Santa Claus Bank Robbery
The Santa Claus Bank Robbery occurred on December 23, 1927, in the Central Texas town of Cisco. Marshall Ratliff, dressed as Santa Claus, along with Henry Helms and Robert Hill, all ex-cons, and Louis Davis, a relative of Helms, held up the First National Bank in Cisco. The robbery is one of Texas' most infamous crimes, having invoked the largest manhunt ever seen in the state. Boyce House, editor of the Ranger Times, a newspaper in the county at the time, wrote that this was "the most spectacular crime in the history of the Southwest... surpassing any in which Billy the Kid or the James boys had ever figured."
Background
Marshall Ratliff was an ex-con who had lived in Cisco before being tracked down and imprisoned for a bank robbery in Valera, Texas. Though Ratliff was given an 18-year prison sentence, after only two years Governor Miriam "Ma" Ferguson pardoned him. It was just one of the 3,595 pardons Ferguson granted—under the lingering suspicion that most of the concessions were bought. Ratliff immediately began plans to rob his hometown bank. He initially planned to enlist his brother, Lee, but Lee had been arrested again. Ratliff pulled in Helms and Hill, whom he knew from Huntsville, and a fourth man who was good with safes.Robbery
Planning
As they planned the crime in Wichita Falls, the safe-cracker came down with the flu, and the trio pulled in Davis, a relative of Helms and a family man in need, promising a large return for his participation.During this period in Texas, an average of four banks were being robbed every day, and in response, the Texas Bankers Association announced that anyone who killed a bank robber would be awarded $5,000, valued at $85,000 in today's currency. This made the heist a particularly dangerous undertaking for the four men.
Ratliff knew that he would be immediately recognized if he returned to Cisco. Since the heist was planned for late December, he planned to conceal his identity by disguising himself as Santa Claus. He borrowed a Santa beard and costume made by Josephine Herron, who ran the boarding house where they had been staying in Wichita Falls. Stealing a car in Wichita Falls, they headed for Cisco and arrived on the morning of December 23.
As the group entered Cisco, Ratliff donned the Santa Claus beard and suit and instructed the gang to drop him off a few blocks from the bank and get the car in position. The plan was to park the car where the wide alley beside the bank met Avenue D. The gang would then follow Ratliff into the bank, take the money, exit through a side alleyway door to their waiting car.
One day before Christmas Eve, no one thought it odd when Santa came walking down the street around noon. When children saw Ratliff dressed as Santa Claus, they surrounded him. He answered their questions and tried to appear friendly as he nudged the crowd toward the bank. He was able to disperse the children before entering the bank.
Bank heist
Once inside, Ratliff saw four men: two bank employees and two customers. He received a pleasant greeting of "Hello, Santa," but he did not respond, distracted by two fourth-grade girls entering the lobby from the bookkeeping room. Then a bank patron, Mrs. B. P. Blasengame entered the bank, pulled along by her six-year-old daughter, Frances, who wanted to see Santa.Ratliff's accomplices then entered the bank, pointing pistols and shouting, "Hands up!"
"Santa" ordered the teller to open the safe, and began stuffing money and bonds into a sack he had hidden beneath his costume. While the others covered the customers and employees, Ratliff grabbed money from the tellers and forced one to open the vault.
Mrs. Blasengame escaped with her daughter through the bookkeeping office and the alleyway door, shouting, "They are robbing the bank!" She ran the one block to the police department, alerting Chief of Police Bedford and most of the Cisco citizenry about the robbery.
According to Boyce House, "Police Chief G.E. "Bit" Bedford a giant of a man and a veteran peace officer." Seizing a riot gun, he started for the scene and instructed officers R.T. "Rio" Redies and George Carmichael to join him. The chief posted himself at the front of the alley while his two officers took a position at the back of the alley.
When the bandits realized the bank was surrounded, they gathered their hostages and entered the back room with the alleyway door, where they found two bookkeepers. The bandits were unable to enter the alley without drawing withering fire from the officers and a growing crowd of armed citizens. But they now had eight hostages, including the fourth-grade girls, and the bandits used them as shields to enter the alleyway.
