How two of Boston’s strangest shootings fueled the gun control debates of their times

HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

Two deadly murders were committed in and around Boston using military grade assault weapons, and both of them happened in the middle of a raging debate around gun control in this country. You might assume I am talking about an incident that happened after the school shootings in Parkland Florida in 2018 or Columbine in 1999, but I’m not. The first crime took place in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham in 1934, when three gangsters used a stolen Tommy gun to rob the Needham savings bank and murder two policemen. Sadly, this deadly crime took place just months before the 1934 federal firearms act made it illegal for civilians to own machine guns. The second crime we’ll discuss took place a generation later, in 1989, in the middle of a heated national debate that resulted in George HW Bush’s 1989 limited assault weapons ban, and the stronger 1994 ban that was allowed to expire in 2004. In what has to be the only recorded example of someone going postal in the sky, a disgruntled postal worker killed his ex wife, stole a plane, and spent hours shooting up downtown Boston with an AK-47.

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The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders

The photos below are by Leslie Jones

The Needham Bank and Trust

Inside the Needham Bank and Trust

The Needham Bank and Trust window

Norma, Murt, and Irv arrested in NYC

The burned out Packard is found in Norwood

Irv, Murt, and Abe

Irv, Murt, and Abe

Irv, Murt, and Abe

The stolen armory

The stolen armory

The stolen armory

Chaos outside the courthouse

Chaos outside the courthouse

The utility pole outside the Dedham Jail

Last ride from Dedham to Death Row

Police wait for the Millens in Readville

A ballistic expert with the famous Tommy gun

Norma Brighton Millen

Norma before her re-arrest

Diagrams from the Boston Globe

Needham Bank

The robbery and getaway

Attempted jailbreak

Pre-1934 advertisements for the Thompson submachine gun.

• Boston Globe stories
  • January 27: Police weapons stolen
  • February 3: Stolen Tommy gun used in deadly robbery
  • February 26: Murtons arrested in NYC
  • February 26: Abe Faber arrested in Boston
  • February 27: Abe Faber confesses
  • March 2: Irving Millen confesses to save Norma
  • April 18, 1935: moved from Dedham to death row in Charlestown
  • June 7, 1935: Irving Millen, Murton Millen, and Abraham Faber are executed
  • June 10, 1934: fights at the burials
• Washington, DC Evening Star stories
  • February 27: stolen guns found in Washington DC
  • February 28: searching DC safe deposit box
  • March 1: arguments for and against stronger state gun control
  • March 2: Irv confesses to save Norma
  • March 11: the brothers plead insanity
  • May 1: Abe’s fiancee testifies against him
  • June 9: death sentences handed down
  • June 28: Norma convicted
  • August 31: How will the firearms act of 1934 affect local machine gun owners
  • September 25: Last day to register your legal machine gun before the 1934 firearms act goes into effect
  • Jan 11, 1935: Attempt to break the Millens out of Dedham jail
  • Jan 12, 1935: Millens as an reason stronger gun control is needed
  • Apr 26, 1935: more Millen siblings implicated in jailbreak attempt
  • June 5, 1935: Millens refuse to ask for clemency
  • June 7, 1935: Millens and Faber are executed
• A post from the Needham History Center gives background on the fallen officers and explains how the suspects were identified.
• Murder and the Death Penalty in Massachusetts, by Alan Rogers
• Dedham: Heroic and Historic Tales from Shiretown, by James Parr
• March 2 Brisbane (Australia) Courier-Mail: Faber’s confession makes headlines down under
• A case overview by Judge R Marc Kantrowitz
• Murder on Trial 1620-2002, by Lawrence B. Goodheart and Alan Rogers
• August 21, 1935 Urbana (IL) Daily Courier: Norma released from jail

The Cessna Strafer

• NBC News coverage of the strafer, plus some raw footage
• Hat tip to Craig Fitzgerald for this Bang Shift article where I first learned about the strafer
• Going Postal, by Don Lasseter
• Background on Hunter’s criminal record, their marriage breakdown
• Documents from Hunter’s 1998 appeal that describe the crime scene
• Initial coverage of the strafing from the Globe on May 10 and May 11, 1989 and from the New York Times on May 11
• An overview of the flight from the Deseret News, including the suggestion to send up a helicopter to shoot down the plane
• A wire service story that includes more details of how Hunter stole the plane
• Hunter found incompetent to stand trial in June 1989, then competent in December
• Hunter is sentenced in 1992, but then his conviction is overturned in 1994 because of errors committed by the judge
• Hunter’s retrial took place in 1995, and he was convicted again. His 1998 appeal was unsuccessful
• Hunter’s crime spree and trial played out against the background of a debate over banning assault rifles, including this call from the Boston City Council for a citywide ban and better care in revoking gun permits after the holder commits a crime
• By 1981, Hunter’s father owed over $40,000 in back taxes
• Our featured image is a fanciful imagination of the strafing from an issue of Yankee Magazine that I’ve never actually gotten my hands on.