Verne and Vi Mathis
FROM LAWMAN TO OUTLAW--THE VERNE MILLER STORY
by Brad Smith
In November of 1920 the Huron SD newspaper, the Evening Huronite, promoted a young candidate for Beadle Co. sheriff saying that with his election “crooks and licentious characters will have no protection and the safety of our wives and children and the future well-being of our families will be fully guaranteed.”
Thirteen years later the US Justice Dept. announced a nationwide manhunt for a man they identified as the “the most dangerous criminal in the country.”
Both observations were accurate and, incredibly, both referred to the same enigmatic man: Verne Miller.
He has been described as "easily the most contradictory and mysterious figure of the 1930's Public Enemy community." A handsome blue-eyed redhead, he did not drink or gamble and abhorred swearing and yet he was the chief suspect in from five to twelve murders and was rumored to have participated in many more.
His path from respected South Dakota lawman to reviled national outlaw is a puzzling one, with unanswered questions at every turn. Even his early life is shrouded in mystery. Miller, at various times, listed his birth date as 1892, 1895, and 1896, and his birthplace as South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois.
What is known is that Miller's parents divorced when he was young, leaving him on his own at an early age. He dropped out of school at the age of ten. In 1914 he moved to Huron to work as a mechanic. In 1916 he joined the Army and served on the Mexican border. In the spring of 1917 he returned to Huron and married. A month later he was recalled to military service.
On April 17, 1918 Miller landed in France with the 164th Infantry. Color Sergeant Verne Miller returned from the World War a genuine hero. A decorated marksman and sniper, he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for bravery. He was wounded twice and suffered lung damage in a poison gas attack.
Soon after his return from Europe Miller joined the Huron city police force. The local newspaper heralded his arrival. "Lawbreakers had better watch out," it was announced, "if they want to keep their health."
Right from the start Miller's law enforcement career was marked by dedication and courage, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness. Less than three months on the force Miller arrested WS Davis, a member of a prominent Huron family, for blocking traffic with his car. Davis argued vehemently but his protests held little sway with the conscientious young patrolman and only earned him a night in jail.
On another occasion Miller's courage may have saved a life. MB Balsiger, manager of the local theater, engaged RE Beckwith, a war veteran and popular speaker, to lecture on his war experiences. On the night of the lecture a disagreement arose regarding the speaker's fee and Balsiger knocked the young man unconscious. The war was fresh in everyone's mind and patriotic fervor was high. When news that Balsiger had beaten up a war hero reached the street an angry mob gathered outside the theater. The building was doused with yellow paint and the mob demanded that the manager give himself up. A frightened Balsiger turned to Officer Miller for help.
Miller first ordered the crowd to disperse. When they ignored him, Miller led Balsiger toward the protection of the police station. Someone in the mob threw a brick, striking the manager in the head. Miller drew his pistol and advanced on the mob. Finally the rioters dispersed and Balsiger's life was spared.
This sometimes reckless devotion to duty did not go over well with everyone in Huron. In May of 1920 Miller resigned from the police force saying that he and Police Chief Johnson suffered fundamental disagreements over the conduct of police business. But Miller had no intention of leaving law enforcement. By this time he had already been named the Republican candidate for Beadle County Sheriff.
The 1920 sheriff's campaign was hotly contested with Miller the focus of numerous rumors and accusations, still he managed to eke out a 41 vote victory.
Sheriff Miller was an active community leader. He was a founder of the Huron American Legion post and served as its delegate to the state convention. He was an avid fisherman and amateur boxer.
He proved to be an active sheriff as well. Records note that he located and destroyed nine moonshine stills during his first six months in office. So much bootlegged liquor was confiscated that Miller began using it as antifreeze in the radiators of the Sheriff's department vehicles.
Miller gained a reputation for being quick to use his weapon. It was said that, while a city patrolman, he twice fired on tourists for violating traffic ordinances. After the election the county commission warned Miller of the legal ramifications of an overeager trigger finger.
On at least one occasion this reputation proved useful. A prison escapee turned himself over to authorities when, while hiding in a pasture, he heard what was apparently the backfire of a passing car. He told a reporter, "I thought Verne Miller was on my trail and had started shooting at me. I sure wished that I was back in jail again."
