Executed
1734–1739 · United Kingdom
Dick Turpin
No night ride to York, no Black Bess: the real Dick Turpin was an Essex gang robber and killer, hanged at York in 1739 for stealing horses.
Kind of crime
Outlaws
Highwaymen, bushrangers and Wild West gunmen: what the record says about the legends.
14 cases13 solved0 unsolved1734–1933
Executed
Convicted
1868–1895 · Texas
John Wesley Hardin
A preacher's son who killed a deputy on his 21st birthday served sixteen years, came out a lawyer, and was shot from behind in an El Paso saloon in 1895.
Convicted
1875–1888 · Northern California and southern Oregon
Black Bart
A polite robber in a flour-sack mask held up Wells Fargo stagecoaches for eight years. A laundry mark on a dropped handkerchief led detectives to his door.
Killed before trial
1876–1882 · Missouri
Jesse James
Northfield's townspeople broke the James-Younger gang in seven minutes in 1876. Six years later a new recruit shot Jesse James in his own parlour.
Killed before trial
1877–1878 · Texas
Sam Bass
Sam Bass took $60,000 in new gold coins from a Union Pacific train in 1877. A year later an informer led him into a Ranger trap at Round Rock, Texas.
Killed before trial
1878–1881 · New Mexico Territory
Billy the Kid
Convicted of killing a sheriff, Billy the Kid shot his way out of the Lincoln jail in 1881. Eleven weeks later Pat Garrett found him in a dark bedroom.
Executed
1878–1880 · Australia
Ned Kelly
Three police dead at Stringybark Creek, two bank raids and a last stand in plough-iron armour: how the Kelly outbreak ended on a Melbourne gallows.
Acquitted
1881 · Arizona Territory
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
About thirty shots in thirty seconds on Fremont Street, Tombstone, in 1881: three Cowboys dead, the Earps charged with murder, and a month-long hearing.
Killed before trial
1889–1908 · Bolivia
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
From Telluride to the Wild Bunch, Patagonia and a mule with the wrong brand: the trail that ended at San Vicente, Bolivia, in November 1908.
Killed before trial
1892–1907 · Kansas
Dalton Gang at Coffeyville
On 5 October 1892 the Dalton gang tried to rob two Kansas banks at once in a town that knew their faces. In about ten minutes eight people were dead.
Killed before trial
1931–1935 · Florida
Ma Barker
Hoover called her the brains of a murderous gang. A robber who knew her said she couldn't plan breakfast. Kate Barker and the shootout at Lake Weir.
Killed before trial
1932–1934 · Louisiana
Bonnie and Clyde
Two years, at least nine dead lawmen and a posse waiting in the Louisiana pines: the real Barrow gang, from Eastham prison farm to the ambush at Gibsland.
Killed before trial
1933–1934 · Chicago
John Dillinger
Out of prison in May 1933, dead by July 1934: Midwest bank raids, a jailbreak with a gun that may have been wood, and a summer night at the Biograph.
Convicted
1933 · Texas
Machine Gun Kelly and the Urschel kidnapping
Blindfolded for nine days, an Oklahoma oilman counted the planes overhead. His memory led the FBI to a Texas farm and put Machine Gun Kelly away for life.