Volume 18 , Issue 18

Walking With Sweet Silly Sadie

Another week of searching Oklahoma outlaws of the 1930's. This week we continue with Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, finding information in The Evening Review, East Liverpool, Ohio, dated 23 October 1934, Tuesday, page 1, with these headlines: "It Was Luck," McDermott Says As Outlaw Is Slain." Written by Chief Hugh J. McDermott as related to William J. Waters.

Found on Newspapers.com

It was just luck that we got Pretty Boy Floyd. Melvin H. Purvis and three department of justice agents, traveling in one automobile, and Desk Sergeant Herman Roth, Patrolman Chester Smith and Special patrolman Glenn Montgomery, with me, were int he police cruiser, headed no particular place, when we sighted Floyd hiding behind a corn crib on the Mrs. Ella Cockle farm in the Sprucevale road, Monday afternoon. With Purvis in the federal officers' car were his three aids, Samuel McKee, D. H. Hall and W. E. Hopkin.

I believe 'Curly Montgomery was the first to see him. "There's a fellow behind that corn crib," Montgomery exclaimed.

"That is Floyd," I said.

We alighted from he cars and cautiously approached the field. When within hearing distance, we shouted, "Hold up your hands."

The outlaw kept pacing back and forth behind the crib, as the federal agents and our policemen, with three machine guns, two rifles, two sawed-off guns and two 38 caliber revolvers, moved in.

There was no pre-arranged plan of action. Every man knew his job. We were out to get Public Enemy No. 1, and were prepared for a fight.

Floyd, apparently wanting to get to a woods down near Beaver Creek, dated from behind his barricade as we approached. We ordered him to halt. He failed to obey the command and we all fired at once.

We believe he was struck by the first volley but Floyd continued to run. We repeated the command to halt but again it was ignored.

We fired a second volley and Floyd fell in the field. We closed in. One look told us Floyd was dying. "Who the hell tipped you off?" Floyd asked. "Where's Eddie?" He next inquired. "You get me twice."

We carried him from the field to the road and when we reached the highway I said, "He is dead." We put the body in the federal officers' car, two of the department of justice agents went to Clarkson where, by telephone, they reported to Edgar Hoover, their chief in Washington.

Floyd had a 45 automatic revolver, with the release open, in one hand, while stuck in is felt was another automatic revolver. He made no attempt to use either gun, and apparently was trying to hide rather than fight it out with us.

We had been cruising along the East Liverpool-Youngstown highway and side roads for more than an hour before we sighted Floyd. We had not received a tip as to his whereabouts, so far as I know. WE were called by Purvis, who asked us to join federal agents who previously were cruising in the district.

After we brought the body to East Liverpool, a doctor was called and pronounced him dead.

The only mark on Floyd's body, other than the bullet wounds was a bullet scar on the right leg.

Floyd's fingers were sandpapered, an old trick to make fingerprints difficult.

Handcuffs were clamped on Floyds wrists before he was carried from the field to the highway. In Floyd's clothes we found $122 in bills, a small amount of change and a watch.

Another name was crossed off America's list of public enemies with the slaying of Charles Pretty Boy Floyd by federal agents and local police near East Liverpool, Ohio on that Monday, October, 1934. The slippery gangster had shot his way out of several traps, but this time the law was too fast for him. Officers were shown taking fingerprints of the dead gunman as he lay on a slab in the E. G. Sturgis funeral home. Chief of Police Hugh McDermott and Patrolman Chester Smith, Glenn Montgomery and Elwyn Shekel were shown in the picture for the newspaper.

Farmers Tip Floyd Hideout
Arthur Conkle and Robert Robinson, farmers of the Bell school house section, and Constable Elmer Birch of St. Clair township indirectly played roles in bringing Pretty Boy Floyd to his end.

Although unaware of the man's identity, Cockle saw the fugitive dodging behind fodder stocks in a corn field on his farm at 10 am Monday.

Cockle was an uncle of Mrs. Ella Cockle, of the Sprucevale road, on whose farm the Oklahoma hill boy was shot to death. He said he saw the man again shortly before noon in a field on the adding farm of Robinson. "I told Constable Elmer Birch about the mysterious actions of the man," Cockle said.

At noon Cockle met Robinson, who told him the man believed to be Floyd and eaten a lunch, prepared by Robinson's daughter, Mrs. Myrtle Wilson, at the Robinson home. Cockle suggested that Robinson advise Constable Birch. Birch, according to Cockle, then communicated with federal officers.

"I had no suspicion that the man who was dodging behind fodder stalks, apparently to hide from me, was the Oklahoma desperado," Cockle said.

"I believe Constable Birch communicated by telephone, or otherwise, with the department of justice agents, after both Robinson and I had told him what we had seen.

Floyd, ravenously hungry, was courteous in his appeal for food at the Robinson home. The fugitive, apparently, had been without food since Friday, the day before the manhunt opened with a police encounter in a hollow at Silver's switch, near Kountz Avenue, Wellsville.

With his trail hot, Floyd had no time to stop. In fact, after the second clash with Wellsville and Columbiana county officers at Spence's woods near Lisbon, it was believed he kept off traveled roads.

Farmer Cockle said he believed the man had walked through the woods from beaver creek to his farm, after winning his way from Spence's woods.

Both federal agents and East Liverpool police said there had been no direct tip as to whereabouts of the bandit-killer. However, information furnished by the sT. Clair township residents aided in directing them to the zone in which Floyd was hiding.

The manhunters agreed luck was a factor in the search, for they discovered Floyd in a corn field on the Mrs. Ellen Conkle farm while they were cruising along a secondary road. Chief of Police Hugh J. McDermott and three of his men joined Melvin Purvis and his agents, on the East Liverpool-Youngstown road about four miles north of here. Later they turned onto the Clarkson road, and ultimately the Sprucevale road, where a hail of bullets ended the career of the man who succeeded John Dillinger as Public Enemy No. 1.

Good Night! Good Luck!
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