Friends til the End

Around noon on November 20, 1933 the naked body of New Jersey racketeer Albert Silvers was found on a lonely patch of road outside of Somers, Connecticut. He had been stabbed twice in the heart with an ice pick and garroted with a sash cord and neck tie. When found, his tongue protruded from his mouth and blood still oozed from the stab wounds. He was partially covered with a blanket.

Though an East Coast racketeer, Silvers, who was a lieutenant of New York mob boss Lepke Buchalter, was murdered for his loyal friendship to a mid-westerner.  Ex-South Dakotan sheriff turned bank robber and hit man Verne Miller- who was the hottest man in America during the last half of 1933 due to his orchestrating the Kansas City Massacre, which resulted in the death of five law enforcement officers, including an FBI agent.

Silvers had helped Miller out after the KC Massacre when, with the help of his brother who was an optometrist, they supplied Miller with salesman's case full of optometry equipment so he could travel the country posing as salesman. Silvers also set Miller up with an automobile.

When Miller later escaped a shootout with police on Halloween, they found his car and both this and the optometry equipment were traced to Silvers. Since Silvers was a close associate to Lepke, the syndicate leader had a decision to make. If the FBI got hold of Silvers what might he say to get out of trouble? Men, no doubt friends of Silvers, were sent out to him, possibly in Hartford where he was known to stay or at a hotel in Massachusetts, no one knows for sure. Wherever they caught up with him the result was the same.

Albert Silvers