A green Plymouth was parked about six feet away on the right side of Agent Caffrey's car. Looking in the direction of this Plymouth, Agent Lackey saw two men run from behind a car. He noticed that both men were armed. At least one of them had a machine gun. Before Agent Lackey had a chance to warn his fellow officers, one of the gunmen shouted, "Up, up!" At this instant, Agent Smith--who was in the middle of the back seat -- also saw a man with a machine gun to the right of the Plymouth. SAC Vetterli, who was standing at the right front of the Chevrolet turned just in time to hear a voice command, "Let 'em have it!"

At this point, from a distance approximately 15 feet diagonally to the right of Agent Caffrey's Chevrolet, an individual crouched behind the radiator of another car opened fire. Detectives Grooms and Hermanson immediately fell to the ground, dead. SAC Vetterli--who was standing beside Detectives Grooms and Hermanson--was shot in the left arm and dropped to the ground. As he attempted to scramble to the left side of the car to join Agent Caffrey, who had not yet entered the driver's seat of the Chevrolet, SAC Vetterli saw Caffrey fall to the ground after sustaining a gun shot wound to the head.

Inside the car, Frank Nash and Chief Reed were killed by bullets from the hoodlums' guns. Agents Lackey and Smith were able to survive the massacre by falling forward in the back seat of the Chevrolet. Lackey was struck and seriously wounded by three bullets. Smith was unscathed.

The three gunmen rushed to the lawmen's car and looked inside. One of them was heard to shout "They're all dead. Let's get out of here." With that, they raced toward a dark-colored Chevrolet. Just then a Kansas City policeman emerged from Union Station and began firing in the direction of one of the killers, later identified as Floyd, who slumped briefly but continued to run. The killers entered the car which sped westward out of the parking area, and disappeared.

The three survivors--Agents Smith and Lackey and SAC Vetterli--reported that the assault lasted possibly 30 seconds. They were uncertain if three or four gunmen staged the assault. From their account, it was apparent that the two Kansas City Police Detectives were killed immediately, followed seconds later by Frank Nash and Chief Reed and then by Agent Caffrey, who was taken to nearby General Hospital where he was pronounced dead as a result of a skull fracture and a gunshot wound to the head.

The FBI immediately initiated an investigation to identify and apprehend the gunmen. The investigation developed evidence that the scheme was carried out by Vernon C. Miller, Adam C. Richetti, and Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd. The evidence included latent fingerprint impressions located by FBI Agents on beer bottles in Miller's Kansas City home and identified as those of Adam Richetti, thus helping to link the latter to the crime.

Vernon C. Miller, age 37, who had led the killings at Kansas City's Union Station on June 17, grew up in South Dakota. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I and received extensive training as a machine gunner. Following his release from the Army, he appeared at Huron, South Dakota, where he told stories of his heroism in the war. He also demonstrated to city officials that he was a crack shot, following which he was elected to the position of policeman in 1920. Two years later, he was elected Sheriff and was renominated for the position. Before the election, however, he disappeared and entered a life of crime. Miller's criminal record indicated that he had been arrested on April 4, 1923, and received at the South Dakota Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to serve a sentence of two to ten years and to pay a $5,200 fine for embezzling public funds. In October, 1925, he was indicted in Federal Court, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for violating the National Prohibition Act; the case was nolle prossed in January, 1931. Miller then moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chicago where he began his association with underworld gangs. Miller was reported to have been a hired gunman for Louis Buchalter early in his crime career.

Following the Kansas City Massacre, Miller, accompanied by a girlfriend, Vivian Mathias, traveled to Chicago and reportedly arrived there on or about June 19, 1933. For a few days, he hid out with a member of the Barker-Karpis gang. From there Miller reportedly went to New York.

On October 31, 1933, an FBI investigation disclosed that Miller was back in Chicago at the apartment of Vivian Mathias. The next day, he escaped a trap set for him there by the FBI. However, Mathias was taken into custody and later pleaded guilty to charges of harboring and concealing Miller.

On November 29, 1933, during the FBI's search for Miller, his mutilated body was found in a ditch on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan. He had been beaten and strangled. Information received by the FBI indicated that Miller had been involved in an altercation with a henchman of Longie Zwillman, head of New Jersey's underworld mob, in Newark; during the argument, Miller had shot the henchman. Another of Zwillman's associates reportedly retaliated by killing Miller.

