Column Chronicles: The greatest bank robber in history, part three

The greatest bank robber in history, part three

Frank Cotolo
June 18, 2020

Deadly Don Billingsly's creative method of bank robbery became so easy that by 1934 the DD gang had bank accounts in banks they did not rob across the nation with more than three hundred thousand dollars deposited.

A few of the gang members got antsy, craving the kind of action enjoyed by other popular outlaws of the times, like Machine Gun Kelly and Pistol Packing O'Pentagram. DD warned his crew that getting violent may help the police, especially if murder was involved. Still, Rainbow Johnny, one of the DD gang members, said he did not care; he needed to kill someone soon or go out of his mind. DD kicked him out of the gang, making Rainbow Johnny doubly mad and provoking him to kill fifteen bank guards while never robbing a penny.

"Johnny was killing for killing's sake," said Vestibule Ingot, a G-Man after all outlaws of the time. "When we caught him he squealed like a ruptured pig, blaming Deadly Don. That's how we found out about Don and began to visit the banks with his fake accounts."

While Rainbow Johnny waited for his death penalty, the G-Man squad was not having success finding DD because no one at the banks where DD had fake accounts would tell anyone any information about private accounts.

Ingot said, "We had no idea which names on which accounts were fake. We did not know if an account under the name of Seppentwitch was fake or if an account under the name of Bacongarden was fake or if an account under the name of Rolebottom was fake or if the fake was the account of Smith or Smythe or Smish or Smash or whoever."

By 1936, as the Great Depression was ending and other criminals were being hunted down and shot thousands of times in their bodies, Deadly Don decided to scoot as soon as he withdrew all the money from all the fake accounts he opened.

...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.