THE DOWNFALL OF MURDER, INC.

The Execution of Louis “Lepke” Buchalter

On March 4, 1944, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, mobster and head of the organized crime hit squad known as Murder, Inc., went to the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in New York. He became the only major mob boss to ever receive the death penalty in the United States after being convicted of murder. Two of his lieutenants, Louis Capone and Emanuel Weiss, were also executed just a few minutes before the warden flipped the switch on Buchalter – ending an era in American Mafia history.

Louis "Lepke" Buchalter

Louis Buchalter was born on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on February 6, 1897. His mother, Rose, called him "Lepkeleh" ("Little Louis" in Yiddish), which later became "Lepke". Buchalter had one sister and three brothers; one brother eventually became a dentist, another brother a college professor and rabbi, and the third brother a pharmacist. His father, Barnett, was a Russian immigrant who operated a hardware store on the Lower East Side.

In 1909, when Buchalter was 12, his father died. In 1910, Buchalter finished elementary school and started a job selling theatrical goods. Soon after, his mother moved to Arizona for health reasons, leaving Buchalter in the care of his sister, Sarah. However, Louis was beyond her control. He had already become involved in crime and on September 2, 1915, he was arrested for the first time for burglary and assault. The case was discharged but there would be more to come.

In late 1915 or early 1916, Buchalter went to live with his uncle in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was hoped that by getting him out of New York, he could get away from the bad influence of the city. It didn’t work. On February 29, 1916, he was arrested in Bridgeport on burglary charges and was sent to the Cheshire Reformatory for juvenile offenders in Cheshire, Connecticut until July 12, 1917. When he got out, he made an effort to go straight and went to work for his uncle. After a disputed over wages, though, Louis moved back to New York – and back into a life of crime.

He was arrested again (for grand larceny this time) on September 28, 1917 and was sentenced to eighteen months at Sing Sing in Ossinning, New York. After a transfer to Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York, Buchalter was released on January 27, 1919. In just over a year – on January 22, 1920 – he was back in Sing Sing on attempted burglary charges. He was released on March 16, 1922.

Buchalter's friend and partner, Jacob Shapiro

After this last stretch in prison, Buchalter went to work for a childhood friend, mobster Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro. They beat and extorted their way into control over the garment industry unions. Buchalter then used the unions to threaten strikes and demand weekly payments from factory owners while dipping into union bank accounts. Buchalter's control of the unions evolved into a protection racket, extending into areas such as bakery trucking. The unions were profitable for him and he kept a hold over them even after becoming an important figure in organized crime. Buchalter later formed an alliance with Tommy Lucchese, a leader of the Lucchese crime family, and together they controlled the garment district. In 1927, Buchalter and Shapiro were arrested for the attempted murder of bootlegger Jack Diamond, a criminal rival. However, the charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence.

Meanwhile, Buchalter was earning a reputation as a good boss. He was a quiet man who preferred listening over speaking and he generously compensated the men who worked for him and took them to hockey games, boxing matches, and even on winter cruises. On August 20, 1931, Buchalter married Betty Wasserman, a British-born widow of Russian descent, at New York City Hall. Buchalter adopted Betty's child from her previous marriage. He could now add “family man” to his roster of personas.

Albert Anastasia

In the early 1930s, Buchalter created an effective process for performing contract killings for the national organized crime Syndicate. It had no name, but ten years later, the press dubbed it “Murder, Inc.” Syndicate bosses wanted to insulate themselves from any connection to these murders so Buchalter's partner, mobster Albert Anastasia, would relay a contract request from the Syndicate to Buchalter. In turn, Buchalter would assign the job to Jewish and Italian street gang members from Brooklyn. None of these contract killers had any connections with the major crime families. If they were caught, they could not implicate their employers in the crimes. Buchalter used the same killers for his own murder contracts also. The Murder Inc. killers were soon completing jobs all over the country for their mobster bosses.

Dutch Schultz crossed the Syndicate and ended up dead for his trouble.

In 1935, Buchalter arranged his most significant murder: the powerful New York gangster Dutch Schultz. Schultz had proposed to the Syndicate that New York District Attorney Thomas Dewey be murdered. Many Syndicate members hated Dewey, but they denied Schultz's request, knowing it would bring too much attention to organized crime. The easier fix was to kill Schultz instead, so they assigned the job to Buchalter. On October 23, 1935, Schultz was shot and killed in a Newark, New Jersey tavern.

The events that led to the downfall of Murder, Inc. began on September 13, 1936, when Murder Inc. killers, acting on Buchalter's orders, gunned down Joseph Rosen, a Brooklyn candy store owner. Rosen was a former garment industry trucker whose union Buchalter took over in exchange for ownership of the candy store. Buchalter had become angry with Rosen when he refused to leave town on Buchalter’s orders. Although no proof exists that Rosen was cooperating with District Attorney Thomas Dewey, Buchalter nevertheless believed it to be true. At the time, no one was indicted in the Rosen murder.

On November 8, 1936, Buchalter and Shapiro were convicted of violating federal anti-trust laws in the rabbit-skin fur industry in New York. While out on bail, both Buchalter and Shapiro disappeared. Five days later, both men were sentenced while absent to two years in federal prison. The two appealed the verdict, but in June 1937, both convictions were upheld. Before they could be taken into custody, the two men disappeared again. A $5,000 reward was offered for their capture.

