Shawnee ambush, death
Underhill's Kansas mugshot
On Dec. 26, 1933, police tracked Wilbur and Hazel Underhill, along with Ralph Roe and his girlfriend, Eva May Nichols, to a small rented cottage in Shawnee, Okla.
At roughly 2 a.m. on that cold, wet, foggy morning, a large party of heavily armed federal, county, and city officers gathered at the central police station in downtown Shawnee. Colvin informed the group, "I think we have our man, boys, now lets set the trap." To ensure lawmen would not be shooting at one another or into surrounding homes, Colvin gave instructions as to where each officer would be stationed during the ambush.
The group set out in several automobiles and parked a block and a half from the target house. Setting up in front of the residence directly across the street was federal agents T.N. Birch, G.H. Franklin, and J.M. Edger, all equipped with shotguns. Positioned nearby was Oklahoma County deputy sheriffs George Kerr and Don Stone. Next to them was Shawnee Night Chief Frank Bryant, armed with a machinegun. Standing on the porch of a dwelling directly east of the targeted residence were Oklahoma County deputies Bill Eads and John Adams.
Federal Agents Colvin, Frank Smith, K.D. Deadrick, and Paul Hanson, along with Oklahoma City Detectives Clarence Hurt, A.D. Bryce and Mickey Ryan were assigned to cover the rear of the residence. Colvin and Bryce were armed with machineguns, while Smith, Ryan, Hanson and Deadrick had shotguns. Hurt was equipped with a tear gas gun, as well as a machinegun.
Hurt and Colvin, crept to the window of a bedroom at the northeast corner of the rear of the dwelling, while others took up positions behind them. Although the darkness and heavy fog limited vision, officers could make out a faint light in the room, and the pair peered into the window. Colvin pressed the barrel of his machinegun against the outside screen while Hurt readied his gas gun. They both observed Underhill standing at the foot of the bed, clothed only in his long underwear, while his scantily dressed wife sat on the edge of the mattress.
When a dog started barking in the distance, Underhill looked up and began walking toward the window. He had only taken a couple of steps when he made eye contact with Hurt, who yelled, "This is the law, Wilbur, stick ’em up!" The outlaw replied, "Okay," then whirled and grabbed an automatic Lugar pistol attached to a 31-round drum on a nightstand. Hurt immediately fired a single round from his gas gun, the missile crashing through the screen and glass and striking Underhill in the stomach, causing him to stumble back.
Colvin immediately fired his machinegun, releasing a full clip that smashed into the bedroom’s walls, floor and furniture. A mirror on the far wall exploded, sending glass in all directions. The noise in the small room must have been deafening.
As soon at the shooting started, Hazel screamed and seemed to cover her ears before falling to the floor in a faint. It likely saved her life.
The fight is on
Officers standing behind Hurt and Colvin, thinking a fire fight
had begun, opened up with machine guns and shotguns. Hurt later said he immediately fell to ground as bullets passed by him.
Roe, in bed with Nichols in an adjacent bedroom, was struck in the left arm and shoulder by bullets piercing the wall between the rooms. As Roe scrambled for a weapon, Nichols began screaming hysterically, and ran toward the front door but was struck twice in the stomach by machinegun fire. She fell, but amazingly regained her footing and run out the door. She just made it to the front yard when she was hit in the foot by more machinegun fire, and she pitched forward. She didn’t get back up.
Hurt later wrote in his report that he saw Underhill fall to the floor when hit by the gas canister, but immediately jump up and rush into the bathroom where he stopped momentarily to return fire before running through the living room and out onto the front porch.
Hearing the sudden explosion of gunfire from the rear of the residence and seeing Underhill burst through the door, the posse stationed in the front — Bryant, Eads, Adams and Stone — opened fire. The volley caught Underhill just as he leapt off the porch, and he fell face first to the muddy ground. The shooting stopped as quickly as it had started, as the lawman starred at Underhill, motionless on the ground. As they began slowly approaching him, Underhill suddenly jumped to his feet and sprinted into the shadows between two houses.
Meanwhile, Colvin, hearing the firing coming from the front of the home was just rounding the corner when he nearly collided with Underhill. As Underhill passed him, both Colvin and Bryant, who was now down on one knee, unleashed bursts from their machineguns. They both said they hit Underhill, but to their astonishment, the heavily wounded bandit just kept running and disappeared into the darkness. Colvin would later say: "I don’t know how the hell he did it. The bastard just wouldn’t stay down."
