Column Chronicles
 
Still at large: the greatest bank robber in history, part one
 
 
Frank Cotolo
June 4, 2020
 
In the annals of crime history, the same names of iconic figures of lawlessness always emerge. Everyone has heard of Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Puffy Lips Louie and Killer Cupcake Calhoun, mostly because their miscreant tales all had endings. This is why you never heard of Deadly Don Billingsly, whose story never ended. In a few parts, we exclusively present the tale of the greatest bank robber in history, who earns that title because he was never caught.
 
Blame it on the press or the police's embarrassment as to why Deadly Don was kept from public knowledge but whomsoever is to blame has to admit that there are millions of dollars and a slew of murders unaccounted for in the silenced story of Deadly Don. He and his small group of thugs scourged financial institutions through the 1920s and well into the 1960s, baffling the best law enforcement agents across North America.
 
It all began when a ten-year-old Don Billingsly was kicked in the ass in front of his rickety wooden shack of a house in Goosetown, Missouri (a town that has since been leveled and turned into a pay-by-the-hour parking lot). The man holding the mortgage to Don's father's shack came to foreclose. Don protested by throwing Goose droppings at the man and was arrested.
 
The foreclosure left the entire Billingsly family (Don's parents and his brothers Irving, Lucian, Bippy, Horatio and his sister Sicily) homeless. In jail, Don swore to avenge the institutions of the world, turning to crime the moment he was released from jail.
 
He left his family on an old dirt road and told them he would back to save them from the cruel ways of society. His mother, the story goes, cried and collapsed on the road after begging Don not to pursue a life of crime but his father and brothers shouted, "Go Don, get all of them and crush the system, steal money and murder who ever gets in your way!" His sister Sicily did not comment, she simply ran away from the family.
 
It was 1929 and off went Don, not yet the age of eleven and not yet called "Deadly", but on the brink of a treacherous and rather prolifically successful campaign during the era of Great Depression outlaws.
 
...to be continued.
 
Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.
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