Kennedy Shot!

 

July 7, 1933 saw the demise of Toledo bootlegger and nightclub entrepreneur Jack Kennedy.  Though only in his early twenties, Kennedy was said to be fearless; so when a gang of Detroit gangsters headed by Thomas "Yonnie" Licavoli came to town in an attempt to monopolize Toledo's underworld; Kennedy refused to kneel.

The first attempt came on December 1, 1932 when Kennedy and his girlfriend, Louise Bell, were riding in Jack's coupe in downtown Toledo. When they stopped for a light, an auto, with Michigan plates, containing four men, armed with possibly two machineguns, pulled up alongside them and opened fire. Kennedy got through unscathed but his girlfriend was struck in the head by a bullet and later died at the hospital. According to witnesses, after the shooting, the gunmen headed towards Detroit.

The following summer the boys from Detroit finished the job when they traced Kennedy to his home in the shore community of Point Place just outside of Toledo. (since annexed by the city). Kennedy and his new girlfriend, Audrey Ralls, left his cottage and walked to the store for some groceries. Upon their return, the realized the milk they had purchased was sour, so headed back to the store. While strolling back home, a man grabbed Ralls from behind and pushed her out of the way while another man fired at least six bullets into Kennedy, killing him.

Witnesses were able to identify the killers and armed with this, as well as evidence from a few other gangland murders, cases were made against Licavoli and his gang and all were sentenced to life in prison.

Jack Kennedy

Mean to Joe Green

After a failed attempt in 1928, Albany gangsters put thirty-two year old bootlegger Joey Green out of business for good on February 19, 1933.

It was said that Green, also an Albany bad man,  hi-jacked liquor that was traveling along the "rum trail" that lead from Canada to any number of towns in northern New York. In March of 1928, he was taken for a ride and his bullet riddled body dumped on the outskirts of the state capitol. With fourteen wounds, he managed to drag himself to a farm house and rescue.

The end came just after he was released from serving ten days on a traffic violation. Green was at a soft drink parlor in the town of Glens Falls, New York. when somebody pumped two bullets into his chest.

Joey Green

They Didn't Kill Him For Nothing

"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." This was the response that Chicago gangster Ted Newberry gave to police whenever questioned about a gangland murder.

Like those he discussed before him, Newberry too went for a one-way ride; his took place on January 7, 1933.  A product of Chicago's Northside, Newberry got involved with bootlegging in the early days of Prohibition. He muscled his away into the taxi racket and was pals with fellow racketeer Eugene Red McLaughlin during the days of the taxicab wars.

As the Roaring Twenties came to an end, Newberry was allied with George Bugs Moran and his Northside gang. In fact, Newberry narrowly missed being a victim of the St. Valentine's Day massacre as he was with Moran that morning. When they saw the rival gangsters (dressed as police) enter the gangs' headquarters, they dodged into a coffee shop assuming that it was a raid.

"He must have done something."

So what did Newberry do? In the early 1930s Moran was out of the picture and Newberry was allied with Al Capone. After Capone was sent to prison however, Newberry's relationship with Frank Nitti began to fall apart, his response was to have Nitti bumped off. A raid was set up in the latter's office in December of 1932 and Nitti was shot by a cop, but survived. After a few weeks recovery, Nitti figured out who was behind the botched raid and Newberry was removed. His body was found on a lonely stretch of road in Indiana.

Ted Newberry

When Gangland Gets There First

November 29, 1933 saw the demise of gangland killer and one time South Dakota sheriff, Verne Miller. A veteran of WWI, Miller became the sheriff of Huron, South Dakota but fled office with about $2800. He was captured and sent to prison where he was released after serving 18 months.

Upon his release he became involved in bootlegging and then drifted into bank robbery in the late 1920s and early 1930s. On June 17, 1933, in a botched attempt to free his friend Frank "Jelly" Nash from the FBI, Miller and two cohorts, supposedly Pretty Boy Floyds and Adam Richetti, ended up killing Nash and five of the law men with him in what is known as the Kansas City Massacre.

After the KC Massacre the FBI was determined to bring Miller in. The hottest man in the USA, Miller found himself unwelcome in the Midwest underworld. He headed east where he was friendly with New York syndicate boss Louis Lepke Buchalter. A Lepke associate named Al Silvers helped Miller with a car and some optometry equipment to use as a front as an eyeglass salesman.

Knowing the Lepke was friendly with Miller, the FBI paid the gang lord a visit and let him know that things could get hot for him if he aided Miller. On November 1, Miller escaped a shootout with the FBI but dumped his bullet riddled car. Inside the auto the FBI found the optometry equipment and were able to trace it back to Al Silvers, who went into hiding.

