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“Kelly O’Keefe never even had a pair of shoes until he was 15 years old, and now he’s driving a new Lincoln?  What the hell’s up with that?”

That was a common reaction around Fort Stockton when Kelly went down to Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal” and plopped down $3,238 in cold hard cash for a top-of-the-line 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan Sport Sedan.  It was the most expensive automobile the dealership had in stock at the time and was befitting a driver far more prestigious than Mr. O’Keefe, despite the cash in the burlap sack he threw on the desk.

Powered by a 337ci flathead V8 paired with a four-speed automatic transmission, the car was finished in silver over gray cloth upholstery. Equipment included rear-hinged rear doors, fender skirts, chrome wheel covers, whitewall tires, power windows, and an AM radio. 

Although Lincoln sold 8,341 Lincoln Cosmopolitan Sport Sedans, Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury only sold three of them.  The folks of Fort Stockton were put off by the price as much as upside down bathtub styling that was in its second year at Lincoln.  But, of course, Kelly O’Keefe was never one that could be accused of having an eye for style.  He only had one eye anyway, and it was usually focused on making sure there was no one watching him because god knows what no good he was up to.  

He’d lost his left eye in an accident out at the farm when he was 14.  Seems he was chasing Barbara Sue Sweeny around the tractor hoping to steal a kiss before anyone could stop him.  He’d left the rake lying in the hay right beside the big rear wheel of the Fordson tractor and forgot all about it.  About the third trip around the tractor he stepped on the handle and the business end of the rake flew up and hit him in the face, one of the tines of it going right through his left eye and severing the nerve that kept it attached to his head.

Barbara Sue rounded the corner, not realizing what had happened, and saw Kelly’s left eye dangling from the rake like a marshmallow roasting over a fire, except the marshmallow was looking right at her.  She passed out colder than a mackerel.  Anyway, Kelly wound up with the nickname ‘Cyclops’ and Barbara Sue was never able to join Campfire Girls.

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Nobody at Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury thought to question Kelly about where he got the money for the new Cosmopolitan.  That was not due to a strong sense of decorum.  It was more due to the fact that he would often take the glass eye he wore out of the socket, pop it into his mouth and roll it around to get lubricated, and then shove it back in.  It was a process that was not for the faint of heart to witness.  At one point during the sales transaction Rodger, his salesman, handed him a 1950 Lincoln catalog and said, “Here.  Keep your eye on this.”

If Rodger, or Chief Martin with the FSPD, or anyone else in town had been paying attention, they might have figured out that the money in the burlap sack on Rodger’s desk at Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury was not only suspicious, but it was part of a much larger mystery taking place over 2,200 miles away.

Two months before Kelly’s purchase of the Cosmopolitan, on January 17, 1950, 11 men pulled off what was, at the time, the largest bank heist in history.  The gang of misfits stole more than $2,000,000 ($29,000,000 in today’s money) from the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston, Massachusetts.  It was nearly the perfect crime.  In fact it would have been the perfect crime, had they not been caught in January of 1956, only days before the statute of limitations expired.

The mastermind of the robbery was Anthony “Fats” Pino.  Anthony was no stranger to crime, nor were the 10 men he recruited to help pull off the heist.  The men staked out the depot for 18 months prior to pulling off their crime.  They went so far as stealing plans for the depot’s alarm systems, then putting them back before anyone even realized they’d been taken.

Donning navy blue coats and chauffeur’s caps, the group looked almost like Brink’s employees.  Except, of course, Brink’s actual employees weren’t wearing rubber Halloween masks as a disguise.  They got into the depot with keys they’d copied and quickly tied up several surprised employees inside the counting room.  It didn’t take them long to fill up 14 canvas bags with cash, coins, checks, and money orders.

Thirty minutes later, the men were in the getaway cars with a half ton of loot.  Amazingly, no one was hurt in the heist.  The men were smart enough to leave behind almost no clues.  The only evidence police were able to recover from the crime scene consisted of the rope used to tie up the employees and one of the chauffeur caps.

The men agreed not to touch the money for six years, until the statute of limitations had expired.  They promised to stay out of any trouble so as not to arouse any suspicions of the authorities.  And that plan may well have worked, with the exception of one small flaw.  Joseph “Specs” O’Keefe left his share with one of his accomplices in order to serve a prison sentence for an unrelated burglary.  Well, he said it was his share.  What it actually had been was his share, less a substantial amount that he sent to his cousin for safe keeping in Fort Stockton, Texas.

It was never clear whether the rest of the robbers ever figured out that not all of “Specs” O’Keefe share was actually in the bag he’d handed off.  What was made pretty clear is that “Specs” was getting itchy in prison and demanded, in letters written to the others, that they send him money or he might be tempted to talk.

The concept of ‘Honor Amongst Thieves” is highly overrated and largely fictional.  In fact, faced with the threat of being ratted out, the group hired a hitman to kill O’Keefe.  The plan fell apart when O’Keefe was only wounded before the hitman could finish the job.  “Specs” took the attempt personally and made a deal with the FBI to give up his co-conspirators.

The robbers were rounded up and charged, just before the statute of limitations ran out.  Eight of those rounded up were convicted of the robbery and given life sentences.  Two died before they ever made it to trial.  Only a fraction of the money was ever recovered.  Legend has it that most of it was buried in the hills north of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Of course, nobody ever suspected that any of it would end up in Fort Stockton, Texas.  Rodger at Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury certainly didn’t know.  Or, if he did he didn’t make authorities aware of it.  “After all, a sale is a sale,” was one of his favorite sayings, so who knows?

What is known is that in January of 1956, just days after the arrest of the gang of Brinks robbers, Kelly “Cyclops” O’Keefe was killed in another farming accident out at the place he shared with his wife, Barbara Sue.  Barbara Sue told Chief Martin,”The mule kicked Kelly in the head and he was dead before he ever hit the ground.”

That’s exactly what Chief Martin put in the report, although he noted to himself that the indentation left on Kelly’s face looked a lot more like a spade than it did a mule shoe.  He also noted that the wound was on the left side of his head, so Kelly would have never seen it coming.

After an appropriate amount of time to grieve, Barbara Sue sold the farm, but kept the Cosmopolitan.  Folks at the Piggly Wiggly commented that she seemed to be overly friendly with Rodger when she took the sedan in for service at the dealership, but people are always going to find something to talk about.  

They also mentioned that despite the advent of credit cards, which came out in 1950 just like the Cosmopolitan did, Barbara Sue always paid with cash.

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