# George "Machine Gun" Kelly: FBI history page

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/fbi-history-machine-gun-kelly/

The FBI's history essay on the 22 July 1933 kidnaping of Charles F. Urschel at Oklahoma City, the ransom of $200,000, the identification of the Shannon farm near Paradise, Texas, the arrest of George and Kathryn Kelly at Memphis, and the prosecutions that followed.

This is the FBI's narrative of the Urschel case. It quotes the ransom letters' demand for "TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ($200,000.00) in GENUINE USED FEDERAL RESERVE CURRENCY," says the serial numbers of the $20 notes were recorded before payment, and describes how agents matched Urschel's recollections of airplane schedules and a rain on July 30 to the area of Paradise, Texas, where Kathryn Kelly's mother, Mrs. Shannon, lived. It says the defendants arrested at Paradise, with Albert Bates and George and Kathryn Kelly, were indicted at Oklahoma City on August 23, 1933.

The page says the Kellys were found at the Memphis residence of J. C. Tichenor and "taken into custody by FBI agents and Memphis police" in the early morning of September 26, 1933. Of the famous phrase it says Kelly "allegedly cried, 'Don't shoot, G-Men! Don't shoot, G-Men!'" and adds, "Whether or not he actually said those words (probably not)." It states that "On October 12, 1933, George and Kathryn Kelly were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment," and that "Twenty-one persons were convicted in this case."

The page gives Kelly's birth as Tennessee, 1897, and his death at Leavenworth on July 18, 1954. The National Archives' Alcatraz records give other dates; the [person page](/people/george-machine-gun-kelly/) sets out the differences. The FBI's account of Kathryn Kelly's part, that she "bought him a machine gun" and gave him his nickname, is the Bureau's statement and is not repeated as fact here.

## Sources

- Federal Bureau of Investigation, History: Cases and Criminals: https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/machine-gun-kelly