The 1920s was an era of glitz, glam, speakeasies, and a general feeling of affluence and abundance. However, this was only true for a very select few. Others had to scrape and scrimp. Or, even resort to criminality in order to make ends meet.
Celia Cooney was born in 1904 in New York City. She was the youngest child of a large family living in the basement apartment of a rundown building. Celia and her siblings were often left neglected by her parents. Her mother worked long hours to try to pay the bills, though her father usually drank away her salary before any of it could be used on the children. As such, they were often sent out onto the streets by their parents to beg for change.
Eventually, Celia was placed in the care of her aunt. Neighbours of the Cooney family were appalled when they found that little Celia had been left alone for three days with no food by her mother. While living her aunt, Celia was often visited by her mother. These visits did not go well.
Celia’s mother would take the clothes off Celia’s back, and the toys out of her hands. Her intention was to resell the pretty clothing and new toys. Celia would return to her aunt in rags.
By the time Celia was fourteen, she had dropped out of school. She desperately craved her independence, deciding that the only person she could rely on was herself. She got a job working in a brush factory, and moved out of her aunt’s house to move in with her sister. She had a bit more freedom, but also a taste of adult-like responsibility. Celia had stability – on her own terms.
However, Celia also developed a few unsavoury habits. She took to stealing small, almost unnoticeable trinkets wherever she went, and she greatly enjoyed keeping the company of men – especially sailors.
Celia’s behaviour was a source of strife for her sister. They would bicker and argue, with her sister constantly trying to curb her behaviour, and Celia continuously flaunting her newfound independence. Eventually, Celia had enough and decided to move out on her own.
In 1919, at the age of 16, Celia began working as a laundry worker, which allowed her more independence than she’d ever had before. She enjoyed being on her own, and decided she didn’t need her family at all. By this time, she began telling others that her parents were deceased, uncaring if this was fact or fiction.
A few years later, in 1922, Celia met mechanic Ed Cooney. For Celia, it was love at first sight. She was absolutely smitten with Ed. On May 18th, 1923, the couple married. The couple were happy, renting a small room in what was then known as Bedford, which is now known as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Prospect Heights.
At the time, the advent of credit was a boom to the capitalist market. Celia and Ed took absolute advantage of this system, constantly buying things that were outside of the their budget. Ed liked for Celia to have whatever she wanted. This included what would become to be known as her infamous sealskin fur coat. Celia loved it, telling Ed that the coat made her feel like a million bucks!
As their spending increased, they realized that they had an entirely new reason to spend. They had a little life to provide for, as Celia discovered in the fall of 1923 that she was pregnant. And so, they started planning.
On January 5th, 1924, Celia entered a Thomas Ralston grocery store, done up in her sealskin coat and her finest clothes. When the clerk asked her if he could be of assistance, she asked him for a dozen eggs. As the clerk turned to gather the eggs, Ed came into the shop, and nodded to his wife.
As the clerk turned back around, Celia took a .25 automatic pistol from the pocket of her coat, and shouted: “Stick ‘em up! Quick!” She felt a small thrill as she did it. In the meantime, Ed had the other staff members line up at the back of the store, keeping two guns pointed at them.
Then, the pair ransacked the cash register, taking $680 as they left. The following day, the robbery was covered in the Brooklyn Eagle, and the Brooklyn Citizen.
The robbery had all gone according to plan – the couple had intimidated the store staff, and made away with a solid take. Despite the use of weapons for intimidation purposes, Celia and Ed had one hardened rule – they would never fire their guns.
With their spoils, the couple moved into a larger apartment, with a much larger rent, and Celia picked out some furniture for their new home. The couple made the purchases on credit, deciding to pay in instalments. However, there was a problem fast approaching – Celia and Ed had run out of money.
On January 12th, 1924, they decided they needed to rob another store. However, their ill-gotten-gains weren’t as substantial as they were hoping. So, they robbed a second store. In total, they took home $365 that night.
The following day, The New York Daily News, and the Telegram and Evening Mail covered the robberies, and gave Celia her moniker – The Bobbed Haired Bandit. The newspapers reported that she, and her partner in crime, were “armed and dangerous”, which tickled Celia pink. She adored all of the media attention. Unlike her law enforcement counterparts.
NYPD Police Commissioner Richard Enright was outraged. The news media were generally speaking of him unfavourably, ridiculing him for not being able to catch the Bobbed Haired Bandit. Two days following the double-robbery, Commissioner Enright had an announcement. He stated that he’d caught the Bobbed Haired Bandit.
23-year-old actress Helen Quigley had been arrested, and was being charged for the armed robberies, and held until she could make her $10,000 bond. She declared her innocence to anyone who would listen. And someone was listening.
Annoyed that someone was stealing her spotlight, Celia came up with a plan. She and Ed were running low on money anyway. It was time for another robbery – and this time, she would have some choice words for the NYPD.
On January 15th, Celia and Ed drove around Brooklyn, looking for their next mark, as was their habit. Ed would borrow a car from the garage where he worked, in order to make an easy getaway. From the car, the pair found a drugstore. Celia entered, and found a clerk and the store manager behind the counter. She put a quarter down on the counter, and asked for change.
