We're Dead, Come on in

By Bruce Davis

The most lawmen killed in one day until 9/11
" In all the annals of preservation of the peace there is no story that runs more gallantly than this."
-- Springfield Leader, January 4, 1932

As dusk fell on a bitterly cold night during the Great Depression, a posse of ten local lawmen approached two
brothers holed up in an isolated Missouri farmhouse. Minutes later, six officers were dead, three were wounded, and the outlaws had escaped. After a wild car chase through Oklahoma and across Texas, police finally surrounded Harry and
Jennings Young in their Houston hideout.

The brutal killings attracted the national press (at first Pretty Boy Floyd was rumored to be involved) and the
"carnival of carnage" that became known as the Young Brothers Massacre represented the highest number of law enforcement officers killed on a single day until September 11, 2001. Even in the hardscrabble Ozarks, a region
historically known for frontier justice and vigilante activity, these crimes caused a sensation, and the Young brothers briefly joined the ranks of infamy with Bonnie and Clyde and other famous outlaws.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1589803264
• ISBN13: 9781589803268
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

This incident should be made into a movie.

While this book is not perfect no book is. This is by far the best book on the subject, and what was even more interesting to me were the small details included. I have spent many hours going to the different addresses and the graves of the participants mentioned in the text to get a feel for the history. The revelation of numerous other crimes and murders in this area has given me a treasure of local history to research as well. It would be great if someone in Hollywood (like Springfield native Brad Pitt) would option this and make a serious historically accurate movie about the incident..

We're Dead, Come on in

Very good history of Springfield and Greene County, Missouri during the 1930's for those dreadful days.

Young Brothers Massacre

One of the better books I have read about deadly force incidents. It actually included photographs and, more importantly, diagrams of what occurred. Few authors bother with any diagrams and spend almost all their effort on background of the participants; as a result, readers of most such books know plenty about the actors but little about the actual event. This author took the time to describe the events in detail and included the court testimony and diagrammed the incident. A much better account of this event is the result. I wish more books about unfortunate incidents took this author's approach.