FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1950s
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
FBI began to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, and William Kinsey Hutchinson, International News Service Editor-in-Chief, who were discussing ways to promote capture of the...
. Following is a brief review of FBI people and events that place the 1950s decade in context, and then an historical list of individual fugitives whose names first appeared on the 10 Most Wanted list during the decade of the 1950s, under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
.
FBI headlines in decade of 1950s
In late 1949 the FBI helped publish an article about the "toughest guys" the Bureau was after, who remained fugitives from justice. The positive publicity from the story resulted in the birth of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list on March 14, 1950.Cases of espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
against the United States and its allies were some of the prevalent investigations by the Bureau during the 1950s. Eight Nazi agents who had planned sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
operations against American targets were arrested. Organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
networks and families in the United States also became targets, including those headed by Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana
Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...
and John Gotti
John Gotti
John Joseph Gotti, Jr was an American mobster who became the Boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. Gotti grew up in poverty. He and his brothers turned to a life of crime at an early age...
.
FBI "Most Wanted Fugitives" in the 1950s
As wanted fugitives were added, and then later removed, the FBI began to keep track of the sequence number in which each fugitive appeared on the list. Some individuals have even appeared twice, and often a sequence number was permanently assigned to an individual fugitive who was soon caught, captured, or simply removed, before his or her appearance could be published on the publicly released list. In those cases, the public would see only gaps in the number sequence reported by the FBI. For convenient reference, the wanted fugitive's sequence number and date of entry on the FBI list appear below, whenever possible.The most wanted fugitives listed in the decade of the 1950s include (in FBI list appearance sequence order):
----
William Francis Sutton
March 20, 1950 #11William Francis (Willie) Sutton
Willie Sutton
William "Willie" Sutton was a prolific U.S. bank robber. During his forty-year criminal career he stole an estimated $2 million, and eventually spent more than half of his adult life in prison...
Sutton was arrested in New York without incident, February 18, 1952, after two years on the list.
----
George Arthur Heroux
December 19, 1951 #28George Arthur Heroux
A bank robber with accomplice and fellow top Ten Fugitive, Gerhard Arthur Puff, Heroux was caught on July 25, 1952 at Miami, Florida
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
, after seven months on the list.
----
Gerhard Arthur Puff
January 28, 1952 #30 - was added soon after his partner George Arthur Heroux, #28Gerhard Arthur Puff
A bank robber with accomplice and fellow top Ten Fugitive, George Arthur Heroux, Puff was caught after killing an FBI Agent in a gunbattle, and was executed two years later. He had spent six months on the list.
----
Year 1959
----By the end of the decade, six of the ten places on the list remained filled by these elusive long-time fugitives, then still at large:
- 1950 #14 (ten years), Frederick J. Tenuto
- 1952 #36 (eight years), James Eddie Diggs
- 1954 #78 (six years), David Daniel Keegan
- 1956 #97 (four years), Eugene Francis Newman
- 1958 #107 (two years), Angelo Luigi Pero
- 1959 #112 (one year), Edwin Sanford Garrison
Later entries
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 2000sFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 2000s-FBI Headlines in the 2000s:The 2000s started out badly for the FBI's much needed attempts to upgrade technology. First, the Trilogy project went far over the $380 million budget, and behind its three-year schedule. Then, Virtual Case File, or VCF, planned for completion in 2003, was officially...
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1990sFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1990sThe FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 1990s is a list, maintained for a fifth decade, of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.-FBI 10 Most Wanted Fugitives to begin the 1990s:...
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1980sFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1980sThe FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 1980s is a list, maintained for a fourth decade, of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.-FBI headlines in the 1980s:...
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1970sFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1970sThe FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 1970s is a list, maintained for a third decade, of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.-FBI headlines in the 1970s:...
- FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1960sFBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1960sIn the 1960s, for a second decade, the United States FBI continued to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives...