Basil Banghart

In 1954, a federal judge declared the Factor kidnapping a fraud and that Banghart and Touhy had most likely been wrongly convicted involving the Chicago Outfit and corrupt Chicago officials. Banghart was transferred back to Stateville in 1959, and eventually his kidnapping conviction was overturned and the mail robbery charges were dropped for time served. He was released the following year, when at age 60, he was reunited with his longtime girlfriend Mae Blacock. He had also received a small inheritance from his aunt 15 years before. Banghart retired to a small island in Puget Sound.

The convicts were given even longer jail sentences for their escape, and on January 2, 1943, Banghart was returned to Stateville, where he was placed in solitary confinement. He was then transferred, with an escort of 18 federal marshals, to Alcatraz. He spent the rest of his time in the prison kitchen working with former public enemy Alvin Karpis in the bakery. Jokingly referred to by inmates as the "Karpis kitchen crew", Banghart and Karpis allegedly learned to produce wine and other alcoholic beverages from cherry pie juices and other material in the kitchen. "The challenge was to avoid becoming an alcoholic," Karpis later wrote in his memoirs.

After years of unsuccessful appeals, Banghart and Touhy escaped Joliet with Edward Derlack, Martlick Nelson, William Stewart, St. Clair McInerney, and James O'Connor on October 9, 1942. The FBI immediately joined the manhunt, justifying its involvement charging that the convicts had violated the federal draft law by not informing Selective Service of their change of address. Soon after their escape, Banghart and Touhy were suspected of taking part in a robbery at Melrose Park, Illinois, on December 19, which netted $20,000, although no charges were brought against them. McInerney and O'Connor were killed in a gun battle with federal agents less than two weeks after their escape, and the rest were captured at a nearby address on December 29, 1942. J. Edgar Hoover observed the raid and took part in what would be his last "personal arrest".

On January 31, 1933, Jimmy O'Brien was killed by Nitti's gunmen in front of the Garage Nightclub. O'Brien was one of Touhy's union men and one of the latest victims of the Touhy-Nitti feud. A week later, a man identified as Banghart returned to the nightclub, where he stepped out of a sedan and tossed a bomb through the front doors of the club. No one was injured, but the club itself was heavily damaged.

When the Chicago Outfit staged the kidnapping of one of their own members, Jake "the Barber" Factor, in July 1933, it was expected to postpone his extradition to stand trial for fraud in Great Britain, as well as rid themselves of rival bootlegger Roger Touhy on whom the kidnapping would be blamed.

Despite being set up, Banghart and Connors did not seek revenge against the Chicago Outfit, and instead went on the run. On November 15, 1933, they teamed with Ike Costner and Ludwig "Dutch" Schmidt to hijack a U.S. mail truck of $105,000 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Banghart and Costner were eventually captured by the time the second trial for Factor's kidnapping was held on February 13, 1934. Facing long prison sentences for the Charlotte mail truck robbery, both men agreed to testify for the prosecution. Although Costner had not been involved in the ransom pickup, when Connors was found murdered on March 14, he took Connors' place and falsely stated that Banghart and he had been hired for the Factor kidnapping by Roger Touhy. When Banghart took the stand, however, he denied these claims and attempted to explain that the kidnapping was staged. Banghart's testimony was largely ignored, and Touhy, two others, and he were convicted and received 99-year sentences.

Banghart was arrested once more in February 1930, and was returned to Leavenworth, but quickly escaped again. He was arrested in Detroit for armed robbery in January 1932 and held in the South Bend, Indiana, jail, but escaped by throwing pepper in a guard's face, then using a machine gun to shoot his way out.

Banghart escaped from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary months into his sentence. Escaping from a window-washing detail, he leapt 25 feet from a window he was washing and over the prison's wall, escaping through the marsh on the other side. He got as far as Montana, but was recaptured and returned to prison. He made a second escape a year later, but was caught trying to steal a car in Pittsburgh in October 1928.

Basil Hugh "The Owl" Banghart Jr. (September 11, 1901– April 5 1982) was an American criminal, burglar, and prison escape artist. Although a successful "stickup artist" during the 1920s and early 1930s, he is best remembered for his involvement in the hoax kidnapping of Chicago mobster Jake "the Barber" Factor, a crime for which Roger Touhy and he were eventually proven innocent after nearly 20 years in prison.

Basil Hugh Banghart was born in Berville, Michigan, in 1901. He dropped out of college after one year to become a professional car thief, stealing over 100 cars in the Detroit area before his arrest in 1926. Around this time, Banghart acquired his criminal nickname "The Owl" because of his abnormally large eyes.