Richard Lindberg, author of Return to the Scene of the Crime, adds, "Standing only five feet four inches, Gillis compensated for his physical limitations with a murderous temper and a willingness to employ a switchblade or a gun without hesitation or remorse for the intended victim." "His angelic, pear-smooth face never betrayed his instant ability to kill." "Where outlaws such as Pretty Boy Floyd and the Barkers would kill to protect themselves when cornered, Nelson went out of his way to murder - he loved it," apprises Jay Robert Nash in Bloodletters and Badmen. Even his criminal peers were wary of his path. He was to emerge from the kick 'em-hard Chicago Stockyards district as Baby Face Nelson, one of the toughest, and definitely the most heartless, of the Depression-era gangsters. A social commentator would later describe Lester Gillis as "something out of a bad dream". He bore the pout of a devil-child and the cruelty of one of Milton's Inferno torturers. Lester Joseph Gillis came into this world a chronic child who, it was said, never lost the bleating ill-temper of a spoiled brat.
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