When Gangland Gets There First

November 29, 1933 saw the demise of gangland killer and one time South Dakota sheriff, Verne Miller. A veteran of WWI, Miller became the sheriff of Huron, South Dakota but fled office with about $2800. He was captured and sent to prison where he was released after serving 18 months.

Upon his release he became involved in bootlegging and then drifted into bank robbery in the late 1920s and early 1930s. On June 17, 1933, in a botched attempt to free his friend Frank "Jelly" Nash from the FBI, Miller and two cohorts, supposedly Pretty Boy Floyds and Adam Richetti, ended up killing Nash and five of the law men with him in what is known as the Kansas City Massacre.

After the KC Massacre the FBI was determined to bring Miller in. The hottest man in the USA, Miller found himself unwelcome in the Midwest underworld. He headed east where he was friendly with New York syndicate boss Louis Lepke Buchalter. A Lepke associate named Al Silvers helped Miller with a car and some optometry equipment to use as a front as an eyeglass salesman.

Knowing the Lepke was friendly with Miller, the FBI paid the gang lord a visit and let him know that things could get hot for him if he aided Miller. On November 1, Miller escaped a shootout with the FBI but dumped his bullet riddled car. Inside the auto the FBI found the optometry equipment and were able to trace it back to Al Silvers, who went into hiding.

Lepke had a dilemma; if the FBI caught either Silvers or Miller what might they spill in an attempt at leniency? Silvers was the first to go on November 20. Lepke's boys caught up with Miller in Detroit nine days later. Liker Silvers, Miller was garroted by those he knew and probably trusted. He was then bludgeoned to death with a hammer. His naked body, like that of Silvers, was found tossed on stretch of road covered with a blanket.

Verne Miller

Cuckoos Get Two Birds

Lester Barth and Dewey Goebel were former Cuckoo gang members who sided with Tommy Hayes when the latter split with the St. Louis gang. It is believed that the duo were responsible for the deaths of some of their former gang mates.

Like most men of their ilk, Barth and Goebel met a violent death. On November 22, 1930 both men had just exited a grocery store they visited nearly every day at the same time (a fact no doubt known to the Cuckoo gunmen in the Hudson sedan that was following them) and, after loading the groceries into Goebel's Ford couple, the duo pulled away.

As they drove along, the Hudson, containing four or five men, pulled up along side of them and three of the men, each armed with a Thompson machine-gun, opened fire.

Bullets ripped into the coupe and crashed through the rear window. The groceries exploded as bullet after bulled poured into the car. Hoping to lose their pursuers, Goeble turned onto a side street, but the gun men made the turn as well, continuing to fire their weapons. After a couple of blocks Goebel jumped the curb and came to a stop as the Hudson continued.

Witnesses approached the coupe and pulled the duo, both of whom had bullet wounds to the head, from the car. Both died later at the hospital. A search of their homes turned up a Thompson machine-gun, two pistols and ammunition in the coal bin of Barth's house.

L. Lester Barth     R. Dewey Goebel

The death car

The Price of Friendship

Around noon on November 20, 1933 the naked body of New Jersey racketeer Albert Silvers was found on a lonely stretch of road outside of Somers, Connecticut partially covered with a blanket. He had been stabbed twice in the heart with an ice pick and garroted with a sash cord and neck tie. When found, his tongue protruded from his mouth and blood still oozed from the stab wounds. 

Though an east coast racketeer, Silvers, who was a lieutenant of New York racket chief Lepke Buchalter, was murdered for his loyal friendship to a mid-westerner; South Dakota ex-sheriff Verne Miller. Miller was the hottest criminal in America during the second half of 1933 due to his orchestrating the Kansas City Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of five law enforcement officers, including an FBI agent.

Silvers helped Miller elude capture with the help of his brother who was an optometrist. The Silvers supplied Miller with a salesman's case full of optometry equipment so he could travel the country posing as a salesman. Silvers also set Miller up with an automobile.

On November 1, 1933 Miller escaped a shootout with FBI and police and they later found his shot up car with the optometry equipment. The FBI was able to trace the equipment to Silvers, who lammed it. Since Silvers was a close associate of Lepke, the syndicate leader had a decision to make. If the FBI got hold of Silvers, what might he say to get out of trouble? Men, no doubt associates of Silvers, were sent out to him, Possibly in Hartford where he was known to stay, or at a hotel in Massachusetts; no one knows for sure. Wherever they met him, they left him on that lonely road in Somers, Connecticut.

Al Silvers

Pain In The Leg

Jimmy Cox had already lost an arm to gangster bullets. On November 8, he almost lost a leg as well. The gangster had just left a funeral home where he paid his final respects to fellow hoodlum James Darmondy who himself had survived a machine-gun attack that took the lives of two of his comrades back in 1928.

Darmondy was rubbed out on November 5, after a run in with a cop. Cox visited the funeral parlor and left at...well, I'll just let him tell the story: "I left the undertakers about midnight...and started to drive east. I had just started when a large car with three fellows in it came up the street, and one of them started firing with a machine-gun."

