Here's a fuller rendition of the story with some in put from one who knew them. What an interesting story it is!
AIn a hail of gunfire, Shelton Gang was driven out of Illinois
http://www.macombjournal.com
By Phil Luciano
GateHouse News Service
Thu Jul 03, 2008, 10:54 AM CDTEditor's note: The Shelton Gang, which terrorized Peoria for years, came to a violent end when several members were shot to death. The murders have never been solved. In this, the second of a two-part series, Peoria Journal Star columnist Phil Luciano finds that there may be an answer to this mystery after all.
Farm life was peaceful in Wayne County - until Ben and Agnes Shelton's boys grew up.
The couple raised 10 children on a 120-acre farm near Fairfield, in Wayne County. Three of those children would help turn southern Illinois into a criminal war zone, so much so that the Saturday Evening Post would dub the Shelton Gang as "America's Bloodiest Gang."
Of the inglorious trio, Carl was the soft-spoken brains. Earl was shrewd but reckless. And Bernie was big and explosive.
As teens, they piddled around in small-time criminality: theft, robbery, larceny, and getting short prison stays for meager rewards. But in 1920, just after Prohibition began, they decided to step up to a bigger stage - and payoff.
They ventured to East St. Louis, where the Volstead Act did nothing to slow locals and visitors from kicking up their heels. The Sheltons got a toehold in the speakeasy trade and eventually formed a gang of at least 50 minions. The Sheltons became friendly with Charlie Birger, a criminal ringleader who had bootlegging interests not only in East St. Louis but also in southern Illinois, not far from the Shelton family spread.
Over time, the Sheltons tried to move into Birger's southern Illinois territory. The two gangs engaged in a protracted war that involved armored, homemade tanks and at least one aerial bombing. The battles triggered a triple-digit body count, but the near-lawless setting resulted in rare indictments and even rarer convictions.
Birger proved an exception. For ordering the slaying of a small-town mayor friendly to the Sheltons, Birger in 1927 earned the least favorable position at Illinois' last public execution.
Though the Sheltons did not have to deal further with Birger, East St. Louis became a problem. They had racked up enough business enemies to earn the attention of the governor and the FBI.
The Sheltons departed East St. Louis, regrouping in Wayne County. They looked north and targeted Peoria - already a wide-open town - as a ripe plum.
Between Carl's brains, Big Earl's moxie and Bernie's muscle, the three befriended Peoria's gambling bosses, wiggled in as partners and confidantes, then eventually took over the town. Gambling and prostitution flourished, with the Sheltons wise enough to ensure cooperation by giving generously to aldermen as well as the city treasury.
The operation became so entrenched that not even the Chicago outfit, not even Al Capone, dared try pushing into Peoria. As old-timers later would recall, "You couldn't spit in Peoria without asking Carl Shelton."
Though the Sheltons enjoyed a nicely profitable run in Peoria, by 1945 many locals had grown weary of the town's far-and-wide reputation as a haven for whores, slots and lawlessness. Longtime Mayor E.N. Woodruff, who believed most Peorians wanted him to look the other way, was stunned to lose re-election to reform candidate Carl Triebel.
Triebel immediately and plainly told the Sheltons that gambling no longer would be tolerated in Peoria. The Sheltons, keeping with their policy of not quibbling with noncompliant authority, simply moved their trade to Peoria County. For the base of their ventures, Bernie Shelton bought The Parkway Tavern, on Farmington Road, just outside city limits.
That same year, word filtered out of Chicago that the syndicate had put a $10,000 bounty on Carl and Bernie's heads. One day, five men with machine guns came down and surrounded the Parkway, with Carl and Bernie inside. Carl Shelton made a call, and two carloads of Shelton men raced over, wordlessly prompting the group to slink back to Chicago.
Still, the episode apparently weighed heavily on Carl Shelton. In the spring of 1947, he announced he would retire to the family farm in Wayne County. Though few believed he gave up all control, Bernie Shelton took over as the visible head of the gang.
