Machine Gun Kelly (July 18, 1895 - July 18, 1954)

Machine Gun Kelly was born George Kelly Barnes in 1895 in Memphis, Tennessee. Despite his enduring fame and violent nickname, Machine Gun Kelly never killed anyone and he was never known to fire his namesake tommy gun (a gift from his wife) at anything but tin cans. As a young man he worked as a cab driver and bootlegger, and he was jailed for that crime at Leavenworth where he became friends with several notorious bank robbers. He joined them in that line of work after his release from prison and he was involved in numerous hold-ups in Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas, and Washington. In 1932, with his wife and several associates, Kelly kidnapped Howard Woolverton, a banker in South Bend, Indiana, demanding $50,000 in ransom. Released after two days, unharmed and with only the promise of payment, Woolverton said that over subsequent months he received several phone calls demanding the past-due ransom, but he just hung up, and eventually his kidnappers stopped calling. On July 22, 1933, Kelly and his gang kidnapped Oklahoma oilman Charles F. Urschel, who was held for nine days before being released when a $200,000 ransom was paid. Though Urschel had been blindfolded through the entire ordeal, he had listened carefully to his captors' conversations and he was able to provide numerous clues to FBI investigators, leading to Kelly's arrest only two months after the crime. Kelly and his wife were sentenced to life in prison and during his years at Alcatraz and Leavenworth, Kelly became pen pals with his victim, Charles Urschel.
Some sources credit Kelly with coining the term "G-men" for government agents — when he was arrested in Memphis on September 26, 1933, he was said to have raised his hands in the air and said, "Don't shoot, G-men". Witnesses, however, suggested that this was a tall tale created by reporters or FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and, though the phrase became commonplace afterward, it had been in the vernacular for at least several years prior to Kelly's capture. Machine Gun Kelly spent his remaining 21 years in prison. He spent 17 years on Alcatraz, working in the prison industries, and was quietly transferred back to Leavenworth in 1951. He died of a heart attack at Leavenworth Federal Prison, Kansas, on July 18, 1954 - his 59th birthday.