George Kelly Barnes, better known by his pseudonym "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster from Memphis, Tennessee, active during the Prohibition era.
17 Facts About Machine Gun Kelly
2.
Machine Gun Kelly's nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thompson submachine gun.
3.
Machine Gun Kelly is best known for the kidnapping of oil tycoon and businessman Charles F Urschel in July 1933, from which he and his gang collected a $200,000 ransom.
4.
Machine Gun Kelly was constantly in trouble with the faculty and spent much of his academic career attempting to work off the demerits he had earned.
5.
Machine Gun Kelly quickly fell in love with Geneva and made an abrupt decision to quit school and marry.
6.
Machine Gun Kelly continued to commit smaller crimes and bootlegging.
7.
Machine Gun Kelly was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1928, for smuggling liquor onto a Native American Reservation, and sentenced to three years at Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, beginning February 11,1928.
8.
Machine Gun Kelly was reportedly a model inmate and was released early.
9.
Machine Gun Kelly went to great lengths to familiarize his name within underground crime circles.
10.
George and Kathryn Machine Gun Kelly were taken into custody by FBI agents and Memphis police.
11.
Machine Gun Kelly was covered by [Memphis Police] Sergeant [name withheld].
12.
On October 12,1933, George and Kathryn Machine Gun Kelly were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
13.
Machine Gun Kelly spent his remaining 21 years in prison.
14.
Machine Gun Kelly spent 17 years on Alcatraz as inmate number 117, working in the prison industries, continuing to boast and exaggerate his past escapades to other inmates, and was quietly transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951.
15.
Machine Gun Kelly died of a heart attack at Leavenworth on July 18,1954, the day after his 54th birthday, and was buried at Cottondale Texas Cemetery in Kathryn Kelly's stepfather's family plot with a small headstone marked "George B Kelley 1954".
16.
Kathryn Machine Gun Kelly was released from prison in 1958 and lived in relative anonymity in Oklahoma under the assumed name "Lera Cleo Machine Gun Kelly" until her death in 1985 at the age of 81.
17.
Machine Gun Kelly is the stage name for American musician Colson Baker.