Wild Bill Tamed

In the wee hours of this day back in 1923, Brooklyn waterfront gangster Wild Bill Lovett was sent to his final reward whilst sleeping off a drunk in a river front shanty.

As head of Brooklyn's infamous White Hand gang, Wild Bill had numerous notches on his gun which resulted in numerous enemies that wanted him dead for any number of reasons. For a time it looked as though Bill may have dodged a gangland execution. The previous summer he had married Anna Lonergan, sister of his right hand man, Richard Peg Leg Lonergan. They moved from Brooklyn out to the New Jersey suburbs in an attempt to make a normal life for themselves. After a few months away Bill headed back to Brooklyn and went on a bender, hitting a number of his old haunts. 

Word spread that Wild Bill was back in town and somebody or somebodies with an ax to grind trailed him to the stevedore shack where Bill passed out. Once Bill was deep in la-la land his enemies entered and bludgeoned and shot him to death. His killers were never identified.

Wild Bill Lovett

A Not So Pretty Death For Louis

 

About a month after his brother Joseph was gunned down in a Brownsville garage, racketeer Louis "Pretty" Amberg met a grisly fate on October 23, 1935. Louis operated on Manhattan's lower eastside and was living in a mid town hotel under an assumed name.

It appears that the Syndicate was waiting to see how Pretty reacted to his brother's murder before deciding on a course of action. When Pretty let it be known that he would be seeking revenge on those who orchestrated his brother's murder, it was deemed that Pretty should join Joseph in the great beyond.

A Lepke mobster named Mendy Weiss lured Pretty to a friend's bar just over the Manhattan bridge in Brooklyn. The proprietor invited the men into his office for a drink. Instead of a libation, two of Mendy's gorillas were waiting for Pretty and immediately started hacking him with cleavers.

Once Pretty was done for, his body was placed in an automobile. A burlap sack was placed over his head and he and the car were doused in gasoline and put to the match.

Louis "Pretty" Amberg

Frankie Goes To Manhattan

After they got rid of Joey Amberg, the Syndicate went after the henchmen that assisted Amberg in his killing of Hy Kasner. They caught up with Frankie Teitlebaum first. The specifics are lost to history but it appears that he was lured somewhere and  sombody (or somebodies) sank an ax into his head a number of times.  There is also a report that a bullet was sent into his forehead for good measure.

After killing him, the murderers stripped his body down to underwear and t-shirt and crammed him into a travel trunk. The makeshift coffin was then carried out to a sedan and driven across the Brooklyn Bridge where it was dumped on the nearest Manhattan corner. 

Frankie Teitlebaum

What Is The Law? No Spill Blood

During the summer of 1935, semi-powerful Brooklyn racketeer Joseph Amberg (Joey A to his fellow gangsters) took it upon his self to to rid gangland of one Hy Kasner, a hoodlum who had crossed him in some manner. Together with two of his henchmen, Jack Elliot and Frankie Teitlebaum, Amberg snatched Kasner from the streets, killed him, stuffed him in a sack and dropped him in a sewer. Business as usual in Brownsville back in the 1930s.

It was Amberg's hope that the sack containing Kasner would wash out to sea and his disappearance would be but a mystery. Unfortunately for the gangster, it popped up near shore and what was left of Kasner was fished out. Soon the names of Kasner's killers traveled the underworld grapevine. This proved problematic for Amberg because Kasner was an associate of both Albert Anastasia and Louis Capone, the director and assistant director of Murder Inc. 

A Syndicate hearing was called to decide what to do about the Amberg affair. Anastasia and Capone argued that Amberg and his murdering cohorts should themselves be removed for taking Syndicate law into their own hands. Amberg had friends in high places though, namely Joe Adonis and Bugsy Siegel who argued that Amberg should get a pass.

In the end, Adonis and Siegel were overruled and a contract was put out on Amberg. Chosen for the job was Murder Inc. hitman Harry "Happy" Maione, Mafia guy Phil Mangano, and another guy known as "Red" Pulvino. The location chosen for the hit was the Brownsville garage where Amberg parked his car.

