The King is Un-Crowned

 

On the morning of May 12, 1928 sixty-year old Gaetano Acci-who was known to Chicago police by some other names, including; “the Wolf: ,“King of the Blackmailers” and “The Muscler"-was seen leaving his home at  1066 Polk Street and getting into a sedan with four other men. 

Later that day he and his cohorts were spotted miles away in the town of Rockford, Illinois. The following morning, eighty-nine years ago today,  a motorist traveling along a quiet stretch of road outside the town of Harvard, Illinois, discovered Acci's body and alerted authorities. Turns out that the "King of the Blackmailers" had extorted four bullets from someone's gun. Two went to his head, and two to his body.

Acci was known to prey on Italian residents of Chicago's west side. On his corpse were found six letters addressed to different people demanding money. According to police, a week prior to his death, they had set a trap for him and planned to kill him when he stopped to pick up a faux payment package, but he never showed up. Subsequently the underworld save them the trouble.

Black Hand red blood

At 11:20pm 109-years ago today thirty-five year old Felipo Randazzo locked the door to his butcher shop, located at 177 Christie Street, and turned to begin his walk home. After a couple of steps a large caliber bullet fired from a powerful rifle plowed through his heart, went out his back, passed through the shop door and hit a column inside before coming to a rest on the floor.

At first it was thought that he was an innocent victim of the Black Hand until a search of his shop turned up a dynamite cartridge of the type used in some recent Black Hand explosions.
The NYPD's famous Mafia fight cop Lt. Petrosino put his entire sixteen man Italian Squad on the case and soon learned that Randazzo was indeed a member of the Black Hand. He had come over from Palermo three years previously and worked as a plasterer before hooking up with a nefarious band of extortionist. With his profits he was able to open his butcher shop three months before being shot down.

During the investigation the Italian Squad learned through one of Randazzo's friends that the dead man had had a falling out with some of the members of his gang and he [Randazzo] intended to supply the police with information that would have resulted in their arrests but his confederates were faster and took care of him first.

Miami Vice

107-years ago today Pasquale Miami, said to be a “barber”, was walking down the street when a man stepped out of a doorway and shot him. A beat cop who was nearby gave chase but the gunman ran into a tenement and escaped over the roof tops.
     Miami was rushed to Bellevue Hospital where he died half an hour later. His body was identified by his friend Nicola Giaroffa who stated that the two men had been in the States for three years and that Miami had been involved in an Italian feud for the six months leading up to his death.

Lt. Petrosino

After viewing the body, America's first mafia busting cop, Lt. Petrosino of the NYPD Italian Squad stated that Miami (which wasn’t his real name. His real name wasn’t given) was one of the leading Black Hand agents in the city. Police felt this was bore out when twenty-five men came to the morgue to view the dead man and almost half of them raised their hands and vowed to avenge his murder.