Did you know that "Mama Prohibition" is based on a real person?
"Ma" Barker was the matriarch of an outlaw gang of brothers and allies in the 1920s and 1930s. The Barker/Karpis gang was responsible for two of the era's most notorious kidnappings, the abduction of William Hamm in 1933 and Edward Bremer, Jr., in 1934. The gang also robbed several banks throughout the Midwest and committed numerous murders.
Ma Barker's criminal history includes:
- Kidnapping
- payroll, post office, and bank robberies
- numerous murders
- burglarizing stores in West Plains, Missouri.
Ma Barker was born in 1872, near Springfield, Missouri, and died on January 16, 1935, near Oklawaha, Florida. Those who knew her insisted that she had no criminal role and that Hoover created the allegations to justify her shooting by the FBI in 1935. Reports as of 2022 are consistent that Kate Barker's role in her sons' crimes was falsely created by the media to increase newspaper and media sales.