Willie Sutton
William Francis "Willie" Sutton, Jr. (June 30, 1901 – November 2, 1980) was
an American bank robber. During his forty-year robber career he stole an estimated
$2 million, and he eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison
and escaped three times. For his talent at executing robberies in disguises, he gained
two nicknames, "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie". Sutton is also known as the
namesake of Sutton's law, although he denied originating it.
Sutton was born into an Irish-American family on June 30, 1901. The family lived on
the corner of Gold and Nassau Streets in the neighborhood of Irishtown, Brooklyn,
now called Vinegar Hill. According to his biography, "Where the Money Was", at the
age of three the family moved to High Street. His father, William Sutton Sr., was a
blacksmith. His mother was Mary Ellen Bowles and, according to the biography, born
in Ireland; however, according to the 1910 U.S. Census, she was born in Maryland and
her parents were born in Ireland. By 1910, she had given birth to five children, of
which three were still alive. According to the 1910 Census, his maternal grandfather,
James Bowles, and his two maternal uncles were also living with the family. Sutton
was the fourth of five children, and did not go beyond the 8th grade of school.
He turned to crime at an early age, though throughout his professional criminal
career, he did not kill anyone. Described by Mafioso Donald Frankos as "a little
bright-eyed guy, just 5'7" and always talking, chain-smoking ... cigarettes with Bull
Durham tobacco." Frankos stated also that Sutton "dispensed mounds of legal
advice" to any convict willing to listen. Inmates considered Sutton a "wise old head"
in the prison population. When incarcerated at "The Tombs" (Manhattan House of
Detention) he did not have to worry about assault because Mafia friends looked
after him. In conversation with Donald Frankos he would sadly reminisce about the
violent and turbulent days in the 1920s and 1930s while he was most active in robbing
banks and would always tell fellow convicts that in his opinion, during the days of Al
Capone and Charles Luciano, better known as Lucky Luciano, the criminal underworld
was the bloodiest. Gangsters from the time period, and many incarcerated organized
crime mafia family leaders and made Mafiosi, loved having Sutton around for
companionship. He was always a gentleman, witty and non-violent. Frankos declared
that Sutton made legendary bank thieves Jesse James and John Dillinger look like
amateurs.
Sutton was an accomplished bank robber. He usually carried a pistol or a Thompson
submachine gun. "You can't rob a bank on charm and personality," he once observed.
In an interview in the Reader's Digest published shortly before his death, Sutton
was asked if the guns that he used in robberies were loaded. He responded that he
never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt. He stole from the rich
and kept it, though public opinion later turned him into a perverse type of Robin
Hood figure. He allegedly never robbed a bank when a woman screamed or a baby
cried.
Sutton was captured and recommitted in June 1931, charged
with assault and robbery. He did not complete his 30-year sentence, escaping on
December 11, 1932, using a smuggled gun and holding a prison guard hostage. With
the guard as leverage, Sutton acquired a 45-ft (13.5 meter) ladder to scale the 30-
ft (9 meter) wall of the prison grounds.
Sutton was apprehended on February 5, 1934, and was sentenced to serve 25 to 50
years in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the machine
gun robbery of the Corn Exchange Bank. On April 3, 1945, Sutton was one of 12
convicts who escaped the institution through a tunnel. Sutton was recaptured the
same day by Philadelphia police officer Mark Kehoe.
Sentenced to life imprisonment as a fourth time offender, Sutton was transferred
to the Philadelphia County Prison, Holmesburg section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On February 10, 1947, Sutton and other prisoners dressed up as prison guards. The
men carried two ladders across the prison yard to the wall after dark. When the
prison's searchlights hit him, Sutton yelled, "it’s okay!" No one stopped him.
Sutton married Louise Leudemann in 1929. She divorced him while he was in jail.
Their daughter Jeanie was born the following year. His second wife was Olga
Kowalska, whom he married in 1933. His longest period of (legal) employment lasted
for 18 months.
A series of decisions by the United States Supreme Court in the 1960s led to his
release on Christmas Eve, 1969, from Attica State Prison. He was in ill health at the
time, suffering from emphysema and in need of an operation on the arteries of his
legs.
Sutton died in 1980 at the age of 79; before this he had spent his last years with
his sister in Spring Hill, Florida. He frequented the Spring Hill Restaurant where he
kept to himself. After Sutton's death, his family arranged a quiet burial in Brooklyn
in the family plot.
