Robert Jones

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra bits of detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

What a woman living in Salem, Oregon thought would be just an ordinary day in the early summer of 1961 turned out to be anything but ordinary.  Her first clue was delivered by her dog when it returned home from its usual morning inspection of neighborhood shrubs and fire hydrants with a paper bag containing a human foot.  Her telephone call to the police brought detectives to investigate.  Her second clue came while the detectives were still at her house, and her dog brought home a human hand.  A subsequent area search revealed several more body parts.   The parts were determined to be that of a woman having recently been reported missing by her husband.  A witness had seen her leaving a bar with a man who was soon identified as Richard Laurence Marquette. A search of his home revealed more body parts in his refrigerator.

The Oregon governor requested help from the FBI in locating Marquette.  Marquette’s name was added to the FBI’s famous Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list (hereinafter referred to as the Top Ten list).  The list already included ten names, and Marquette had the sinister distinction of being the first felon to have his name be the eleventh name on the list. He was recognized by a citizen who had seen his posted photograph in a credit bureau and was arrested in Santa Maria, California the very next day.

The Top Ten list owes its beginning to an article written by a reporter who had requested a list of the names and descriptions of the “toughest guys” that the FBI wanted apprehended.  The subsequent article written by the reporter drew such a public response that, on March 14, 1950, the FBI implemented the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives program.  The program has been quite successful.  As of May 1, 2011, 494 persons have been listed; and 464 have been located.  Of the 464, 152 fugitives were located as a direct result of citizen involvement. Thus far, listed criminals have been apprehended in all states except Alaska, Delaware and Maine. Rewards for information can be as much as $100,000 if it leads directly to an arrest of a Top Ten fugitive. The reward offered by the FBI for such information concerning a fugitive named Victor Manuel Gerena might be as high as $1 million. More about Gerena later.

To “qualify” for inclusion in the list, a criminal must have a history of having committed serious crimes and/or represent a present, dangerous public threat in view of current criminal charges. The names of candidates for the list are submitted from all 56 FBI Field Offices. Criminals already having nationwide notoriety from other sources are not included.

In addition to the list being posted in many places, the ABC Radio Network hosts a program named “FBI This Week”; and the Fox Television Network hosts a program named “America’s Most Wanted: America Fights Back.” The latter presents recreations of crimes plus photographs and video tapes of criminals. These programs have resulted in the apprehension of a number of profiled fugitives.

The list has included the names of only eight women. Ruth Eisemann-Schier’s name was the first woman’s name added to the list, and that was on December 28, 1968. She and her boyfriend had kidnapped a 20-year-old college student named Barbara Jane Mackle from a wealthy family, buried her in a box and demanded a ransom. The family paid $500,000, and the young student was safely unearthed. Life sustaining means had been provided by the kidnappers, but spending 83 hours in the box must have been a terrifying experience.

Eisemann-Schier was apprehended on March 6, 1969, served four years of a seven-year sentence and was finally deported to Honduras, her country of origin. The kidnapping was described in a book, “83 Hours ‘Til Dawn,” written by Mackle, and was the subject of two television movies, “The Longest Night” (1972) and “83 Hours ‘Til Dawn” (1990).

The name that has been on the Top Ten list for the longest period is that of previously mentioned Victor Manuel Gerena. His name has been on the list since May 14, 1984, some 27 years. Ironically, Gerena had been a security guard. In 1983, he robbed a security company of some $7 million. He reportedly forced two employees to accompany him at gunpoint during his getaway. He then reportedly bound them and injected them with an unknown substance to render them helpless. As mentioned previously, a reward as high as $1 million is being offered for information that leads directly to his arrest.

The name that was on the list for the shortest period from the time it was added until its holder was apprehended was that of Billie Austin Bryant. His name was on the list from 5:00 pm on January 8, 1963 until 7:00 pm on January 8, 1963, a total of two hours. After having robbed six banks and escaping from jail, Bryant unbelievably robbed a bank where he had been a previous customer. Two tellers recognized and promptly identified him. When three agents went to talk to his wife at her apartment, Bryant answered their knock, shot and killed two of them, and escaped by climbing down a tree growing near a bedroom window. A manhunt quickly followed the issue of a warrant for his arrest, and his name was added to the Top Ten list. A man in a nearby apartment building, who had learned about the shootings, became suspicious when he heard noises in an attic above his apartment. He reported them, and Bryant was promptly arrested. He is now serving two consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole.

Several well-known names have appeared on the Top Ten list. James Earl Ray’s name was one of six that appeared on it twice. Readers no doubt remember Ray as having been found guilty of shooting and killing Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 as King stood on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Ray was an early school dropout and had served in the U.S. Army in Germany. His first conviction was for a burglary in California in 1949, for which he was jailed for three months. He served two years for an armed robbery in Illinois in 1952, served time in the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas for stealing and forging postal money orders in 1955, and was sentenced in 1959 to 20 years in prison for armed robbery in Missouri. In 1967, he escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary by hiding in a truck carrying bread baked in the prison. He roamed through a number of states and also spent time in Canada and Mexico.

