"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." - Chicago Gangster Ted Newberry. Rubbed out January 7, 1933

Friday, November 1, 2019

Wild Bill is Tamed

Brooklyn, New York -

In the early hours of this day back in 1923, Brooklyn waterfront tough Wild Bill Lovett former leader of the White Hand gang, was murdered while sleeping off a drunk in a riverfront shanty. Having killed both Irish and Italian gangsters, there was no shortage of people who wanted him dead. For a time it looked as though Lovett may have dodged a gangland execution. That summer he had married Anna Lonergan, sister of his right hand man, Richard Pegleg Lonergan, and they moved from Brooklyn out to the New Jersey suburbs in an attempt to make a normal life for themselves. Lovett longed for the old ways however and returned to his old haunts and went on a bender. Word spread that the former gangster was back in the neighborhood and somebody(ies) with an ax to grind, trailed him to the stevedore shack he decided to spend the night in and after he had passed out they entered that shanty and bludgeoned and shot him to death. His killers were never found.

Wild Bill Lovett

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