The Sandlot

It may have been an ambush as some papers implied or, most likely, it was meeting or truce between St. Louis' Russo gang and members of the Cuckoo gang, that turned sour. What is known is that on July 25, 1928, three members of the Russo gang: Jimmy Russo, Mike Longo and Jack Griffin. Met with a few Cuckoo gangsters, probably Tommy Hayes and a few of his minions.

The meet took place in a vacant lot, where a house used by Hayes once stood.  There were neighboring houses and witnesses in adjoining yards who witnessed the shooting. One of them, who knew Russo and Longo and said he'd seen them there numerous times, stated that while looking over the fence, he saw the gangsters tossing a ball around. All was peaceful until, "Suddenly they began to argue hotly over something.,,Longo and Russo and two others began fist fighting." The witness went on to say that Russo pulled a .45 and started shooting. After that everyone drew guns and started blasting away at each other. It was at this time that the witness stated that another man sprang from a Chrysler with a Thompson machine gun and yelled, "Give it to 'em boys! They ain't any good anyhow. Give it to them good!" Then he lit up the yard with a number of blasts.

Russo and Longo dropped dead. Griffin, with half a dozen shots in his right shoulder and chest fell but managed to crawl to a neighboring house after the Cuckoos fled the seen. A short time later, gunmen invaded the store of a Russo ally and wounded three men. It appears, that after the sandlot battle, the gunmen attempted to wipe out the whole Russo operation.

The fact that the battle was started by Russo and took place in the middle of the afternoon with witnesses nearby lends credence to fact that it was a spur of the moment fight and not a planned ambush. The guy with the Tommy gun was probably there for just such an occurrence. 

Jimmy Russo            Mike Longo                   Jack Griffin

Sam I Was

Twenty-eight year old Sam Cilluffo, started in the Detroit booze racket at the on set of Prohibition. He had been arrested five times since 1922, and did a stretch in Leavenworth for bootlegging. Cilluffo worked for East Detroit mob boss Angelo Meli, who during the summer of 1930, was at war with the West Side's Chester LaMare.

After the murder of two of LaMare's boys on July 7, the West Siders struck back by eliminating Cilluffo. At about 12:25 AM on July 12, Cilluffo was driving along in his coupe when a sedan containing three men swung up along side him. One of the men blew out Cilluffo's rear tires with a shotgun blast, forcing the gangster to stop. When he did, the sedan drove past and another hoodlum raked Cilluffo's coupe with a Thompson machine-gun, hitting the gangster eleven time.

Sam Cilluffo

A machine gun toting coward killed Mr. Howard

At a little after 2 am on this day back in 1931, Kansas City, Missouri experienced its first gangland hit involving a Tommy gun. The victim was 38 year-old bootlegger Jimmy Howard who, we are told, refused to fall in line with other KC rum runners in a forming a syndicate. Apparently Howard brought in premium stuff from Canada so was able to both charge more and please customers.

According to police, Howard, an ex-boxer, was originally from St. Louis, where he was a member of Egan's Rats.  For his alcohol business, he used the office of the A.B.C. cab company to take phone calls. In 1927 he arrested for the murder of cabaret singer Bobby Barrone. Barrone was a practical joke who liked to pull a pistol out of his pocket and tell people to "Stick 'em up!" One night he played his joke on Howard, who wasn't in on the gag, and Howard pulled out his own gun and fired. He was exonerated. He had been picked up and questioned periodically for other crimes.

Defying the other KC gangsters put Howard on the spot and he knew it. It was reported that in the last few weeks of his life he was very nervous. Hours before he was finally rubbed out, somebody took to shots at him as he was leaving his girl friends apartment.

Around 2:20 that morning, Howard stood in the front office of A.B.C taxi company speaking with one of the owners when two men walked up. The men stopped in front of the large picture window and, opening his coat, pulled up a Thompson machine-gun which was strapped to his arm and blasted through the picture window. The guy with him pulled out a pistol but didn't need to use it. Howard was perforated by fourteen bullets and expired a few hours later.