On December 1, 1937, the fugitive Buchalter was indicted again in federal court, this time for conspiracy to smuggle heroin into the United States. The scheme involved heroin hidden in the trunks of young women and couples traveling by ocean liner from China to France, then to the port of New York. Buchalter bribed U.S. customs agents not to inspect the trunks.

On April 14, 1938, Shapiro surrendered to authorities in New York, but Buchalter remained a fugitive. Over the next two years, an extensive manhunt was conducted in both the United States and Europe, with reports of Buchalter hiding in Poland and Palestine. On July 29, 1939, Thomas Dewey requested that the City of New York offer a $25,000 reward for Buchalter's capture, citing a string of unsolved gangland murders. On August 24, 1939, Buchalter surrendered to FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover in front of a Manhattan hotel. The surrender deal was allegedly negotiated by the columnist and radio broadcaster Walter Winchell. It was later revealed that Buchalter had been hiding in New York City during his entire time as a fugitive.

After Buchalter was convicted on the federal narcotics trafficking charges, federal authorities turned him over to New York State for trial on labor extortion charges. On April 5, 1940, Buchalter was sentenced to 30 years to life in state prison on those charges. However, Buchalter was sent to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas to serve his federal sentence of 14 years for narcotics trafficking.

But soon, the deeds of Murder, Inc. would come back to haunt him. On May 9, 1941, Buchalter was arraigned in New York state court on the 1936 Joseph Rosen murder along with three other murders. Buchalter's order for the Rosen hit had been overheard by mobster Abe Reles, who turned state's evidence in 1940 and implicated Buchalter in four murders.

Mob "stool pigeon" Abe Reles

Reles's information also implicated Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, Louis Capone, Mendy Weiss, Harry "Happy" Maione, Frank "The Dasher" Abbandando, and even Reles' childhood friend Bugsy Goldstein. All of these men were convicted and executed. Following these convictions, Reles' next target was Albert Anastasia, who had been co-chief of operations of Murder, Inc. Reles was to implicate Anastasia on the murder of union longshoreman Pete Panto. The trial, based solely on Reles' testimony, was set for November 12, 1941. Until then, Reles was under constant guard by six police detectives at the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island. To protect the New York crime families from exposure, boss Frank Costello reportedly raised $100,000 to bribe these guards to kill Reles. In the early morning of November 12, 1941, Abe Reles fell to his death from a window at the Half-Moon Hotel on Coney Island. It is not known whether he was thrown or pushed out the window, or if he was trying to escape. A 1951 grand jury concluded that it was an accidental death, but suspicion remains about whether or not he was actually murdered. Because of his mob status as a "stool pigeon" and the circumstances surrounding his death, Reles gained another moniker after his death. Reles became known in a newspaper article as, "The Canary Who Could Sing, But Couldn't Fly."

"The Canary Who Could Sing, but Couldn't Fly"

Meanwhile, Buchalter was returned from Leavenworth to stand trial in Brooklyn for the Rosen Murder. After four hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of first degree murder. On December 2, 1941, Lepke was sentenced to death along with his lieutenants Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss, and Louis Capone. Buchalter's lawyers immediately filed an appeal, but the conviction and sentence were upheld by the New York Court of Appeals. His lawyers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they affirmed the conviction seven to none. His appeals were now exhausted.

When the Supreme Court confirmed Buchalter's conviction, he was serving his racketeering sentence at Leavenworth Federal Prison. New York State authorities demanded that the federal government turn over Buchalter for execution. On January 21, 1944, after many delays and much controversy, federal agents finally turned Buchalter over to state authorities, who immediately transported him to Sing Sing prison. Buchalter made several pleas for mercy, but they were rejected.

On March 4, 1944, Louis Buchalter was executed in the electric chair in Sing Sing. A few minutes before Buchalter's execution, his lieutenants Weiss and Capone were also executed. Murder, Inc. was now officially out of business.

Frank Nitti's Last Walk

FRANK NITTI’S LAST WALK

The Death of the Man Dubbed “Capone’s Enforcer”

On the evening of March 19, 1943, a lone figure walked out of his home in Riverside, Illinois, and began strolling along the streets of the quiet neighborhood. It was a cool, early spring night and the man seemed to have not a care in the world as he walked along, his hands tucked into his pockets and a soft whistle on his lips. His casual manner gave no hint to the turmoil he felt inside. Or that he had a loaded handgun weighting down the pocket of his coat.

The man left the street and began walking along the Illinois Central Railroad tracks that ran west of Harlem Avenue and around Cermak Avenue. He carefully picked his way over the railroad ties and walked along until the shadows seemed to envelope him. Darkness was just beginning to fall and this seemed as good a time as any for one last look at the world. The man took the gun from his pocket and raised it to his head. His hand began to tremble as he squeezed the trigger and then a deafening roar filled his ears and echoed in the stillness of the city around him.

When the first shot was fired, railroad workers who were doing routine maintenance a little father up the line, looked up to see the walking man. His hands shook as he held the pistol and a thin ribbon of smoke curled from its barrel. The gun had been aimed at his head but the first shot had somehow missed. One of the railroad men started to call out to the man as he saw him calmly lift the gun again. Before the words could leave the railroader's lips, the man pulled the trigger again. This time, when the gun went off, the bullet did not miss. It blew apart the top of the man's head and he stumbled over the railroad ties and collapsed against the fence that ran next to the tracks. Blood began to seep into the grass, looking black in the fading light.

