John Paul Chase (December 26, 1901 - October 5, 1973) is an American bank robber and a depression-era criminal. He is an old criminal fellow from the Karpis-Barker Gang and especially Baby Face Nelson who later took him to the John Dillinger gang. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once referred to Chase as a "mouse with a patriotic-sounding name." Chase and Nelson continued to rob the bank with John Dillinger until Dillinger's death in July 1934. After Nelson's death in November 1934, Chase fled back to California where he was arrested a month later on December 27, 1934. Chase was sent to Alcatraz where he became wrong one of the longest serving prisoners; (March 31, 1935 - September 21, 1954).
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Biography
John Paul Chase was born in San Francisco, California on December 26, 1901. He left the elementary school to work at a farm and later became an assistant machinist at a railway station. In 1926, Chase was fired from a train and hired as a driver for professional gamblers in Reno, Nevada. He spent the next few years as a con artist in Sausalito, San Rafael and San Francisco but was not involved in a major crime until his relationship with Baby Face Nelson in the early 1930s, probably in March 1932. Little is known about his first encounter with Nelson However, popular claims Chase is a wheelman in Nelson's contract killing in Reno. It is generally agreed among the crime historians that Reno is the most likely place where the first two became partners, Nelson has connections in the local underground world and often hide out there while in Chicago and the Midwest common.
On October 23, 1933, he and Nelson robbed their first bank together in Brainerd, Minnesota to escape with $ 32,000. Along the way, they took on a number of other criminals including Charles Fisher, Tommy Carroll, and Homer Van Meter. In March 1934, Nelson joined the gang of John Dillinger even though Chase did not participate in their first detention that month in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Unclear when Chase was taken to the gang, some accounts claimed he took part in a robbery in Mason City, Iowa. He spends most of his time as a "gopher" for Nelson while the gang is in the Chicago area. Among his duties is taking take-out food, buying guns and ammunition, and running a message between Nelson and Dillinger. His relatively small status within the gang was probably the reason he was not present in a shootout with the FBI when a federal agent stormed the Little Bohemia Lodge near Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin on April 22. After the robbery of Mason City, Nelson and John Paul Chase fled west to Reno, where their old bosses, Bill Graham and Jim McKay fought in federal fraud cases. Years later, the FBI determined that, on March 22, 1934, Nelson and Chase kidnapped the chief witness of the couple, Roy Fritsch, and killed him. The Quartered Fritsch body, while never found, is said to have been thrown down the abandoned mine shaft.
Chase's first confirmed robbery with Dillinger's gang occurred on June 30, 1934, when he joined Dillinger, Nelson, Van Meter and two others robbed a bank in South Bend, Indiana for $ 29,890. This is a disappointing amount considering the bank robberies past the gang and, to make matters worse, a local police officer was killed during their vacation. Dillinger and Van Meter were killed by the FBI for the next two months and Chase escaped with Nelson back to Reno for a while. They eventually returned to Chicago where, on November 26, they stole a car and went to Wisconsin to live in one of their safe homes. After finding a federal agent lurking their hideout, they returned to Illinois where they met with an FBI ambush while driving near Barrington, Illinois the next day. Nelson was badly wounded during a gun battle, but he managed to kill the agent Samuel Cowley and Herman "Ed" Hollis before dying of his injuries, allowing Chase to flee.
Alone and without friends in Chicago, he could disappear for a while. Chase was not identified in a shootout, authorities and journalists speculated either Alvin Karpis or John "Red" Hamilton as the second shooter, and decided to leave town when he had a chance. Four days later, Chase answered a newspaper ad with the name Elmer Rockwood to transport the car to Seattle, Washington. When he was on the road, his name was given to a federal agent by Helen Nelson and for the first time the authorities began actively searching for him. On December 27, Chase was eventually arrested by police in Mount Shasta, California while working in a state fish hatchery and extradited to Chicago. He was the first person indicted under the recently passed law to make it a federal crime to kill a federal agent. On March 24, 1935, Chase was tried and convicted of the murder of agent Sam Cowley and sentenced to life in prison. He was officially sent to Alcatraz on March 31, 1935.
Chase had gotten angry with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, probably for his involvement in the killing of Cowley and Hollis, and once referred to it as a "mice with a patriotic-sounding name" . Hoover personally intervened in his first parole trial in 1950, which was rejected on the basis of his objection, and ordered the supervision of the prison chaplain who supported his parole. In a memorandum to his field agents, Hoover wrote, "Look closely and try to thwart this pastor's efforts that should attend his own affairs instead of trying to break free of the community like a mad dog".
John Paul Chase was the first person to be sent directly to Alcatraz jail where only Alvin Karpis was there longer than Chase for nearly 20 years (March 31, 1935 - 21 September 1954). While imprisoned in a prison, Alcatraz prison officials Frank Heaney would later recall in his autobiography, In the Alcatraz Walls, that Pastor Clark, a prison Catholic priest, first made him interested in painting. At one point during his stay, the prison had an art instructor coming from San Francisco to teach formal painting techniques. He made a famous boat painting, "J.P. Chase" left for San Francisco, with the viewpoint of the island. He has paintings on display in prisons and small art galleries, and often sells them. At Alcatraz he works as a cobbler and is placed under the personal guard of Frank Heaney, the youngest corrective officer in prison during his operation.
In September 1954, Chase was transferred to Leavenworth where a second appeal for parole was once again denied because of Hoover's efforts. Hoover has announced that he will prosecute Chase for Hollis's killing to be released, but this is vetoed by a federal judge who ruled that a 21-year delay in prosecuting a crime clearly violates Chase's constitutional right to "quick trial".
Chase remained in jail for a decade before being released on parole, despite Hoover's protest, on October 31, 1966, after 32 years, and moved back to the Bay Area. Chase worked as a guard in Los Altos, California until his death from cancer on October 5, 1973, lived a year longer, five months and three days.
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References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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