The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders (episode 170)

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Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome Toe Hub history where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The Hub of the Universe. This is Episode 1 70 The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders Hi, I’m Jake.
I’m fighting off a cold this week, so please excuse my voice. It’s not quite up to snuff.
This week, I’ll be talking about the first murders committed in Massachusetts with a fully automatic weapon.
Sadly, I’ll also be talking about the first police officers to be killed in the line of duty in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham.
At the center of the case is a stolen Tommy Gunn, a pair of brothers and a ragtag assortment of followers.
Before it was all over, the Millen brothers would be tied to atleast five murders, a long string of robberies and an attempted jailbreak.
Three of the crew would be sentenced to death, and the shocking spectacle of military grade weapons being used on the streets of a quiet Boston suburb would stoke the already raging debate about gun control and the 1934 Federal Firearms Act.
But before I talk about the Millen gang machine gun murders. It’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

[1:18] My pick for the Boston Book Club this week is a recent piece in Boston magazine called Return to Our Roots.
Instead of covering the history of Boston like our book club selections usually would.
This piece explores a new trend among Bostonians who discover their own personal and family histories and to tell us about it.
I’m now joined by Britney Jazz in Off the executive editor of Boston magazine.

Jake Interview:
[1:42] Britney. Welcome to the show.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[1:44] Thank you so much for having me.

Jake Interview:
[1:46] First off, can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind this article or this This piece in Boston magazine? Why the focus on where Bostonians trace their heritage too?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[1:57] Yes, that’s a great question. So, you know, these days everyone is giving their relatives 23 needy and a kids for the holidays. And people are just kind of fascinated with the idea of genealogy and tracing their roots.
And, of course, they’re not just getting their DNA results and calling it a day.
They’re thinking more about it and traveling to some of these countries, learning more about where they came from, where their families came from.
And it’s become so popular, in fact, that heritage travel is actually one of the biggest travel trends of the year.
Of course, being Boston magazine, this whole idea got us thinking about Boston’s roots, and we thought it would be a really fun idea to put together heritage travel feature that reflects, you know, Boston’s origins.

Jake Interview:
[2:37] So we keep using this term. Heritage travel. So what makes Heritage travel this idea of traveling back to sort of an ancestral homeland? Different from just going on vacation like I did a couple weeks ago.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[2:51] Yeah, so loosely defined heritage travel is any kind of travel that explorers like the cultural heritage of a destination.
So you obviously you don’t have to be from a place or having family before in place to call your trip a heritage trip.
But many people who do go on these kinds of trips are doing it for the purposes of tracing their family’s roots through a certain country.
So they might set up private tours of important historical sites. They might visit with some long lost family members.
They might chat up the locals at a coffee shop or they might do some combination of all three things. But either way, the main thing is that if you’re going on these trips, you’re connecting on a deep level with the history and culture that you want to learn more about of a place.

Jake Interview:
[3:30] And you said that working on this article, you started thinking about where Bostonians can trace their roots of their heritage to what are some of the top places where folks in Boston can trace their roots to?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[3:42] We decided to look at countries where 9000 or more Bostonians trace their origins to. So to do that, we actually come through some census data from their American community survey.
And the result was this really incredibly diverse line of 70 17 countries. Excuse me that you don’t find in this feature. So, um, we have in here England and Ireland. We have Vietnam.
We have Cape Verde, China, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Colombia.
Uh, the list goes on, but some really interesting spots.

Jake Interview:
[4:14] The package in the magazine is set up as sort of a three part. There’s a little bit about heritage travel.
There are some specific travel itineraries for folks who want to discover some of these places. And then there’s some local personalities who shared their own personal narratives of sort of self discoveries.
Who are some of the folks who you chose to feature for the piece?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[4:36] Yeah, that’s a great question. So one thing that was really important to us was bringing the Israel Bostonians into this who have done these kind of trips on and looking at their experiences.
So we spoke with a former state senator Linda to see endorse enough Ori about a special trip she took to Haiti.
Is her capacity in her capacity as an official? Um, we also spoke with construction magnet Jake Ashman, who shared a really fascinating experience tracing his roots through Ireland that actually culminated in him buying a castle and restoring it.
And he now actually has its A hotel and people can come and stay there. So it’s a really, really interesting story.
Boston Ballet dancer John Lamb recalled a very meaningful trip that he took to his parents, native Vietnam.
We had Bloomberg anchor and reporter reporter Janet Woo talking about her experiences in China and kind of discovering some for fruits.
There s O. We spoke with a good number of people about some really interesting and fascinating experiences they had in the countries that, you know their ancestors were from.

Jake Interview:
[5:41] Did you have a favorite among those pieces, or did any of them inspire you to want to take a trip to a new place?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[5:46] Oh, my gosh, they were all Brazilians, buyer, you know, and the one I mentioned, I thought John Barrows.
He’s the chief of economic development for the city of Boston. He actually talked a lot about going back to Cape Verde, which is a beautiful place.
And, you know, his parents are from there on out, he went.
He’s been back several times, but his most recent.
I think his most recent trip was actually in his capacity as a Boston City official, and he went with Mayor Marty Walsh. And I just talked about how meaningful it was to be back there, you know, in the place where his parents grew up.
He knows in this in this capacity. So I thought that was a really, really fascinating one.
And I did love J. Cashman’s, you know, talking about how all of this tracing of his genealogy inspired him to to go ahead and and buy a castle in Ireland, which is a pretty incredible thing to do.
So I thought those were really interesting, but honestly, they all were really fascinating.

Jake Interview:
[6:42] Yeah, I guess buying a castle is something I have to aspire to for future vacations.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[6:45] Yeah, not everybody can do that. But it was pulling on the last.

Jake Interview:
[6:51] So, along with the personal narratives and these stories of people are Bostonians personal experiences with heritage travel there also a series of potential itineraries for folks who are visiting a new place.
So as we’re recording this, I just got back or just recently got back from a vacation in Puerto Rico. It’s one of my favorite vacation spots, but it’s not someplace I can trace my heritage, too. How many Bostonians can trace their heritage to Puerto Rico?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[7:17] So, actually, um, over 35,000 Bostonians Countryside heritage to Puerto Rico.

Jake Interview:
[7:24] And if those folks wanted to travel to the island either for the first time or with a fresh eye, what does Boston magazine recommend they start by doing?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[7:35] First of all, for these itineraries, be consulted with travel experts who have planned these kinds of heritage trips before.
And our travel expert for Puerto Rico has recommended there’s a lot going on, obviously, in Old San Juan, the El Morro and sand crystal ball forts.
You know our two great sights to check out while you’re there.
Elmore was actually built in the 16th century and sand crystal ball in 18th century, and they were built to guard against invaders on land and sea.
Our travel guide there also recommended a trip to Elian Gay National Forest, which is Ah, biologically diverse tropical rainforest.
That’s just about 40 minutes outside San Juan, and it takes its name from the indigenous Taino people who celebrated as a spiritual place.
So it has a lot of obviously important history and then obviously just checking out some of Puerto Rico’s finest exports while you’re there.
Rum is produced with the sugar cane that Puerto Rico has been growing for generations.
S O. You know, a tour castle. Bacardi is a great place to start learning a little bit about that.
And, of course, if you’re interested in cigars, you know you can check out the cigar house in Old San Juan.
You can, you know where you Kenbrell some home and also enjoy some on site as well.
So lots of lots of really interesting things to do that celebrate Puerto Rico’s rich history.