What's all that noise?
Back at police headquarters the switchboard was flooded with calls from the area of the shootout. Some callers reported illegal firecrackers, others described their windows being broken by rock-throwing kids, while yet another called reported a prowler running through his yard clothed only in underwear.
Just as Underhill disappeared, Deputy Kerr heard someone inside the tear gas filled house asking to be allowed to come out and surrender. Kerr ordered him to crawl out the bedroom window while instructing the posse to hold its fire. The suspect, who had taken slugs to the shoulder and elbow, responded, "I can’t, but I’ll crawl out the front door."
"Go ahead," said Kerr, then aimed his gun at the outlaw as he crawled onto the porch where he was handcuffed and transported to the Shawnee Municipal Hospital. Although he refused to answer questions, he did identify himself as Ralph "Raymond" Roe. (Police originally believed it was Ford Bradshaw who was in the house with Underhill). Roe expressed concern over Nichols’ condition, saying, "She is innocent of all our doings … I got her into this and now she’s gonna die … She’s a good kid who strung along with us asking no questions, even when she saw all those guns."
Back at the house, Colvin and others entered the residence where they discovered an unconscious but unhurt Hazel Underhill still sprawled on the floor next to the bed. Lawmen were amazed to find her unharmed while the walls of the bedroom were literally shredded from the hundreds of rounds poured into the room.
Officers carried her into the front yard where suddenly she jerked away from them and began clawing at her burning eyes and gasping for fresh air. When questioned, she was reportedly incoherent, and Colvin suggested she was drunk. Mrs. Underhill was taken to the city jail and locked in a cell where she immediately fell into a deep sleep.
Nichols, floating in and out of consciousness, was transported to the Municipal Hospital where she occupied a room adjacent to her wounded lover. On her arrival at the medical center, she asked for her ex-husband who lived in nearby Seminole. Both wounded suspects were placed under heavy guard.
The only one unaccounted for was Underhill, the main target of the raid.
The posse split up into several small groups and began a house-to-house search, while more than two-dozen officers from surrounding counties were called into the manhunt. Operating on the misguided notion that Underhill had gained access to a car and had left the area, several Oklahoma County sheriff’s deputies raided the SE 23rd Street home of Underhill associate Lon Johnson at approximately 4 a.m.
Although Underhill was not found, lawmen arrested Johnson’s little brother, Seedell, on charges of harboring a fugitive from justice. The youth vigorously denied ever meeting Underhill, but tire tracks matching those of plaster casts taken from Wilbur’s Ford were discovered in the Johnson’s dirt driveway.
Dazed and confused
Meanwhile, the bleeding and dazed Underhill managed to run several blocks. He moved east across the Jefferson School yard and then later along the Shawnee Creek drainage ditch as police cars criss-crossed the area around him.
About 5 a.m., he attempted, but failed, to start an old feed truck parked nearby. From there, he stumbled south into an alley between Main and Seventh streets, and finally entered the back door of the McAlester Furniture Store. Despite multiple wounds and heavy loss of blood, Underhill had traveled 16 blocks from his honeymoon cottage.
At roughly 6 a.m., the posse, following the trail of blood from the shooting site, came across a large pool of blood on the banks of the drainage ditch. Based on the amount of blood, it was obvious Underhill had remained at that spot for some time. The amount of blood also told officers he was heavily wounded, likely nearby, and probably near death. They decided to wait for the arrival of bloodhounds from the state penitentiary in McAlester.
An hour later, Bill McKenzie, a motorcycle cop who was temporarily acting as a dispatcher at police headquarters, was contacted by R. A. Owens, the manager of a second-hand furniture store at 509 East Main St. Owens reported a large man clothed only in his underwear had broken into the back door of his business. McKenzie, suspecting the intruder was Underhill, ran out to the station’s parking lot where he encountered Oklahoma County Sheriff Stanley Rogers, who had just arrived to join the posse. Rogers, accompanied by his son, who was home from medical school on Christmas vacation, quickly gathered a posse, which included radio dispatchers Jack Roberts and John Whalen, along with Oklahoma City Detective John Cassidy and Oklahoma County Deputy W E. Agee.
Closing in
The small group hurried to the scene in two cars. The younger Rogers, McKenzie, and Agee took the front door while the sheriff, accompanied by Cassidy, Roberts and Whalen, went to the back. The officers, seeing several shadowy figures moving inside, kicked in the locked front door and found the officers who had entered by the open back door. They quickly discovered an individual lying in a blood-soaked bed with a Lugar pistol lying on the floor next to him. The store’s manager and his wife were standing frozen in position in the far corner of the room.
