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The Ghost Gang comes to Red Willow County
A compelling and exciting story of the impact that Depression era crime had on the Great Plains is captured in a new book by Brian James Beerman. The book by the former University of Nebraska-Kearney student is titled: Nebraska’s Missing Public Enemy: The Last of the Ghost Gang. Beerman, who has lived in Omaha and Kansas City, describes how a small-town Iowa character, who had been a well-known bootlegger to his neighbors, family and local law enforcement, obtained a criminal notoriety that eventually touched Red Willow County.
To his family Maurice Denning was known as Morris. Following his birth in 1907, he grew up on a family farm near Neola, Iowa in Pottawattamie County. Denning’s bootlegging days began about the time of the 1929 stock market crash, but his career path took a notable change in November 1934 when he and three members of his gang robbed the Security National Bank in Superior, Nebraska.
Over the next two years multiple bank robberies and other crimes would be attributed to the Denning gang. And by that time the gang had been named by newspapers as the Ghost Gang for their ability to evade capture by law enforcement. At the same time, the Iowa farm-boy had risen in the public conscience as Public Enemy #1. Beerman notes that the director of the then still embryonic Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, derided newspaper stories that attempted to rank any criminal under the FBI’s investigation.
By 1935, the Ghost Gang, or at least several of its most active members, had worked their way to Red Willow County. In the afternoon of May 3, 1935, three armed men walked into the State Bank of Bartley and proceeded to withdraw $4,921.65 from the bank’s teller cages and safe. Beerman notes that the take included $65 in pennies. The robbery was leisurely enough for the gang to wait for the timer on the safe to activate.
No arrest was made of any member of the gang robbing the Bartley bank until Ralph Morrison was arrested in New Mexico in July 1936. He was quickly identified as one of several men who a few weeks before the Bartley hold-up had robbed a bank in Munden, Republic County, Kansas. It wasn’t long before law enforcement learned that Morrison was a known member of the Denning Ghost Gang. Witnesses from both Munden and Bartley later identified Denning as one of the gunman in both robberies.
With Morrison’s arrest and notification to Red Willow County Sheriff Emmett Trosper there began a public wrangling from the vested interest of both Kansas and Nebraska for the extradition of Morrison to the respective states to stand trial. A district judge in Santa Fe finally ruled in Nebraska’s favor since then Governor Cochran had been first to make an extradition request.
Red Willow County Deputy Sheriff Charles Henton was sent by train to Santa Fe to escort Morrison back to McCook. When the train arrived in Denver it was met by Henton’s boss, Sheriff Trosper. Both men escorted Morrison by the Zephyr to McCook. The gang member’s arrival in McCook was quite calm when compared to his next long trip with Trosper.
On August 5, Morrison was lined up with other prisoners and witnesses from the Bartley bank were asked to point out anyone who had been a part of the gang that had struck their bank. Morrison was quickly identified. District Judge Eldred set a bond of $25,000 and remanded Morrison to the custody of the sheriff and set a September 15, 1936 date for the trial.
With witnesses and his own admission, the jury took only 3 hours of deliberation on September 16 to find Morrison guilty of the bank robbery charges. On September 19, Eldred sentenced Morrison to 18 years in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. As Beerman relates, Deputy Henton reported that Morrison feared being sentenced to the Nebraska prison since he was acquainted with prisoners who might think he had provided information leading to their arrest. In fact, shortly after he arrived in prison he was assaulted by another prisoner.
Following Morrison’s sentencing preparations began for transport to Lincoln on September 22. Sheriff Trosper decided that a two-car convoy would escort Morrison to his new home. Based on Beerman’s research, the sheriff’s car was to be driven by McCook auto dealer Everett Silger. Trosper would set in the back seat with Morrison and hold on to a lead chain that was attached to Morrison’s wrists. McCook police officers Homer Rayburn and Lew Meisner occupied the second car along with a prisoner, William Thayer, who had been sentenced for trying to reach the fishing limit by using dynamite.
As described by Beerman, the convoy arrived in Lincoln about 4:00 in the afternoon. With both auto and pedestrian traffic on all sides as the cars approached Thirteenth and O Street, Morrison made a sudden move for the door pulling the chain from Trosper’s hands. From then on Morrison was off and running through several intersections and in and around traffic. It was a short run. Officer Meisner caught up to the escapee at Ninth Street but tripped and fell resulting in a fractured kneecap. By that time Officer Rayburn was able to reach out and tackle Morrison to the ground. With the chase ended and Morrison back in custody the convoy proceeded to the prison. In the meantime, Thayer had remained in the second car and most likely enjoyed the impromptu entertainment. Morrison’s sentence was commuted in 1944 and he died in Birmingham, Alabama in 1959.
Over the years since the Bartley robbery the leader of the Ghost Gang, Maurice Denning himself became a Ghost. It would not be until the 1960s that the FBI removed Denning from its wanted circulars. He would be one of the few 1930s gangsters to escape either the FBI or death at the hands of another criminal. Author Beerman wrote of how the FBI followed up with the Denning family until the 1970s. It was noted by several members of the family at a dinner with the author in November 2019 that they had heard stories of him returning to visit his parents.
There was, however, one other national news incident possibly involving Maurice Denning that tied him indirectly to McCook and a former McCook native. According to Wikipedia, a long-time underworld figure by the name of Blackie Audett wrote a 1954 Rap Sheet article ‘claiming that Maurice Denning and William “Solly” Weismann were two of the gunmen involved in the infamous June 17, 1933 Kansas City Massacre.’ Both Beerman and known authorities on the Kansas City shooting dispute Audett’s account.
That Kansas City incident involved an attempt by several well-known criminal figures, including the gangster and bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd, to free one of their friends, Frank Nash. Recently arrested in Arkansas, Nash was escorted by an FBI agent to a waiting group of law enforcement officers in Kansas City who would drive Nash on to the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. His train was met at Union Station by three Kansas City police officers and three FBI agents. The FBI agents included Raymond Caffrey.
Caffrey was born in McCook in 1902. His parents were Burlington Railroad employee Edward Francis Caffrey of the Stamford and Orleans area and Julia Agnes Real (daughter of early Red Willow pioneers John Martin Real and Sarah Jane Hennessey). Before entering high school, Raymond and his family moved to Omaha where he attended Creighton Prep High School. He then attended Creighton University before being admitted to the Nebraska Bar in 1925 and obtaining his license to practice law. After a few years working as an attorney, Caffrey joined the new Federal Bureau of Investigation.
As the escorting officers walked out of Union Station to get into Caffrey’s car, a fusillade of gunfire erupted. The law enforcement officers had little time to react. Two of the Kansas City officers outside the car were immediately killed. Both Nash and a police officer who had just gotten into the back seat of the car were also killed. At that time FBI agents were not authorized to carry fire-arms and before he could enter the driver side of his own car, Raymond Caffrey fell dead with a single gunshot to the head. Caffrey’s body was later escorted to Omaha for his funeral and burial. He was survived by his parents and several siblings along with his wife, the former Regina Dolan, and their 6 year-year old son, Raymond Jr.