John Allen Kendrick

John Allen Kendrick (February 18, 1901 – January 20, 1960) was an American criminal, escape artist, bank robber and member of the Tri-State Gang whose career spanned four decades. He was listed on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted in late 1955, and was apprehended by the FBI that same year.

Biography A longtime career criminal, John Allen Kendrick was first arrested by the Baltimore Police Department and charged with larceny and murder in May 1923. He was convicted of larceny and a reduced assault charge, sentenced to five years imprisonment, and released on December 24, 1928. Two years later, he was convicted on a concealed weapons charge and sentenced to two and a half years in February 1930. He escaped from prison on September 2, 1931, but was indicted six months later for shooting a police officer in Washington, D.C. and sentenced to ten years at the federal penitentiary in Lorton, Virginia.

On July 3, 1933, Kendrick escaped from the correctional facility and eventually joined up with the Tri-State Gang, a group of Depression-era bank robbers and stick-up men active in the Mid-Atlantic United States during the early to mid-1930s. The gang were responsible for countless robberies in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C.

Kendrick was tracked down by the FBI within a month and was arrested by federal agents in Chicago on December 5, 1955. He was apprehended without incident and extradited back to Washington, D.C. where he convicted and given a long jail sentence.