Reports from agents and informants like Morrison suggested that
several of these desperadoes had knowledge about the murders.
These men might not be any less racist. But because some of them
had recently been arrested, or convicted of crimes, White would at
least hold some leverage over them. The name of one outlaw, in
particular, kept coming up: Dick Gregg, a twenty-three-year-old
stickup man who used to run with the Al Spencer Gang and who
was now in a Kansas penitentiary serving a ten-year sentence for
robbery.
Gregg had once told Agent Burger that he knew something
about the murders, though he remained coy, insisting that he
couldn’t betray a confidence. In a report, Agent Burger noted in
frustration, “Gregg is 100 percent criminal and will tell as little as
he can.” Comstock, the attorney and guardian, knew Gregg’s father
well and provided legal counsel for the family. Hoover still didn’t
trust Comstock, but it was Comstock who used his relationship
with Gregg’s father to help persuade the young outlaw to
cooperate with the bureau.
Eventually, White met with Gregg himself. White liked to take
mental notes about the criminals he encountered, in order to fix
them in his memory—a skill honed from his time on the frontier
when he could not rely on mug shots or fingerprints. Decades
later, when White was asked to describe Gregg, he wrote with
remarkable precision: “A very small man, I should say 5′6′′ and
weighed 125 lbs, fair complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. A
good looking youngster.” Gregg’s pretty looks were deceiving,
according to a prosecutor, who said that he was “a cold cruel
calculating type of criminal” who “would not hesitate to commit
murder.” Still, in White’s view, Gregg belonged to that category of
outlaw who was not inherently bad and who might even have
“gone places” with proper training.