For sale: ma barker’s final stand

Photo credit: TheGoodspeeds

The house where Ma Barker made her final stand is up for sale.

The lakefront Florida home, built in 1930, was rented out to the legendary gangster, who told the owner her name was Kate Blackburn.

The property, which has been kept in the Barker family over the decades since her death, features four bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms and sits on 9.5 acres of land covered with old oak trees. But house hunters will not be interested in the surroundings or the number of rooms: the real prize is the history of the building itself.

"It's like walking into a time capsule in 1935," commented Mark Arnold of Sotheby's International Realty, who are managing the sale. "The fact that it has this extra history is a really interesting cachet."

Indeed, Barker, branded Public Enemy No. 1 by J. Edgar Hoover, was part of the infamous Barker-Karpis gang, which committed a string of heists and kidnappings across South and Midwest USA in the 1920s and 1930s.

On the run from the law, Barker and her fugitive son, Fred, were still in the two-storey Florida home when the FBI descended for an epic shootout that saw agents fire over 2,000 rounds into the property. Many of the walls still carry marks and raised plaster patches where the bullets hit the wooden-framed building.

After running out of ammunition, the FBI sent handyman Willie Woodbury in to check on the Barkers. Fred Barker was found with 10 holes in his shoulder and chest and a pistol underneath his body, reports The Daily Mail.

Ma was found in a curled-up position, her slippers next to her on the floor.

A bullet hole still remains in the wall where she was killed.