As the men moved around, Ed came into the store, and both he and Celia pulled their guns, holding the men at gunpoint. Celia held them still, while Ed rifled through the counter, and the cash register. Finished with their business, the couple left the store, with Celia leaving a note behind. The note read: “You dirty fish-peddling bums, leave this innocent girl alone and get the right ones, which is nobody else but us… We defy you fellows to catch us.”
The following day, the note was featured in all the papers, enchanting New Yorkers, and infuriating the NYPD. One paper even printed a facsimile of the note, allowing gawkers and fawners to catch a glimpse of the Bobbed Haired Bandit’s handwriting.
The note did not help Helen Quigley’s plight, though. He bail was subsequently doubled by an outraged Commissioner Enright. If anything, the police were even more confused – they believed Helen to be the responsible party, but two robberies had occurred the previous night. With the note being sensationalist on its own, some papers were also asking a very important question: If Helen Quigley was being held in custody, and the note had been left by another bobbed haired robber, then who was this third armed robber? Just how many of them were there?
Essentially, the police couldn’t answer these questions. Or they simply didn’t want to. Either way, they were further made the fool by another robbery, planned by Celia and Ed Cooney.
On January 20th, Celia walked into a drugstore and asked for talcum powder. As the owner of the store turned to fetch it for her, she pressed her gun to his back. At that point, Ed walked into the store. Ed ransacked the cash register, but they didn’t come away with much. That didn’t matter to Celia; she had an ulterior motive. She left another note at the store, taking a very confrontational tone. “Well, I’m having a fine time with you bulls,” she wrote. “Give it up, boys, because you will never get me, because I’ll kill you off one by one if you start after me.”
The next day, news of the robbery – and the note – hit the papers. The Bobbed Haired Bandi was framed as either stark raving mad, or the most courageous woman living in Brooklyn. Celia ate it all up. For every robbery, more and more newspapers picked up her crimes. Celia loved reading their takes on her actions.
The Bobbed Haired Bandit had become so infamous around New York, tales of her exploits made into songs, poems, and even vaudeville routines. This not only pleased Celia, but hugely fed her ego.
A couple of days after the January 20th robbery, Celia and Ed ran into a familiar problem – they were out of money. And so, on January 22nd, Celia walked into a small grocery store, and asked for a cake of ivory soap. When Ed entered the shop, Celia pressed her gun between the shop keeper’s ribs.
They were startled when a customer came down from the apartments above the shop for some butter. Ed pointed his gun at the woman’s face, and ordered her, and the shop keeper, to the back. Then, they fled.
The Bobbed Haired Bandit and her loving husband were shaken. They had turned into people they barely even recognized. They decided to stop what they were doing. They needed a different plan. After one more take.
On February 3rd, Celia and Ed committed another robbery. Police were called, and missed the couple by mere minutes.
Commissioner Enright was livid. He couldn’t fathom how The Bobbed Haired Bandit could continue to make an absolute fool of him, and his police force. He would arrest, and release suspect after suspect, only for another robbery to take place. At one point, Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, was even accused of being the Bobbed Haired Bandit, further humiliating the police force when these wild accusations proved very, very false.
Determined to put an end to the Bobbed Haired Bandit once and for all, Enright created a task force of 850 detectives whose main objective was to catch the dastardly woman who kept thwarting them at every turn. And yet, Celia kept slipping right by them.
On February 23rd, Celia and Ed robbed a grocery store. When Celia walked in, a manager, two clerks, and three customers were inside the store – this was way more people than she’d ever had to wrangle before. But she did – she pulled out her gun, told them all to ‘stick ‘em up’, and herded them into the back of the store. Ed then came in and rifled through the cash register. They only found $60, before deciding to flee the scene.
On March 5th, a man was held at gunpoint on the street. There were no witnesses to the attack, but the man claimed it was the Bobbed Haired Bandit and her accomplice. Following this, police were now being actively ordered – rather than encouraged – to shoot and kill the Bobbed Haired Bandit on sight. However, this attack was not the work of Celia and Ed Cooney.
In another part of Brooklyn, the couple were thinking that an empty-seeming drugstore looked promising. However, right across the street was a branch of the National Guard. Not wanting tot ake their chances, Celia and Ed continued on their way.
In the car – another one borrowed from Ed’s place of employment – they began to talk. If they could get away with robbing the drug store, with the National Guard just a few feet away, wouldn’t the papers have an absolute field day? They decided they were up for the challenge.
Celia walked into the store while Ed parked the car. She asked the owner for a tube of tooth powder, then pulled two guns on him while his back was turned. The owner immediately put his hands up – he didn’t want any trouble. But Celia had other problems. The store had two phone booths, and both were occupied by women talking on the phone.
Holding the store owner in place with one gun trained on him, Celia walked towards the phonebooths, and rapped on the glass with the other gun. The first woman stepped out, frightened, and asked Celia if she was the Bobbed Haired Bandit. Celia cut her off, and demanded that she go to the back of the store, where the owner was.