Lepke had a dilemma; if the FBI caught either Silvers or Miller what might they spill in an attempt at leniency? Silvers was the first to go on November 20. Lepke's boys caught up with Miller in Detroit nine days later. Liker Silvers, Miller was garroted by those he knew and probably trusted. He was then bludgeoned to death with a hammer. His naked body, like that of Silvers, was found tossed on stretch of road covered with a blanket.

Verne Miller

The Price of Friendship

Around noon on November 20, 1933 the naked body of New Jersey racketeer Albert Silvers was found on a lonely stretch of road outside of Somers, Connecticut partially covered with a blanket. 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. 

Though an east coast racketeer, Silvers, who was a lieutenant of New York racket chief Lepke Buchalter, was murdered for his loyal friendship to a mid-westerner; South Dakota ex-sheriff Verne Miller. Miller was the hottest criminal in America during the second half of 1933 due to his orchestrating the Kansas City Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of five law enforcement officers, including an FBI agent.

Silvers helped Miller elude capture with the help of his brother who was an optometrist. The Silvers supplied Miller with a salesman's case full of optometry equipment so he could travel the country posing as a salesman. Silvers also set Miller up with an automobile.

On November 1, 1933 Miller escaped a shootout with FBI and police and they later found his shot up car with the optometry equipment. The FBI was able to trace the equipment to Silvers, who lammed it. Since Silvers was a close associate of 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 associates 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 met him, they left him on that lonely road in Somers, Connecticut.

Al Silvers

Shot Heard Around The Underworld

November 6, 1933 saw the demise of Boston gangster John "Keeno" Keenan. The 29-year old gun-toter was the owner of the exclusive Club Chalet. He was on hand that night when fellow gangster Thomas Callahan showed up with a friend. Callahan was drunk when he arrived and began to insult women and make a general nuisance of himself. Being a classy joint, the bouncers evicted Callahan in a non-to-polite manner. 

Some time passed and Callahan returned to the club, climbed the stairs to the entrance and was stopped at the iron gate that kept people like him out. He exchanged some words with the bouncer who, again, escorted him from the premises. Callahan refused to leave.

An employee of the club approached Keenan who was entertaining at the table and told him about Callahan and asked him if he couldn't do something about it. Keenan excused himself from the table and as he approached the gate, Callahan pulled out a pistol and opened fire. Mortally wounded, Keenan dropped to the floor. On the ground he drew his own gun and returned fire. During the shooting, the clubs patrons broke a window and headed down the fire escape.

Keenan's pals picked him up and took him to the hospital where he died the next day.

John Keeno Keenan

Should've Hopped On The Bus, Gus

October 9, 1933 saw the demise of Chicago hoodlum, Gus Winkeler. Originally from St. Louis, Winkeler spent the better part of the 1920s robbing banks around the country. By the late Twenties he and his confederates were killers for hire in the employ of Al Capone. Known as Capone's "American Boys" Winkeler and his cohorts took part in the 1928 murder of New York kingpin Frankie Yale as well as the 1929's infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven Northside gangsters were mowed down with machineguns and shotguns.

Over the years Winkeler rose in the Capone gangs' ranks and by 1933 was running a lucrative nightclub and other ventures on the Northside. He was good friends with another hoodlum named Ted Newberry who tried to take out Frank Nitti and ended up going on a ride himself. The syndicate was bit wearing of Winkeler after that but didn't make a move. 

Because of his former bank robbing exploits, the FBI, which was gearing up for its war on crime, started questioning Winkeler on a regular basis. With Capone behind bars, Nitti and his cohorts decided that Winkeler was a liability. As he was leaving a beer distribution plant, two men with shotguns cut him down.

Gus Winkeler

Spot on the Spot

October 1, 1933 marked the demise of one Joseph "Spot" Leahy. Spot was said to be one of the last of New York's infamous Gopher gang and the toughest man in Hell's Kitchen. Though he gathered a bit of press in his day, he never grew into a gangster of stature. Spot got his drinking money from bully work, such has strong arming for gangster Larry Fay. In addition to his other interest, Fay owned a fleet of taxi cabs. Leahy and others would keep rival taxi drivers from popular stops, allowing only Fay's drivers to pick up the fairs. He also had ties to a bootleg gang lead by Alfred "Dutch" Handel that operated on Mahattan's west side.

