The highly documented life of the depression era outlaw named Charles Arthur Floyd, who hailed from the Cookson Hills north of Sallisaw, has been told in numerous articles, books, movies, and documentaries over the years.
But one aspect of the Pretty Boy Floyd story that has largely gone unnoticed was the time that Floyd's wife and niece and a man identified as "Bob Carney" were brought to hospitals in Fort Smith in early December 1933 after a car accident in Charleston.
Floyd, who has been described as everything from being the Robin Hood of the area in and around Akins north of Sallisaw to being a meticulous and cold-blooded killer that scoured the region robbing banks and killing peace officers, met his death in a cornfield in Iowa in 1934.
Several months before going down in a hail of bullets fired at the command of FBI agent Melvin Purvis, it was pretty well known in Fort Smith that Mrs. Ruby Floyd and the son of the couple lived in a modest house at 710 North 36th Street off of Grand Avenue. Floyd had also lived there intermittingly for about an 18-month span but as he was wont to do would leave for weeks and sometimes months at a time to engage in his illegal activities.
Legend has it that Charles and Ruby had been engaged in a long time on again off again relationship mainly because of the bandit's absences from what would be considered a normal family life. It is said the couple was on the outs once again in early December, 1933 when the saga of the Charleston automobile accident came into play.
What is known for a fact was on that date Ruby, Floyd's niece Stella Collins, and a mysterious man going by the name of "Bob Carney" were in an automobile on Highway 22 near Charleston that was driven by Fort Smith resident Fred Stiles. Newspaper reports of the accident said Stiles drove the Ford vehicle into a bridge abutment just west of Charleston.
Sites was killed and pronounced dead at the scene while the two women and Bob Carney were transported to Fort Smith hospitals.
After the accident the trio was picked up by two separate motorist who brought them to Fort Smith. The women were brought in one vehicle and Carney, who was seemingly in worse shape than the other two and had a broken leg, was transported in another.
During the ride from Charleston to Fort Smith, the Good Samaritan hauling the women from the scene of the crash inquired about their identities.
"I am Mrs. Ruby Floyd", replied one of the passengers. As soon as the Good Samaritan driver dropped off Ruby and Stella at the Colonial Hospital in Fort Smith he contacted local police authorities with his information.
Police immediately suspected that "Bob Carney" might be the much sought after bank robber. Carney had been transported to Mercy Hospital, which at that time was located at the intersection of Rogers and Lexington Avenue just east of the Immaculate Conception church.
Police made their way to Mercy Hospital and gained access to Carney. Initially, officers thought they had captured the notorious bandit because his description matched almost identically with that of Floyd. When hospital personnel said that Carney had tried to leave the hospital on a broken leg before officers arrived, they were sure they had their man.
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The Fort Smith Police Department, represented by Constable Jack Pace and Deputy Constable Otto Kuykendahl, wanted to be sure in their identification, made a call to the Sallisaw Police Department in the hopes that someone could come across the bridge and identify the man who was now under police watch.
Raymond Drake, a deputy sheriff for the Sequoyah County Sheriff's office, jumped in his car and made it to Fort Smith in record time. Drake stated if the man was not Floyd he was an "exact double" although some of the known scars and other identifying marks were missing when compared to wanted posters.
When known fingerprints of Floyd were compared to the prints of Carney the fingerprint analyst's said that there while there were "remarkable similarities" between the two sets of prints , he declared the man in the hospital was not Floyd.
It is said that at least one person, purporting to be Carney's brother, showed up at the hospital and established the man's identity as Bob carney. At that point the police guard was removed from the hospital and Carney was left to treatment and exited the facility the next morning with a cast on his leg.
Meanwhile over at the Colonial hospital, Ruby was flippant and defiant when she was interviewed by reporters. When asked if there was a rift in her marriage to Foyd, she replied "I don't remember, but do you think I would tell anyone that if I did?" as she twirled her white gold wedding ring on her finger.
Ruby laughed at the notion that Carney was Floyd.
"So the cops thought Bob Carney was my husband, did they?", laughed Ruby. "Huh... Don't they know if that was Pretty Boy in the hospital his friends would have taken him out long before this?"
Ruby, who had a broken jaw and a swollen and bruised face, responded "Hell, no!" When asked if she thought Carney resembled her husband.
She said that her and Stella had just met Carney and was "just out for a ride with him and Stiles".
But, and this is merely speculation fueled by rumors out of Sequoyah county, what if the mysterious Carney was actually Pretty Boy Foyd?
Floyd was known to sandpaper his finger tips often which would have accounted for the remarkable similarities of the prints. And, if as Ruby told it, Carney was simply taking two young ladies on a leisurely drive, why would he have tried to leave the hospital on a broken leg before officers got there?
In addition Deputy Blake, who knew the gangster personally, questioned the resemblance to the point that fingerprijnt experts were called in on the case.
A cursory examination of various sources from the time frame the time does not show a Bob Carney living in the city of Fort smith. In addition, extensive grave site searches on Find a Grave and other genealogical sources do not yield a final resting place of a man named Bob Carney in either western Arkansas or eastern Oklahoma that would have been the proper age of the man released from the hospital.
With so much legend surrounding the life and death of Floyd and the fact that he was probably blamed for countless crimes he really never committed, it's easy to see why some people to this day think Charles Arthur Pretty boy Floyd was within the grasp of local police officers just months before he died in a hail of gunshots in East Liverpool, Ohio.
I guess we'll never really know.
