One member of the Wet Bandits duo (aka Sticky Bandits) died in his sleep on Christmas eve from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The thief known as Marv,* who was often described as “not the sharpest tool in the shed,” considered himself a “world class cat burglar.” However, he met his match when he and his partner crossed paths with the sadistic Kevin.

While setting up booby traps is a crime, Kevin was never prosecuted for brutalizing the Wet Bandits in Chicago, or when he brutalized them again in New York City. While Kevin got away with his crimes, Marv suffered the consequences.

Prison doctors traced his CTE to being hit in the face with an iron, a paint can, and a pipe, and being hit on the head with a sack of cement, repeatedly being hit in the head with bricks thrown from the top of an apartment building, and other cranial trauma.

“He wasn’t that smart to start with,” his brother, Harv, said. “All those hits to the head made him downright stupid.”

Marv died in a halfway house, having been released for medical reasons from his seventh stint in the graybar hotel. His last words were, “But he’s a kid. Kids are stupid.”

Marv’s partner in crime, Harry,* was unable to visit Marv in his final hours, since he was recovering from a scalp infection caused by his latest surgery to repair skin damaged by third degree burns.

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*Last name omitted at request of family members.