True Crime: Christmas Edition

It’s noon on the 23rd of December, 1927. A tall man dressed as Santa Claus walks into the First National Bank in Cisco, Texas. He receives a merry “Hello, Santa.” from the cashier, but continues past them, silent. The cashier calls out again, “Hello, Santa!” but gets no response. Suddenly, another man runs in, brandishing a pistol, and the building’s jolly atmosphere vanishes.

Marshall Ratliff was an ex-con who lived in Cisco before being tracked down and imprisoned for a bank robbery. He was paroled just weeks before the attempted Christmas heist, and enlisted Henry Helms, Robert Hill, and Louis Davis to help him pull this off. Ratliff knew that he would be recognized the second he retired to Cisco, and it being so close to Christmas, he thought Santa Claus would be the perfect cover. They had little to no plan beyond how to enter the bank, assuming nothing could possibly go wrong.

The day of, the group dropped Ratliff a few blocks from the bank, and hestrolled down the street, smiling happily at the children he passed.

Hill was the first man to enter, gun in the air, after Ratliff. Helms and Davisquickly followed, waving identical pistols around the room. Ratliff pushed through a swinging door, past the cashier's desk, went into the cashier's cage, opened a drawer under the counter, and removed a pistol from that location, stuffing itunder his red Santa suit. Now, four men were armed, including "Santa Claus". “Santa" ordered the assistant cashier to open the safe, and began stuffing money and bonds into a sack he had hidden beneath his costume. While the others covered the customers and employees, he grabbed money from the tellers and forced one to open the vault.

Unaware that a robbery was taking place, bank customer Mrs. B. P. Blassengame and her 6-year-old daughter Frances entered the building in search of Santa. As soon as she saw the danger, Mrs. Blassengame ran through the bank's bookkeeping department with her daughter in behind, shouting "They are robbing the bank!" as she headed for the alleyway door.

Quickly unlockingthe door, she threw her child into the alley while screaming at her to go, and despite the thieves' assurances that they would fire, she managed to flee herself. As she raced the one block to city hall and the police station, screaming for help, she informed Cisco's mayor and the majority of the local populace about the heist, as well as Chief of Police G. E. “Bit” Bedford. Bedford arrived onthe scene with a riot gun and gave orders to officers R.T. Redies and George Carmichael to block the bank's back door. Officer Carmichael set up shop near the intersection of a second alley that ran behind the bank and crossed the first, while the chief positioned himself near the alley that ran beside the bank and opened at the bank's front.

Inside, Santa filled his sack with cash from the vault and prepared to leave, thinking the robbery was a success. At that moment, Hill spotted an officer outside and shot through the window. This was answered with several gunshots, and Hill fired into the ceiling to show they were armed. That was when the frenzy began. Bedford and another officer directed crossfire at one of the robbers, who had a gun in each fist. He shot back, anda fusillade of gunfire began. As bullets sprayed everywhere, citizens that had gotten word of the robbery rushed to the hardware store to buy pistols and rifles to aid the police. They opened fire, and a rifle bullet struck one of the fugitives in the arm and "spun him around." A bullet also struck a cashier in the jaw, and another struck a bank customer in the leg.

Everyone inside the bank was draggedout the door by the criminals as they made their way to their blue vehicle. As they fled into the alley, some of these captives were injured. The majority of the citizens managed to flee, but the robbers held two little girls, Laverne Comer (12) and Emma May Robertson (10), hostage. The four entered the alley and proceeded to their getaway car using the girls as human shields. Hundreds of shots were fired during the shoot out, leaving Bedford and officer George Carmichael mortally wounded, but one officer remained unharmed, and pursued the fugitives on foot, before eventually getting picked up by a civilian.

The four robbers realized they were almost out of gas as they started their getaway while driving south on Avenue D with their hostages. They had forgotten to fill the tank earlier. One of their tires was destroyed by ashot from law enforcement while they were being pursued by the mob as they approached the town's perimeter. The bandits stormed out of the car, commandeering a passing vehicle. In the midst of shooting, the robbers moved the stolen goods, hostages, and injured companion to the new automobile. Only after switching to the next getaway car did they find that they were unable to start the vehicle because the driver had cunningly removed the keys from the ignition when ordered to stop. Panicked, they transferred everything back to the first car, however Davis lost consciousness, so they left him behind.

Geniuses that they were, they didn’t realize until a while later that they had left the bag full of money in the car with him. The mob found Davis and the money and temporarily gave up the chase, and money was returned to the bank. They had stolen $12,400 in cash and $150,000 in bonds.

The surviving robbers sped back to Avenue D and veered onto a dirt road, however the overgrowth soon became unfit for driving, and the men continued on foot. They stole a second vehicle, and were able to hide out all night, but had nothing to eat but oranges and were all weak from their injuries and the below-freezing weather. The trejo was ambushed the next morning, and there was a car chase thatled into an oil field, wherethere was a dramatic shootout. Police Chief Bradford fired at the three fugitives, now escaping on foot, and one fell. He shot twice more, hitting the two other men, but both of them rose again and continued on.

Ratliff was the one that was hit and fell to the ground while Helms and Hill, although wounded, escaped into the woods, which offeredideal concealment. Ratliff was reportedly a "walking arsenal", bearing no fewer than six gunshot wounds and six pistols when captured, including the one he took from the bank. "Santa" had been caught.