By 1922, Goetz worked as a
lifeguard at Clarendon Municipal Bathing Beach in the neighbourhood of
Beach Park, Illinois, until he was charged with sexually assaulting seven-year-old Jean Lanbert by an alley near her house where she lived in
Edgewater, Chicago. Goetz denied the charges and jumped bail on June 10, 1925. Four months later, Roger Bessner implicated Goetz in a failed robbery of Dr. Henry R. Gross, in which the family chauffeur was killed. On October 20, 1925, the Illinois State Attorney had a lawsuit brought against Fred's parents, Samuel and Ottillie, who scheduled some of their empty real estate property to be used as collateral for their son's bond. They would later divorce, his mother moving to 1503 Ardmore Avenue in
Edgewater, Chicago, and his father Samuel relocating to
Cincinnati. During the next several years, Goetz would become associates with underworld figures such as
Joseph Weil and Morris Klineman, as well as participating in several armed robberies, including the robbery of $352,000 from the Farmers and Merchants Bank, in
Jefferson, Wisconsin, with
Gus Winkler and four others, in 1929. He lived in an apartment at 7827 South Shore Drive in
South Shore, Chicago, with his wife Irene. His landlady would describe Fred and his wife as "fine people" and that Fred was a "very brilliant and handsome man".
Barker gang After the
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Goetz left Chicago and began bootlegging operations in
Kansas City, Missouri. Goetz eventually became associated with the
Barker-Karpis gang. He participated in several bank robberies with
Alvin Karpis,
Fred Barker, and
Doc Barker. One of the most violent of the armed robberies in which Goetz participated with the Barkers was carried out at the post office in
South St. Paul,
Minnesota on August 30, 1933. The robbery resulted in the theft of a $33,000
Swift and Company payroll, the murder of
South St. Paul police officer Leo Pavlak and the permanent maiming of South St. Paul police officer John Yeaman. The Barker-Karpis Gang then went on a shooting spree before fleeing the scene of the robbery. According to a report by the
Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, "The bandits put on a
Jesse James exhibition by shooting up and down Concord St., shooting about a dozen shots into the Postal Building and across the street. These bandits used a
Thompson submachine gun and a sawed-off shotgun with which they did their shooting, and it is a miracle that no one else was shot and wounded. They appeared to be cool and reckless, not giving a damn who they shot." Goetz is alleged to have returned to Chicago and to been one of the gunmen in the October 9, 1933 murder of his former friend and associate
Gus Winkler. Goetz then conspired with the Barker Gang in the 1934 kidnapping of
St. Paul, Minnesota banking millionaire
Edward G. Bremer. Goetz collected the ransom and released Bremer. FBI chief
J. Edgar Hoover later publicly accused
Ma Barker of masterminding the Bremer kidnapping. According to
Twin Cities historian Paul Maccabee, FBI files on the case reveal that it was Goetz, rather than Ma Barker, who directed both the
Hamm and Bremer kidnappings on behalf of St. Paul
crime bosses
Harry Sawyer and Jack Peifer, as well as mobbed up former St. Paul police chief
Big Tom Brown. However, Goetz loved to brag over drinks to fellow wiseguys in Chicago pubs about his involvement in the Bremer kidnapping and even hinted about the names of his co-conspirators and the hiding place of the ransom money. ==Murder==