Al Brady

The Shootout In Bangor, Maine …

Al Brady became the FBI’s most wanted man after John Dillinger’s death.

On October 12, 1937, at approximately 8:30 a.m., a Buick automobile with Ohio license plates appeared in Bangor. After riding past the sporting goods store twice, the occupants, apparently satisfied that everything was quiet and that there was no danger, parked the car a few doors from the store.

Leaving Brady in the back seat of the car, Clarence Lee Shaffer and James Dalhover proceeded to the store. Dalhover entered the store while Shaffer remained on guard in front. Dalhover was immediately taken into custody by the agents stationed within the store who, upon searching him, found a .45 caliber Colt automatic and a .32 caliber Colt automatic both fully loaded with two extra loaded clips for each on his person. He was immediately handcuffed and removed to the Bangor Police Department by police.

While the handcuffs were being placed on him, Dalhover was asked by an agent where his “pals” were. The answer came immediately. Shaffer had drawn his gun and started firing through the front door of the store, one of the bullets wounding an agent in the shoulder. The agents from within the store returned the fire, and Shaffer ran out into the street where he fell and died a few minutes later with a .32 caliber automatic pistol in his hand from which all but one shell had been fired.

In the meantime, immediately upon observing the parked car with Brady sitting in it, two agents approached it with drawn guns, one from either side, informed Brady that they were federal officers and ordered him to get out of the car with his hands up. Brady put his hands up and started to slide along the back seat crying, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, I’ll get out.” As he arrived at the door, however, he lunged out, drew a gun, and started firing at the agents. Fire was immediately concentrated upon him, and he fell dead in the middle of the street.

At the time of his death, Brady had in his hand a .38 caliber revolver from which four shots had just been fired. A .32 and a .45 caliber automatic were on his person. Ironically, the .38 revolver in Brady’s hand was the gun he had taken from the body of the murdered Indiana State Policeman, Paul Minneman.

It is interesting to note that one of the bullets fired by Brady came so close to its mark that it penetrated the clothing of one of the agents and the gun holster next to his body. Thus, exactly one day less than that a year after the FBI entered the case the criminal careers of two of the most vicious and dangerous criminals ever to have been sought by law enforcement agencies in this country were terminated.

Dalhover was removed to Indiana and convicted in federal court for the murder of Indiana State Policeman Paul Minneman and was sentenced to die. An appeal was taken to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and later to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeals were unavailing and on November 18, 1938, Rhuel James Dalhover was electrocuted at the Indiana State Penitentiary, Michigan City, Indiana.

After the shootout in downtown Bangor, No one came to get Brady’s body, because he did not have any family. He was buried in a grave without a headstone at Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor. In 2007, the grave was finally marked with a stone, with a short funeral.