970s ... and not surprisingly, they all resemble the monster's mother and former girlfriend ... good looking brunettes with their hair parted down the middle.

Senior In High School 

Masked by intelligence, good looks, a degree in psychology, classes in law, work experience with the Republic Party (Bundy will be a Rockefeller delegate to the Republican National Convention in Miami), and screening calls to a suicide hotline, Bundy doesn't seem harmful ... an attribute he enhances as he goes human hunting in the guise of a nice young man in need of help due to the cast and sling inhibiting the use of his left arm.  Only when Bundy has a woman alone, and handcuffed in his Volkswagen Bug, does he reveal the abject evil at the core of his soul ... depending on his mood and the situation, Bundy's victims are raped, stabbed, beaten, and strangled, then furthering the offense, buried in a forest and visited later for necrophilia until decomposition makes further defilement impossible (at least 12 victims also have their heads cut off).  At times, Bundy also breaks into homes and abducts victims, or simply beats sleeping women to death.

Bundy

The Infamous 1968 Beetle 
Some Of The Victims

No one but Bundy will ever know how many women he murders (he will confess to 30, but officials estimate the total might be above 100), but the chain of mayhem that Bundy forges includes women having their lives destroyed in Washington, Utah, Idaho, California, Oregon, Colorado, and Florida.  Finally convicted of kidnapping and assault in Utah when an intended victim is able to escape his car (he will be sentenced to 1 to 15 years in the Utah state prison), Bundy adds "escape" to his criminal resume when he is extradited to Colorado to stand trial for the murder of Caryn Campbell near Snowmass Village.  Serving as his own attorney so he will be left out of leg shackles and handcuffs, Bundy is left alone in the law library of the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, opens a window behind a bookcase, and jumps out of a second floor window (spraining his ankle in the process).  Breaking into local cabins for clothes and supplies, Bundy is recaptured after six days on the loose.

Utah Mug Shot - 1975

Volkswagen Equipment

Pitkin County Courthouse

Practice, he will be out much longer on his second Houdini performance ... an escape in which over six months he acquires a floor plan of the Glenwood Springs jail he is being kept in, a hacksaw, and $500 in travel funds, loses 35 pounds, and while staff is short during the Christmas holidays, cuts a one foot square hole in the roof between steel bars, wiggles through a crawl space, breaks through the ceiling into the apartment of the head jailer (who is out on a date with his wife), changes into civilian clothes from the jailer's closet, and walks out the front door.  Free, bullets for murder and kidnapping successfully dodged, Bundy steals a car that breaks down in the mountains on Interstate 70 (the FBI adds him at this time to their Top Ten Most Wanted list), thumbs a ride into Vail, takes a bus from there to Denver, catches a flight there to Chicago, goes from there to Ann Arbor, Michigan by train (where he goes to a bar and watches Washington beat Michigan in the 1978 Rose Bowl), steals a car and drives to Atlanta, and in Atlanta, takes a bus to Tallahasse, Florida, where he intends to hide in plain sight.  Safe, using the alias Chris Hagen, it is only a matter of days however before his murderous urges once more get the best of him.

From FBI Wanted Poster

Entering Florida State University's Chi Omega sorority through a rear door with a faulty lock, Bundy attacks four sleeping women using his fists, a piece of Oak firewood, a nylon stocking, a hair mist bottle, and his teeth ... in the 15 minute rampage, two girls, 21-year-old Margaret Bowman and 20-year-old Lisa Levy, will perish from their wounds, another, Kathy Kleiner, survives with a broken jaw and a severely lacerated should, and the fourth girl, Kathy Kleiner, comes out of the encounter with a concussion, a broken jaw, the loss of several teeth, and a crushed finger.  Lusts unsatisfied despite the carnage, Bundy then breaks into a basement apartment eight blocks away and assaults another FSU student, Cheryl Thomas.  Another survivor, barely, Thomas receives a dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw, five skull fractures, and is left deaf, an injury that affects her equilibrium and effectively ends her dance career.

The FSU Dead

State already in an uproar over the attacks of January 15th, less than a month later Bundy has a need to kill again ... summoned from class at Lake City Junior High in Lake City, Florida, to retrieve a forgotten purse, 12-year-old Kimberly Diane Leach never returns (her abused body is found seven weeks later near Suwannee State Park).  Realizing he needs to once more move his base of activities and unable to pay his rent, Bundy steals a car and takes off for Alabama.  He will not make the border to continue his maniacal career.

Leach Tombstone

Idiot, murderer driving a stolen car west, Bundy foolishly speeds into the Pensacola region at 1:00 in the morning ... and is clocked in excess of how fast he should be driving by Officer David Lee of the Pensacola Police Department.  License plate checked and found to belong to a recently stolen automobile, Bundy attacks Lee when told by the officer that he is under arrest, kicking Lee's legs out from under him and then running.  First round only, in a split second Lee is up too ... first yelling at Bundy to stop and firing a warning shot, and then chasing after the killer when the warning is ignored.  Football in the road, Lee catches and tackles Bundy from behind and the men clash for a second time, struggling over Lee's revolver.  Eventually a well placed fist ends the contest, and Bundy is put behind bars in the Pensacola jail, with Lee unaware he has just captured a fugitive on the FBI's Most Wanted List.  There will be no jail escape a third time.  
Pensacola Mug Shot

A big trial, when Bundy goes before the bar of justice in June of 1979, his murderous antics are covered by 250 reporters from five continents.  Ego on display, Bundy passes up on plea deal of 75 years behind bars, and despite five court appointed lawyers, handles much of his defense himself ... poorly ... an assortment of linking evidence, including casts of Bundy's teeth that match bite marks on some of his victims, causes a first jury to find Bundy guilty of two homicides in less than seven hours of deliberation, and six months later, a second finds him guilty of killing Leach in less than eight hours.  For all three murders, Bundy is sentenced to death in the Florida electric chair (he officially will be executed for the Leach death) ... a sentence which is finally carried out on January 24, 1989 after a delay of nearly ten years (for the usual nonsense of lawyer appeals, and Bundy "helping" law enforcement officials clear up some of their cold cases).  Fried to a crisp at 7:16 in the morning (declining a "special" meal, 42-year-old Bundy is given a last breakfast of medium rare steak, eggs over easy, hash browns, toast with butter and jelly, orange juice, and milk), the execution sets off a party in the pasture across the street from the prison where over 2,000 revelers celebrate Bundy beginning his permanent stay in Hell by singing, dancing, setting off fireworks, and cheering wildly when the white hearse bearing Bundy's body leaves for the morgue.

The Florida Chair

Bundy After The Chair

Celebrants

Thank you again Officer Lee for your service in stopping the monster known as Ted Bundy!