Frank Nitti, once thought of as one of the most powerful men in Chicago and an enforcer for Al Capone, lay dead on the ground, slain by his own hand.

Frank Nitti

Frank Nitti (or Nitto, which was the preferred family spelling) was a man of mystery. Intensely private and quiet, he is only scarcely remembered today as being part of the legendary Capone gang. If not for the television series based on the exploits of Eliot Ness and his "Untouchables," it's possible that he would only be known to the most dedicated gangster buffs and researchers and not to the general public at all. Nitti was a small man but one with incredible will. He maintained discipline in the ranks and acted as Capone's enforcer and troubleshooter. He was also one of the only gangsters in the organization who never used an assumed name, which got him into trouble when investigators discovered a check he had endorsed. This put him into prison for eighteen months in the early 1930s, an experience that had a lasting effect on him.

Nitti was born on January 27, 1881 in the small town of Angri, in the province of Salerno, Campania, Italy. He was the second child of Luigi and Rosina Nitto. His father died when Frank was very young and a year later his mother married Francesco Dolendo. In July 1890, Dolendo emigrated to American and the rest of the family followed in June 1893 when Nitti was 12. They settled at 113 Navy Street in Brooklyn and Frank worked numerous odd jobs to help support the family. He left school in the seventh grade and worked as a bowling alley pinsetter, a factory worker and a barber. Al Capone’s family lived nearby but the Capone brothers were much too young to be known to Nitti.

Frank left home at age 19, unhappy with his stepfather, and wanting to make it on his own. Starting in 1900, he worked in a number of factories and finally, in 1910, he left Brooklyn. Little is known about his life over the course of the next few years but he probably moved to Chicago around 1913, working as a barber and making the acquaintance of gangsters Alex Louis Greenberg and Dion O'Banion.

He married a woman from Chicago, Rosa Levitt, in Dallas, Texas, on October 18, 1917. The couple's movements after their marriage remain uncertain. He is known to have become a partner in the Galveston crime syndicate run by "Johnny" Jack Nounes and is reported to have stolen a large sum of money from Nounes and mobster Dutch Voight, after which Nitti returned to Chicago. By 1918, he had moved into an apartment at 914 South Halsted Street. He soon renewed his contact with Greenberg and O'Banion, becoming a jewel thief, liquor smuggler, and fence. Through his liquor smuggling activities, Nitti came to the attention of Chicago crime boss John Torrio and, later, to his successor, Al Capone. 

Under Capone, Nitti gained a fearsome reputation as an enforcer. Originally working as a bodyguard, Capone began tasking Nitti with the planning and execution of some of the gang’s most notable assassinations, like that of Hymie Weiss in 1926. He also ran Capone's liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing whisky from Canada and selling it through a network of speakeasies around Chicago. Known as one of Capone’s top captains, he was trusted for his leadership and business skills but he never wanted leadership of the gang.

However, after Capone went to prison, newspaper reporters began looking for a new face for the head of the organization and somehow, Nitti ended up as that man. While an efficient organizer under Capone, it had been his job to make sure that Capone's orders had been carried out, not to give them himself. Nitti was only supposed to be a member of the board of directors of the new Outfit, not the man in charge. When Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky established their national crime syndicate, they dealt with Paul "The Waiter" Ricca as the leader of the Chicago mob and not with Nitti.

However, Ricca and the others used Nitti's high profile with the press to keep the heat off the real inner workings of the Outfit. He became a valuable man to take the heat. Chicago mayor Anton Cermak even dispatched his own police "hit men" to try and take out Nitti so that he could replace him with other gangsters who kept him on the payroll.

On December 19, 1932, a team of Chicago police, headed by Detective Sergeants Harry Lang and Harry Miller, raided Nitti's office in Room 554 of the LaSalle Building. Lang shot Nitti three times in the back and neck. He then shot himself in the finger to make the shooting look like self-defense, claiming that Nitti had shot him first. Nitti was badly wounded during the attempt on his life. He lingered near death for a time, but recovered only to end up standing trial for the shooting of one of the cops during the gun battle. Court testimony claimed that the murder attempt was personally ordered by newly elected Mayor Anton Cermak, who supposedly wanted to eliminate the Outfit in favor of Ted Newberry, who had taken over the remnants of the O’Banion/Moran mob, and redistribute the Capone territories. During the trial, Miller testified that Lang received $15,000 to kill Nitti. Another uniformed officer who was present at the shooting testified that Nitti was shot while unarmed. Nitti’s trial ended with a hung jury. Harry Lang and Harry Miller were both fired from the police force and each fined $100 for assault. This was not the end of story, though. Most believe that Nitti managed to get his revenge on Cermak a few months later.

On February 15, 1932, Cermak was shot in Bayfront Park in Miami. Cermak was on the reviewing stand and, after President-elect Franklin Roosevelt made a short speech from an open car, he waved over Cermak to join him. As Roosevelt's car was about to start, shots rang out and Cermak and four others were hit. They were shot by a man named Giuseppe Zangara, whose intention had been to kill the president.

Cermak was rushed to the hospital, where he died a short time later. As he was taken away by ambulance, Cermak was supposed to have said to the president, "I am glad that it was me instead of you." They became the most famous words that Cermak ever uttered -- or they would have been, if he had really said them. A reporter who was there that day, Ed Gilbreth, stated that the phrase was created by William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago Herald-American to make a good headline and sell papers. Cermak never said anything before he died.

