On March 14, 1950, Thomas James Holden—a convicted bank robber accused of the shooting deaths of his wife, brother-in-law, and stepbrother-in-law—etched his name in history as the first member of the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives. A year later, he was captured and returned to prison.
Scores of other criminals have met a similar fate because of the FBI list, which turned 75 on Friday. With the most recent addition of suspected drug trafficker and former Olympic snowboard Ryan Wedding earlier this month, the agency has spotlighted 535 individuals in the Most Wanted list’s history. Among the most infamous suspects were al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin James Earl Ray, and serial killer Ted Bundy.
But as helpful as the Most Wanted list has proven in finding offenders on the lam, you might be surprised to learn its creation was a fortunate accident involving former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
The first FBI wanted poster appeared in 1919
The origins of the FBI bulletin we know today date back to the late 1910s, when the agency, then known simply as the Bureau of Investigation, began producing “Identification Orders” to find fugitives.
On December 2, 1919, a 23-year-old soldier named William N. Bishop escaped from the stockade at what is today Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia. Upon his disappearance, the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division asked for help in finding him.
Frank Burke, an assistant director of the bureau, sent a letter to “All Special Agents, Special Employees and Local Officers” in an effort to locate Bishop. The bulletin contained a complete physical description of Bishop, down to a mole near his right armpit, along with possible locations he might visit and a photocopy of his recent portrait.
With the help of “Identification Order No. 1,” authorities apprehended Bishop months later in April 1920. The bulletins soon became standard procedure for finding fugitives, changing in size to a standard 8-by-8-inch format and including fingerprints and background information by the 1930s.
Still, there wasn’t an easily accessible national list of wanted criminals until a fortuitous interview gave Hoover an idea.
Hoover created the 10 Most Wanted in 1950
Under the guidance of Hoover, who became acting director in 1924, the FBI expanded in scale. As Biography previously reported, the agency hunted down notorious gangsters such as John Dillinger and George “Machine Gun” Kelly and performed domestic counterintelligence, counterespionage, and countersabotage investigations during and after World War II. So when it came to identifying the most wanted fugitives in the United States, Hoover and his agents were the top source.
As a result, a reporter for the International News Service asked the bureau to provide names and descriptions of the “toughest guys” Hoover hoped to track down for a 1949 newspaper article. According to the CBC, the subsequent story including the FBI’s “Top Ten Most Wanted List” generated so much attention—and, more importantly, so many leads from the public to aid the bureau’s search—that Hoover decided to make it an official campaign. On March 14, 1950, the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted program was born.
“We used it as both a combination of investigative tool and [a] publicity campaign to basically let the American people know, one, these are criminals out in your midst and we’re trying to find them and then, two, we’d really like it if you had some information that you could share with us,” John Fox, an FBI historian, said in 2024.
The agency soon learned this dual approach was very effective. Within nine days of Holden’s inclusion, nine additional names were added to round out the list. Of the original 10 fugitives, seven were captured in 1950 and two more by October 1951.
The last one, Henry Randolph Mitchell, was wanted for a January 1948 bank robbery in Wilson, Florida. After Mitchell remained on the list for eight years, a court dropped the charge against him because prosecutors felt the memories of witnesses were no longer reliable.
The list is still very successful today
Statistics show that Mitchell’s case was an anomaly. According to the FBI, 496 fugitives from the list have been located or apprehended as of Friday, with 163 involving citizen cooperation. That’s a total success rate of just under 93 percent.
The quickest apprehension occurred in January 1969, when authorities discovered Billie Austin Bryant—wanted for the shooting of two FBI agents—hiding in an attic within two hours of inclusion.
Furthermore, the positive results of the Most Wanted program helped inspire the FBI to create an accompanying Most Wanted Terrorists list after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The agency also keeps updated inventories of notable kidnapped or missing persons and parental kidnapping suspects.
The agency’s efforts have influenced modern entertainment, as well. The CBS television drama FBI: Most Wanted premiered in 2020 and follows a New York task force hunting down fugitives.
All proof that more than seven decades later, the Most Wanted list remains an important legal and cultural touchstone.
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
