Central Florida's Most Notorious Gangsters

Alva Hunt and Hugh Gant

Samuel Parish

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781596294141
• eBook ISBN: 9781614234814
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Blazing gun battles, bank heists, and high-speed escapes: The true story of two men who terrorized Depression-era Florida and the Deep South.
 
This is the story of Alva Hunt and Hugh Gant, central Florida's own Dillinger and Capone. They began their infamous careers fencing automobile parts as the Florida land boom became a bust. After doing hard time in state jails, they emerged as bank robbers and embarked on a crime spree across the Deep South.
 
In the end they were captured and served time in Leavenworth, Alcatraz, and other penitentiaries. Their reign was one of terror for Florida and many Southern states. Their story reflects an intriguing period in Florida's own history, and the desperate days when Southern gangsters were armed, notorious and deadly.
 
Includes photos

Graduation to Bank Thefts

Events took a dramatic turn on August 14, 1933. Both Hunt and Gant were by that point fairly hardened criminals with a long list of attempted and successful automobile thefts and store robberies. A poignant event shook the two as surely as it altered the leadership dynamic of the gang when a late-night breaking and entering into a store ended in a shootout and the death of the gang’s titular leader.

A Florida Times Union story dated Thursday, August 17, 1933, was titled “Slain Robber, John Riley Gant Jr. Had Home at Webster, Fla.” The story stated that the “nightwatchman slayed a robber at a Penny Farms, Florida store early Monday morning.” The body was identified at the Burns-Howard Funeral Home. Local police first identified the deceased as John Edwards. Edwards was Riley Gant’s alias and he was attributed a long criminal record. The night watchman, W.H. Sunnersill, apparently waited outside until the “trio pillaged” the premises and exited. Sunnersill then fired at Gant, presumably Riley, as he allegedly went for his gun. Two accomplices fled on foot leaving the loot they had stolen and the automobile in which they hoped to escape. Sunnersill claimed to have possibly hit one of the fleeing robbers. Gant’s hometown newspaper, the Sumter County Times, ran a story shortly thereafter that was a synopsis of the Times Union story.

A separate event involved a Truly Hunt, age twenty-five, who was arrested and sentenced to one year for committing larceny of an automobile in nearby Lake County. He was sentenced on May 18, 1933, and released on conditional pardon in December 17, 1933. His prison number was 25254.

The gang’s direction changed probably as a reaction to the demise of their automobile theft ring and certainly in part due to Riley’s death. A lull in operations occurred, perhaps to quell the unease they felt over Riley’s death or to examine their experiences with recent incarcerations and escapes. Perhaps the pair went underground to plan for a new level of crime. Whatever the cause of the gap between their early and later crime spree, Hunt and Gant reemerged and escalated their crime to a new level.

During the lull, law enforcement continued to pursue them. A reward poster from the Post Office Department, Office of the Inspector in Charge, in Atlanta, Georgia, was dated August 27, 1934. In it Gant’s last known whereabouts were given as Crofton, Kentucky. The poster noted that Gant, under the alias A.L. Jackson, and his wife were operating a filling station and sandwich shop. He may have known that the heat was on because he left Crofton hurriedly, ten days previous to the publication of the poster, fleeing in a maroon, 1934 Chevrolet standard coach. The vehicle had serial number 8DC02-1-1 and motor number M43019. Gant held a Christian County, Kentucky driver’s license, with number 148423. At the time he also possessed a Florida license numbered 172941.

The post office inspector noted that Gant was under indictment in the Northern District of Florida for the burglary of the post office at Baker, Florida, on September 5, 1933. He was implicated in several other Florida post office jobs, including Floral City, Sparr and Tampashores. The inspector suggested that Gant was under indictment for a bank heist at Cedar Keys that occurred on February 7, 1934, and was thought to be involved in bank robberies at Orange City, Florida, in October of 1933 and St. Cloud, Florida, in March of 1934. A reward was offered, not to exceed $200 for information leading to his arrest.

The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad published a bulletin on the whereabouts of Gant as he was “known” to have burglarized a number of railroad depots.

