Albert Frederick Nussbaum
Encyclopedia
Albert Frederick Nussbaum (April 9, 1934 – January 7, 1996) was a notorious 1960s-era bank robber and FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive. Nussbaum was born in Buffalo, New York. In the late 1950s, Nussbaum was arrested for possessing a Thompson Submachine gun
and transporting unregistered weapons across state lines.
Nussbaum was sentenced to the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio
. There, he met Bobby Randell Wilcoxson
, originally from Duke, Oklahoma, and Peter Columbus Curry, of Quitman, Georgia
. Wilcoxson was doing time for buying a car with a bad check and then driving it across state lines.
Young Nussbaum was smart. He competed in chess tournaments by correspondence from his Ohio jail cell. He was an expert photographer, locksmith and gunsmith
, he was also a pilot, an airplane mechanic, a welder and a draftsman
.
with a plan to rob banks. The FBI would eventually label Nussbaum "the brains" of the team while Wilcoxson was marked as "the brawn." They knocked over a few local stores and service stations in Buffalo to raise seed money for an arsenal of weapons they would soon use robbing banks. Nussbaum and "One Eye" Wilcoxson allegedly robbed at least eight banks from 1960 to 1962, hauling in at least $250,000 - the rough equivalent of $2.8 million in 2008.
Nussbaum and Wilcoxson acquired deactivated military weapons called "Dewats". With parts they acquired by mail order, they refurbished the weapons. Their cache of munitions included revolver
s, shotgun
s, submachineguns, hand grenade
s, M1 carbine
military rifle
s and military-style armor-piercing anti-tank guns that could annihilate pursuing police cars or pierce bank vault
s.
Nussbaum taught himself to make pipe bomb
s. He and Wilcoxson posed as "Mad Bombers," setting off two bombs in Washington DC on June 15 and 16, 1961. They made several telephone calls pretending to be southern white supremists bombing the Capitol in protest of integration and the civil rights movement. The bombings were planned to distract law enforcement manpower near the White House
so a Washington, DC bank could be easily robbed on June 30.
On December 15, 1961, Curry joined Wilcoxson and Nussbaum to rob a branch of the Lafayette National Bank in Brooklyn
, New York. Wilcoxson entered the bank and killed guard Henry Kraus with four quick shots from a Thompson Submachine gun. Curry was arrested in front of his mother’s house by the FBI in February, 1962. The FBI named Wilcoxson to the famous "Most Wanted List" on February 23, 1962 and Nussbaum on April 3, 1962. The FBI circulated over 1 million "wanted" posters and interviewed over 9,000 in New York state alone. The FBI declared the bandits as dangerous, warning the pair were armed with hand-grenades and 25 submachine guns. "They will not hesitate to open fire," the posters warned. 600 FBI agents searched worldwide for Nussbaum, Wilcoxson and Wilcoxson’s 19 year old "paramour," Jacqueline Ruth Rose of Paoli, Indiana, and Delray Beach, Florida.
On November 4, 1962, Nussbaum’s mother-in-law informed the FBI that Nussbaum was in Buffalo to secretly visit his wife and infant daughter. More than 30 FBI cars surrounded the Statler Hilton Hotel at 1 am on November 4, 1962, as Nussbaum arrived, expecting to pick up his wife, Alicia Nussbaum somehow signaled her husband and he raced out of the hotel parking lot, leading a parade of FBI agents on a 100 mph chase through the cold, wet streets of Buffalo. A police dog catcher rammed Nussbaum’s car and the FBI arrested him. Mid morning on November 10, 1962, Wilcoxson and Rose were captured in Baltimore
, Maryland
.