Although some words uttered by another reporter who was standing nearby might have provided more of a clue in the shooting than officials would admit. Just as the shots rang out, a reporter who was nearby allegedly joked to Cermak, "Just like Chicago, eh Mayor?" Rumors have persisted ever since the shooting that Cermak had not been an accidental target that day.

As the IRS began cracking down on the mob, Nitti served prison time for an income tax charge related to a check that was discovered bearing his name. In spite of this, he stayed out of the newspapers until November 1940, when he was indicted for influencing the Chicago Bartenders and Beverage Dispensers’ Local of the AFL. Nitti was accused of putting mob members into positions of power in the union and then forcing the sale of beer from mob-owned breweries. The trial rested on the testimony of one man, George McLane, the president of the union. He allegedly was forced to follow Nitti's orders but the pressure got to him and he went to the authorities and explained what the mob was doing. McLane was all set to testify until two mob soldiers showed up at his door and told him that if he talked in court, his wife would be mailed to him in small pieces. When the day came, McLane pleaded for his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment and the case was dropped.

The heat was on Nitti again in 1943 during what came to be called the "Hollywood Extortion case." After Bioff and Browne decided to talk, indictments were brought against Nitti, Paul Ricca and several others. A meeting was called at Nitti's home in Riverside and Ricca decided that it was the perfect time to take advantage of Nitti's perceived top position in the mob. He ordered Nitti to plead guilty in the extortion case and to take the rap for everyone. He would be taken care of when he got out, as long as he kept his mouth shut while he was inside.

But there was no "inside" for Nitti. He refused to go back to prison. His earlier jail time had so traumatized the gangster that he now had a terrible fear of small, confined spaces. He urged Ricca to come up with another plan or to allow some of the others to share the responsibility with him. Ricca was enraged and demanded that Nitti be a "stand-up guy." When Nitti still refused, Ricca told him that, "he was asking for it." Nitti took these words to mean his death sentence but he simply couldn't face another stretch in prison. He made a last-ditch effort to try and bribe the prosecutor in the case, M.F. Correa, but his attempt was coldly rebuffed.

Frank Nitti’s last photo – dead along the railroad tracks, slain by his own hand. 

So, on March 19, the day after the meeting, Frank Nitti placed a gun in his pocket and went for one last stroll through his neighborhood. When he made it as far as the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, his journey came to an end -- or did it?

Nitti was laid to rest in Mount Carmel Cemetery, not far from the grave of Al Capone. The stone is marked with his family name of “Nitto” and bears a direct and ominous inscription: "There is no life except by death." Many believe that Nitti does not rest there in peace.

For years, it has been a local legend in the North Riverside and Forest Park areas that the ghost of Frank Nitti still walks along the railroad tracks where he committed suicide back in 1943. There are many who claim to have not only sensed his last anguished moments but who also state that they have seen the eerie figure of a man here, as well. The figure often appears along the railroad tracks at Cermak Avenue and begins walking west, plainly visible under the harsh lights of a nearby shopping center.

The lonely tracks, isolated from the nearby toy store, restaurants and shopping centers, remain as mute testament to the place where a once powerful man’s life was finally broken. There is no question that Frank Nitti deserved to be brought to justice for the lives that he ruined and ended before their time – but we also have to wonder what demons could drive a man to take his own life when his religious beliefs would surely condemn him to hell. If such demons could push a man to suicide, then perhaps they might also keep him on this earth, doomed to relive his final moments over and over again.

The story of Frank Nitti – and other Chicago mobsters and ghost stories – can be found in my book BLOOD, GUNS & VALENTINES, which is available in print from the website or as a Kindle edition. 

"The Man Who Got Away"

“THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY”

The Demise of George “Bugs” Moran

Most famously known as the man who narrowly escaped death at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, George Moran had ended up with the North Side mob almost by accident since he managed to outlive all of his friends. But Moran’s power was broken by the massacre and he eventually drifted away from Chicago and died in prison on February 25, 1957. It was a forgettable moment for the man who once challenged the reign of Al Capone.

George “Bugs” Moran

George "Bugs" Moran was born Alelard Cunin in Minnesota in 1891, the son of a French stone mason named Jules Cunin, and his wife, Marie. His father was later recalled as a mean-tempered man and the two never got along, although he and his mother stayed on good terms throughout this life. He ran away in 1910 and adopted the name of George Moran. He became involved with a gang of young toughs who began specializing in stealing horses. In 1912, Moran was arrested for the first time. He spent several stints in jail after that for other crimes, including larceny and burglary.

    

Moran made friends in Joliet Correctional Center and began hanging around the North Side after his release. One day, Moran was listening to a speech given by an outdoor orator and became annoyed when a man in the crowd started heckling him. Moran confronted the heckler and a fight broke out. As a result, Moran’s chest and neck were badly slashed with a knife and he spent the rest of his life wearing high-neck collars to hide the scars. His nickname of “Bugs” was probably created by newspaper writers (as most gangsters’ more colorful handles were) but it was noted that Moran had a fiery temper, which led to the moniker.

Following the knife attack, and after recuperating for several weeks in the hospital, Moran began hanging around McGovern’s, a cabaret at 666 North Clark Street, where Dean O’Banion worked as a singing waiter. Many criminals who were just starting out hung around the place and Moran became friends with many of them, including O’Banion. The two began working together, robbing warehouses, with other members of what would become the North Side gang. After one fouled-up job, Moran was captured. He kept his silence and served two years in Joliet without implicating O'Banion in the crime. After he was released, he went back to work with his friend. He was soon captured again and, once more, he kept silent about who he worked with. He stayed in jail this time until 1923.

