# Women in the record

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/women/

Women named in federal hearings, court files, FBI records and 1930 newspaper pages, each stated only as far as the filed record goes: witnesses, defendants, a prosecutor, a petitioner, and people the FBI wrote about.

This page gathers women who appear in the primary records filed in this archive: as witnesses before Senate committees, as defendants and petitioners in federal court files, as a federal prosecutor, and as subjects of FBI memoranda and newspaper dispatches. Each paragraph says only what the filed record says. Where an agency or a newspaper characterizes a woman, the words are quoted and attributed, not adopted. No woman is given a family or a rank unless a federal record quoted on her page states one, and none of these records does.

## Virginia Hill

As "Mrs. Virginia Hill Hauser, Spokane, Wash.," she testified under oath to the Kefauver Committee in New York on [15 March 1951](/items/kefauver-p7-hauser-testimony-1951-03-15/) (Part 7, pages 1144 to 1170). She gave her birth year as 1916, said Joe Epstein had held her money for years, declined to name the "Mexicans" she said had given her money, and said of Benjamin Siegel: "Ben is his name. Yes; I got money from him." FBI memoranda in the Siegel file record a [surveillance of Siegel and Hill in September 1946](/items/fbi-vault-siegel-p19-hill-surveillance-memo-1946-09-12/), a [November 1946 recommendation](/items/fbi-vault-siegel-p13-hill-technical-memo-1946-11-18/) to reinstall a "technical" on the two at the Last Frontier Hotel, the [Los Angeles letter](/items/fbi-vault-siegel-p30-los-angeles-letter-killing-1947-07-01/) placing Siegel's shooting at "Virginia Hill's residence," and a [June 1947 memo](/items/fbi-vault-siegel-p28-hill-background-memo-1947-06-23/) citing her own affidavit for a birth date of August 25, 1917, in Bessemer, Alabama. The two birth years are given side by side; neither is set. See [her page](/people/virginia-hill/).

## Mabel Walker Willebrandt

The Supreme Court's printed counsel lines name her on the government's briefs in Prohibition cases: [James Everard's Breweries v. Day](/items/scotus-james-everards-breweries-v-day-1924/) (1924), [Steele v. United States No. 2](/items/scotus-steele-v-united-states-no-2-1925/) (1925), where she is "Assistant Attorney General Willebrandt," [United States v. One Ford Coupe Automobile](/items/scotus-united-states-v-one-ford-coupe-1926/) (1926), which she argued on the original argument, [Lambert v. Yellowley](/items/scotus-lambert-v-yellowley-1926/) (1926) and [United States v. Sullivan](/items/scotus-united-states-v-sullivan-1927/) (1927). In March 1929 the Bureau of Investigation's Director wrote to her about the [Capone contempt inquiry](/items/fbi-vault-capone-p23-willebrandt-contempt-memo-1929/), and in November 1929 a photograph captioned "Succeeds Miss Willebrandt" records [her successor being sworn in](/items/loc-2016889520-youngquist-succeeds-willebrandt-1929/). Her [portrait](/items/loc-2010651718-willebrandt-portrait/) is a Library of Congress print marked "No known restrictions on publication." See [her page](/people/mabel-walker-willebrandt/).

## Kathryn Thorne Kelly

Her [commitment](/items/nara-75815999-kathryn-kelly-commitment-1933/) records that on 12 October 1933 the federal court at Oklahoma City committed her, on an indictment for "wilfully kidnapping and holding for ransom one Chas. F. Urschel," to a federal institution for women "during her natural life," and that the marshal delivered her to the Cincinnati Workhouse on 17 October 1933. The Tenth Circuit [affirmed in 1935](/items/courtlistener-kelly-v-us-76-f2d-847/), holding her claim of her husband's coercion "without support." In [1959](/items/courtlistener-us-v-kelly-shannon-269-f2d-448/) it reversed a district-court order that had vacated her life sentence and that of Ora L. Shannon; the opinion says the two "are mother and daughter," each convicted in 1933. See [her page](/people/kathryn-kelly/).

## Theresa Capone

The 1938 habeas corpus petition for Alphonse Capone, then at Alcatraz, was filed "by THERESA CAPONE, his mother and duly authorized agent, residing in the City of Chicago." She signed it for him and swore to it on 1 April 1938 ([pages 1 to 3](/items/nara-401029959-capone-habeas-alcatraz-1938/); the [whole file](/items/nara-401029959-capone-habeas-alcatraz-1938/)). The petition claimed good-conduct credit that would end his term; that is its assertion, and the outcome is not in the pages read. See [her page](/people/theresa-capone/).

## Stephanie St. Clair

Two December 1930 wire dispatches, public domain by date, report her appearance at the New York inquiry into the magistrates' courts. A United Press story in the [South Bend News-Times of 11 December](/clippings/clip-south-bend-news-times-1930-12-11-p18/) calls her "the policy queen of Harlem" and reports her saying she had been "framed" by the police. An International News Service item in the [Washington Times of 18 December](/clippings/clip-washington-times-1930-12-18-p3/) says she "asserted after leaving Kresel's office that she had paid tribute regularly to magistrates." Both are newspaper reports of her statements; the labels and figures are the papers'. See [her page](/people/stephanie-st-clair/).

