Roy Gardner robbed more than $350,000 in cash and securities, escaped from custody multiple times, and became one of the most hunted men in Pacific Coast history. Newspapers dubbed him the Smiling Bandit, the Mail Train Bandit, and the king of escape artists, with a $5,000 reward placed on his head three times in less than a year. Born in Trenton, Missouri, on January 5, 1884, Gardner was raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Described as just under six feet tall with short auburn hair and blue eyes, he spent his early years drifting through the Southwest, where he picked up minor criminal skills.
He allegedly enlisted in the American Army but deserted in 1906 and wandered into Mexico around the time of the Mexican Revolution. Gardner began as a gun runner, smuggling weapons and ammunition to the forces of Venustiano Carranza. He was eventually apprehended by soldiers from Victoriano Huerta’s army and sentenced to death by firing squad. On March 29, 1909, he and three other American prisoners escaped from a Mexico City jail after attacking the soldier guards.
After returning home, Gardner competed as a prizefighter in the Southwest. He was skilled enough to spar with heavyweight champion Jack Jeffries in Reno, Nevada, during the summer of 1910. Gardner eventually made his way to San Francisco, where he lost all his boxing winnings gambling, then robbed a jewelry shop on Market Street. He was detained and spent time in San Quentin, but after saving a prison guard’s life during a riot, he was released on parole.
He married, had a daughter, and found work as an acetylene welder at the Mare Island Navy Yard in 1918 before quitting to start his own welding business. He lost all his money on a business trip to Mexico at the racetracks in Tijuana. On April 16, 1920, Gardner robbed a U. S.
mail truck outside San Diego, making off with about $80,000 in cash and securities. The job went off without a hitch, but three days later he was caught burying his loot. For the armed robbery, he received a 25-year sentence at the McNeil Island federal penitentiary, but he vowed he would never serve it. While being transported by train on June 5, 1920, with Deputy U.
S. Marshals Kavanaugh and Hague, Gardner shouted “look at that deer” as he peered out the window somewhere outside Portland, Oregon. When the officers turned to look, Gardner took Hague’s gun, disarmed Kavanaugh, handcuffed the two of them, and stole $200 before jumping off the train and making his way to Canada. The following year, he sneaked back into the U.
S. and began operating as a lone bandit across the country, robbing banks and mail trains. On May 19, 1921, on his way back to California, he held up the mailman on train number 10 heading east from Sacramento and stole $187,000 from the express car. The next day, he warned the mailman of train number 20 to throw up his hands or he would blow his head off.
The gunman was identified by the home office as Roy Gardner, the train thief with a $5,000 reward on his head. Gardner was apprehended by federal agents while playing cards in a pool hall after being recognized at the Porterhouse Hotel. For the armed robbery of the mail trains, he was given a further sentence of 25 years at McNeil Island. He promised to lead Southern Pacific Railroad detectives to the location of his hidden loot in an effort to reduce his sentence.
“I guess I have forgotten where I buried that money,” Gardner said after officers searched but found nothing. He was once again taken to McNeil Island by U. S. Marshals Mulhall and Wrinkle, two quick-shooting veterans.
After being heavily shackled and given an Oregon boot, Gardner requested to use the restroom while traveling, where one of his friends had earlier concealed a . 32 caliber pistol. When he exited, he pointed the gun at Mulhall and gave another prisoner the order to handcuff the two officers to their seats before boarding another moving train outside Castle Rock, Washington. He stripped the officers of their weapons and money.
After this, the largest manhunt in Pacific Coast history got underway. Gardner was characterized as a dangerous man who would shoot at first opportunity and needed to be apprehended immediately. He once again had a $5,000 bounty on his head. When he arrived in Centralia, Washington, Jack Shuto at the Olympic Club almost recognized him.
Gardner told the Oxford Hotel staff that he had suffered severe burns in an industrial accident close to Tacoma, covering his face with bandages to conceal his identity and leaving one eye slit. Officer Lewis Sunny and proprietor Gertrude Howell grew suspicious when Sunny saw a gun in Gardner’s hotel room. When Sunny accused him of being the Smiling Bandit, Gardner attempted to retaliate but was restrained, and a medical professional removed the bandages and identified him. He was taken to McNeil Island while heavily chained and received another 25-year sentence.
After spending six weeks in prison, Gardner persuaded Loris Bogart and Everett Impin that he had paid off the tower guards. On Labor Day, September 5, 1921, during the fifth inning of a prison baseball game, when someone hit a fly ball into center field, Gardner yelled “now” while the guards in the towers were watching the ball and the runners. He, Bogart, and Impin ran 300 yards to a high barbed wire fence, where Gardner cut a hole while being shot at. The three men ran to a pasture.
Gardner was hit in his left leg but managed to escape by hiding behind a herd of cattle close to some trees. “I saw Bogart fall severely hurt. Gardner told us those fellows in the towers couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn,” Impin said as he was being shot to death. Bogart later claimed that Gardner had tricked him and used his friends as decoys to increase his chances of escaping.
Gardner lived in the prison barn drinking milk from the cows, then swam to Fox Island, where he thrived on fruit from the orchards. Despite guards searching the beaches and seizing every boat along the shoreline, Gardner had left McNeil Island by the time Warden Maloney checked on him. He was apprehended by a mail clerk during a train robbery in Phoenix in the fall of 1921. Gardner, now the most wanted criminal, had committed a number of crimes in Arizona.
He was yet again given a sentence of 25 years, this time to be served at Leavenworth federal prison. “Leavenworth will never hold me,” gangster Gardner boasted, according to headlines. Gardner, now referred to as the king of escape artists, was transferred to Atlanta federal prison in 1925, which at the time was the harshest prison in the nation. He attempted to tunnel under the wall the following year and saw through the bars of the shoe store.
Then in 1927, he organized a prison break during which he held the captain and two guards hostage while brandishing two revolvers. The escape attempt was unsuccessful, and he was sentenced to 20 months in solitary confinement. He was admitted to a mental hospital in Washington, D. C.
, when he was finally allowed to leave solitary confinement. The warden referred to Gardner as the most dangerous prisoner in the history of Atlanta prison. In 1929, he started a hunger strike to protest the food in the facility and made threats to commit suicide. In 1934, he was moved to Alcatraz, becoming one of the first notorious criminals housed there.
Al Capone was in Alcatraz at the same time as Gardner. According to legend, Capone was once struck by an object thrown by an unnamed prisoner, but Gardner moved Capone out of the way, and the only injury was to the arm. Gardner’s wife filed for divorce while he was imprisoned in Alcatraz. Together with Ralph Roe, he oversaw the match shop where they also planned an escape.
However, Gardner’s clemency request was granted, and he was paroled and released in 1938. In 1939, he published his autobiography titled “Alcatraz. ” After being released on parole, he worked as a tour guide on a boat that circled Alcatraz Island. On January 10, 1940, in a hotel room in San Francisco, Gardner wrote four notes.
He attached one to the door with a warning: “Do Not Open Door. Poison gas. Call police.
” He locked the door from the inside before putting cyanide in a glass of acid and inhaling the poisonous fumes.