06x07 - The Lost Loot of Jesse James

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, the infamous
outlaw, Jesse James,

and the hunt for
his hidden loot.

He robbed banks and
railroads blind for 16 years.

Cash, jewels,

$2 million in gold bars.

Legend says he did not spend it,

he hid it.

There are stories
about him stashing loot

all over the United States.

Only a fraction of the millions

Jesse James supposedly hid

has actually been found.

For many, it's as if
James is taunting them

from beyond the grave,

saying, "Go ahead, try
to find my treasure."

Now, we'll explore
the top theories

around an enduring mystery.

If James and his
g*ng hid a fortune,

where could it be?

It could be in
caves, in mountains.

Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas.

In one case,

he just let it sink to
the bottom of a river.

What really happened to the
lost treasure of Jesse James?

April, 1882,

St. Joseph, Missouri.

Although the residents
don't know it,

the most wanted man in America

is secretly living just
outside their town.

He's posing as a family
man named Thomas Howard.

He's there with his
wife, his two kids,

and living in a nice house
just outside of town.

This seemingly humble farmer

is in fact America's
most notorious outlaw,

by the name of Jesse James.

Bad man of Missouri,

the Robin Hood of the Ozarks,

the last fighting
rebel of the Civil w*r.

He and his g*ng have
been knocking off banks,

stage coaches, and trains
for nearly 16 years.

By 1882, there were
multiple bounties

on Jesse James's head.

The largest was $10,000,

which was offered by
the governor of Missouri

to anyone, a detective,

a lawman, just a regular person,

whoever could bring him in

would get a huge payday.

Law enforcement was
always on his tail,

yet he always managed to stay

one step ahead of
the authorities.

On April 3rd, 1882,

Jesse James is meeting
with Robert Ford,

who is a new prospective
member of the g*ng.

In truth,

Bob Ford has something
more sinister planned.

Bob Ford had heard
about the $10,000 bounty

and figured this was his chance.

And so he takes
out his own weapon.

He shoots Jesse James
in the back of the head.

And kills him instantly.

The death of Jesse
James is huge news.

The whole country is
abuzz about his death.

Jesse James' run
is officially over,

but what he left behind

still fascinates
treasure hunters today.

We know that Jesse James

participated in dozens of heists

and must have acquired
millions of dollars.

But what we don't know
is where it all went

because we haven't
found any of it.

Maybe he didn't even
put it all in one place.

His story begins with his youth

on America's frontier.

Jesse James is born in 1847

to a strongly Southern family.

They're in Western Missouri,

though they're not
wealthy, own sl*ves.

And just as Jesse's maturing,

we see the outbreak
of the Civil w*r

where those Southern sympathies

are inflamed to
a radical degree.

His older brother, Frank,
goes on to join a group

that is known as
the Bushwhackers.

And the Bushwhackers,
to be clear,

are fighting guerrilla style.

They're not
affiliated officially

with Confederate military.

It's much more barbaric.

They would not only
surprise and engage soldiers,

but sometimes others,

sometimes innocent bystanders

would be beaten or k*lled.

It was brutal, it was bloody.

It was probably
the worst violence

of the entire Civil w*r.

Frank was out there
committing atrocities,

and the Union
soldiers and patrols

were well aware of this,

and they were looking for Frank.

So the best place to go
would be to his home.

They rode onto the James
farm looking for Frank James.

And they didn't find Frank.

Frank wasn't there,
but Jesse was.

Where is he?

They strapped him to a
plow and severely beat him.

They rode onto the house.

They horse whipped his mother.

And then they hung his stepdad

until he was brain
damaged permanently.

It's this moment that
really galvanizes Jesse James.

Burning with a need for revenge,


one of the most feared

Confederate guerrilla
groups of the day.

In 1864, Jesse and his
older brother, Frank,

joined a group of
Confederate irregulars

under the command of
Bloody Bill Anderson.

Bloody Bill is one of the
most deplorable villains

to fight during the Civil w*r.

A man who rode into battle

with the body parts
of his victims

strewn about his saddle.

But this was who


is looking up to.

Bloody Bill himself

is eventually k*lled
in a skirmish.

Those of his unit who survive

are declared outlaws
at the end of the w*r.

Even before the w*r ends,

Confederate guerrillas
were wanted criminals.

They were considered outlaws.

They weren't allowed amnesty

like regular Confederate troops.

