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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

5. Ma Barker Doomed Herself and Her Kids

Fred Barker, who was killed alongside his mother in a shootout with the FBI. Wikimedia

Ma Barker would have been bad enough if she had chosen a life of violent crime just for herself. However, she raised her kids to be like her, and in so doing, doomed them. Sons Arthur, Fred, Herman, and Lloyd Barker were raised to become violent thugs since childhood, and they grew up to be car thieves, armed robbers, kidnappers, and murderers.

Corpses of Ma Barker and her son Fred. Hunt a Killer

Things ended badly for Ma Barker’s son Herman, who killed himself in the 1920s to avoid capture after a bungled bank robbery. As to Ma Barker herself, she and another son, Fred, followed Herman into great beyond on January 16^th, 1935, after they got into and lost a shootout with FBI agents in Florida.

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.