Meanwhile, the FBI's hunt for "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Adam Richetti continued. Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, about 29 years old at the time of the Kansas City Massacre, had been arrested on numerous occasions, the first by the St. Louis, Missouri, Police Department on September 16, 1925, for highway robbery. He pleaded guilty to that charge on December 8, 1925, was sentenced to the State Penitentiary at Jefferson City, Missouri, and released on March 7, 1929. Two days later, on March 9, 1929, he was arrested by the Kansas City Police Department for investigation, and on May 6, 1929, for vagrancy and suspicion of highway robbery. In both instances, he was released. On May 20, 1930, Floyd was arrested by the Toledo, Ohio, Police Department on a bank robbery charge and on November 24, 1930, was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Floyd escaped en-route to the penitentiary and was a fugitive when he became involved in the Kansas City Massacre.

Adam C. Richetti, about 23 years old at the time of the Kansas City Massacre, began his criminal career with an arrest in Hammond, Indiana, on August 7, 1928, for a holdup. Richetti was sentenced from one to ten years in the State Reformatory, Pendleton, Indiana, for that crime. He was paroled on October 2, 1930, and discharged from the parole on September 23, 1931. His next arrest occurred on March 9, 1932, at Sulphur, Oklahoma, for bank robbery; he subsequently served a sentence at the State Penitentiary, McAlester, Oklahoma, from April 5, 1932, to August 25, 1932, when he was released and placed on bond which he forfeited. Richetti subsequently was sought for jumping the $15,000 bond, and was wanted at Tishomingo, Oklahoma, for robbery.

After fleeing from the Kansas City Massacre, Floyd and Richetti made their way to Toledo, Ohio, where they met Beulah, also known as Juanita, and Rose Baird in early September, 1933. From there the four traveled to Buffalo, New York. On September 21, 1933, Floyd and Beulah Baird, using the names of Mr. and Mrs. George Sanders, and Richetti and Rose Baird, using the names Mr. and Mrs. Ed Brennan, rented an apartment in that city.

The other occupants of the apartment building considered the two couples very mysterious inasmuch as they seldom left the apartment, then usually for brief visits to the grocery store. During their occupancy, Floyd reportedly walked from the front to the rear of the apartment almost constantly, an activity that caused much curiosity on the part of the other building occupants. The two couples never visited with any of their neighbors, though they were friendly toward the neighborhood children who sometimes were permitted to enter the apartment. The women occasionally threw money from the windows of the apartment to the children playing in the street, or offered them candy.

In October, 1934, the couples agreed to return to Oklahoma. Rose Baird was given money to purchase a car, and she bought a Ford sedan which was to carry them west.

The four began the trip early on October 20, with Floyd driving. A few hours later, near Wellsville, Ohio, he skidded the automobile into a telephone pole. Floyd and Richetti removed their firearms from the vehicle and remained on the outskirts of the town, while Rose and Beulah Baird took the damaged car into a Wellsville garage for repairs.

The Wellsville, Ohio, Police Chief, J. H. Fultz, following up on reports that two suspicious-looking men were seen on the outskirts of town, found the two resting in a wood tract of land nearby. A gun battle ensued. Chief Fultz apprehended Richetti after Richetti had emptied his gun at the officer. Floyd escaped, but the Police Chief thought Floyd might have been wounded.

The FBI and local authorities conducted an intensive search for Floyd in eastern Ohio following the Wellsville incident. This included interviews of numerous persons in the predominantly rural countryside, including doctors and hospital personnel whom Floyd might approach if, in fact, he was wounded.

Eight of the participants in this search--a squad of four FBI Agents led by Melvin Purvis, along with a squad of four East Liverpool, Ohio, police officers headed by Chief of Police Hugh McDermott--were jointly patrolling a group of roads south of Clarkson, Ohio, in two cars on October 22, when they noticed an automobile move from behind a corn crib on a farm. The officers had been questioning all persons whom they saw; and in an effort to question the occupants of this automobile, they stopped their cars. At this point, the vehicle that had attracted their attention drove back to its original position behind the corn crib, and a man whom the officers immediately recognized as Floyd jumped from the car with a .45 caliber automatic pistol in his right hand.

As the officers reached Floyd, he said, "I'm done for; you've hit me twice." They took the pistol from his hand and also seized a second gun that he carried in his belt. Then two FBI Agents left to summon an ambulance to take Floyd to a hospital. They were accompanied by a local citizen who had witnessed the encounter. Two other local citizens, including the owner of the farm where the shooting took place, also were witnesses to the action that had occurred. Floyd died about 15 minutes after he was shot.

At the time Floyd was killed, a watch and fob, consisting of a "lucky piece," were found on his person. Groups of ten notches were found on each of these items - reportedly carved by Floyd as an indication of the number of people he had killed.

Rose and Beulah Baird, who were in the Wellsville garage attending to the repair of the wrecked automobile when they overheard the discussion of Richetti's being taken into custody, had left immediately for Kansas City, Missouri. Later they traveled to the home of Floyd's family in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, where they attended the funeral of Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd.