The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd by Jeffery S. King

Author:Jeffery S. King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kent State University Press

Since Miller and Nash were friendly, the FBI showed pictures of “Moore” (Miller’s alias) to his associates and neighbors, who identified him as Miller. They had thought he was “a nice guy.”30

During the search of Miller’s home on June 29, 1933, bloodsoaked sheets and a cot were found in the attic, as well as some beer bottles with fingerprints on them. In April 1933 Earl Christman, a Barker-Karpis gang member, had died there.31

Miller fled first to Volney Davis’s apartment in Maywood, Illinois, and then caught a plane to New York City, where he hoped to get work from Louis “Lepke” Buchalter. But Miller was red-hot, and Buchalter did not want his visitor. By now the FBI suspected Buchalter and other northeastern gangsters of helping Miller, and they shadowed them. Police told Buchalter that they would cause problems for him so long as they thought he was helping Miller. Special Agent Andersen led a team who kept a close watch on visitors to Atlantic City over the Labor Day weekend because of a rumor that Miller might be in the area.

In fact, Miller was hanging out with Longie Zwillman’s gang in Newark. He was drinking heavily; it was rumored on the street that he had killed one of Zwillman’s boys in a drunken brawl.32

As a cover, Miller pretended to be Stephen J. Gross, Jr., a salesman of optometrical supplies. This name was printed on letterheads, prescription blanks, and cards, and he had acquired suitable paraphernalia.33

Then he fled again to his Chicago apartment, where Vi Mathias and her friend Bobbie Moore were staying. “Lepke” had provided money for Vi to move around to avoid the FBI.

But the Bureau and police were waiting for Miller. They had rented an apartment nearby, where agents were placed, and others surrounded his apartment building. Two agents who knew Miller kept constant watch. For a long time he stayed out of sight. Finally they made their move, but Miller suspected something, and instead of taking the elevator, which would have meant his certain capture, he ran down one flight of stairs and escaped in a waiting car driven by Bobbie Moore. Somehow the men on the outside were not signaled quickly enough. A policeman fired seventeen shots from a machine gun at the fleeing car, but missed Miller and Moore. Miller fired back with his automatic, but no one was hurt. Abandoning the vehicle a few blocks away, he and Bobbie fled in different directions and escaped. Bobbie Moore later surrendered; she had not seen Miller since the escape.

But Miller’s luck was running out. It was rumored that four underworld executioners had surprised him steaming in a Louisville bathtub, had killed him there, and had taken his naked body hundreds of miles by car to a drainage ditch near Detroit, where they dumped his body, which was found on November 29, 1933. It was more than a routine gangland execution: clothesline bound his arms and legs; his skull had been crushed by blows with a blunt instrument; his tongue and cheeks had been punctured with ice picks; and he had burn scars on his body.

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