This Week in Texas History
by BARTEE HAILE
At high noon on Dec. 23, 1927, a man wearing a Santa Claus suit walked into the First National Bank of Cisco, as three plainclothes confederates took their assigned places in the lobby.
Behind the phony whiskers was a face well-known around the small Texas town. During his stay in the state penitentiary, 24-year-old Marshall Ratliff dreamed of a homecoming hijacking and his fantasy was about to become headline-grabbing reality.
Ratliff found willing accomplices in Wichita Falls. Henry Helms and Bobby Hill were also alumni of the Texas Department of Corrections and needed little coaxing. Ratliff’s promise of an easy 10 grand apiece was incentive enough.
The fourth member of the gang was a last-minute replacement for another ex-con, who had come down with the flu. Related to Helms by marriage, Louis Davis was a rookie criminal in his mid-20’s with more children than dollars in his pocket. Quick cash for paying the bills was all the desperate father wanted.
Everything went according to plan until a woman with her small daughter in tow opened the unlocked front door and strolled right into the robbery. Screaming hysterically, she rushed for the rear exit. The bandits froze, each thinking someone else would stop her, and within seconds she was running down the brick street spreading the alarm.
Militant civic spirit and the lure of adventure instantly attracted a small army. Besides police chief Bit Bedford and two patrolmen, dozens of armed merchants and passersby surrounded the bank.
Another motivation was the $5,000 bounty. Earlier that year, the Texas State Bankers Association offered to pay that colossal sum to any citizen that killed a bank robber. Since few Texans in the 1920s could hope to earn $5,000 in a whole year, the First National felons represented a rare opportunity.
Clutching potato sacks stuffed with $12,200 in currency and $150,000 in negotiable bonds, the outlaw quartet stepped into an adjoining alley and a deadly shooting gallery. Undeterred by the sight of three women serving as human shields, money-hungry marksmen fired hundreds of rounds as the gang hurried toward their stolen getaway car.
Following a furious exchange of shots, the holdup men and their hostages crowded into the waiting Buick. Buckshot and bullets riddled the sedan, as it surged down the narrow alley and roared out of the business district.
The police chief and a patrolman lay mortally wounded. Six citizens also had been shot but would live to talk about the wildest day in the history of Cisco.
The desperadoes ditched the car, a rolling wreck with a flat tire, on the edge of town and commandeered a passing Ford. But after transferring their passengers, loot and provisions to the second automobile, they realized the driver had made off with the ignition key.
In a blind panic, the gunmen jumped back in the crippled Buick and resumed their frantic flight. Louis Davis, dying from a shotgun blast to the stomach, was left behind along with the entire proceeds from the robbery and an emergency supply of food and water.
The Buick ran out of gas a few miles from Cisco because no one had remembered to refill the tank after the long drive from Wichita Falls. The three remaining fugitives, two hobbled by serious gunshot wounds, turned the hostages loose and took off cross-country on foot.
Ratliff was caught on the fifth day of the multi-county manhunt after a blazing shootout at a roadblock 50 miles north of Cisco. Helms and Hill escaped into the thick underbrush but only delayed the inevitable. They crept into Graham two days later looking for food and a place to sleep and were captured without a fight.
Speedy trials resulted in death sentences for Helms and Ratliff, the nationally notorious Santa Claus. The tearfully contrite Hill rejoiced at receiving a 99-year prison term.
Henry Helms died at midnight on Sept. 5, 1929 in the electric chair at Huntsville. Unlike the stoic anti-heroes in the movies, he did not face his fate with cocky contempt. Two guards had to drag him kicking and screaming to his doom.
The end for Marshall Ratliff came two months later at the hands of a lynch mob. Hours after his unsuccessful escape attempt, a crowd estimated at a thousand strong stormed the Eastland jail 10 miles from Cisco chanting, “We want Santa Claus!” Ratliff was pulled from his cell and hanged on the spot.
The sole survivor of the Christmas caper was quietly paroled during the second World War. Bobby Hill changed his name and disappeared to start a new life.
So many Cisco sharpshooters took credit for killing Louis Davis, the bankers association refused to pay the $5,000 reward. Just like Santa and his nefarious helpers, no one got a dime.
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