In the spring of 1922 Sheriff Miller was well on his way to reelection and a second term. Then Miller's wife, Mildred, was admitted to a Rochester MN hospital. Miller told his deputies that he was taking a short leave to visit his wife and from Rochester would go to a Washington DC sanitarium to take treatments for his lungs.
After a couple of weeks with no contact from the sheriff his deputies became worried and then suspicious. They discovered that, shortly before he left, Miller had withdrawn $4000 from various bank accounts, money that had apparently come from county property tax collections. The career of Sheriff Verne Miller had come to an abrupt and startling end. The career of Verne Miller, gangster, was just beginning.
The State Sheriff's office was called in and a search begun for Miller and the missing funds. For three months there was no sign of the sheriff, then South Dakota officials received a call from a St. Paul MN hotel operator wondering if they were still looking for Miller.
In the 1920’s and 30’s there were several places where bandits and outlaws could go to “cool off”; communities where a tacit agreement had been reached between local officials and the criminal element. The most popular of these havens was St. Paul. As one criminal noted, “In those days if you hadn't seen a friend for a few months you looked two places--prison or St. Paul.” The St. Paul police force of the 1920’s was the most corrupt in the country so it was inevitable that a renegade lawman like Miller would find acceptance there.
Before the hotel owner notified South Dakota officials he had called the St. Paul chief of detectives and was assured that Miller was no longer wanted. The SD State Sheriff's deputy who arrested Miller reported that Miller's first phone call while in custody was to that same chief of detectives.
Back in the Beadle County jail where, just a few months before, he had been jailer rather than jailed, Miller displayed his resolute self-reliance. He turned down offers from friends to raise the $10,000 bond. Miller pled guilty to the embezzlement of $2600 in county funds and was sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary.
Verne Miller entered the South Dakota penitentiary on April 4, 1923. Armed with numerous character references, including one from the states’ attorney who had prosecuted him, Miller soon landed the cushy position of warden's chauffeur. He passed his prison term driving the warden about the city and corresponding with his many friends and supporters.
He served his time quietly and without trouble until his parole in September of 1924. He soon found work as a farm laborer making $70 a month. Life as a farmhand lasted just until the terms of his parole were satisfied. Then Miller left in search of new pursuits. Within a year he was indicted for bootlegging. He paid a $200 fine in Sioux Falls federal court in October, 1925 and left South Dakota for good.
Around this time Miller began a relationship that would last the rest of his life.
Vivian Gibson was an attractive, willowy young farm girl from Leola, South Dakota. When she was sixteen Vivian, or Vi as her friends called her, eloped with Stanley Mathis, an employee on her father's farm.
Just a few months later Stanley was charged with the murder of Clarence Berry, the Leola town constable. A noticeably pregnant Vi did her best to help her husband, even testifying under oath that she, not Stanley, had killed Berry. Her testimony did no good. Stanley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Vi bounced from job to job for the next few years to support herself and her child. One day, while Vi was working in a carnival booth in Minnesota, a customer started to hassle her. One man stepped from the crowd to defend the young woman against the heckler. Vi’s protector introduced himself as Verne Miller and the two were soon inseparable.
From 1926 to 1929 Verne, with Vi’s help, established himself as a leading bootlegger in the Twin Cities area.
In 1929 they left for Canada where they were involved with several gambling concerns. By 1930 Verne was back in the Twin Cities. He joined up with a loose knit gang of bank robbers that included Harvey Bailey, Tommy Holden, Jimmy Keating, Frank Nash, Machine gun Kelly and others. Over the next couple of years the gang would be responsible for numerous bank holdups from the Dakotas to Texas.
In the summer of 1932 Miller paid his last visit to his father's farm near White Lake. Friends and relatives remember that the gangster's shiny new car and expensive clothes made quite an impression in that Depression-ravaged farm community.
In December of 1932 Miller drove the getaway car for the infamous Barker gang when they held up the 3rd Northwestern Bank of Minneapolis. That robbery resulted in tragedy when two city patrolmen happened on the scene and were slain in a hail of machine-gun fire. The Barker gang split up after the Minneapolis bank robbery. Miller moved to Kansas City to cool off.
A few months later Miller received a frantic call from the wife of his old friend, Frank Nash, saying that her husband had been arrested by federal agents. That phone call touched off events that would culminate the next day in the bloody outrage that will forever be known as the Kansas City Massacre.