Jake Interview:
[8:54] Yeah, and some of that gets beyond the normal tourist spots as well, which is nice. And some of those are familiar to me as somebody who’s been deported to go a few times, and some are definitely new to me.
Even as a non smoker, that cigar house sounds like a fun thing to check out.
So for me, I can’t trace my heritage to Puerto Rico. But I did recently do a d n A test to one of the big online genealogy sites, and I made a discovery, our family lore.
My mother’s side of the family has always been described as being German.
And then I did a DNA test and got the results, and I turned out to have strictly English and low country French DNA, and I’ve been to Germany. Actually, I did a year abroad there when I was a kid, but I have never set foot in England or France.
So if I was gonna follow my d n A and make my first trip to England, what do you think I should d’oh.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[9:46] Well, the great news is that this year is a really special yourself you’re planning.
Have you decided to plan a trip this year? There’s a great year to do it because this is the 4/100 anniversary of the main flowers journey to Massachusetts.
So in honor of that milestone, actually, the New England Genealogical Society offers a series of tours that we’re going back to where it all began.
So our Hardage itinerary for England is inspired by their American ancestors Mayflower Embarkation Tour, which traces the path of the Mayflower from Dartmouth, which is the port town where the colonists stopped in,
to plummet the place where they ultimately departed.
So they were traveling initially with another ship, the speed well, that they had to stop and repair.
When it’s Brian a leak, they ultimately ended up ditching it. But, you know, Dartmouth was one of the towns they start stopped in, um, to to fix that, so there’s lots of stuff to kind of.
There’s also some towns along in this tour, which, by the way, their tours June starts on June 1st. It’s a six night tour.
There’s also some other towns that are kind of important to the migration that they stopping along the way. And this is all kind of takes place in the southwestern part of England.
So there’s lots of cool stuff to Dio. The scholar Robert Charles Anderson, who’s leading the trip, recommends a visit to the Dartmouth Museum for a look at the Regions maritime history.
Buckland Abbey for Look, 1/13 century monastery and then once implement. That’s actually the last day of their tour.

[11:13] There’s a new museum that opens the spring called The Box on DDE. That actually is an exhibit that kicks off the city is extra special Mayflower 400 Celebrations.
So, um, I have some really fascinating stuff to check out, and if you do go on this particular tour, they will take you to the Devon Heritage Center.
What? Excuse me? The Devon Historical Center Thio taken exclusive look at the area’s historical records and maybe learn a little bit of something about your ancestry as well.

Jake Interview:
[11:44] Very cool, and I guess it may not be part of their itinerary, but I feel like I would have to visit Boston, England at some point just to see what’s there.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[11:51] Absolutely. Uh.

Jake Interview:
[11:52] Huh? Did Boston magazine include an itinerary for France as well for the other part of my DNA heritage?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[12:00] Yeah, absolutely. Francis on the list and what we actually decided.
We decided to dio to recommend it toward Normandy because of its unique relationship to France’s culinary heritage,
as well as American history on We Consulted With Old Ways, which is a Boston based nonprofit that plans food center trips to create a kind of a culinary tour of the region, with also some flavor of histories.
So our itinerary includes a tour of a cheese making operation, ah, cooking lesson that focuses on traditional Norman dishes and, of course, a visit to the deep D Day beaches of World War Two.
And if you’ve traced your French bloodline in ancient times, we also recommend a road trip to the island of Mont ST Michel, where you can explore an eighth century monastery in an abbey dating to 11th century.
So obviously lots of history there and lots of good food, too.

Jake Interview:
[12:50] That’s actually a perfect itinerary for what I find out about my DMX that my genes seem to come from Normandy in the low countries, and my grandfather landed on the beaches of D Day. So maybe I’ll have to look up your itinerary this year.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[13:03] Yeah, Check it out. Definitely.

Jake Interview:
[13:06] So is there anything else you think that listeners are readers of? The magazine should take away from this piece.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[13:12] You know, this piece offers a lot of great inspiration for people who were looking to trace their heritage, but I think it also offers a lot of inspiration for anybody that’s looking to take kind of a culturally and historically rich trip somewhere that they haven’t been before.
So I think this feature can be used in both ways.
And I, you know, I think that it’s probably the take away that I’d like people to use this feature. However, they’re interested in planning their trip for the next year. So their trips for the next year or so and, you know, enjoy these destinations.

Jake Interview:
[13:44] So, Britney, if our listeners want to read this piece, where should they look for it?

Brittany Jasnoff:
[13:49] Yeah, they can fight it on newsstands now and also in boston magazine dot com.

Jake Interview:
[13:54] All right. Well, Britney Jazz off. Thank you very much for joining us this week.

Brittany Jasnoff:
[13:58] Thanks for having me, Jake. I really appreciate it.

Jake:
[14:01] And for our upcoming event this week, we’re featuring one of the Boston Public Libraries Black History Month seminars.
On February 12th Katie Woods be presenting about the women’s era club at the Mattapan branch of the library.
The Women’s Era started out as the first newspaper published for African American women, founded in Boston by activist Josephine ST Pierre Ruffin in 18 90.
A few years later, she started. The club is an offshoot where African American women could work together toward the lofty goal of making the world a better place.
Here’s how the BPL website describes the talk.
In 18 93 a group of Boston women founded the Women’s Era Club, one of the first women’s clubs in the country, led by African American women.
With its journal The Women’s Era, this club’s mission of social activism reached national audiences.
What causes were these women fighting for? And how were they treated by majority white organizations?
Join S C. A public history intern, Katie Woods, as we explore the little known yet influential club in publication as well as the women behind these instruments of social change,
the event begins at 3 30 There’s no fee but advanced registration is required.
We’ll have the links you need in this week’s show. Notes at Hub history dot com slash 170.

[15:22] Before I start talking about Tommy guns, I want to take a minute to say thank you to everyone who supports the show. Unpatriotic.
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Thank you very much for your support.
And if you’re not contributing yet, you’d like to just go to pay tree on dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the Support US link.
And now it’s time for this week’s main topic.
The morning of February 2nd, 1934 started out as a perfectly ordinary winter day in New England, and it snowed a day or two before, but town workers had things pretty well cleaned up.
As usual, the snowbanks meant that the roads were a bit narrower than usual, and parking was a little bit scarcer than usual.
In the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham, Patrolman Frank Haddock had started this morning shift at 8 a.m. And gone on foot patrol.
As he passed the fire station on Highland Avenue, Needham height, he paused fireman Tim Coughlin was shoveling out the driveway of the firehouse to make it easier to get the engines out past the snow bags in a hurry.
The two acquaintances fell into conversation not long after nine.

