George Leonidas Leslie began life as one of the privileged class. However, he ended up being a criminal, known to the New York City police as the “King of Bank Robbers”.
Leslie was born in Cincinnati in 1840. His father owned a brewery, and Leslie started out as an academic, graduating from the University of Cincinnati with honors and a bachelor’s degree in architecture. After his parents died, Leslie sold his father’s brewery, abandoned his architecture career, and moved to New York City. There he met some bad people and decided that he could make a good career out of robbing banks. It is estimated that in the ten-year period from 1874 to 1884, Leslie was responsible for 80% of all bank robberies committed in the United States, grossing between $7 million and $12 million in cash.
In New York City, Leslie posed as a man about town with considerable means. He belonged to the most exclusive clubs and was a frequent theatergoer and patron of the arts. He used his disguise to gain access to various bits of information that make his life as a bank robber more profitable. Leslie often spent up to three years planning a banking job. When he found a bank to his liking, Leslie would try to get the plans of the interior of the bank. If this were not possible, he would visit the bank posing as a depositor, and with his background in architecture, he himself would draw rough plans of the interior of the bank. Sometimes, Leslie would have one of his gang members get a job at the bank as a night watchman or doorman, so that Leslie could get the exact specifications, make and model of the bank vault.
After obtaining this valuable information, Leslie would buy a duplicate of the bank safe. She spent days, and sometimes weeks, perfecting the art of opening the safe. She shied away from using dynamite to break the safe, deciding that it would cause too much noise and lead to detection. Leslie’s method of opening safes included drilling a hole under the dial and then using a thin piece of steel to manipulate the vessels into place. To cover just about any bank robbery contingency, Leslie had a set of anti-theft tools specially created for him that cost a staggering $3,000, which was more than most people made in several years.
To perfect the job he was planning, Leslie would sometimes set up a room, in a loft he rented downtown, to resemble the interior of the bank he planned to rob. There, Leslie and the men he selected for that particular bank job would spend a considerable amount of time practicing exactly how the bank robbery should play out. Leslie dimmed the lights and watched his men go about their maneuvers in the dark, then criticized his work. His cohorts consisted of various notorious criminals such as Jimmy Hope, Jimmy Brady, Abe Coakley, Shang Draper, Red Leary, Johnny Dobbs, Worcester Sam Perris, Bill Kelly, and Banjo Pete Emerson.
In May 1875, Leslie decided to rob the Manhattan Savings Institution at 644 Broadway. Leslie, through his “inside man” at the bank, Patrick Shelvin, discovered the make and model of the bank vault’s lock. He obtained an exact model from the manufacturers, Valentine & Bulter, and spent six months perfecting the opening of the lock. On October 27, 1875, Shelvin let Leslie and his team into the bank for the night. By the time their job was done, they had stolen $3.5 million in cash and securities, nearly $50 million in today’s money. No one was arrested until May 1879, and as a result, Jimmy Hope and Bill Kelly were convicted and sent to prison. Abe Coakley and Banjo Pete Emerson were also arrested but were acquitted at trial. Leslie was never arrested and his involvement in the robbery was not known until after his death.
Leslie’s reputation grew to such gigantic proportions that he was often referred to as a “consultant” by other gangs of bank robbers. He was believed to have received over $20,000 just to travel to San Francisco to review plans for a local bank heist.
However, if Leslie had a weakness, it was for the affection of women. She started an affair with the girlfriends of one of her classmates, Shang Draper. On June 4, 1884, Leslie’s decomposed body was found dumped at the base of Tramps Rock, near the border between Westchester and the Bronx. He was shot twice in the head. Police speculated that Leslie was murdered by the jealous Draper at a house at 101 Lynch Street in Brooklyn, then his body was taken to Tramps Rock by three of his associates, who had been seen near Yonkers at the time the incident was discovered. Body. But there was little evidence of the crime and no one was arrested.