On the morning of June 17, 1933 the parking lot of the Kansas City Union Railroad Station was crowded with arriving and departing passengers, their family and friends. Few in the crowd paid any attention to the group of men moving warily among the parked cars. If they had they would have seen seven nervous lawmen surrounding a handcuffed prisoner. The prisoner was Frank Nash. The lawmen, FBI agents Vetterli, Caffrey, Smith, and Lackey, Kansas City detectives Grooms and Hermanson, and Oklahoma police chief Otto Reed, had reason to be nervous. Nash was a well-known criminal with strong ties in the underworld. They feared that some of his friends might attempt a rescue.
As they loaded Nash into a waiting patrol car their fears were realized. Three men jumped from a nearby car. One of them, brandishing a Tommy gun, commanded the law officers to "Hold it!" Time froze as the two armed camps regarded each other. Then one of the officers went for his pistol and all hell broke loose.
Within seconds it was over. Bodies were scattered about the parking lot. Grooms, Hermanson, Reed, and FBI agent Caffrey were dead. Agents Vetterli and Lackey were seriously wounded. Nash, the object of the ill-fated delivery, was also among the dead. One woman, surveying the bloody scene, moaned, "It's just like Chicago." The bandits escaped unscathed.
The late 1920’s and early ‘30’s marked a decade of lawlessness. Colorful outlaws such as Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, Machine gun Kelly, and Ma Barker were as familiar to the public as politicians and movie celebrities. Even in that context the Kansas City Massacre was a shocking and galvanizing event. The Attorney General declared the Massacre "a challenge to the government. The army of crime has declared war against the United States."
It took the FBI two weeks to publicly name Miller as the leader of the Kansas City gang and their reaction was certain and instantaneous. No stone would go unturned in their search for the gangster.
Controversy still surrounds the Kansas City Massacre. Historians disagree on the identity of Miller's accomplices. The FBI identified Charley “Pretty Boy” Floyd and Adam Richetti as the other gunmen. Other names put forth include Harvey Bailey, Maurice Denning, Solly Weissman, Wilbur Underhill, Bob Brady, and Jack Griffin. Even the motives behind the Massacre are in dispute. Many say that Miller was trying to rescue Nash while others contend that Nash’s death was a gangland hit.
Regardless of motive it is doubtful that the intent was to murder the law officers. Even someone as impetuous as Verne Miller would have foreseen the outrage that followed the unprovoked slaughter.
Miller left Kansas City immediately but the FBI, in their efforts to find the fugitive, put the heat on all of the underworld. Alvin Karpis, a member of the Barker gang, was called before representatives of the old Capone Syndicate. “Where,” they demanded, “is Miller?” Karpis asked what they wanted of his one-time partner. “Everybody's after that bastard,” he was told.
Miller fled to New York, seeking protection from his old friend, racketeer Lepke Buchalter, while Vi remained behind in Chicago.
In October of 1933 FBI agents located Vi’s apartment just a day before Verne appeared at her door. Agents quickly surrounded the apartment, still Miller managed to escape in a flurry of bullets. Miller’s getaway, though, was an omen of the tightening dragnet. With every lawman in the nation as well as the might of the criminal underworld after him, Miller's days were numbered.
On the evening of November 29, 1933, a motorist on the outskirts of Detroit discovered a naked mutilated body alongside the road. Fingerprints taken by the FBI confirmed that the search for Verne Miller was over.
News of Miller's death was greeted by his family and friends in South Dakota with a mixture of regret and resignation. The Evening Huronite reported that most of the citizens of Miller's hometown “refused to remember his reputation of a life of crime and grieved the Verne Miller, fearless sheriff and valiant soldier, they knew.” His wife, Mildred, though legally separated from Miller since 1929, stuck by him saying “I don't believe all the things they say about Verne. Because he became involved in a few scrapes nearly every major crime in the country was laid to him. He was wonderful to me and I have nothing against him.”
His grief-stricken father made plans for the funeral; plans that, like most of Verne's life, were plagued with controversy. Miller, as a veteran and American Legion member, was entitled to full military rites. However the national American Legion commander forbade the local post from participating, saying it would only bring embarrassment to the organization. National proclamation notwithstanding, Miller's flag-draped casket was escorted from White Lake to Huron by a contingent of uniformed ex-servicemen, Miller's friends. There, following a simple ceremony before an overflow crowd, Verne Miller's doomed journey came to an end.
