Talk:Willie Sutton

Arnold Shuster killed

It's said Albert Anastasia had Arnold Shuster (N relation...), the kid who fingered Willie Sutton, killed because Anastasia couldn't stand squealers... Trekphiler 09:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

A lot of good material ...

I've added a few bits and pieces about this fascinating character drawn from a couple of reliable-looking external sites. If anyone is interested in fleshing out his life, they contain a feast of good material. CallMeHenry 16:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

As opposed to...

To fellow Mafioso like Donald Frankos, William was a little bright-eyed man who stood at 5 feet 7 inches.

— To non-Mafioso, he was a dull-eyed giant of a man who stood 6 feet 10 inches? Sca (talk) 15:54, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Was Willie a Mafioso or did he just know them? If he was were there many Irish Mafiosos? I thought they were Italian/Italian Americans. Nitpyck (talk) 04:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The math seems to indicate that an error exists in the amount W. Sutton stole in his lifetime. If he robbed approximately 100 banks, there is little chance the lifetime figure could be 600 million. The average robbery of a bank nets 5000 dollars. Skepticism is warranted. Ejb5472 (talk) 00:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Life- a couple comments

To Mafiosi like Donald Frankos, William was a little bright-eyed man who stood at 5 feet 7 inches. How did he look to other people? I ask because 5' 7 would have been average in the 20s and 30s. Throughout his professional criminal career he never actually engaged himself in violent behavior, Taking a guard hostage with a smuggled gun and robbing banks with a tommy-gun both seem fairly violent to me. Nitpyck (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Suggested reference

We received an OTRS suggestion (ticket 2010100410000231) of an article which may help improve this one:

"Sutton¹s Law", published in Missouri Medicine, September/October 2004, Vol 101, page 463. Article by Harvey Blumenthal.

Hope that helps! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 07:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

How wanted?

The infobox seems to say that Sutton was #11 on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. ? —Tamfang (talk) 00:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hagiography?

This reads to me more like a hagiography than a biography. It basically has good information, but I wonder about a few things.

throughout his professional criminal career he never killed anyone -- can this be verified? Shouldn't it be CLAIMED he never killed anyone, which can be verified?

he never had to worry about assault because Mafia friends looked after him -- again, can this be verified?

And there are a number of phrases that seem to be less than neutral -- wise old head...always a gentleman, witty and non-violent...etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tad Richards (talk • contribs) 12:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Sutton's law?????

I dearly hope that whoever wrote the last section, Sutton's law, does not attempt to write anything further in Wikipedia.

That is simply because any section that never states what its subject is does not belong in Wikipedia.

This head-scratcher could be clearer

As I type this the article contains the sentence "On March 20, 1950, Sutton was the eleventh listed of the FBI's FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, created only a week earlier, on March 14." To me, it should require no explanation as to why that sentence has to be read twice before it can POSSIBLY make sense. If there are 10 fugitives wanted more urgently than you, how is it that you make the "Ten Most Wanted List". The LIKELY explanation is that even though the list was only ONE WEEK OLD, someone in the Top Ten got captured, creating a vacancy, and that Sutton was then added. That puts him in the Top Ten (not 11th most wanted), but also makes him the 11th person to get into the Top Ten. That's my GUESS as to what was meant, but, you know, Wikipedia readers really should not have to make these guesses. Some discussion of the how Sutton was the 11th person to get listed, and how the list was revised to include Sutton only ONE WEEK after the list was created, is warranted.2600:1700:6759:B000:D887:59FA:434E:48AE (talk) 20:48, 29 August 2024 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson

The answer may lie in the fact that William Nesbit is stated by Wikipedia to have been on the list only THREE DAYS after debuting at Rank Number Three. So presumably Nesbit's capture created the vacancy. Barring some additional re-assessment by the list's keepers, I assume that every person listed below a person just captured moves up by one ranking when there's a vacancy, and that the replacement debuts on the list at Rank Number Ten, having formerly been the 11th-most wanted person, ranked too low to be on the list. If Sutton had been wanted any worse than 11th, he would already have been on the list before the vacancy. As I say, unless additional crimes are committed or there's some other reason to change the rankings, the logical assumption is that immediately after a capture of a top-ten fugitive every person ranking below the captured person simply moves up on ranking, and the former 11th-most-wanted who wasn't on the list now debuts on the list as Tenth Most Wanted. I got this information by clicking too many links and having to figure out too much stuff. It should have been available to me in THIS article about Sutton.2600:1700:6759:B000:D887:59FA:434E:48AE (talk) 20:55, 29 August 2024 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson