Eighty years ago this morning a milk man was making his rounds in Queens when he came up on the the corpse of Felix Lopresti. The 25-year old ex-boxer had been garroted with a sash chord and had his throat slit.
Police believed that Felix was lured into a car in Manhattan and strangled. His killers then drove to Queens and to dump the body but slit his throat first to ensure death. the knife was found a short distance away in a vacant lot.
Judging by his shabby clothes it appears that Felix was down on his luck at the time of the murder. In addition to boxing the dead man was also known as a gambler and crook. He had been arrested three times in the past three years for robbery, assault and felonious assault but was acquitted in each case. At a loss for a reason behind Lopresti's murder, the authorities wrote down a handful of motives and put them into the chief of detectives hat. The slip of paper chosen said, "Killed for welching on a gambling debt." Everyone agreed that that sounded like a good choice so they went with that.
"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." - Chicago Gangster Ted Newberry. Rubbed out January 7, 1933
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