Today marks the seventy-ninth anniversary of the killing of thirty-one year old John Saricelli described by the New York Herald as "a superintendent of a fleet of trucks used to transport Dutch Schultz’s beer into Harlem and Bronx speakeasies." Saricelli was a victim of the Schultz-Coll war that was raging in the summer of '31.
At 3:45 am two gunmen went to his house and rang his doorbell. Saricelli made his way downstairs and answered the door. Armed with a .45's, one of the men bid Saricelli, “Good morning.” Then both fired one shot each into the bootlegger’s chest.
The gunmen fled as Saricelli stumbled into his kitchen and had his wife light him a cigarette before allowing her to call an ambulance. Once in the "wagon" The police pumped him for information but Saricelli kept to the gangster code. “Get away. Don’t bother me. I know I’m dying but you get nothing from me.” And they didn't. Sometimes a day job doesn't seem all that bad.
"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." - Chicago Gangster Ted Newberry. Rubbed out January 7, 1933
3 comments:
I knew a lou saeicelli from that part of the Bronx when I was a Kid. In a book called Up There The Stars Lou was described as a man about town. I wonder if this guy was a relation of his.. John C...
Could be. Doesn't seem like a common name. John had a younger brother named Ernest. Does that ring a bell?
I dont knoe Pat there is noone around to ask. Ernest was a pretty popular name in that neighborhood though. I will dig out that book again although I remember the guys saying that some of the people mentioned in that book were fictisious, they never heard of them ... John C..
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