During the Great Depression, Nebraska was home to many well known thieves.
The first and most successful one was Maurice “Blondie” Denning. At the age of 23, he formed a gang. After several robberies throughout the Great Plains, his gang ended up in the town of Kinney, Nebraska. Denning and a fellow gang member pulled up in a stolen car one night to witness a raid going on. Although they weren’t caught then the car was found days later with many bullet holes in it. After that he disappeared for months until a robbery in South Dakota was pegged to him. He was never heard from again in Nebraska, but he remained on FBI’s Most Wanted list until the 1960’s.
The nation wide gang, Ma Barker, pulled one of their biggest stunts in Nebraska, which was a bank robbery in Fairbury. Two different get away cars were used. Two other gang members had machine guns and were used as look outs. Inside the bank, the robbers took 25,700 in cash and 125,700 in bonds. Once they were finished, they used bank workers as shields to get out to the getaway car. As they drove off, the gang threw roofing nails to make sure they could not be followed.
To protect against thieves like this, banks have updated their security immensely. There are new cameras and more security officers are on site. This has helped keep crime low and help make it easier to identify who is committing crimes.
The third outlaw is Doc Middleton. With the help of his gang known as the “Ponyboys,” he stole over 2,000 horses in under two years. He was known as a respectable business man with “Robin-Hood like” characteristics.
Currently cattle get stolen daily. According to KETV Newsstation, a northeastern Nebraska man was charged with cattle theft in late 2015. Timothy Ketelson stole over 13 heads of cattle and sold them. In a different incident in Nebraska, a man stole over 500 cattle from a well-known farmer. The profit made from the stolen cattle was over 798,000. It may seem like theft has decreased in recent years, but it is still prevalent throughout today’s society.