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
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