Melvin Purvis - Career

Career

Purvis received his law degree from the University of South Carolina and had a brief career as a lawyer. Purvis was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order while attending South Carolina. He joined the FBI in 1927, and headed the Division of Investigation offices in Birmingham, Oklahoma City and Cincinnati. In 1932 he was placed in charge of the Chicago office by Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover. He was a well-educated man, known to be a crack shot. He captured more public enemies than any other agent in FBI history, a record that still stands.

Purvis led the manhunts that tracked outlaws Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd, and most famously John Dillinger, which ended in Chicago on July 22, 1934. However, after Purvis became a media figure for this feat, Hoover claimed that Purvis had been demoted and that agent Samuel P. Cowley had been put in charge of the Dillinger case. Cowley was later shot by Baby Face Nelson, and Purvis visited him in hospital shortly before he died. Purvis was praised for his actions. He reportedly incurred the wrath of Hoover, who had previously supported him, as Purvis sought and achieved publicity for his own role, overshadowing Hoover and the rest of the FBI. In a 2005 book co-authored by Purvis's son Alston, Hoover is portrayed as jealous of the attention given to Purvis after Dillinger was killed.

At least one of Purvis' official accounts of his exploits was later called into question. Purvis' story of the death of Pretty Boy Floyd indicated that Purvis and his agents had killed him with no assistance from local law enforcement. This was later refuted by Chester Smith, an officer with the East Liverpool, Ohio, police (Hoover would later state Smith had shot Floyd first). Officer Smith said that Purvis and his agents never fired until after Purvis had attempted to question Floyd. After Floyd responded with curses, Purvis ordered Agent Herman "Ed" Hollis to shoot Floyd, who was lying wounded on the ground. This claim was discounted later by retired FBI Agent Winfred E. Hopton, who wrote in a 1976 letter to Time that local law enforcement, including Captain Smith weren't even present until after Floyd had died. Of course, this version conflicts with the one from local authorities which has Smith initially wounding Floyd. Neither claim has been clearly proven.

Purvis resigned from the FBI in 1935, and afterward practiced law. In 1937 he became engaged to actress Janice Jarratt, but they never married. He later married Marie Rosanne Willcox, and they had three sons. Purvis bought radio station WOLH in Florence, South Carolina. During World War II, he served in the Army as a colonel.

In 1936, Purvis published a memoir of his years as an investigator with the Bureau, entitled American Agent. In the 1990s, the writers Curt Gentry and Anthony Summers, who both published biographies of Hoover, assert that the director, who initially supported Purvis, was jealous of his fame after the Dillinger escapade and demoted him. Purvis left the FBI.