Indictment in United States v. Albert Bates, et al., Urschel kidnaping (23 August 1933)

Ten-page federal indictment of 23 August 1933 against Albert L. Bates, George R. Kelly, Kathryn Thorne Kelly, Harvey J. Bailey, the Shannons and others for the conspiracy to kidnap Charles F. Urschel.

Date: 1933-08-23
Kind: case-file
Source: National Archives Catalog
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
NAID: 75815532
Docket: CR10478
Rights: A record of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, held by the National Archives in Record Group 21, Records of District Courts of the United States. A United States government work, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog marks use "Unrestricted." File "10478: United States v. Albert Bates, et. al." (NAID 66383199), series "Criminal Case Files" (NAID 650898), National Archives at Fort Worth.

The National Archives catalogs this item as the indictment of August 23, 1933 in the Urschel kidnaping prosecution, ten page images. The research for this archive records the names in the indictment as Albert L. Bates, George R. Kelly, Kathryn Thorne Kelly, Harvey J. Bailey, R. G. Shannon, Armon Crawford Shannon and Ora L. Shannon, together with Charles Wolk, Sam Kronick, Edward Berman, Peter Valder, Sam Kozberg, Clifford Skelly and Isadore Blumenfeld; the names George C. King and John Brown also appear.

An indictment is an accusation. The outcomes differ by defendant: the Alcatraz notebook pages for Kelly, Bates and Bailey record life sentences for those three and list Wolk and Valder as “dismissed” and Kronick and Blumenfeld as “not guilty.” The FBI’s history page gives the date of the indictment as the same August 23, 1933. The pages were not transcribed for this archive.

item10478: United States v. Albert Bates, et al. (Western District of Oklahoma): the Urschel kidnaping fileNational Archives file unit for the federal prosecution of the Urschel kidnaping at Oklahoma City. The defendants included George R. "Machine Gun" Kelly and Kathryn Thorne Kelly. The filings are catalogued as separate items.itemInstructions to the jury in United States v. Albert Bates, et al. (30 September 1933)The court's forty-page charge to the jury in the first Urschel kidnaping trial at Oklahoma City, dated 30 September 1933.

itemIdentification Order No. 1203: George R. Kelly, "Kidnaping" (14 August 1933)Division of Investigation wanted notice for George R. Kelly, aliases George Kelly and R. G. Shannon, wanted for the kidnaping of Charles F. Urschel at Oklahoma City on 22 July 1933. A copy is stored here.