Frank Sawyer

James Franklin "Frank" Sawyer (May 1, 1899 – 1979) was an American Depression-era bank robber and prison escapee. An associate of Jim Clark, Ed Davis and other fellow Oklahoma bandits, he was a participant in countless bank robberies throughout Kansas and Oklahoma between 1917 and 1933. He was wrongfully imprisoned for a 1932 bank robbery in Fort Scott, Kansas and spent almost 40 years in prison before he was pardoned by Governor Robert Docking in 1969.

Early life and criminal career James Sawyer was born near Durant, Oklahoma on May 1, 1899. Raised in a strict Baptist family, he was the fourth of nine children. However, he started getting into trouble as a teenager and, at age 17, started robbing banks with Jim Baldwin and Tom Slaughter. Sawyer was eventually thrown out and disowned by his parents after discovering stolen money from a then recent bank job.

Although no evidence connected them to the robbery, they were all escaped convicts who were driving a stolen car. All three were indicted and wrongly convicted of the Fort Scott bank heist, in actuality committed by the Barker Gang, and sent to the state prison in Lansing.

Escape from Lansing Sawyer and his partners escaped from Lansing less than a year later, joining a mass escape with eight other inmates on May 30, 1933. He and the others forced their way out using pistols, smuggled in by Frank Nash, and among whom included Harvey Bailey, Robert "Big Bob" Brady and Wilbur Underhill. Sawyer went off on his own after the group reached the Cookson Hills on June 4. A series of mishaps followed as Sawyer attempted to flee the area. He first attempted to hitchhike but eventually resorted to stealing a car at gunpoint. Sawyer filed a lawsuit against the state for wrongful imprisonment, but the case went on for several years, up until his death.