---
On the morning of Oct. 23, 1947, Carl Shelton - who coincidentally had an appointment later that day to make out a will - was driving his Jeep near the family farm with a friend. At a rise in the road, they spotted a car hidden in the brush. Gunfire screamed, and Carl Shelton fell out of the Jeep. He died minutes later. His funeral was said to be the biggest ever in Fairfield, with more than 1,200 attendees.
That was the first of two big blows to the Shelton empire. The next came July 26, 1948, at the Parkway. Bernie Shelton walked outside toward his car, which he planned to take to a mechanic. He heard one rifle crack and fell to the ground. The lone bullet had ripped through his torso, right under his heart.
An ambulance sped the conscious Shelton to St. Francis Hospital. But he died a half-hour later.
Soon, other gangland capitalists would take over the Shelton's Peoria-area interests. But that didn't mean violence had ended for the family.
On May 24, 1949, Big Earl Shelton, who had retreated to the family farm, was playing poker at his Farmers' Club nightspot. An unknown gunman shot three bullets through a window, one of them plugging Shelton in the back. He suffered blood loss, but survived.
Two months later, nephew Little Earl Shelton, bodyguard for Big Earl, was attacked in a firestorm of bullets at his home. Amazingly, he escaped unharmed. There were no witnesses regarding the trigger man.
In 1950, Big Earl Shelton was shot in the right arm as he inspected family property, which by then included oil fields. Two weeks later, Little Earl Shelton, while sitting in his parked car in Fairfield, was nicked by a bullet to the arm. No one was charged in either shooting.
Still later that year, another Shelton met his end at the wrong end of a gun. Roy Shelton, whose younger-days criminal endeavors had nothing to do with his brothers' gang, had spent his latter years farming. As he plowed a field, five rifle shots blew him off his tractor. He was dead before he hit the soil. No one saw a suspect.
Early the next year, Big Earl's swank barn - built for $7,000, a princely sum back then - was torched. The arsonist escaped unnoticed.
Three weeks later, in broad daylight in Fairfield, an assailant with a machine gun blasted at Guy and Lula Pennington, the latter the sister of the Shelton brothers. They survived, but no one faced charges for the shooting.
During those times, others reported bullets whizzing by their heads upon occasion. Invariably, the intended victims were friends of the Sheltons or sharecroppers renting Shelton land.
The Sheltons had had enough. The survivors - including matriarch Agnes, Big Earl Shelton, sister Lula Pennington and her husband, Little Earl Shelton, and a handful of others - sold the farm, packed their belongings and moved to Florida. They never were bothered again. There, Big Earl Shelton, the last of the three Shelton Brothers, died peacefully in 1986 at the age of 96.
Nothing remained in southern Illinois to remind anyone of the Sheltons, save the original family homestead and two buildings on the family farm. In early 1952, those structures were burned to the ground.
Who lit the match? As with every mishap regarding the Sheltons, that has remained a mystery.
But one man knows. And he's ready to tell what he knows.
---
In 1965, John "Peck" Smith of Peoria was serving time at Menard Correctional Center for a failed robbery in Edgar County. He was a prison trusty, in charge of the commissary, a position of privilege for someone like Smith willing to make behind-the-scenes dealings. Still, Smith didn't lord his power over the other inmates; rather, he was liked as much for his position as his amiable demeanor.
"I was pretty well liked," says Smith, now 78. "I was considered trustworthy."
Late that year, he got word that the prison soon would be home to a new prisoner with a notorious reputation: Black Charlie Harris. Though 69 years of age, he still commanded fearful respect.
Smith had known of Harris from his teen years, when Smith worked for a Shelton Gang member who ran the Red Onion roadhouse outside Peoria. Though Smith had never met Harris - known as "Black Charlie" not for his skin, but his coal-dark hair - Smith knew of his ruthless renown.
So a curious Smith was waiting for Harris when he came to the pen to serve a lengthy term for killing his girlfriend and her paramour.
"I'm looking for a guy 6-foot-8, 280 pounds," Smith says. " . . .In comes this guy, 5-3, about 110 pounds."
