Detroit Bureau of Investigation letter sending Purple Gang photographs to New York (25 March 1932)

The letter is on the letterhead “U. S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation, 625 Lafayette Building, Detroit, Michigan,” dated March 25, 1932, and addressed to the Special Agent in Charge at New York. It begins: “With reference to the long distance telephone call of this morning concerning the disappearance of CHARLES A. LINDBERGH, JR., there are transmitted herewith photographs of the following persons.” Thirteen names follow with Detroit Police Department numbers: Joe Tocco, Harry Keywell, Phillip Keywell, Irving Milberg, Raymond Burnstein, Abe Burnstein, Joe Burnstein, Charles Leiter, Abe Axler, Sam Axler, Joe Miller, Henry Fletcher and “Harry Fleisher (Circular).” The photographs came from Inspector Charles Carmody of the department’s Identification Division, who “states that Tocco is not a member of the Purple Gang, and as far as he knows, has never been allied with it, directly or indirectly.”

The second page says Harry Keywell was arrested in September 1931 on charges of murder and received a life sentence in January 1932, “since which time he has been confined in the Michigan State Penitentiary at Marquette”; that Phillip Keywell “was sentenced sometime in 1930 to life imprisonment”; that Irving Milberg had been in jail since September 1931 “in connection with the same murder”; and that “Raymond Burnstein, #28545, is the third member of the Purple Gang doing a life sentence in connection with the murder involving Milberg and Keywell.” It goes on: “With the exception of Tocco, all of the persons whose photographs are transmitted are known to be ring leaders of the Purple Gang,” and “Harry Fleisher is the only member of the above outfit who is at present wanted by Michigan authorities.” The letter does not name the killing for which the life sentences were imposed.

The third page lists about fifty more names that Inspector Carmody said made up “the so-called Purple Gang in Detroit,” some with police numbers. The letter spells the surname “Burnstein”; other records spell it Bernstein. It does not say that anyone named was a suspect in the Lindbergh case. The statements about membership are the Detroit police inspector’s and the Bureau’s, as the letter records them.