Bradley Gang
The Bradley Gang, a Midwestern outlaw group led by brothers Al and George Bradley, arrived in the Derry area in the summer of 1929 after a string of bank robberies and a kidnapping-for-ransom that ended with the murder of the victim. They rented a farmhouse just over the town line in Newport, believing themselves safe so far from their usual territory. On October 7, 1929, the gang made a fatal mistake: they came into Derry to buy ammunition at Machen's Sporting Goods. The proprietor, Lal Machen, recognized Al Bradley and quietly spread the word. By the time the gang returned two days later to pick up their order, the town was ready.
The Ambush
On the afternoon of October 9, 1929, the Bradley Gang drove into the three-way intersection of Canal, Main, and Kansas Streets in two cars—a red Chevrolet and a dark blue La Salle. As many as sixty armed men, including the town's sheriff, were waiting. When Al Bradley sensed the unnatural quiet and tried to reverse, Machen and his assistant opened fire. The ensuing gun battle lasted four or five minutes. The gang's cars were riddled with bullets; one witness later counted thirty-six slugs embedded in the brick wall of Machen's store alone. Joe Conklin stood in the intersection firing two pistols until his legs were shot out from under him. His brother Cal fell moments later. Arthur "Creeping Jesus" Malloy was killed hanging out a window. The two women with the gang, Kitty Donahue and Marie Hauser, were also killed in the crossfire. Al Bradley managed to get his car moving but was shot dead as he tried to flee on foot. George Bradley ran as far as a bench by the War Memorial before a shotgun blast killed him. Patrick Caudy, the last survivor, fired wildly until his shirt caught fire and he slid down the side of the Chevrolet, dead.
The Cover-Up and the Clown
The official story, published in the Derry News, claimed that state police and FBI agents had gunned down the Bradley Gang in a pitched battle, with "local police lending support." In truth, Sheriff Sullivan was present and firing alongside the vigilantes, and the publisher of the News himself put two rounds into Joe Conklin. The event was never investigated; it was simply not talked about. Among the shooters, witnesses reported seeing a man dressed as a clown—in farmer's biballs with white greasepaint and a painted red smile—firing a rifle from a window. One witness, Biff Marlow, later recalled that the clown was leaning so far out of the window he seemed to be floating, and that he cast no shadow. Mike Hanlon, researching the town's history decades later, identified this figure as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the entity that has haunted Derry for centuries.
Aftermath and Significance
The execution of the Bradley Gang ended the cycle of murder and disappearance that had plagued Derry in 1929-30, just as the fire at the Black Spot would end the next cycle a year later. Mike Hanlon, in his unpublished history of Derry, noted that the event was a "gaudy sacrifice" that quieted the town's underlying horror for another quarter-century. The gang's bodies were photographed at the morgue, and the pictures became souvenirs. The event itself was gradually forgotten or denied by the town's residents, who preferred to remember it as a legitimate police action. The Bradley Gang's fate illustrates the pattern of Derry's violence: a sudden, savage eruption that is then papered over by official silence and collective amnesia, allowing the town's deeper evil to continue its cycle undisturbed.
