BABY FACE NELSON Ep. 2 | “Escalation”

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By mid 1930, Lester Gillis, known to most as George Nelson, was 21 years old. He had spent the latter half of his teenage years serving several stints in the Illinois State School for boys. Nelson had a propensity for stealing and a propensity for getting caught. But after his last parole, it seemed like there was a chance he might walk an honest line. He had fallen in love and married his wife, Helen.

They already had two children, a son and a daughter, and for a short time, Nelson had held down decent-paying, legitimate jobs. In part, he achieved a level of respectability. For more than a year, he worked as a driver and mechanic for an electric company, but he always kept one foot in the criminal world. When the nation plunged into the Great Depression in the fall of 1929, millions of young men like Nelson found themselves unemployed and without prospects. It was an easy decision for Nelson when he chose a life of crime.

At just 5 feet 5 inches tall, the diminutive Nelson walked around with a chip on his shoulder the size of the Ritz. He was known to be tough and had a notoriously short temper. He had idolized the gangsters who ran Chicago in his adolescence and longed to enjoy their lavish lifestyle. In short, he was a little young man who wanted, more than anything, to be a respected big shot. Nelson and a small gang had burst onto the scene, riding a crime wave that struck the city throughout 1930.

Their scam was home invasions they would force entry into a rich family's mansion, flash weapons and abscond with expensive jewelry. Their practice of using tape to leave victims bound and gagged earned them the nickname The Tape Bandits. But breaking into the homes of the city's elite brought a lot of attention. When Nelson and his crew did a job, it was front-page headline news.

There was the added challenge of being able to sell the expensive jewelry that every pawnbroker in the city knew was stolen. Nelson was ready to diversify. He set his sights on expanding his craft to include bank robbery. Up to that point, the crimes his gang had committed had been virtually free of violence. But that was about to change. Nelson began to solidify the reputation that would follow him into history.

That of being a sawed-off wild man who was quick on the trigger and didn't hesitate to kill. The 1930s would become a decade known for famous outlaws, many of whom had catchy nicknames Machine Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd, Creepy Karpis and now Babyface Nelson.

From black barrel media, this is infamous America. I'm your host Chris Wimmer. And this season we're telling the story of Lester Gillis, better known as Babyface Nelson, one of the wildest and most intriguing gangsters of the depression era. This is episode 2 escalation.

While Nelson was ready to move on from the home invasion racket, he couldn't deny that it changed his fortunes. Even if Nelson's total take was about $15,000, which is a conservative estimate, that's nearly $250,000 in today's money. George and Helen Nelson, as they were now known, were able to move into a large new apartment in the town of Cicero, just outside the Chicago city limits, Nelson also bought a brand new Chrysler. With ample money in his pocket, Nelson was able to splurge on the lavish Chicago lifestyle.

He went to supper clubs, speakeasies and dance halls. But while Nelson enjoyed good music and an expensive meal as much as the next well-dressed criminal, he did not touch liquor, his father's alcoholism surely played a part. Nor did Nelson live up to the Hollywood depictions of gangsters when it came to fraternizing with women. In fact, Nelson never showed any interest in any woman besides Helen.

She was almost always on his arm. When he hit the town, however, Nelson had developed a new interest on which to spend his ill-gotten wealth dirt track racing. With the help of a mechanic, Nelson bought a race car and began entering local events. When interviewed years later, the mechanic would tell of Nelson's grit and toughness, but also his hot temper on and off the track.

The mechanic also spoke of Nelson's prowess behind the wheel. The man described Nelson as one of the best drivers he had ever seen. Nelson's driving skill boded well for he and his crew. Because they had their sights set on graduating from home invasion. It was time to try bank robbery, as legendary bank robber Willie Sutton would say, 20 or 30 years in the future, that's where the money is.

Bank robbery had changed immensely since the romanticized days of Jesse James and the Dalton Gang. The main reason was the automobile.

