Hoping to keep the gang alive, James invited the Fords to take part in the robbery of the Platte City Bank in Missouri, but the brothers had already decided not to participate; rather, they intended to collect the $10,000 bounty placed on James by Governor Thomas T. Crittenden. In January 1882, Bob Ford and gang member Dick Liddil had surrendered to Sheriff James Timberlake at their sister Martha Bolton's residence in Ray County. They were brought into a meeting with Crittenden, as they had been around James's cousin Wood Hite the day Hite was murdered. Crittenden promised Ford a full pardon if he would kill James, who was by then the most wanted criminal in the USA. Crittenden had made capturing the James brothers his top priority; in his inaugural address he declared that no political motives could be allowed to keep them from justice. Barred by law from offering a sufficiently large reward, he had turned to the railroad and express corporations to put up a $5,000 bounty for the delivery of each of them and an additional $5,000 for the conviction of either of them.