John Augustus Rock, Jr. was born in 1900, son of John Augustus Rock, Sr. and Susan Campbell. He met his wife to be, Esther Chenoweth, when he was about 14 years old and she about 13 when she slipped on the ice outside their school and he came to her aid.
He volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1918, but was still in training near San Diego when hostilities ended. He was discharged early in 1919, and he and Esther married that summer. They had three sons together.
John Rock worked a variety of occupations, including being an electrician and fireman at the grain elevator in which his father was chief engineer. But he also had a career as a criminal, involved in a gang that heisted automobiles from railroad cars. Police were convinced of his and his friends' involvement in a number of crimes for which there was no proof. John's best friend, George Riley, was shot to death on January 9, 1924 by police in what appeared to be a revenge killing, and John was arrested at the same time.
What seemed an open and shut case quickly became complicated when John and other members of the gang implicated a number of police officers in their illegal operations. Whether there truly were police involved in the fencing operations with the stolen autos is unknown, as John and his friends were swiftly convicted and sentenced to the Jackson County jail and the investigation into their accusations faded into obscurity.
John was eventually released, and returned home, but his story was not yet done. On the night of September 17, 1925, John Rock was ambushed near 21st and Jarboe in Kansas City by police detectives in an unmarked car. They pulled their car up beside his vehicle and fired upon him without warning, killing him instantly when a bullet struck him in the left temple.
Newspaper stories the following day crowed about how a "desperate bandit" had been dealt justice. The stories told by police in their own official reports and their statements to the five newspapers of the day were wildly inconsistent with each other, but no one in 1925 paid much attention or gave due diligence to the exaggerated claims of his activities. Today, his shooting would be investigated as a police execution; in 1925, it was just another short headline about a "gangster" getting his just deserts.
John's youngest son, George Ivan, was born posthumously. four months after his father's death.
He volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1918, but was still in training near San Diego when hostilities ended. He was discharged early in 1919, and he and Esther married that summer. They had three sons together.
John Rock worked a variety of occupations, including being an electrician and fireman at the grain elevator in which his father was chief engineer. But he also had a career as a criminal, involved in a gang that heisted automobiles from railroad cars. Police were convinced of his and his friends' involvement in a number of crimes for which there was no proof. John's best friend, George Riley, was shot to death on January 9, 1924 by police in what appeared to be a revenge killing, and John was arrested at the same time.
What seemed an open and shut case quickly became complicated when John and other members of the gang implicated a number of police officers in their illegal operations. Whether there truly were police involved in the fencing operations with the stolen autos is unknown, as John and his friends were swiftly convicted and sentenced to the Jackson County jail and the investigation into their accusations faded into obscurity.
John was eventually released, and returned home, but his story was not yet done. On the night of September 17, 1925, John Rock was ambushed near 21st and Jarboe in Kansas City by police detectives in an unmarked car. They pulled their car up beside his vehicle and fired upon him without warning, killing him instantly when a bullet struck him in the left temple.
Newspaper stories the following day crowed about how a "desperate bandit" had been dealt justice. The stories told by police in their own official reports and their statements to the five newspapers of the day were wildly inconsistent with each other, but no one in 1925 paid much attention or gave due diligence to the exaggerated claims of his activities. Today, his shooting would be investigated as a police execution; in 1925, it was just another short headline about a "gangster" getting his just deserts.
John's youngest son, George Ivan, was born posthumously. four months after his father's death.
John Augustus Rock, Jr. was born in 1900, son of John Augustus Rock, Sr. and Susan Campbell. He met his wife to be, Esther Chenoweth, when he was about 14 years old and she about 13 when she slipped on the ice outside their school and he came to her aid.
He volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1918, but was still in training near San Diego when hostilities ended. He was discharged early in 1919, and he and Esther married that summer. They had three sons together.
John Rock worked a variety of occupations, including being an electrician and fireman at the grain elevator in which his father was chief engineer. But he also had a career as a criminal, involved in a gang that heisted automobiles from railroad cars. Police were convinced of his and his friends' involvement in a number of crimes for which there was no proof. John's best friend, George Riley, was shot to death on January 9, 1924 by police in what appeared to be a revenge killing, and John was arrested at the same time.
What seemed an open and shut case quickly became complicated when John and other members of the gang implicated a number of police officers in their illegal operations. Whether there truly were police involved in the fencing operations with the stolen autos is unknown, as John and his friends were swiftly convicted and sentenced to the Jackson County jail and the investigation into their accusations faded into obscurity.
John was eventually released, and returned home, but his story was not yet done. On the night of September 17, 1925, John Rock was ambushed near 21st and Jarboe in Kansas City by police detectives in an unmarked car. They pulled their car up beside his vehicle and fired upon him without warning, killing him instantly when a bullet struck him in the left temple.
Newspaper stories the following day crowed about how a "desperate bandit" had been dealt justice. The stories told by police in their own official reports and their statements to the five newspapers of the day were wildly inconsistent with each other, but no one in 1925 paid much attention or gave due diligence to the exaggerated claims of his activities. Today, his shooting would be investigated as a police execution; in 1925, it was just another short headline about a "gangster" getting his just deserts.
John's youngest son, George Ivan, was born posthumously. four months after his father's death.
He volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1918, but was still in training near San Diego when hostilities ended. He was discharged early in 1919, and he and Esther married that summer. They had three sons together.
John Rock worked a variety of occupations, including being an electrician and fireman at the grain elevator in which his father was chief engineer. But he also had a career as a criminal, involved in a gang that heisted automobiles from railroad cars. Police were convinced of his and his friends' involvement in a number of crimes for which there was no proof. John's best friend, George Riley, was shot to death on January 9, 1924 by police in what appeared to be a revenge killing, and John was arrested at the same time.
What seemed an open and shut case quickly became complicated when John and other members of the gang implicated a number of police officers in their illegal operations. Whether there truly were police involved in the fencing operations with the stolen autos is unknown, as John and his friends were swiftly convicted and sentenced to the Jackson County jail and the investigation into their accusations faded into obscurity.
John was eventually released, and returned home, but his story was not yet done. On the night of September 17, 1925, John Rock was ambushed near 21st and Jarboe in Kansas City by police detectives in an unmarked car. They pulled their car up beside his vehicle and fired upon him without warning, killing him instantly when a bullet struck him in the left temple.
Newspaper stories the following day crowed about how a "desperate bandit" had been dealt justice. The stories told by police in their own official reports and their statements to the five newspapers of the day were wildly inconsistent with each other, but no one in 1925 paid much attention or gave due diligence to the exaggerated claims of his activities. Today, his shooting would be investigated as a police execution; in 1925, it was just another short headline about a "gangster" getting his just deserts.
John's youngest son, George Ivan, was born posthumously. four months after his father's death.
