Vernon C. Miller

Vernon C. Miller (August 26, 1896-November 29, 1933) was a freelance Prohibition gunman, bootlegger, bank robber and former sheriff in South Dakota who, as the only identified member of the Kansas City Massacre, was found shot to death shortly after the incident.

Early life

Born in Kimball, South Dakota, Miller moved 35 miles northeast to Huron in 1914 and began working as an auto mechanic. Two years later, Miller enlisted in the U.S. Army seeing action in the Mexican expedition into Mexico after repeated bandit raids across the border. After the United States entry into World War I, Miller served in France with the 18th Infantry Regiment (United States) and, decorated for valor and bravery, he would rise to the rank of color sergeant by the wars end.

After being discharged from the military in 1918, Miller returned to Huron and joined the cities police force as a patrolman. Resigning from the Huron Police Department in May 1920, Miller ran for the sheriff's office of Beadle County eventually winning the local election in November. Within two years however, Miller reportedly tired of the job and fled the area in early-1922 after withdrawing $4,000 in county revenue. Within a year, Miller was tracked down by investigators and convicted of embezzlement on April 4, 1923.

While imprisoned at the South Dakota State Penitentiary, Miller was able to become the warden's personal chauffeur and was eventually granted parole in November 1924.

Prohibition

By the time of his release, Prohibition was in full effect in the country with Miller readily entered the lucrative, although at times dangerous, occupational field of bootlegging. Although being fined $200 for bootlegging by a Sioux Falls, South Dakota court in October 1925, Miller would have a clear record for the next several years.

During the late-1920s, after years of heavy drug abuse and suffering from advanced syphilis, Miller's personality slowly began becoming increasingly unstable often given to unpredictable bursts of violence. Indicted on February 3, 1928 for the murder of a Minneapolis police officer and assault on another, the case against Miller was dropped due to lack of evidence. {For different version of this 1928 incident-2 policemen wounded-see South Dakota Public Broadcasting website search engine for timeline on Vernon Miller-Link. [ [http://www.sdpb.org/radio/oto/VerneMiller/timeline.asp Verne Miller timeline ] at www.sdpb.org] Reportably Miller "was" involved in the killings of two Minneapolis Police Officers December 16, 1932}

From Prohibition gun for hire to Depression-era outlaw

As the end of the decade approached, Miller was widely known as a freelance gunman for Midwest bootleggers and racketeers. In 1930, after a friend of Miller's, Eugene "Red" McLaughlin, had been killed by members of Al Capone's Chicago Outfit, Miller tracked down three of the suspects to a resort hotel in Fox Lake, Illinois and gunned them down on June 1 (at the time their deaths, later known as the Fox Lake Massacre, were attributed to members of George Moran's North Side Gang).

With the end of Prohibition fast approaching, Miller teamed up with Harvey Bailey, Thomas Holden, Francis Keating, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and three others in a daylight raid resulting in the theft of $70,000 from a bank in Willmar, Minnesota on July 15, 1930.

On August 13, in an argument over a "double-cross" from the bank robbery, Miller killed Frank "Weinie" Coleman, Mike Rusick and "Jew" Sammy Stein and dumped their bodies at White Bear Lake.

The murders did not seem to affect Miller's relationship with his accomplices as he again participated with Bailey, Holden, Keating, Kelly and Lawrence De Vol in stealing $40,000 from a bank in Ottumwa, Iowa on September 9, 1930.

Again with Bailey, Kelly, Frank "Jelly" Nash and several others, Miller robbed another $40,000 from a bank in Sherman, Texas on April 8, 1931.

Kansas City Massacre

Following the Sherman bank robbery, Miller retired from armed robbery in favor of murder for hire, although he continued to keep in contact with his former partners. It was through these contacts, specifically Chicago mobster Louis Stacci, that Miller was hired to free former partner Frank Nash from federal custody as he was being transported to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

On June 17, 1933, Miller and several other unidentified gunmen, ambushed federal agents as they arrived at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri which, after a brief yet violent gunfight, resulted in the deaths of Nash and four other federal agents as well as wounding two others before Miller and the others fled the scene.

Although named by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as one of the participants, among those federal authorities including Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Adam Richetti, the remaining gunmen were never identified.

Final days

After the Kansas City Massacre, Miller fled to the east coast staying with New Jersey mobster Abner "Longy" Zwillman in Orange, New Jersey until Miller killed a Zwillman gunman in an argument. Leaving for Chicago on October 23, 1933, Miller posed as a salesman for an optical supply house while living with girlfriend Vi Mathis until federal agents raided her apartment on the morning of November 1. Shooting his way out however, Miller was able to escape from federal agents.

A month later, Miller's body was found in a roadside ditch outside Detroit, Michigan on November 29, 1933. Shot to death, Miller appeared to have been the victim of a gangland slaying. Although the cause of Miller's death remained unclear, the murder of Zwillman member one month earlier, the failure of the Kansas City Massacre or perhaps retribution for the Fox Lake Massacre are among the most probable causes.

References

*Newton, Michael. "Encyclopedia of Robbers, Heists, and Capers". New York: Facts On File Inc., 2002.