If they turned themselves in,

they were given a quick
trial and ex*cuted.

The James
Brothers refuse to surrender

and launch a different
kind of insurgency

against the Union.

If you're an outlaw,
you might just say,

"What have I got to
lose? Let's go for it."

So they just went
full speed ahead

and they started robbing banks.

And they start going
after these banks

that specifically have
a Union connection

because they still feel
that they wanna fight

the good fight of
the Confederacy.

Then in 1869,

a brazen bank job

puts the name Jesse
James on the map.

Jesse and Frank James
decide to rob a bank

in Gallatin, Missouri.

And the reason they choose it

is that Jesse believes
that a clerk in the bank

is one of the Union militia

responsible for k*lling
Bloody Bill Anderson.

Jesse walked in

and he just k*lled
him right there.

Drew his g*n and shot,

no questions asked.

Following the Gallatin sh**ting,

his reputation as the roughest,

toughest, swaggering
outlaw in the West is born.

It is around this time

that James and his
brother, Frank,

joined together with one
of their old Confederates,

Cole Younger and his
two younger brothers,

to form what is one of
the most famous gangs

in the history of the old West,

the James-Younger g*ng.

They start pulling
bank robberies

almost on a weekly basis.

They stole hundreds of
thousands of dollars

and quickly became notorious.

Jesse was certainly
the face of the g*ng.

There's no question about that.

Jesse James knew the
value of public relations.

He would leave written accounts

of their exploits behind

at the banks that he robbed,

knowing that
newspapermen of the time

would print it verbatim.

Saying it was principled
resistance to the Union.

And people were just
eating this stuff up,

so he understood how
to market himself.

And an elevated
version of Jesse James

enters our popular culture,

and this notion of
him as a Robin Hood

really takes hold,

a man who had been an
outright r*cist t*rror1st.

And it's an image that
we still to this day

struggle to shed.

As the Jesse James legend grows,

law enforcement becomes
more desperate to stop him,

but James is always
one step ahead.

By 1873, the banks
across the Midwest

start to tighten up security.

And they become a
lot harder to rob.

Jesse and Frank James

realize they need a new target.

And they decide a great target,

a ripe target would be trains.

Robbing a train really
had two benefits for them.

They would make a
huge amount of money

because it carried
a lot of cash,

and it was one more way
to stick it to the North.

It's literally the
tendrils of the North

extending across
the United States,

bringing with it

the pernicious influence
of Northern industrialists.

On January 31st, 1874,

the James-Younger g*ng

robs one of the largest
railroads in the Midwest.

The g*ng targets the
Little Rock Express

that is going to be
stopping in the small town

of Gads Hill, Missouri.

Because the town is so small,

James and his accomplices

are able to effectively take
the entire town hostage.

They round everybody up,

and then they move over
to this train station.

They are able to
redirect the train

onto a sidetrack.

They jump out from
underneath the platform,

take the conductor.

So aside from
robbing the passengers,

the real target was
gold bullion and cash

that was on that train.

Reports on the g*ng's total haul

range as high as $22,000,

over half a million
in today's currency.

Like all of Jesse
James' stolen loot,

it's never recovered.

The Gads Hill heist

was really the most
high-profile robbery

that they had undertaken to date

and the most lucrative.

After they get off the train,

there's a big sheriff's
posse on the way.

The James g*ng has
to get out of there.

They've got a lot of
gold and it's heavy.

They can't just take off.

It was strategically
advantageous

to hide some of it.

A local legend
begins really early on

that the majority of the money

taken from the Gads Hill robbery

is still in Gads Hill somewhere.

About 74 years later, in 1948,

a timber worker named Harry
Wilcox is digging around,

and he discovers
the entry to a cave.

He claims that after
some exploration,

he comes to a large chamber.

And in the chamber

are what we might describe
as certain artifacts.

And it is the story
of those artifacts

that causes a sensation
in Gads Hill.

Word spreads
through town that Harry Wilcox

found some of Jesse
James's lost treasure.

All Wilcox will tell the press

is that he's met with
US Treasury agents

investigating the matter.

The rumors are just
flying everywhere,

and one of those rumors

is that Harry found
$100,000 worth of treasure.

Wilcox is being
fairly tight-lipped

about what it is
that he's found,

which only stokes the
flames of speculation

about whether or not he has
found Jesse James' treasure.

