Pretty Boy Floyd
Pretty Boy Floyd
Charles Arthur Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934), nicknamed Pretty Boy Floyd, was an American bank robber. He operated in the West and Central states, and his criminal exploits gained widespread press coverage in the 1930s. He was seen positively by the public because, during robberies, he burned mortgage documents, freeing many people from their debts. He was pursued and killed by a group of Bureau of Investigation (BOI, later renamed FBI) agents led by Melvin Purvis. Historians have speculated as to which officers were at the event, but accounts document that local officers Robert "Pete" Pyle and George Curran were present at his fatal shooting and also at his embalming. Floyd has continued to be a familiar figure in American popular culture, sometimes seen as notorious, other times portrayed as a tragic figure, even a victim of the hard times of the Great Depression in the United States. Floyd is viewed by many as a prime example of a real life anti-hero.
Early life
!Adairsville, Bartow County, Georgia, where Floyd was born
Early life
Floyd was arrested in Akron, Ohio, under the alias Frank Mitchell, on March 8, 1930, and charged with the murder of an Akron police officer who had been killed during a robbery that evening. He was arrested in Toledo, Ohio, for bank robbery and murder on May 20. He was convicted of a Sylvania, Ohio, bank robbery and sentenced on November 24, 1930, to 12 to 15 years in Ohio State penitentiary, but he escaped.
Reading List
Report Issue