Criminal. He is remembered as "Machine Gun" Kelly, a notorious, depression-era gangster, bank robber, and kidnapper. Born as George Kelly Barnes to a wealthy family, he was a poor student with his highest grade being C+ in personal hygiene. After attending public schools, he enrolled in Mississippi State University, but soon dropped out of college after his mother died in November 1917. On October 7, 1919, George, age 19, married Geneva Ramsey, age 18. They had two sons: George Ramsey (later Trimbach) and Robert Owen (later Trimbach). His new father-in-law hired him as a commissary clerk in his construction company. When the father-in-law died in 1922 in a dynamite explosion, the company was managed by one of Ramsey's five sons, and George was out of a job. George tried his hand as a used car salesman, goat farmer, cab driver, and later, breaking the law as a bootlegger. Geneva begged him to stop rum-running, but it was easy, fast money and it supported his sons. She gave him an ultimatum. George chose to leave his family. They divorced in 1926. In March 1927, George was arrested for bootlegging and served 90 days in the New Mexico Penitentiary. After he got out of prison, he chose to leave his family and change his name to George R. Kelly. He was arrested for smuggling liquor into an Indian Reservation in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and sentenced to three years in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary In Kansas. He was paroled after 2 years. He met Lera Cleo Brooks Thorne who had been married three times. Her third husband's suicide in 1927 was suspicious; some say she shot him so she would be free to marry George in September 1930. She changed her name to Kathryn before her first marriage in 1919. She had an established life of crime with bootleggers and robbing banks before she met Kelly. She gave him the nickname "Machine Gun" Kelly and promoted it every chance she could. He concentrated on running illegal alcohol and robbing banks until July 22, 1933, when Kelly and Albert Bates, a career criminal with a lengthy record, kidnapped Charles F. Urschel, one of Oklahoma's wealthiest oil tycoons, from his home in Oklahoma City. A $200,000 ransom was paid, and Urschel was returned home on July 31st. As a result of information Urschel provided the FBI regarding his kidnapping, the investigation led to the arrests of Machine Gun Kelly, his wife Kathryn, her mother Ora, her stepfather "Boss" Shannon, their son Armon, and Harvey Bailey, an escaped bank robber who happened to be at the ranch for an overnight visit. He was wanted for the murder of three policemen. Fifteen more persons were arrested and convicted for helping Kelly and Bates with the planning and execution of the kidnapping. George and Kathryn Kelly were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment. George Kelly spent 17 years on Alcatraz Island in California before being transferred back to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas in 1951, where he died quietly of a heart attack on his 54th birthday, July 18, 1954. His wife, Kathryn Kelly, was released from prison in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1958 and moved back to Oklahoma. She changed her name to Lera Cleo Brooks Kelly and worked as a bookkeeper at the Oklahoma County Poor Farm, a hospital and nursing home. She died on May 28, 1985.