Photos: St. Louis F.B.I.'s Most-Wanted Fugitives of All Time

By Chad Garrison Thu., Mar. 11 2010 at 3:27 PM

Categories: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

James Earl Ray, one of the most notorious "Top Ten" fugitives of all time hailed from St. Louis (Alton) but was placed on the list by the Memphis F.B.I. following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

This Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the F.B.I's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list, a program born in 1950 when a reporter with the UPI wire service asked the agency to provide him a list of the criminals it most wanted to capture.

Former F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover was so impressed with the publicity from the article that he decided to make the list permanent.

To date nearly 500 fugitives have made the list. Of those, just four were added by the St. Louis bureau of the FBI and all of them prior to 1964.

Think you know your local crime history? Let's see if you recognize/recall any of the following four folks and their crimes.

1. Joseph James Brletic was wanted for robbery in Robertson, Missouri. Listed in 2/9/1953. He was arrested in Lancaster, California, by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office after being recognized from a photograph in the Los Angeles Herald-Express newspaper.