http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1053791

The Santa Claus Bank Robbery

Late on the chilly Texas evening of December 22, 1927, four men drove calmly away from Wichita Falls in a stolen Buick bound for Cisco, 200 miles to the southeast. They were going to rob a bank. "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery," by noted Texas author/historian and newspaper columnist A.C. Greene, was first published in 1972 by Alfred A. Knopf. A new University of North Texas Press edition has just been released. Tracing the lives and ultimate fates of the doomed quartet, "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery" is a fascinating new look at this classic example of a botched holdup, deadly gun battle, bungled getaway, and the unprecedented manhunt that followed. At 24, Marshall Ratliff was already a veteran crook who should have known better than to hit a bank in a town where he was well known on sight. He should also have guessed that wearing a Santa Claus suit on December 23 would not make him invisible to the droves of busy Christmas shoppers crowding Cisco's bustling main street. Robert Hill and Henry Helms also should have known better, being ex-convicts themselves. When they planned the bank job in a Wichita Falls boarding house, they were fully aware that the Texas State Bankers Association had recently announced a five thousand-dollar bounty for every dead bank robber caught in the act, but "not one red cent for a hundred live ones." But Helms had a wife and children and needed the money, while Hill hungered for the acceptance, adventure and noteriety. Louis Davis, though, was desperate for cash and had no idea what he was getting into when he saw a tempting opportunity to provide a decent Christmas for his huge Wichita Falls family. His first brush with crime became his last when he died from his multiple bullet wounds on Christmas Day. As written, "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery" is also a fascinating glimpse of common life in North Texas at the dawn of the Great Depression. Utilizing a highly detailed novelization technique to recount documented history, Greene makes the era come alive like few authors are able to do, especially in his portrayal of the tough breed of people populating the vast, lonely Texas plains. When Eastland County citizens finally lost patience with Marshall Ratliff and lynched him, after Ratliff shot and mortally wounded a popular Deputy in a failed jail break, their grisly mob actions actually make a certain sense in the face of the otherwise likeable criminal's ruthlessness. That's tough! With a generous selection of photographs, newspaper clippings, and updates on the main characters involved in the infamous crime, including a touching account of Bob Hill's last days before his death in 1996, "The Santa Claus Bank Robbery" is a must-read for anyone interested in those wild Bonnie and Clyde/Pretty Boy Floyd days.

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