He seems to be
enjoying the attention,

telling the story,

but then all of a
sudden he downplays it

and says he only found
a little bit of money

and an old g*n.

And the question is,

why would he meet
with Treasury agents

unless he found something
significant and important?

So Harry Wilcox's
descent into the cave

is really one of
the first moments

in which Jesse James's lost loot

becomes a part of the
American imagination,

and all of these
different theories

and all of these searches begin.

So where else might
we start looking?

Well, maybe we just
follow the James g*ng

a little bit further
down the trail.

January 31st, 1874,

Gads Hill, Missouri.

The James-Younger g*ng,
led by Jesse James,

robs a train carrying a haul

worth more than half a
million dollars today.

But where they're
hiding their stolen loot

remains a mystery.

Some people
believe that the g*ng

made it out of Gads Hill,

they did not stop to
stash it in a cave.

But the Gads Hill train robbery

is incredibly lucrative.

And in addition to it
being a lot of value,

it's a lot to carry.

It was literally burdening
them and their horses,

slowing them down.

There's a huge posse
of at least 50 men

coming after them, maybe
from other directions.

That's a lot of weight to carry

when you've got a
posse chasing you.

Jesse James has
local law enforcement

looking out for him,

he's got US deputy marshals,

and he also now has to deal
with private law enforcement

in the form of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency.

When the Pinkerton
Agency got involved,

it was worse than the reward

being offered on their heads.

The Pinkertons didn't stop,

they always got their man.

And they didn't play nice.

With all of these
forces chasing him,

it would've
benefited Jesse James

and the James-Younger
g*ng a great deal

to stash a lot of this loot

to continue to stay one step
ahead of the authorities.

Some are
convinced that Jesse James

waited until they were
further along in their getaway

to stow their loot.

There are a lot of people

that don't buy the
Gads Hill treasure

being hidden in the cave.

A lot of people think
that they went farther,

in fact, across the
border into Arkansas

and dropped the treasure
in the Black River.

Over time, rumors begin
that the treasure is there.

And how do we know it's there?

Well, because not one,

but two psychics said so.

In the 1920s,

a local treasure
hunter named LC Sells

consults, two separate
fortune tellers

who both tell him to look
for Jesse James's treasure

in the same spot
on the Black River.

Based on the word of
two fortune tellers,

LC Sells puts all of his
money into finding it.

So he goes to the river bank

and he starts to dig.

He and as many as
a dozen other men

who he enlists to help
him in this enterprise

discover a three-foot strongbox

that they are able
to collectively lift

out of the hole, but
then they drop it.

And it falls into the river
and disappears from sight.

He continues to invest
his money and his time

in finding this thing,

he even goes back
to the psychics,

and the psychic says,

"Well, I know you
haven't found it yet,

but that's good because two
members of your excavation team

had planned on k*lling you

and stealing it the whole time."

That information is
enough to spook Sells,

and he immediately abandons
his search for the strongbox.

In 1953, LC Sells' son, Floyd,

picks up where his
father left off.

Floyd Sells has more
tools to his disposal

than his father did,
and he employs them.

Earth movers,
conveyors, water pumps.

He hires armed guards.

Using heavy equipment,

is able to dig
effectively a mineshaft

in the middle of the river,

all the way down to
the bottom and beyond.

And at one point,

they're down about


and they're using a probe.

And they hit something, and
they think, "Oh my gosh,

we found what Dad
dropped down here."

But just as they
find the treasure,

the shaft collapses

and the treasure
is lost once again.

After the shaft collapsed,

he kept spending more money,

and eventually he
was about to go broke

and he had to
abandon the project.

Neither the cave in Missouri

nor the river in Arkansas

have yielded loot
from Gads Hill.

But it was only one
of dozens of robberies

committed by Jesse James
during his crime spree.

Gads Hill turns out
to be just a small part

of the vast fortune
that Jesse James

was able to accumulate.

This was just the beginning.


be a pretty good year

for the James-Younger g*ng.

Started it in Gads Hill,

and then they ended
it in Muncie, Kansas,

where they robbed a Kansas
Pacific Railroad train.

And this time, their
haul is much bigger,

about $30,000, which
in today's currency

is around $800,000.

But that heist is but a
mere drop in the bucket

for what comes next for
Jesse James and his crew.

