Frank Mulligan was one of the nicest men I ever met, though it took me a long time to meet him, and I met him only two or three times.
His longtime companion Olivia was a friend of mine. I have no idea if she and Frank ever wed "officially" or not, but believe they did formalize it. My understanding is that to keep things square with Social Security she continued to use her previous husband's name.
When I met Olivia through my adoption of a cat in 1994, Frank was away, so our friendship was just two single gals who saw each other from time to time and wrote letters to one another, because she had neither car nor phone. She was a lot older than I am, but somehow we just clicked. She was a lovely, smart lady with quick humor, genuine warmth, very compassionate, and woe be unto you if you stuck your nose in her business. She never said as much, but I could kind of tell, so I tried to mind my curiosity. She vaguely mentioned her dear Frank was "away for a while", and I accepted it, knowing it was bad form to pry. A few years later, she felt comfortable telling me more about him, so more on that below.
Once, before I met him, Frank wrote me a gracious, beautiful, well-written letter exhibiting excellent penmanship in lovely script, thanking me for looking out for his dear wife, and saying he knew my visits and letters meant a lot to her. Eventually, Frank came back home and I got to meet him in person.
Duck, here comes an Irish tornado! Every cliche about Gaelic charm lived in this lovely man: warm, funny, talkative, humble, a bit self-deprecating, confessing to a love of drink (which he'd finally overcome), and revering of his family in Massachusetts who'd raised him. With a full head of white hair and twinkly eyes, Frank was striking. He really loved his wife, and together, they giggled and flirted like teens. He could tell stories wonderfully. His conversational references left no doubt that he was very well-read. He was not a very educated man formally, but he was very smart, resourceful, and articulate, and had parlayed his self-taught typing skills into a computer career and worked also as a transcriptionist. You could tell this was a man who'd not been dealt the best of cards, but who had played them rather well.
He instantly became one of my favorite people. I was thrilled for my friend that she had her adored hubby back after years apart. Sadly though, they were not together much longer, as he passed away from his long-standing heart trouble shortly after their reunion. She'd waited so long to have a life with him again, and it was not to be. I felt luck had cheated them both.
Frank, as his name implies, was indeed very frank. He'd tell you the truth about anything, especially his weaknesses. So I wanted you to know what a truly lovable man he was before I let the Philadelphia Inquirer tell the rest.
_____________________________________________________
Tuesday, March 10, 1981
MAN HELD IN HOLDUPS AT BANKS
A 52-year-old South Philadelphia man was arrested yesterday just hours after he allegedly committed the latest in a series of recent Center City bank robberies, police said.
Police said Francis X . Mulligan was charged with robbery, theft, criminal attempted theft, threats, receiving stolen property, recklessly endangering another person and possession of an instrument of crime.
Mulligan, who is being held in lieu of $12,500 bail, will have a preliminary hearing March 18 in Room 675 of City Hall.
The chain of events that led to Mulligan's arrest began when police responded to an alarm at the Western Savings Bank branch at 1601 Walnut Street at 3:10 p.m. yesterday. When they arrived, they were told that an elderly man
had just fled on foot with $1,600.
Bank employees told police that the man had presented a teller with a note that read: "This is a stickup. Give me your 100s, 50s and 20s."
Police said the teller described the robber as having white hair with a part on the right side, wearing a light-colored coat and wire-rim eyeglasses.
Police said the description matched the description of a man involved in four other robberies at Center City banks in recent weeks.
Working from the teller's description, detectives arrested Mulligan as he left his home at 5:30 p.m. and took him to the Police Administration Building at 8th and Race Streets, where he was charged.
Police said that at the time of the arrest they found on Mulligan what was alleged to be $300 of the money taken from the bank.
In addition to yesterday's robbery, Mulligan is charged with taking $2,450 from the Western Savings Bank at 1600 John F. Kennedy Boulevard on Feb. 20; presenting a note but not taking any money from the Fidelity Bank, 15th and
Sansom Streets; taking a package of "bait" money that exploded and was recovered after a robbery at the East Girard Savings and Loan at 13th and Sansom Streets, and taking $157 from the Fidelity Bank, 16th and John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
The last three robberies occurred Thursday, police said.
_____________________________________________________
Saturday, June 27, 1992
FAKE BOMB USED IN HOLDUP;
63-YEAR-OLD IS ARRESTED
A 63-year-old man, convicted in 1981 of five bank robberies, was arrested yesterday afternoon after a bank holdup in South Philadelphia, police said.
FBI officials said that Francis X . Mulligan, address unknown, robbed the Continental Bank branch at Eighth and Christian Streets at 2:54 p.m. by telling employees he had a bomb. Mulligan was arrested as he left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money. Investigators said the bomb was a fake.
Mulligan was convicted in 1981 in connection with a crime spree that included five bank robberies in a three-week period, three within hours of each other. He was in the custody of federal authorities last night.
_____________________________________________________
April 22, 1993
CONVICT'S LIST GROWS A BIT LONGER
HE'S EDUCATED. HE'S CARING. AND HE HAS A RECORD OF CONVICTIONS ALMOST 50 YEARS LONG.
Shortly before 3 p.m. on June 26, 1992, a slight, white-haired man walked into the Continental Bank at Eighth and Christian Streets, politely informed bank officials that he had a bomb, and demanded money. The officials took him to the bank vault, where they filled a briefcase with $45,000 in cash.
