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Lesser Known But Intriguing Historic Criminals

Khalid Elhassan October 17, 2019 32 min

U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History - Crime

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“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.