In the fall of 1931, Francis “Two Gun” Crowley was on death row for killing a police officer. Earlier that year, the 18 year old’s crime spree began when he caused a disturbance at a dance. When two adults came to remove him, he shot them and fled. A judge signed a warrant for him for attempted murder, and Francis went into hiding. Two weeks later, he along with two friends robbed a bank, and he earned his nickname by wielding a pistol in each hand. A short time later, he shot a man five times while burglarizing his apartment.
With Crowley at the top of New York’s most wanted list, every cop in the city was looking for him, and they spotted him one afternoon, driving a stolen car. They tried to pull him over, but he starting shooting. After a rolling gun battle, Crowley escaped. Two weeks later, two cops pulled up behind him in the stolen car where he sat parked with his 16 year old girlfriend. The policemen carefully approached the vehicle and asked him for his driver’s license to make sure they had their man. Francis pulled his pistol and killed Officer Frederick Hirsch and wounded Officer Peter Yodice.
The next day, the police found him holed up in a 5 story apartment building, in a room with his girlfriend and two friends. Three hundred police officers converged on the building while 15,000 spectators gathered outside. Instead of surrendering, Crowley fired on police while his friends reloaded his guns. Police returned fire, shooting over 700 rounds into the apartment. They threw canisters of tear gas inside his room, but he merely picked them up and tossed them out the window, back at the police. The gunfight ended when Crowley surrendered after being shot four times.
While waiting to be executed for the murder of a police officer, Crowley wrote a letter “To whom it may concern.” For someone who inflicted violence on so many people while stealing and robbing the innocent, perhaps his pending execution would humble him and bring him to regret, but it did not. He wrote, “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do nobody any harm.”
A philosopher might contemplate whether it is the heart or mind which causes criminals to rape, kill, and destroy, but regular people see through an evil man’s rhetoric and recognize his statement for what it is: unrepentant self-justification.
The heart is the source of rebellion and evil. According to Jesus, “…out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19) This heart condition originated in the Garden of Eden, the home God gave to the pinnacle of his creation: man. Man consisted of Adam and Eve, the two creatures who made up mankind and whose very existence was to glorify God. But there was a problem…
God gave mankind one rule along with the ability and desire to keep his rule. “…the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” One rule with the consequences of disobedience clearly spelled out, “You will surely die.”
But mankind considered death something to be scoffed at. Thinking they were missing out on something beneficial, they ate the forbidden fruit and were instantly guilty, and now they had something they didn’t have before: the knowledge of good and evil.
The knowledge of good and evil is a trait which originated with God and was perfect because God is holy, but when man sinned, the knowledge of good and evil was tainted. For Adam and his progeny, the knowledge of good and evil means the children of man are born deciding for themselves what is right and wrong apart from God. It means we inherited the desire to please ourselves rather than God. The knowledge of good and evil means each person fashions their own morality, prioritizing what they think is important and excusing whatever they please. Two Gun Crowley’s knowledge of good and evil placed him in the center of his universe with everything else revolving around him. The things he considered good: women, money, and fancy cars existed for him to take at his good pleasure. Those things he considered evil: cops, apartment owners who interfered with burglaries, and anyone who got in his way, should be eliminated. His morality existed to serve his lusts, so in his quiet moments of rest in solitary confinement, he could reminisce about having a pure and innocent heart under his coat because that is what the hearts of the children of man do: deceive. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Like Crowley, our hearts are so deceitful, we deceive ourselves into thinking we are something we are not. If we are not very careful, we will scam ourselves and believe our own lies.
There is only one way to redeem our deceptive hearts. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” The proud says, “I will…” The humble says, “Thy will be done.” The humble yield to God and consider Christ to be great treasure.
At the tender age of nineteen, Francis Crowley’s life came to an end in an electric chair. There is no evidence to suggest he ever humbled himself. Instead, it appears he stood before the Lord’s throne without an alibi.
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