A sedan pulled up and the two gunmen jumped in and sped off. Since a tommy gun was used, it was assumed that the killer was a torpedo brought in from Chicago.

Can you hear me now?

88-years ago this evening, New York City rid itself of Vince "the Mick" Coll, or "Irish" as his contemporaries also called him (It was the press that dubbed him Mad Dog.) after he and an associate entered a drug store on Manhattan's W. 23rd Street.

The victim of a double cross, Irish entered a phone booth to make a prearranged call, supposedly, to underworld powerhouse Owney Madden while his pal took a seat at the counter. While the Mad Dog and Owney were conversing, a car containing a hit squad pulled up front. Gunmen hopped out and covered the store's front door. Coll's pal was allowed to leave as a machine-gun toting hoodlum made his way back to the phone booths. Finding the booth containing Coll the gunman lined himself up and blasted the Mick into gangster history.

Taxi Driver

Chicago- Just before 8:30 pm on this evening back in 1930, cab driver James Ruane pulled up to an apartment building where he was supposed to pick up a fare named "Mr. Presto". He entered the vestibule but there were no names listed. He knocked on the ground floor apartment but nobody answered. Walking back to this cab, he shone his spotlight on the building and saw four or five guys peaking out the window. Annoyed, he went back up and kicked the door.  This time Mr. Presto stepped out.

Ruane headed back to his cab a few steps a head of Presto and opened the rear door of his cab. Something across the street caught Ruane's eye, a man in a second story apartment across the street was lifting the window. Then he placed something big on the sill. That something began to spit fire and bullets sprayed the area. Mr. Presto let out a groan, his body jerking as a number of bullets slammed into it.

In an attempt to save himself, Mr. Presto staggered around the apartment he just vacated and found momentary relief in an alley. However, a second machine gun nest, came alive and another volley slammed into Presto's body and he collapsed.

Their job complete, the group of assassins fled their nests. Ruane ran up to his fare, whose life was slipping away. An off duty cop who lived nearby ran over and they placed Presto in the cab for an unnecessary ride to the hospital. He was dead.

Mr. Presto was in fact, rival gang leader to Al Capone, Joe Aiello. For years Aiello, who had allied himself with Capone's other arch enemy Bugs Moran, had tried to kill Capone. Aiello had fled Chicago a number of times but always returned in his hopes to displace Capone as Chicago's top gangster.

A Chicago Double

It was a two-fer for Chicago on this date back in 1931. Former dirty cop George Wilson's machine-gun perforated body was found by three girls who were walking near a railroad viaduct and James Quigley, a South Side saloon keeper, who was said to have been a one time member of Spike O'Donnell's gang but had recently broke out on his own with his own gang, was found floating in a drainage canal in about thirty minutes south of Chicago in the city of Lockport.

Thirty-three year old Wilson was kicked off the force in 1923 for shaking down wine merchants. Afterwards he may have been involved with the Druggan-Lake gang but may have had a falling out. It was reported that he had said, "If anything happens to me, George Druggan [brother of gang leader Terry Druggan] a week prior to his murder he was arrested for a robbery and posted bail.

Forty-Five year old Quigley was originally a railroad man who moved into the saloon business. After breaking with O'Donnell he tried carving out his own territory which put him at odds with O'Donnell and as well as the Saltis-McErlane gang. It was believed that Quigley killed Frank McErlane's chauffeur George Fitzgerald and that McErlane was the one who put him in the drainage canal with a bullet in the head.

  L.  George Wilson         R.  James Quigley

A pig to the slaughter

John "Piggy" Weller was a member of St. Louis' Cuckoo gang. The 31 year old gangster had been arrested 76 times and did five years for a murder. Along with his partner Louis Mandel, Weller operated the Villa Iris roadhouse located a few miles east of St. Louis.