[16:40] The two acquaintances fell into conversation not long after 9 a.m.
Not far away, Patrolman Forbes Macleod. It also started his shift just before 8 a.m.
Checking in at the police station and directing traffic while Children arrived at the Greendale School.
When the kids were all inside, he walked about a mile and 1/2 to Needham Center, arriving the other green in front of Town Hall by 9 a.m.
He checked to make sure he wasn’t needed at the station, then stopped to talk with grocer Charlie Stevens.
Steve is unloaded fruit from a truck into a store across the railroad tracks that ran parallel to Highland Avenue.
The staff of the Needham Trust Bank was already getting ready to open for business.
The next day’s Boston Globe describes how the staff again filtering in and taking their places.

[17:27] Arnold, Macintosh tall, red faced, rugged and bespectacled treasure of the Needham Trust Company, came to work in his car parked it outside the door on the Haydn street, considered the problems put up to him by the merchants and townspeople. Within the past few weeks.
Justus He had come to work every morning for years.
He walked into his office, a place in the corner of the country bank, separated from the customers lobby by an elbow high mahogany counter.
He called Elizabeth Kimble, who has graduated a few years ago from the Needham High School, to take dictation.
The office staff was on duty. Ernest Keith, the assistant treasurer, sat in a little office just off Treasure Macintoshes open space.
Ernest was going over some books, checking things up.
Miss Ada Powell was in the next cage, separated from Keith by low mahogany and glass partition so they could speak over it.
She was checking some card indexes. Her little compartment is the loans department.
The information compartment in the corner near the safe deposit vaults was empty because no one looks for information in the country bank. At 9 15 in the morning, any customer could call across the counter to Arnold Macintosh and find out what he wanted to know.
The safe deposit vaults and the rear of the bank are separated from the customers. Lobby by a grill gate.
Walter Burr Ptolemy stood there to open it. Should any depositor want to get in his box?

[18:50] At 9 21 the inbound commuter train let out a whistle as it pulled into Needham Center.
A Black Packard car slipped through the crossing on Great Plain Avenue Justus. The gates came down and then it knows into one of the angled parking spaces in front of the bank.
The train chuffed to a stop at the station, blocking the at grade crossing on great play now, Irv.
Inside the bank, Elizabeth Kimble was taking dictation from Treasure Arnold Macintosh. You glanced up as the front door opened and suddenly stopped in mid sentence.
Three men have gotten out of the Big Packard, and as they entered the bank, they had handkerchiefs pulled up over their faces like Old West outlaws.
And they were bristling with guns as two robbers armed with revolvers and shotguns began hurting the bank employees together and making them sit with their backs against the wall in their hands over their heads.
Abe Powell, with one woman loans department, managed to press the button to trigger their emergency alarm.
1/3 robber went to the back of the bank, where the door to the teller’s cage waas inside the cage. 77 year old Walter Bahr Ptolemy stood guard with this hand on the key to the cage.
When Barthelemy refused to open the cage, the robber raised a Thompson submachine gun and squeeze the trigger.
Walter’s hand was riddled with 45 calibre bullets, and he stepped back.
One of the robbers reached through the bars, turned the key and let himself into the cage, forcing teller Joseph Reordan out of the way and gathering about $14,000 in cash from the teller’s drawers.

[20:18] On the other side of the train tracks, Officer Macleod heard the alarm going off in the bank, but the stop train prevented them from dashing to the scene for a few long moments.
Finally, the train pulled away, and he started across the tracks on Great play, naff behind it.
At that moment, one of the bank robbers called out a warning to his crew, saying, Here comes a cop, one of the others replied sarcastically. Well, tell him to come in.

[20:45] The one with the Tommy gun turned toward the window and fired a long burst of fully automatic fire right through the glass.
Outside Patrolman Frank McCloud fell dead in the middle of great Plain Avenue.
This was the first time a machine gun, or technically a submachine gun had been used in a murder in Massachusetts.
The Thompson submachine gun was already legendary, having been made famous in gangland killings like the ST Valentine’s Day Massacre ordered by Al Capone, and by gangster Pretty boy Floyd, who was officially public Enemy number one.
After robbing banks and murdering FBI agents, movie audiences knew the guns from the many gangster movies released in the era.
But people in the Boston suburbs considered Tommy guns a tool of the famous mobs in Chicago or Kansas City.
They never expected to see one used here at home.

[21:37] By the time Macleod fell, less than five minutes had passed since the gang first entered the bank.
With the money from the teller’s drawers in hand, they began to put their escape in motion at gunpoint.
The three men forced Treasurer Arnold Macintosh and Teller Joseph Reordan to walk in front of them out of the bag into the Big Packard Auto.
Waiting outside, the three robbers climbed into the car, then grabbed the two hostages by their coats and made them stand on the car’s running boards.
Reordan was thrown free at the end of the first block when the driver took a hard turn.
The others in the car fired a few shots at him, but he rolled safely between a parked car on the curb and waited while they sped out of sight.
Macintosh was in for a wild ride After seeing the gang shootout, Reordan, the middle aged, a spectacle banker held on for dear life in hopes that he wouldn’t be next.
The car flew down Highland Avenue at speeds over 70 miles an hour.
The Globe carried a quote from Macintosh, and what happened next?
As the car came into Needham Heights, I was on the right hand side, and as we neared the Needham Heights fire station, I saw Frank Haddock and Tim Coughlin standing in the driveway on the left side of the car.
Haddock had something in his hand. I thought it was a rifle, although I have since learned that it was not just as they were going by the fire station, they opened up on him with the machine gun.
I saw a haddock fall to the ground.

[23:02] The papers would report that both Officer Haddock and Firefighter Coughlin we’re likely to die. But in the end, Coughlin pulled through.
Frank Haddock did not, becoming the second Needham police officer to be murdered with a Tommy gun that day and just the second ever killed in the line of duty.
After a few more blocks, the car slowed and Macintoshes captors allowed him to jump off.
In the days before police radios and helicopters, they were lost a soon as they took the next turn out of sight.

[23:33] The Thompson submachine gun that the gang had used to blast their way to freedom was a formidable weapon.
It fired deadly 45 calibre pistol bullets at a fully automatic rate of up to 800 rounds a minute.
It was originally developed as a trench broom to help break the stalemate on the western front of World War.
But the war ended just days before it was set to be deployed.
It would later be used extensively by Allied forces. In the Second World War in the twenties and thirties, the Tommy gun became a favorite of the Gangsters involved in rum running and speakeasies, as well as of the law enforcement agencies have fought. HM.

[24:10] In fact, almost a soon as the smoke cleared, investigators realised that the Tommy gun that was used in this shocking crime might have belonged to law enforcement. Until just a few days before the week before the robbery and Needham, there was a big car show in Boston.
It was held at Mechanics Hall, which was basically a convention center located along Huntington Avenue on a lot that’s part of the Prudential Center complex. Today.
As part of the show, the Massachusetts State police set up a large display of the latest high tech police equipment.
They had a teletype and a panel truck that could carry a so called portable radio, which was only portable in so far as to get be crammed into the back of a large panel truck.
They also had a display of the latest police weapons.

