Volume 18 , Issue 18

1934 - Pretty Boy Wounded, Aide Now Prisoner

The San Bernardino County Sun, San Bernardino, California, dated 22 October 1934, Monday, page 1 & 2, had the following headlines: "Pretty Boy Wounded, Aide Now Prisoner." Floyd was believed fugitive in Woods after Henchman held in Ohio town's jail. Citizens were terrorized when carload of bandits raced through Main Street of Ohio.

Found on Newspapers.com

Steubenville, Ohio, Oct. 21 (1934) -- Lending confirmation to the assertion of Federal agents and officials of the region that their wounded quarry near Wellsville was Charles Pretty Boy Floyd, two attaches of the People's bank of Tiltonsville identified photographs of Floyd and of Adam Richetti as the men who held up the bank Friday and obtained $500. The identifications were made for two department of justice men just before they left to join Melvin Purvis, ace manhunter of the department of justice, who flew into Wellsville from Detroit.

Wells vile, Ohio, OCt. 22 (1934) -- Charles Pretty Boy Floyd - a bullet hole through his body, was believed hidden in a wood near here early today and 200 police, deputy sheriffs and vigilantes were beating the underbrush for him.

Floyd received a wound which must prove fatal unless attended soon in a battle with police chief J. H. Flutz, Saturday. His companion, Adam Richetti, was captured in the fight.

While attention centered on the manhunt late Sunday, a bandit automobile roared into town, twice running the main street and terrorizing citizens with submachine guns and other weapons.

Police quickly reenforced their guard at the jail lest Floyd's henchmen make an effort to deliver Richetti, a young Italian, who boasted he aided Floyd in several western bank holdups. The posse was thrown about the woods in a wide circle and was closing in. Police were sure Floyd could not have escaped, handicapped as he was by a hole from his back to the middle of his abdomen.

Searchers believed Floyd was dead or dying. The shooting in which Floyd was wounded occurred the day before when police pursued bandits believed responsible for the Tiltonville bank robbery of Friday.

Police Chief James H. Flutz was positive of his identification of Floyd. Confirmation that the wounded man was Floyd was issued by the department of justice at Washington.

Floyd left a heavy bloodstains on the cushions of an automobile he commandeered in a desperate effort to outrun pursuit.

Search for two bandits, one of whom resembled Floyd, began Friday when the People's bank at Tiltonville was robbed of $500.

The day before, afternoon, Chief Fultz received a telephoned tip that two suspicious men had spent the night in a house near the town.

With Special Officers Will Irwin and Grover Potts, Fultz drove to the spot named. In the road he encountered a man, questioned him and passed on toward another man. As he approached the second man, the first - who was Floyd - shouted: "Begin shooting, Adam."

Ricetti whipped out a .45 calibre revolver and began firing. At the same time, Floyd opened fire from he other direction. The chief, directing his shots at Floyd, shot the outlaw through the back. The bullet passed completely through Floyd's body.

Meantime the chief and his aids overpowered Richetti. Potts was wounded in the leg. Floyd, pressing his hands to his wound, fled down the road where he encountered George MacMillan driving an old automobile. Hailing MacMillan, he offered $10 for a ride to Akron or Youngstown. Once in the car he threatened MacMillan with his revolver and attempted crudely to staunch the flow of blood from the wound in his abdomen.

MacMillan turned his car toward Lisbon, hoping to encounter police. Finally, he wrecked the machine. Floyd then stopped James Baum, florist. Putting MacMillan with Baum in the front seat of the latter's car he directed them from the back. Near the outskirts of Lisbon, the car encountered a barricade built by police.

At Floyd's growled directions, Baum turned his machine around and attempted to flee. A Lisbon police ar sped up the road in pursuit. It contained Deputy Pail Early, Deputy George Hayes and Lisbon Policeman George Patterson.

The police machine quickly overtook Baum and the officers fired at the three occupants with pistols, Baum was wounded slightly.

Floyd leaped from the car and disappeared in dense underbrush, leaving stains of blood on the cushions of Baum's machine. Although police were quick to follow, the wounded outlaw outdistanced them and the trail was lost.

Washington, Oct. 21 (1934) -- Justice department officials said one man implicated in the Kansas City union station massacre was under arrest at Wellsville, Ohio, and a second, Pretty Boy Floyd, wounded, was being sought in nearby woods. The man being detained had been identified by justice department fingerprints as Adam Richetti. Justice officials said local authorities declined to turn him over to Federal agents.

Kansas City, Oct. 21 (1934) -- The arrest of Adam Richetti, confederate of the Oklahoma outlaw-killer, Charles (Pretty Boy) Floyd, was reported at Wellsville, Ohio, on the eve of a Federal grand jury investigation of a crime of which they were accused, the slaying of five men at the Union station there, June 17, 1933.

A third accused killer, Verne C. Miller, former South Dakota sheriff, later was slain by gangsters near Detroit in an effort to halt a Federal search which menaced them.

Richetti and Floyd were known to have been in Kansas City the night before the slaying. On the morning of June 16, 1933, they were in a garage at Bolivar, Missouri when Sheriff Jack Killingsworth, of Polk County, Missouri, entered. Kidnapping him, they fled in a motor car, releasing him that night in Kansas City.

A government informant had named Richetti, Floyd and Miller as the trio who met her later that night to plot an attempted rescue of Frank Nash, an escaped convict and friend of Miller, who had been captured in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
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