Ray held a strong racial bias against African Americans, was a supporter of George Wallace and his segregationist platform, and spent time working in the Wallace campaign headquarters in Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles, he had a plastic surgery procedure performed on his nose. Two weeks later, he headed east to Atlanta, Georgia, where he checked into a rooming house. Ray then drove to Birmingham, Alabama, where, on March 30, 1968, he bought a rifle, a telescopic sight and 20 cartridges. He then returned to Atlanta, where, from a local newspaper, he learned of King’s planned visit to Memphis. On April 2, Ray headed for Memphis. Two days later, King was shot to death.

Ray’s name was added to the Top Ten list on April 20, 1968; and he was apprehended in London, England on June 8, 1968. During his trial, Ray admitted to having killed King and was sentenced to serve 99 years in prison. On June 10, 1977, with five fellow inmates, Ray escaped from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Tennessee. On June 11, his name was again added to the Top Ten list; and he was recaptured two days later. On November 9, 1979, Ray escaped again from the Brushy Mountain State Prison; but he was recaptured the same day—this time without the aid of the Top Ten list. After a number of additional escapades and questions about whether or not he had actually killed King, Ray died from a liver problem at 70 in 1998.

William “Willie” Sutton (born William Francis Sutton) is another name readers might find familiar. The public followed his exploits for decades. Because he often dressed and posed as a postman, messenger, maintenance man and policeman while “doing business,” he was also known as “Willie the Actor ” and “Slick Willie.” He is often remembered for having replied, when asked why he robbed banks, “because that’s where the money is.” Sutton made a career of committing an estimated 100 bank robberies and reportedly netted some $2 million. He was also a pretty fair hand at breaking out of prisons. He broke out of three.

Sutton was arrested for murder when he was 21 but was acquitted. He was arrested and jailed for safecracking and was released in 1927. In 1930, he robbed his first bank. In 1930, he found himself sitting in the maximum-security prison known as Sing Sing. In 1932, he found himself on a makeshift ladder, climbing over a wall and escaping from Sing Sing. After a few years of robbing banks and stores, he was caught and given a new place to sit in Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. His five escape attempts from there strongly indicate that he didn’t approve of the the accommodations. He was eventually moved in 1945 to Holmesburg Prison, also in Philadelphia.

In 1945, Sutton joined eleven other inmates in escaping through a long tunnel that had taken some 18 months to dig and reinforce. He was caught within minutes just two blocks from the penitentiary. Not being one to give up easily, in 1947, Sutton and a few other convicts stole some guard uniforms and left the prison in search of surroundings that were more to their liking. Apparently, not all the escapees were satisfied with their new surroundings. Eight days later, one returned, rang the “doorbell,” said he was hungry, and asked to be let back in. Less than a week after Sutton escaped, room was found on the Top Ten list for his name. He was the eleventh person to have his name added. He was again collected in 1952 and sent to Attica Prison in New York.

Sutton denied having answered a question about why he robbed banks with the much-quoted statement that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” In his co-authored autobiography, he said he robbed banks “because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I’d be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that’s all.”

Sutton used a pistol and a Thompson submachine gun in his robberies but never killed anyone. He is reported to have said that “ You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality.” When asked if the guns he used were loaded during his robberies, he said that he never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt. Whether the weapons carried by Sutton and his accomplices were loaded or not, they were never fired during a robbery. In fact, Sutton’s victims usually reported that he had been very pleasant and polite.

Being in ill health, Sutton was paroled and released on Christmas Eve, 1969. He later campaigned for prison reform and recommended antirobbery techniques to bankers. He also made a television commercial for a bank, promoting its new credit card that carried a picture ID on it. During the commercial, he briefly described the card and its advantages. Holding up a card bearing his picture, he then said, “Now, when I say I’m Willie Sutton, people believe me.” He died in 1980.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

Topping the list of top ten fugitive apprehensions per state were California, with 59, and New York, with 40. Tied for third place were Florida and Illinois, each with 32.

The name, “Sing Sing,” derived from the name of the Sinck Sinck Indian tribe from whom the land where the prison was built had been purchased in 1685. It is located at Ossining on the Hudson River about 35 miles north of Manhattan—hence the description of an incarcerated criminal as having been “sent up the river.” Sing Sing houses approximately 1,700 prisoners.

A mob hit man who befriended Sutton in prison and later became a government witness stated that Willie Sutton made Jesse James and John Dillinger look like amateurs.

Willie Sutton’s longest stint of honest employment was only 18 months. He spent a total of 35 years behind bars.