was he on trial here in oklahoma city? what happened to his girl friend after he was caught?

are there any good books on george kelly barnes?

Hi,

George "Machine Gun Kelly," as he was known to the public, was captured in Memphis, TN. on Sept. 26, 1933, along with his wife. They were both given life sentences in Oklahoma City. George Kelly was sent to Alcatraz on Sept. 4, 1934 as prisoner AZ#117. He died in his cell on his 59th birthday on July 18,1954. "Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand" by Stanley Hamilton is a good book. You can also find a lot of info on the internet; Alcatrazhistory.com, crimelibrary.com and FBI.Gov to name a few. I have also written an article on his capture in Oklahomabres journal a couple of years ago. Also an article several years ago appeared in Oklahombres journal on his life and death by Rick Mattix. I hope this give some help and points in in the right direction.

thanks for the great info.

George Francis Barnes, Jr., who was born in Illinois in July of 1900, and was more commonly known as "Machine Gun Kelly", actually died in a Federal Prison Hospital, located somewhere in Missouri (Springfield?), which was a part of the Leavenworth Prison system of Leavenworth, Kansas. Wasn't this some sort of a Medical Facility specifically set-up to accomodate terminally ill and dying prisoners in the Federal Prison System? Anyway, I don't believe that he died in his cell at Alcatraz.

(Note: The "source" for his correct, full-name, birth year, and place-of-birth was taken from the 1910 U.S. Census.)

Hi,

George "Machine Gun" Kelly was transfered to the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas in 1951. Here, he stayed working in the laundry and hospital, and also performed some office work. He died at Leavenworth in July 1954. This is according to Hamilton's book and Kelly's obituary.

i was on line reading about him and it said that after his girlfriend or wife was released from prision that she worked in a hospitial here in oklahoma city, do you know if this is true?

Old West is right on Kelly's birthdate and Mike is right on the other info. Kelly, whose true name was George F. Barnes, Jr., was born in Chicago, July 17, 1900, raised in Memphis, TN, and died in Leavenworth of a heart attack on July 18, 1954. He is buried near Paradise, Texas, in a Shannon family plot with an unimpressive marker erroneously reading "Geo. B. Kelley."

Kathryn Kelly and her mother Ora Shannon were released on bond, pending appeal of their life sentences, in 1958. They were never retried because the FBI refused to produce further evidence from their files, including the conflicting reports by handwriting experts on whether or not Kathryn wrote any of the ransom notes. Kathryn did spend much of her remaining years in Oklahoma City, watching after her mother in a hospital or nursing home as I recall. She was very reclusive but was once interviewed by William W. Turner, a former FBI agent and critic of J. Edgar Hoover, who wrote an article about her back in the early '80s. I believe the article was published in Ramparts. Ora Shannon died in 1980 and Kathryn Kelly died in 1984. They are buried together in Oklahoma.

In addition to Stanley Hamilton's book, Machine Gun Kelly's Last Stand, there are two other books on the Urschel kidnapping: Crimes' Paradise, published in 1934, and Voices from Alcatraz, published in 1947? or '49? Don't remember which for sure, right offhand. Both are by E.E. Kirkpatrick, an Urschel family friend who delivered the ransom money. Voices from Alcatraz is essentially a reprint of Crimes' Paradise, only including letters written to Urschel by Kelly and Bates from Alcatraz.

There is also a biography of Kelly, titled Machine Gun Kelly: To Right a Wrong, written in the early 1990's by his son, Bruce Barnes, who was still alive in California a year or two ago but in poor health at the time. His book is skimpy on Kelly's crime career but has some rare family photos and corrects some of the popular misinformation about his father's early life. Bruce is Kelly's son by his first wife, Geneva Ramsey.

8,000 pages of information on the Urschel kidnapping has since been released by the FBI.

thanks for all that great info. i have been looking for those two books by e.e. kirkpatrick.was he the famous oil man? when i searched him on the web i got alot of hits on john e. kirkpatrick from oklahoma city, i wonder if he is the same guy?thanks.

A good place to look would be Patterson Smith, who's probably the leading specialist bookseller in old and out-of-print crime books. He has a website at:
http://patterson-smith.com/

p.s. The Spring issue of On the Spot Journal, available shortly, includes an article on G-man William A. Rorer, leader of the FBI group involved in the capture of the Kellys. Written by Rorer's son, Davis Rorer.

thanks for all your help.