“Machine Gun Kelly”
The man known to the world as “Machine Gun Kelly” was born George Francis Barnes, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee in 1895. Unlike many career criminals, Kelly was raised in an affluent household, and had many advantages as a youth. It was during the Prohibition era in the 1920s that Kelly began working as a bootlegger. He was arrested in Oklahoma in 1928 for smuggling alcohol onto an Indian Reservation and sentenced to three years in Leavenworth.
After he was paroled, Kelly married a woman named Kathryn Thorne, and she encouraged him to go full-fledged into a life of crime. Thorne bought Kelly a machine gun, and the two embarked on a bank robbery spree across the south.
The couple kidnapped a wealthy Oklahoma businessman named Charles Urschel, received a $200,000 ransom for him, but were arrested two months later. Kelly and Thorne were each sentenced to prison in 1933.
Machine Gun Kelly was sent to Alcatraz, where he spent 17 years. He was recognized as a model prisoner on The Rock, before he was transferred to Leavenworth. Kelly would never taste freedom again. On his 59th birthday in 1954, Kelly suffered a fatal heart attack and died. Kathryn Thorne remained in prison until her parole in 1958. After her release, Thorne lived in Oklahoma until her death at the age of 84 in 1985.