Led by Richard Reese Whittemore (September 8, 1901 - August 13, 1926), the gang, including his wife Margaret (March 2, 1903 - April 13, 1993), went on a year-long crime spree committing payroll, bank and jewelry robberies in Maryland and New York before their capture in 1926.
[1][2] Richard Whittemore, a longtime career criminal, escaped from the Maryland state penitentiary on February 20, 1925, after killing prison guard Robert Holtman.
[1] The gang committed its first armed robbery, only four days after Whittemore's prison escape, when they ambushed a Western Maryland Dairy payroll shipment in Baltimore.
Three weeks later, the gang robbed Baltimore bank messenger J. Wahl Holtzman of $8,792 in broad daylight, beating him unconscious and then stealing the money he was carrying.
On April 5, they robbed the Metro Sacks jewelry store on West 125 Street taking an estimated $16,000 in cash and precious stones.
On October 5, they stole an estimated $30,000 from Linherr's jewelry store on Sixth Avenue and, two weeks later, robbed salesman John Sandford, employed by Laster & Son, as he parked his car on Broadway.
On December 26, three days after their latest robbery, gang member Joe Ross was found shot to death in Elizabethtown, New Jersey in what is still an unsolved gangland slaying.
Their drug use may have been the contributing factor for their capture when the New York Police Department were able to arrest eight of the surviving gang members on March 19, without firing a shot.