Frank “Jelly” Nash was born on Feb 6 1887 and killed on June 17th 1933 in the Kansas City Massacre. Nash was considered to be the “Most Successful Bank Robber In US History”.
Born in Indiana, Nash lived in Paragould from 1893-1896 before living in Jonesboro then moving to Oklahoma.
Nash worked for family as a young man before his criminal career began in 1910 when he was charged with burglary. By 1913 Nash was charged with murder but had his sentence shortened after convincing the warden he would enlist in the war effort. He was released for service in the military and served briefly in France before the end of the war.
Two years after the war ended, Nash was convicted of burglary using explosives and sentenced to 25 years in Oklahoma. After becoming a trustee his sentence was again shortened and he was released in 1922.
After his release he joined the Al Spencer Gang, in August 1923 they robbed a postal train, Nash fled to Mexico and married a local woman, Nash was actually believed to already be married to a woman in Hobart, Oklahoma.
Nash was caught reentering the US in 1924 and sentenced to 25 years for his part in the postal train robbery. In 1930 he was appointed to be the deputy warden’s chef and chief handyman. In October of that same year he left the prison as trustee to run errands and never returned.
Nash fled to Chicago where he met and fell in love with a barmaid named Frances Luce and continued his criminal career.
Nash and Luce were married in May 1933 using the false name of Moore. While visiting Hot Springs, Nash was arrested on June 15th 1933 and driven to Fort Smith where he was put on a Missouri-Pacific train bound for Kansas City.
Word of Nash’s capture and travel plans were widely known, some believe plans were made to attempt to free him, others suspect it was an assassination.
Nash arrived escorted by law enforcement at 7:15am on June 17th 1933 and put into a waiting car outside the train station.
Three men approached the vehicle and opened fire on the officers and Nash. (see FBI photo)
The assassins killed Frank Nash, Otto Reed Chief of Police McAlester Oklahoma, Federal Agent Caffery and Kansas City Detectives Grooms and Hermanson.
Eyewitness testimony from witnesses and agents named the shooters as “Pretty Boy”Floyd, his partner Adam Richetti and Vernon Miller.
The officers and Federal Agents transporting Nash were not armed, it was not customary at the time, the Kansas City Massacre forced a major policy change in the Federal Bureau, agents were ordered to carry weapons after the massacre.
Of those accused in the murder of the officers and Nash, Pretty Boy Floyd was killed in October 1934, Vernon Miller’s mutilated nude body was discovered in Detroit on November 29,1933,
Adam Richetti was arrested in Ohio after an automobile accident. Richetti surrendered after emptying his gun at a responding officer the Wellsville Ohio Police Chief and was the only person convicted of Kansas City Massacre, he was executed in the Missouri gas chamber in 1938.
After the Kansas City Massacre, Frank Nash’s body was claimed by a sister and buried in Linwood Cemetery in Paragould Arkansas.
Nash was estimated to have taken part in planning and helping execute as many as 200 robberies. Nash was also linked to multiple prison escapes even smuggling fake guns into one Kansas prison assisting with a mass escape. Nash masterminded the escape of 7 inmates from Leavenworth Penitentiary. Nash was believed to control several groups of criminals and suspected to be the mastermind of a bank robbery in 1933 at Black Rock Arkansas just two days before he was killed in the Kansas City Massacre.
