2. The first armed robbery of a bank in the United States included a fatal shooting
Frank Eugene Converse, whose family later founded the Converse Shoe Company, was a seventeen-year-old clerk at the First Malden Bank in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in December of 1863. He was alone at work when Edward Green entered the bank. Green was the local postmaster and was of course well known to nearly all of the town’s citizens, including Frank. What was also known to most of the town’s residents was that Green was heavily in debt, and the postmaster position, which was a political patronage job, provided an income which was insufficient for Green to pay his debts. Green had come to rob the bank, and the fact that he was so well known meant that he could not leave behind any witnesses. After ensuring that the teenager was alone in the bank, Green shot him in the back of the head and left with about $5,000.
Green was not a suspect at first, the citizens of Malden unable to believe that a man in his position was capable of such a heinous crime. As it became evident that Green was paying off his debts, the townspeople began to wonder where the money had come from. In February 1864, Green was arrested and after questioning admitted that he had committed the murder and robbery, informing the authorities where the remaining money was hidden. Green was held in the Middlesex County Jail until April 1866, when he was hanged for committing the United States’ first armed bank robbery, and for the crime of murder.