Fleagle Gang

The Fleagle Gang was a group of early 20th century American bank robbers and murderers. They were found and executed or killed after robbing the First National Bank in Lamar, Colorado. Their cases were the first ever in which a single fingerprint was part of the evidence leading to a conviction. They were also suspected to have committed a series of previous bank robberies over a 10-year period.

On May 23, 1928, Ralph Fleagle, his brother Jake, George J. Abshier, (a.k.a. Bill Messick), and Howard “Heavy” Royston, came in to Lamar, Colorado. They planned to rob the First National Bank.

They had hooked up at a ranch near Marienthal, Kansas shortly before the robbery, but Jake Fleagle had been planning on robbing the Lamar bank for some time. Like many professional robbers of that time, the Fleagles, together with Abshier, had carefully scouted the bank on several occasions before the day came to actually hold it up.

The gang had maps of the roads of Prowers County, Colorado, and the brothers had been inside the bank building and knew its layout. Abshier said they had weighed the “possibilities” and decided that it was a job for no less than four men, so they recruited Heavy Royston.

When they left Kansas on May 23, about 3 a.m., the men had license plates from Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and California to throw any witnesses off their track. Each man went heavily armed.

The drive took about six hours, but the plan required them to wait until the afternoon to commit the robbery. Finally, about 1 p.m., it was time to move.

E.A. Lundgren, a one-armed teller at the bank was waiting on a customer when he saw the men come into the bank and heard one shout, “You sons-a-bitches get them all up!” and another yell, “Hands up!”

In the noise and confusion of the moment, Bank President A.N. Parrish ducked into his office and pulled out an .45 he called "Old Betsy" and fired a shot at the closest bank robber from the door to his office hitting Royston in the jaw, and then by all accounts, all hell broke loose.

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