Another Murder in Detroit

The bullets were flying in Detroit the spring and summer of 1930, and bootlegger Henry Tupancy caught his lethal dose on July 15, 1930. Tupancy was arrested in 1922 for selling booze in his speakeasy and paid a $500 fine. By 1930 he was also producing the stuff, as was evidenced in a number of corn sugar receipts found on his person after he was killed.

Tupancy was sitting in his car along with another bootlegger, Louis Salvio, who was most likely a member of the Licavoli gang, having been arrested that spring with a number of Licavoli - Moceri gangsters following the murder of a police officer.

As Tupancy and Salvio sat in the former's auto, witnesses of a nearby street car, as well as some children playing, saw a man wearing striped linen pants, a cream colored silk shirt and a pair of black and white shoes, (no coat or hat) approach the car and, producing two guns, open fire on Tupancy. The victim was hit by nine shots and died. Salvio took a bullete to the gut, hopped out of the car and ran a short distance before collapsing.

Mobster Peter Licavoli was arrested for the murder. At the hospital, and later on the stand, Salvio played mute. He said he didn't even know Tupancy and didn't recognize the shooter. Seeing that Salvio, was probably a member of the Licavoli gang and not the intended target, he may have been setting Tupancy up and was hit by friendly fire.

Though Salvio didn't identify Licavoli as the shooter, a number of witnesses did and he was shipped off to prison for life. Salvio was living on borrowed time however. He got his the following October, but it wasn't the bullets of rival gangsters that brought him down, it was bullets from a jealous husband. The gangster was rooming with a married couple in a volatile relationship. The husband left home for period of time and came home and found his wife and Salvio "talking". The enraged husband killed Salvio and shot his wife, who survived.

 

Henry Tupancy      Louis Salvio