Unknown to the robber, whose name was Francis X. Mulligan, other bank officials had activated a silent alarm, and police officers were waiting to arrest Mulligan when he emerged from the vault. The "bomb" he claimed to have was actually a blue cigarette lighter. The Continental Bank robbery was far from the only crime committed by Mulligan. In fact, according to federal officials and court records, it was only the latest in a remarkable string of crimes, mostly robberies, stretching to the 1940s.
"This sorry episode," federal prosecutor Robert Zauzmer said in court papers, referring to the Continental Bank robbery, "continued an astonishing criminal career, spanning nearly half a century, in which Mulligan has repeatedly resorted to robbery as a means to obtain others' money."
He added: "If Mulligan, who has committed numerous robberies with striking regularity over five decades, is not seen as a career criminal, it is difficult to comprehend who is."
Mulligan, now 64, has nine previous convictions. The first was in 1944 in Massachusetts, where he committed a manslaughter and robbery at age 15. He was convicted twice of larceny by check in 1960, of forgery in 1966 and of committing a string of robberies of various businesses in a five-hour period in 1967. He robbed a finance company, a discount firm, a hotel and an insurance company, and tried to rob the Hahnemann University Hospital admission office.
He was also convicted of bank robbery in 1968, in 1973 and again in 1981. He was also convicted of larceny in 1973. The 1981 conviction was for a crime spree that included three bank robberies on the same day.
He has spent at least 22 years in prison since 1944.
Yesterday Mulligan was sent back to prison when a federal judge sentenced him to eight years and one month for the Continental Bank robbery. Mulligan had previously pleaded guilty to robbing the bank.
"Your life has been an anomaly," U.S. District Judge John R. Padova told Mulligan. "You are a gentleman with great ability having come through very difficult times. You continued your education, continued developing yourself. You have done many productive things for yourself, and I believe you have done many productive things for other people.
"But the other side of Francis Mulligan is one which really has represented substantial danger to the community over a substantial period of time," Padova said.
Before his sentencing, Mulligan made an articulate statement to the court in which he talked about the legitimate jobs he had held, including one as a typist in federal court, and about the people - in prison and out - he taught to read and write.
"My life outside the criminal justice system has been productive," Mulligan told the court. "I've always worked, worked hard... But occasionally, the old aberrations come forth."
"I've paid for everything I've done," Mulligan said, noting the time he served in prison and his having been fired from legitimate jobs because he was an ex-convict.
Mulligan's lawyer, Steven A. Morley, had requested a lesser prison sentence, citing Mulligan's age and health problems. Mulligan has a heart problem and a history of alcoholism, and many of his crimes have been committed during drinking binges, Morley said.
Mulligan testified yesterday that on the day he robbed the Continental Bank, he was at the end of a days-long binge. He said he consumed eight to 10 cans of beer and four large shots of bourbon in the hours before the robbery, then took a nitroglycerin pill while walking to the bank from his home in South Philadelphia.
"I was fairly high," he testified.
He sat at the desk of an assistant bank manager and announced, "I have a bomb, I'm desperate for money, and I want to go into the vault," he testified. When the assistant manager said he didn't have the key to the vault, Mulligan testified, he waited until the bank manager finished a phone call before talking with him.
According to court papers, Mulligan's formal schooling ended at age 15, but he pursued his education through prison courses and independently, studying mathematics, English, German, Latin, journalism and creative writing. He won a short-story writing award in 1953 and published several magazine articles in 1968. He received a high school equivalency diploma in 1970, scoring in the 98th percentile, Morley wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court.
Mulligan also taught himself to type. And he worked for several years as a typist in the courthouse where he was sentenced yesterday.
He had his first heart attack in August 1977 in the federal courthouse while typing trial transcripts.
After his release from prison in 1986, Mulligan taught himself how to use and care for computers. His expertise helped him get a job at the law firm of Kelly, McLaughlin and Foster in Philadelphia, where he worked from March 1989 until June 1992. He helped keep the law firm's computer equipment running.
Zauzmer, the federal prosecutor, agreed that "this is a tragic case. Hearing Mr. Mulligan, it's almost a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's clear Mr. Mulligan is a man of accomplishment and intelligence... For us today, the main concern is that Mr. Mulligan robs banks. It has to be stopped and it has to be prevented."
_____________________________________________________
Addendum to this memorial: In May of 2013, I was driven to find out what happened in 1944 that led to Frank's first convictions for robbery and manslaughter. Despite his having told me about the manslaughter, I was rather floored to read about it, to think Frank was capable of it, and to know a hardworking family with sons who served in both WWI and WWII had lost their son in such a terrible way.
From that time, I had amassed a lot of information, but it was only in January of 2015 that I got access to the Boston Globe archives, where I finally saw the victim's face and learned his place of rest.
The essence is that young Frank, age 15, a former Boy Scout, of 1441 Tremont Street in the Mission Hill district of Roxbury, then known as "Buzzie" was being raised by his widowed working single mother, Mary (aka Mary A Reid). (His father William Francis Mulligan had died in 1935 when Frank was about 6.) A student at Mission High School, he had two brothers in the service, one of them a paratrooper who'd won a Silver Star. And in hoping to be accepted by an elder gang, Frank ended up committing manslaughter.
Remembering how Frank was sorry, and never came to peace with what he had done, I was compelled to make a memorial for his victim, Sgt. John F. Prunty. I hope you will honor him with a visit and read his story.
