Ma Barker Gang Hideout Busted!

Ma Barker Gang Hideout Busted!

Ma Barker Gang Hideout Busted!

Must SeeTop 10 Florida Condos For Sale

Legends of the Depression Era crime figures from Al Capone to Bonnie and Clyde to the Ma Barker Gang are just as fascinating in 2013 as they were all those years ago. Yes, the crimes of today are many times more blood curdling, but we no longer have J. Edgar Hoover to tell us so. Hoover, head of the infant FBI, wasn't shy about spinning stories and creating positive publicity for his agency and himself. Highlighting the escapades of depression era gangsters was a shoe-in.

Ma Barker and her son, Fred, were killed in this Lake Weir, Florida house after a four hour shootout that made headlines then and has been legendary for generations. We still wonder if she was truly the mastermind behind the crimes of the notorious Barker-Karpis Gang or a Hoover fabrication. As one imprisoned criminal who knew the family well put it, "She couldn’t plan breakfast."

Built in 1930 as a vacation home for wealthy Miami furniture manufacturer, Carson Bradford, the home has stayed in the same family for four generations. It was rented to Ma Barker and her son under an alias and even after the longest and fiercest shootout in FBI history, the Bradford family continued to use it. It is said that the children in the family enjoyed digging on the property in hopes of one day finding a hidden treasure of cash belonging to the gang.

Over the years, the only upgrade was the kitchen and though most of the 2,000 bullet holes were filled, some still remain as tangible history. Before and after pictures show that everything inside the house, including the furniture, has been preserved as it was prior to the shootout - an excellent example of living history.

The eight heirs have now agreed to sell the property at a fixed price of $889,000, which is a bargain when you consider the price includes 9 1/2 acres, 342 feet of sandy beach frontage, two lakefront residences, which includes the historic Ma Barker gang hideout, and its memorabilia time capsule of personal property and furnishings that were in the property during the FBI shootout on January 16, 1935.

Asking price reduced from $1million to $899,000.

Source: www.mabarkerhouse.com