Early life

Born in Nebraska around the year 1905, Vivian Davis was the youngest child of Alfred and Sarah Davis. She had three sisters and three brothers; Hazel, Laura, Ella, Lewis, Frank, and Marshall. Soon after her birth, her family moved to Greene County, Missouri

Greene County, Missouri

Greene County is a county located in Southwest Missouri. As of 2010, the population was 275,174 making it the fourth most populated county in Missouri. Its county seat is Springfield...

, where her father worked as a moderately successful farmer. When Vivian was sixteen years old, she married George Chase on April 1, 1921. She had to lie about her age (stating that she was 19 at the time) in order to marry without her parents' consent. The circumstances of her marriage are unknown; however, George Chase by this time was considerably older (30) and had begun to make a name for himself as a thief.

Arrests, escapes and notoriety

Vivian Chase first gained notice as George’s wife on December 23, 1923, when George Chase was arrested for an altercation during which he was shot by Ella Keller. Ms. Keller stated that George and his companions attacked her because she had reported them to the police and that she had to shoot George in self-defense. After arresting George, the police went to his home, where they found Vivian wearing six diamond rings. Since she could not explain possessing the rings, Vivian was arrested for suspicion. She was released after three days when further evidence could not be found against her.

Vivian did not surface again for three years, when she was in the company of Charlie Mayes, also known as Pighead Hardman. On February 15, 1926, Vivian, Mayes, Lee Flournoy and Flournoy’s wife were arrested after a free-for-all fight in a rooming house in Wichita, Kansas

Wichita, Kansas

Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...

. During the arrest, Vivian refused to talk. The investigation led investigators to her brother-in-law Charles Chase and allegations of involvement with the Joe Bratton liquor gang. On June 9, 1926, following a “drunken party and joy ride”, Flournoy and Mayes were fatally shot in a gun battle in Picher, Oklahoma

Picher, Oklahoma

Picher is a ghost town and former city in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, United States. Formerly a major national center of lead and zinc mining at the heart of the Tri-State Mining District, over a century of unrestricted subsurface excavation dangerously undermined most of Picher's town buildings and...

 . Vivian Chase was with them. The three of them had been under surveillance by Ottawa County, Oklahoma

Ottawa County, Oklahoma

Ottawa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of 2000, the population was 33,194. Its county seat is Miami. It was named for the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma.Ottawa County was established in 1907.-Geography:...

 officers for several days because the deputy sheriff informed the Sheriff of Montgomery County, Kansas

Montgomery County, Kansas

Montgomery County is a county located in southeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 35,471. Its county seat is Independence, and its most populous city is Coffeyville. The Coffeyville Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Montgomery...

 that he had found the people who robbed the Cherryvale Bank on May 29, 1926. Vivian was placed in jail, where she refused to talk to reporters. She was released on June 13, 1926, after insufficient evidence was found to charge her with a crime.

Once again the record went silent on Vivian Chase, until she resurfaced in June 1932. She was arrested with Jackie Forman and Enos Weeks for the robbery of the First National Bank in North Kansas City on April 9, 1932. She was held on $50,000 bond. It was a small robbery; no more than $1,500 was taken. Vivian was held at the Clay County Jail in Liberty, Missouri

Liberty, Missouri

Liberty is a city in Clay County, Missouri and is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. At the 2007 population estimate, the city population was 29,993...

 and escaped after four months by sawing through the bars of her cell and lowering herself down with a rope made of bed sheets.

After her escape from the Liberty jail, Vivian fled to St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, where she became involved with Walter (Irish) O'Malley. On July 10, 1933, Vivian participated in the kidnapping of banker August Luer. Vivian, O'Malley, and Percy ‘Dice Box’ Fitzgerald drove to Mr. Luer's home in Alton, Illinois

Alton, Illinois

Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in Southern Illinois...

. Vivian, accompanied by O'Malley, rang the doorbell and requested to use the phone. When she was let in and shown the phone’s location, she cut the line. O'Malley wrestled August Luer to the floor and gagged his mouth. Mr. Luer was taken to a farm where he was hidden in a damp underground cellar while his captors tried to collect a ransom

Ransom

Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.In an early German law, a similar concept was called bad influence...

 for him. Mr. Luer was not a well man and, fearing that he would die before they were able to receive any ransom, his kidnappers released him after 123 hours. Both Vivian and O’Malley fled from Illinois back to Missouri after the bungled kidnapping. O’Malley managed to elude capture for two years until he was apprehended in Kansas City on May 23, 1935. Vivian eluded capture.

In the early fall of 1935, Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

 experienced a series of drug store robberies. The robbers were described as a man and a woman. The woman was further described as approximately 5 ft. 6 in. tall, slender, with henna

Henna

Henna is a flowering plant used since antiquity to dye skin, hair, fingernails, leather and wool. The name is also used for dye preparations derived from the plant, and for the art of temporary tattooing based on those dyes...

ed hair. When victims were shown a photograph, they identified Vivian as female robber.

Death and afterward

On November 3, 1935, Vivian’s body was found in a parked car at Saint Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, MO. She had been shot in the neck with a .45 caliber gun, the bullet exiting through her chest. When she was found, the coroner estimated that she had only been dead 2 hours or less, leading to speculation that her killer drove her to the hospital while she was still alive, expecting her to be found before her death. She had a .22 caliber pistol on her person, with .45 caliber bullets in her handbag. Newspapers speculated that she had been double-crossed by an accomplice and was shot before she could shoot her assailant.

Vivian Chase seemed destined for burial in a potter's field

Potter's field

A potter's field was an American term for a place for the burial of unknown or indigent people. The expression derives from the Bible, referring to a field used for the extraction of potter's clay, which was useless for agriculture but could be used as a burial site.-Origin:The term comes from...

. The owner of the funeral home

Funeral home

A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary, is a business that provides burial and funeral services for the deceased and their families. These services may include aprepared wake and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for the funeral....

 to where she had been removed received an anonymous call asking about funeral costs. The next morning, the funeral home received an envelope of money for the costs; also received were a blue dress and undergarments (her own) for Vivian to be buried in. Nine mourners outside of reporters and law enforcement officers attended her funeral. No one signed the guest book.

External links

• Vivian Chase posts on Best Yeggs crime blog