By May, 1963, Nussbaum pled guilty to the murder of bank guard Kraus and seven bank robberies. On February 8, 1964, Nussbaum was sentenced to 40 years in prison with eligibility for parole
in 1971.
writer of the day. Nussbaum, using the name "Carl Fisher," called Marlowe’s agent and sent Marlowe letters praising the realness of the book. Marlowe and Nussbaum remained friends while Nussbaum was imprisoned. Marlow encouraged Nussbaum to write and the two often collaborated - Nussbaum providing Marlowe with professional criminal techniques that added even more realism to Marlowe’s body of work. While still in prison, Nussbaum wrote film reviews for the Montreal-based film magazine Take One
. He was paroled in the early 1970s, and lived with Marlowe, serving as his caretaker when Marlowe took ill. Nussbaum wrote a lot. He published as Al Nussbaum and at least a half-dozen pseudonyms. Nussbaum published many short stories that appeared in Ellery Queen
’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock
’s Mystery Magazines and Alfred Hitchcock’s anthologies of short stories. Nussbaum published several novels - "Gypsy," the most well known, was published by Scholastic Press
under the title "Motorcycle Racer." In the mid-1970s, Nussbaum wrote television script
s for "Switch," a CBS crime series featuring Robert Wagner
and Eddie Albert
. In the 1980s, Nussbaum put on workshops for mystery writers at USC, and he was elected president of a Southern California Chapter of the Mystery Writer’s Association. Albert Fredrick Nussbaum died in 1996.
Thompson submachine gun
The Thompson is an American submachine gun, invented by John T. Thompson in 1919, that became infamous during the Prohibition era. It was a common sight in the media of the time, being used by both law enforcement officers and criminals...
and transporting unregistered weapons across state lines.
Nussbaum was sentenced to the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio
Chillicothe, Ohio
Chillicothe is a city in and the county seat of Ross County, Ohio, United States.Chillicothe was the first and third capital of Ohio and is located in southern Ohio along the Scioto River. The name comes from the Shawnee name Chalahgawtha, meaning "principal town", as it was a major settlement of...
. There, he met Bobby Randell Wilcoxson
Bobby Randell Wilcoxson
Bobby Randell Wilcoxson was born July 10, 1929, in Duke, Oklahoma. He was well respected as an efficient crew foreman in the lettuce fields of the Salinas Valley in California, because he spoke Spanish and intimidated laborers. He worked in the produce business in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas...
, originally from Duke, Oklahoma, and Peter Columbus Curry, of Quitman, Georgia
Quitman, Georgia
This article is about the Georgia city. For the county in the same state see Quitman County, Georgia.Quitman is a city in Brooks County, Georgia, United States. The population was 4,638 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Brooks County....
. Wilcoxson was doing time for buying a car with a bad check and then driving it across state lines.
Young Nussbaum was smart. He competed in chess tournaments by correspondence from his Ohio jail cell. He was an expert photographer, locksmith and gunsmith
Gunsmith
A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds firearms. This occupation is different from an armorer. The armorer primarily maintains weapons and limited repairs involving parts replacement and possibly work involving accurization...
, he was also a pilot, an airplane mechanic, a welder and a draftsman
Technical drawing
Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing plans that visually communicate how something functions or has to be constructed.Drafting is the language of industry....
.
Bank robber
Within a year of leaving Chillicothe, Nussbaum and Wilcoxson hooked up in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
with a plan to rob banks. The FBI would eventually label Nussbaum "the brains" of the team while Wilcoxson was marked as "the brawn." They knocked over a few local stores and service stations in Buffalo to raise seed money for an arsenal of weapons they would soon use robbing banks. Nussbaum and "One Eye" Wilcoxson allegedly robbed at least eight banks from 1960 to 1962, hauling in at least $250,000 - the rough equivalent of $2.8 million in 2008.
Nussbaum and Wilcoxson acquired deactivated military weapons called "Dewats". With parts they acquired by mail order, they refurbished the weapons. Their cache of munitions included revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
s, shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
s, submachineguns, hand grenade
Hand grenade
A hand grenade is any small bomb that can be thrown by hand. Hand grenades are classified into three categories, explosive grenades, chemical and gas grenades. Explosive grenades are the most commonly used in modern warfare, and are designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time...
s, M1 carbine
M1 Carbine
The M1 carbine is a lightweight, easy to use semi-automatic carbine that became a standard firearm for the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and was produced in several variants. It was widely used by U.S...
military rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s and military-style armor-piercing anti-tank guns that could annihilate pursuing police cars or pierce bank vault
Bank vault
A bank vault is a secure space where money, valuables, records, and documents can be stored. It is intended to protect their contents from theft, unauthorized use, fire, natural disasters, and other threats, just like a safe...
s.
