Florida's early band of bank robbers - the Ashley Gang

 

Ashley Gang 1910
Florida State archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

The Wild West wasn’t the only region beset by a gang of outlaws similar to the James gang. In the early 1900s, South Florida chronicles are laced with the doings of its own band of family-linked criminals: the Ashley gang.

Ashley brothers – Bob, Tom, Ed, Frank, and most notably John - were thought to be responsible for a series of robberies and a murder or two between Stuart and Miami and in the Everglades. John first came to the attention of authorities for the 1911 murder of a Seminole, DeSoto Tiger. The crime, which occurred on the New River Canal, an Everglades dredging project, was committed for a load of otter skins sold in Miami.

John Ashley lived on the lam for a few years until pressure from the Seminoles forced his arrest when he surfaced near Stuart. He was sent to a Miami jail to await trial but broke out. Afterward, he and a few of his brothers, who came from Fort Myers and settled in Gomez, north of Hobe Sound, robbed a bank in Stuart. Captured and convicted, Ashley served a few years in Raiford prison before escaping with his gang’s help.

John Ashley, far right, entering
Florida State Prison, Raiford
Public Domain (Creative Commons)

The outlaws took refuge in the Everglades not far from Fort Lauderdale. John Ashley, known then as "King of the Everglades" teamed up with love interest (some say wife) "Queen of the Everglades" Laura Upthegrove. From a base camp there, the gang robbed banks, bootlegged and hijacked for a living. On occasion they came into Fort Lauderdale seeking medical assistance from the city’s first doctor, Thomas Kennedy. In 1923, they robbed the Bank of Pompano.

Ashley and three members (not brothers) of his gang died in a showdown shootout with the law at the Sebastian River Bridge Nov. 1, 1924, closing one chapter of crime in South Florida.

Copyright © 2021.
All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. Everglades: River of Grass. Miami: Banyan Books (1978)

Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966)
Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1984.

Tags: Ashley Gang, Florida crime, Broward County crime, Fort Lauderdale history, Pompano Beach history, history of Broward County

Murf the Surf: Jewel thief, murderer and violin prodigy

Star of India

Picture taken by Daniel Torres, Jr. January 14, 2007,        

                           via Wikimedia Commons

By Jane Feehan

Florida crime headlines of the 1960s were dominated by the capers of Jack “Murf* the Surf” Murphy. Born in 1938, prodigy violinist, surfing champ and stuntman Murphy was convicted of a New York jewel heist and later, the murder of one of two women found bludgeoned to death in Broward County’s Whiskey Creek waterway.

Murphy, along with robbery mastermind Allan Kuhn, and Roger Clark were nabbed a few days after their 1964 theft of the 563-carot Star of India, the Midnight Sapphire, the de Long Ruby and about 20 other gems from New York's American Museum of Natural History. Poor security was faulted. The trio left their fingerprints all over a window and display case, leading to their arrest.

A few months later, an anonymous tip led police to the uninsured Star of India sapphire at a Trailways Bus station locker in Miami. The de Long Ruby was recovered in September 1965 in a phone booth near the Palm Beach Gardens exit off the turnpike. Businessman and philanthropist John D. MacArthur paid a $25,000 ransom for the historic jewel “as a public service.”

Murphy and Kuhn, who were living at Brickell Town House in Miami at the time of the heist, were sentenced to three years. They were released two and a half years later for good behavior.  Murph’s good behavior did not extend past his release.

On Dec. 8, 1967 the bludgeoned bodies of two women, Terry Rae Frank, 24 and Annelie Mohn, 21 were found in Whiskey Creek, south of Port Everglades. The California secretaries were involved in a securities scam; prosecutors suggested Murphy and accomplices did not want to share proceeds with the women. The glamorous playboy was convicted in 1968 and sentenced to life for the crime.

Murphy’s story, which includes dropped charges for pistol whipping actress Eva Gabor at Miami’s Racquet Club, was brought to the silver screen in the 1975 movie, Murph the Surf, co-written by crime partner Allan Kuhn. It starred Robert Conrad and Donna Mills and was filmed in Miami. But Murphy’s story was not over. He found religion, became an ordained minister and was released on parole in 1986. In 2000 his parole was terminated. 

Murphy died in September, 2020. He had lived in coastal central Florida (forbidden to return to Dade and Broward counties) with his family. Jack Roland Murphy worked with a prison ministry around the world and wrote  Jewels for the Journey. 

* or Murph the Surf

 Copyright © 2012, 2020 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Jan. 8, 1965

Miami News, Sept. 3, 1965

Miami News, Sept. 1, 1967

Miami News, Oct. 23, 1986

                                          

Tags: Florida crime history, Jack Murph the Surf Murphy, Jack Roland Murphy, Whiskey Creek murders, film industry researcher, Florida film research,  historical researcher

Sen. Kefauver stunned by Broward Sheriff Clark 1950 acquittal

Kefauver

By Jane Feehan

Broward County Sheriff Walter Clark turned a blind eye to illicit gambling for years (he served as sheriff 1931-39 and 1941-50). The mob rewarded him for his hands-off policy when they allowed him to run a bolita operation and own slot machines through his Broward Novelty Company.