On this date in 1928, two masked man entered the Villa Iris and ordered the band, staff and customers to lie down. They grabbed a band member and waiter and demanded to know the whereabouts of Weller. They told him he wasn't there so, the killers had the doorman phone him and tell him that something important had come up and he needed to come in.

When Weller pulled up an hour later, the hit squad was waiting for him. As the gangster stepped up on the porch he was greeted with a blast from a machine in the face and abdomen.

John "Piggy" Weller

Little Boy Blue

Joe Blue was a life long criminal who had been released from the Federal prison in Atlanta the previous January after serving five years for a payroll robbery. While at Atlanta he became a close friend with former Chicago hoodlum Jimmy Murray, who, in addition to being a bootlegger, was serving a sentence for his part in the Rondout mail robbery.

After his release from Atlanta, Blue returned to Chicago and began working as a bootlegger. A job that cost him his life on this date in 1930. Blue's last moments were spent trying to out run a car more powerful than his Ford. His V8 engine could do only so much; the touring car over took his and without slowing down, as it passed, a machine gunner raked Blue's car with fire. The Ford careened into the curb as the driver expired.

Some beer was found in the car as well as a pricing list for whiskey. There was also a list of names including Murray's wife and brother in-law, who police said were bootleggers. It's probable that Murray had told Blue to hook up with his wife after he got out of prison for a job.

Joe Blue

A Thompson for Tommy (and his friends)

 It was just around 1AM on this date back in 1932 when St. Louis gang leader Tommy Hayes was returning from a trip to Chicago with two of his top aides, Harry "Pretty Boy" Lechler, and William "Willie G." Wilbert. Hayes was in his armored Lincoln and Lechler and Wilbert followed in a brand new Plymouth roadster purchased the previous day in Chicago.

Hayes was a former member of St. Louis's infamous Cuckoo gang. He had been involved in robberies and numerous murders, As of late, he was credited with a couple of bombings in an attempt to shake down a racing wire service and bookmaking operation ran by other Cuckoo members. It was also stated the Shelton Brothers, had warned Hayes to turn down the violence because he was bringing down heat on everyone. In short Hayes was a big headache for the St. Louis underworld.

Whether it was the Sheltons or the Cuckoos, or possibly members of his own gang, the end came for the the top tier of the Hayes gang as they approached home. Just prior to 1 AM, the Plymouth, driven by Wilbert, pulled over on a road near Granite City, Illinois. Why they pulled over is unknown. Was it a police car? Associates? Whatever the reason, that Wilbert and Lechler were apprehensive about stopping was apparent because Wilbert grabbed a Thompson and held it between his legs while Lechler armed himself with a pistol and a "whippet" gun (A sawed off shotgun with a reduced stock.) Before they had chance to use them however their car was raked with gunfire from he right side. Wilbert was killed outright and slumped over the wheel. Lechler was mortally wounded. The car was seen at around 1 o'clock and when the same person saw it a few hours later he called the cops. Lechler was still alive but died en-route to the hospital.

At about the same time Lechler and Wilbert were getting it, a few miles a head in the town of Madison, Illinois, Hayes pulled his Lincoln over to the curb. A watchman working nearby saw the car stop, "As I watched it," he told a reporter, "I heard a lot of shots. They sounded like they were from a machine gun." After the shooting Hayes car drove across the sidewalk, through a fence and came to a stop in a vacant lot. The witness saw two men get out and walk away.

The watchman approached the Lincoln and found Hayes lying on the ground with his hands up and his legs tucked under him. He had been shot numerous times in the back, right side, face and hands.  The dashboard also had a number of bullet holes.

Judging by reports, it sounds like Hayes was at the wheel and shot from someone in the rear passenger side seat. Apparently Hayes didn't put his machine in park before he got shot and that's how they ended up in the vacant lot.

 

Tommy Hayes

 Pretty Boy Lechler           Wille G Wilbert

Labor Pains

Around 4:45AM on this date back in 1929, a cop noticed a sedan pull into the alley behind the Western Hotel, in Chicago suburb of Cicero. The Western was formally called the Hawthorne and was used as the headquarters for Al Capone and his gang.