When Moran got out the last time, he joined back up with O’Banion’s now formidable North Side gang. They had become a powerful organization, supplying liquor to Chicago's wealthy Gold Coast. Moran became a valuable asset, hijacking liquor trucks at will. He became known as O'Banion's right hand man, always impeccably dressed, right down to the two guns that he always wore.

Moran fell in love with a showgirl who had recently arrived in America from Turkey. Her name was Lucille Bilezikdijan and she had a child from a previous relationship, which she feared would turn Moran away from her. Instead, he raised the boy as his own and not long after, he fathered his own child with Lucille. Like so many other gangster wives, Lucille averred that her husband was, “one of the best men she had ever known.”

After O’Banion was murdered, Moran served as one of his pallbearers – and then as one of his avengers. He took part – along with Hymie Weiss and Vincent Drucci – in several assassination attempts on Capone and in January 1925, was the first man to fire a bullet into John Torrio outside his South Side apartment building (see earlier blog post).

Moran was identified in the Torrio hit by the 17-year-old son of the apartment building’s janitor, Peter Veesaert, who had been standing in the doorway of the building at the time of the attack. He was shown some photographs that were taken by the police during Dean O’Banion’s funeral and he pointed out George Moran as the first man who shot Torrio. Bravely, he insisted that his identification was correct when he was brought face-to-face with Moran after he was arrested. “You’re the man,” Peter said. The police wanted to hold Moran until they could establish some evidence in support of the boy’s identification but Judge William Lindsay released him under $5,000 bail. He was never indicted for the crime.

Moran continued to take part in the attempts to kill Capone – and continued burying his friends who were slain in the Chicago violence. In time, by blood and attrition, he became the leader of the North Side gang and was just as relentless against Capone’s business efforts as O’Banion, Weiss and Drucci had been. On the highway between Detroit and Chicago, they hijacked trucks of liquor that had been shipped to Capone by the Purple Gang. They bombed saloons that exclusively sold his beer. They had assisted Joe Aiello when he had reclaimed the liquor stills of Little Italy. The North Side gang had attempted twice to kill Capone’s favorite gunman, Jack McGurn. The second time, the Gusenberg brothers had caught up with him in a telephone booth at the Hotel McCormick and emptied a Tommy gun through the glass. Major surgery and a long recovery in the hospital saved his life. The gang even started their own dog racing tracks. Moran opened a track in Southern Illinois while his business manager, Adam Heyer, opened the Fairview Kennel Club in Cicero, not far from Capone’s Hawthorne Kennel Club – which was set on fire during a terrorist attack. In late 1928, Moran became entrenched with the Master Cleaners’ and Dyers’ Association, a blatant challenge to Capone. He managed to get control of an independent plant, the Central Cleaning Company, and installed two of his men, Willie Marks and Al Weinshank, as vice-presidents. In short, Moran took every opportunity to provoke Capone, both on the streets and in the newspapers, where he often publicly blamed Capone for local violence.

Just days before the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Moran was contacted and asked to be at the garage on North Clark Street where the massacre occurred. He arrived a few minutes late and, seeing what he believed were police cars outside, was at a nearby coffee shop when his friends were slaughtered. He narrowly missed being killed and to this day, many historians believe that Al Weinshank was mistaken for Moran by the lookouts for the assassins. The massacre was a simple, cold-bloodedly efficient assassination that was meant to kill George Moran and break the back of the North Side gang, opening up its territories and operations to Al Capone. But they missed Moran and from that point on, he was known as “the man who got away.”

Although the St. Valentine’s Massacre greatly diminished the power of George Moran and the North Side gang, it did not completely destroy it. Moran managed to keep control of most of his territory and what remained of his gang through the end of Prohibition and into the early 1930s. But with the repeal of Prohibition, the North Side gang declined along with almost everyone else and Moran decided to leave Chicago.

Many crime writers believe that Moran's biggest liability as a gang boss was Moran himself ---he was simply not very smart in the ways of long-term survival as a mob leader. While Capone was a master at planning his operations several steps in advance (thanks to his mentoring by Torrio), Moran operated almost like an ordinary street fighter, doing everything by cause and effect. So, having been squeezed out of Chicago at the end of Prohibition, he reverted back to his early life of pulling common crimes like safecracking and robbery. Moran went from being one of the wealthiest gangsters in Chicago to a penniless crook in less than two decades.

Moran toward the end of his life

In July 1946, Moran was arrested in Ohio for robbing a bank messenger of $10,000, a paltry sum compared to his ill-gotten gains during the Prohibition days. He was convicted and sentenced to ten years in the Ohio Penitentiary. Shortly after his release, Moran was again arrested for an earlier bank raid, receiving another ten-year sentence, this time in Leavenworth. Only a matter of days after arriving there, most of which were spent in the prison hospital, Moran died of lung cancer on February 25, 1957. He was buried in the prison cemetery.

While at the height of his career in Chicago, Moran was quoted as saying, “I hope when my time comes that I die decently in bed. I don’t want to be murdered and left for dead beside the garbage cans in some Chicago alley.” And he didn’t – he died lonely and mostly forgotten in a prison hospital bed. And one has to wonder, if he’d had the chance, would he have changed his mind about his choice?