[24:56] Early in the morning of January 27 3 men emerged from their hiding spot in the hall.
They’d purchased tickets to the auto show the day before. Then, when nobody was looking, they stash themselves in the back of a van in the basement.
That night, they pulled pistols and rounded up two night watchman.
Well, one man watch the guards. The other two made their way to the state police display and quickly got it. The items they came for.
They got four short barreled shotguns, a tear gas launcher, poison gas grenades and one Thompson submachine gun with 100 round drum magazine.
Police thought the robbery might be related to break ins at sporting goods stores in an armory in the area where more guns have been stolen.
They speculated that the guns were being shipped out to the Midwest to arm the mobsters who made headlines out there.
Sadly, less than a week later, that turned out not to be the case.

[25:51] In the wake of the Needham Trust robbery, three state police detectives, a ballistics expert, a photographer and a fingerprint expert were assigned to bolster needles Meager Police Department.
While the Boston Police Department also sent fingerprint experts, the police had to send out a press release denying rumors that the robbery was carried out by Pretty Boy Floyd, as there was no evidence that the machine gun wielding robber was anywhere near Boston.
The first lead came from a Needham real estate agent.
Frank Hammett had been approached a few days before by three men who said they were interested in running a house in town.
He rode with the three in their Black Packard auto, showing them around Needham and pointing out the available properties.
They gossiped as they drove from. The men kept steering the conversation back to the town’s police department,
asking how many officers they had an expressing surprise when Hammett said that the department had eliminated their teletype machine and declined to outfit patrol cars with radios in order to cut costs.
The description of the car matched the one that had been involved in the chase, and Hammett said that in retrospect, the three were tough looking customers.

[27:01] The next useful clue came from the town of Norwood. The perps had abandoned their car in a quiet road in a heavily wooded area along the Norwood Westwood town line.
Seeking to cover their tracks. They set the big Packard on fire, but there was still enough left for investigators to work with.
They soon made an important discovery. The car hadn’t oversized replacement battery, and a picture of it was printed in the papers.
The owner of a repair shop in Dorchester came forward and said that he recognized the battery is one heat recently installed in a big Black Packard owned by 24 year old of Murton, Millen and his 21 year old brother, Irving of Roxbury.

[27:42] On February 13th police announced that the brothers were wanted as material witnesses in the case.
On February 16 despite the fact that the family home in Roxbury, where Irving lived, and Martin’s Boylston Street apartment were both under surveillance, the two brothers disappeared.
Martin’s new bride, Norma, the 19 year old daughter of a Natick preacher, went along as well.
The millions were off the radar for a week until police searched enormous parentshouse in Natick and found a postcard or mother with a return address at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City on February 25th.
Detective John Stokes in the Massachusetts State Police staked out the Lincoln Hotel along with three detectives from the NYPD and two private detectives.

[28:27] Though they had actually taken a break from the stakeout, they lucked into one of their suspects as they arrived back at the hotel at 3:10 p.m.
Here’s how Detective Stokes told it as we walked into the lobby, we recognized Irving Millen and grabbed him. I grabbed one arm.
He reached for his gun, but was subdued by myself and a New York police officer, John Fitzsimmons.
Irving Weapon was a loaded 32 caliber revolver.
We took him upstairs to a room in the hotel to question him. There. We found several $1000 in bills.
Of these, I can say we’ve found bills which we believe Carrie. Numbers of bills which were stolen from the Needham Trust Company the day the to patrolman were fatally injured while Stokes was upstairs interrogating Irving.
The NYPD detectives downstairs saw Murton and Norma enter those hell.
Detective Fitzsimmons drew his gun, but Murton Millen grabbed it the barrel, and the two men fell to the floor as they struggled over the revolver as they grapple on the floor.
That gun went off in betting a slug in the wall and causing a panic stampede. Among the other guests in the lobby, still locked in combat.
The two men rolled down a flight of stairs until Murton was stopped by a blow to the head from another detective’s nightstick in photos that later ran in the Boston Globe. Murton space is badly bruised, and Irving’s head is wrapped in a bloody bandage.
Norma Millen, who was at first held as a material witness, looks composed, stylish and almost elegant in the arrest photos.

[29:56] Another pair of brothers, Saul and Morris Messenger, who are friends with the Millan’s, were also held as material witnesses.

[30:05] Within a day or two, Norma Millen was released from jail. Her father, Norman Brighton, came to New York City, and Norma was released into his custody as the D. C Evening Star reported.
Before leaving for Boston, Mrs Millen sat silent in a Manhattan hotel room and heard her father, Reverend Norman Brighton, tell police her lust for recklessness got her into this fix.
Mrs. Millen, attractive graduate of a fashionable New England finishing school, listened with downcast eyes. Is her father said.
The first thing I do if I get her out of this fix is toe have her marriage and old.
Five years ago, her sister Thelma, disappeared. We’ve never heard a word from her since then.
Both girls were highly educated. I gave them everything they wanted. I can’t fathom this latest exploits.

[30:53] Reading this passage today, it’s clear that none of the men involved not Norman, not the police, not the reporters had any conception of women as fully formed humans with their own agency.
First, because it was assumed that she must be a victim of Murt Millen, not a co conspirator,
then, because if she was considered innocent, she wasn’t released, but held and turned over to her father like a wayward child and finally, because their father felt that it was his prerogative to have her marriage and old.

[31:23] While the melons were being arrested in New York, Massachusetts state police in Boston police plan to raid on the garage and Dorchester that the brothers had rented.
The night of the arrests in New York, Boston police used sledgehammers to knock down the door of the garage.
Inside, they found the shotguns, grenades and gas launcher that have been stolen from the state police display at the auto show.
There was also a cache of other weapons, mostly pistols and a large stockpile of ammunition.
Under a pile of newspapers. They found a supply of dynamite, and they’re blasting caps in a burlap bag nearby.
The one thing that seemed to be missing was the stolen Tommy gun.

[32:03] The next day, police in Washington, D. C. Were asked to follow up on a lead in the Needham Trust case.
The search of Murt enormous room with the Lincoln Hotel in New York turned up the key to a safe deposit box and claim checks for the luggage office at Union Station, just blocks from the U. S. Capitol building.
Detective Sergeant John Wise went to the station and retrieved two suitcases that have been left by the millions.
The Washington D. C Evening star reports what was found inside. Open to police headquarters.
The suitcases were found to contain a submachine gun, two sawed off shotguns, five pistols, ammunition for all the weapons, a gas mask and six tear gas bombs,
two masks and a quantity of men’s clothing, along with $100 in $1 bills.

[32:51] Finally, the stolen police Tommy Gunn was back in police hands, and it would soon be back in the hands of Massachusetts State Police Detective Stokes hot off his capture. The millions in New York preceded the Washington on February 28th.
There he learned that the millions and enjoyed quite a stopover in D. C before moving to New York.
It arrived on February 20th staying briefly at a hotel before signing a six month lease on an apartment on 16th Street near Rock Creek Park in Northwest D. C.
Right after signing the lease, they hopped on a train back to New York, so it’s hard to tell what their intentions were.

