What Is The Law? No Spill Blood

During the summer of 1935, semi-powerful Brooklyn racketeer Joseph Amberg (Joey A to his fellow gangsters) took it upon his self to to rid gangland of one Hy Kasner, a hoodlum who had crossed him in some manner. Together with two of his henchmen, Jack Elliot and Frankie Teitlebaum, Amberg snatched Kasner from the streets, killed him, stuffed him in a sack and dropped him in a sewer. Business as usual in Brownsville back in the 1930s.

It was Amberg's hope that the sack containing Kasner would wash out to sea and his disappearance would be but a mystery. Unfortunately for the gangster, it popped up near shore and what was left of Kasner was fished out. Soon the names of Kasner's killers traveled the underworld grapevine. This proved problematic for Amberg because Kasner was an associate of both Albert Anastasia and Louis Capone, the director and assistant director of Murder Inc. 

A Syndicate hearing was called to decide what to do about the Amberg affair. Anastasia and Capone argued that Amberg and his murdering cohorts should themselves be removed for taking Syndicate law into their own hands. Amberg had friends in high places though, namely Joe Adonis and Bugsy Siegel who argued that Amberg should get a pass.

In the end, Adonis and Siegel were overruled and a contract was put out on Amberg. Chosen for the job was Murder Inc. hitman Harry "Happy" Maione, Mafia guy Phil Mangano, and another guy known as "Red" Pulvino. The location chosen for the hit was the Brownsville garage where Amberg parked his car.

On September 30, 1935 Amberg's chauffeur Morris Kessler pulled into the garage with his boss. As the two men stepped out of the car the hit squad approached the men and told them to face the wall. Assuming that they were the victims of a robbery, the men complied. Amberg however, turned and noticed Maione and said, "It's-" before he could get more out the men were cut down by shotgun blasts. Once they were on the ground, one of the men ran up and fired a bullet into each man's head. Murder Inc. justice had been served.

Joe Amberg

Iron Man

In the early hours of September 29. 1932, Aaron "Iron" Barger's bullet-riddled corpse was found in an automobile on Chicago's south side. What constitutes riddled? Nine bullets in the head and body. He was also tortured before giving up the ghost. Unlucky him.

Barger was a suspect in the Evergreen mail robbery from 1928. His brother's garage was used as a hide-out for the bandits. We are told that Barger turned states evidence, and was exonerated while the two masterminds of the job, Frances Keating and Tommy Holden were sent to Leavenworth.

Who riddled Barge? Police speculated that his torture and death were a result of his attempting to muscle in on the Southside beer racket, which at the time was the battle ground for the Spike O'Donnell and Danny McGeoghegan gangs. It was also mentioned that he was involved with a ring of auto thieves and may have had a falling out.

Aaron "Iron" Barger

Train In Vain

Back in 1931 the NY Central Railroad had an elevated train running up Park Avenue. On the evening of September 24, as the train was passing between 132nd and 133rd Streets, a neighborhood resident saw a man fall from the passing locomotive. (another witness stated the body was tossed out of an auto) At first it was considered a freak accident that somebody fell from the train. During the autopsy however, it was discovered that the man had been shot behind the left ear with the bullet exiting his right cheek. It was the first gangster one-way train ride.

Finger prints determined that the dead man was ex-convict David Mazzer who had an extensive police record dating back to 1912 when he was sent to Sing Sing on a seven year rap for robbery. This was followed by numerous arrests and a few more stints in Sing Sing. He was last in police custody on October 11, 1930 when he was shot and wounded trying to escape the NYPD who had picked him on behalf of the Philadelphia police after he jumped bail in that City following his capture after cracking a safe. After recovering, he managed to beat the rap in Philly but was wanted in New Jersey at the time of his death.

David Mazzer

Jersey Justice

September 22, 1931 saw the demise of Philadelphia gangster Joseph "Big Lally" Wlaigovitz. Big Lally was known as bandit who robbed gambling joints and disorderly houses in New Jersey. In addition to about twenty arrests, he had tenuous ties to gang boss Mickey Duffy who was bumped off less than a month earlier in Atlantic City.

One of the many theories regarding his murder was that he was killed for trying to muscle in on some of Duffy's rackets. Whatever the reason, the Big Lally was sitting in the passenger seat of car when, seemingly, two gunman fired a number of shots into the back and side of his head. Afterwards he was dumped in ditch on the outskirts of Bridgeport, New Jersey.

