Posted on 09/27/2006 11:57:50 AM PDT by Borges
FORT SCOTT, Kan. (AP) – Willie Radkay, a former bank robber who was assigned a cell next to prohibition-era gangster Machine Gun Kelly while serving time at Alcatraz, died on his 95th birthday.
Radkay, who died Sunday at Mercy Health Center at Fort Scott, had told reporters he was given the number 666 when he began a seven-year stint in 1945 at the San Francisco island prison dubbed "The Rock."
In his later years, Radkay returned to the island for several reunions, where he was interviewed by documentary makers and newspaper reporters.
"We used to hijack bootleggers and stick up gambling houses," he told the San Francisco Chronicle during a 2000 reunion. "When Prohibition ended, we lost our victims, so the only thing left to do was rob banks."
He told the paper he hung around with George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Pretty Boy Floyd and was friends with Baby Face Nelson's driver.
Radkay, who was born in Kansas City, Kan., turned to crime after his father died of pneumonia. His mother was left with four children to support, and Radkay was placed in a foster home.
By the time he was 16, he was committing armed robberies, said his niece, Patty Terry, who wrote her uncle's story in a self-published book, titled "A Devil Incarnate: From Altar Boy to Alcatraz."
While researching his crimes, she came across a newspaper account of a 1935 jewelry store robbery in which her uncle was shot 12 times. She inquired about it, but her uncle said he couldn't recall the shooting.
"I asked how can you get shot 12 times and not remember. He said: 'Tough skin, soft bullets and they didn't hit anything important,"' she recalled in his obituary.
Radkay turned his life around after he was freed in 1969. He married the next year and began working as a custodial supervisor at the Prairie View School District in the small Kansas town of LaCygne.
Radkay spent his final years in a Fort Scott nursing home, after breaking first one hip, then the other.
"A number of people would say a criminal's life should not be glamorized in print ... and maybe this is true but my uncle is a part of history that needed to be recorded," Terry said. "The mere fact he did all those years of incarceration in the worst prisons of the era and mingled with gangsters who became his friends, was released after paying his debt to society, married and became an upstanding citizen of the community in itself is remarkable."
Radkay was cremated. He will be buried Thursday alongside his late wife, Louise, at Mount Calvary Cemetery of Kansas City, Kan.
And this is news because....???
Rest in peace.
"A number of people would say a criminal's life should not be glamorized in print ... and maybe this is true but my uncle is a part of history that needed to be recorded," Terry said. "The mere fact he did all those years of incarceration in the worst prisons of the era and mingled with gangsters who became his friends, was released after paying his debt to society, married and became an upstanding citizen of the community in itself is remarkable."
"Remarkable" only if you learn from the experience. Glamorizing gangsters (whether from the 1930s or in the modern era, like the Sopranos) and crime is not honorable.
Because AP said it was.
It is a matter of unique historical interest in this particular branch of American legend.
And you read this article, then posted to this thread because...
America is the only country that glamorizes their outlaws and criminals. But, many of our outlaws were folk heros during the frontier era and during the depression.
"America is the only country that glamorizes their outlaws and criminals."
Two words: Robin Hood
Guy Fawkes
Italy had a whole sub-genre of crime films and Japan and Hong Kong films have also glorified organized crime since the 1960s.
As to real crime, the Krays were celebrity gangsters in England, Ronnie Biggs was the last train robber, but I don't know if there are other "famous" criminals (especially murderers but also robbers) in other countries. And infamous is famous if there are fan cults centered around the criminals.
Prayers for him and his. May he rest in peace. He has long since been square with the house.
"America is the only country that glamorizes their outlaws and criminals."
"Don't know if this is entirely accurate. India, China and Russia come to mind."
C'mon. Admit it. It's a too broad and stupid comment.
And you are a hit and run poster, because?
"America is the only country that glamorizes their outlaws and criminals."
???? Ever watch "Das Will"?
Uh, I didn't make that statement. I quoted it from another poster.
It's news because it's news, that's why.
It's news because it's news, that's why.
May he rest in peace.
I would love to visit Alcatraz one day. Lots of history for such a tiny island.
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