The 12 Most Brazen Fugitives From History

In 1949, a Washington Daily News reporter asked the FBI to name the "toughest guys" it was investigating at the time.

The piece generated so much publicity that J. Edgar Hoover decided to make the "Most Wanted" list a permanent program.

So with the first official "Most Wanted" list published in 1950, came more than 400 fugitives over six decades to be chased by the FBI.

We have culled through that list to find the most brazen fugitives — including prison escapees, bank robbers, and kidnappers — and the first-ever woman to appear on the list, Ruth Eisemann-Schier.  

Thomas James Holden

Although Holden made the list in 1950, his record went way back. Most interestingly of all, he was convicted of robbing a mail train in the late 1920s. This was during the "easy days," as the FBI calls them, when gangs roamed the Midwest without much trouble from the authorities. In 1930, Holden escaped from federal prison in Kansas, eventually going back to his mobster buddies — among them, Verne Miller and Frank Nash. Later on, in 1950, he was placed on the "most wanted" list for shooting his wife and her two brothers after a drinking party. He was captured the following year.

Source: FBI

Gerhard Arthur Puff

There are few things that Puff wasn't convicted of. He started at the age of 20 with disorderly conduct and stealing domestic animals. Later he added on: bank robbery, car theft, and murder. After several stints in prison and one escape, in 1953 Puff was convicted of killing an FBI agent and sentenced to die in the electric chair.

Sources: FBI

Ruth Eisemann-Schier

Eisemann-Schier became the first woman to claim a spot on the notorious list when she kidnapped the daughter of a millionaire and demanded a $500,000 ransom in 1968. The 26-year-old Eisemann-Schier and her boyfriend buried Barbara Mackle outside of Atlanta in a coffin with ventilation tubes and a little food. Mackle was found buried in the shallow grave 80 hours later, unharmed, while Eisemann-Schier was captured in Oklahoma several weeks later. She was pretending to be a 19-year-old college student.

Source: FBI

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