Eddie Bentz
American bank robber (1894-1979)
Edward Wilhelm Bentz (June 2, 1894 – October 31, 1979) was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. He was associated with several high-profile public enemies during his criminal career, including Harvey Bailey, Albert Bates, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Baby Face Nelson. He was eventually captured by the FBI and sentenced to Alcatraz.
Biography
Little information is known of his early life; however, most accounts agree that Eddie Bentz was born in Pipestone, Minnesota (or South Dakota) on June 2, 1894. His father was supposedly killed by a runaway horse when he was a child and his family later moved to Tacoma, Washington. Bentz spent much of his youth in juvenile reformatories for burglary and later began safe-cracking and armed robbery by his early 20s. According to crime historian William Helmer, Bentz participated in over 150 robberies across the U.S. "without ever being named or indicted"; however, Helmer has never provided verifiable evidence for his claims. Bentz became extremely successful as a bank robber—meticulously planning each of his exploits—and lived an extravagant lifestyle collecting rare books and coins. He was also known as a meticulous planner and well known for charting escape routes.
He and Harvey Bailey were the prime suspects in the infamous bank robbery of $2,870,000 in Lincoln, Nebraska on September 17, 1930, although neither was ever charged for that robbery.
The public source identifies “Eddie Bentz” as american bank robber (1894-1979). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eddie, Bentz and American.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5335850. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1894, 1979 and 1930.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eddie Bentz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.