Alvin Karpis

March 22,1949   POLICE RECALL INFAMOUS BARKER GANG'S START HERE   TULSA'S 'SPAWN OF HELL' WIPED OUT

Echoes of the many gun battles fought by notorious members of the "Barker gang" resounded in Tulsa today after news was received from Denver that the last of the Oklahoma outlaw band had been killed there by a shotgun blast.He was Lloyd (Red) Barker,51,son of "Ma" Barker,who with her other three sons terrorized scores of persons during fast-moving hi-jackings and robberies.The other three Barker boy,were Herman,who died a natural death in the early 1920s;Fred,who with his mother was killed by FBI agents in a Florida machine gun battle in 1935,and Arthur,better known as "Doc,"who was slain by a prison guard in 1939 while trying to escape from Alcatraz.Denver police have charged Lloyd's death to his wife,Jean,37,who they say cut down the last of the Barker boys as he attempted to unlock the door of their home.She told officers she feared her husband would kill her and her children.She pleaded innocent by reason of insanity.The Barker clan launched their careers as juvenile delinquents in Tulsa in the early 1920s.All were reported,at one time or another,to have been members of the notorious "Central park mob,which at one time had 22 hijackers,bandits and other thugs enlisted in its ranks.Lloyd,according to FBI records,was not a member of "Ma" Barker's gang at the height of his operations.At that time he was serving 25 years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth for mail robbery.The Barkers moved to Tulsa in 1910 from Webb City,Mo.,after Herman had been arrested there for highway robbery.In Tulsa,the Barker shack became an underworld post office and meeting place. "Ma" ruled the roost with an iron hand and "took nothing off of nobody."The husband and father,George Barker,a Missouri farm hand,stayed behind in Webb City and never became involved with authorities.A search of Tulsa police records showed little information concerning the gang.The card and picture file had not been started when the mob began its operations.One folder does show that Lloyd was arrested here for vagrancy in 1921.The Florida machine gun battle with FBI agents came after the operatives had trailed the gang there.They were suspected of having kidnaped Edward G.Bremer,St.Paul,Minn.,banker. "Ma" died with a machine gun in her hand.During the early 1930's Ma and her boys became connected with the Alvin Karpis gang.J.Edgar Hoover,FBI director,described Ma as having the "most resourceful criminal brain that America has produced in the past generation." The statement was made in 1935."She was the most dangerous lawbreaker in my experience.More so than John Dillinger or 'Baby Face' Nelson or any of the rest of our so-called No.1 public enemies." "In her 60 years she reared a spawn of hell.Of her four sons,one was a mail robber,another a holdup man and the remaining pair highwaymen,kidnapers and wanton murderers." Many a veteran Tulsa police officer can recall brushes with the Barker clan.Harry Stege,who founded the police identification bureau here,recalled the Barker boys as "slippery young hoodlums." "That's the finish of the Barker gang.Never again will a police department have to face their bullets," Siege said today.The bodies of Ma and Fred were returned from Florida and buried in a desolate,weed-grown cemetery three miles east of Miami,Ok.,in 1935.