His longtime companion Olivia was a friend of mine. I have no idea if she and Frank ever wed "officially" or not, but believe they did formalize it. My understanding is that to keep things square with Social Security she continued to use her previous husband's name.
When I met Olivia through my adoption of a cat in 1994, Frank was away, so our friendship was just two single gals who saw each other from time to time and wrote letters to one another, because she had neither car nor phone. She was a lot older than I am, but somehow we just clicked. She was a lovely, smart lady with quick humor, genuine warmth, very compassionate, and woe be unto you if you stuck your nose in her business. She never said as much, but I could kind of tell, so I tried to mind my curiosity. She vaguely mentioned her dear Frank was "away for a while", and I accepted it, knowing it was bad form to pry. A few years later, she felt comfortable telling me more about him, so more on that below.
Once, before I met him, Frank wrote me a gracious, beautiful, well-written letter exhibiting excellent penmanship in lovely script, thanking me for looking out for his dear wife, and saying he knew my visits and letters meant a lot to her. Eventually, Frank came back home and I got to meet him in person.
Duck, here comes an Irish tornado! Every cliche about Gaelic charm lived in this lovely man: warm, funny, talkative, humble, a bit self-deprecating, confessing to a love of drink (which he'd finally overcome), and revering of his family in Massachusetts who'd raised him. With a full head of white hair and twinkly eyes, Frank was striking. He really loved his wife, and together, they giggled and flirted like teens. He could tell stories wonderfully. His conversational references left no doubt that he was very well-read. He was not a very educated man formally, but he was very smart, resourceful, and articulate, and had parlayed his self-taught typing skills into a computer career and worked also as a transcriptionist. You could tell this was a man who'd not been dealt the best of cards, but who had played them rather well.
He instantly became one of my favorite people. I was thrilled for my friend that she had her adored hubby back after years apart. Sadly though, they were not together much longer, as he passed away from his long-standing heart trouble shortly after their reunion. She'd waited so long to have a life with him again, and it was not to be. I felt luck had cheated them both.
Frank, as his name implies, was indeed very frank. He'd tell you the truth about anything, especially his weaknesses. So I wanted you to know what a truly lovable man he was before I let the Philadelphia Inquirer tell the rest.
_____________________________________________________
Tuesday, March 10, 1981
MAN HELD IN HOLDUPS AT BANKS
A 52-year-old South Philadelphia man was arrested yesterday just hours after he allegedly committed the latest in a series of recent Center City bank robberies, police said.
Police said Francis X . Mulligan was charged with robbery, theft, criminal attempted theft, threats, receiving stolen property, recklessly endangering another person and possession of an instrument of crime.
Mulligan, who is being held in lieu of $12,500 bail, will have a preliminary hearing March 18 in Room 675 of City Hall.
The chain of events that led to Mulligan's arrest began when police responded to an alarm at the Western Savings Bank branch at 1601 Walnut Street at 3:10 p.m. yesterday. When they arrived, they were told that an elderly man
had just fled on foot with $1,600.
Bank employees told police that the man had presented a teller with a note that read: "This is a stickup. Give me your 100s, 50s and 20s."
Police said the teller described the robber as having white hair with a part on the right side, wearing a light-colored coat and wire-rim eyeglasses.
Police said the description matched the description of a man involved in four other robberies at Center City banks in recent weeks.
Working from the teller's description, detectives arrested Mulligan as he left his home at 5:30 p.m. and took him to the Police Administration Building at 8th and Race Streets, where he was charged.
Police said that at the time of the arrest they found on Mulligan what was alleged to be $300 of the money taken from the bank.
In addition to yesterday's robbery, Mulligan is charged with taking $2,450 from the Western Savings Bank at 1600 John F. Kennedy Boulevard on Feb. 20; presenting a note but not taking any money from the Fidelity Bank, 15th and
Sansom Streets; taking a package of "bait" money that exploded and was recovered after a robbery at the East Girard Savings and Loan at 13th and Sansom Streets, and taking $157 from the Fidelity Bank, 16th and John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
The last three robberies occurred Thursday, police said.
_____________________________________________________
Saturday, June 27, 1992
FAKE BOMB USED IN HOLDUP;
63-YEAR-OLD IS ARRESTED
A 63-year-old man, convicted in 1981 of five bank robberies, was arrested yesterday afternoon after a bank holdup in South Philadelphia, police said.
FBI officials said that Francis X . Mulligan, address unknown, robbed the Continental Bank branch at Eighth and Christian Streets at 2:54 p.m. by telling employees he had a bomb. Mulligan was arrested as he left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money. Investigators said the bomb was a fake.
Mulligan was convicted in 1981 in connection with a crime spree that included five bank robberies in a three-week period, three within hours of each other. He was in the custody of federal authorities last night.
_____________________________________________________
April 22, 1993
CONVICT'S LIST GROWS A BIT LONGER
HE'S EDUCATED. HE'S CARING. AND HE HAS A RECORD OF CONVICTIONS ALMOST 50 YEARS LONG.
Shortly before 3 p.m. on June 26, 1992, a slight, white-haired man walked into the Continental Bank at Eighth and Christian Streets, politely informed bank officials that he had a bomb, and demanded money. The officials took him to the bank vault, where they filled a briefcase with $45,000 in cash.