The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company Police Department, headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, sent out circulars to all captains of police. They quoted a letter addressed to C.M. McElroy, superintendent of police, which stated that a quantity of circulars regarding “Hugh Gantt, wanted for complicity in the burglary of post offices and railroad depots in Florida and Southern Alabama” had been distributed.

A postscript added, “Gant is known to have returned to Florida after fleeing from officers at Crofton, Kentucky.” It stated that he was in Tampa and offered that “this man operated extensively on the Southern Division of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad during the latter part of 1933 and the first part of 1934” and that he was a familiar character to members of the railroad department.

On September 5, 1935, the pair was officially charged with breaking and entering into a post office in Baker, Florida. Whether it was the town of Baker or Baker County is undeterminable. The post office inspector from Chattanooga, Tennessee, charged them with the break-in. The next day Hugh Gant was arrested in Geneva, Alabama, for automobile theft and was held for that crime and for the alleged post office theft. On September 23 after a three-week stay, Gant and five other prisoners broke out of the Geneva jail and escaped.

The pair’s probable connections in protected cities, most certainly gained while in jail, may have led them to meet another crime combine, part of which vacationed in Ocklawaha, Florida. Like today, all types of people were drawn to Florida’s warmth and the opportunity for a second chance. Among the masses that thronged to Florida were gangsters. In addition to Ma Barker and her connections, Dillinger and his crew, Al Capone and others visited the Sunshine State.

According to Hunt’s niece Inez McMillan, his connections at home included the Sumter County sheriff, among others. It is more suggestive of the folksy lifestyle of the county rather than a suggestion of impropriety of the police force. There are also indications that Hunt returned to Sumter County incognito numerous times.

Hunt and Gant’s numerous travels throughout Florida and across the Gulf States and their use of “protected cities” may have put them in similar circles with some of the Barker contingent. Protected cities included St. Paul, Minnesota; Toledo, Ohio; Kansas City, Kansas; and Fort Worth, Galveston, San Antonio and Houston, Texas. The last played host to several prominent events in the lives of Hunt and Gant. According to gangster extraordinaire Eddie Bentz “some towns are only good for a year or two,” while others lasted a decade or more. Protected cities were for cooling off, and therefore, it was recommended that bank-robbing crews should choose a town at least three or four hundred miles away.

Just weeks before what was probably the first Hunt-Gant heist, Ma and Fred Barker had taken up residence in a cottage in Ocklawaha near Lake Weir, twelve miles south of Ocala. Visitors to the cottage included gangsters Bryan Bolton, Alvin Karpis, Willie Henderson, Harry Campbell and a paramour named Wynona Burdette. The feds were alerted to the whereabouts of the Barkers when they found a map, with the Ocala and Lake Weir area circled on it, in a Chicago apartment. Bolton, under federal lock and key corroborated the evidence and confirmed that they were in that part of Florida. Doc Barker and Russell Gibson had scouted the area out ahead of time and even found time for fun. The story went that they had tried to catch an alligator named Old Joe by placing a pig in a barrel. The barrel was hooked to a line to entice Joe close enough so Doc and Russell could kill it. The gator, according to legend, got the pig and escaped.

The abbreviated Barker vacation that started January 8, 1935, ended on the 16^th, the result of a coordinated FBI operation. While no verifiable proof exists showing a relationship between Hunt-Gant and the Barkers, similarity in profession, connections and geography suggest the possibility. Ma Barker was alleged to have even stayed at the St. Cloud Hotel, providing further suggestive evidence that she was familiar with the central Florida area.

Sumter County Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Williams spoke about the Barkers and their possible relationship to Sumter County. Deputy Williams and his son were present at Wall Sink while Lake County search divers sought to recover two bodies. While diving they recovered two older vehicles. One, according to Williams, was a circa 1949 Ford. The other, a 1930s Dodge Brothers touring car, allegedly belonged to Ma Barker and the boys. If correct the Barkers may have had an intimate familiarity with the county since the sinkhole is not easy to access in its nestled Sumter County location.