[33:28] Stokes in the D. C. Police followed the millions tracks across the city.
They searched the 16th Street apartment, finding clothing and personal effects, but nothing incriminating.
Next they went toe. Hamilton National Bank, where the key seized in New York, matched a safe deposit box that had been rented by two brothers.
Using the names Murt and Grudge Nelson.
Inside, detectives found $4730 which was turned over to the U. S Marshal Service to hold his evidence until the trial, the guns that have been found at Union Station were given to Detective Stokes.
The evening star described how he was preparing to leave for Boston with a veritable arsenal seized in Union Station, where have been checked by the millions when things got too hot for them.
In Massachusetts, the exact time of his departure was kept secret since police feared the large assortment of arms you will carry my proven attraction to Gangsters.
It contains submachine guns, automatic shotguns, revolvers and tear gas bombs.
He also brought the family’s personal effects were found in the apartment, arriving back in Boston on March 1st.

[34:35] After their success in locating the millions through the postcard Norma center mother, police decided to take another look at the Millen Families correspondence at the family home in Roxbury. They found letters from the brothers to their parents, but no New York postmarks.
They soon discovered that the brothers were sending mail to a friend in Boston, and the friend would then put the mail into a fresh envelope and send it to their parents.
Unfortunately for the friend, he was using his real name and return address.
Abraham Favor, the owner of the Columbus Avenue radio repair shop with the Millions Works, was arrested as an accomplice while the police were out gathering physical evidence in New York and Washington.
Detectives back in Boston were interrogating Abe favor, and he didn’t hold out for long.
25 year old Abe was arrested on February 26th and by the next morning he was singing like a canary.
He started by confessing that he had been involved in the Needham hold up along with the Mylan’s, but soon he was tying them to previously unrelated murders in Lynn and Fitchburg.
Back in December 1933 Ernest Clark, the owner of a sporting goods store in Fitchburg, have been killed in a robbery gone wrong.
Abe Faber told the chief of the Fitchburg police that he and the Melons had planned to take Clark prisoner and forced him to open the store, where they would then be able to steal more guns and more ammunition.

[35:57] The Millen brothers and myself went to Fitchburg, prepared to rob the Iver Johnson store.
After our arrival, we watched until Clark came out and locked the doors.
We followed him down Main Street in up Blossom Street. We stopped him and asked him for directions to an imaginary address.
We plan to induce him or force him into the automobile, get the keys to the store and steal the weapons and ammunition.
When he refused to, he was shot. Later, when he came back toward the city proper, we saw him talking to another man.
Then we decided to take care of both of them.
They ran and we shot at them again.
He didn’t stop there. In January, there have been a robbery at the Paramount Theater in Lynn.
Two men came in a side door just after the theater opened for the day, rounding up all the employees at gunpoint.
1/3 robber with a shotgun joined them while they waited for the manager with the key to the safe to show up.
One janitor was shot and wounded with a 22 caliber target pistol when he tried to run and another employee was shot and killed in an argument with his captors.
In the end, the bandits made off with less than $200 most of it in coins.

[37:08] By the time favor started talking. Police believe that they had already solved that case, and two taxi drivers are on trial for the crime in a Salem court.
In fact, the case seemed to be open and shut. The newspapers were openly speculating that the men would go to the electric chair.
Ballistics had matched the bullets used at the Paramount Theater to the ones used to kill Ernest Clark and Fitchburg.
And Faber told authorities that they would match a target pistol recovered from the train station in Washington, D. C.
Probably a good thing for the two cabbies that favor got himself arrested.

[37:40] At first, Abe favor might seem an unlikely match for the Millen brothers.
Faber was a 1931 graduate of M I T. With a degree in aeronautical engineering and a passion for electronics.
The Globe reported that he’d been offered positions designing aircraft parts. After graduation, he turned them down to open an electronics shop near the Cadet Armory at Park Plaza.
Both Murt and Irv Millen worked in favor store, which only makes sense once you know that Murt, Millen and Abe favor have been classmates at English high.
Murt was the oldest surviving child of immigrant parents, who changed their name from Mordechai to Millen.
After leaving Russia in the 18 nineties, the family settled in Roxbury in 11 room house living a comfortable lifestyle.
Murt nerves. Father Joe was frequently abusive, and Murt seems to have taken the brunt of it.
He was known as the family wild Child, talking back to his parents and teachers, getting into trouble in and out of school.
He grew up strong and stocky, with a quick wit and plenty of charisma.
Irv, by contrast, was a quiet boy, and some profiles have suggested that it might have been developmentally challenged.
By all accounts, he looked up to his older brother as a hero.

[38:57] One of the people charmed by Murt charisma was Abe favor in a profile? The brothers judge our mark, Kantrowitz says.
For Boston English high school classmate Abraham favor the tough talking, quick acting. Murt possessed all the qualities Abe lacked.
Timid and shy, Abe also had a noticeable twitch, could not look one in the eye and had few friends.
The three were nearly inseparable, his team’s. Then they went their separate ways. When Abe went off to college.
Besides excelling in his studies, Abe joined the M I T pistol team and the ROTC, becoming a crack shot.

[39:35] The three friends reunited after Abe graduated and open his electronics shop. They didn’t keep to the straight and narrow for very law.
Nobody’s sure why they decided to turn to crime, but they began plotting some time in 1932.
Most of the robberies they eventually pulled off showed a high degree of forethought at the Paramount Theater. They knew which employees had keys to the safe.
And when the beat cop would walk down the block at the Needham Trust, they knew the commuter train could screen them from responding police.
And they knew to go after the teller’s drawers instead of the vault.
They started making these plans long before their first heist, and at the same time Abe Faber set out to teach the melons how to shoot.
After their arrests, the head of the Massachusetts State Police would announce, We have information now that the two melons have been practicing for some time with different weapons, pistols and machine guns, so that they have become expert shots.
We’ve located their shooting range in woods near western. There’s a fair sized tree out there, practically shut away by 22 bullets.

[40:41] The crime spree started in earnest in the winter of 1932 to 1933.
During that time, they twice robbed the Oriental Theater in Mattapan Square, and they robbed the Palace Theater in Work Worchester.
During that time, they twice robbed the Oriental Theater in Mattapan Square, and they robbed the Palace Theater in Worcester.
No other robberies air attributed to them until the robbery of the Iver Johnson store in Pittsburgh that December.
Perhaps they decided to put their crimes on hold because Murt was in love.
On Labor Day weekend in 1933 Norma Brighton was a senior at Natick I.
She played the lead role in the class play, and her classmates voted our prettiest in the senior superlatives For the holiday weekend. She was dancing at an an task it Beach nightclub.
Murt Millen was also there, and she was immediately taken with the older man.
He was charming, seemed worldly, and, thanks to his burgeoning life of crime, he had money to spend on courting.
He introduced her to cigarettes and booze, told her to worry less about the future and live for the moment and just generally swept her off her feet.
Within three months, they were married.

[41:56] Well, Murt was a newlywed. The gang continued the crime spree, and the key question after they got caught was whether Norma was an active participant or not.
While the brothers were waiting to be taken back to Boston, Headlines in the Boston Globe screamed, Irving Millen confesses to save Norma and Faber.
Younger Millen brothers reputed a mission of Needham crime names. Murton is gunner who killed policemen.
Both are ready to go to the chair to say favor from that feat and also despaired. Bride, Ordeal of trial.
Irving Call slain officers fools.