Unknown to the robber, whose name was Francis X. Mulligan, other bank officials had activated a silent alarm, and police officers were waiting to arrest Mulligan when he emerged from the vault. The "bomb" he claimed to have was actually a blue cigarette lighter. The Continental Bank robbery was far from the only crime committed by Mulligan. In fact, according to federal officials and court records, it was only the latest in a remarkable string of crimes, mostly robberies, stretching to the 1940s.
"This sorry episode," federal prosecutor Robert Zauzmer said in court papers, referring to the Continental Bank robbery, "continued an astonishing criminal career, spanning nearly half a century, in which Mulligan has repeatedly resorted to robbery as a means to obtain others' money."
He added: "If Mulligan, who has committed numerous robberies with striking regularity over five decades, is not seen as a career criminal, it is difficult to comprehend who is."
Mulligan, now 64, has nine previous convictions. The first was in 1944 in Massachusetts, where he committed a manslaughter and robbery at age 15. He was convicted twice of larceny by check in 1960, of forgery in 1966 and of committing a string of robberies of various businesses in a five-hour period in 1967. He robbed a finance company, a discount firm, a hotel and an insurance company, and tried to rob the Hahnemann University Hospital admission office.
He was also convicted of bank robbery in 1968, in 1973 and again in 1981. He was also convicted of larceny in 1973. The 1981 conviction was for a crime spree that included three bank robberies on the same day.
He has spent at least 22 years in prison since 1944.
Yesterday Mulligan was sent back to prison when a federal judge sentenced him to eight years and one month for the Continental Bank robbery. Mulligan had previously pleaded guilty to robbing the bank.
"Your life has been an anomaly," U.S. District Judge John R. Padova told Mulligan. "You are a gentleman with great ability having come through very difficult times. You continued your education, continued developing yourself. You have done many productive things for yourself, and I believe you have done many productive things for other people.
"But the other side of Francis Mulligan is one which really has represented substantial danger to the community over a substantial period of time," Padova said.
Before his sentencing, Mulligan made an articulate statement to the court in which he talked about the legitimate jobs he had held, including one as a typist in federal court, and about the people - in prison and out - he taught to read and write.
"My life outside the criminal justice system has been productive," Mulligan told the court. "I've always worked, worked hard... But occasionally, the old aberrations come forth."
"I've paid for everything I've done," Mulligan said, noting the time he served in prison and his having been fired from legitimate jobs because he was an ex-convict.
Mulligan's lawyer, Steven A. Morley, had requested a lesser prison sentence, citing Mulligan's age and health problems. Mulligan has a heart problem and a history of alcoholism, and many of his crimes have been committed during drinking binges, Morley said.
Mulligan testified yesterday that on the day he robbed the Continental Bank, he was at the end of a days-long binge. He said he consumed eight to 10 cans of beer and four large shots of bourbon in the hours before the robbery, then took a nitroglycerin pill while walking to the bank from his home in South Philadelphia.
"I was fairly high," he testified.
He sat at the desk of an assistant bank manager and announced, "I have a bomb, I'm desperate for money, and I want to go into the vault," he testified. When the assistant manager said he didn't have the key to the vault, Mulligan testified, he waited until the bank manager finished a phone call before talking with him.
According to court papers, Mulligan's formal schooling ended at age 15, but he pursued his education through prison courses and independently, studying mathematics, English, German, Latin, journalism and creative writing. He won a short-story writing award in 1953 and published several magazine articles in 1968. He received a high school equivalency diploma in 1970, scoring in the 98th percentile, Morley wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court.
Mulligan also taught himself to type. And he worked for several years as a typist in the courthouse where he was sentenced yesterday.
He had his first heart attack in August 1977 in the federal courthouse while typing trial transcripts.
After his release from prison in 1986, Mulligan taught himself how to use and care for computers. His expertise helped him get a job at the law firm of Kelly, McLaughlin and Foster in Philadelphia, where he worked from March 1989 until June 1992. He helped keep the law firm's computer equipment running.
Zauzmer, the federal prosecutor, agreed that "this is a tragic case. Hearing Mr. Mulligan, it's almost a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's clear Mr. Mulligan is a man of accomplishment and intelligence... For us today, the main concern is that Mr. Mulligan robs banks. It has to be stopped and it has to be prevented."
_____________________________________________________
Addendum to this memorial: In May of 2013, I was driven to find out what happened in 1944 that led to Frank's first convictions for robbery and manslaughter. Despite his having told me about the manslaughter, I was rather floored to read about it, to think Frank was capable of it, and to know a hardworking family with sons who served in both WWI and WWII had lost their son in such a terrible way.
From that time, I had amassed a lot of information, but it was only in January of 2015 that I got access to the Boston Globe archives, where I finally saw the victim's face and learned his place of rest.
The essence is that young Frank, age 15, a former Boy Scout, of 1441 Tremont Street in the Mission Hill district of Roxbury, then known as "Buzzie" was being raised by his widowed working single mother, Mary (aka Mary A Reid). (His father William Francis Mulligan had died in 1935 when Frank was about 6.) A student at Mission High School, he had two brothers in the service, one of them a paratrooper who'd won a Silver Star. And in hoping to be accepted by an elder gang, Frank ended up committing manslaughter.
Remembering how Frank was sorry, and never came to peace with what he had done, I was compelled to make a memorial for his victim, Sgt. John F. Prunty. I hope you will honor him with a visit and read his story.
