Fleagle Gang - The Robbery

The Robbery

E.A. Lundgren, a one-armed teller at the bank was waiting on a customer when he saw the men come into the bank and heard one shout, “You sons-a-bitches get them all up!” and another yell, “Hands up!”

In the noise and confusion of the moment, Bank President A.N. Parrish ducked into his office and pulled out an .45 he called "Old Betsy" and fired a shot at the closest bank robber from the door to his office hitting Royston in the jaw, and then by all accounts, all hell broke loose.

The bank cashier, William Garrett and Miss Vivian Potter, another bank employee, said later two of the gunmen struggled with customers and most of the gang members were shouting to their victims to either lie down or put their hands up. Abshier, who later confessed to his role in the robbery and its aftermath, recalled that;

“I grabs hold of the man standing alongside of me, shoved him to the floor; told him to get down. I wanted them out of the way of the bullets.”

During the struggle, the bank president, A.N. Parrish, shot Heavy Royston in the face and was subsequently shot and killed himself. Jaddo Parrish, the son of the president, was also a bank employee and was killed in the fusillade.

The bandits loaded their booty — $10,664 in cash, $12,400 in Liberty Bonds, and almost $200,000 in commercial paper — into pillow cases and grabbed two hostages. The original plan had called for the gang to take Jaddo Parrish as hostage, because they felt that his father would not pursue them and risk his son’s life, but when Jaddo was killed, the gunmen opted to take others.