On this day, the American gangster George Kelly Barnes, better known as Machine Gun Kelly, was captured, together with his wife, Kathryn Kelly, by FBI agents and Memphis police officer Thomas Waterson and Sergeant William Raney. During the prohibition era, Kelly was a fairly ordinary small-time bootlegger and bank robber before meeting his future wife Kathryn. It was she who bought him his first machine gun and who created his notoriety in the American underworld. In July 1933, Kelly kidnapped the wealthy Oklahoma City resident Charles F. Urschel and later released him for a $200,000 ransom ($4.9 million today). On his release, however, Urschel was able to provide the FBI with important details memorised during his captivity that eventually led to the capture of the Kellys. It was the first major case to be solved by J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.
