A Look Back At The FBI's Hunt For Roger 'The Terrible' Touhy And His Gang

The FBI offers a look back at the hunt for the notorious criminal Roger 'The Terrible' Touhy.

In the early morning hours of December 29, 1942—70 years ago this month—FBI agents surrounded an apartment building on Kenmore Avenue in Chicago filled with a dangerous band of escaped convicts. With searchlights illuminating the building and nearby neighbors evacuated, an agent with a loudspeaker called for the men to surrender. Even Director J. Edgar Hoover was on hand.

... The prison break had taken place nearly three months earlier, on October 9. A group that included Roger “The Terrible” Touhy, Basil “The Owl” Banghart, Edward Darlak, and several other violent criminals escaped from the Stateville Penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois. They had guns smuggled in, cased the prison from all angles, and executed a well-planned break out.

Stealing a guard’s car, they sped away. Hours later, they abandoned the car openly in the middle of a small suburb east of Chicago. It was their signal to the FBI that they didn’t want to take the car across state lines and trigger Bureau jurisdiction. But they didn’t realize that they would soon run afoul of the Selective Service Act. On October 16, one week after the no longer imprisoned criminals failed to register for the draft, the FBI entered the case.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/december/the-hunt-for-roger-the-terrible-touhy-and-his-gang/the-hunt-for-roger-the-terrible-touhy-and-his-gang?utm_campaign=email-Daily&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fbi-top-stories&utm_content=163780