James Krievell, age 82, a white male from Haysville, Kansas, was caught in the path of a violent bank raid during the early Prohibition crime spree of Eddie “Edward J.” Adams. In September 1921, as Adams and his newly formed gang struck banks in Rose Hill and Haysville for roughly $10,000, Adams pistol-whipped Krievell without provocation. The blow fractured Krievell’s skull, and he later died of his injuries, turning a robbery into a killing that shocked his community.
The fatal assault unfolded only weeks after Adams engineered a dramatic prison break from the Kansas State Penitentiary on August 13, 1921, escaping with inmates Frank Foster and George Weisberger while an accomplice, Billy Fintelman, waited in the getaway car. Reunited on the outside, the fugitives quickly pivoted to bank jobs, and the Haysville holdup—where Krievell was attacked—became one of the most notorious episodes of their September spree.
A multi-state manhunt followed. On October 8, officers tried to corner the gang near Anoly, Kansas, but a gun battle left Deputy Benjamin Fisher wounded and the outlaws still at large. Days later the hunt pushed into Iowa after another theft, and the chases and skirmishes continued through the fall. The pursuit ended only when Adams himself was killed in a Wichita shootout on November 22, 1921, closing the book on the gang’s brief, violent surge.
As for accountability in Krievell’s death, the surviving records consistently identify Adams as the assailant who struck the fatal blow during the Haysville robbery. One escapee, D. C. Brown, was recaptured within days of the August breakout, but contemporary summaries do not show a specific arrest or prosecution tied directly to Krievell’s killing before Adams’ own death; instead, the crime is preserved in historical accounts as part of the gang’s September robberies and the cascade of violence attributed to Adams during 1921.