The story of George Moran, the North Side Mob, Capone and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is chronicled in my book BLOOD, GUNS & VALENTINES, which is available in print from the website and as a Kindle edition.

A Valentine for Bugs -- Aftermath of the Massacre

A VALENTINE FOR BUGS

The Aftermath of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

On this date in 1929, the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place at the S-M-C Cartage Company building at 2122 North Clark Street in Chicago. In a few moments of savage gunfire, Al Capone effectively wiped out the resistance from the remnants of the North Side mob, founded by Dean O’Banion and by 1929, in the hands of George “Bugs” Moran. On that cold winter morning, Capone missed Moran but managed to kill six other members of the North Side gang, as well as an optometrist who was a friend of the gangsters.

The SMC Cartage Company at the time of the Massacre in February 1929. 

For today’s, history post, though, we’re going to take a look at what happened at 2122 North Clark Street AFTER the massacre took place on February 14.      

We will never know for certain what took place inside of the SMC Cartage Co. on the cold morning of February 14, 1929. Only one man survived the initial slaughter and he never talked. However, historians and crime enthusiasts have spent many years trying to put together the pieces of one of the greatest (technically) unsolved crimes in history. It ended with seven men dead, a flurry of accusations and a blight on the property that never lifted.

The bloody aftermath of the massacre
(Below) A crowd gathered outside to witness the carnage inside the garage.

Chicago, in its own way, memorialized the warehouse on Clark Street where the massacre took place. It became a tourist attraction and the newspapers even printed the photos of the corpses upside-down so that readers would not have to turn their papers around to identify the bodies.

Right after the massacre, the SMC Cartage Company was temporarily boarded up. The building had been leased by Moran gang associate Adam Heyer but was owned by Frank C. Brusky, who moved his own trucking firm (Brusky Overland Movers) into the space in 1930. When he did, he renovated the building, installed two more windows and added space for storage on the second floor.

The building as it looked in 1930, when it was boarded up. 

During the renovations, Brusky discovered a trap door in the corrugated ceiling of the garage, directly above the spot where the Moran gangsters were killed. The door led to a concrete chamber nestled against the second floor wall that was undetectable from below. The chamber contained funnels, a stool, an alcohol hydrometer, a crate that could contain a five-gallon bottle of liquor and a block and tackle system that could lower the crate to the floor of the garage. Brusky called the police, who searched the premises again. They first believed the secret room to be torture chamber but Police Captain Thomas Condon concluded that it was merely an alcohol cache.

By 1935, the building was occupied by Red Ball Movers, Inc., a moving company that also did telephone directory pick-ups and exchanges each year. In 1936, it was purchased by Anaconda Van Lines, which was owned by Samuel J. McArthur.

The building in the 1950s, when it was the Werner’s storage company.

(Below) The Infamous wall where the massacre took pace during the time when the building was owned by the Werners. They were frequently harassed by people wanting to take a look at the wall.

In 1949, the building was taken over by Charles and Alma Werner, who turned it into a moving, packing, shipping and storage office for antique furniture. At the time, they had no idea of the buildings’ bloody past. They soon found that tourists, curiosity-seekers and crime buffs visited the place much more often than customers, all of them asking to see the infamous wall in back. Depending on her mood, Mrs. Werner either turned them away or allowed them to take a look. She once stated that she wished she and her husband had never bought the building. The Werners were later bought out by the city of Chicago, who wanted the place torn down and replaced with apartments for the elderly.

In 1967, the building was demolished. However, the bricks from the bullet-pocked rear wall were preserved and purchased by a Canadian businessman named George Patey. The bricks were packed and shipped across the border and then put together as the main attraction for a traveling crime show that was displayed at shopping centers, museums and galleries. The show was only a moderate success so, in 1971, Patey opened a Roaring Twenties themed nightclub called the Banjo Palace and rebuilt the wall, for some strange reason, in the men’s restroom. Three nights a week, women were allowed to peek inside at this macabre attraction. To make matters even more bizarre, a sheet of clear acrylic was placed in front of the wall so that patrons could urinate and try and hit targets that were painted on the glass. The club closed down in 1976 and the 417 bricks that made up the back wall were placed in storage until 1997.

Businessman George Patey with the infamous bricks

Patey tried offering the wall for sale, along with a written account of the massacre but had trouble selling the entire wall in one piece. Patey, along with a friend named Guy Whitford (who contacted me about the wall in 2002) tried to sell the single piece for some time, without success. The original lot came with a diagram that explained how to restore the wall to its original form. The bricks were even numbered to facilitate reassembly. They remained on the market for several years, but there were no buyers. Eventually, Patey broke up the set and began selling them one brick at a time for $1,000 each. Patey died in December 2004, by which time he had sold most of the bricks. A large number of them are now on display at the crime museum that opened in Las Vegas last year.

But there are legends that say that Patey had some trouble selling some of the bricks. The stories say that some buyers returned their bricks soon after purchasing them. It seemed that anyone who bought one was suddenly stricken with bad luck in the form of illness, financial ruin, divorce and even death. According to the stories, the bricks had somehow been infested with the powerful negative energy of the massacre. This story has been dismissed as a “journalistic embellishment,” but there are many who maintain that it’s the truth. These same people insist that Patey’s 417 bricks were not the only surviving bricks from the warehouse.