[42:30] By this time, the press was reporting that Norma probably was involved in the crimes, at least to some degree.
For example, the Globe said, police declared that the involvement of Norma grows more and more pronounced, and the probability that she will face trial with the trio seems likely.
If Norma would potentially face capital charges, Irving was willing to talk to police in order to alleviate this suspicion in front of New York detectives and Stokes from the Massachusetts State Police.
He allegedly said that he realized that he would have to go to the electric chair no matter what.
Though he considered himself doomed, he wanted to clarify that his sister in law, Norma, had nothing to do with the robberies and murders and Abe a gun along with robberies but had not shot anyone.

[43:16] Much like Faber had. In his own confession, Irving managed to implicate the trio in a new crime that hadn’t previously been linked to the gang.
Among the weapons police recovered was a standard police issue revolver owned by the Worcester cops.
Irving admitted to stealing it during a theater robbery there.
Speaking of police weapons, he also admitted to stealing the Tommy Gun and other weapons from the Boston car show. But that case already seemed airtight before the confession between Irv in a.
They’d confess to so many crimes that a state police spokesman seemed to develop an overactive imagination, saying that the three men might be responsible for over 70% of all crime in the Commonwealth.
For the past year, that might have been just a bit of an exaggeration, and besides, Irving refused to sign his confession, likely making it inadmissible in court.

[44:08] On March 1st, Massachusetts Governor Joseph Eli formally signed extradition papers for the brothers on Monday morning. The fifth, an extradition hearing, was held in New York, officially transferring custody of the Millen brothers to Massachusetts.
They boarded a train that night for Dedham because authorities were afraid of mob violence against the brothers if they were taken to Needham.
In a book about Dedham history, James Par describes the brother’s arrival back into Massachusetts the next morning.

[44:37] On March 6th, 1934 the famed passenger train from New York to Boston, the Yankee Clipper made its first ever stop at the Reedville station.
Ah crowd of several 1000 eagerly awaited the train’s arrival that afternoon, hoping to get a glimpse of two of its passengers.
Thes passengers were neither glamorous movie stars nor brave adventurers arriving to a hero’s welcome.
The train was carrying two young Roxbury brothers accused of robbing a Needham bank and shooting two policemen in cold blood.
They’ve been captured in New York and were on their way to the Norfolk County Jail to await their trial for robbery and murder.
Interestingly, the first time I ever heard of the Millen brothers was searching through the Boston Public Library’s Flickr account.
I was looking for photos of Reedville Station. My local commuter rail stop back when it had an actual includes station building.
One of the photos I found showed the station building. An outside stood a row. Four uniformed police officers holding shotguns at the ready.
The photo by Leslie Jones was captured. Millen brothers brought back from New York to reveal station.

[45:41] That may be curious, and now you’re listening to the result.
Parkinson use. After pulling into the station on time, Murton Millen, 23 Irving Millen, 21 emerged from their railroad car under heavy guard, the mob greeting them with a chorus of boos and hisses.
Soon a convoy of some 40 cars was making its way across town, sirens wailing and horns blasting.
The approaching noise of the caravan brought dozens of Spectators outdoors as it made its way down High Street toward Dedham Square.
They’re the bystanders, watched an amusement is the lead car stopped at the intersection of high in Washington streets to acquire of the traffic officer John Keegan. Directions to the jail.
Even more astonishing was when Keegan jumped on the running board of the lead car and lead the caravan the few blocks to the jail.
They’re the brothers joined their accused accomplice, 25 year old M. I T graduate Abraham Favor, who’ve been captured earlier.
Now Abe, Irv and Murt were reunited in the dead of jail.
After all these interrogations, Zen conflicting confessions, you have to imagine it might have been a very tense time in the old cellblock.

[46:52] Dedham at this time was a quiet suburb at the very end of Boston. Streetcar lives.
It may not have been quite a sleepy is Needham, but it was close.
The Millen Faber gang is, the press began calling them was big news, and hordes of reporters, photographers and gawkers descended on Dedham Square, where the Norfolk County Courthouse stood.
Luckily, this wasn’t dead ums First Rodeo. As we discussed back in Episode 12 Sacco and Vanzetti trial was held in the same courthouse.
If I could handle the international media circus of that trial that could handle the regional or perhaps national coverage attracted by the Millen favor gang that theory would be tested. Is the Millen favor Gang gained more and more notoriety in the coming weeks.
Both Millen Sze pled not guilty by reason of insanity, leading to competing mental health experts arguing for their pet theories and trying to destroy each other’s professional reputations.
From the witness stand, Abe’s fiance, Rose Neller, testified against him, saying that he’d given her a large packages a wedding present.
But she opened it after his arrest and discovered that it was full of stolen cash.
Reporters and curious members of the public would dress in suits and carry briefcases and hopes of passing his attorneys and getting into the sealed courtroom.
And Newsboys hawk their latest editions. Among the crowd that inevitably gathered outside the courthouse to watch the gag shackled three abreast get led back to the jail van at the end of the day’s proceedings.

[48:19] Throughout this media circus, Norma Millen seemed to just eat up the attention.
She was photographed shopping, cooking a meal in her father’s house and walking her dog after a late season snowstorm.
In most of the pictures, she strikes model like poses, gazing at the camera with a smoky eye.
She was clearly having a good time, but that would come to an end when she was re arrested as an accessory after the fact to murder her trial would begin after Abe Murton, Irv, We’re done.
After a record setting 37 day trial a full week longer than the first Sacco and Vanzetti trial, all three defendants were found guilty June 9th 1934.
The Associated Press described the scene. Murton Millen, the leader, leered as he heard the verdict.
His brother, Irving, described as a tool of his brother, took his medicine smiling.
Abraham Favor heard the verdict. With eyes downcast and head bowed, a crowd of 2000 persons swarmed about the courthouse when the verdict was returned.
State troopers maintained order and kept alert. Watch inside the courtroom there was cheering when the verdicts were announced.

[49:32] Sentencing was postponed until after enormous trial which was set to begin on June 20th.
After a few days of testimony, Norma took the stand in her own defense, saying that she’d been enthralled by Murt Millen and couldn’t act on her own behalf.
The jury did not buy it.
After deliberating for seven hours, much longer than the jury that hurt her fiancee’s case, Norma Brighton Millen was found guilty on three charges that carried a maximum sentence of 21 years in state prison.
The Associated Press again describes her return to the dead, um jail. After being sentenced to one year.
Norma walked from the courtroom in the courthouse, maintaining her composure back to the jail. She went under the same roof with her husband. She could not ask for comfort.
Murton, who’d beseeched the guard during the waiting hours for news of progress of the trial, was simply told that she was back.
It was answer enough. He turned toward the wall in his cot, jail attendant said, and tears that eight weeks of his own trial and not produced were visible on his hard, steady eyes.

