William Nesbit

Who was William Nesbit?

William Raymond Nesbit was a 1930s jewel thief, born in Marshalltown, Iowa.

On December 31, 1936, he killed fellow thief Harold Baker in a gunpowder explosion in Minnehaha County, near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He was arrested February 26, 1937 and convicted on May 28, 1937 to life imprisonment, which on February 18, 1946 was commuted to 20 years incarceration. Imprisoned in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he eventually became a "trusty" and the personal chauffeur of the warden. On September 4, 1946 he failed to return from running errands, and on December 26, 1946 he was charged in absentia with unlawful flight to avoid confinement. On March 15, 1950 he became the third member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's first-ever FBI ten most wanted fugitives list, and was arrested in a cave in Saint Paul, Minnesota, three days later.