Alvin Karpis Biography

Alvin Karpis, better known as “Creepy,” was a notorious gangster and a founder member of the infamous ‘Barker–Karpis Gang’ that was dreaded for its ruthless activities in the US during the 1930s. He stared his criminal career at a young age and associated with gamblers, pimps, and bootleggers. He was arrested for the first time for burglary and was sentenced to 10 years at the ‘State Industrial Reformatory,’ from where he later escaped. He came into contact with Fred Barker, of the notorious ‘Bloody Barkers,’ when he was serving a sentence at the ‘Kansas State Penitentiary.’ His gang was initially involved in bank robberies but soon found kidnapping to be a more lucrative prospective. They kidnapped millionaires William Hamm and Edward Bremer and extorted ransoms of $100,000 and $200,000, respectively. The ‘Federal Bureau of Investigation’ (FBI) launched operations to capture Karpis and succeeded in trapping him in New Orleans. He was tried at the ‘St Paul Federal Courts’ and sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent 26 years in Alcatraz. When Alcatraz was shut down, he was transferred to the ‘McNeil Island Penitentiary’ in Washington. He was later granted bail and deported to Canada. He moved to Spain toward the end of his life. He died of an overdose of pills in 1979.