Louis Bogle as a baby sitting on the lap of his grandmother Narcissa Harding, in front of her log cabin in Daylight, Tennessee, about 1900

Narcissa Harding (left) with her daughter Mattie Bogle, Louis’s mother, circa 1890. Narcissa unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for years to get her late husband’s Civil War pension.

Sarah Hardin (right), the grandmother of Louis’s future wife, Elvie Morris, in a photo said to be taken in 1915 in Sherry, Texas. The girl on the left is not identified. The free-spirited Hardin was a major influence on young Elvie.

A photo studio shot of Louis Bogle taken for his wedding to Elvie in 1921 in Paris, Texas

Elvie Morris (right) with her mother, Florence Morris, 1919. Elvie’s father had just died of influenza, and Florence used his small life insurance policy to buy new clothes for herself and her daughter after they moved from the rural crossroads hamlet of Sherry into the big town of Paris.

Louis and Elvie with their first two children—John, standing, and Dude. On the right is Elvie’s mother. This photo was taken in 1925, shortly before Elvie had her mother committed to the North Texas State Asylum in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Circa early 1930s, the growing family of Louis and Elvie—John, the oldest, is in the back left; Charlie is in front of him; Dude is standing in front of his father; Babe is in front of him. Peggy is being held by her mother. Everyone is barefoot.

Charlie Bogle in 1946, at age eighteen but looking much older. The dog is doing a trick Charlie had taught him in the carnival where his parents worked for years.

John Wesley Hardin, a legendary nineteenth-century Texas outlaw, who killed many. Charlie, thinking him to be his mother’s uncle, kept a photo of him in his trailer and identified with him.

Mattie Bogle standing in front of the shack Louis had built for his family to live in, in Amarillo, circa 1960. The shack was made of old battery crates, stained with oil, that Louis salvaged from the junkyard where he worked.

Louis, in his junkyard uniform, with an aged Mattie

A mug shot of Dude Bogle on being admitted to a Kansas prison in 1950 for statutory rape. Dude had recently come back from serving in World War II in India and Burma in the Army Air Corps. He had risen no higher than the rank of buck private because of constant fights.

A mug shot of Rooster, the youngest child of Louis and Elvie, taken in 1960 when he was sentenced to the penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, after joining with his older brothers in the burglary of an Amarillo grocery store

Rooster with his two wives, Kathy (left) and Linda, probably in the late 1960s when Rooster was living with both women

Tony Bogle, Rooster and Kathy’s son, when he was seven years old, before a lifetime of being locked up in a succession of juvenile reformatories and adult prisons

Tony in 2007 in an Arizona prison, where he is serving a life sentence for murder

Paula Bogle, Tony’s wife, who was convicted for the same murder but received a lesser sentence

A document regarding Tracey Bogle produced by the Oregon Department of Corrections while he was serving a sixteen-year sentence for kidnapping, sodomy, assault and robbery, a crime he committed with his brother Bobby

Bobby Bogle on the right with his cellie at the Oregon State Penitentiary, Jeremy Vanwagner—his son. For the Bogles, crime was often a family affair.

Bobby Bogle on the left and Tracey Bogle on the right in the yard of the Oregon State Penitentiary, showing off their well-developed bodies and tattoos

Stepping Out Ministries in Salem is a Christian-based halfway house for sex offenders coming out of prison in Oregon. On the right is Tammie Bogle, its codirector. On the left is Tracey Bogle, her cousin, who was required to live there after his release from prison.

Tracey with the car he bought after his release from prison, though driving it was against the conditions of his parole. He did not have a driver’s license or insurance.

Tracey Bogle with his mother, Kathy, after his release from prison. Kathy was about to go to jail for a year for Medicaid fraud.

Ashley Bogle, in a selfie she took at her college graduation, making her the first member of the Bogle family to graduate from college