In one of the most notorious bank robberies in Colorado history, the Jake Fleagle gang stormed the First National Bank of Lamar in a hail of bullets.
Tough-guy Fleagle, his brother and two others - contemporaries of Public Enemy No. 1 John Dillinger and Texas duo Bonnie and Clyde - struck in the afternoon of May 23, 1928, in the small town in the southeast corner of the state.
"You sons-a-bitches get them all up!" one of the robbers shouted.
Mayhem followed.
The bank president produced a revolver and shot and wounded one of the robbers - shattering his jaw.
The bandits blasted back, killing the president as well as his son, who also worked at the bank.
They snagged more than $200,000 in commercial paper, bonds and cash - and two hostages, one of whom (a one-armed teller) was released. They ultimately murdered the other.
Tearing out of Lamar, eluding the sheriff's car and speeding across the state line into Kansas, the robbers tricked a country doctor into treating their jaw-shattered compatriot - and killed the physician after he saved the man's life.
By air and by land, authorities searched for the bandits to no avail and the Fleagle gang eventually split up, each pocketing a share of the takings.
After more than two years on the lamb, Jake Fleagle died at age 40 in a police shootout in Missouri on Oct. 15, 1930. The others had been tracked down, convicted and hanged at the Colorado State Penitentiary.
A bloody fingerprint helped police solve the chilling crime.
Quoted by the Rocky Mountain News on July 14, 1931, Fleagle's "sweetheart" claimed she tipped police to the gangster's whereabouts, saying - not so sweetly - "I turned Jake up so they could shoot him to death and I want a reward.”
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