Frank Mulligan was one of the nicest men I ever met, though it took me a long time to meet him, and I met him only two or three times.
His longtime companion Olivia was a friend of mine. I have no idea if she and Frank ever wed "officially" or not, but believe they did formalize it. My understanding is that to keep things square with Social Security she continued to use her previous husband's name.
When I met Olivia through my adoption of a cat in 1994, Frank was away, so our friendship was just two single gals who saw each other from time to time and wrote letters to one another, because she had neither car nor phone. She was a lot older than I am, but somehow we just clicked. She was a lovely, smart lady with quick humor, genuine warmth, very compassionate, and woe be unto you if you stuck your nose in her business. She never said as much, but I could kind of tell, so I tried to mind my curiosity. She vaguely mentioned her dear Frank was "away for a while", and I accepted it, knowing it was bad form to pry. A few years later, she felt comfortable telling me more about him, so more on that below.
Once, before I met him, Frank wrote me a gracious, beautiful, well-written letter exhibiting excellent penmanship in lovely script, thanking me for looking out for his dear wife, and saying he knew my visits and letters meant a lot to her. Eventually, Frank came back home and I got to meet him in person.
Duck, here comes an Irish tornado! Every cliche about Gaelic charm lived in this lovely man: warm, funny, talkative, humble, a bit self-deprecating, confessing to a love of drink (which he'd finally overcome), and revering of his family in Massachusetts who'd raised him. With a full head of white hair and twinkly eyes, Frank was striking. He really loved his wife, and together, they giggled and flirted like teens. He could tell stories wonderfully. His conversational references left no doubt that he was very well-read. He was not a very educated man formally, but he was very smart, resourceful, and articulate, and had parlayed his self-taught typing skills into a computer career and worked also as a transcriptionist. You could tell this was a man who'd not been dealt the best of cards, but who had played them rather well.
He instantly became one of my favorite people. I was thrilled for my friend that she had her adored hubby back after years apart. Sadly though, they were not together much longer, as he passed away from his long-standing heart trouble shortly after their reunion. She'd waited so long to have a life with him again, and it was not to be. I felt luck had cheated them both.
Frank, as his name implies, was indeed very frank. He'd tell you the truth about anything, especially his weaknesses. So I wanted you to know what a truly lovable man he was before I let the Philadelphia Inquirer tell the rest.
_____________________________________________________
Tuesday, March 10, 1981
MAN HELD IN HOLDUPS AT BANKS
A 52-year-old South Philadelphia man was arrested yesterday just hours after he allegedly committed the latest in a series of recent Center City bank robberies, police said.
Police said Francis X . Mulligan was charged with robbery, theft, criminal attempted theft, threats, receiving stolen property, recklessly endangering another person and possession of an instrument of crime.
Mulligan, who is being held in lieu of $12,500 bail, will have a preliminary hearing March 18 in Room 675 of City Hall.
The chain of events that led to Mulligan's arrest began when police responded to an alarm at the Western Savings Bank branch at 1601 Walnut Street at 3:10 p.m. yesterday. When they arrived, they were told that an elderly man
had just fled on foot with $1,600.
Bank employees told police that the man had presented a teller with a note that read: "This is a stickup. Give me your 100s, 50s and 20s."
Police said the teller described the robber as having white hair with a part on the right side, wearing a light-colored coat and wire-rim eyeglasses.
Police said the description matched the description of a man involved in four other robberies at Center City banks in recent weeks.
Working from the teller's description, detectives arrested Mulligan as he left his home at 5:30 p.m. and took him to the Police Administration Building at 8th and Race Streets, where he was charged.
Police said that at the time of the arrest they found on Mulligan what was alleged to be $300 of the money taken from the bank.
In addition to yesterday's robbery, Mulligan is charged with taking $2,450 from the Western Savings Bank at 1600 John F. Kennedy Boulevard on Feb. 20; presenting a note but not taking any money from the Fidelity Bank, 15th and
Sansom Streets; taking a package of "bait" money that exploded and was recovered after a robbery at the East Girard Savings and Loan at 13th and Sansom Streets, and taking $157 from the Fidelity Bank, 16th and John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
The last three robberies occurred Thursday, police said.
_____________________________________________________
Saturday, June 27, 1992
FAKE BOMB USED IN HOLDUP;
63-YEAR-OLD IS ARRESTED
A 63-year-old man, convicted in 1981 of five bank robberies, was arrested yesterday afternoon after a bank holdup in South Philadelphia, police said.
FBI officials said that Francis X . Mulligan, address unknown, robbed the Continental Bank branch at Eighth and Christian Streets at 2:54 p.m. by telling employees he had a bomb. Mulligan was arrested as he left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money. Investigators said the bomb was a fake.
Mulligan was convicted in 1981 in connection with a crime spree that included five bank robberies in a three-week period, three within hours of each other. He was in the custody of federal authorities last night.
_____________________________________________________
April 22, 1993
CONVICT'S LIST GROWS A BIT LONGER
HE'S EDUCATED. HE'S CARING. AND HE HAS A RECORD OF CONVICTIONS ALMOST 50 YEARS LONG.
Shortly before 3 p.m. on June 26, 1992, a slight, white-haired man walked into the Continental Bank at Eighth and Christian Streets, politely informed bank officials that he had a bomb, and demanded money. The officials took him to the bank vault, where they filled a briefcase with $45,000 in cash.