Rogers reported he approached the individual, whom he recognized as Underhill, and after checking his wounds, leaned toward him and said, "You’re in a bad way, boy." Underhill haltingly replied, "Ya, I’m shot to hell. They got me five times. I counted the slugs as they hit me. When I set sail they really poured it to me."
Rogers would later say, "His back was peppered with shotgun wounds, and he had been struck by .45 slugs in the head, right arm, back and right leg. How he got through that hail of lead and ran 16 blocks suffering from those terrible wounds is beyond understanding."
McKenzie, describing the bad man’s capture in a story for the Shawnee Morning News the following day, said, "We found Underhill lying motionless on a blood-soaked bed. His blond hair was dyed red from blood, (actually the outlaw had recently had his hair dyed a reddish-brown tint at Nichols’ beauty shop) he could hardly breath, choking and gasping. His face was wracked with pain. I noticed the top half of his left ear had been shot off. He was also suffering from exposure to the cold due to his long run clad only in his underwear and socks. We expected to have to kill him. It was a relief to discover him lying helpless and offering no resistance."
Underhill was taken to the Municipal Hospital, and was housed near Roe and Nichols. According to McKenzie, the wounded outlaw repeatedly cried out in pain and begged the ambulance driver to slow down because he feared he’d fall off the stretcher on the ride to the hospital.
When the proprietor of the furniture store, who maintained his living quarters in the rear of the building, was asked why the fugitive had picked his establishment, he responded, "I don’t know. We were awakened when he forced his way through the back door into our bedroom just moments before the cops arrived. I never seen him before in my life."
Owens later changed his story, claiming Underhill had awakened him by pounding on the back door asking for a drink of water. After admitting the fugitive, he said he put him to bed and offered first aid out of compassion. It also appears the storekeeper, rather than immediately contacting police, waited nearly an hour before calling.
A story soon began circulating that the store had been used as a warehouse for stolen goods, and there appears to have been some credence to this claim. According to FBI reports, Owens was an ex-con who had done time with Underhill in McAlester. The report went on to read, "Evidently Underhill knew exactly where he was headed when he fled." Due to Owens cooperating with the authorities, however, no charges were filed again him.
Searching the house
Back at the scene of the raid, officers began searching the Dewey Street house for evidence. The residence was described as looking like a war-zone, with all the furniture turned over except the dining room table, which sat upright. On it sat a half-empty quart bottle of whiskey. Broken glass and debris covered the floors; the walls and ceilings were shredded by gunfire and splattered with blood. The cottage’s woodwork and doors were heavily splintered. Officers estimated more than 200 rounds had been fired into the house.
A packet containing $5,300 in negotiable bonds issued by the Franklin Title and Trust Company of Frankfort, Ky., and identified as part of the loot from the Nov. 23 robbery of the State National Bank of Frankfort, was found in one of the bedrooms. The bonds were in $1,000, $500 and $100 denominations. A large quantity of ammunition and four pistols, a Lugar automatic with a folding stock, two Colt .45 automatics, and a .38 caliber revolver, were also found in the search.
When officers searched Underhill’s Ford, which was parked in the garage, they discovered a .30-.30 rifle, a sawed-off .12 gauge Winchester pump shotgun, a short double-barreled shotgun with a pistol handle, and a tin pail full of roofing nails for use as a deterrent for pursuing squad cars.
On Jan. 6, 1934, the wounded fugitive was returned to Oklahoma State Prison. Warden Brown told a crowd of reporters that Underhill had stood the trip well and had been moved to "Big Mac" in order to finish his life term. He also stated the prison offered a more secure environment than the Shawnee Hospital. A bizarre statement considering 163 inmates had escaped from the Oklahoma prison system in 1933 alone.
Examining the prisoner shortly after his arrival, prison physician, Dr. J.A. Munn, expressed little hope for his survival. At approximately 9 p.m. Underhill lapsed into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead at 11:42 p.m. His final words, said shortly before 8:30 p.m., were allegedly, "Tell the boys I’m coming home." However, there’s strong evidence those words were just a romantic thought by a newspaper reporter.
Nichols eventually died from her wounds. Roe recovered and was returned to prison, The Underhill gang, now led by Ford Bradshaw, led a raid into the small town of Vian, Okla., and shot up the town in revenge for Underhill’s capture. The incident was used by newspapers to turn public opinion against the gang. Within months Bradshaw and the others had been killed or apprehended.
