LIVING HISTORY
THE ASHLEY GANG:
What really happened
A gumshoe follows the trail of the Ashley
Gang 83 years after their shooting deaths
to reveal who did what at the Sebastian
Bridge and why
One-eyed John Ashley was the leader of Florida’s notorious group of bank and train robbers
known as the Ashley Gang. The gang’s criminal activities, which included several killings,
came to an end when gang members were shot Nov. 1, 1924, by deputies who set a trap
for them on the Sebastian Bridge.
BY WARREN SONNE
PHOTOS BY PORFIRIO SOLORZANO
Ed Register was just 7 when he was walking one morning with his father
to the family’s barrel factory in downtown Fort Pierce and saw a crowd
gathering outside Will Fee’s Hardware and Mortuary. The image has
seared his memory for more than eight decades.
“I wish my father never brought me there,” says Register, now 90. “ I was
only 7 years old, but I remember seeing those dead bodies laid out on the
sidewalk.”
Register, who
spent his professional
career running
chambers of commerce
in Fort Pierce
and Boca Raton, is
surprised to hear
from me. But as far
as I can tell, he is
the only living person
who remembers
that
November morn-
About the author: Warren J.
Sonne is a retired New York
City police detective who
became a private eye. He is
the author of “Criminal
Investigations for the
Professional Investigator,”
and writes extensively on
investigative issues. The president
14
of Pinnacle Protective
Services in New York, Sonne
and his family in 2003
moved to St. Lucie County,
where he also owns Sun
State Investigative Services.