Automobile technology had advanced greatly in the two decades since the first Model T had rolled off of Henry Ford's assembly line. Countless aspects of the American way of life had been permanently altered by the dawn of the automotive age. The practice, or for some, the art of bank robbery, was no exception. The first documented case of a car being used in a bank robbery happened in 1909, just one year after Henry Ford's motor company introduced the Model T. A car provided two things that were crucial to even the most well-planned heist speed and flexibility.

A crew could approach a bank quickly and then make a speedy exit, sometimes fleeing with the cash before the police even arrived at the scene. Law enforcement around the country may not have realized it in 1930. But the automobile was going to play a huge role in the boom of bank robberies across the country. To maximize the advantages that automobiles provided, bank robbers, the smart ones, targeted banks outside of crowded cities. A fast car did little to aid an escape if a robber found himself in downtown traffic. But in a small town where the police response was smaller and the cops were usually less experienced, a fast car could make a robbery seem like child's play.

If the crew could make it past the town limits, a V8 engine and miles of country roads could do the rest. In the fall of 1930, Nelson and his crew made their first real forays into bank robbing between two of their home invasions. The tape bandits tested the waters of bank heists. On April 21st, they knocked over a small suburban bank they only made off with $4,000 in total.

But that same day, a fire in an overcrowded Columbus, Ohio, prison, killed more than 300 inmates. The tragedy at the prison dominated the headlines in the newspapers. And Nelson's first bank job was rarely mentioned, but Nelson and company were hooked and ready to try again. They scoped out a bank 25 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. The bank sat right off the town square in a sleepy little hamlet named Itasca.

The crew stole a car with out-of-state plates and settled on a date. That robbery would signal the end of the home invasion phase of the tape Bandits and Babyface Nelson. They were about to move up to the big leagues.

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They had checked their weapons and gone over the plan one last time with their driver, who was likely a fellow tape bandit named Stanton Randall. Then they bounded up the steps and into the bank. It was 9 a...m and the bank had just opened, There were no customers in the bank.

The only people inside were a teller and an assistant cashier named Raymond Franson. Franson also happened to be the son of the bank's owner. Harry Lewis hovered just inside the bank's doors, ready to warn off anyone who might come up the steps. Nelson made his way to the counter and told Franson that he wanted to purchase a bank check. Before the young man could respond, Nelson leapt over the counter.

He shoved a.

45-caliber pistol into Franson's face and told him he was robbing the bank. Nelson forced Franson and the teller down to the carpet. Then he went to work, emptying the cash drawers. When the drawers were emptied. He pointed his pistol down at Franson and ordered him to open the vault. Franson stood.

He had been a college baseball player and was quite a bit bigger than the diminutive Nelson. At first, Franson copped an attitude with his assailant, but then dropped it. The bank teller would later state that she was surprised that someone so innocent-looking like Nelson could be a bank robber. But Franson could see Nelson was dangerous, no matter his size and appearance. After Nelson had bagged most of the cash in the vault, he ushered Franson and the teller inside.

He told them if they didn't stay there for at least 10 minutes, the two robbers would be back and the victims believed him.

Nelson and Lewis made it out to the sedan without an issue and headed out of Itasca. They counted the money as the getaway driver drove them back to Chicago. The haul came to $4,678 more than $1,500 each for 10 minutes of work. In the next six weeks, they hit two more banks with varying degrees of success.

They tried to knock over a bank in a town of Plainfield. It seemed like just another rural bank, 30 miles southwest of Chicago. However, the Plainfield Bank had been robbed several times and had invested in better security measures. Bulletproof glass had been installed at the counter to keep the bank employees safe. Nelson didn't believe it at first and fired several rounds into the glass.

The glass didn't give and one of the bullets ricocheted off and struck a customer who was cringing on the floor. The gang cut their losses and bailed. A heist in Hillside, a town closer to Chicago, proved more profitable. Nelson and company made off with more than $4,000. They also nabbed some additional firepower in the form of several pistols.