Joseph "Big Lally" Wlaigovitz

The Bell Tolls No More

Four days after Meyer Shapiro was rubbed out. Another Brownsville gangster, Benjamin "the Bell" Meyerson was gunned down in Brooklyn. Though Meyerson was a known associate of the Shapiro brothers, most newspapers speculated that he was was probably killed by associates of a gambler named Max "Coco" Prince, who was shot the previous year. Meyerson was out on bail awaiting a hearing. The New York Daily News however, stated his murder was a result of those who bumped of Shapiro simply cleaning house.

Whatever the reason, Meyerson got his on September 21, 1931, when, after spending a portion of Yom Kippur praying in a synagogue, he agreed to meet a woman on a Brownsville street. As they walked a car pulled up and two men jumped out. Running up to the couple the opened fire and two bullets struck Meyerson in the head. Mortally wounded, the gangster staggered a few steps and collapsed. The woman he was walking with disappeared in the crowd as the gunmen escaped.

Benjamin the Bell Meyerson

Code Red

Edward "Red" Patterson was said to be a one time follower of Brooklyn waterfront gang leader Wild Bill Lovett. By 1932 he was known as a "petty and ambitious beer runner." His demise was the result of trying to force his beer into bars that were already buying from Anthony "Little Augie Pisano" Carfano.

On September 3, the ambitious bootlegger was in a speakeasy when some gunmen came in and opened fire. A bartender got in the way and caught the fatal dose of lead while Patterson was only wounded. His rivals caught up with him a few weeks later as he was exiting a second story room in a boarding house on September 20, 1932. As he stepped from the room somebody shot him in the back of the head twice. Once he was down, the gun was pressed to his skull and two more shots were fired. Red was out of the beer business.

Edward Red Patterson

Brothers Reunited

A couple months after knocking off his brother Irving in the family foyer, the Combination finally caught up with Meyer Shapiro. Following his brother's demise, Meyer moved into Manhattan for safety. He ventured back into Brooklyn to see a guy called Juey about some weapons. Unfortunately for Meyer, Juey  was loyal to Abe Reles and the Combination, who had informed him that if he saw came across Shapiro he was to shoot on sight.

In the early hours of September 17, 1931, Meyer and Juey were strolling along a Brooklyn street talking business when the latter nonchalantly fell a few steps behind. Producing a pistol, he fired shot into the back of Meyer's head. The job done, Juey  left and returned in truck. He loaded Meyer's body into it and transported it to lower Manhattan where he dumped it in a cellar. 

Meyer Shapiro

Purple Reign

What remained of the gang known as the Little Jewish Navy (so called because they sailed their boozein from Canada), was sunk on September 16, 1931 in Detroit. The members were former Chicago hoodlums named Isadore Sutker (called Joe in the press), Herman "Hymie" Paul, and Joe Lebovitz. In the mid Twenties they had left Chicago for health reasons and hooked up with some Purple Gang members in their bootlegging enterprise. By 1931 they had opened up a bookmaking operation in the Motor City as well as continuing to bring in booze. Problem was, they didn't respect any of the territories set up by the Purple Gang and other Italian gangsters. 

By the late summer of 1931 it was decided that they had to go. A meeting was set up under the pretense to discuss business. A furnished apartment was rented in the Collingwood Manor apartments at the beginning of September. Nobody moved in. The only trace that somebody was there was can of green paint. Using a mutual friend as an intermediary, Sutker, Paul and Lebovitz, were lured to apartment 211, along with the intermediary. After a few moments one of the Purples left, supposedly to make a phone call, in actuality he went to the alley and started the car. He revved the engine and blew the horn. The signal. At the sound, the remaining three Purples drew their guns and shot down the trio of gangsters in what became known as the Collingwood Massacre.

Being a friend of the Purples, the intermediary was allowed to escape with the gunmen. A decision that cost the murderers over thirty years in prison because he was arrested and his testimony was used to put them away.

Oh, and the green paint, that was there so the gunmen had a place to ditch their guns to obliterate fingerprints.  

For more on this and the Purple Gang check out:

Al Spencer Bows Out

Less than a month after he and his gang robbed the Katy Limited, a mail train (and the last train robbery in the history of his home state of Oklahoma), bandit Al Spencer was gunned down on the Osage Indian Reserve.