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At roughly 2 a.m. on that cold, wet, foggy morning, a large party of heavily armed federal, county, and city officers gathered at the central police station in downtown Shawnee. Colvin informed the group, "I think we have our man, boys, now lets set the trap." To ensure lawmen would not be shooting at one another or into surrounding homes, Colvin gave instructions as to where each officer would be stationed during the ambush.
The group set out in several automobiles and parked a block and a half from the target house. Setting up in front of the residence directly across the street was federal agents T.N. Birch, G.H. Franklin, and J.M. Edger, all equipped with shotguns. Positioned nearby was Oklahoma County deputy sheriffs George Kerr and Don Stone. Next to them was Shawnee Night Chief Frank Bryant, armed with a machinegun. Standing on the porch of a dwelling directly east of the targeted residence were Oklahoma County deputies Bill Eads and John Adams.
Federal Agents Colvin, Frank Smith, K.D. Deadrick, and Paul Hanson, along with Oklahoma City Detectives Clarence Hurt, A.D. Bryce and Mickey Ryan were assigned to cover the rear of the residence. Colvin and Bryce were armed with machineguns, while Smith, Ryan, Hanson and Deadrick had shotguns. Hurt was equipped with a tear gas gun, as well as a machinegun.
Hurt and Colvin, crept to the window of a bedroom at the northeast corner of the rear of the dwelling, while others took up positions behind them. Although the darkness and heavy fog limited vision, officers could make out a faint light in the room, and the pair peered into the window. Colvin pressed the barrel of his machinegun against the outside screen while Hurt readied his gas gun. They both observed Underhill standing at the foot of the bed, clothed only in his long underwear, while his scantily dressed wife sat on the edge of the mattress.
When a dog started barking in the distance, Underhill looked up and began walking toward the window. He had only taken a couple of steps when he made eye contact with Hurt, who yelled, "This is the law, Wilbur, stick ’em up!" The outlaw replied, "Okay," then whirled and grabbed an automatic Lugar pistol attached to a 31-round drum on a nightstand. Hurt immediately fired a single round from his gas gun, the missile crashing through the screen and glass and striking Underhill in the stomach, causing him to stumble back.
Colvin immediately fired his machinegun, releasing a full clip that smashed into the bedroom’s walls, floor and furniture. A mirror on the far wall exploded, sending glass in all directions. The noise in the small room must have been deafening.
As soon at the shooting started, Hazel screamed and seemed to cover her ears before falling to the floor in a faint. It likely saved her life.
The fight is on
Officers standing behind Hurt and Colvin, thinking a fire fight
had begun, opened up with machine guns and shotguns. Hurt later said he immediately fell to ground as bullets passed by him.
Roe, in bed with Nichols in an adjacent bedroom, was struck in the left arm and shoulder by bullets piercing the wall between the rooms. As Roe scrambled for a weapon, Nichols began screaming hysterically, and ran toward the front door but was struck twice in the stomach by machinegun fire. She fell, but amazingly regained her footing and run out the door. She just made it to the front yard when she was hit in the foot by more machinegun fire, and she pitched forward. She didn’t get back up.
Hurt later wrote in his report that he saw Underhill fall to the floor when hit by the gas canister, but immediately jump up and rush into the bathroom where he stopped momentarily to return fire before running through the living room and out onto the front porch.
Hearing the sudden explosion of gunfire from the rear of the residence and seeing Underhill burst through the door, the posse stationed in the front — Bryant, Eads, Adams and Stone — opened fire. The volley caught Underhill just as he leapt off the porch, and he fell face first to the muddy ground. The shooting stopped as quickly as it had started, as the lawman starred at Underhill, motionless on the ground. As they began slowly approaching him, Underhill suddenly jumped to his feet and sprinted into the shadows between two houses.
Meanwhile, Colvin, hearing the firing coming from the front of the home was just rounding the corner when he nearly collided with Underhill. As Underhill passed him, both Colvin and Bryant, who was now down on one knee, unleashed bursts from their machineguns. They both said they hit Underhill, but to their astonishment, the heavily wounded bandit just kept running and disappeared into the darkness. Colvin would later say: "I don’t know how the hell he did it. The bastard just wouldn’t stay down."
What's all that noise?
