The Council Bluffs Bandits: Francis Harper

Distant cousin escaped prison, shootout after a string of Depression-era robberies and other crimes in the Midwest.

Francis Harper and Earl Keeling stood outside their Kinney hideout, hands raised, on a dark November night in 1934. They were surrounded by Nebraska and federal law enforcement agents who ordered the men out of their shelter to surrender themselves. Harper and Keeling faced charges for robbing the Security National Bank of Superior. It looked as though it would be a peaceful end the search for the suspects.

Men running out of house in 1930s police raid

But the men had no intention of turning themselves in. Suddenly, they ran. Cops opened fire and bullets rained down upon them. Keeling fell, but Harper managed to escape with only a flesh wound.

The Bandit

Just 22 at the time of the Kinney raid, Harper was a hardened criminal long before he pulled a fake surrender. In fact, he was one step away from being the FBI’s Public Enemy Number One. Newspaper reports indicate a list of felony offenses going back to childhood. He reportedly was in a reform school in Ohio for a while, but eventually was charged with larceny involving a gun and sentenced to served up to 10 years in prison. According to the Dec. 6, 1934, edition of The Lexington (Kentucky) Herald, he had only served 13 of those months before escaping under another alias.

Francis Harper appears, upper left, in this screenshot of Page 2 of the Monday, Dec. 3, 1934, edition of the Omaha Evening Bee-News.

Harper also was the great-grandson of my great-great grandmother’s sister. That means Harper is my third cousin once removed. We both descend from Aaron Poole and Hannah Going.

Family Ties

I began to uncover the history of this tale while reading about the criminal past of Harper’s uncle, William Papst. I wrote about Papst here. Harper’s mother was Papst’s sister, which means Papst also is a distant cousin.

I thought Papst was an isolated case. He wasn’t. Papst was cooling his heels in jail in Iowa while Harper was fleeing Nebraska. Meanwhile, Papst’s brother George tried to forge a new life for himself after an early start to a life of crime. He changed his name from Papst to Robidoux—a family name on the Papst side—after he was released from prison. But he kept getting in trouble for the rest of his life. You can find the story about Robidoux here.

Francis Harper

Hillbilly Holdup

Kentucky newspapers had the scoop when police caught up with Harper after a multi-state search. Harper had made it to Morehead. There, he stole a car and abducted a professor from Morehead State Normal School and his 8-year-old daughter. Harper finally abandoned them unharmed and later was caught with the professor’s car.

This is a screenshot of the Thursday, Dec. 6, 1934, edition of The Lexington (Kentucky) Herald.

Back in Nebraska, multiple incorrect reports indicated that Harper was the one who was killed by police. But in fact it was Keeling who was shot, fatally wounded, about a half-mile from the hideout. Several days passed before officials figured out each man’s identity. Later, the women in their lives would be charged with harboring them.

Kentucky initially refused to extradite Harper, but then finally agreed to release him to Nebraska. There, he found Iowa officials waiting for him, as well as federal agents and prosecutors from Nebraska. From his jail cell in Lincoln, where he was being held for the Superior job, Harper was deposed about another robbery. Papst had been sentenced to life in prison for his role in a robbery at Cumberland Savings in Cumberland, Iowa. But he appealed.

Iowa Interference

During Papst’s appeal, his attorney attached a deposition taken in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Harper was being held after his return. Harper, who was incorrectly identified in some news stories as Papst’s uncle, said that Papst was not there on Sept. 7 when the Cumberland heist took place.

Francis Harper
Francis Harper was incorrectly identified as deceased in the Saturday, Dec. 1, 1934, issue of the Des Moines Tribune.

Back to Bethers

As for Harper, he didn’t have much choice. In early February 1935, a grand jury indicted him for the Superior robberry. Harper pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, according to the Feb. 14 edition of The Grand Island Daily Independent. Later, according to the California Federal Penitentiary Index of Prisoners, Harper was taken to serve his time at Alcatraz.

After he was released from prison, Harper led a quieter life. He went back to his original name, Francis Virgil Bethers. Harper was a name that he had adopted during his gangster years. According to his Texas death certificate, Frank Bethers died Aug. 15, 1981, at age 67 of complications related to colon cancer. He was cremated and is buried in Houston.


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