By the start of 1875,

the James-Younger g*ng are
coming off a banner year,

robbing trains and stagecoaches

throughout the Midwest.

It's what they have
in mind next, however,

that fuels more speculation

about Jesse James' treasure.

This would not only be the
biggest haul of James's career,

it would be the biggest haul

in the history of
American West outlawry.

So, legend has it
that the next big score

happens after the
James-Younger g*ng

learns that the
Mexican government

has sent a mule train
carrying gold bars

up through the
state of Chihuahua,

just across the border.

If it was the amount
that the rumors had said,

which is $2 million in gold,

that would've weighed
more than 6,000 pounds,

which is more than three tons.

Using some of their
bushwhacker skills,

the g*ng is able to steal

as many as 18 mules
laden with gold,

take them across the border,

through the plains of Texas

and into Oklahoma.

According to
local Oklahoma historians,

the James-Younger
g*ng runs into trouble

while making their way through
Oklahoma's Wichita Mountains.

A big blizzard hits them

in the middle of
Indian territory.

The group is forced to
try to make their way

through at least a foot of snow,

and eventually realizes

that they're not
gonna be able to carry

all of this gold
through the blizzard.

The idea quickly comes up,

"How do we hide and
stash this loot,

and save our lives?"

James identifies a potential
hiding space up a ravine,

and that's where
they take the money.

They hide it in a cave.

He then writes up
something of a contract

in an unusual way.

Jesse reportedly took a bucket

and engraved in it the date

and then the names
of all of the men

who were with him in that g*ng,

and left it as a marker.

We might ask the question,

why not return for the treasure?

Well, the answer is that
the James-Younger g*ng

very soon makes the fateful
decision to rob a bank

in Northfield, Minnesota.

Jesse James finds
out there's $75,000

in the Northfield Bank

that belongs to Adelbert Ames

and Benjamin Butler,

two of the most
high-profile Union generals

from the Civil w*r.

And it becomes an
irresistible target for him.

For James and his g*ng,

this is the continuation
of the Southern fight

against the Union Army.

On September 7th, 1876,

eight members of the
James-Younger g*ng

ride into Northfield, Minnesota.

Maybe they thought that
this would be an easier score,

but as it turned out,

it was anything but that.

Northfield,
Minnesota, at this time,

is a growing and
thriving milling town

of about 2,000 people.

This is an admittedly
unusual target.

Frank and Cole were concerned

about how remote this was,

that it was not a terrain that
they were familiar with,

that they didn't
have allies there.

So the James g*ng
rides into town.

They pretend to be
cattle buyers, if asked.

Frank enters the bank,

followed by two others.

The rest of the g*ng stayed
outside keeping guard.

If anything happened,

they were supposed to
sh**t and warn the others.

It's only minutes after
Frank enters the bank

that one member of the town,

purportedly a
hardware store owner,

yells, "They're
robbing the bank,"

and he begins
dolling out r*fles.

The townspeople, now armed,

run to the bank,
weapons in hand,

and a full on
shootout takes place.

Frank tries to grab
whatever money he can.

That turns out to be
about $26 in nickels.

All the while,
out on the street,

the rest of the g*ng is
being shot to pieces.

The guys are shot up.

Jim Younger had a
b*llet through his jaw.

Cole Younger had


after it was all said and done.

Frank ended up getting
shot in the knee.

Two of the g*ng are k*lled,

the Youngers are apprehended,

and it is only Jesse and
Frank who are able to escape.

This is basically the end
of the Jesse James heyday,

after this botched
fiasco of a heist.

We now have a reason

why nobody would go back,

at least not immediately,

to retrieve that money.

The g*ng is no more,

the heat is on in a way
it never has been before,

and Jesse James does,
in fact, lay low

and lives, for three years,

the persona of Thomas Howard.

In 1881, Missouri
Governor Crittenden

places a $10,000
reward on Jesse James.

When you put a reward
on someone's head,

everybody and their dog

wants a piece of that.

That's when he meets
Bob and Charlie Ford.

They got close to Jesse

and shot him in the
back of the head.

April 3rd, 1882.

The stunning
news of Jesse James' death

renews interest in
his hidden fortune.

But anyone who knows where it is

isn't talking.

Six months after
his brother is k*lled,

Frank turns himself in.

But despite enduring
a couple of trials,

he has acquitted

'cause there is not enough
evidence to convict him.