On November 14, 1934, Hunt and Gant “tested the waters,” successfully robbing their first bank. The “haul” from the Bank of Mulberry was initially thought to have been between $4,000 and $5,000, while a detailed check of the bank’s records showed a loss of $7,180—$500 in twenty-dollar denominations, $1,500 in tens, $2,000 in fives and $1,950 in singles. Also included in the haul were mutilated bills totaling $430, $70 in half dollars, $230 in quarters, $260 in dimes, $210 in nickels and even $30 in pennies. Prudently the loss was covered by insurance.

The injection of confidence that they could “pull” further jobs bolstered a furious stream of robbery attempts. Polk County Record printed a story titled “Three Bandits Rob Mulberry Bank, Shove Cashier off at Christina In Escape.” The robbery unfolded around 1:15 p.m. with the three robbers hauling nearly $10,000 and hostage A.D. Denham, a bank cashier. The trio’s escape vehicle was a 1932 black Plymouth sedan with yellow wheels. The car drove in front of the bank while one of the gang “remained under the wheel with the motor running.” The other two entered the bank, drew guns and aimed them at the bank’s employees. Then they forced Luther Pipkin and W.G. Overstree into a back office where they were forced to lay down on their faces. Denham was then forced toward the vault to secure the loot and made to carry it to the awaiting car. After he placed the haul in the car Denham was compelled to ride the running board. As the car neared a former mining town named Christina, he was pushed off. A passing car eventually picked Denham up and returned him, unscathed, to Mulberry.

Two citizens standing outside the bank during the theft were heard to mention, “It looks like a hold-up.” Since neither man was armed there was no attempt to foul the robbery attempt. The sheriff’s office was notified and an alarm was sent out “in all directions,” though the bank bandits were last seen heading north. Witnesses claimed that the two who entered the bank wore white gloves and dark clothes, the former explaining a lack of their fingerprints in the bank.

The following day’s Polk County Record stated that suspects in the robbery had been arrested in the Willow Oak section of town by Constable Whidden and were being held for investigation. One suspect was an elderly man who only arrived to the area from Illinois a few days before the bank heist. He and Fred Porter arrived together. W.O. Oscar Guerin, age fifty-five, and his son B.A. Burt Guerin, age twenty-three, were being held as well. At the time of the arrests none of the money was recovered. Burt was reported to have been in Polk County for about one month before the crime. Hugh Gant who “escaped the state penitentiary on April 24, 1933,” emerged as the possible engineer of the bank heist according to law enforcement.

A clue in the case regarded the vehicle used in the robbery. A new 1934 V-8 Ford sedan belonging to Dan Lassiter had been stolen from a parking lot on Lemon Street in Lakeland, Florida, the night before the robbery. Hugh Gant was thought to have been rooming several weeks prior to the first robbery in a home in Hopewell, Florida, south of Plant City. Generally Hunt and Gant preferred to take a car several weeks in advance of the bank robbery and usually made sure there was considerable distance between the location of the car and bank robbery. The Lakeland theft did not fit their modus operandi.

The next day the paper revealed that another of the prisoners, Fred Porter, was being released. The two original suspects, W.O. and Burt Guerin, were taken to Bartow to be held in the county jail. Fingerprints were taken from the suspects and were sent to the Department of Justice to check for a criminal past. The Guerins were exonerated the following day as information from various sources corroborated their innocence in both Mulberry robberies. W.O. Guerin was charged with operating an automobile with an improper license tag.

The days revealed more clues to the crime. Deputies from a sheriff’s office in Brooksville, Florida, substantiated that a sedan was stolen on November 10 from R.R. Rayburn, a St. Petersburg grocer. His was the vehicle used in the Mulberry bank heist, not Lassiter’s. Remnants of a vehicle matching the description of the one used were found near Brooksville according to Chief of Police Noel. The car had been set afire, which was the known mode of operation of Hunt and Gant when they dumped their vehicles.

With only a possible connection to the vehicle used, Sheriff Chase of Mulberry took out warrants for the bank holdup and for assault on cashier Denham with a pistol and intent to murder. Sheriffs Chase and Bill Mock and Federal Post Office Inspector Frank Sanford of Lakeland made a trip two weeks later to interrogate a J.C. Smith. Smith had confessed to robbing Seaboard Air Line mail sacks from the train at Okeechobee, Florida. He also claimed to know of more robberies and bragged about his involvement in a number of Hunt-Gant crimes. Smith’s information proved to be scanty or inaccurate.