## Bonnie Parker, Blanche Barrow, Mary Pitts and the women in the Dallas harboring case

A federal grand jury at Dallas, at the term begun 14 January 1935, [indicted](/items/nara-68884673-us-v-pitts-harboring-8250/) a list of defendants headed by "Mary Pitts, alias Mary O'Dare" for conspiring from May 1933 to May 1934 to violate Section 246, Title 18; the National Archives scope note describes the charge as harboring Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. The women named include Mary Pitts, Billie Mace (alias Billie Parker), Mildred Hamilton, Mrs. Emma Parker, Mrs. Alice Hamilton Davis, Mrs. Cumie Barrow, Marie Francis, Audrey Fay Barrow, Beulah Praytor, Blanche Barrow and Lillian McBride. The indictment says Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow and Buck Barrow are not indicted "for the reason that they have heretofore been killed." The U.S. Attorney's [petition](/items/nara-68884673-us-v-pitts-harboring-8250/) to bring Henry Methvin before the grand jury calls the case United States v. Mary O'Dare et al. The pages state names and aliases only; they do not say how the women were related to anyone, and this archive does not infer it.

## Kate Barker

All that is filed about her is the FBI's own 1936 narrative of the Bremer kidnaping. [Its first page](/items/fbi-vault-bremer-summary-p01-kate-barker-1936/) identifies "Arizona Barker, commonly known as Kate Barker," as the mother of the Barker brothers, born near Ash Grove, Missouri. [Report page 39](/items/fbi-vault-bremer-summary-p40-lake-weir-raid-1935/) gives the Bureau's account of the 16 January 1935 raid at Lake Weir, Florida, in which she and her son Fred were killed: "Kate Barker battled until death." That is the account of the agency whose agents fired; no independent record has been opened, and this archive does not state who fired.

## Edna Murray

The same FBI summary, [page 10](/items/fbi-vault-bremer-summary-p10-edna-murray-1936/), says she was born at Marion, Kansas, on May 26, 1898, and was an early associate of Volney Davis; the next page says she was convicted of a holdup at Kansas City in 1925 and escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary in 1927 and 1931, and that the press called her the "Flapper Bandit" or "Kissing Bandit." No court record of those events has been opened. The page's family details are not carried forward.

## Dolores Delaney

The FBI summary, [page 16](/items/fbi-vault-bremer-summary-p16-dolores-delaney-1936/), names "Alvin Karpis and his moll, Dolores Delaney, sister-in-law of Pat Riley, a Dillinger mobster," among those who left Reno in December 1933, and later pages say the two lived under assumed names at Toledo, Havana and Miami in 1934. "Moll" is the Bureau's word. No record of a charge against her has been opened.

## Judith Exner

A National Archives file in the records of the Assassination Records Review Board is titled ["Exner, Roselli, Giancana, Logs"](/items/nara-655788330-arrb-exner-roselli-giancana-logs/); its first page, a 1997 fax, asks about FBI withholding of references to her "prior to her deposition." The Church Committee's 1975 report writes, without naming anyone, of ["a close friend of President Kennedy"](/items/church-committee-presidents-friend-1975/) who was also a friend of Rosselli and Giancana. The report's text contains neither "Exner" nor "Campbell," and no record opened for this archive says that she was that friend. This archive does not make the connection.

## Arlyne Brickman

She is named once, in Judge Keenan's 1986 ruling in the Colombo family case, [United States v. Persico](/items/courtlistener-us-v-persico-646-f-supp-752/): a defendant's sufficiency argument was a repeat of his jury argument that "Arlyne Brickman, Frank Ancona and FBI surveillance agent Ronald Andachter should not be believed," and the court refers to "the Brickman loan." The opinion says nothing else about her, and neither does this archive.

## Women witnesses before the Kefauver Committee

Besides Virginia Hill, the Kefauver hearings filed here include four other women. Mrs. Charlotte Campagna of Berwyn, Illinois, questioned in Chicago about a tax settlement for her husband, Louis Campagna, [declined to answer](/items/kefauver-p5-campagna-testimony-1950-10-17/) on 17 October 1950 and [returned the next day](/items/kefauver-p5-campagna-testimony-1950-10-18/) to say, "Up to this day I don't know who did it." Mrs. Viola Grosch, former wife of the Orleans Parish criminal sheriff, [testified at New Orleans](/items/kefauver-p8-grosch-testimony-1951-01-26/) on 26 January 1951 that a locked box she kept in their attic held $150,000 when she left. Mrs. Lucille W. Randolph, [city clerk of Gardena, California](/items/kefauver-p10-randolph-testimony-1951-02-27/), produced the city's card-club licensing records on 27 February 1951. Mrs. Lois Higgins, [director of Chicago's Crime Prevention Bureau](/items/kefauver-p14-higgins-testimony-1951-06-26/), presented the city's narcotics-arrest figures on 26 June 1951. Their statements are testimony, not findings. Other women listed in the hearing contents, most of them relatives of male witnesses, have not been read and are not filed.

## What is not here

No photograph of Virginia Hill is used: the Library of Congress print of her at the 1951 hearing carries no "No known restrictions" statement. National Archives index cards under the names Stephanie St. Clair and Edna Murray are not used, because nothing on them ties them to these women. Memoirs, profiles and later journalism are not used.