On September 30, 1935 Amberg's chauffeur Morris Kessler pulled into the garage with his boss. As the two men stepped out of the car the hit squad approached the men and told them to face the wall. Assuming that they were the victims of a robbery, the men complied. Amberg however, turned and noticed Maione and said, "It's-" before he could get more out the men were cut down by shotgun blasts. Once they were on the ground, one of the men ran up and fired a bullet into each man's head. Murder Inc. justice had been served.

Joe Amberg

The Bell Tolls No More

Four days after Meyer Shapiro was rubbed out. Another Brownsville gangster, Benjamin "the Bell" Meyerson was gunned down in Brooklyn. Though Meyerson was a known associate of the Shapiro brothers, most newspapers speculated that he was was probably killed by associates of a gambler named Max "Coco" Prince, who was shot the previous year. Meyerson was out on bail awaiting a hearing. The New York Daily News however, stated his murder was a result of those who bumped of Shapiro simply cleaning house.

Whatever the reason, Meyerson got his on September 21, 1931, when, after spending a portion of Yom Kippur praying in a synagogue, he agreed to meet a woman on a Brownsville street. As they walked a car pulled up and two men jumped out. Running up to the couple the opened fire and two bullets struck Meyerson in the head. Mortally wounded, the gangster staggered a few steps and collapsed. The woman he was walking with disappeared in the crowd as the gunmen escaped.

Benjamin the Bell Meyerson

Code Red

Edward "Red" Patterson was said to be a one time follower of Brooklyn waterfront gang leader Wild Bill Lovett. By 1932 he was known as a "petty and ambitious beer runner." His demise was the result of trying to force his beer into bars that were already buying from Anthony "Little Augie Pisano" Carfano.

On September 3, the ambitious bootlegger was in a speakeasy when some gunmen came in and opened fire. A bartender got in the way and caught the fatal dose of lead while Patterson was only wounded. His rivals caught up with him a few weeks later as he was exiting a second story room in a boarding house on September 20, 1932. As he stepped from the room somebody shot him in the back of the head twice. Once he was down, the gun was pressed to his skull and two more shots were fired. Red was out of the beer business.

Edward Red Patterson

Pal Joey

 

Joseph Silverman was known around Brooklyn as Joey Silvers a boxer of some local renown. In addition to his involvement in the sweet science Silvers was also toting a gun for the Shapiro Brothers in during their reign as the slot machine kings of Brownsville. In the summer of 1930 the Shapiros were at war with the Abe Reles and his minions known as the Combination.

Silvers had made an unsuccessful attempt on the life of Ocean Hill gangster and recent Reles confederate Harry "Happy" Maione and on August 26, 1930 Maione struck back. Slightly before midnight, Silvers was driving along when a car containing four men crowded his car to a stop. Maione bound out of the car and jumped on the running board of Silvers' machine. Yelling something to the effect of, "You were gonna put me on the spot, now I'm going to give it to you," he fired a .45 slug into the boxer's chest. Maione leapt from the running board and back into the car that was driving alongside and was whisked away.

The wounded gangster was taken to the hospital where he told authorities that "A guy named Happy." shot him before expiring the following day. Nothing came of Silvers squealing.

 

Joey Silvers

House Call

As the Roaring Twenties came to a close, brothers Meyer and Irving Shapiro were the top underworld dogs in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Together they controlled the slot machines and other nefarious activities in their bailiwick. Irving's main concern was floating crap games. One of their goons was a young thug named Abe Reles, who decided that since he was taking all the chances that could find him in jail or the cemetery he was entitled to a bigger slice of the pie. The Shapiros saw it differently and war broke out out.

Reles and his band shot it out with the Shapiro gang for about year, each side losing members, Finally on July 11, 1931, Reles though that he had both Shapiros in his sites. He knew that they  were both at the Democratic Social club and so he, Happy Maione, Dasher Abbandando and Vito Gurino waited outside in order to gun them down. 

As the Shapiros exited, another group of men followed them out so Reles called off the assassination. Assuming that they were going to head to the family home, Reles and company drove there and beat them home. The reason being was that Meyer wanted to go to the turkish baths so was dropped off. Irving was going to join him but had their driver, Smokey Epstein, take him home first for a change of clothes.

