Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Baker got something of a break when John Ashley and the gang robbed the Bank of Pompano on Sept. 12, 1924.

The Ashley Gang and Sheriff Bob Baker and his deputies had settled into a kind of detente in the months following the shootout at the still near Fruita that left Ashley patriarch Joe Ashley and Deputy Fred Baker dead.

After nearly two more years in prison, John Ashley made his fifth and final escape from custody on Sept. 27, 1923.

Besides Hanford Mobley, Clarence Middleton and Roy Matthews, another person worked behind the scenes to execute the Bank of Stuart robbery, casing the bank in the weeks before with how-to instructions relayed by John Ashley from prison. Her name: Laura Upthegrove, John’s lover.

Instead of dressing for court and appearing in Tampa to face a charge of piracy on May 2, 1922, Hanford Mobley slipped on a woman’s black dress and white blouse, stockings and high heels and large-brimmed veiled hat.

With John Ashley in prison and three of his brothers dead from their criminal activities, leadership of the Ashley Gang in 1922 fell to John’s 17-year-old nephew, Hanford Mobley.

While the patch-eyed John Ashley is historically acclaimed as the leader of what became known as Florida’s notorious Ashley Gang, it was John’s suave father, Joe Ashley, who forged a path of criminality for John and his four brothers.