October 22, 1934 –
FBI agents, led by the ambitious Melvin Purvis and local Ohio authorities captured and killed Public enemy No. 1, Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd, in a shoot out on this day. Or so the official story goes. But as many of you loyal readers know the ‘authorized‘ version and actual facts of events can differ wildly.
Chester Smith, a retired East Liverpool Police Captain, the sharpshooter who claimed that he shot Floyd first, stated in a 1979 interview, that after he had (deliberately) wounded, but not killed, Floyd.
“I knew Purvis couldn’t hit him, so I dropped him with two shots from my .32 Winchester rifle.”
Smith claims that he then disarmed Floyd, and that Melvin Purvis, the agent in charge, ran up and ordered: “Back away from that man. I want to talk to him.” Purvis questioned him briefly and then ordered him shot at point-blank range, telling agent Herman Hollis to “Fire into him.” The interviewer asked if there was a coverup by the FBI, and Smith responded: “Sure was, because they didn’t want it to get out that he’d been killed that way.“
This account is extremely controversial. If true, Purvis effectively executed Floyd without benefit of judge or jury.
Floyd’s body was quickly embalmed and shipped to Oklahoma. His funeral was attended by between twenty and forty thousand people. It remains the largest funeral in Oklahoma history.
And so it goes
The Haus of Dcaligari 