[dropcap]A[/dropcap] minute before midnight on Nov. 29, 1930, the condemned cop killer finished a letter to his widow-to-be, glanced at the nervous chaplain and asked with a wry smile, “What return address shall I put on this?”

Jess J. Maple was not a career criminal. In fact, the 36-year-old Indiana native had a clean record until the summer of 1930, when he suddenly went on a stick-up spree.

The World War I veteran and his sidekick entered a furniture store in downtown Houston at cl...