Unknown to the robber, whose name was Francis X. Mulligan, other bank officials had activated a silent alarm, and police officers were waiting to arrest Mulligan when he emerged from the vault. The "bomb" he claimed to have was actually a blue cigarette lighter. The Continental Bank robbery was far from the only crime committed by Mulligan. In fact, according to federal officials and court records, it was only the latest in a remarkable string of crimes, mostly robberies, stretching to the 1940s.
"This sorry episode," federal prosecutor Robert Zauzmer said in court papers, referring to the Continental Bank robbery, "continued an astonishing criminal career, spanning nearly half a century, in which Mulligan has repeatedly resorted to robbery as a means to obtain others' money."
He added: "If Mulligan, who has committed numerous robberies with striking regularity over five decades, is not seen as a career criminal, it is difficult to comprehend who is."
Mulligan, now 64, has nine previous convictions. The first was in 1944 in Massachusetts, where he committed a manslaughter and robbery at age 15. He was convicted twice of larceny by check in 1960, of forgery in 1966 and of committing a string of robberies of various businesses in a five-hour period in 1967. He robbed a finance company, a discount firm, a hotel and an insurance company, and tried to rob the Hahnemann University Hospital admission office.
He was also convicted of bank robbery in 1968, in 1973 and again in 1981. He was also convicted of larceny in 1973. The 1981 conviction was for a crime spree that included three bank robberies on the same day.
He has spent at least 22 years in prison since 1944.
Yesterday Mulligan was sent back to prison when a federal judge sentenced him to eight years and one month for the Continental Bank robbery. Mulligan had previously pleaded guilty to robbing the bank.
"Your life has been an anomaly," U.S. District Judge John R. Padova told Mulligan. "You are a gentleman with great ability having come through very difficult times. You continued your education, continued developing yourself. You have done many productive things for yourself, and I believe you have done many productive things for other people.
"But the other side of Francis Mulligan is one which really has represented substantial danger to the community over a substantial period of time," Padova said.
Before his sentencing, Mulligan made an articulate statement to the court in which he talked about the legitimate jobs he had held, including one as a typist in federal court, and about the people - in prison and out - he taught to read and write.
"My life outside the criminal justice system has been productive," Mulligan told the court. "I've always worked, worked hard... But occasionally, the old aberrations come forth."
"I've paid for everything I've done," Mulligan said, noting the time he served in prison and his having been fired from legitimate jobs because he was an ex-convict.
Mulligan's lawyer, Steven A. Morley, had requested a lesser prison sentence, citing Mulligan's age and health problems. Mulligan has a heart problem and a history of alcoholism, and many of his crimes have been committed during drinking binges, Morley said.
Mulligan testified yesterday that on the day he robbed the Continental Bank, he was at the end of a days-long binge. He said he consumed eight to 10 cans of beer and four large shots of bourbon in the hours before the robbery, then took a nitroglycerin pill while walking to the bank from his home in South Philadelphia.
"I was fairly high," he testified.
He sat at the desk of an assistant bank manager and announced, "I have a bomb, I'm desperate for money, and I want to go into the vault," he testified. When the assistant manager said he didn't have the key to the vault, Mulligan testified, he waited until the bank manager finished a phone call before talking with him.
According to court papers, Mulligan's formal schooling ended at age 15, but he pursued his education through prison courses and independently, studying mathematics, English, German, Latin, journalism and creative writing. He won a short-story writing award in 1953 and published several magazine articles in 1968. He received a high school equivalency diploma in 1970, scoring in the 98th percentile, Morley wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court.
Mulligan also taught himself to type. And he worked for several years as a typist in the courthouse where he was sentenced yesterday.
He had his first heart attack in August 1977 in the federal courthouse while typing trial transcripts.
After his release from prison in 1986, Mulligan taught himself how to use and care for computers. His expertise helped him get a job at the law firm of Kelly, McLaughlin and Foster in Philadelphia, where he worked from March 1989 until June 1992. He helped keep the law firm's computer equipment running.
Zauzmer, the federal prosecutor, agreed that "this is a tragic case. Hearing Mr. Mulligan, it's almost a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's clear Mr. Mulligan is a man of accomplishment and intelligence... For us today, the main concern is that Mr. Mulligan robs banks. It has to be stopped and it has to be prevented."
_____________________________________________________
Addendum to this memorial: In May of 2013, I was driven to find out what happened in 1944 that led to Frank's first convictions for robbery and manslaughter. Despite his having told me about the manslaughter, I was rather floored to read about it, to think Frank was capable of it, and to know a hardworking family with sons who served in both WWI and WWII had lost their son in such a terrible way.
From that time, I had amassed a lot of information, but it was only in January of 2015 that I got access to the Boston Globe archives, where I finally saw the victim's face and learned his place of rest.
The essence is that young Frank, age 15, a former Boy Scout, of 1441 Tremont Street in the Mission Hill district of Roxbury, then known as "Buzzie" was being raised by his widowed working single mother, Mary (aka Mary A Reid). (His father William Francis Mulligan had died in 1935 when Frank was about 6.) A student at Mission High School, he had two brothers in the service, one of them a paratrooper who'd won a Silver Star. And in hoping to be accepted by an elder gang, Frank ended up committing manslaughter.
Remembering how Frank was sorry, and never came to peace with what he had done, I was compelled to make a memorial for his victim, Sgt. John F. Prunty. I hope you will honor him with a visit and read his story.