While this was taking place Reles and his confederates entered the foyer of the Shapiro house and removed the light bulb and waited. They heard the car pull and idle as Irving jumped out and ran up to the house. Entering the dark foyer he could nothing. His enemies pulled their triggers and two bullets ripped into Irving's face, spinning him around, the gunmen stayed long enough to empty their guns in the prostrate hoodlum's back. It was one Shapiro down, one to go.

Irving Shapiro

I Spy

Ralph D'Amato was a gangster associated with Frankie Yale and Al Capone. It was with the latter that he was arrested just after Christmas of 1925 for the murder of White Hand gang members Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan, Neil "Needles" Ferry and Aaron Harms in the Adonis Social Club.

By the mid-twenties the relationship between Yale and Capone had started to sour. When Capone's alcohol trucks, supposedly being protected by Yale, began to get hijacked, Capone started getting suspicious. He called on Ralph D'Amato to spy for him. Sure enough, D'Amato was able to report that Yale was indeed the one behind the hijackings.

Unfortunately for D'Amato, Yale found out that he had a spy in his midst. The gang leader rectified the situation on July 7, 1927. Shortly before midnight, D'Amato was speaking to two men on a corner. They parted ways, but the men followed him and opened fire. D'Amato was hit in the neck, stomach and side. The gunmen ran back to the corner and jumped into a sedan and escaped.

D'Amato was about forty-years old and lived with his dad and sister. He had six arrests under his belt and did a year in prison for possessing narcotics.

Ralph D'Amato

Sorry Charlie

Charles Entratta was a former associate of Jack "Legs" Diamond with dealings go back to the 1920s. He was with Diamond in the Hotsy-Totsy club when the guns went off  in the summer of 1929 leaving gangland fellows, William Cassidy and Simon Walker dead.

Like Diamond, Entratta disappeared while the homicide detectives searched in vain for them. Eventually arrested in Chicago, Entratta was sent back to New York City to face a murder trial. He beat the rap, which allowed Diamond to come out of hiding and to be himself, exonerated.  Since none of the boys helped Entratta during his troubles, his relationship with Diamond soured.

Fast forward to the summer of 1931. In addition to a box factory and dress manufacturing plant, Entratta is part owner of Winkenfeld Bottling Company in Brooklyn. Using his underworld connections, it is assumed that Entratta was bottling beer and sales skyrocketed. Though lucrative, his enterprise was most unwelcome by the local beer barons and on July 6, of that year he was put out of business; permanently.

Moments after arriving at the bottling office in his chauffeured sedan, Entratta was gunned down by three men while talking to his partner. His partner was physically unharmed...economically? Sales probably plummeted.

Charles Entratta

Red's Dead Baby, Red's Dead

Ninety-years ago today Charles "Red" Donnelly's name was added to the list of former White Hand gang leaders. Red's record dated back to the teens when he was arrested with Wild Bill Lovett for homicide back in 1919. Over the course of the decade, as the gang leaders fell, Red's stock rose in the gang. Sometime around mid 1928, we are told, Red took over the reigns of the White Hands water front rackets.

Like those before him, his days were numbered and he got what, assuredly, he knew as coming at some point. As he watched his men load a ship word came to Red that somebody wanted to see him in the "shack", the shack being the shanty that doubled as an office. He walked into the shack. Inside some words were exchanged, possibly in a loud manner. Next two shots were heard. One went into Red's left temple the other his ear.

Though nobody saw anything leadership was passed to one Mathew "Matty" Martin, who, like Red,...well, that's another post.

Red Donnelly

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

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

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.

Rossi out

A mere two days after New York City's most powerful Mafia chief, Joe "the Boss" Masseria, was gunned down. Ernest "Hoppy" Rossi was driving his Cadillac in Brooklyn when he was stopped behind a truck. Unable to go anywhere, he was a sitting duck for the car that drove up along side him and let loose with a barrage of fire.  Hit in the head and neck, Rossi slumped over dead. 

Two men who were in the back seat jumped out and ran. It is probable that the two men were mafia guys Carmelo Liconti and Johnny "Silk Stocking" Giustra, loyal Masseria men who were on the spot themselves after the murder of "the Boss."

