Antiques Roadshow expert wowed by bank robber Willie Sutton's 'head in a box'

An Antiques Roadshow expert was amazed to be presented with a life-like head with “human hair and human eyelashes”.

A “wonderful, mysterious box” was brought to expert James Supp’s table and when the guest took out its contents, it revealed a dummy head and a “strangely realistic” human hand laid inside.

Explaining what it was, the guest said on the PBS series: “I don’t know if anyone has heard of Willie Sutton, he was a famous bank robber, well-known bank robber. He was also well known for breaking out of prisons.

“This was his, that he used in an attempted breakout, he had made this himself in prison.”

Sutton is believed to have robbed more than 100 banks and successfully escaped from prison three times with the unusual items used during a failed attempt.

Read more: Antiques Roadshow guest reacts after learning 100-year-old item is fake

Supp explained: “Now reportedly what Sutton had done, was over the course of several months, possibly even years, he made this false head using hair from the barbershop and it is actually real human hair, same with the eyelashes.

“He fashioned this wonderful head, left it in his bed, left the hand clutching a corner of the bedsheet.”

The planned escape took place in August 1941 but unfortunately for Sutton, other inmates were also trying to escape at the same time, setting off the alarms and forcing him to return to his cell.

“It was just a few years later when he then managed to finally escape, for several years.

“And in 1950, he was the 11th person to be added to the FBI’s most wanted list,” Supp added.

The guest was able to get his hands on the fake head and hand as his grandfather ran a prison.

“After he [Sutton] was released from the Eastern Penitentiary, they sent it up to the Camp Hill Prison where my grandfather was located and then he simply kept it upon his retirement since Willie had been released long since,” he commented.

Supp couldn’t help but praise the item, labelling it a “masterwork” and a “wonderful, wonderful piece” with few escape props and or tools coming up at auction.

It wasn’t all good news though, despite the expert’s personal love for unusual antiques.

He stated: “But without the box and the provenance of the label on the box, it’s just a creepy plaster head.

“But if you look at pictures of Willie Sutton, it looks just like him. It is amazingly well done.

“After conferring with my colleagues, we are able to give it a very conservative auction estimate of $2,500 to $3,500.”

The guest commented it was “very nice” and “surprising” to hear before Supp added: “And as far as I know, this is the first head in a box we’ve had on Roadshow.”

Antiques Roadshow US is available to watch on PBS.