Back at police headquarters the switchboard was flooded with calls from the area of the shootout. Some callers reported illegal firecrackers, others described their windows being broken by rock-throwing kids, while yet another called reported a prowler running through his yard clothed only in underwear.
Just as Underhill disappeared, Deputy Kerr heard someone inside the tear gas filled house asking to be allowed to come out and surrender. Kerr ordered him to crawl out the bedroom window while instructing the posse to hold its fire. The suspect, who had taken slugs to the shoulder and elbow, responded, "I can’t, but I’ll crawl out the front door."
"Go ahead," said Kerr, then aimed his gun at the outlaw as he crawled onto the porch where he was handcuffed and transported to the Shawnee Municipal Hospital. Although he refused to answer questions, he did identify himself as Ralph "Raymond" Roe. (Police originally believed it was Ford Bradshaw who was in the house with Underhill). Roe expressed concern over Nichols’ condition, saying, "She is innocent of all our doings … I got her into this and now she’s gonna die … She’s a good kid who strung along with us asking no questions, even when she saw all those guns."
Back at the house, Colvin and others entered the residence where they discovered an unconscious but unhurt Hazel Underhill still sprawled on the floor next to the bed. Lawmen were amazed to find her unharmed while the walls of the bedroom were literally shredded from the hundreds of rounds poured into the room.
Officers carried her into the front yard where suddenly she jerked away from them and began clawing at her burning eyes and gasping for fresh air. When questioned, she was reportedly incoherent, and Colvin suggested she was drunk. Mrs. Underhill was taken to the city jail and locked in a cell where she immediately fell into a deep sleep.
Nichols, floating in and out of consciousness, was transported to the Municipal Hospital where she occupied a room adjacent to her wounded lover. On her arrival at the medical center, she asked for her ex-husband who lived in nearby Seminole. Both wounded suspects were placed under heavy guard.
The only one unaccounted for was Underhill, the main target of the raid.
The posse split up into several small groups and began a house-to-house search, while more than two-dozen officers from surrounding counties were called into the manhunt. Operating on the misguided notion that Underhill had gained access to a car and had left the area, several Oklahoma County sheriff’s deputies raided the SE 23rd Street home of Underhill associate Lon Johnson at approximately 4 a.m.
Although Underhill was not found, lawmen arrested Johnson’s little brother, Seedell, on charges of harboring a fugitive from justice. The youth vigorously denied ever meeting Underhill, but tire tracks matching those of plaster casts taken from Wilbur’s Ford were discovered in the Johnson’s dirt driveway.
Dazed and confused
Meanwhile, the bleeding and dazed Underhill managed to run several blocks. He moved east across the Jefferson School yard and then later along the Shawnee Creek drainage ditch as police cars criss-crossed the area around him.
About 5 a.m., he attempted, but failed, to start an old feed truck parked nearby. From there, he stumbled south into an alley between Main and Seventh streets, and finally entered the back door of the McAlester Furniture Store. Despite multiple wounds and heavy loss of blood, Underhill had traveled 16 blocks from his honeymoon cottage.
At roughly 6 a.m., the posse, following the trail of blood from the shooting site, came across a large pool of blood on the banks of the drainage ditch. Based on the amount of blood, it was obvious Underhill had remained at that spot for some time. The amount of blood also told officers he was heavily wounded, likely nearby, and probably near death. They decided to wait for the arrival of bloodhounds from the state penitentiary in McAlester.
An hour later, Bill McKenzie, a motorcycle cop who was temporarily acting as a dispatcher at police headquarters, was contacted by R. A. Owens, the manager of a second-hand furniture store at 509 East Main St. Owens reported a large man clothed only in his underwear had broken into the back door of his business. McKenzie, suspecting the intruder was Underhill, ran out to the station’s parking lot where he encountered Oklahoma County Sheriff Stanley Rogers, who had just arrived to join the posse. Rogers, accompanied by his son, who was home from medical school on Christmas vacation, quickly gathered a posse, which included radio dispatchers Jack Roberts and John Whalen, along with Oklahoma City Detective John Cassidy and Oklahoma County Deputy W E. Agee.
Closing in
The small group hurried to the scene in two cars. The younger Rogers, McKenzie, and Agee took the front door while the sheriff, accompanied by Cassidy, Roberts and Whalen, went to the back. The officers, seeing several shadowy figures moving inside, kicked in the locked front door and found the officers who had entered by the open back door. They quickly discovered an individual lying in a blood-soaked bed with a Lugar pistol lying on the floor next to him. The store’s manager and his wife were standing frozen in position in the far corner of the room.