Shoot out
Despite the human shields, a fusillade of gunfire began, wounding the four bandits and a few of the hostages as well. But the robber gang made it to their car and drove out of town with the two little girls. In the melee, police chief "Bit" Bedford and one of his deputies, George Carmichael, lay in the alley with mortal wounds. Bedford died several hours later, and Carmichael died two weeks later, on Sunday, January 8, 1928. Six other civilians were wounded.Getaway and manhunt
As the four robbers began their getaway, traveling south on Avenue D with their hostages, they tossed out roofing nails in an effort to puncture the tires of the posse's machines. The tactic proved useful, but only briefly, because they soon realized that they were almost out of gas. Their tank had been punctured by bullets or they had simply forgotten to fill the tank after the long ride from Wichita Falls to Cisco. As they neared the edge of town, pursued by the mob, they decided to commandeer a passing Oldsmobile driven by 14-year-old Woodrow Wilson Harris, who had been allowed to drive the family into town for some last-minute Christmas shopping. His father sat beside him, and his mother and grandmother were in the back seat. At gunpoint, the family relinquished the car. In the midst of gunfire by the pursuers, the robbers transferred the loot and hostages and the severely-injured Louis Davis to the Oldsmobile. But when they had finally transferred themselves to the new getaway car, only then did they realize that they could not start the car because Harris had cleverly taken the keys from the ignition when ordered to stop. Davis was by then unconscious, so they left him in the car and moved back to the first car with their two hostages.It was later determined that the gang had stolen $12,400 in cash and $150,000 in nonnegotiable securities. This would have made it the largest Texas bank heist to that date had they not accidentally left it all behind in the confusion. The lawmen and citizens found the bag of loot in the abandoned Harris car with the badly wounded Louis Davis.
The three remaining bandits and their two little hostages raced south on Avenue D, and swung east onto a dirt road. They then turned into a pasture, dashing through cactus, mesquite, and scrub oak. The growth became so heavy that further progress was impossible, and the robbers abandoned their bullet-riddled car and the two hostages several miles from town and continued on foot.
Sheriff John Hart and his deputies of Eastland, the county seat, had been called by long distance and given the news of the bank robbery; they piled into automobiles and sped to the spot where the bandits had abandoned the car. Reporters, including Boyce House, followed the action in another vehicle. By House's account, "officers and citizens poured in from all that section of the state and such a manhunt as Western Texas had never seen before was soon in progress.... Many members of the posse were on horseback or on foot as they beat their way through clumps of trees, searched high grass in the bottoms of ravines and peered around boulders in canyons." One search party discovered an overcoat and bloodstained gloves. Later, citizens found a suitcase and a pile of bloodstained rags. In the suitcase were cotton and gauze, showing that the bandits had entered their enterprise with the knowledge that there might be shedding of blood.
Unable to find the bandits as evening set on the day of the robbery, the pursuit continued the next day, Saturday, December 24.
For Davis, who was a last-minute replacement for the group, this was the only crime in his lifetime. On Christmas Day, he died from the gunshot wounds he received in the gunbattle at the bank.
The evening of Christmas Day, the three remaining bandits successfully commandeered a vehicle driven by Carl Wylie, a young driller, forcing him as their hostage to drive. During the seizure, Mr. Wylie's father fired his shotgun after the fleeing car. The shot struck his son.
After hiding out all night with nothing to eat but oranges, which they did not offer to the injured young hostage, Helms, Hill, and Ratliff stole another car and released Wylie and his vehicle. Wylie later reported to the authorities that the bandits were doing very poorly due to their injuries, lack of food, and the icy, sleeting conditions.
The next morning, as they tried to cross the Brazos River in the little town of South Bend in Young County, officers spotted the single-seated machine with three occupants approaching. The bandits began backing rapidly down the road. Then, as the members of the posse scurried into their automobiles, the car whirled and rushed away. A car chase followed, with a shootout in an oil field as the three tried to escape, running toward the wells.
Involved in the firefight was Deputy Sheriff Cy Bradford, who later served as a Texas Ranger. Before Bradford's car had rolled to a stop, he was out with "Old Betsy," his double-barreled shotgun, an extra pair of shells in one hand. Bradford fired once and one of the fugitives fell. Bradford reloaded before firing again. "I did not want to be caught with an empty gun if they turned and made a stand," he explained afterward. The bandits ran on, firing back over their shoulders. Again, Bradford shot, and a man went down, but arose and staggered on. The officer shoved the other shell into the gun and shot again, and the third desperado slumped to his knees, but got up and reeled on, disappearing among the derricks. Ratliff was hit and fell to the ground while Helms and Hill, although wounded, escaped into the woods by the Brazos River, which offered ideal concealment. Ratliff was reportedly a "walking arsenal", bearing no fewer than six gunshot wounds and six pistols when captured, including the one he took from the bank. "Santa" had been caught.