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

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