Rogers reported he approached the individual, whom he recognized as Underhill, and after checking his wounds, leaned toward him and said, "You’re in a bad way, boy." Underhill haltingly replied, "Ya, I’m shot to hell. They got me five times. I counted the slugs as they hit me. When I set sail they really poured it to me."
Rogers would later say, "His back was peppered with shotgun wounds, and he had been struck by .45 slugs in the head, right arm, back and right leg. How he got through that hail of lead and ran 16 blocks suffering from those terrible wounds is beyond understanding."
McKenzie, describing the bad man’s capture in a story for the Shawnee Morning News the following day, said, "We found Underhill lying motionless on a blood-soaked bed. His blond hair was dyed red from blood, (actually the outlaw had recently had his hair dyed a reddish-brown tint at Nichols’ beauty shop) he could hardly breath, choking and gasping. His face was wracked with pain. I noticed the top half of his left ear had been shot off. He was also suffering from exposure to the cold due to his long run clad only in his underwear and socks. We expected to have to kill him. It was a relief to discover him lying helpless and offering no resistance."
Underhill was taken to the Municipal Hospital, and was housed near Roe and Nichols. According to McKenzie, the wounded outlaw repeatedly cried out in pain and begged the ambulance driver to slow down because he feared he’d fall off the stretcher on the ride to the hospital.
When the proprietor of the furniture store, who maintained his living quarters in the rear of the building, was asked why the fugitive had picked his establishment, he responded, "I don’t know. We were awakened when he forced his way through the back door into our bedroom just moments before the cops arrived. I never seen him before in my life."
Owens later changed his story, claiming Underhill had awakened him by pounding on the back door asking for a drink of water. After admitting the fugitive, he said he put him to bed and offered first aid out of compassion. It also appears the storekeeper, rather than immediately contacting police, waited nearly an hour before calling.
A story soon began circulating that the store had been used as a warehouse for stolen goods, and there appears to have been some credence to this claim. According to FBI reports, Owens was an ex-con who had done time with Underhill in McAlester. The report went on to read, "Evidently Underhill knew exactly where he was headed when he fled." Due to Owens cooperating with the authorities, however, no charges were filed again him.
Searching the house
Back at the scene of the raid, officers began searching the Dewey Street house for evidence. The residence was described as looking like a war-zone, with all the furniture turned over except the dining room table, which sat upright. On it sat a half-empty quart bottle of whiskey. Broken glass and debris covered the floors; the walls and ceilings were shredded by gunfire and splattered with blood. The cottage’s woodwork and doors were heavily splintered. Officers estimated more than 200 rounds had been fired into the house.
A packet containing $5,300 in negotiable bonds issued by the Franklin Title and Trust Company of Frankfort, Ky., and identified as part of the loot from the Nov. 23 robbery of the State National Bank of Frankfort, was found in one of the bedrooms. The bonds were in $1,000, $500 and $100 denominations. A large quantity of ammunition and four pistols, a Lugar automatic with a folding stock, two Colt .45 automatics, and a .38 caliber revolver, were also found in the search.
When officers searched Underhill’s Ford, which was parked in the garage, they discovered a .30-.30 rifle, a sawed-off .12 gauge Winchester pump shotgun, a short double-barreled shotgun with a pistol handle, and a tin pail full of roofing nails for use as a deterrent for pursuing squad cars.
On Jan. 6, 1934, the wounded fugitive was returned to Oklahoma State Prison. Warden Brown told a crowd of reporters that Underhill had stood the trip well and had been moved to "Big Mac" in order to finish his life term. He also stated the prison offered a more secure environment than the Shawnee Hospital. A bizarre statement considering 163 inmates had escaped from the Oklahoma prison system in 1933 alone.
Examining the prisoner shortly after his arrival, prison physician, Dr. J.A. Munn, expressed little hope for his survival. At approximately 9 p.m. Underhill lapsed into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead at 11:42 p.m. His final words, said shortly before 8:30 p.m., were allegedly, "Tell the boys I’m coming home." However, there’s strong evidence those words were just a romantic thought by a newspaper reporter.
Nichols eventually died from her wounds. Roe recovered and was returned to prison, The Underhill gang, now led by Ford Bradshaw, led a raid into the small town of Vian, Okla., and shot up the town in revenge for Underhill’s capture. The incident was used by newspapers to turn public opinion against the gang. Within months Bradshaw and the others had been killed or apprehended.
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