The Spotter Gets Spotted

 

Joseph Nerone was known throughout the Italian underworld as Il Cavaliere. He attained some infamy the previous year when he put Tony Genna on the spot. After his tenure with the Gennas, Nerone ventured into Chicago Heights and became a successful racketeer. 

On August 20, 1926 Nerone, now going by Tony Spano, was lured to a barber shop in Chicago. It appears that he was somewhat apprehensive because as he pulled up to the shop in his expensive sedan, he had his gun out. As he stepped from his car, three men stepped out of an alley and opened fire on him. 

Nerone managed to get off a few shots before being riddled in the head and belly and dropping dead. In the aftermath of the shooting a couple of the surviving Genna brothers, whom authorities believed were in Italy, were picked up for questioning. It was assumed that they killed him in retaliation for setting up their brother Tony. Another theory was that he may have been bumped off by a Chicago Heights outfit known as the Piazza gang. Other reports have him as a member of that gang.

Joseph Nerone AKA Il Cavaliere

The Avengers

The evening of July 23, 1926 found gunman Vincent McErlane, brother of trigger happy Frank McErlane,  hanging out in the rear room of a saloon with fellow Saltis-McErlane gangster John Conlon, age 25. Another twenty people or so were drinking and carousing when two men came up to the rear door. One had a pistol the other a shotgun. McErlane saw them and dove for cover. Conlon didn't have time and caught the blasts from the shotgun throughout his body and a pistol shot through the head. 

Conlon dropped dead as the saloon's patrons all headed for the front door. The gunmen ran back to their car and took off. When the cops arrived, it was only Conlon and the bartender. Police felt that the shooting was in retaliation from Ralph Sheldon for a killing from the previous April.

John Conlon

The Last Delivery

Frank De Laurentis, a nephew of Chicago politician Diamond Joe Esposito, and John Tucillo, whose family was also well acquainted with the Espositos, were, according to a report, former members of the defunct Genna brothers gang who were now pushing booze for Ralph Sheldon's gang. 

Roman Duchovitz, who ran a saloon in the territory controlled by the Saltis-McErlane gang started buying his product from De Laurentis and Tucillo.

Not one to sit idle while his customers were poached, Joe Saltis paid a visit to Duchovitz and demanded to know when the two Sheldon men made their deliveries. On this date in 1926,  De Laurentis and Tucillo showed up at Duchovitz's saloon with some alcohol. Moments later a Lincoln sedan pulled up and four armed men entered the speakeasy. De Laurentis and Tucillo were marched out back to their own car and forced inside with three of the gunmen. The fourth followed in the Lincoln.

Later that night, with the curtains in the rear windows pulled close, a man pulled up in front of Sheldon's home in the De Laurentis and Tucillo auto. A neighbor stated that the man went to the front door and knocked but received no answer. Not surprising, because Sheldon, since his troubles with the Saltis-McErlane gang, was seldom seen at his house. With no answer at the door the man left in another car.

The De Laurentis- Tucillo car sat undisturbed in front of Sheldon's hose for nearly a week before the police were called to investigate. Thinking that it may have been stolen, officers looked inside and found the two alky peddlers in the back seat covered with a blanket.

L-R Frank De Laurentis and John Tucillo