Clark did not escape the attention of Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN), who headed a high-profile federal investigation of organized crime and gambling in 1950-51. Presidential hopeful Kefauver conducted some of the hearings in Miami, questioning mobsters Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese and a roster of others, including Clark and Dade County Sheriff James Sullivan.

The Broward sheriff was evasive but was not convincing enough to evade a subsequent local grand jury indictment for owning slot machines.

A trial soon followed but Clark, his brother Deputy Sheriff Robert Clark, and Gordon F. Williams were acquitted in Broward County Dec. 8, 1950. The evidence was circumstantial. No defense witnesses were presented during the tumultuous proceedings. What most don’t know – or remember - of the trial’s outcome was Kefauver’s reaction. When the senator heard about the acquittal he told a congregation at a Miami temple that he was shocked and surprised.

“I heard testimony from Sheriff Clark in Miami, and I don’t mind admitting I was considerably shocked at the jury’s findings,” said Kefauver.

Later that month in the Saturday Evening Post, the senator elaborated.

“It is hard to stomach the admissions of characters such as Sheriff (Smiling Jimmy) Sullivan of Dade County and Sheriff Walter Clark of Broward County that they grew rich in office, far out of proportion to their modest salaries (Clark admitted he was worth more than $750,000).

Kefauver’s reaction drew the ire of Pompano Beach resident and jury foreman James Wilson.

“I’m shocked and surprised at the statement of Sen. Kefauver, in which he, by inference, tied together the testimony … he heard in Miami with the local Clark trial,” said Wilson.  “He is evidently unfamiliar with the facts of evidence introduced in the trial. Doesn’t Kefauver know that the evidence gathered in Miami was not introduced? This jury did its civic duty in an intelligent and forthright way. Furthermore, as a taxpayer, citizen and ex-U.S. Marine, I resent any reflection on my intelligence or veracity. If Kefauver wants to debate the issue publicly, I will meet him either in Florida or in his native hills of Tennessee.”

A movement to reinstate Clark was underway when he died April 24, 1951 of leukemia. Many mourned the colorful 47-year-old sheriff who was known for his charitable ways.

Sources:
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 9, 1950
Miami Herald, Dec. 10, 1950
Fort Lauderdale News April 11, 1951
Miami Herald, April 13, 1957

Tags: Kefauver hearings in Miami, Broward County gambling in the 1940s, 50s, Sheriff Walter Clark, Sheriff Clark acquittal, Kefauver reaction to Clark acquittal, Miami hearings on gambling 1950, organized crime in Broward County,

Bra Brigade and Southern Bell's missing coins -1950

Southern Bell display 1949
Florida State Archives

 

By Jane Feehan

A Miami group made headlines as the “Brassiere Brigade” in 1950 when they reportedly confessed to embezzling $100,000 from the coin counting room of Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company by stuffing rolls of coins into their bras.

  

According to a news account, police accidentally stumbled upon the crime when a woman called to report a chest of missing coins at her home. Betty Corrigan, identified as a friend of the caller and employee of Southern Bell, happened to drive up to the house at the time. Police searched her car and found nearly $4,000 in coins and $1,000 in paper currency.

Corrigan spilled the story, reporters wrote, and implicated her friends. Most of them continued to sing about their complicity in the embezzlement and revealed how they did it.

When boxes of money were dropped off at the counting room for pay phone revenues, news accounts reported that women grabbed rolls of coins before they were counted and stuffed them into their bras. They dropped the money off in a restroom or somewhere else where an accomplice was waiting, making away with up to $150 a day.

The “Brassiere Brigade,” as newspapers called them (or “Silver Falsies”), made prosecution difficult when they refused to sign statements about their crime. Complicating matters was the company’s failure to figure out exactly how much was taken. Police let them go in September 1950; the brigade then took the opportunity to recant their stories.

The gang of men and women did not get away with the theft, which some estimated could have been much more than $100,000. Several among them bought houses and new cars during their coin caper. Weeks later, Southern Bell officials produced records showing $400 was missing one month – enough to charge several with felony theft.

Eleven were charged - three with theft, eight with receiving stolen property. Three women – all under 30 - were convicted of theft by a six-man jury in 24 minutes. They were sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay back about $24,000.

At the time of the publicity about the incident, Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph asked Florida’s State Railroad and Public Utilities Commission for a rate increase. The commission placed the request on hold until the telephone company’s accounting practices were clarified.

PICTURES: www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_brassiere_brigade

Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Sept. 26, 1950

Miami News, Sept. 29, 1950

Miami News, Nov. 14, 1950

Tags: Miami history, Southern Bell history, Miami in the 1950s, clinking bras, film industry researcher,  historical researcher