None of the bank employees had been brazen enough to use them again. Nelson and his crew avoided any showdown with the authorities after both robberies. Witnesses described the loudest, most aggressive of the gunmen as being small in stature and having a youthful look to him. A Plainfield witness even echoed the description of the wife of the mayor of Chicago, stating that the gunmen had a baby face. Thus far, the gang had focused on banks in small towns and small cities, and had spread them out geographically. So they weren't concentrating on any one area, much like the James Gang of old.

Cooperation and communication between police departments was poor or non-existent, and the gang strategy had worked for the first two robberies. But the Hillside robbery had taken place close enough to Chicago that the Big City police became involved. As 1930 came to a close, they realized that a man with a similar description was present at a variety of unsolved crimes. They began to close in, but not before Babyface Nelson was involved in two more armed robberies.

Unlike the home invasions, and unlike early bank heists, those robberies would not be bloodless.

Head waiter Joseph McAvoy yawned as he tried to stay awake while polishing wine glasses with the bartender at a bar and restaurant called Henry Goetz's Roadhouse. It was past 1 a...m. on November 23, 1930, in the restaurant on Archer Avenue in Summit, Illinois, about 15 miles east of downtown Chicago. The front bar at the roadhouse was empty, except for the two employees, but about a dozen people were still in the back dining room eating and listening to the entertainment.

McAvoy and the bartender might have been talking about Northwestern University's football team clinching a share of the Big Ten title the previous afternoon, despite a two-touchdown loss to Notre Dame. Or they might have been discussing that night's entertainment. She was an attractive recent graduate of the University of Illinois School of Music. She performed as Barbara Lee, but her name was Mary Brining. They could hear her singing a popular song by Ruth Edding.

Neither employee was prepared when the roadhouse's front door flew open and eight men with eight guns burst in.

The gang's apparent leader, short and aggressive, jabbed his shotgun into McAvoy's stomach and ordered him and the bartender to march back to the dining room. One of the other men emptied the cash register. Mary Brining was still singing when the men barged into the back room and ordered all the diners to line up facing the wall. The terrified crowd complied, hoping the gunmen would just take their wallets, watches and jewelry and leave them with their lives.

The room's lights were low to increase the ambience. The gang's leader shouted to one of the other gunmen to find the lights and turn them up while the gang was controlling the crowd. A railroad detective named Jack Micas was in the bathroom washing his hands. When he turned off the faucet. It occurred to him that he no longer heard the young lady singing.

Then he heard angry yelling. He probably suspected that the joint was being robbed. Micas patted his side to reassure himself that he had brought his service revolver out. In the dining room, it was clear that none of the diners against the wall were going to give the gang any trouble. At least no humans were.

The gang's leader stepped toward the captives and as he did, he walked past the club owner, Henry Goetz's table. Either the gunman had somehow not noticed the great Dane under the table, or he just hadn't been concerned with the normally docile breed of dog. But the enormous animal lunged for the gunman, the dog's huge jaws clamped down on the man's leg, The gunman shrieked and shook the dog free.

Then he leveled the barrel of his shotgun at the dog and fired. Thankfully the shot missed, but at almost the exact second that the gunman fired. Two other things happened. First, the robber, who had been trying to turn up the lights, hit the wrong switch and killed the lights entirely. Second, Detective Jack Micas came out of the bathroom and his suspicion was confirmed.

He drew his weapon and as the room went entirely black, Micas began to fire. So did the eight gun-toting gang members. For a few seconds. The only light in the room came from the muzzle flashes. When the lights finally came on, the eight gunmen were uninjured. Their leader yelled that it was time to go.

They fled through the front bar and out to waiting cars. Detective Micas had been hit multiple times, but he was able to give pursuit. He made it to his car and tried to follow the gunman, but he lost them as they sped down Archer Avenue toward Chicago. Back in the dining room, 22-year-old Mary Brining was slowly dying from the wounds she had suffered when she was caught in the crossfire.

She was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at nearby Holy Cross Hospital. And she wasn't the only one. Another singer, named Alice Ward also died, and a third young woman, named Mary Ganey, would succumb to her wounds. Later in the day. The gang had gotten away with just $200..