His longtime companion Olivia was a friend of mine. I have no idea if she and Frank ever wed "officially" or not, but believe they did formalize it. My understanding is that to keep things square with Social Security she continued to use her previous husband's name.
When I met Olivia through my adoption of a cat in 1994, Frank was away, so our friendship was just two single gals who saw each other from time to time and wrote letters to one another, because she had neither car nor phone. She was a lot older than I am, but somehow we just clicked. She was a lovely, smart lady with quick humor, genuine warmth, very compassionate, and woe be unto you if you stuck your nose in her business. She never said as much, but I could kind of tell, so I tried to mind my curiosity. She vaguely mentioned her dear Frank was "away for a while", and I accepted it, knowing it was bad form to pry. A few years later, she felt comfortable telling me more about him, so more on that below.
Once, before I met him, Frank wrote me a gracious, beautiful, well-written letter exhibiting excellent penmanship in lovely script, thanking me for looking out for his dear wife, and saying he knew my visits and letters meant a lot to her. Eventually, Frank came back home and I got to meet him in person.
Duck, here comes an Irish tornado! Every cliche about Gaelic charm lived in this lovely man: warm, funny, talkative, humble, a bit self-deprecating, confessing to a love of drink (which he'd finally overcome), and revering of his family in Massachusetts who'd raised him. With a full head of white hair and twinkly eyes, Frank was striking. He really loved his wife, and together, they giggled and flirted like teens. He could tell stories wonderfully. His conversational references left no doubt that he was very well-read. He was not a very educated man formally, but he was very smart, resourceful, and articulate, and had parlayed his self-taught typing skills into a computer career and worked also as a transcriptionist. You could tell this was a man who'd not been dealt the best of cards, but who had played them rather well.
He instantly became one of my favorite people. I was thrilled for my friend that she had her adored hubby back after years apart. Sadly though, they were not together much longer, as he passed away from his long-standing heart trouble shortly after their reunion. She'd waited so long to have a life with him again, and it was not to be. I felt luck had cheated them both.
Frank, as his name implies, was indeed very frank. He'd tell you the truth about anything, especially his weaknesses. So I wanted you to know what a truly lovable man he was before I let the Philadelphia Inquirer tell the rest.
_____________________________________________________
Tuesday, March 10, 1981
MAN HELD IN HOLDUPS AT BANKS
A 52-year-old South Philadelphia man was arrested yesterday just hours after he allegedly committed the latest in a series of recent Center City bank robberies, police said.
Police said Francis X . Mulligan was charged with robbery, theft, criminal attempted theft, threats, receiving stolen property, recklessly endangering another person and possession of an instrument of crime.
Mulligan, who is being held in lieu of $12,500 bail, will have a preliminary hearing March 18 in Room 675 of City Hall.
The chain of events that led to Mulligan's arrest began when police responded to an alarm at the Western Savings Bank branch at 1601 Walnut Street at 3:10 p.m. yesterday. When they arrived, they were told that an elderly man
had just fled on foot with $1,600.
Bank employees told police that the man had presented a teller with a note that read: "This is a stickup. Give me your 100s, 50s and 20s."
Police said the teller described the robber as having white hair with a part on the right side, wearing a light-colored coat and wire-rim eyeglasses.
Police said the description matched the description of a man involved in four other robberies at Center City banks in recent weeks.
Working from the teller's description, detectives arrested Mulligan as he left his home at 5:30 p.m. and took him to the Police Administration Building at 8th and Race Streets, where he was charged.
Police said that at the time of the arrest they found on Mulligan what was alleged to be $300 of the money taken from the bank.
In addition to yesterday's robbery, Mulligan is charged with taking $2,450 from the Western Savings Bank at 1600 John F. Kennedy Boulevard on Feb. 20; presenting a note but not taking any money from the Fidelity Bank, 15th and
Sansom Streets; taking a package of "bait" money that exploded and was recovered after a robbery at the East Girard Savings and Loan at 13th and Sansom Streets, and taking $157 from the Fidelity Bank, 16th and John F. Kennedy Boulevard.
The last three robberies occurred Thursday, police said.
_____________________________________________________
Saturday, June 27, 1992
FAKE BOMB USED IN HOLDUP;
63-YEAR-OLD IS ARRESTED
A 63-year-old man, convicted in 1981 of five bank robberies, was arrested yesterday afternoon after a bank holdup in South Philadelphia, police said.
FBI officials said that Francis X . Mulligan, address unknown, robbed the Continental Bank branch at Eighth and Christian Streets at 2:54 p.m. by telling employees he had a bomb. Mulligan was arrested as he left the bank with an undisclosed amount of money. Investigators said the bomb was a fake.
Mulligan was convicted in 1981 in connection with a crime spree that included five bank robberies in a three-week period, three within hours of each other. He was in the custody of federal authorities last night.
_____________________________________________________
April 22, 1993
CONVICT'S LIST GROWS A BIT LONGER
HE'S EDUCATED. HE'S CARING. AND HE HAS A RECORD OF CONVICTIONS ALMOST 50 YEARS LONG.
Shortly before 3 p.m. on June 26, 1992, a slight, white-haired man walked into the Continental Bank at Eighth and Christian Streets, politely informed bank officials that he had a bomb, and demanded money. The officials took him to the bank vault, where they filled a briefcase with $45,000 in cash.
