During the Prohibition era, as organized crime expanded, George Francis Barnes Jr., known as George B. "Machine Gun" Kelley, became one of the period's most infamous criminals. Born on July 17, 1900, in Chicago and raised in Memphis, he turned to bootlegging after a divorce and the loss of his job, developed a violent reputation, was jailed numerous times, and by the late 1920s had moved west. In 1930, he met the widow Kathryn Thorne, and after they married, the two carried out increasingly ambitious crime sprees, robbing banks across the South and Midwest. Kathryn, reputed to be an able shot with several firearms, bought her husband a Thompson machine gun, which gave rise to his nickname. On July 22, 1933, the couple kidnapped Oklahoma City oil baron Charles Urschel and held him at the farmhouse of Kathryn's stepfather, Robert "Boss" Shannon, in Wise County until a $200,000 ransom was paid. They were arrested in August, and in one of the first prosecutions under the new Lindbergh law on kidnapping, George, Kathryn, and much of the Shannon family received life sentences, though Boss Shannon was granted clemency after 11 years. George died of heart disease in Leavenworth prison on July 18, 1954, and was buried here by Boss Shannon after no one in his immediate family claimed the body.