Kill Crazy Gang

Book excerpt: Kill-crazy Gang: The Crimes of the Lewis-Jones Gang is about the violent Lewis-Jones gang of the 1910s. One of the first gangs to use the automobile, it was the forerunner of the major bandit gangs of the 1930s. They came out of Oklahoma to rob banks and trains and steal cars. It is said they killed twenty-one lawmen and maimed a dozen more before the law finally wiped them out. Among the colorful criminals were Dale Jones, a cross-dresser, Eva Lewis, a beautiful young singer and dancer, and Mattie Howard, "the girl with the agate eyes and the smile of death," who was said to have had ten sweethearts of hers who had died. One lawman wrote, "the crimson records of the Lewis Boys gang easily over matched all the rest."