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Arthur Doc is first of Ma Barker’s family gang to be captured

A photograph of police handcuffs
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Date

Melvin Purvis, star of J Edgar Hoover’s FBI, on this day arrested Arthur ‘Doc’ Barker, marking the beginning of the end for one of America’s most ruthless criminal gangs, “Ma’s Boys”.

Composed primarily of four brothers - the offspring of Kate ‘Ma’ Barker - the gang had committed an impressively long and lucrative list of high profile crimes, and split a great deal of blood by the time of Purvis’s arrest...