Thursday 26 May 2016

Meet 'Deadshot Mary,' A 1930s Undercover Cop Superstar

image credit Library of Congress

On June 20th, 1938, pedestrians near Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan were treated to a scene right out of a dime store novel. A well-dressed middle-aged woman was fighting with a man, attempting to subdue him. He pushed her in the face, and she retaliated, knocking him into submission with a swing of her long strapped pocket book.

The man was lucky she did not use the gun tucked carefully into the folds of her dress. The man was a suspected jewel thief, and his captor was an undercover policewoman with the press sobriquet of 'Deadshot Mary.'

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