The killing of three young women was front-page news, even in crime-addled Chicago. A major Chicago newspaper described the gang as eight youthful armed bandits. Local city and county police worked the case, but no arrests were made. Four years later, the FBI interrogated gang member Stanton Randall, Nelson's wheelman from the Itasca robbery. He confirmed that the leader that night in Henry Goetz's roadhouse and the first to fire, was the FBI's future public enemy number one Babyface Nelson.

Less than a week later, at another bar and restaurant, a similar crime took place. A masked gang burst into the Lake Avenue tavern in Chicago's northern suburbs, wielding shotguns. They lined up the proprietor, a waiter, and the tavern's sole customer. Edwin Thompson Thompson was a stockbroker from a wealthy Chicago family.

Perhaps owing to a life of wealth and privilege. Thompson didn't move fast enough for the leader of the gang. And worse, as he stood up from his table, he appeared to smile. Whatever the reason for not taking the holdup seriously, Thompson paid with his life. The gang's leader, later identified as Nelson, fired a single shot at close range and tore a hole through the broker's midsection. It killed Thompson instantly.

The gang fled with just $125.

Nelson now had at least one and as many as four murders on his hands. It would be years before the incidents at the Lake Avenue Tavern or Henry Goetz's Roadhouse would be attributed to Nelson. But the two incidents would become clear evidence to support the mythology that still surrounds the outlaw to this day. He was quick to violence and ill-tempered, and when provoked or cornered, he was ruthless.

But as 1931 began, it wouldn't be a murder that sent babyface Nelson to prison.

In November of 1930, shortly before the Itasca bank robbery. A warrant was issued for the arrest of George Nelson in relation to 10 different robberies, including the theft of $50,000 worth of jewelry from Mrs. Lottie Brenner von Buelow. Exactly how the authorities learned the name George Nelson is unclear, but it possibly came from a girlfriend of a tape bandit. It's suspected she was arrested and gave information in the hope of leniency.

However, the Chicago PD learned the name. It took them some time to track down the man they knew as George Nelson. They had a name, but no whereabouts. It wasn't until February of 1931 that they received a good lead tape. Bandit and Nelson Crony. Harry Lewis had been under surveillance by the police for some time.

Like Nelson, Lewis led a suspiciously lavish lifestyle for someone who didn't have a job. While searching Lewis Posh apartment, the police uncovered a letter addressed to Nelson. On the envelope was Nelson's address in Cicero. The police wanted more evidence before they moved on Nelson, so they raided the home of fellow bandit Stanton Randall. They found one of the pistols that the robbers had taken in the Hillside Bank Robbery.

That was enough to connect the three men to each other and to the heist. Nelson was arrested on Valentine's Day 1931. Victims from several bank jobs and the home invasions, including Lottie Brenner von Buelow, identified Nelson the following day. He was referred to in the press for the first time as George Babyface.

Nelson wives and girlfriends of the gang members were also taken into custody, including Nelson's wife, Helen. Luckily, she was let go. Nelson swore to detectives that she had no knowledge or involvement. Nelson also refused to give any information that could be used against his cohorts. But they did not return the favor.

Nelson was indicted and his trial was set for June 1931.

At trial, Harry Lewis appeared as a witness for the prosecution. He testified that Nelson was the ringleader of the tape bandits. Several witnesses from banks in Itasca and Hillside also identified Nelson. In the end, Nelson was easily convicted, but for only one of the robberies.

Unfortunately for him, that was all the judge needed. Discretionary sentencing of the time gave the judge broad power. On July 9th, the judge gave Nelson one of the broadest possible prison sentences, one year to life. Less than two weeks later, Nelson became inmate number 5437 at the state prison in Joliet, Illinois.

Old Joliet Prison, Nelson's home for the foreseeable future, was infamous long before Baby Face arrived. Since 1924, it had been home to Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. The two wealthy Chicago men had hoped to commit and get away with the perfect crime. Their victim was a 14-year-old boy named Robert Frank. They had kidnapped him, murdered him and sent ransom notes to the family.

