Spiked

Let us remember today one Edgar "Spiker" Smith who went the way of all gangster flesh on this date back in 1931.

Yes friends it was eighty-four years ago this evening that a citizen of Chicago's south side went to the coppers and reported that he saw, right in front of his own house mind you,  a man get shot in a sedan. Later that night, said car was found with "Spiker" (not to be confused with Edward "Spike" O'Donnell, another Chicago hoodlum and survivor of numerous assassination attempts) slumped over in the front passenger side.

Spiker was called both a Capone hoodlum as well as the body guard of Danny Stanton. Regarding the latter, both he and Spiker were wanted in Waukesha, Wisconsin for the murder of prominent Chicago nogoodnik Jack Zuta who got a fatal dose of lead while hiding out there in a resort. Together with Danny, Spiker was fighting extradition to Wisconsin to stand trial.

Police said that Spiker was bumped off because of a south side beer war or possibly for retaliation for killing a film projectionist in a labor feud. Being sentimentalists we here at the institute like to think he got it from his "friends". Maybe he was getting nervous about the Zuta business and they thought it would be better if he went on a one way vacation.