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weighed 130 pounds, he was already a full-blown criminal and a murderer. Crowley teamed up with the hulking Rudolph “Fats” Duringer (who was said to be the largest man ever to sit in Sing Sing's electric chair). Soon, the Mutt and Jeff crime team soon started terrorizing New York City.
    On February 21, 1931, Crowley, Fats, and another unidentified male, burst into an America Legion Dance Hall in the Bronx. They were uninvited, and when a slew of Legionnaires tried to toss them out, Crowley began firing with two guns, which gave him his nickname “Two Gun” Crowley. No one was killed, but two men were injured, and Crowley was now hunted by the police for attempted murder. Crowley was cornered in an office building on Lexington Avenue, but he shot his way out of the arrest, plugging Detective Ferdinand Schaedel in the process.
    Crowley continued his crazed crime spree in rapid fashion. First, Crowley and his crew robbed a bank in New Rochelle. Then they staged a home invasion of the West 90 th Street apartment of rich real estate investor Rudolph Adler. Crowley shot the feisty Adler five times, and just as he was ready to fire the final bullet into Adler's skull, Adler's dog Trixie went into attack mode and chased Crowley and his crew from the apartment.
    Some tough guys.
    In Crowley's first involvement in a murder, he wasn't even the shooter.
    On April 27, 1931, Crowley was driving a stolen car, with his pal Fats in the back seat. Fats was busy trying to make the moves on a dance hall girl, Virginia Brannen, who had just come along for the ride. Brannen told Fats, in no uncertain terms, to keep his chubby hands to himself. This did not please the hulking gangster too much, so Fats shot Brannen dead. Crowley and Fats discarded Brannen's body outside the St. Joseph Cemetery in Yonkers.
    After finding Brannen, the New York City and the Yonkers police departments, put out an all-points bulletin for the fat and skinny psychopaths. On April 29, a passing police car spotted Crowley as was driving a green Chrysler on 138 th Street in the Bronx. The cops sped in hot pursuit after Crowley, firing shot after shot at the speeding Chrysler. Crowley returned fire, and somehow he managed to escape. The next day, the police found Crowley's abandoned car, riddled with bullets and smeared with blood.
    The manhunt for Crowley continued.
    On May 6, Crowley was smooching in a car with his 16-year old girlfriend Helen Walsh, in a secluded spot on Morris Lane in North Merrick, Long Island. Patrolmen Frederick Hirsch and Peter Yodice approached the car, and they asked for Crowley's identification. Instead of drawing his wallet, Crowley pulled out a pistol, firing. He shot Hirsch to death and wounded Yodice, before he fled the scene.
    Now branded a cop-killer, the daily newspapers brought Crowley instant fame. The New York Daily News wrote: “Francis Crowley, who glories in the nickname 'Two Gun Frank,' and is described by the police as the most dangerous criminal at-large, was hunted throughout the city last night.”
    On May 7 th , the police traced Crowley to a top-floor apartment on West 90 th Street. Crowley was holed up there with Fats and Helen Walsh, and what transpired next will forever be known as “The Siege on West 90 th Street”: the most fierce gun battle in New York City's history.
    First, two detectives tried to enter the apartment to arrest Crowley and his crew peacefully. But Crowley would have none of that. Crowley screamed through the door, firing lead, “Come and get me coppers!”
    The detectives retreated down to the street, where they were joined by an estimated 100 police officers rushed in from all parts of the city. Crowley yelled down at the assembled cops, “I'm up here! Come and get me!”
    Over the course of the next several hours, and while an estimated 15,000 onlookers gawked from the streets and open tenement windows, more than 700 bullets were fired into Crowley's apartment. Crowley had an arsenal himself,