1933 - Crime

Crime

Chicago gangsters kidnap St. Paul, Minn., brewer William Hamm Jr., 39, of the Theodore Hamm Brewing Co. June 15 and hold him for a ransom of $100,000. The ransom demand is lowered, money is paid, Hamm is released unharmed June 19, he helps police find his abductors, and four men are indicted. One of them, Willie Sharkey, hangs himself in his St. Paul prison cell December 1 at age 39.

Gangsters thought to include Charles A. "Pretty Boy" Floyd open fire with machine guns June 17 in front of Kansas City's 16-year-old Union Station and kill bank robber Frank Nash together with four federal agents who were escorting Nash to Leavenworth Prison; it will turn out that Floyd, a member of the John Dillinger gang, was not involved in the "Kansas City Massacre" (see 1932; 1934).