An underworld figure in New York City and throughout the northeastern United States during the post-American Civil War era, he was called "one of the most notorious criminals in America".

He broke out of the Worcester jailhouse by forcing open the bars of a fourth story window in the north end of the building, with the help of a jackscrew smuggled in from the outside, and climbed outside using a rope.

One of the reasons he was able to evade arrest was wearing a beard, and regularly changing its style, as the few pictures Perris showed him clean-shaven; he was always "smooth-faced" part of the time.

[5] The three-year plan to rob the Manhattan Savings Institution, occurring on the morning of October 27, 1878, resulted in the theft of $300,000 in cash and securities.

101 Lynch Street, then carried off on a butcher cart driven by Perris, Dobbs and Ed Goodie to dump Leslie's body.