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.