In one final twist in the tragedy of Verne Miller's life, the erstwhile lawman inadvertently provided a major contribution to the future of law enforcement. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover used the outrage generated by the Kansas City Massacre to lobby Congress for a true national crime-fighting force. Prior to the Massacre, FBI agents could not carry weapons and were not even empowered to make arrests. Within months of the Kansas City killings Congress passed a comprehensive crime bill giving the FBI all the powers they sought.
Perhaps it is this that provides some final sense and purpose to the otherwise squandered legacy of Verne Miller, a lawman gone bad.
THE END
Vivian Mathias, Daughter Betty
Her statement to the Bureau on 30 September 1934 began as follows:
I Vivian Mathias make the following voluntary statement to R.C. Suran and S.K. McKee, special agents of the division of investigation, United States Department of Justice, having been told I need not say anything, but that anything I did say would be used against me.
She spoke about moving in the house on Edgevale where Miller passed himself as a salesman and went by the name of Vincent C. Moore. She talked about their friends and Frank Nash. She finally talked about the massacre. It had all began on the afternoon of June 16, 1933 when she had gotten a call from Fritz Mulloy. Mulloy was eager for Verne to get in touch with him, so she called the Milburne golf Club where Verne was playing and asked them to have him call home. When Verne called she relayed the message and he came home about an hour later, talking about Frank Nash being picked up by federal agents in Hot Springs. Verne had left the house around 9pm that Friday night. A couple of hours later the phone rang and it was Esther Farmer calling from Joplin. She wanted to speak to Verne, but left a message. The message read in part:
She said that "that party" had left Fort Smith, [Vi said in her statement]. She told me the time the train left and I made a note for Verne on a piece of paper. I cannot now remember the time she furnished. Esther was the only person I talked to at the time of this telephone call.
She had just gone to bed when Verne had came back home. He told her to get her daughter and put her in bed with them as he was having two friends stay the night. She never heard him leave that next morning, but when returned he awoke her at 9 am and told her to get dressed and take her daughter and get out of the house and go with Fritz Mulloy. She knew something was wrong. On the way to Mulloy's house she heard the radio reports about people being shot at Union Station that morning.
On returning home [her statement continued], I found Verne and two men whom I had never seen before. Sometime during the day Verne told me one of them was named Floyd. He did not tell me the name of the second man. I have been shown the photographs of Charles Arthur Floyd alias "Pretty Boy" and Adam Richetti and recognize them as the pictures of the two men who were at our home with Verne. Floyd was in Betty's bed because of a wound he had in his left shoulder. I do not know how serious his wound was, but do know that no one was called to treat him. Verne had a small wound on his right little finger, but he did not tell me how he had acquired it. Verne told me that they had been to the station to get Frank; that there had been some shooting and that Frank had been killed. He also said Floyd had been wounded. I do not remember whether he said anything about any officers having been shot. I knew that he felt badly about the matter from the way he looked and talked.
I went to the kitchen and prepared breakfast. Verne and Richetti drank some coffee and I took a cup in to Floyd. None of them cared for anything to eat.
The four of us remained in the house during the entire day, which was June 17, 1933. Sometime during the day Verne remarked that he Floyd, and Richetti had used his, Verne's, Chevrolet in making the trip to and from the Union Station. Floyd and Richetti remained in the bedroom all day, with the exception that Richetti came to the dinette a second time for coffee. I believe I took coffee to Floyd a second time. I did not have anything to say to either Floyd or Richetti about what had happened and they did not say anything to me.
During the day when the daily newspaper was delivered to the house Verne read the account of the shooting at the Union Station and remarked, after reading that five or six men had been involved, "That's what the newspapers can do." He stated at this time that only the three of them had been at the station .
Sometime after dark Verne left the house by himself. He was away for about an hour. I do not know where he went. After he returned we were talking in the living room when I heard someone walk onto the porch. Verne asked me to go into our bedroom, which I did. I at no time saw the person who came onto the porch and have never known his identity. I remained in the bedroom about twenty minutes. When I came out into the living room both Floyd and Richetti were gone.
