In 1932, Jack Killingsworth was elected Polk County Sheriff. He had been sheriff for about six months when he had a day that will be remembered in history. During the late twenties and thirties, the country was in the depression and many famous and notorious gangsters made their living robbing banks and committing murder. People like Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd. On June 16, 1933, Sheriff Killingsworth walked into the local Chevrolet garage in Bolivar and before he had a chance to respond, he was face to face with a man named Adam Ricchetti who was armed with a Thompson machine gun. Ricchetti had a brother who was a mechanic in the garage and was working on a car who was brought in by Ricchetti and his boss, Charles Arthur (Pretty Boy) Floyd. Floyd and Ricchetti were on their way to Kansas City to free a fellow bank robber, Frank Nash, who ws on his way to Leavenworth prison. They knew there would be an exchange from the train bringing Nash from Oklahoma to a car at Union Station in Kansas City. Sheriff Killingsworth did not see Pretty Boy Floyd until Ricchetti was having him walk toward the outside. The Sheriff was later quoted as saying "There I was, a machine gun in my back and Ricchetti telling me to go and a .45 in my face and Pretty Boy Floyd telling me to get back in." After they were all inside, there was a point that it appeared Ricchetti was going to shoot the Sheriff and his brother Joe quit working on the car, stepped in front of the Sheriff and said "You'll have to shoot me first." Joe Ricchetti was not like his brother and was just a hard working citizen in the community. When it came time to leave, Pretty Boy Floyd told Sheriff Killingsworth he was going with them because he knew the roads and if they did get caught, he would make a good hostage. They took the back roads and somewhere north near a town called Fair Field, south of Clinton, a highway patrolman came up behind them. Ricchetti was ready to shoot but the sheriff said let me just wave him off, and he did. Now you have to remember, this was 1933 and the police cars did not have two way radios. They continued north and decided they needed another car. They waited on a road near Clinton and when Walter Griffith came by in his new Buick, Floyd had the sheriff try and flag him down. Griffith was a real estate man and did not stop. They made the sheriff get back in the car and when Floyd pulled up along side of Griffith and Ricchetti pointed the machine gun at him, he stopped. Floyd stopped at a little country gas station and filled the car and asked the lady working if she had heard anything about a sheriff being kidnapped. She told him the radio was saying they were on their way to Oklahoma. Floyd drove fast on the country roads and once Griffith began to complain that he was going to scratch the paint on the limbs or even wreck, Adam Ricchetti was ready to have one less passenger. Sheriff Killingsworth calmed Griffith down and Floyd did the same with Ricchetti. Sheriff Killingsworth said he remembered something Floyd said when they stopped to rest once. As they were setting outside the car, Floyd said,"They'll get me sooner or later. I'll go down full of lead. That's the way it will end. Hunted day and night and day. How would you like to sleep with this thing every night?" Floyd was holding a machine gun. When they reached Kansas City, Floyd let the sheriff and Griffith out and told them to wait at 9th and Hickory. The sheriff said Floyd and Ricchetti drove the car up the road aways and put all their guns in another car that was waiting there. After they had been gone a few minutes, the sheriff went to the car, found a phone, and notified the police of their kidnapping and release. Remember, the sheriff still knew nothing of the escape plan. The escape was a bloody failure. Frank Nash was killed, Two Kansas City detectives were killed, the Police Chief of Mcalester, Ok was killed along with one federal agent.
Charles Pretty Boy Floyd died just the way he said he would. Melvin Purvis, government agent in charge of tracking these gangsters, attempted to arrest Floyd in October of 1934 and when Floyd attempted to shoot his way free, was killed in a hail of gunfire.
Adam Ricchetti was captured in Missouri. Sheriff Killingsworth testified at the trial and Ricchetti was convicted of murder and put to death in Missouri's gas chamber. Adam Ricchetti is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Bolivar.
Sheriff Killingsworth, like many Missouri Sheriffs, was not armed as well as the gangsters. It was sortly after the kidnapping, the county bought a .45 cal Thompson machine gun for the Sheriff's Department. That same "Tommy Gun" is still with the department and is in perfect working order.