A Bank Robber Blog
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
“One Eye” Bobby Wilcoxson entering
Lafayette National Bank, Brooklyn, N. Y.,
December 15, 1961.
WARNING: This site is NOT about “how to” rob banks. Bank robbery is a very serious crime. If you’re thinking about knocking over your local bank as a career, think again. I strongly recommend you don’t. The FBI WILL catch you and you will go to jail for a very long time. If you’re looking for lessons, you will not find any here - visit another site.
This is a somewhat nostalgic site dedicated to the infamous Bobby Wilcoxson and Al Nussbaum, a pair of thieves who pulled off eight bank robberies in New England from December, 1960, through September, 1962. According to FBI records, the team walked away with sacks of cash totaling nearly $250,000 - the equivalent of nearly $2,000,000 in 2008.
Wilcoxson was born in Duke, Oklahoma in 1929, raised in Salinas, California, and somehow found his way to Delray Beach, Florida. Nussbaum was born in 1934 in Buffalo, New York. Wilcoxson and Nussbaum met while incarcerated in an Ohio Federal Prison sometime between 1958 and 1959.
Over the course of their 22 month crime spree that began in December, 1960, the bandits murdered a bank guard, wounded a Brooklyn patrolman with a Thompson submachine gun, used a station wagon as a getaway car with a military machine gun mounted on a tripod in the back - just in case the police gave chase, set off homemade bombs near the White House in Washington, D.C., to distract police, learned to refurbish deactivated World War II and Korean War military weapons, including anti-tank-armor-piercing cannons and hand grenades, communicated during robberies with two-way radios, stole numerous automobiles, passed thousands of dollars worth of stolen traveler’s checks, bought some very famous hot rod cars, learned how to use disguises, and were named on the FBI’s Most Wanted List in 1962.
Bobby Randell Wilcoxson
FBI Most Wanted Photo
February, 1962.
Labeled “One Eye” Bobby Wilcoxson by the FBI, he was considered the “Most Wanted Man Since Dillinger” by the G-Men. Wilcoxson was the muscle and trigger-man, killing guard Henry Kraus and injuring Patrolman Salvatore Accardi, during the 1961 hold up of the Lafayette National Bank, Brooklyn, New York.
Albert Frederick Nussbaum
FBI Most Wanted Photo
Februry, 1962
Albert Frederick Nussbaum, Wilcoxson’s crime partner, was the planner and the mechanical expert. Nussbaum was a trained gunsmith, locksmith, and electronics wizard. Nussbaum was a pilot and bought his own airplane with money stolen from banks.
Jacqueline Ruth Rose
FBI Wanted Photo
Februry, 1962
Along the way, Wilcoxson’s love interest, Jacqueline Ruth Rose, became his live-in. He was 32. She was 19. Rose, too, was sought by the FBI as an accomplice.
Peter Columbus Curry, Jr., another exconvict from the Ohio prison days, joined Wilcoxson and Nussbaum for the 1961 hold up of the Lafayette National Bank, Brooklyn, New York, in which the guard was murdered and the patrolman wounded. Curry was the first of the gang captured in February, 1962.
In the end, all four were captured by November, 1962 and sentenced to prison terms in 1964. Rose never went to prison. Her sentence for passing stolen traveler’s checks was suspended in 1963 and a judge sent her home to live with her parents in Gilmer, Texas, near Tyler and Longview. Wilcoxson and Nussbaum pled guilty in 1963 - Nussbaum was sentenced to 40 years and Wilcoxson was sentenced to life. Nussbaum spent time on Alcatraz. Wilcoxson did time in Atlanta, Georgia, and Leavenworth, Kansas. A jury found Curry guilty of bank robbery and murder, and he received a life sentence in 1964.
But the end was not really the end.
Nussbaum’s wife, Alicia (Majchrowicz), divorced him sometime in 1964 - after he was incarcerated. Nussbaum was eventually released on parole by 1979, having served about 14 years. Al Nussbaum then became a widely published author. He wrote pulp fiction novels and short stories - mostly about crime and criminals. He wrote television scripts. His book, “Gypsy” was also published as “Motorcycle Racer,” and distributed by Schoolastic Press in the mid-1970’s. Today, it is still on many elementary school required reading lists.
The title of this blog, “How to be Sneaky, Underhanded, Vile and Contemptible for Fun and Profit,” is attributed to Nussbaum. It’s been said that Nussbaum wrote a book with that very title. I’ve searched the long tail of the internet, high-and-low, for such a publication. I’ve yet to find it. I think the title clever and decided it was a fitting homage to the bank-robber-turned-writer and his crime partner. Al Nussbaum died in 1996.
Bobby Randell Wilcoxson
Tennessee State Prison Mug Shot
2002
The arc of Wilcoxson’s life did not end so well. He was paroled to the Chattanooga, Tennessee, area in 1982. In December of that year, Wilcoxson, then 53, was introduced to the wife of a chemical engineer of the Dupont company. Evelyn Fay Mosher hired Wilcoxson to murder her husband so she could collect $209,000 of life insurance. Mosher never paid Wilcoxson and the grisly crime went unsolved until a police informant ratted on Wilcoxson in 1985. In 1987, a jury found Wilcoxson guilty of the murder-for-hire of Robert Mosher of Signal Mountain. He was sentenced to death by electrocution. Bobby Wilcoxson died in December, 2006, of natural causes while in the custody of the State of Tennessee Prisons. His death sentence had been over turned on appeal in 1999. He was 77.
What became of Jacqueline Ruth Rose and Peter Columbus Curry, Jr., and a few others is unknown. One of the purposes of this blog is to learn how fate has treated them since 1964.
Another purpose of this blog is to provide a place to revisit the rich, pop culture of the early 1960’s as it pertained to Wilcoxson, Nussbaum, and the others in their sphere. Elvis had peaked. The Beatles were coming. Kennedy was President. The Russians put missiles in Cuba. American Troops were headed to Vietnam. Mercury Astronauts were orbiting the earth. The Civil Rights movement was igniting. The times , they were a’changin’.
Ex-FBI Agents who hunted Wilcoxson and Nussbaum have posted a few comments about their part in the manhunt at other sites. It is my hope that “X G-Men” will post here, too.
The launch of bobbywilcoxson.com and alnussbaum.com have already caught the eye of several interesting people. The son of the FBI Agent that arrested Wilcoxson in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1963 has made contact. He’s shared some wonderful stories and personal photographs. The owner of a customized Porsche once owned by the bank robbers gave me some very useful information, leading to “The Aztec” before the FBI documents would have eventually pointed to the famous customized Chevrolet Bel Air hot rod. There’s a wonderful lady in Buffalo, New York, who is adopted and her adoptive family members tell her she is a daughter of one of the bank robbers. Her story is very complex and interesting, to say the least. It involves bogus adoption papers, car accidents and professional baseball players.
This is not a place to glorify Wilcoxson or Nussbaum or the crimes they committed. It is simply a place to chronicle their lives and times as best as possible.
Their lives were intensely dramatic and tension filled - the stuff good stories are made of.
Welcome to the story of Bobby Wilcoxson and Al Nussbaum.
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Tags: 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, Al Nussbaum, Albert Frederick Nussbaum, bank robbers, Bobby Randell Wilcoxson, Bobby Wilcoxson, Dillinger, FBI, Jackie Rose, Jacqueline Rose, Jacqueline Ruth Rose, Peter Columbus Curry Jr., Public Enemies, Ten Most wanted Fugitives, True Crime