BANGOR (AP) – The grave of gangster Al Brady, the then-Public Enemy No. 1 killed in a shootout with FBI agents on Oct. 12, 1937, is no longer unmarked.

A simple gravestone placed flush to the ground in a back corner of Mount Hope Cemetery was revealed Wednesday during a brief ceremony involving a handful of re-enactors.

Richard Coffin, president of Rogan’s Memorials Inc., donated the marker to support activities leading up to next month’s 70th anniversary re-enactment of the shootout that also took the life of Brady accomplice Clarence Lee Shaffer Jr.

“This service is not to honor the person buried here, but an act of duty,” said Franciscan friar Brother Don. He said Brady’s life and death was an example of when “every good thing you may have done was forgotten and every evil act was burned into memory.”

The shootout took place outside Dakin’s Sporting Goods on Central Street, where members of the Indiana gang sought to buy additional firearms at a time when they were the target of a massive manhunt. The gang was wanted for three murders and scores of robberies.

The grave marker is not a symbol of respect, but rather a recognition of Bangor’s history, said Gerry Palmer, who was playing the role of Everett “Shep” Hurd, owner of Dakin’s at the time of the shooting.

After Brother Don performed the ceremony, a female mourner clad in a white period dress with a black boa and feathers in her hair laid a white gladiola on Brady’s grave. Then, in character, she walked over to Richard Shaw, who played Al Brady, and gave him a smooch on the cheek, leaving her rosy, red lipstick behind.

Palmer told the crowd that residents should not fear Brady, nor should they hide from history.

“This is an eternal reminder that truth and justice will always be the final victors,” he said.

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