Indeed, for all of his foreboding, Harris was a man of small stature and genteel manners.
"He was the politest person," Smith says. "Everyone was 'sir.'"
By all accounts, Harris was the same way outside prison - except when it came to making a living. He was known as a ruthless gunman, in Peoria and southern Illinois, one so harrowing that his triggerwork almost never prompted anyone to step forward as a witness. Thus, for all his misdeeds, alleged and bona fide, he rarely saw the inside of a prison.
One exception came in 1927, when he was bootlegging in East St. Louis and was a close associate of the Sheltons. Harris got a 10-year federal term, but earned parole in 1932.
But he quickly violated parole, because of his implication in a counterfeit-money scheme. Harris ended up serving the 10 full years - and at Leavenworth penitentiary, where he spent endless days under a roasting sun, cracking rocks with a sledgehammer.
He wouldn't go back to prison until 28 years later, when he went to Menard. By that time, many people - in law enforcement and otherwise - had pegged Harris as the man behind at least some of the Shelton attacks. Just after Carl Shelton was shot off his Jeep, his companion heard Shelton lament, "Don't shoot me any more, Charlie. It's me, Carl Shelton. You've killed me already." But a grand jury refused to indict him.
With some of the other Shelton shootings, Harris was alleged to have been in the area. But no witnesses could be found to testify.
Bernie Shelton's murder has remained the most murky. Theories have abounded, variously fingering gangsters, the Mafia and wayward elected officials.
Harris would never say anything. Even in prison, he mostly kept quiet.
"He wasn't a real talkative person," Smith says.
---
One day, the two struck up a conversation. Smith isn't sure why Harris decided to open up: maybe because of their common bond of Peoria. The two started chatting about the town, and the conversation veered toward the Sheltons.
With anger, Harris recalled his back-breaking stint in Leavenworth. He said that he took the counterfeiting rap for the Sheltons.
Harris told Smith, "Every (expletive) time I busted those rocks, I thought of the Sheltons. And I thought of busting their heads."
Worse, when he got out, the Sheltons never showed their appreciation for Harris. So for the next 10 years, Harris bided his time, waiting for revenge, Smith says.
According to Smith, Harris admitted to killing Carl and Bernie Shelton. With the latter, he discussed details that have spilled from other accounts. He said that an unnamed accomplice from Fairfield waited in a green Chevrolet - like the one spotted by witnesses later - near St. Joseph's Cemetery.
Harris crouched in the woods on a hill between the cemetery and Parkway Tavern. He waited long, but got impatient, Smith says.
"He was about ready to go in," Smith says.
After Bernie emerged from the tavern, Harris needed just one shot to fell him. He then scrambled up a hill footpath and got inside the waiting Chevy. They then drove back to Fairfield.
Harris didn't volunteer details for his scheme, such as why he waited so long or how he picked particular days. But he did say that he was behind every one of the Shelton shootings, all the way until the family cleared out of Illinois.
"He ran the whole family out of there," Smith says.
After that, the two didn't talk again of the Sheltons. Smith didn't dare get pushy with a man as scary as Harris.
Plus, Harris soon was transferred to Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet. Apparently, Menard officials did not like the idea of Harris being housed in southern Illinois, where he had so many criminal contacts.
Smith never saw Harris again. After getting out in 1967, Smith returned to Peoria and worked labor and construction, never again returning to prison.
Meanwhile, Harris served just 15 years of what was supposed to be a 60- to-75-year term. In 1980, At age 74, he apparently earned the sympathy of the parole board and was let loose.
To the best of anyone's knowledge, Harris never bothered anyone again. He moved in with a niece in Elkhart, Kan. - a healthy 400-plus miles from the hated Leavenworth pen - and helped run an antique shop. He died of natural causes in 1987 at the age of 91.
Says Peck Smith, "I would never say anything about him, unless I knew he was dead."
Sources for this two-part story include "Brothers Notorious: The Sheltons," by Taylor Pensonau; and "The Shelton Gang: They Played in Peoria," by Bill Adams.