As the cop approached the car two guys climbed out and one of them yelled, "Look out for the cop!" and both men started to run. The officer fired a couple shots at them, but they managed to get away. Returning to the car the patrolman looked inside and found two guys crumpled on the floor.

The dead men turned out to be Michael Reilly, 28, and his partner, William Clifford, 24. Together with their partners George "Red" Barker and Thomas Cauley, Reilly and Clifford were known as labor racketeers. The foursome would muscle their way into unions and take over with either threats of violence or in the case of stubborn union heads, murder and terrorism.

The duo, with Barker, had recently beat a the rap after shooting a policeman. In their bid to take over a parking garage union, they killed a man. Supposedly returning to kill a witness, a police officer stopped them and they shot the cop. The trio fled to California where they were subsequently captured. During the trial the wounded cop refused to identify them and they walked. Barker was imprisoned on a different charge but Reilly and Clifford went free.

To help refill their coffers, Reilly and Clifford starting leaning on the unions, and other gangsters in general, to ante up. The result was that the two hoodlums were stood up against a wall and machine gunned. Their corpses were then loaded into Reilly's car and dumped behind the Western Hotel.

Mike Reilly     Bill Clifford

Curly gets straightened out

Though identified as coal miners, Frank  "Curly" Hines, 28, was under bond in some central Illinois cities for auto theft, he was also a suspected bootlegger as well as hijacker. His brother in-law, 27-year old Smith Tucker had no police record.

On this date in 1929, Hines and Tucker were driving near Wilsonville, Illinois, Hines at the wheel when a large blue sedan came up from behind. On version has it that someone from the sedan called to Hines, who pulled over. Two guys got out of the car and, as Hines approached then, a machine gun opened fire. With numerous wounds, including four to the head. Hines fell to the ground. The gun man then turned his weapon towards the car and let forth another burst which took car of Tucker. The other version is that the killers opened fire as the sedan passed the duo and Hines dropped over the wheel dead, while Tucker took a blast trying to get out of the car. Either way, the boys were done.

It's possible that Hines may have hijacked some good hooch from the wrong St. Louis's gang and paid the price.

Go Fish

Frank Wright, a gunman from out west was in his room at the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit when he received a phone call. - On the previous Saturday, March 26, 1927, Meyer "Fish" Blumfield, who worked at a gambling resort run by a guy named Charles "Doc" Brady had been kidnapped. It appears that Doc had hired Wright to handle the situation- The caller stated that Fish could be found in apartment #3 at 106 Alexandrine Street. Doc Brady, not wanting to pay a ransom, gave Wright the information.

Wright, together with two other out-of-town gunmen, William Harrison, aka George Cohen and Isaac Reisfeld aka Joe Bloom. headed to the apartment. The trio entered the building. Apparently the kidnappers were on guard for just just such a trick because as the men were in the hallway approaching apartment 3, a machine gun erupted and the men, riddled with bullets, fell to the floor. Harrison and Reisfeld were killed outright while Wright lingered for a day or so before succumbing to his wounds.

After that, Doc Brady saw things differently. The ransom was paid and Blumfield was released within a few days.

X Marks the spot for an Ex-Cop and Pal

Three hundred miles or so southwest of Chicago is the town of Collinsville, Illinois. There, lived a 42 year old ex-policeman and ex-deputy sheriff named Joseph Colone. After turning in his badge he became involved in a racing book. Charles Bowers, 40, was a friend and associate who owned a bar. Bowers was having some trouble with law, and had plead not guilty to a liquor charge on March 23, 1932. They left the court at Springfield and headed back to Collinsville in Colone's Studebaker.

