On January 16th, 1935, federal agents surrounded a vacation cottage in Florida and, after an hours long gun battle, found two bodies inside. One was a 61 year old woman. The FBI told the country it had eliminated the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade. Alvin Karpis, who actually ran with her, said she could not have planned a morning breakfast. This episode untangles the real life of Arizona Donnie Clark, born in Missouri in 1873, from the legend of Ma Barker.

Her four sons, Herman, Lloyd, Doc, and Fred, turned to crime early, and she shielded them at every turn while her husband George finally walked away. After years in a dirt floor shack, she followed Fred and Karpis on the run to St. Paul, Minnesota, where a corrupt police chief helped a clumsy gang grow into a kidnapping ring. She rented the houses and made killers look like a family on a road trip. The mastermind story came later, and it served the Bureau well.

• St. Paul police chief Tom Brown supplied safe houses, sat on federal warrants, and warned the gang of raids in exchange for a cut of the profits.
• The gang collected a $100,000 ransom for brewery executive William Hamm Jr. and $200,000 for banker Edward Bremer.
• When the gang had crimes to commit, they handed her money and sent her to the movies. No fingerprints tie her to any crime scene or ransom note.
• A letter mentioning an alligator called Gator Joe led agents to the cottage on Lake Weir, where more than 2,000 rounds were exchanged.
• Facing headlines about agents killing an elderly mother, Hoover fed friendly columnists a tale of a gun toting matriarch found with a submachine gun in her hands.