Spencer got his start in crime by rustling cattle and stealing horses, he soon gained notoriety as a "motorized bandit" who began picking off banks. Always retreating to the Osage hills. After the train robbery, a bounty of $10,000 dead or alive was placed on his head. A posse of U.S. marshals along with a postal inspector worked in tandem to bring him in, or down.

On the evening of September 15, 1923, the Federal men traced him near the Osage and Washington County lines, about three miles south of the Kansas border. There on a road, at about ten p.m., he was ordered to halt, he fired a shot at his pursuers who then opened up with a rifles. Spencer dropped with three bullets in his chest. It was reported that he had ten thousand dollars worth of bonds on his body when searched. 

Al Spencer

Jack On The Spot

Jack Costa AKA Angelo Spano was, depending on which paper you read, either a member of the Northside Moran gang or was a with Joe Aiello, a Moran ally at the time. Since Aiello was at war with Capone at the time chances are Costa was aligned with the latter.

The New York Daily News stated that Costa was a transplant from Brooklyn. In Chicago, it was reported that Costa owned a number of cabarets that used Moran booze and beer. The details behind his demise are a bit murky. He was living in an apartment with his 23-year old girlfriend Margaret Reardon. According to Reardon, she threw party that she didn't want Costa to attend so rented a room for him and a confederate of his named Fred in the same complex for the evening. After the party, in the wee hours of September 14, 1930, Reardon called Costa in the room and told him the party was over and he could come back. Costa left the the room and as he was crossing the courtyard, he was cut down by shotguns fired from the apartment above the one he had just vacated. He died later that day.

Jack Costa

Part Of The Purge?

September 12, 1931 saw the murder of Italian gangster Giuseppi Mannino or Manino depending on which paper told the story. Mannino was arrested in 1918 for a barrel murder but acquitted. This was followed for an arrest in 1920 for stealing alcohol for which he received a suspended sentence.

Mannino had just parked his car on a Brooklyn street and exited the auto along with two cohorts. As they walked, the two men fell behind Mannino and, pulling out pistols, fired a number of times into his back. Mannino staggered up to the nearest building and collapsed in the hallway. The two gunmen ran up and finished him off before escaping.

The Police Inspector suggested that the murder may have been related to the killing of Salvatore Maranzano the day before. The following day the New York Daily News reported that Mannino was the former partner of mob boss Giuseppi "the Clutching Hand" Piraino, who was bumped off the previous year. The same article stated that Mannino was killed by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who happened to be the architect of Maranzano's demise as well.

Giuseppe Mannino

Battos And Balls

On September 11, 1929 a group of kids were playing in the street when the ball they were using bounced into the open window of a sedan. One of the kids went to fetch it. Climbing on the running board, he opened the door and let out a scream. Instead of the expected ball, he was staring into the eyes of a dead man.

The dead man, who was shot once in the heart and once through the right eye, was James Batto, one of the killers of Eugene Moran whose body, or what was left of it, was found in a burnt Packard the previous month in Newark, New Jersey.

According to his brother, Batto had recently had a fight with Monkey Schubert, his partner in a peanut vending machine company in New Jersey and another one of Moran's murderers. Schubert was picked up by police and questioned but released.

Batto had a record dating back over thirty years and served two sentences when he was a teenager but, even though he had been arrested on seven occasions since 1910, he was discharged every time. At the time of Batto’s death Eugene Moran’s body had not yet been identified so the police were unaware of his participation and had no leads to go.

James Batto

A Wing Gets Clipped

James "Wingy" Cox was a Cuckoo gangster in St. Louis. In 1924 he was wounded in a gunfight which resulted in his having an arm amputated at the shoulder, hence the nickname Wingy. Though armless, he continued in the gangster life, being arrested in 1928 and sentenced to two years for burglary.

In November of 1930 he was shot again but managed to hobble into a hospital with a bullet wound to the leg. The following month he was picked up after a gangland hit in which witnesses stated that a one-armed man was wielding the machine-gun used in the killing. He was released for lack of evidence.

Then end for Cox came in the wee hours of September 10, 1933 when he got into an argument with two guys at a saloon. The men had been arguing for some time and it was obvious to all that things were going to get out of hand, so the men were supposedly left on their own. Even the proprietor stepped out after they refused to leave. Reports are that once everyone was out of the way, a number of shots were heard.