[50:39] At the time, people found an astonishing that a woman would be convicted of a serious crime.
An editorial in the Oakland Tribune in August 1934 titled Beauty Doesn’t Count in Court, used enormous case as an example of the changing times.
Pretty face is no longer mean anything to murder Juries. Facts, not feminine charm now influence their minds.
Long sentences and death penalties. Air given to the fair sex with his much cold blooded deliberation Is there meted out to defendants of the male persuasion.
This is his true of Juries, comprised solely of men, as it is of those composed partly of women.
The beauty and childish charm of Norma Brighton Millen, daughter of a clergyman, could not save her from conviction for complicity in the murders and robberies of her husband, Murton Millen, Condemned to death it dead a mess for the killing of two policemen on the robbery of a bank.
Neither her extreme youth she’s only 19 nor her beauty, which is outstanding, touch the emotions of the 12 men who heard her testimony.
There was a time, not many years ago, enormous, tearful story related on the stand would have moved any American jury to return it a freedom amid the cheers of the onlookers.
But no more women must remain sinless in the eyes of the world or suffer the consequences.

[51:58] While papers marveled over the one year sentence Norma received. Murt Irving Abe were all sentenced to die in the state’s electric chair, a Charlestown.
Interestingly, at the same time the trial of the Millen Faber gang was making headlines, a national gun control debate was making headlines in the very same papers.
No, the gang had stolen the Tommy gun they used to murder the two police officers.
There was no federal law restricting ownership of automatic weapons at the time, anyone could go out and buy a similar submachine gun if they could find a gunshot that carried them.
As we read up on this, the similarities to the current debate around semi automatic assault rifles are striking.
First, the marketing for the Tommy Gun was almost identical to that for guns like the AR 15 today.
Despite the military origin of the weapon, they were advertised for hunting and home defense, one magazine ad said.
The Thompson submachine gun, the ideal weapon for the protection of large estates, ranches, plantations, et cetera, others advertised as the weapon that bandits fear the most.
Another ad says sportsman attention. The Thompson submachine gun fires full automatically from the shoulder at the rate of 1000 shots per minute very highly recommended for big game hunting.

[53:18] Then there’s the fact that these military weapons made headlines and sensational crimes, leading to public calls for laws keeping them out of civilian hands.
The American public was being in none dated with new stories about brutal gangland killings using Tommy guns similar to how we see a constant drumbeat of mass shootings carried out with assault rifles.
The Millen Faber Gangs case, along with many others, was used as an argument for new restrictions.
The fact that the millions didn’t need a permit to purchase guns was brought up in arguments for a new state firearms law where the brothers were still on trial.
The current law only applied to pistols, and it was proposed to amend it to require a permit for long guns as well, with the proposed language saying,
firearms includes a pistol, revolver, machine gun or any other weapon of any description loaded or unloaded from which a shot or bullet could be discharged.
With the new law, anyone buying or renting a gun of any length would need a permit.
As you can imagine, gun rights groups protested, The Globe reported on a hearing at the State House.
The fact that the Millen brothers and Abe favor would have found it easy to obtain pistol licenses in view of their previous good records.
What’s brought out by representative John Whalen of Brockton.
Chief Rutherford agreed that the men, who are now under arrest on charge of many robberies and murders, might have been able to secure permits to carry guns from the police.

[54:45] An interest group lobbyist tried it out yet another familiar argument.
The bill only imposes restrictions on law abiding citizens, Alfred M. Dow, representing the South Shore Rifle and Pistol League, said, without in any way doing anything to correct crime conditions.

[55:02] These are basically the same arguments we hear today against a renewed assault weapons ban.
The difference, of course, is that legislators in the 19 thirties weren’t afraid to act.
State regulations were tightened somewhat, and then the federal government stepped in.
In 1934 Congress passed the National Firearms Act, one of the first pieces of federal gun control legislation,
inspired by gangland crimes like the ones carried out by the millions, as well as an attempted assassination of FDR 1933.
The legislation required excise taxes and registration for certain types of guns were considered particularly dangerous. A reprehensible the law effectively banned sawed off shotguns, short barreled rifles, silencers and, of course, machine guns.
The Tommy gun would be legal no longer.

[55:54] Despite the protests of interest groups and so called sportsman, the new legislation didn’t seem too negatively impact anyone in Massachusetts the day it went into effect, the Globe wrote.
No machine guns except those in the possession of the state and city police departments were registered with the collector of internal revenue at the federal building yesterday, when the last day allows for registering firearms under the National Firearms Act without becoming liable for $2000 in fines,
or five years imprisonment or both.
No banks or money express agencies registered any weapons in Boston because it was explained at the collector’s office.
The shotguns and rifles used by the banks have barrel’s longer than 18 inches.
On the other hand, several handy burglar guns were registered by private watchman or detective agencies.
These guns, sometimes called sawed off shotguns, can be concealed on the person.

[56:46] Throughout the gun control debates that they helped spark. Irv Abe and Murt sat in jail in Dedham, waiting their turn on the state’s death row.
There are a few reports of half hearted escape attempts. One of the brothers made a rush for a door that a guard left briefly unlocked and got tackled.
The other made an attempt to grab the revolver from the holster of a visiting police officer. None of these got the gang much more than a nightstick to the head.
However, an escape attempt utilizing help from the outside was successful enough to at least get the group back on the front pages of the local papers and the wee hours in the morning.
On January 10th 1935 a neighbour telephoned the dead and police to report a man with a gun standing on top of the wall surrounding the exercise yard at the dead in jail,
the man, who turned out to be a 22 year old acquaintance of the Millen brothers named Edward Fry, had climbed up a telephone pole outside the jail yard, then tied a rope ladder to the top of the wall and climb down.
He made his way to the window of Irv Cell, hit a revolver and the I V of the jails outside wall so one of the brothers could use it during the anticipated escape, then climbed up high enough to catch Irv Zay from his cell.
Irving Millen gestured it fry toe. Wait a while.
Meanwhile, as the sun came up, the Boston Globe tells us how the plot began to unfold inside the jail.

[58:09] When guard John Mata entered the cell, Irving tossed Pepper carefully, say, for such an emergency over a period of weeks into his face, blinded him and then leapt upon him.
Unable to see, Mata shouted for aid and threw himself forward carrying Irving to the floor.
Shoot! Shouted Irving, while Murton shook the bars of the iron door and shouted over my cell over myself.
Fry, who’d been hiding inside the jail yard, smashed a window outside the cell with a sawed off 16 gauge shotgun and took aim.

[58:41] However, with all the excitement fries, aim wasn’t true. He missed the guard matter, instead shooting out the lights and peppering Irving with birdshot.
Another guard ran under the cellblock and subdued Irv, while Fry beat a hasty retreat back over the prison wall on the rope ladder, thanks to the neighbors, call Dedham.
Officers soon had him under arrest, for I would claim that the plot was a one man show,
armed with a sawed off shotgun but for 7 50 in the North End and carrying a revolver, ammunition and a rope ladder, he had taken the trolley cars to Dedham and walk to the jail.