When the second woman saw what was happening, she fainted and slumped to the floor. Ed came in, and Celia indicated to him that she had it all under control. When the woman came to, Celia ordered her out of the booth, and herded her back toward the others. Celia was then surprised by a woman appearing from behind a staircase. Celia kept her cool, but was feeling the stress.
Ed sped up his actions, and made quick work of rifling through the cash register, and the small safe kept behind the counter. They made away with $31. They fled the store, and sped off in their borrowed car mere moments before a stream of National Guardsmen stormed into the store.
This latest robbery had truly spooked Celia. She couldn’t bring herself to want to commit any more robberies – especially when they weren’t providing her with the results she dreamed of.
Celia wanted luxury, but their takings were barely able to cover their current bills. They were spending far outside their means, and they knew that time was running out for them. They needed just one more take – a big one – and they when they were set, they would stop, for good.
They planned on robbing the payroll office of the National Biscuit Company. It was planned for April 1st, 1924 – payday. Stacks of cash would be sitting in a safe, ripe for the taking.
Steeling their nerves, the couple walked into the building, and held up the cashier, Nathan Mazo, and several other employees. Nathan attempted to stop the robbery. In doing so, there was a slight struggle, and for a moment Ed believed that Celia had been injured. Barely aiming, Ed shot his gun at Nathan, trying to protect his wife. Following the shot, Celia and Ed fled the building, leaving behind nearly $8,000.
When the incident was investigated, a warehouse employee recognized Ed. Finally, the Bobbed Haired Bandit and her accomplice had been rightfully identified.
On April 3rd, 1924, the couple arrived in Jacksonville, Floriday, having fled New York on a Clyde Line steamer. They knew they were the subject of a large manhunt, and tried to lay as low as possible – maybe even trying to build a new life for themselves. But things were hard, and the couple were increasingly stressed out and paranoid.
On April 10th, Celia gave birth to their baby, who was in very poor health. Two days later, the baby passed. With her child went Celia’s fighting spirit. She was exhausted. She was done. Let the chips fall where they may.
Having no luck finding the culprits in New York, their identities were revealed to the public on April 15th. Still, there was no sight of Celia or Ed Cooney anywhere. The police got crafty. They began intercepting Ed’s mother’s mail, hoping that her son would send word of his whereabouts.
It was just their luck that Ed divulged to his mother that he and Celia had moved to Jacksonville. He had included a return address on the envelope.
On April 21st, 1924, Celia and Ed Cooney were arrested for all of the robberies that they had committed in New York. They went willingly, without fuss. They readily confessed to all of the robberies. Celia tried to take responsibility for shooting Nathan Mazo – who had survived – but Ed refused to let her take the fall.
When the Bobbed Haired Bandit was finally captured – the real Bobbed Haired Bandit – it made front-page headlines cross multiple newspapers. Thousands of gawkers flocked the train station when they arrived in New York City from Florida.
Ed and Celia were represented by a defence attorney who tried to do right by them. But Celia was convinced that if they pleaded guilty, the prosecution would go easy on them. This was not entirely the case.
Even though they lived up to their end of the bargain, the prosecution still threw the book at them. On May 6th, 1924, they were both sentenced to the maximum – 10 to 20 years in prison. Celia was sent to Auburn Penitentiary, while Ed was sent to Sing Sing.
Celia worked in the prison laundry, then laster as the secretary to the head warden. She became extremely skilled in typing and shorthand, so much so she began teaching secretarial skills to the other inmates at the prison. A month into their sentences, Ed was transferred from Sing Sing to Auburn Penitentiary. Though still unable to see each other, they were comforted by their proximity to each other.
While working on a license plate machine, Ed had a few of his fingers crushed, wherein three had to be removed. Afterwards, infection set into his wounds, resulting in Ed having to amputate half of his arm. Following his injuries, Ed was transferred to the medical prison, where he would remain for the remainder of his incarceration, having caught tuberculosis. Ed and Celia wrote to each other constantly.
In October of 1931, they were both released from prison. Ed filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the state of New York due to the loss of his arm. His legal team won the case, granting him a settlement of $12,000. Shortly thereafter, Ed and Celia moved to Long Island, and but their sordid history long behind them.
They proceeded to have two sons, and led quiet lives. Ed passed away in 1936, leaving a heartbroken Celia behind with two young sons. She made things work, working as a typist, then later working at Sperry Gyroscope, a company that manufactured navigation equipment. In 1943, she marred a man named Harold La Grange.
Celia never spoke about her life pre-Long Island. It wasn’t until her passing in 1992 that her sons learned of her infamy as the Bobbed Haired Bandit. It just goes to show, you can really know when deeply buried skeletons will come tumbling out of the family closet.
— — —
Like what you’re reading? Follow me on Twitter or Facebook for the latest updates!
Sources:
How We Forgot the Bobbed Haired Bandit – Lauren Young – Atlas Obscura
The “bobbed-hair bandit” on the run in Brooklyn – Ephemeral New York
Female Criminals podcast – “The Bobbed Haired Bandit”: Celia Cooney – Part 1 and Part 2
Celia Cooney Wikipedia page