As a crispness fills the air and the scent of gingerbread begins to waft from the kitchen, one only has to pull on an ugly sweater and curl up with a tablet to find some old-fashioned, weird Christmas crime.
And as always, Texas is as good a place to start as any.
In 1929 banks in Texas fell victim to robbers almost daily, and it was with an eye to protect what was theirs that the Texas Bankers Association offered a reward of $5,000 to anyone who killed a bank robber in the course of a crime.
To most people, this seemed fair, but to Marshall Ratliff, this seemed a little overly-punitive.
Marshall Ratliff was on his way back to his home in Cisco, Texas after serving a long stint upstate for a previous bank robbery. Not really knowing any other trade, Ratliff intended to pick up where he left off, but in addition to the new bounty on the head of any bank robber, there was the additional factor of his face being relatively well-known in his home town.
He needed a disguise, and it was late December.
Setting out in Wichita Falls, Ratliff met up with former associates Henry Helms and Robert Hill as well as a relative, Louis Davis, to rob the First National Bank in Cisco, Texas. They began their journey by borrowing a Santa suit from the woman who ran the boarding house where the men stayed and stole a car to get them to Cisco.
As the men arrived, Ratliff dressed in the Santa costume and the others let him out down the street from the bank.
As Ratliff walked down the street, dressed as the jolly old elf, he collected a group of excited children who followed the robber down the street towards the bank as well-wishers called out. By the time Ratliff finally entered the bank, smiling and waving, several children followed him in.
Once Ratliff entered the bank, however, he became all business. He ignored several people who called to “Santa” and made his way to the teller. Once there the other three men crashed through the front door brandishing pistols, yelling “Hands Up!”
Ratliff, dressed as Santa, opened the teller’s cage and went to a drawer that held a pistol, which he helped himself to. With all men armed, he ordered the teller to open the vault as he filled a sack with the cash and bonds from the cashier’s drawers.
While the men were inside robbing the bank, Mrs. B.P. Blassengame, who had earlier seen Santa enter the bank, took her six year-old daughter Francis to meet him.
As she entered she immediately assessed the scene and pushed her daughter through the side door of the bank and out an alleyway before the robbers saw her. She ran down main-street with her daughter in tow, screaming at the top of her lungs “They’re robbing the bank! They’re robbing the bank!”
The Cisco city hall was one block away from the First National Bank, and it didn’t take long for a hysterical Mrs. B.P. Blassengame to make her way there with her daughter in tow. She found the Chief of Police, who grabbed a riot gun and had two officers cover the rear of the bank while he watched the front entrance.
As gunfire erupted, some of the gun-toting citizens of Cisco jumped into the fire fight while many more ran to the local hardware store for pistols and rifles so that they too could join the battle.
What was eventually a a four man robbery had erupted into utter chaos.
More than a hundred rounds were fired as the hostages flew from the bank and a casual inspection of the chaos afterwards reported over two hundred bullet holes in the walls of the First National Bank.
Several hostages were wounded as the robbers used two little girls as human shields to get to the car parked in the nearby alley. As the robbers entered the car and made their getaway, the only thing that lay in their path was the Chief of Police of Cisco.
He was shot five times and killed.
The robbers and their hostages made their getaway with the townspeople in pursuit, only to realize that they had forgotten to fill up their getaway car with gas. As their car died, they managed to flag down and capture the Oldsmobile of one Woodrow Wilson Harris, who was clever enough to remove the keys from his car before surrendering it.
As one of the robbers, Louis Davis, lost consciousness, his gang abandoned him and their young hostages and made their way into the scrub to evade their pursuers, but not before leaving their loot with their fallen comrade.
They laid low during the night and stole another car, dodging the police for two more days, but their escape still dominated the news.
In fact, the news of their manhunt reportedly caused one child in Eastland County, according to lore, to interrupt church services to ask Saint Nick when he entered the church why he robbed a bank.
After seven days and one of the largest manhunts in Texas history, Henry Helms, Robert Hill, and ring-leader Marshall Ratliff were captured separately days later, leading to word that “Santa Claus” had been caught.
Ratliff was identified by his young hostages as the man behind the Santa beard and was sentenced to death, as was Helms. Hill plead guilty and threw himself on the mercy of the court. That mercy brought him a life sentence for which he was later paroled. He changed his name, settled down, and lived out the rest of his life as a peaceful citizen.
While Ratliff was awaiting the death penalty and availing himself of the appeal process, a local judge in Eastland County became fed up with the delays and ordered Ratliff to be extradited for the armed robbery of the Oldsmobile.
Once back in Eastland County, Ratliff convinced his jailers that he had been paralyzed and required assistance in bathing and feeding. While they attended him he wrestled a pistol from one of the guards and attempted his final getaway.
One of the jailers was killed while the other shot it out with Ratliff as helpless townspeople looked on through iron bars. After Ratliff exhausted his bullets, the jailer beat him into unconsciousness and returned him to his cell.
The next day, a crowd of nearly 2000 gathered to overpower the jailer and force Ratliff from his cell. They bound his hands and feet and carried him to a vacant lot behind the Majestic Theater on Mulberry Street where a play called “The Noose” was in production.
The mob hoisted a rope over a guy-wire between two telephone poles and attempted to lynch Ratliff, but the knot came loose and he fell to the ground. After a more successful second attempt, Marshall Ratliff died of strangulation.
His last words were “Forgive me, boys.”
On a utility pole in Eastland County, a marker was placed and a picket fence was built commemorating the lynching. In Cisco, the Texas Historical Commission placed a medallion commemorating the robbery.