Nussbaum taught himself to make pipe bomb
Pipe bomb
A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...
s. He and Wilcoxson posed as "Mad Bombers," setting off two bombs in Washington DC on June 15 and 16, 1961. They made several telephone calls pretending to be southern white supremists bombing the Capitol in protest of integration and the civil rights movement. The bombings were planned to distract law enforcement manpower near the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
so a Washington, DC bank could be easily robbed on June 30.
On December 15, 1961, Curry joined Wilcoxson and Nussbaum to rob a branch of the Lafayette National Bank in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York. Wilcoxson entered the bank and killed guard Henry Kraus with four quick shots from a Thompson Submachine gun. Curry was arrested in front of his mother’s house by the FBI in February, 1962. The FBI named Wilcoxson to the famous "Most Wanted List" on February 23, 1962 and Nussbaum on April 3, 1962. The FBI circulated over 1 million "wanted" posters and interviewed over 9,000 in New York state alone. The FBI declared the bandits as dangerous, warning the pair were armed with hand-grenades and 25 submachine guns. "They will not hesitate to open fire," the posters warned. 600 FBI agents searched worldwide for Nussbaum, Wilcoxson and Wilcoxson’s 19 year old "paramour," Jacqueline Ruth Rose of Paoli, Indiana, and Delray Beach, Florida.
On November 4, 1962, Nussbaum’s mother-in-law informed the FBI that Nussbaum was in Buffalo to secretly visit his wife and infant daughter. More than 30 FBI cars surrounded the Statler Hilton Hotel at 1 am on November 4, 1962, as Nussbaum arrived, expecting to pick up his wife, Alicia Nussbaum somehow signaled her husband and he raced out of the hotel parking lot, leading a parade of FBI agents on a 100 mph chase through the cold, wet streets of Buffalo. A police dog catcher rammed Nussbaum’s car and the FBI arrested him. Mid morning on November 10, 1962, Wilcoxson and Rose were captured in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
.
By May, 1963, Nussbaum pled guilty to the murder of bank guard Kraus and seven bank robberies. On February 8, 1964, Nussbaum was sentenced to 40 years in prison with eligibility for parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
in 1971.
Novelist
While running from the FBI, Nussbaum needed to explain why he seldom left his room: He bought himself a portable typewriter and presented himself as a writer. He read The Name of The Game is Death, a mystery crime novel by Dan J. Marlowe, a popular pulp fictionPulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
writer of the day. Nussbaum, using the name "Carl Fisher," called Marlowe’s agent and sent Marlowe letters praising the realness of the book. Marlowe and Nussbaum remained friends while Nussbaum was imprisoned. Marlow encouraged Nussbaum to write and the two often collaborated - Nussbaum providing Marlowe with professional criminal techniques that added even more realism to Marlowe’s body of work. While still in prison, Nussbaum wrote film reviews for the Montreal-based film magazine Take One
Take One
Take One: Film & Television in Canada Although it shares the name with the original Take One, Take One: Film and Television in Canada was a separate publication with no connection to its predecessor. And unlike the original, its focus was entirely Canadian...
. He was paroled in the early 1970s, and lived with Marlowe, serving as his caretaker when Marlowe took ill. Nussbaum wrote a lot. He published as Al Nussbaum and at least a half-dozen pseudonyms. Nussbaum published many short stories that appeared in Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
’s Mystery Magazines and Alfred Hitchcock’s anthologies of short stories. Nussbaum published several novels - "Gypsy," the most well known, was published by Scholastic Press
Scholastic Press
Scholastic is a global book publishing company known for publishing educational materials for schools, teachers, and parents, and selling and distributing them by mail order and via book clubs and book fairs. It also has the exclusive United States' publishing rights to the Harry Potter book...
under the title "Motorcycle Racer." In the mid-1970s, Nussbaum wrote television script
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
s for "Switch," a CBS crime series featuring Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
and Eddie Albert
Eddie Albert
Edward Albert Heimberger , known professionally as Eddie Albert, was an American actor and activist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid.Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing...
. In the 1980s, Nussbaum put on workshops for mystery writers at USC, and he was elected president of a Southern California Chapter of the Mystery Writer’s Association. Albert Fredrick Nussbaum died in 1996.
External links
- Official site
- An insight into the criminal working of Nussbaum’s mind can be found in his short story “Collision”