In recent years, other bricks have emerged that are said to have come from the wall, or at least from the building itself. These were not bricks purchased from Patey; rather they were smuggled out of the lot by construction workers and curiosity-seekers. It was said that from these bricks, too, come the legends of misfortune and bad luck. Are these bricks authentic? The owners say they are, but the reader will have to judge for himself.

Whatever the legend of the bricks, and whether or not they were somehow "haunted" by the horrific murders, there is little doubt that the massacre site on Clark Street was haunted – at least for awhile.

For many years, people walking along the street, or who lived nearby, reported hearing the sounds of screams, moans, muffled voices and even the unmistakable thump-thump-thump of Tommy gun fire. The garage is long gone now, demolished in a misguided attempt by city officials to erase all vestiges of Chicago's gangster past. 

A portion of the block was taken over by the Chicago Housing Authority and a fenced-in lawn that belongs to a senior citizens’ development now marks the area where the garage once stood. Five trees are scattered about the site and the one in the center actually marks the point where the rear wall once stood, where Moran's men were lined up and mercilessly gunned down. The apartment building where Jeanette Landesman lived and where she heard the sound of the terrified German shepherd barking in the garage still stands but all remnants of the SMC Cartage Company have vanished. Or have they?

This empty lot on Clark Street marks the site of the SMC Cartage Company. Small remnants of the building remain, like the tar line of the roof on the wall of the building next door, and bricks in the back alley that came from the garage. 

According to reports, residents of the senior housing complex built on one end of the lot have had strange encounters in the building, especially those who live on the side that faces the former massacre site. A television reporter from Canada interviewed a woman who once lived in an apartment that overlooked the small park area. She often complained that, at night, she would hear strange voices, sounds and knocking on her door and her window. She complained to the management, who dismissed her claims as imagination but assigned her another apartment. A new tenant moved into the rooms and she also complained of odd happenings, including knocking sounds on her door at night. When she opened the door to see who was there, she never found anyone nearby. One night, the tenant stated that she saw a dark figure wearing an old fashioned-looking hat. He remained in place for a few moments and then faded away. Most of the strange phenomena experienced by the new tenant also faded away and soon eerie events either stopped completely or she became so used to them that they no longer bothered her anymore.

    

Outside, along Clark Street, passersby occasionally reported strange sounds, like weeping and moaning, and the indescribable feeling of fear as they walked past the former site of the garage. Skeptics tried to laugh this off, saying that the sounds were nothing more than the overactive imaginations of those who knew what once occurred on the site, but based on the reports of those who had no idea of the history of the place, something strange was apparently occurring.

Those who were accompanied by their dogs also reported their share of weirdness. The animals seemed to be especially bothered by the section of lawn where the garage’s rear wall once stood, sometimes barking and howling, sometimes whining in fear. Their sense of the tragedy that happened there many years ago seemed to be much greater than that of humans.

However, many believe that what dogs sensed at the site was not the human trauma experienced in the massacre, but rather the trauma that must have been experienced by Johnny May's German Shepherd, Highball. The poor animal must have been terrified by what occurred that morning, from the deafening sounds of the Tommy guns to the bloody slaying of his beloved owner. Tied to the front bumper of the truck, Highball had nowhere to run. It should be noted again that it was not the sound of machine-gun fire that alerted Mrs. Landesman to the horror inside the garage: it was the howling and barking of the dog.

Johnny May’s traumatized German Shepherd, Highball

Tragically, Highball was so traumatized by the events of that morning that he had to be put down after the massacre. Chicago Sun reporter Russell V. Hamm, one of the first newsmen on the scene, said that the dog was never the same again. His bizarre behavior left the police no choice but to put him to death. 

Could the animals that subsequently passed by this empty lot have sensed the trauma suffered by Highball so many years ago? As any ghost buff can tell you, it's the events of yesterday that create the hauntings of today and sometimes, those who lived in the past can leave a little piece of themselves behind to be experienced over and over again.

While the site of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre seems to be quiet today, the violent events of the city’s gangster era still reverberate over time. Men like Al Capone, whether city officials want to admit it or not, left an indelible mark on Chicago. It seems that the events of St. Valentine's Day 1929 left one, too.

The ghosts of the massacre may not be still around today – but one of them made his presence known for many years after his death. He had a reason for staying behind and, according to his victim, haunted him to the grave.

Want More? Then pick up my book BLOOD, GUNS & VALENTINES, which not only tells about the rise of Capone’s power in the Chicago underworld, but details the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, who died, who was involved and who was the ghost that haunted Capone for the rest of his life. You get an autographed copy of the book at from the website, or it’s also available in a Kindle edition. 

Inglorious Power of the Illinois Governor's Office

INGLORIOUS POWER

The Notoriety of the Illinois Governor’s Office

Sigh. Corruption in Illinois politics never seems to leave the newspaper headlines. Former Governor George Ryan was just released yesterday from his stint in a federal prison. Another former governor, Rod Blagojevich is currently doing federal time for trying to sell the Senate seat of recently elected President Barack Obama (among other things). And it seems like someone may be sizing current Governor Pat Quinn for his own orange jumpsuit. He just got caught for filling the position of a high-ranking prison administrator job with a guy whose prior work experience was teaching theater, working as an assistant manager at a video store and managing an office for “his father’s campaign.” Yikes! Some might remember that suspicious hiring practices were what first got the attention of the Feds when Blagojevich was in office.

