A Letter From The Publisher, Aug. 15, 1949

Last spring a Denver bartender named Lloyd ("Red") Barker was shot and killed by his wife. Local newspapers first carried it as a routine homicide, then speculated that the victim might be the last of the four notorious Barker brothers who, with their gangster mother, terrorized the Midwest in the '30s. Barren Beshoar, chief of our Denver news bureau, set out to find out.

From barroom characters who had known Red Barker, Beshoar learned that there might be some trunks in storage. He got hold of the lawyer who was handling the estate. They picked up a locksmith and went to...

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