6. The Most Deep-Dyed Criminal Ma of the 1930s
America was swept by a wave of violent and flashy criminals during the 1930s, who fascinated, horrified, and titillated the public. These were the “Public Enemy” days of iconic outlaws such as John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and Machine Gun Kelly.
Their numbers included Arizona Donnie Barker, AKA “Ma Barker”, the mother of several notorious criminals who ran the Barker-Karpis Gang. Ma Barker ended up making the FBI’s Public Enemies list, and was described by J. Edgar Hoover as “the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade“.