Back home, they stopped at a tavern for a while before continuing with their night. At approximately 1:45AM on the 24th, Colone's car was forced to the side of the road by another car and a man with Thompson machine gun let her rip. Colone took the brunt of the blast with thirty-five bullets riddling his body. Bowers managed to get out of the car and run twenty feet before collapsing with eight bullets in him. Ir was said that, at the morgue, numerous bullets fell out of Colone's clothes as they were stripping him down. Why were they killed? To paraphrase Chicago gangster Ted Newberry, "They must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." We have a sneaking suspicion that the answers lied with some St. Louis gangsters.

A First Time for Everything

A little after midnight on this date back in 1931, Luigi Piazza pulled into a gas station near Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Greensburg is a small town in western PA outside of the city of Jeanette. At this time Jeanette, located in Westmoreland County, was home to numerous glass factories and a large portion of it's fifteen thousand inhabitants supplied much of America with it's glass. It was Piazza's job to supply these inhabitants with alcohol.

As Piazza sat in his car listening to the gas pump ding, I like to imagine him thinking to himself, "Gee wiz, there has never been a gangster bumped off with a Tommy gun in all of Westmoreland County. Being a bootlegger here sure beats doing it in Chicago."

Obviously we don't know what Piazza was thinking at the time but while he was thinking whatever it was that he thought, a large touring sedan pulled into the station and parked next to him with the back window curtains closed. After it came to a stop the curtains parted and the muzzle of a Thompson machine-gun, said to be the first ever used in Westmoreland County, came forth. As the station attendant continued to pump petrol into Piazza's car,the gunman pumped a number of rounds into Piazza.

Mission completed, the sedan pulled away as Piazza slumped to the floor of his car. An ambulance was called and the bootlegger was rushed to the hospital where he died later in the day.

Cohen may have been Lucky, Fishman, not so much

On this date back in 1932 gangster Richard Fishman, said to have three notches on his shooting iron, was standing in the front parlor of Lucky Cohen's Chicago gambling joint, which doubled as a cigar store. Just as regular joe Jack Magdal entered, to either buy a cigar or gamble, a burst of machine-gun fire spat forth and Fishman dropped dead while Magdal fell with a bullet in the arm. I suspect his stogie was on the house.

Diamond's are not a Noe's best friend

Eighty-Seven-years ago this morning Legs Diamond had a meeting set up with his former proteges and current rivals, Joey Noe & Dutch Schultz to exchange money for territory.  Correctly assuming that Diamond might try to pull some monkey business, Noe was wearing a bullet proof vest while Dutch and possibly a few others took positions in some nearby second story windows. As Noe approached the designated meeting spot a blue Cadillac came speeding up from behind and a guy, Louis Weinberg, opened fire on him. The assassin scored a lucky shot on Noe's body where the vest wasn't covering and the Dutchman's partner went down. Dutch, and any others, in hiding opened fire on the Cadillac, which sped away. One of the bullets from above pierced the roof of the Caddy and killed Weinberg. The car, with the dead man, was ditched on the lower east side. Noe was taken to the hospital and questioned but kept to the gangster code until dying about a month later.

Wake Up Call

On this date back in 1930, Sam Therina, said to be a member of the Cuckoo gang, pulled up in front of a St. Louis hospital, laid on the horn of his coupe then passed out. The reason for his passing out was multiple machine gun bullets in his pelvis. He was carried into the hospital and prepped for surgery.

During the operation police came in to question him. Guess they could do that back then. He told them that he, two other Cuckoos named Peter McTigue and James Dormandy along with William Boody, an "agent" with a plumbing union who happened to have a rap sheet matching the Cuckoo guys, and some other fella were working a still near the town of Valmeyer, Ill.

According to Therina, he and McTigue were sleeping when machine gun fire began to rake the shack they were holed up in. Therina jumped up and was immediately wounded. He heard Boody gasp, "I'm dying." and saw that McTigue was already a goner. Dormandy and the other guy hightailed it into the woods.

The gunmen left and Therina managed to get to Boody's coupe and drive himself to the hospital. Detectives went out to the shack and, sure enough, there were McTigue and Boody just like Therina said.