After a three-month gap in activity the outfit “hit” another bank. On February 28, 1935, Hunt, Gant and unknown accomplices robbed a bank in Haines City, Florida. It was their second recorded heist and rewarded them over $4,000.

Just over one month later, on May 3, they were accused of breaking and entering a warehouse in St. Petersburg, Florida, and stealing an automobile. The 1935 Buick, or similar model, was used in the Bowling Green, Florida bank job that occurred two weeks later, on May 17. Interestingly, while the FBI, law enforcement and countless newspaper stories foisted the Bowling Green robbery on Hunt and Gant, there are no details of their involvement or mention of the amount of money taken.

On August 1, 1935, the pair was alleged to have stolen a vehicle in St. Augustine, Florida. The car, a Ford coach, was possibly the one used in another robbery of the bank in Mulberry, Florida, though they would have had to steal the car almost as an afterthought. The next day they robbed the Bank of Mulberry, again.

In a Mulberry Press story titled “Robbers Stage Comeback, Visit at Mulberry Bank,” it was said that “three masked men, believed to be the same gang” that robbed the bank on November 14, 1934, visited on Friday afternoon for a repeat performance. The less-than-successful heist netted only $400.

During the second heist, C.B. Mansfield had just completed business at the cashier’s window. As he turned to leave three men entered and jabbed a gun toward him. They told him to stay a while and to lie down on the floor. Luther N. Pipkin, in the cage next door to cashier A.D. Denham “sensed a return visit.” Pipkin declared that he recognized one of the robbers as the man “who covered him and W.G. Overstreet” during the first robbery. He pressed his foot on a burglar alarm and awaited the robbers’ commands. The second crook stuck a gun through the window while Denham made busy in the cash drawer. The third accomplice stood out from the others because he was wearing a white wig made from “tow string” and white gloves. He entered the office and ordered Denham to open the vault.

Meanwhile, as Pipkin and Mansfield lay on the floor, Denham tried to explain that he could not open the vault because it had a time lock. The third robber (the one in white wig and gloves) did not believe Denham and they had a brief argument, which ended with the robber striking Denham on the back of the head, later said to have produced a “popping” sound. Denham fell and stayed down. Just then the bank phone rang and the alarm sounded in a downtown store. Nearly fifty citizens ran to Polk Avenue by way of Main Street and watched the proceedings from a safe distance.

Deputies Childs and Mock arrived, covering the eight and a half miles quickly, but trailing the robbers by about one minute. Unlike the frenetic and harried arrival of the crowd of onlookers, and later the deputies, the robbers had made a leisurely emergence from the bank and got into their getaway car. Black and badly mud-stained, its Florida license read 198-701. The car got up to full speed at Church Street heading in the general direction of Lakeland. The crooks sped around a corner near the Juanita Hotel nearly plowing down Robert Caldwell Jr., who was on his bicycle.

Mulberry citizen Harold Clark was driving to the bank with two representatives of the Standard Oil Company from Lakeland as the getaway car whizzed by. Clark turned his car and gave immediate chase in his V-8 Ford. Close behind was Fred Marsh, a man named Leonard and another named Cardwell. Others joined in the pursuit in additional cars. The chase was furious as the criminals and their pursuers bounded out of town and into less-populated areas. However, the robbers proved to be a step ahead of their pursuers, thanks in part to having a well-prepared git. As was the case with other bank robbers of the period, the Mulberry bandits used a “blind” to confuse witne...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Overview
• The Main Participants
• Economy, Banking and the Rise of Gangsterdom
• The Art of Stealing Cars and the Science of Robbing Banks
• The FBI and the Hunt-Gant Gang
• The Early Crime Spree
• Graduation to Bank Thefts
• Notoriety in Print
• Capture
• The Trial
• Alcatraz, Leavenworth and more
• Legal Wrangling
• Conclusion
• Bibliography