The Bad Pope

Erneste Mazzoni better known as, "West Side" Frankie Pope was a Chicago hoodlum who was sent to Leavenworth prison in mid 1931 for violation of the Prohibition Act. Released in November of 1933 Pope, who added the West Side to his name to distinguish himself from the more infamous North Side Frankie Pope, had a small racket going where he would take money from family members of Leavenworth prisoners to help get them paroled. Only problem was, he didn't do anything for them after taking the money.

This was the reason anyway that police gave after two men entered his hotel room on the morning of March 7, 1934 and blasted him into eternity. According to witnesses, Pope returned to his room that morning and a short time later to men entered the hotel. They called up to his room and after a brief discussion went up.

Once they were in his room for a few minutes, a cleaning woman heard lady scream, "My God! Don't do that!" This was followed by about ten shots. All of which hit Pope. Hearing the shooting, the desk clerk called the cops but the gunmen and the woman were gone before they arrived.

It was while searching Pope's room that detectives came across the list of prisoners and their families. On the list were two notorious bank robbers and killers; Thomas Holden and Francis Keating. Perhaps Pope double crossed them in some fashion and they had him knocked off.

Six hours later another West Side hoodlum, Daniel Losce sat in his car smoking a cigarette when another car pulled up and let loose a barrage of gunfire. Losce slumped over dead. The dead man had a record dating back to 1922 including an arrest for murder. Back at his house, police found a small arsenal. Interestingly, he was a suspect in the 1928 Evergreen Park mail robbery which resulted in the theft of $133,000. This job was pulled by a gang headed by Thomas Holden and Francis Keating. This link had police wondering, was Losce working with Pope? Or was it simply a coincidence that they both were bumped off on the same day?

                                           West Side Frankie Pope        Daniel Losce                           

Don't Bank On It

 

It was supposed to be an easy job; run into the Kraft Bank located in Menomonie, Wisconsin, make everyone lie on the floor, grab the money and run. Driving the getaway car was Frank Webber, going inside were veteran bank robbers Charles Harmon, Francis Keating and Tommy Holden. The date of execution- October 20, 1931.

As planned, Webber parked the car and his three confederates alighted and entered the bank. The drew their guns and demanded money. Above the main floor was a guard who had been ordered not to do any shooting in the event of a robbery. After grabbing less than $10,000 in cash, one of the robbers demanded more money. The bank president, Sam Kraft, declared there was no more. Unsatisfied with the answer, one of the bandits fired into him.

Meantime the guard set off the alarm and headed to the roof of the bank with a rifle. Hearing this, Webber pulled the car up to the bank and stepped out with a Thompson machine-gun and began spraying the streets to ward off any would be heroes. The bandits grabbed a cashier, James Kraft, one of the bank president's sons, and another woman to use as human shields.

Running to the car the woman fell and they left her there, the cashier was pushed into the car. The desired effect of having a human shield didn't work. The guard and various towns people opened fire on the car as it drove away.

About six miles out of town, the posse found the dead bodies of Frankie Webber and James Kraft. Webber had been hit in the head by a vigilante's bullet. It was believed that the bandits had killed Kraft in retaliation. The following day, the body of Charles Harmon was found, he too, it was assumed, hit by bullets while fleeing.

Frankie Webber        Charles Harmon