Hoppy Rossi

A Boss Buys it

Eighty-nine years ago today one of New York's Mafia bosses was bumped off in Brooklyn. Giuseppe Piraino, known as the "Clutching Hand" because of some gnarled fingers on his right hand, was said to have inherited the Bay Ridge liquor traffic after the demise of Frankie Yale. Supposedly he had just exited a gangland summit where he agreed to stop operating in other Mafiosis territory but refused to split the profits he made from venturing into their locale.  It is also possible that he was a victim of the Castellammarese War, that was then in progress.

Whatever the reason, Piraino was crossing the street when the shots rang out. Three slugs entered the area of his heart and two more went into his chest. According to a witness, after Piraino was struck, the mob boss swayed, then turned back to where the shots came from and fell face up into the gutter dead.

The Dead Baron

On March 14, 1930 twenty-nine year old William "Baron" Simpson was added to the list of murder victims in Brooklyn's White Hand* territory when his body was found in an alleyway leading from Furman Street to pier 16 on the East River. Someone had come up behind him and placed a .38 to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. Although the murder took place at around noon next to a tin can factory with two hundred employees that were on lunch break there were no witnesses.
"Baron" was the boss of a small group of dock workers and had a reputation as a fierce street fighter. According to his brother, "Whitie" Simpson, "Baron" had gotten into an argument with three men at a near by pier about an hour before the murder. The argument turned into a fistfight and "Baron" proceeded to savagely beat all three men until they ran away. Simpson was last seen, alone, turning into the alleyway in which he was found a short time later.
Even with the story about the fight with the three men, police stated that they believed that Simpson was another in the long line of Irish thugs murdered in the unending battle for leadership of the dock rackets.

Look out! There goes the Spider Man

John "Spider" Murtha, called "The toughest man in Brooklyn" by detectives, was gunned down by killers from Murder Inc. on this date in 1935. Born circa 1898 Murtha dubbed himself "Spider" while a featherweight boxer in his youth but it was his exploits outside of the ring that made the plug-ugly an infamous Brooklyn character. It was said that Murtha enjoyed being pointed out in taverns as a "Cop beater" and that he never carried a gun choosing instead to rely on a razor or any weapon he could improvise out of broken beer bottle or mug.

The boys from Murder Inc. caught up with Spider at 10:30 a.m. when he and his girlfriend, Marie Nestfield, were returning from an all night outing, they had just exited a hotel when the two gunmen quietly walked up behind them. As one of them pushed Marie aside the other one exclaimed, "Now we got you Spider!" and the two men fired a total of five shots into Murtha hitting him twice in the head and three times in the chest. "Spider" stumbled for a moment then collapsed dead next to an elevated subway pillar.

For more info on Spider and Murder Inc. check out Gangster City.

Don't eat the red snow

Eighty-six years ago this morning an employee of a Brooklyn lumber yard showed up for work and found a trail of blood. His curiosity piqued, he followed said trail which led to a pile of snow. Digging he found one James Tinorello who had been shot three times in the back of the head. Police said that Tinorello, who was 27 and had six arrest under his belt, was involved in a liquor syndicate that operated in Brooklyn and Queens.

Prosecution loses a witness

In June of 1930 reputed olive oil dealer Leo Noto and some accomplices kidnapped the son of a wealthy Brooklyn baker that lived just down the street from him. The kidnappers demanded $10,000 and released the boy after $7000 was paid with the promise to make up the $3000 in the near future. In the interim the baker went to the police and a trap was laid to catch the gang when they came to claim the additional three grand. The trap worked and six members of the kidnap gang, including Noto, were apprehended.

Noto was released on $25,000 bail and made a deal with the authorities to testify against the rest of the gang. Leo's ex pals decided that it might be best for them if Leo didn't make the court date. To that end, eighty-five years ago today twenty-nine year old Noto left the house that he shared with his wife and four children and, with his hands in his pockets, began walking across a vacant lot. While he was still in the lot a Packard sedan containing three men pulled up. The doors flew open and two shotguns went off. Leo dropped and never got up.