But, unfortunately, corruption in the Illinois governor’s office is nothing new. It’s been going on for years, dating back all of the way to the days of Al Capone and John Torrio, who had their own many in the governor’s mansion.

There have been six Illinois governors who have been charged with crimes during or after the time they were in office. Four were convicted, one got away with it and another… well, let’s just say that he had some help in convincing the jurors that he was not guilty.

Prior to George Ryan, the most recent governor to serve time was Dan Walker, the governor from 1973 to 1977. He was later involved in the Savings and loan scandals and convicted of federal crimes related to fraudulent loans to himself from his own First American Savings & Loan Association of Oak Brook. He was sentenced to seven years in prison with five years of probation following his release.

In 1965, Governor William Stratton, who served from 1953 to 1961 was acquitted of tax evasion. His successor, though, was not so lucky. Otto Jerner, Jr. was governor from 1961 to 1968 and he was later a judge on the United States States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In 1973, he was convicted of 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and income-tax charges from his time as governor. He received 3 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. Ironically, he was prosecuted by future Illinois governor Jim Thompson – a friend of and attorney for later convicted Governor George Ryan.  

Even though he was never convicted, perhaps the most notoriously corrupt governor was Len Small, who served from 1921 to 1929. He was indicted in office for corruption and while he was acquitted, eight of the jurors in the trail later received state jobs. Among his defense lawyers was former governor Joseph W. Fifer, who asserted, in pre-trial hearings, that the Illinois governorship had the divine right of kings!

Famously a friend of Chicago mayor “Big Bill” Thompson (Al Capone’s favorite mayor), Small was born in Kankakee County, Illinois, and was educated in the public schools. He attended Northern Indiana Normal School, taught school and invested in real estate, eventually owning a farm, a bank, and Kankakee's daily newspaper. In 1883, Small married Ida Moore, and they had three children together.

Small began his political career in 1901 when he became a member of the Illinois Senate. He served in the Senate for the next four years and then became Illinois State Treasurer for 1905 to 1907, and again from 1917 to 1919. In between, he served as the assistant U.S. Treasurer in charge of the sub treasury at Chicago between 1908 and 1912.

Former Governor Len Small

In 1920, Small won the election for Governor of Illinois and was re-elected in 1925. As governor, Small pardoned 20 members of the Communist Labor Party convicted under the Illinois Sedition Act. He also pardoned or paroled over 1,000 convicted felons, including Edward “Spike” O’Donnell of the South Side O’Donnell Gang.

Another important pardon – repaying a favor to the Torrio Outfit – was the pardon of Harry Guzik (brother of Torrio / Capone money man Jake Guzik), who had been convicted of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into prostitution with a white slavery ring.

This was a favor repaid after Small was indicted while in office for embezzling $600,000 and running a money-laundering scheme when he was state treasurer. The Outfit would get him out of trouble – but they would need a favor in return.

In 1921, Torrio was moving in Chicago Heights, where he opened the Moonlight Café two thriving roadhouses in Burnham, the Coney Island Café and the Barn. In Posen, he established the Roamer Inn, under the management of Harry Guzik, one of three brothers who had been long entrenched in the rackets, and his wife, Alma.

John Torrio

The Roamer Inn became a strong test of Torrio’s political connections. The Guziks placed an advertisement for a housemaid and when a pretty, young farm girl applied, they stripped her naked, made her a prisoner and had her broken in as a prostitute. After five months in captivity, she managed to get word to her family. By the time that her brothers rescued her, she was a mental and physical wreck. In court, her father told how the Guziks had tried to bribe him not to testify. They were convicted and sentenced to hard time. While free on bail, pending an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, they came to Torrio for help. Torrio, in turn, approached Walter Stevens, one of the most respected gunmen in Chicago.

Stevens had been a lieutenant for Maurice “Mossy” Enright for many years and was considered a pioneer in labor union racketeering, slugging, bombing and killing during the industrial strife problems of the early 1900s. He was the last survivor of the Enright gang after Mossy himself was killed as a favor to rival labor racketeer Big Tim Murphy in 1920.

When Mossy Enright was killed in 1930, Stevens joined up with the Torrio-Capone gang. He had many contacts but perhaps his greatest was Illinois Len Small.  When Small was indicted, Stevens went to work. Working behind the scenes for the defense were Stevens, “Jew Ben” Newmark, a former investigator for the state’s attorney as well as a thief and extortionist, and Michael “Umbrella Mike” Boyle, a business agent for Electrical Workers’ Union No. 134. Boyle’s nickname came from his practice of standing at a bar on certain days of the month with his umbrella partially open so that contractors who wanted to avoid union problems could drop off cash.

As the governor’s trial progressed, the three men kept busy bribing and intimidating jurors. Small was acquitted and he did not forget anyone who helped him. Eight of the men on his jury later received state jobs and Stevens and his cronies ran into other trouble. When they later went to jail – Newmark and Boyle for jury tampering and Stevens for an old murder – Small pardoned them. Stevens now drew Small’s attention to the Guziks’ unfortunate situation and before the Supreme Court could hand down its decision in their case, the governor pardoned them. Within three months, the Guziks were running a new brothel, the Marshfield Inn, just outside the Chicago’s southern limits.

Sadly, this sort of set the stage for how politics would always run in Illinois. There’s a reason why a long-time joke in Chicago has been “vote early, and vote often.” Corruption runs rampant in politics and based on the recent events that we’ve seen in the state’s highest office, it’s unlikely that things will change anytime soon.