Three of the bullets ripped into Cox's leg but he managed to get to a hospital with the help of a friend. Though he survived this attempt, he had a date with destiny a few years later.

James Wingy Cox

Go Fish

Twenty-four-year old Chicago hoodlum Richard Fishman was suspected in three murders, including that of another small timer named Herman Horwitz.

Around the beginning of November 1931 Fishman entered a cigar store and made his way to the gambling parlor located in the rear. Once inside, he stated to all there, "From now on, I'm the boss around here." To drive the point home he pulled out his pistol and fired three shots into the floor.

A week later on November 7, Fishman was in the parlor shooting dice with another guy when a "tall, heavy set man." walked in and did some shooting of his own. When the smoke cleared, a gambler was wounded but Fishman was dead. He was no longer boss around there.

Richard Fishman

Shot Heard Around The Underworld

November 6, 1933 saw the demise of Boston gangster John "Keeno" Keenan. The 29-year old gun-toter was the owner of the exclusive Club Chalet. He was on hand that night when fellow gangster Thomas Callahan showed up with a friend. Callahan was drunk when he arrived and began to insult women and make a general nuisance of himself. Being a classy joint, the bouncers evicted Callahan in a non-to-polite manner. 

Some time passed and Callahan returned to the club, climbed the stairs to the entrance and was stopped at the iron gate that kept people like him out. He exchanged some words with the bouncer who, again, escorted him from the premises. Callahan refused to leave.

An employee of the club approached Keenan who was entertaining at the table and told him about Callahan and asked him if he couldn't do something about it. Keenan excused himself from the table and as he approached the gate, Callahan pulled out a pistol and opened fire. Mortally wounded, Keenan dropped to the floor. On the ground he drew his own gun and returned fire. During the shooting, the clubs patrons broke a window and headed down the fire escape.

Keenan's pals picked him up and took him to the hospital where he died the next day.

John Keeno Keenan

We're So Sorry, Uncle Eddie

It was on November 5, 1928 when Philadelphia gangster Handsome Eddie Rafferty pulled into his brother's gas station. His niece ran up to and jumped into the back seat of Eddie's car. Being a good uncle, Eddie produced some grapes and handed them to her and she began to snack away.

As Eddie sat behind the wheel conversing with his brother, a car drove by and men with shotguns and pistols opened fire. His brother hit the deck while Eddie, hit by some of the shots, slouched over the steering wheel. A second car drove by and once again lead was hurled at Eddie. More bullets plowed into the gangster's body and he slumped to the floor mortally wounded. A third car drove by and fired another round which peppered the walls of the filling station.

It was said that Eddie Raffery was associated with the Eddie Reagan gang whom were supposedly responsible for the murder of a gangster named Robert Haggerty and that Eddie was killed in retaliation. Another theory was that Rafferty had double-crossed another bootlegger named William "Hop" Reilly. The latter was picked up but denied that there was any trouble between him and Rafferty.

Handsome Eddie Rafferty

Grape Ape

On November 3, 1930 Newark, New Jersey gangster Dominick "The Ape" Paselli, said to have ties to Newark mob boss Richard "the Boot" Boiardo, walked into Newark General Hospital with a slight scalp wound. He claimed that he had an accident but in reality, his head had been creased by a bullet; he was on the spot.

The staff patched him up and told him he could go. "No, if it's all right with you, I think I'll stay here a couple of days." He told them. He was given room thirty-three where he received two male visitors, around three o'clock that afternoon. After a short visit, they left.

A few minutes after six that evening, two men entered the hospital and, accounts vary, some say it was the same two men from earlier, others two different men, who made their way upstairs and asked where they could find room thirty-three.

What happened when the men found room thirty-three is also up for debate. One version has one of the guys guarding the door while the other fired, one has them both firing. What isn't up for debate is the result. Ape Paselli caught two bullets in the head and was dead.

Since some accounts stated that the killers were the visitors from earlier it was suggested that he was bumped off by his own gang. There was also a theory that he was killed by rivals for attempting to muscle in on the "grape racket". A necessary ingredient for wine makers.  

Dominick the Ape Paselli

Wild Bill Tamed

In the wee hours of this day back in 1923, Brooklyn waterfront gangster Wild Bill Lovett was sent to his final reward whilst sleeping off a drunk in a river front shanty.

As head of Brooklyn's infamous White Hand gang, Wild Bill had numerous notches on his gun which resulted in numerous enemies that wanted him dead for any number of reasons. For a time it looked as though Bill may have dodged a gangland execution. The previous summer he had married Anna Lonergan, sister of his right hand man, Richard Peg Leg Lonergan. They moved from Brooklyn out to the New Jersey suburbs in an attempt to make a normal life for themselves. After a few months away Bill headed back to Brooklyn and went on a bender, hitting a number of his old haunts. 

Word spread that Wild Bill was back in town and somebody or somebodies with an ax to grind trailed him to the stevedore shack where Bill passed out. Once Bill was deep in la-la land his enemies entered and bludgeoned and shot him to death. His killers were never identified.

Wild Bill Lovett