Frank and his wife

inexplicably pick up
and move to Oklahoma,

more than 400 miles away

from the farm
where they grew up.

They move to this
area called Cement,

near the Wichita Mountains.

Very close to
where he is alleged

to have helped bury
millions of dollars

in Mexican gold.

Some people claim

that he's looking for
that $2 million in gold,

and if anybody would
know where it is,

he would.

Curiously, Frank isn't the
only former member of the g*ng

with his sight set on Oklahoma.

When he is released from prison,

Cole Younger also
visits the area.

He comes to Lawton, Oklahoma,

which is also nearby.

But of course, the rumor
is that he is there

because he also wants
to find the gold.

Rumors persist for years
after Jesse James's death

that his millions
in ill-gotten gains

were hidden away
for safekeeping.

But only the few survivors

of the James-Younger g*ng
would know for sure.

First among them, his
brother, Frank James.

In his retirement from banditry,

Frank James has a
number of occupations.

A curious one is
that he is a farmer

for a period of time.

In 1906, Frank James
buys this property

in Oklahoma, near the
Wichita Mountains,

where that $2 million
possibly is buried.

A few years earlier, Cole
Younger gets out of prison

and decides he's gonna move
out into that area too.

It is, of course,
tempting to speculate

that he was there
for the same reason

that Frank might have been,

to try to recover the treasure.

Frank James, now in his 60s,

plants a small grove
of peach trees,

but locals say he doesn't seem

all that interested in farming.

Neighbors often say

that he rides up to
high ground in Oklahoma,

near the Wichita Mountains,

and he just is just
looking around,

surveying the area,

like he's looking for
something specific.

Now, if Frank
ever found anything,

he was smart enough
not to say a word.

If he found gold, he
kept it to himself.

So rumor has it
that, at some point,

Frank James did
find a copper kettle

with about $6,000 worth
of gold coins inside.

Of course, that's nowhere near
the millions of dollars of gold

that were reported buried there.

The search for
Jesse James's Oklahoma treasure

goes on for decades.

Finally, in the
mid-20th century,

there's a new lead.

In 1948, there's a local
Oklahoma police officer

named Joe Hunter

who comes across
a huge discovery,

a bombshell discovery,
and lets the press know,

"I found the bucket."

The bucket is dated
to March 5th, 1876,

and it includes the names

of the members of
the James g*ng,

including Jesse,
Frank, and Cole,

and states that the men below

are entitled to the treasure.

When Joe Hunter
finds this bucket,

this seems to be not only proof

that the treasure
actually exists,

but it's buried
somewhere in this area.

Unfortunately, he
never finds any of it

and he searches until
he dies in the 1950s.

While some
suspect the Oklahoma treasure

was long since dug up,

others believe
there's more to find



In 1949, one year
after Joe Hunter

finds the bucket in
the Wichita Mountains,

a mysterious group of people
show up in Zanesville, Ohio,

a place where Jesse James

was never known to be.

But they claim that
they are descendants

of the notorious outlaw.

This is actually the first time

we hear rumors that Jesse James

perhaps was not
k*lled by Bob Ford.

The story that this group tells

is that James had
faked his death in 1882

and relocated to Ohio,

and in the process,

burying as much as
$1 million in gold

that he had originally
stolen back in Mexico.

The strangest part
of the Zanesville story

is that one of the newcomers

claims to have been part
of the Jesse James g*ng.

An elderly African American man

named Uncle John Trammell

says that he rode with
the notorious outlaws

and was their cook

during their
exploits in the West.

He talks to newspapers

and really anyone
who will listen,

telling them he participated

in all of these robberies,

and that they had
come back to Ohio

and buried a lot of
their treasure there.

One of the claims
from this group

is that Jesse James left clues

as to where he had
buried his treasure

by carving his initials, JJ,

into the trunks of trees,

and that there
were other symbols

that could, once coordinated,

lead you to a particular
place on a map.

They found two Js that
were carved on trees

at a couple of
different locations.

And they followed the clues

that they thought would
lead them to the treasure.

And in fact, it did lead
them to a metal box.

But when they open it,

to their dismay, it is empty.

Nearly 70 years later in 2018,

Zanesville, Ohio is
back in the spotlight.

A man named Chad Somers

had been at a yard sale
in Zanesville, Ohio,

and he found a
never-seen-before photograph

that he claimed had
Frank and Jesse James

and some other people
pictured in it.

