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The Ma Barker Giveaway
The Ma Barker Giveaway
Send Ma Barker to the New York Times Bestseller’s list
Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss tells the story of the Gangster Era criminals whose mother literally let them get away with murder. Ma Barker is unique in criminal history. Although she was involved in numerous illegal activities for more than twenty years she was never arrested, fingerprinted, or photographed perpetrating a crime. Yet Ma controlled two dozen gang members who did exactly as she told them.
Step 1 – Enter the Ma Barker giveaway!
Enter for your chance to win a Ma Barker gift basket which includes a two-night stay at a resort in one of Ma Barker’s favorite hideout cities, Reno, Nevada.
(You can also enter the GoodRead’s Ma Barker Giveaway, opens in a new tab so you can finish here.)
Step 2 – Pre-order the book so you are eligible to win!
As soon as you complete the entry form below, you will be redirected to Amazon.com to Pre-Order the book. Make sure you complete your purchase in order to confirm your eligibility.
Visit www.chrisenss.com to enter!
Send Ma Barker to the New York Times Bestseller’s list
Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother by Howard Kazanjian and Chris Enss tells the story of the Gangster Era criminals whose mother literally let them get away with murder. Ma Barker is unique in criminal history. Although she was involved in numerous illegal activities for more than twenty years she was never arrested, fingerprinted, or photographed perpetrating a crime. Yet Ma controlled two dozen gang members who did exactly as she told them.
Step 1 – Enter the Ma Barker giveaway!
Enter for your chance to win a Ma Barker gift basket which includes a two-night stay at a resort in one of Ma Barker’s favorite hideout cities, Reno, Nevada.
(You can also enter the GoodRead’s Ma Barker Giveaway, opens in a new tab so you can finish here.)
Step 2 – Pre-order the book so you are eligible to win!
As soon as you complete the entry form below, you will be redirected to Amazon.com to Pre-Order the book. Make sure you complete your purchase in order to confirm your eligibility.
Visit www.chrisenss.com to enter!
Gunfight at Lake Weir
Enter now to win a copy of
Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.
Fifteen federal agents stood in rapt silence outside the home of Mrs. Blackburn and her son in Lake Weir, Florida. Mrs. Blackburn was really Ma Barker. At 5:32 in the morning on January 16, 1935, an investigator had knocked on the front door of the house and shouted, “We are Department of Justice men. Come on out!” He heard naked feet patter along an inside hallway and doors on the second floor of the home opening and closing. The FBI believed Ma and Fred were inside the house but were not certain if anyone else was with them.
The agent who had dared approach the two-story residence walked backwards to a spot behind one of the many oak trees on the property. He exchanged a glance with the other agents under cover around him. Their lips were grim, their hands loose upon their machine guns. No one said a word for several long moments. Finally, Ma responded to law enforcement’s demand that she and her son, Fred come out.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Federal officers,” the lead agent replied.
More time passed; then Ma called out, “All right, go ahead.”
The special agents interpreted the remark to mean that Ma and Fred were going to surrender, but they were wrong. Fred suddenly appeared in the front doorway, bare-headed, in a white shirt and gray trousers, and with a spitting machine gun. As Fred’s bullets crashed toward the agent, Ma’s high shrill voice came like a cry of doom: “Let ‘em have it!” Fred’s machine gun fire was answered by tear gas bombs, rifle fire, and machine-gun fire from weapons in the hands of FBI agents.
Across the way from the white house, Mrs. A. F. Westberry was awakened by the roar of gunfire. It seemed to come from all sides of her house; it was close up, and it seemed to shake the building. In abject terror, she jerked herself to a sitting position as bullets crashed through her closed bedroom door and buried themselves in the head of her bed. She later told newspaper reporters:
“I got out of bed…opened the door a crack, and more bullets came through the window and hit the face of the door above my head. I looked out the window and saw the yard was full of men. From Mr. Bradford’s house across the road there was a lot of shooting. I could see streaks of fire from the guns. I could see the blazes from the men’s guns on the outside. There was a lot of rapid fire like machine guns. My daughter was in bed. I broke open the back window of our room and told her we had to get out. About that time some more bullets came smacking through the dining room window and hit the wall.
To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.
Fifteen federal agents stood in rapt silence outside the home of Mrs. Blackburn and her son in Lake Weir, Florida. Mrs. Blackburn was really Ma Barker. At 5:32 in the morning on January 16, 1935, an investigator had knocked on the front door of the house and shouted, “We are Department of Justice men. Come on out!” He heard naked feet patter along an inside hallway and doors on the second floor of the home opening and closing. The FBI believed Ma and Fred were inside the house but were not certain if anyone else was with them.
The agent who had dared approach the two-story residence walked backwards to a spot behind one of the many oak trees on the property. He exchanged a glance with the other agents under cover around him. Their lips were grim, their hands loose upon their machine guns. No one said a word for several long moments. Finally, Ma responded to law enforcement’s demand that she and her son, Fred come out.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Federal officers,” the lead agent replied.
More time passed; then Ma called out, “All right, go ahead.”
The special agents interpreted the remark to mean that Ma and Fred were going to surrender, but they were wrong. Fred suddenly appeared in the front doorway, bare-headed, in a white shirt and gray trousers, and with a spitting machine gun. As Fred’s bullets crashed toward the agent, Ma’s high shrill voice came like a cry of doom: “Let ‘em have it!” Fred’s machine gun fire was answered by tear gas bombs, rifle fire, and machine-gun fire from weapons in the hands of FBI agents.
