The Yacht Bandits
- Jul 13
- 2 min read
Lloyd Sampsell and Ethan McNabb, dubbed the “Yacht Bandits,” were the Errol Flynns of crime in the 1920s. These dashing outlaws cruised the West Coast in a luxurious schooner, robbing banks along the way.
Cultured, brilliant and talented, they were two of the most distinguished men ever executed by the state of California.
Sampsell, born in Missouri in 1900, began his criminal career at an early age. At 18, he escaped from a Missouri reformatory and headed west. He learned his boating skills as a bosun for American President Lines. He hooked up with McNabb, the black sheep of a prominent New England family, and both men were convicted of bank robbery in Los Angeles in 1923.
Cheerfully unrepentant upon their release from jail, they continued their crooked ways, using their intelligence to rise to the top of the criminal fraternity. In 1928, Sampsell and McNabb led a conspiracy to smuggle guns and 1 million rounds of ammunition to rebels in Mexico.
When this scheme fell through, Sampsell and McNabb acquired a 50-foot yacht, which they named The Sovereign. Sampsell’s beautiful wife, Lita, joined them as they sailed in style from Vancouver to Los Angeles, posing as wealthy yachtsmen.
Their wealth, however, was acquired by armed withdrawals from banks up and down the coast. In early June 1929, San Francisco police got a tip that the trio had shipped an expensive automobile from Seattle to an apartment in San Francisco. Police staked out the apartment and arrested the trio. In the apartment were high-powered rifles, tear gas guns, automatic weapons and $10,000 in gold stolen from a bank in Berkeley. It is estimated that the pair robbed as many as 100 banks netting well more than $200,000 (almost $3 million in today’s money).
Sampsell and McNabb were convicted and sentenced to 30 years. On June 6, 1930, Sampsell and McNabb disappeared from Folsom prison. A massive search of the prison was launched. The pair was found six days later, hiding under the prison blacksmith shed, waiting for the authorities to give up the search. By 1932, after another attempt to smuggle guns to the “Yacht Bandits” failed, authorities separated the pair, sending McNabb to San Quentin.
The resourceful robbers then took a DIY approach. If they couldn’t smuggle guns in, they would make their own.
Slowly and secretly, both men built working guns and ammunition out of spare parts in the machine shops of their prisons. At Folsom in 1933, Sampsell and another convict took five employees hostage in the administrative building. Armed guards soon surrounded them. Sampsell surrendered, but his partner killed himself with his homemade weapon.
Hollywood has turned countless crimes into movies — but how many people know the real stories behind them?
Murder to Movies uncovers the shocking true events that inspired some of cinema’s most famous crime films.
From gangsters who became movie legends to historical murders that shaped major films, this book reveals the real people, the real crimes, and the truth Hollywood left out.
If you love true crime, film history, or the strange intersection between reality and storytelling, this book will change the way you watch crime movies forever.
Discover the real stories behind the films.
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