Retired WGST-AM newsman Tom Hughes loves sifting through old crime stories for possible book ideas. The latest one goes back more than 90 years: a 19-year-old robber Frank DuPre who shot two men after stealing a diamond ring for his new gal pal Betty Andrews in downtown Atlanta.
That alone didn't make the story juicy.
Frank proceeded to elude the police for weeks, first in Chattanooga, then Norfolk, then Detroit. He even sent a letter to the Atlanta Constitution mocking the detectives as "boneheads" for failing to capture him and even self-dubbed himself "The Peachtree Bandit."
When caught, Frank was quickly marked for death by the prosecution. Frank didn't help himself during the trial by smirking a lot and showing a bad attitude. But his case was delayed for months by people who signed petitions saying he deserved clemency from hanging because he was a "mental defective." The governor didn't bite. Frank was hanged. Notably, he was the first white person to be hanged in Atlanta in a decade.
This delicious story is now a neat little read Hughes calls "Hanging the Peachtree Bandit: The True Story of Atlanta's Infamous Frank DuPre."
Hughes, the long-time morning man on the once formidable news/talk station 640/WGST-AM until he was let go in 2006, last penned a book in 2012 about another infamous Atlanta crime case. (I wrote about it back then.)
Because he worked with an academic press, that book ("Rich Georgian Strangely Shot") was ridiculously overpriced at $45, which hindered sales. This time around, he's working with the History Press and the price is far more reasonable: $19.99 retail, $14.99 at Amazon, $9.99 on Kindle.
"History Press does local history," Hughes said last week at a Starbucks in Midtown. "It's their wheelhouse."
When the Peachtree Bandit came to be in 1921, Atlanta was in the throes of a major crime wave.
"He was used as an example," Hughes said. "They had to hang somebody! There were too many unemployed young people in Atlanta and too many pocket pistols. He fit under those headings."
And as a strange addendum, this story became the subject of an African-American blues song. "Dupree Blues," in 1930, with variants recorded by the Grateful Dead and Harry Belafonte . Later, an R&B singer Chuck Willis had a top 10 hit with "Betty and Dupree."
"A lot of these musicians thought the couple was black," Hughes said. "This was a young guy out of work who wants to get something for his girlfriend. The man catches him and hangs him."
Hughes thinks the story would make a good movie, starring (facetiously) Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber.
If you want to meet Hughes, he'll be at a book signing at Buckhead's Barnes & Noble Saturday, March 29 from 1 to 3 p.m. and a reading at Decatur Public Library April 14.
Now 66, he said he's beyond radio now. Hughes subbed one day for his former WGST mate Kim "the Kimmer" Peterson last fall on All News 106.7: "I had a brief nostalgia for putting the headphones on and hearing my voice again on the radio. It was brief."
Book signing
Tom Hughes "Hanging the Peachtree Bandit"
1 to 3 p.m., Saturday March 29
Buckhead Barnes & Noble
2900 Peachtree Road NE Suite 310, Atlanta, GA 30305, 404-261-7747
Book reading
Tom Hughes reads excerpts from "Hanging the Peachtree Bandit"
7:15 p..m., April 14
Decatur Library auditorium
215 Sycamore Street Decatur
404-370-8450 x 2225
About the Author
