Ma Barker
This celebrity goo was created by Scott Hardie.
publication date: Sunday, May 10, 2026 (part of May 2026)
category: 
Crime
clue: J. Edgar Hoover and sensational newspapers made wild claims about her involvement as the matriarchal mastermind of a Midwestern crime family during the Prohibition, but historians who tried to verify the accounts found themselves barking up the wrong tree.
explanation: Kate Barker, popularly known as Ma Barker, was widely accused of running the Barker-Karpis Gang in the mid-1930s, a criminal gang that included several of her sons. But historians have largely concluded that this reputation was manufactured by Hoover to justify her death in a sting operation, and popularized by newspapers to sell more copies. Instead, they found evidence that Barker merely traveled with her sons to provide cover as a vacationing family and otherwise had zero involvement in their criminal activities. more…
intended difficulty: very easy
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Samir Mehta, and Richard Slominsky
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