Shortly thereafter, a car pulled up to the hospital and bloody Cox emerged and stumbled inside. He refused to identify who shot him, reportedly saying, "I'll die like I live." and so he did six hours later at 9:25 that morning.

James Wingy Cox

42 Skidoo

 

September 8, 1933 saw the demise of Nicholas "Little Man" Muscato, so called because he stood at five feet tall. Muscato was a small time racketeer for Chicago's 42 gang. He reportedly had a bootlegging route under the tutelage of gangster Joseph Red Bolton, or, as was also reported, Bolton paid Muscato protection money.

In 1930, Muscato, along with fellow hoodlum Peter "the Ape" Nicastro, had murdered fellow 42 gangster Frank Petito, who hijacked a truck belonging to Bolton. After the murder, Nicastro claimed he had done the killing himself. To save face, Muscato in turn took Nicastro for a ride but he survived. Subsequently Nicastro squealed on Muscato who was arrested but beat the rap.

As a taxi driver  sat parked at a local hospital, he saw a sedan pull up and slow down. A door was opened and Muscato was tossed to the sidewalk with a bullet in the back of his head. Being a good sort of fellow, the taxi driver dragged the gangster into the hospital where he was informed that his labors had been in vain as Muscato was already dead.

Nicholas Muscato

Opening Salvo

By 1923, Chicago gang lord John Torrio had the city carved up nice and neat so all the gangs could serve their fiefdoms with beer and alcohol and nobody would war with anyone. All would get rich. Then South Side gang leader Spike O'Donnell came home from prison. 

Basically left out of the fray, the O'Donnells', or Spike really, decided that they had to make their own way so started encroaching on bars in and around their bailiwick and forcing their beer on them. September 7,  O'Donnell gang making "sales calls" on unwilling tavern keepers. The beer that the recalcitrant barkeeps were then purchasing was coming from either John Torrio or his allies, the Saltis-McErlane gang. 

One bar in particular that day had turned the gang down once. This time when they said "No" O'Donnell gangsters attacked the owner and his bartender busting both of their heads. After that, they visited about five other establishments before heading back to a saloon in the safety of their own neighbor hood.

As they sat back drinking beer, eating sandwiches and patting themselves on the back for a hard days work, the door swung open and rival gunmen entered. Not ready for a battle the O'Donnell's headed out the back door. Contemporary newspapers state that O'Donnell gunman Jerry O'Connor was brought down with a rifle shot to the heart. His gang mates then piled him into a car and took him to doctor where he was announced dead. Capone biographies tell a different story. The later accounts stated that O'Connor was trapped inside the bar and made to walk out the front door where gangster Frank McErlane was waiting with a sawed off shotgun and proceeded to blow his head off. Thus began what became known as the Chicago Beer Wars

Jerry O'Connor

Beauty And The Beast

In the late summer of 1933, as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were terrorizing the Southwest, Los Angeles was dealing with their own homegrown gun wielding Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo was Thomas White a twenty-eight-year-old ex-truck driver who did time in both San Quentin and Folsom prison. Juliet was his nineteen-year-old hairdresser girlfriend Burma Adams.

White was arrested for the first time in 1924 for drunkenness, this was followed a few months later for robbery, but he was released. In 1927 he was picked up on a liquor charge but beat the rap. In 1930 he was working as a truck driver when $6000 worth of cigarettes went missing. He was found guilty of grand theft and sentenced from 1 to 10 years at San Quentin where he proved to be a troublesome inmate so was shipped off to Folsom. 

White was paroled in April 1933 and headed to L.A. where he met Burma at a night club. Soon they were a couple and in mid August they started to rob people. Though one of their victims was blinded by a gun shot from White, none were killed. Over the course of the remaining summer, the duo stuck-up a number of people causing a bit of a sensation in the City of Angels.

A stolen car would be their down fall. On one of their jobs, the duo stole a car and brought it to a garage for repairs. On September 6, 1933, police found it and waited for the couple to return to pick it up. When they did, they were followed back to their apartment building, where they had two rooms. Burma had one on the third floor, White on the fourth. 

