Kate Barker, America's Most Wanted Mother

Historians have mixed feelings about Kate's role in the Barker Carpers gang and really J. Edgar Hoover and Alvin Carpis both have incentive to lie. But even if Kate wasn't the mastermind behind all these crimes, she was at the very least complicit. She benefited off the gang's burglary. As the authors of Ma Barker, America's most wanted mother points out, quote, she let her sons get away with murder. In fact, her boys counted on her to see them through whatever ruthless act they executed,. proving that even murderous gangsters need their mother.