Crime
CRIME HISTORY - Wild car chase nets odd couple of crime
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
November 4, 2009
On this day, Nov. 4, in 1962, police captured the first of a bank-robbing duo that set off bombs in the District of Columbia and killed a guard in New York.
Albert Nussbaum was the brains. He was a student of crime, a locksmith and a pilot. Bobby "One Eye" Wilcoxson supplied the brawn.
In June 1961, Nussbaum set off two bombs near the U.S. Capitol to distract police while the two robbed a bank. But a third bomb failed to detonate, and the FBI used it to lift Nussbaum's fingerprint.
The two men became national fugitives after Wilcoxson blasted a Brooklyn bank guard four times with his submachine gun.
Nussbaum and Wilcoxson had a falling out and split. When Nussbaum tried to get help from his estranged wife, his mother-in-law called authorities. He was arrested in Buffalo after a wild car chase. Wilcoxson was captured in Baltimore six days later.
Both were sentenced to life. Nussbaum died in 1996. Wilcoxson died in 2006.
- Scott McCabe