Leahy boasted at one time that gangsters Legs Diamond and Vannie Higgins were afraid to operate in the Hell's Kitchen district on Manhattan's west side because they didn't want to deal with him. In addition to a handful of underworld killings, in 1931 he arrested for beating his wife to death but managed to beat the rap. 

The knife was Spot's weapon of choice and it was by the knife that he was dispatched. Before sunrise, Spot was entering a hallway that would take him to a speakeasy. Someone came up from behind and slashed his throat a number of times.

Joseph "Spot" Leahy

A Wing Gets Clipped

James "Wingy" Cox was a Cuckoo gangster in St. Louis. In 1924 he was wounded in a gunfight which resulted in his having an arm amputated at the shoulder, hence the nickname Wingy. Though armless, he continued in the gangster life, being arrested in 1928 and sentenced to two years for burglary.

In November of 1930 he was shot again but managed to hobble into a hospital with a bullet wound to the leg. The following month he was picked up after a gangland hit in which witnesses stated that a one-armed man was wielding the machine-gun used in the killing. He was released for lack of evidence.

Then end for Cox came in the wee hours of September 10, 1933 when he got into an argument with two guys at a saloon. The men had been arguing for some time and it was obvious to all that things were going to get out of hand, so the men were supposedly left on their own. Even the proprietor stepped out after they refused to leave. Reports are that once everyone was out of the way, a number of shots were heard.

Shortly thereafter, a car pulled up to the hospital and bloody Cox emerged and stumbled inside. He refused to identify who shot him, reportedly saying, "I'll die like I live." and so he did six hours later at 9:25 that morning.

James Wingy Cox

42 Skidoo

 

September 8, 1933 saw the demise of Nicholas "Little Man" Muscato, so called because he stood at five feet tall. Muscato was a small time racketeer for Chicago's 42 gang. He reportedly had a bootlegging route under the tutelage of gangster Joseph Red Bolton, or, as was also reported, Bolton paid Muscato protection money.

In 1930, Muscato, along with fellow hoodlum Peter "the Ape" Nicastro, had murdered fellow 42 gangster Frank Petito, who hijacked a truck belonging to Bolton. After the murder, Nicastro claimed he had done the killing himself. To save face, Muscato in turn took Nicastro for a ride but he survived. Subsequently Nicastro squealed on Muscato who was arrested but beat the rap.

As a taxi driver  sat parked at a local hospital, he saw a sedan pull up and slow down. A door was opened and Muscato was tossed to the sidewalk with a bullet in the back of his head. Being a good sort of fellow, the taxi driver dragged the gangster into the hospital where he was informed that his labors had been in vain as Muscato was already dead.

Nicholas Muscato

Beauty And The Beast

In the late summer of 1933, as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were terrorizing the Southwest, Los Angeles was dealing with their own homegrown gun wielding Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo was Thomas White a twenty-eight-year-old ex-truck driver who did time in both San Quentin and Folsom prison. Juliet was his nineteen-year-old hairdresser girlfriend Burma Adams.

White was arrested for the first time in 1924 for drunkenness, this was followed a few months later for robbery, but he was released. In 1927 he was picked up on a liquor charge but beat the rap. In 1930 he was working as a truck driver when $6000 worth of cigarettes went missing. He was found guilty of grand theft and sentenced from 1 to 10 years at San Quentin where he proved to be a troublesome inmate so was shipped off to Folsom. 

White was paroled in April 1933 and headed to L.A. where he met Burma at a night club. Soon they were a couple and in mid August they started to rob people. Though one of their victims was blinded by a gun shot from White, none were killed. Over the course of the remaining summer, the duo stuck-up a number of people causing a bit of a sensation in the City of Angels.

A stolen car would be their down fall. On one of their jobs, the duo stole a car and brought it to a garage for repairs. On September 6, 1933, police found it and waited for the couple to return to pick it up. When they did, they were followed back to their apartment building, where they had two rooms. Burma had one on the third floor, White on the fourth. 

Four officers entered the building, two in the front, two in the rear. As two of them entered Burma's apartment, two others went to the fourth floor as White was making his way down. The cops identified themselves and told White to halt. The bandit drew his gun and fired two shot before the officers brought him down with three well placed shots. After hearing the shots, Burma, his wife of six days asked, "Did they shoot him?" when told that he probably had been shot she showed no emotion. As they questioned her she kept asking, "Is he dead yet?"

He was. White died a few minutes after the shooting.

Thomas White

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Fake Agent Gets Real Bullet

Just before midnight on September 4, 1933 Los Angeles bid farewell to small time gangster Axel "Three Finger Jack" Anderson. His record showed he had been arrested for burglary in San Francisco in 1925 and again in L.A. in '27.

