Episode 52: At the height of the Great Depression, the Barker-Karpis gang was building a criminal empire that would stir up the Midwest. They were bank robbers that graduated from small-town heists to high-stakes, multi-million dollar kidnappings of the American elite. At the center of this criminal enterprise was a supposed villain: Ma Barker, the matriarch who J. Edgar Hoover branded as the most dangerous criminal mind in the country. We’re digging into the true story of Alvin Karpis and the Barker brothers to discover if Ma was really the tactical mastermind of her sons’ crimes, or just the FBI's most successful piece of propaganda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Barker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barker%E2%80%93Karpis_Gang

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/barker-karpis-gang

https://www.fbi.gov/history/artifacts/barker-karpis-gang-and-russell-gibsons-notebook

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Karpis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Barker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Barker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamm%27s_Brewery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Goetz