[59:17] The timing of the pepper seemed to be too fortuitous, and police immediately suspected that Fry had help from the outside.
In April 2 more Millen siblings were arrested. The police allege that their sister, Mary Millen Goodman, gave Edward Fry money and drove him to the West End to buy the shotgun that he later cut down and carried into the jail yard.
Brother Harry Millen then drove fried of the dead in jail and circled the neighborhood while he waited for the prisoners to emerge.
The town of Dedham requested that the utility companies relocate the pole that it allowed fry such easy access to the jails wall.
But it was a moot point for the Millen favor guy as Irv Murton Abe Raul moved to death row in April at 4:50 a.m.
On April 18th 1935 the three men were led on to a prison bus, shackled and had actual balls and chains affixed to their ankles.
Wary of another attempted rescue, the bus was packed with guards, and four heavily armed state troopers rode in each of two cars that accompanied the bus on his trip from Dedham to Charlestown.
Upon crossing the town line into Boston. Several bpd patrol cars also packed with heavily armed officers join the convoy.
They arrived in Charlestown and were processed in awaiting an anticipated April 28th execution date.

[1:00:37] That date was pushed back a few times is the gang’s appeals work their way through the courts? But everything seemed to be resolved by the first week of June.
That week, Abe Faber filed a last minute suit against the Charlestown warden for false imprisonment that was instantly dismissed.
The same day, the Millen brothers announced that they would not request executive clemency, preferring to die than spend a life in prison.

[1:01:01] Just after midnight on June 7th, 1935 the sentences for the Millen Faber gang ran their course on death row.
Murton have been placed in cell number one Irving and number two and Abe and number three, and that was the order that they were executed. Then that night, the Millen brothers made out their wills.
Irving left his earthly possessions, which were few to his parents, while Murton left an estate worth up to $2000 to Norma.
Murt also wrote a long farewell note to Norma, which he gave to an attorney to pass to her in the dead of jail.
Faber spent much of the night in prayer with Rabbi Moses Setter, who was a chaplain in the state penitentiary at midnight.
Murton Millen was led from the number one, So he paused before the cell doors of number two and number three, shaking hands with Irving in Abe and saying to each, We will meet again.
He asked his attorney to help Norma in her parole hearings, and they came up and asked to have his body cremated.
Then he entered the death chamber and gave no last words.
He was strapped to the chair. Electrodes were placed on his head and 2000 volts of electricity were passed through his body. At 12 05 and 20 seconds, he was pronounced dead at 12 10.

[1:02:20] Little brother, Irving was the next to die well. Murton had worked on his will and favor prayed.
Irving had spent much of the night singing popular songs and asking guards to sing along with him.
His attorney question is competency to suffer the death penalty to the end, describing his last visit with the condemned.
As I turned to come out, I glanced back and Brody Irving’s nickname, struck out his arms and said, So long, Mr Harvey, he had a broad grand.
I broke down. I’m sorry for that, kid. Irv was let into the chamber at 12 13 pronouncing the last words.
All I can say is, I salute my brother Murton.
It took seven minutes after the first current passed through his body before he was pronounced dead.

[1:03:08] Abe favor was the last. When it was time to leave a cell, he shook the attorneys hand and said, I’m resigned to my fate.
Life is life and death is death. I am ready.
He worked cap until the last possible moment, preferring to keep his head covered while he prayed with Rabbi said are when it was time to affix the electrodes to his head. The cap was carefully hung up behind him.
The switch was thrown at 12 26. He was dead within four minutes.
If all that sounds clinical, this note might give you pause. Each of the condemned men required multiple shocks before they died.
Murton was electrocuted four times, Irving five times and Abe, also four times.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Globe notes that it became necessary to adjust the electrodes on Irving’s head twice.

[1:04:01] On June 9th, each of the defendants was interred as executed criminals.
A rabbi did not preside over the funeral’s rather irreverent, which was a title and scattered use among Reform Judaism at the time, indicating a clergyman who’d not attained the rank of rabbi led the funerals.
Abe favor was up first, Ah, her spot his body to the family home on Blue Hill Avenue, where Mourners quickly formed a funeral procession and drove to the Jewish cemetery on Grove Street on the West Roxbury Dedham town line.
At the graveside, this small group of mortars was surrounded by a larger group of curious onlookers, some of whom jeered when the reverend led prayers.
Fights broke out between the family and onlookers and only a strong Boston police presence prevented a riot.
The unrest and a heavy rain kept the ceremony short, and the service was finished in 20 minutes.

[1:04:55] The millions were up next. Their bodies were laid out at the family home in Roxbury, and mortars were welcomed inside.
Soon, thousands gathered to gawk at the spectacle. They tried to force their way into the house and were stopped by uniformed bpd officers at the doors.
The viewing was cut short, and the funeral party proceeded to the Baker Street Jewish cemeteries on the West Roxbury Newton town line.
Apparently ignoring Martin’s request to be cremated. The brothers were taken to a plot in the Puritan section of the cemetery.
This party was larger than the one that favors interment, but there was also a crowd of at least 250 Spectators.
Again, the Spectators cheered, but this time the two sides were more evenly matched. The situation turned into a complete free for all for about 15 minutes until police arrived to separate the rioters.
After the excitement died down, the brothers were buried with spot mark today by a double headstone that’s carved in both Hebrew and English.

[1:05:53] Well, that was the end of the story from the Millen brothers and Abe favor. It was the beginning of a new chapter for Norma Brighton Millen.
She got the news of her husband’s death while she was still serving her year. Att! The Dedham Jail.
She was excused from a prison duties for the day and cried quietly in her cell while the other prisoners politely ignored her.
Two months after Merton’s death, Norma was given parole. A U P i wire story describes how she was preparing for her release.
Norma Brighton Millen, pretty 20 year old daughter of a clergyman and widow of an executed killer, leaves Dedham Jail tomorrow.
She was nervous but happy. She gathered her personal belongings. Preparatory to facing the world anew.
The violet eyed Norma hoped to take up her former life. At the point, it was broken by your ill fated marriage to the machine gun bandit Murton Millen,
Her father was quoted saying that she would be going either on a camping trip to New Hampshire or a tour of the Midwest to enjoy some peace and quiet, the article continues.
No jail pallor marks Norma’s finally chiseled beauty since spring. She has spent as much time as possible exercising in the jail yard.
Her skin has taken on a light tan, and her cheeks are tinged with readiness.

[1:07:08] I couldn’t find many details enormous life after her release, but one profile makes it sound as if she was never again as happy as she was with Murt.
The article by Judge Mark Kantrowitz says Norma later married and had a son.
She died of acute alcoholism in 1964 at age 48.
Shortly thereafter, her son, who had mental problems and was institutionalized, murdered a fellow patient. He killed himself a year later.

[1:07:37] How’s that for a happy ending toe? Learn more about the Millen Faber gang.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 170 We’ll have links to a huge number of newspaper articles about the gang, their crimes, the trial and their eventual execution and burial.
We’ll also have photographs of the gang arriving in Reedville after being extradited from New York, diagrams of their attempt to break out of the dead in jail and advertisements for the Thompson submachine gun showing how it was pitched as a great gun for hunting in home defense.
And, of course, we’ll have links to information about our upcoming event and return to our roots from Boston magazine, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.
If you’d like to leave us some feedback, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
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Jake:
[1:09:11] Apple podcasts is far and away the most popular podcast out.
If you subscribe on apple podcasts, please consider writing a PSA brief. Irv you.
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Jake:
[1:09:26] That’s all for now. We’ll be back next week.