Across the way from the white house, Mrs. A. F. Westberry was awakened by the roar of gunfire. It seemed to come from all sides of her house; it was close up, and it seemed to shake the building. In abject terror, she jerked herself to a sitting position as bullets crashed through her closed bedroom door and buried themselves in the head of her bed. She later told newspaper reporters:
“I got out of bed…opened the door a crack, and more bullets came through the window and hit the face of the door above my head. I looked out the window and saw the yard was full of men. From Mr. Bradford’s house across the road there was a lot of shooting. I could see streaks of fire from the guns. I could see the blazes from the men’s guns on the outside. There was a lot of rapid fire like machine guns. My daughter was in bed. I broke open the back window of our room and told her we had to get out. About that time some more bullets came smacking through the dining room window and hit the wall.
To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
The Bad Mother's Handbook
Ma’s days are numbered. Enter now to win a copy of Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.
Ma Barker removed a tattered handkerchief from the navy blue pocketbook cradled in her lap and dabbed away a fake tear. The guards on duty at the Oklahoma Prison were disinterested in her supposed grief. Their job was to make sure the inmates at the facility moved efficiently from the visitor’s area back to their cells. Ma watched a pale-faced, stupefied guard escort her son Arthur out the room. It was mid-February 1920, and mother and son had concluded a short visit. A thick, long glass separated the convicts from the civilized world. Here, communication was done using plain, black phones minus a dial wheel, wired from one side of the glass to the other. Arthur and Ma each had their own receiver to talk through as did several other family and friends visiting their loved ones through the glass partition.
The iron-barred doors clanged shut as the last prisoner was ushered out the room. Ma sat stock-still until she heard the guard lock the door behind the inmates. As she turned to get up from her assigned seat, a heavyset guard approached her, and with flinty eyes, looked her up and down. She looked more frumpy than menacing. The coat she wore was big and bulky, frayed in spots, and a few buttons were missing. The tan, bell-shaped hat on her head had seen better days, and her hair underneath it was pinned back in a haphazard fashion. “My boys would be all right if the law would leave them alone,” she told the guard. He had no response and simply led her to the exit of the room, and she shuffled along as little old ladies do.
Two short siren blasts issued from the main building of the jail as Ma exited the complex. She glanced back at the other visitors following after her and at the stone walls topped with snaky concertina wire overhead. Once every guest had left the jail, the heavy steel doors were closed behind them.
A Cadillac sedan pulled in front of the detention center and stopped. Ma abandoned the old lady gait and hurried to the car as though nothing whatsoever was bothering her physically. She pulled off the old coat she was wearing and draped the fur wrap over her shoulders that one of the passengers inside the car handed her through the window. She opened the passenger’s side door and slid into the seat. The June 19, 1959 edition of the Amarillo Globe Times reported that the Jasper County filing clerk who witnessed Ma Barker leaving the prison saw her removing her hat and straightening her hair as the sedan drove away. “In a few moments she transformed from a somewhat feeble grandmother type to a hearty, rather spirited woman,” the clerk described.
To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
Visit www.chrisenss.com
In a time when notorious Depression-era criminals were terrorizing the country, the Barker-Karpis Gang stole more money than mobsters John Dillinger, Vern Miller, and Bonnie and Clyde combined. Five of the most wanted thieves, murderers, and kidnappers by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1930s were from the same family. Authorities believed the woman behind the band of violent hoodlums that ravaged the Midwest was their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.
Ma Barker removed a tattered handkerchief from the navy blue pocketbook cradled in her lap and dabbed away a fake tear. The guards on duty at the Oklahoma Prison were disinterested in her supposed grief. Their job was to make sure the inmates at the facility moved efficiently from the visitor’s area back to their cells. Ma watched a pale-faced, stupefied guard escort her son Arthur out the room. It was mid-February 1920, and mother and son had concluded a short visit. A thick, long glass separated the convicts from the civilized world. Here, communication was done using plain, black phones minus a dial wheel, wired from one side of the glass to the other. Arthur and Ma each had their own receiver to talk through as did several other family and friends visiting their loved ones through the glass partition.
The iron-barred doors clanged shut as the last prisoner was ushered out the room. Ma sat stock-still until she heard the guard lock the door behind the inmates. As she turned to get up from her assigned seat, a heavyset guard approached her, and with flinty eyes, looked her up and down. She looked more frumpy than menacing. The coat she wore was big and bulky, frayed in spots, and a few buttons were missing. The tan, bell-shaped hat on her head had seen better days, and her hair underneath it was pinned back in a haphazard fashion. “My boys would be all right if the law would leave them alone,” she told the guard. He had no response and simply led her to the exit of the room, and she shuffled along as little old ladies do.
Two short siren blasts issued from the main building of the jail as Ma exited the complex. She glanced back at the other visitors following after her and at the stone walls topped with snaky concertina wire overhead. Once every guest had left the jail, the heavy steel doors were closed behind them.
A Cadillac sedan pulled in front of the detention center and stopped. Ma abandoned the old lady gait and hurried to the car as though nothing whatsoever was bothering her physically. She pulled off the old coat she was wearing and draped the fur wrap over her shoulders that one of the passengers inside the car handed her through the window. She opened the passenger’s side door and slid into the seat. The June 19, 1959 edition of the Amarillo Globe Times reported that the Jasper County filing clerk who witnessed Ma Barker leaving the prison saw her removing her hat and straightening her hair as the sedan drove away. “In a few moments she transformed from a somewhat feeble grandmother type to a hearty, rather spirited woman,” the clerk described.
To learn more about Ma Barker and he Barker Gang read Ma Barker: America’s Most Wanted Mother.
Visit www.chrisenss.com
