The Oklahoma Phantom

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Performing Arts, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Face-To-Face With Pretty Boy Floyd

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The centerpiece of Episode 378 is a quest for an interview with the infamous bank robber and murderer Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd by Oklahoma reporter Vivian Brown. Although her reporting verges on glorifying Floyd’s celebrity, something we try to avoid, her six-part series published in the days between Floyd’s death in Ohio and his home-town burial, she also provides a deep insight into the way citizens viewed Depression-era bandits as anti-establishment folk heroes. But let’s not forget that Floyd murdered at least seven people, even if we don’t count the Kansas City Massacre.

Hear More Stories Where ROBBERIES GO AWRY

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Paul Pueller.com
0:03.5	East Liverpool, Ohio, October 22nd, 1934.
0:15.9	A disheveled and dirty young man, bedraggled and covered with Spanish needles, wrapped on the back door of the
0:22.9	house of the widow Ellen Conklin on Spruceville Road about 3 p.m. this afternoon. Mrs. Conkel, who was
0:31.1	cleaning a smokehouse nearby, called a response to the stranger. I'm lost and I want something to eat, said the young man. I'll pay you.
0:41.3	Mrs. Conkel said she would fix a meal for him. The young man was polite, but Mrs. Conkall,
0:47.6	who lives alone on the farm, did not like his looks. She agreed to fix a meal for him
0:53.3	and let the young man wash up in the kitchen.
0:57.0	Then Mrs. Conkall told him to go out on the porch until his meal was ready.
1:03.0	The young man asked for newspapers. Mrs. Conkall grew suspicious.
1:09.0	The young man said he and his brother had been hunting Sunday,
1:12.6	and they got lost in the woods at night and became separated.
1:16.6	The canny Mrs. Conkel asked him what they had been hunting.
1:20.6	Squirrels, the young man replied, or rabbits or anything.
1:24.6	You don't hunt squirrels at night, do you?
1:28.5	Ask the widow.
1:31.0	The young man changed his tone.
1:35.9	To tell you the truth, lady, I got drunk last night, and I don't know where I am exactly.
1:38.6	I'll pay you if you drive me into Youngstown.
1:42.7	Youngstown is some 38 miles north of here.
1:51.0	Quote, this meal was fit for a king, he commented as he finished eating, and then he gave me a $1 bill. Still, I had no idea who he was.
1:54.0	However, I became suspicious when he inquired his whereabouts and directions to Youngstown. I told him my brother's car was parked
	...

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