Stepping up his game, Anderson procured fake credentials showing that he was a Prohibition agent. Earlier in the evening Anderson and two others "confiscated" a load of liquor from a garage. Two hours later, witnesses stated that they saw Anderson in the backseat of a sedan with two other men. A shot rang out, and Anderson fled the sedan and ran towards his own car, which was parked nearby, but his rivals over came him and shot him down in the street. Other reports had it that after fleeing the sedan, his rivals started the car, drove after him and a gunman fired at him from the passenger side window. Either way, Anderson was done for.

Police felt that he was killed by his two companions, who assisted him in stealing the liquor, over an argument over profits. Another thought is that the killers were the original owners of the booze and Anderson was trying to sell it back to them.

Axel Three Finger Jack Anderson

Buffalo Gats

Shortly before midnight on August 25, 1933 Buffalo, New York bootlegger Salvatore "Sam" Callea sat at the wheel of his car while his brother/partner, Vincenzo, stood by out front of their beer garden. A sedan containing around five men drove by and suddenly the area was alive with pistol and rifle fire. When the smoke cleared Sam was slouched over the steering wheel dead and his brother was prone on the sidewalk, his life ebbing away. Two bystanders were also wounded in the drive-by. Though they didn't say why, police asserted that the gunmen were imported from Cleveland, Ohio for the job. 

Sam Callea                  Vincent Callea

Mule Kick

Like his brother Sam, who was bumped off in April of 1932, Leo Mule, 55, said to have been a veteran of the Capone-Aiello war, was mixed up in illicit alcohol. Known as both a bootlegger and proprietor of a beer flat, Leo was driving his expensive sedan on August 21, 1933 with a guy in the passenger seat. Mule was driving slowly when his passenger pulled out a gun and let him have it in head. Mule slumped over the wheel as the car slid into a curb. His job complete, the killer jumped from Leo's car and hopped into another that had been following them and was whisked away.

Leo Mule

Live By the Gun, Die By the Gun...A Minute Later

 

A chance encounter with a Kansas City sheriff and his deputy changed what should have been a typical on-the-spot killing into gunfight costing two of the killers their own lives.

Sheriff Thomas Bash was returning from a fund raising social engagement with his deputy Lawrence Hodges. The officers were escorting the car which contained the money raised at the party. Hodges was driving and Bash was in the passenger seat. In the rear sat Bash's wife and a neighbor girl of 15. 

It was about 1:15 in the morning on August 12, 1933. As the police car advanced towards Armour Avenue Bash and Hodges saw a series of flashes and heard gunshots. This was followed by a woman's screaming. What the two law officers heard was the murder of bootlegger and nightclub owner Ferris Anthon. In addition to his KC operations, the dead man had ties to Chicago where he was knows as Kansas City Tony. Anthon was living at the Cavalier hotel and had just returned from a night out with his young wife, mother-in-law and his wife's younger brother. While his wife and in-laws headed for the hotel, he stayed back to lock up the car. According to his wife, a man with a handkerchief over his face came from between two cars and shot Anthon down with a  machine gun.*

After the shooting, a sedan containing mobsters Sam Scola, Gus Fasone and a man later identified as Thomas Lacoco came barreling around the corner, heading straight for Bash an Hodges. Realizing a crime had take place, Bash grabbed the police car's shotgun and jumped out the passenger side door; Hodges from the driver's side with a his side arm in hand. 

Seeing their way blocked, Scola and Fasone opened fire on the officers. Bash fired a round through the windshield, reloaded and fired another round through the windshield reportedly taking off the tops of the gangsters heads. Lacoco Leapt from the car and ran as Hodges gave chase; both men firing at each other.  After the Bash's second shot the gangster car careened into the the police vehicle.

Bash wanted to check on his wife and neighbor but another hoodlum, Charles Gargotta, came running up firing at the sheriff. Loading another shell into the shotgun, Bash ran towards the attacking hoodlum. who, realizing he was about to be cut down, dropped his gun and surrendered. In the meantime, Hodges had lost sight of Lacoco, but found his abandoned gun, and returned to the scene.

Gargotta and Lacoco would subsequently be exonerated from any wrong doing. The four gunman were said to be underlings of Kansas City gang boss Johnny Lazia.

*no machine guns were found.