Why would there be a
photograph of Jesse James

in Ohio if Jesse James
never came to Ohio?

That is the thread that
Summers begins to pull.

This convinces him
that the James brothers

had actually been there

and that they had
buried their loot.

And so this starts
him on this quest.

As he starts looking,

he too finds those strange
marks on those tree trunks

that the Zanesville
g*ng found in the 1940s.

As Somers
continues his search in Ohio,

another theory
emerges that could tie

all the alleged Jesse James
hiding spots together.

How might we connect treasure

hidden in Missouri and Oklahoma

and Ohio together?

Possibly there's some
larger plot at work here.

Tales of Jesse
James's buried treasure

abound across the United States.

Some say all that
money was hidden away

as part of a much
larger conspiracy.

Recently, another theory emerged

that Jesse James's treasure

wasn't actually
buried in one place,

but was very deliberately
stashed in Missouri,

Oklahoma, Ohio, Arkansas,

and many, many other places.

And it's possible that
hiding all of this gold

might've been for a much larger,

much more nefarious purpose.

In 2003,

investigative journalist Warren
Getter's book, "Rebel Gold,"

claims that Jesse James

was an active member of a
sinister secret society.

The Knights of the Golden Circle

was an organization of
Southerners founded in 1854

that advocated
for the annexation

of a golden circle of
sl*ve-owning states

that would begin in
the American South

and stretch around
the Gulf of Mexico,

into Central America.

They were working toward
a pro-sl*very society

and the creation of really
an empire of sl*very.

The Knights of the Golden Circle

were rumored to be
working as a spy network

that was operating throughout
the Confederate South

during the entirety
of the Civil w*r.

They were thought to be involved

in a lot of different actions,

including the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln.

We know that this
organization exists,

we know that there was a plan,

but it's what happens
after the Civil w*r

where things become dramatic.

As this theory goes,

after the Civil w*r,

the Knights of the Golden
Circle go underground.

They become a secret society.

Getler's
theory is that the spoils

of Jesse James's robberies,
at least in part,

were earmarked for that cause.

According to this theory,

Jesse James was a
high-level operative

within the Knights
of the Golden Circle,

that his job was
not only to acquire

this huge amount of wealth,

but then also to stash
it, hide it and store it

deliberately in various places.

This was an attempt to fund

what would hopefully,
for the Knights,

be the treasury that would
create this sl*ve nation

that they wanted to
desperately build.

Could it be that James

was not just fighting a
Civil w*r rhetorically,

that his criminal activities

were designed to
raise a stash of money

that could be hidden
around the country

to help finance a
second Civil w*r?

They still imagined a future

where the South
would rise again.

So as a diehard Confederate,

Jesse James would've
gladly offered

to support an organization

that was working to restore

the power of the
sl*ve-holding South.

He would've taken orders
from Confederate officials,

like Jefferson Davis,

who in fact left Richmond

with a load of Confederate
gold that also disappeared,

and Nathan Bedford Forrest,

who was a fellow
Confederate guerrilla

turned founder of the KKK.

When they got their loot,

they would put it
in this location

as directed by
whoever was in charge,

then put it here, put
it there, put it there.

Warren Getler goes
to the archives,

he researches the Knights
of the Golden Circle,

and he determines

that they did a lot of
communicating in code,

that they used a
lot of symbology.

They weren't just
stupid farm boys

running around the South.

Some of these guys
were very skilled,

and they were spies.

They were very good
at keeping a secret.

And the symbols that
Jesse James used, JJ,

are included in a
group of known symbols

used by the Knights
of the Golden Circle.

Sometimes they would use the JJ,

sometimes they would
write the JJ backwards.

This explains
some of what we see

around Jesse James's treasure,

where there are
particular markings

around where treasure
may or may not have been.

It's possible that
Jesse James's own men

never really knew the
extent of what was going on.

Since 2013,

Utah treasure
hunter, Holly Remkes,

finds what she believes

are new clues for
where James hid gold

for the Knights of
the Golden Circle.


Getler's book comes out,

a woman named Holly
Remkes emerges in Utah.

And she has done a lot
of research herself

into Getler's theory

that Jesse James was engaged

in this kind of secret messaging

with the Knights of
the Golden Circle.