Leopold and Loeb were captured, and the trial that followed was one of the first to be dubbed the Trial of the Century. The reality was that Old Joliet was filled with plenty of criminals who were just as sinister as Leopold and Loeb. Much as Nelson had in Reform School, he fell in line and rarely caused problems for the prison guards or the administration. After several months, his wife, Helen, and his mother appealed to the courts for a new trial. They claimed Nelson had received an inadequate defense.

Not only were those appeals denied, Nelson and his family were informed that authorities in Dupage County, the site of the Itasca bank job, would be putting Nelson on trial.

In the time leading up to that court date, in early 1932, it's believed that Nelson was offered a reduced sentence to become an informant. He refused, and his trial was set for early February at the Dupage County Courthouse in the town of Wheaton, Illinois. The assistant cashier from the Itasca robbery, Raymond Franson, and his co-worker, the bank teller, both testified. And again, Harry Lewis betrayed his former gangmate and testified against Nelson. On February 17th. Nelson was given a sentence of 1 to 20 years for the Itasca robbery.

He now had two prison sentences that could each be as short as one year, but could be as long as 20 years. Or the rest of his natural life. He had no way of knowing how many years he might actually serve, and because of the open-ended sentences, he had no interest in finding out. Nelson, in handcuffs, was taken by train from Wheaton back to Joliet by Prison Guard R.M. Martin. When they arrived at the Joliet train station, the two men got off the train and Martin hailed a cab.

Nelson shuffled inside and Martin slid in next to his prisoner. Neither man spoke for the first few minutes. Then, with one quick reach into his waistband, Nelson produced a .45 caliber pistol. Martin was frozen. The notoriously high-strung Nelson was perfectly calm.

He told the driver to head north toward Chicago. Then he instructed Martin to unlock the handcuffs and relinquish his sidearm. I don't want to shoot you, Nelson told the stunned guard, But I will if I have to.

Martin knew that any effort to be a hero could mean the driver's life as well as his own. He complied with both requests. The three men traveled in relative silence for about 30 minutes. Then Nelson told the driver to pull over. Next to a cemetery in the town of Summit, just three miles from the site of the shootout at Henry Goetz's roadhouse.

Nelson told the men to get out of the car. He left the driver and the prison guard on the side of the road and sped toward Chicago. Free and clear investigators from multiple agencies would spend decades scratching their heads. No explanation could be found for how and from where Nelson got the weapon. Several people at the courthouse in Wheaton stated that they watched the guards pat down Nelson before he left.

R.

M. Martin swore on his children. He had never left Nelson alone on the train unless Nelson was in the train restroom. The main suspects were Nelson's wife, Helen, or his mother, Mary. They had both been at his sentencing at the Dupage County Courthouse.

A variety of Nelson's underworld cohorts had also been suspects. One historian wrote that Nelson told infamous outlaw and future associate Alvin Creepy Karpus that the gun had been stashed in the bathroom of the train. By a quote Guardian Angel. However, it was arranged. The mystery about the gun continues to linger, but on the ground in Chicago, authorities launched a manhunt. Nelson's wife, mother and sisters were surveilled and repeatedly harassed.

The effort led nowhere. Nelson always stayed one step ahead of the law, but he knew he was too hot to stay in Chicago or even the entire Midwest region. So he followed an age-old American tradition, and he headed west in early March of 1932. Just a couple weeks after his escape, Nelson secretly said goodbye to his family and lit out for Reno, Nevada. He used his criminal connections to find a safe haven, and he began the western interlude of his career.

There were whole new enterprises to explore in the dusty, fast-growing towns of California and Nevada.

Next time on Infamous America Babyface, Nelson teams up with a cadre of established criminals in Nevada and northern California, and expands into the preferred operations of choice. In the West. Gambling and bootlegging. But the allure of home draws him back to the Midwest, where he plans his most brazen bank robbery to date. That's next week on Infamous America.

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Original music by Rob Vallier. I'm Your host and producer Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia..com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram, and B Barrel Media on Twitter, and you can stream all our episodes on YouTube.

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