            

Ferris Anthon             Sam Scola              Gus Fasone

Two Purples Expire

November 26, 1933 - Detroit

Eddie Fletcher and Abe Axler died as they lived; Together. Known as the "Siamese Twins" of Detroit's notorious Purple Gang, both Axler and Fletcher grew up together in Brooklyn, New York. Just as Al Capone went west at the dawn of Prohibition to strike it rich, so to did Axler and Fletcher. The latter two ended up in the Motor City in the mid 1920s and became top torpedoes for the organization.

By 1933 the Purple gang was in disarray. Main gang members and former leaders were either dead or in prison. The Siamese Twins reportedly tried to go straight themselves but were unable to make a living. Designated Public Enemies 1 & 2, by Detroit law enforcement, they were also picked up on sight. It was mentioned that Axler had a bookmaking operation working out of a Detroit barber shop. There was also a report that the men were trying to muscle in on the dope racket.

Whatever the reason, the men were taken for a ride in Axler's own Chrysler sedan. They were last seen leaving a beer garden in Pontiac, Michigan. They climbed into Axler's car after midnight and drove off. Somewhere along the lines they ended up in the back seat. Fletcher on the left, Axler in the middle and another guy on the right. Someone else was driving. It appears that Axler saw what was about to happened and grasped his partner's hand. Police believe Fletcher got it first, a fusillade from a .38 from the front driver's seat. He was hit twice in the chest, once in the right arm and once in the forehead. Axler took five shots from a .45 to the ride side of the head. Unrecognizable, he slouched into his dead friend. The car was abandoned on deserted patch of road off of Telegraph Road near Bloomfield Hills.

A couple of days after the murder the Detroit Free Press stated that the Licavoli crime family had made an attempt on them a few weeks before the murder. Axler and Fletcher may have known they were on the spot because they had been spending time outside of Detroit.

L. Eddie Fletcher R. Abe Axler

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 

Clipped in a Barber Shop

Russell Hughes was a Midwest desperado who robbed banks and was said to be an associate of Handsome Jack Klutas, head of band of kidnappers who preyed primarily on Chicago gamblers.

Hughes, who was involved in a number of bank robberies, was loitering in the doorway of a Peoria, Illinois barber shop on this date in 1933.  Peoria's Chief of Detectives Fred Montgomery along with detectives Robert Moran and Gay Dusenberry were cruising town in the former's sedan when Montgomery noticed Hughes, who was wearing a fake mustache. Montgomery told Moran that he thought the guy was ringer for Hughes so they pulled over to check him out.

Hughes noticed the detectives pullover and retreated back into the barber shop. The detectives followed him in. "All right Hughes; put 'em up!" Montgomery ordered. Hughes pulled his hands. from his coat pockets. He had a gun in each and the firefight was on.

Moran fell with a wound that would prove fatal and Montgomery also dropped with a shot in his shoulder. Though wounded, Montgomery was able to keep firing. Mortally wounded, Hughes finally crumbled. "I think every shot I fired hit that fellow," Montgomery later stated, "but he just wouldn't drop. Before I knew it, my gun was empty."

Russell Hughes

Human pin cushion

Pittsburgh mobster John Aliberti was found on this date in 1933 on the outskirts of his home town with upwards of sixty ice pick wounds in his body. His pal, John Bazzano, was found in a similar condition the previous year in Brooklyn. Bazzano had orchestrated the murders of the Volpe Brothers, rival mafiosi in his coffee shop, a decision that the fellas in New York City didn't take kindly to. Aliberti, we're told, took a powder from the his old haunts after the Volpe murders for a number of months.

Known as a gunman, Aliberti was arrested in 1927 for having a pistol and shotgun in his car. He did time in prison for a shooting and was arrested and acquitted for murder in the spring of 1932.

Perhaps Aliberti was bumped off for being in the Bazzano camp or maybe it was because the previous summer he reportedly bombed a night club. The gunman was last seen at 2 a.m. the morning of his murder arguing with two men and two women, but when cops approached he got into a car with them, and two other men, and took off. His body was found six hours later.

Big bang for Big Sam

Big Sam Oteri was a Boston gangster who was scratched from the "Cradle of Liberty's" underworld on this date back in 1933. It was about 1 A.M. when a card game between Oteri and some of his cronies broke up.

Oteri, who had previoulsly been arrested for bootlegging and suspicion of murder, walked out with Frank Castelone, the brother of Oteri's late partner Charles Castelone who was killed the previous July, and as the men parted a car pulled up and three quick shots from a shotgun lit up the night.

Hit by over two dozen pellets, Oteri fell to the ground as Castelone ran away. A cop found Oteri on the sidewalk and rushed him to the hospital where he died less than an hour later.

Big Sam Oteri