Unknown to the robber, whose name was Francis X. Mulligan, other bank officials had activated a silent alarm, and police officers were waiting to arrest Mulligan when he emerged from the vault. The "bomb" he claimed to have was actually a blue cigarette lighter. The Continental Bank robbery was far from the only crime committed by Mulligan. In fact, according to federal officials and court records, it was only the latest in a remarkable string of crimes, mostly robberies, stretching to the 1940s.
"This sorry episode," federal prosecutor Robert Zauzmer said in court papers, referring to the Continental Bank robbery, "continued an astonishing criminal career, spanning nearly half a century, in which Mulligan has repeatedly resorted to robbery as a means to obtain others' money."
He added: "If Mulligan, who has committed numerous robberies with striking regularity over five decades, is not seen as a career criminal, it is difficult to comprehend who is."
Mulligan, now 64, has nine previous convictions. The first was in 1944 in Massachusetts, where he committed a manslaughter and robbery at age 15. He was convicted twice of larceny by check in 1960, of forgery in 1966 and of committing a string of robberies of various businesses in a five-hour period in 1967. He robbed a finance company, a discount firm, a hotel and an insurance company, and tried to rob the Hahnemann University Hospital admission office.
He was also convicted of bank robbery in 1968, in 1973 and again in 1981. He was also convicted of larceny in 1973. The 1981 conviction was for a crime spree that included three bank robberies on the same day.
He has spent at least 22 years in prison since 1944.
Yesterday Mulligan was sent back to prison when a federal judge sentenced him to eight years and one month for the Continental Bank robbery. Mulligan had previously pleaded guilty to robbing the bank.
"Your life has been an anomaly," U.S. District Judge John R. Padova told Mulligan. "You are a gentleman with great ability having come through very difficult times. You continued your education, continued developing yourself. You have done many productive things for yourself, and I believe you have done many productive things for other people.
"But the other side of Francis Mulligan is one which really has represented substantial danger to the community over a substantial period of time," Padova said.
Before his sentencing, Mulligan made an articulate statement to the court in which he talked about the legitimate jobs he had held, including one as a typist in federal court, and about the people - in prison and out - he taught to read and write.
"My life outside the criminal justice system has been productive," Mulligan told the court. "I've always worked, worked hard... But occasionally, the old aberrations come forth."
"I've paid for everything I've done," Mulligan said, noting the time he served in prison and his having been fired from legitimate jobs because he was an ex-convict.
Mulligan's lawyer, Steven A. Morley, had requested a lesser prison sentence, citing Mulligan's age and health problems. Mulligan has a heart problem and a history of alcoholism, and many of his crimes have been committed during drinking binges, Morley said.
Mulligan testified yesterday that on the day he robbed the Continental Bank, he was at the end of a days-long binge. He said he consumed eight to 10 cans of beer and four large shots of bourbon in the hours before the robbery, then took a nitroglycerin pill while walking to the bank from his home in South Philadelphia.
"I was fairly high," he testified.
He sat at the desk of an assistant bank manager and announced, "I have a bomb, I'm desperate for money, and I want to go into the vault," he testified. When the assistant manager said he didn't have the key to the vault, Mulligan testified, he waited until the bank manager finished a phone call before talking with him.
According to court papers, Mulligan's formal schooling ended at age 15, but he pursued his education through prison courses and independently, studying mathematics, English, German, Latin, journalism and creative writing. He won a short-story writing award in 1953 and published several magazine articles in 1968. He received a high school equivalency diploma in 1970, scoring in the 98th percentile, Morley wrote in a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court.
Mulligan also taught himself to type. And he worked for several years as a typist in the courthouse where he was sentenced yesterday.
He had his first heart attack in August 1977 in the federal courthouse while typing trial transcripts.
After his release from prison in 1986, Mulligan taught himself how to use and care for computers. His expertise helped him get a job at the law firm of Kelly, McLaughlin and Foster in Philadelphia, where he worked from March 1989 until June 1992. He helped keep the law firm's computer equipment running.
Zauzmer, the federal prosecutor, agreed that "this is a tragic case. Hearing Mr. Mulligan, it's almost a case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's clear Mr. Mulligan is a man of accomplishment and intelligence... For us today, the main concern is that Mr. Mulligan robs banks. It has to be stopped and it has to be prevented."
_____________________________________________________
Addendum to this memorial: In May of 2013, I was driven to find out what happened in 1944 that led to Frank's first convictions for robbery and manslaughter. Despite his having told me about the manslaughter, I was rather floored to read about it, to think Frank was capable of it, and to know a hardworking family with sons who served in both WWI and WWII had lost their son in such a terrible way.
From that time, I had amassed a lot of information, but it was only in January of 2015 that I got access to the Boston Globe archives, where I finally saw the victim's face and learned his place of rest.
The essence is that young Frank, age 15, a former Boy Scout, of 1441 Tremont Street in the Mission Hill district of Roxbury, then known as "Buzzie" was being raised by his widowed working single mother, Mary (aka Mary A Reid). (His father William Francis Mulligan had died in 1935 when Frank was about 6.) A student at Mission High School, he had two brothers in the service, one of them a paratrooper who'd won a Silver Star. And in hoping to be accepted by an elder gang, Frank ended up committing manslaughter.
Remembering how Frank was sorry, and never came to peace with what he had done, I was compelled to make a memorial for his victim, Sgt. John F. Prunty. I hope you will honor him with a visit and read his story.
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