Four officers entered the building, two in the front, two in the rear. As two of them entered Burma's apartment, two others went to the fourth floor as White was making his way down. The cops identified themselves and told White to halt. The bandit drew his gun and fired two shot before the officers brought him down with three well placed shots. After hearing the shots, Burma, his wife of six days asked, "Did they shoot him?" when told that he probably had been shot she showed no emotion. As they questioned her she kept asking, "Is he dead yet?"

He was. White died a few minutes after the shooting.

Thomas White

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Sighs for Cy

Frank "Cy" Cawley was a Chicago hoodlum who made his way by hiring out for killings or robbing other underworld sorts of their ill-gotten booty. Police stated that he was implicated in three shootings, two bombings and at least thirty hold-ups. He was also a member of the "Four Horseman" gang. A gang that had been thinned out over the course of the year by gangster bullets.

On September 5, 1929 the bullet riddled bodies of Cawley and William McElligott (There seemed to be some confusion over the true identity of McElligott. He was also identified as Edward Westcott. Other papers said he was the brother of Thomas McElligott, a Cawley confederate who was killed the previous May.) were found in Jacob Riis park. Sawed off shotguns and pistols seemed to be the tools used by their killers. The $6000 robbery of a dice game was given as the reason for the murders, however another theory given was that one of the gang members had killed a man in a saloon earlier in the year. Though the man wasn't a gangster he had a friend who was, and that friend took it upon himself to eliminate the whole gang.

A note worthy aspect to the crime was that both Cawley and McElligott each had a nickel placed in their hands after death. Chicago gangland lore dictates that this was a custom of Capone killer Machine-gun Jack McGurn. The story goes that if he considered his victims as cheap hoods he would press a nickel into their palms.

         Cy Cawley       William McElligott

Fake Agent Gets Real Bullet

Just before midnight on September 4, 1933 Los Angeles bid farewell to small time gangster Axel "Three Finger Jack" Anderson. His record showed he had been arrested for burglary in San Francisco in 1925 and again in L.A. in '27.

Stepping up his game, Anderson procured fake credentials showing that he was a Prohibition agent. Earlier in the evening Anderson and two others "confiscated" a load of liquor from a garage. Two hours later, witnesses stated that they saw Anderson in the backseat of a sedan with two other men. A shot rang out, and Anderson fled the sedan and ran towards his own car, which was parked nearby, but his rivals over came him and shot him down in the street. Other reports had it that after fleeing the sedan, his rivals started the car, drove after him and a gunman fired at him from the passenger side window. Either way, Anderson was done for.

Police felt that he was killed by his two companions, who assisted him in stealing the liquor, over an argument over profits. Another thought is that the killers were the original owners of the booze and Anderson was trying to sell it back to them.

Axel Three Finger Jack Anderson

Following Friends

Attilio Pecora was an ally of Pittsburgh's Volpe crime family and best friends with John Volpe. With the deaths of three of the Volpes the previous July, Pecora, it was stated, was setting up to run the numbers and booze rackets in East Pittsburgh, Wilmerding and Turtle Creek.

On September 3, 1932 Pecora was standing outside his fruit store when a car pulled up to the curb down the street and somebody called to him. Pecora made his way to the car. In a flash, a shot gun appeared in the front passenger window and out the back window. Both went off and Pecora crumbled to the ground.

Attilio Pecora

The South(side) Pole

Twenty-seven year old Chicago gangster Walter Zwolinksi, nick-named the "Terrible Pole", was a former member of Spike O'Donnell's South Side gang. He started his career as a car thief and entered gangland under the tutelage of Frank McErlane before changing allegiances and joining the O'Donnells. 

By 1932, Zwolinski outgrew the O'Donnells. In spring, Spike's brother Charles was bumped off and there were attempts made on Spike. It was also stated that Zwolinski and two other defectors approached Spike on the the street and told him he was through. In an attempt to save his own skin, Spike headed to Califorinia for his health.

With Spike out of the picture, Zwolinksi allied himself with the McGeoghegan - Bubs Quinlan gang. Since this was his third known change in allegiance, the underworld to refer to him as boss of the switchmans union.

Chicago gang leader was a precarious position back then and Zwolinski's tenure was cut short in the early minutes of September 2, 1932 (or possibly the last minutes of the first.)

Whether or not it was Spike O'Donnell's loyal minions or not isn't known but somebody fired a shot into the back of Zwolinksi's head, trusted up his body and tossed him into the tonneau of an automobile and abandoned him a few blocks from his home.

Walter Zwolinski