Holly Remkes determined
that the symbols

used by the Knights of the
Golden Circle and Jesse James,

not just the JJ, but the
orientation of the JJ,

could be triangulated
and coordinated

to specific sites.

If the J is pointing
a certain direction,

it means one thing.

If it's pointing in
another direction,

it means go another thing.

It could vary from
distance to direction.

Compass points,
compass bearings,

it's very hard to crack.

She also finds a
map dated to 1895

that has a number of
misspellings and small errors

that she thinks are not
misspellings and small errors,

but in fact, secret clues

coordinated with the
Knights of the Golden Circle

and Jesse James

in an effort to hide and
then find the hidden loot.

She has compiled a list

of more than 20
possible locations

for that hidden gold,

and is still looking
for Jesse's lost loot.

As the James-Younger g*ng

pulls off a dazzling
series of robberies

across the Midwest,

they inspire fear and hatred

in many of their victims.

But some see a more generous
side to these outlaws.

Jesse James is
seen as a folk hero

to a lot of people, a
modern-day Robin Hood.

Robbing from the
rich, AKA the Union,

and giving it to the poor.

A lot of people
say that Jesse James

just gave his treasures away.

It's theorized that maybe he
gave away a lot of his loot.

That's why it's been
so difficult to find.

It's not that it's buried
anywhere specifically,

it's that he's given it

to so many people
that were in need.

There are certainly many stories

immortalized countless
times in fiction and film

of Jesse doing this.

A story of him and his g*ng

coming upon a poor widow

who can't afford the mortgage,

and them giving her
not only one payment,

but enough to pay off
the entire mortgage.

There are stories of them
being hidden by kindly widows

who would feed them
a wonderful meal.

And once the strangers had left,

they found $20 gold
coins under the plates.

While the stories of Jesse James

quickly became folklore,

there was intention behind them.

A significant portion
of Jesse James's story

that we need to keep in mind

is that he was able to
write the story himself.

He wanted to craft that image,

and he made an effort to do that

with the letters
that were published.

Obviously, he wanted
to paint himself

in a positive way.

Despite all of the
robberies that he commits,

Jesse James actually
sees himself

as sort of a
modern-day Robin Hood.

He writes one
letter in particular

to a newspaper criticizing
Ulysses S. Grant.

He writes, quote, "Grant's
party has no respect for anyone.

They rob the poor and rich.

And we rob the rich
to give to the poor."

The problem is a lot of
these stories are unfounded.

And they're appearing
in newspapers

only because those newspapers

were owned by
Confederate sympathizers

who were looking
for a Southern hero.

And they turned Jesse
James into that man.

And he found his
most ardent champion

in a former Confederate
soldier turned newspaper man

named James Newman Edwards.

Edwards had served
in the Confederate Army

during the Civil w*r.

He became a newspaper
editor after the w*r ended.

And he published letters

that he said Jesse
James had written to him

about his heists.

Really praising his audacity

as something to be admired

across the American South.

A crazy example of this
is when John Newman Edwards

writes an article called
"The Chivalry of Crime,"

where he compares
Frank and Jesse James

to the Knights of
the Round Table.

More than anyone else,

Edwards is really responsible

for creating this romantic,

glamorous version
of Jesse James.

But the brutal irony
of this situation,

which is so often the case when
such savior figures emerge,

is that reality does not
match up to the rhetoric.

There is no evidence whatsoever

that Jesse James gave away
profits from his robberies

to the poor or to the needy.

Jesse James was not a
Robin Hood of the Ozarks.

He robbed from everybody,
for nobody but himself,

and k*lled many of the
people who got in his way.


after Jesse James's heyday,

he leaves behind a
complicated legacy

and a trail of secrets.

It's possible that
this was a case

of people looking for something

that really isn't there.

But everyone also likes
a great treasure hunt,

and if the loot of Jesse
James is still out there,

this story is far from finished.

Jesse James is a very
complicated character,

and the more you
learn about him,

the more mysterious
and weird he becomes.

Like everything in life,

there's two sides to the story,

and the truth is
more complicated

than sometimes we wanna believe.

Jesse James may have
been a ruthless outlaw,

but he was also a
brilliant image maker,

a master of hype.

It's possible all of these
tales of hidden fortune

were nothing more than clever
fabrications on his part

meant to tantalize the public.

But until the world
knows for sure,

the search for Jesse
James's lost loot goes on.

I'm Laurence Fishburne,
thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."