10. Pretty Boy Floyd was a murderer and bank robber
Charles Arthur Floyd was a gun happy bank robber who during his violent career cultivated a favorable image with the general public by spreading rumors that in the course of his robberies he also destroyed mortgage documents, saving many from foreclosure. The story is unsupported by evidence and was probably created by Floyd, who hated the nickname Pretty Boy. After the Kansas City massacre, in which three police officers and an FBI agent were killed when escorting Frank Nash during a change of custody (Nash was also killed), Pretty Boy Floyd was named by the FBI as one of the gunmen. It was unlikely that Floyd had been involved, but J. Edgar Hoover used the event as propaganda to further the cause of armed FBI agents. After the death of John Dillinger, Floyd was elevated to Public Enemy Number One by the FBI.
Floyd killed at least three police officers and several other underworld figures, including bootleggers, which indicates he may have supplemented his income from bank robberies by serving as a hitman for organized crime figures. He was convicted of bank robbery in Ohio and sentenced to 15 years in the infamous Ohio State Penitentiary in November of 1930 but escaped and continued his life of crime. Floyd’s support from the public was especially evident in Oklahoma, where residents sheltered and protected him, in return for financial largesse, an eventuality which infuriated J. Edgar Hoover. Floyd was killed in an Ohio field on the night of October 22, 1934, though several different versions of the events that night emerged from the participants in the shooting and witnesses. Floyd robbed more than thirty banks and killed at least ten men during his criminal career.