DEADLY CONSEQUENCES

A 10-Day Digital series from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1, 2024, the 100th anniversary of the end of the Ashley Gang

Part 8 of 10

BANK OF POMPANO ROBBERY

The Ashley Gang robbed the Bank of Pompano of $5,000 in cash and $4,000 in liberty bonds.

John Ashley and his gang pull off their last bank robbery

BY GREGORY ENNS

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.

Both sides knew that the only way the war would end was with more killings. After the still shootout Jan. 9, 1924, and an intensive manhunt, gang leader John Ashley fled to California but soon returned to Florida, haunted by the sounds of the last groans of his father as he died from a hail of bullets and shotgun blasts.