Showing posts with label Prohibition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prohibition. Show all posts

05 December 2021

 Debby Applegate

Excerpt from Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age (Doubleday, 2021)  

From Chapter 6 - "Thumbs Up With The Mob"

Polly Adler wearing her first, fabulous mink coat, strolling the boardwalk in Atlantic City in 1924 with a pal. Photo from the Polly Adler Collection courtesy of Eleanor Vera.

 After three years of Prohibition, by the summer of 1923, New York City’s underworld was booming.  “It was becoming increasingly fashionable to make money any way you could – except by working for it,” remembered Polly Adler. “It wasn’t only angle-shooters and corner-cutters and big-city sharpies who were on the ‘get-rich-quick’ kick.”[1]

Nobody was raking in the chips like the bootleggers, grifters, gamblers who orbited around Arnold Rothstein, aka the Big Bankroll, the Big Jew Uptown, or the Brain.   Some were primarily bookmakers and game runners, others had been thieves, drug dealers and strong-arms for hire before he took them under his wing.  But in the last three years, Rothstein’s proteges had become New York’s “hoodlum aristocracy.”[2]   

Polly was always cryptic about how she met Arnold Rothstein, saying only that he was “a man whom I was one day to know well.”[3]   But that winter of 1923 her brothel became a favorite hangout of the Brain’s criminal cabinet. “My clientele consisted mostly of gangsters and hoodlums,” she remembered, “some of whom were to become the big shots of the day.”[4]


Arnold Rothstein, c. 1920-1928. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Collection (Library of Congress).

It was as gamblers that Polly became intimate with the bullet boys.  Rothstein’s informal syndicate of law-breakers ran private high-stakes poker games and floating craps games, immortalized in the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls.  To elude cops and stick-up men the games shifted every night through empty garages, hotels, warehouses, and the back rooms of speakeasies.

The most important of these early patrons – her “benefactor,” as one of Polly’s well-informed friends put it – was the rising “King of the Bootleggers,” William V. Dwyer.[5] “Big Bill” Dwyer was a roly-poly man, with a disarming smile and expressive blue eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. Rothstein had financed Dwyer when he began expanding his operation from robbing industrial alcohol from government warehouses into international smuggling.   Big Bill had, in one gangland lawyer’s description, “an easy way about him and a fine sense of humor.”[6]  He was a glad-hander, who loved the theater and saloon life and preferred grease to violence.  

William Vincent “Big Bill” Dwyer when he was known as “The King of the Bootleggers.” Photo in the public domain.

Dwyer had recently joined forces with another of Rothstein’s proteges, Francesco Castiglia, who went by the moniker of Frank Costello. (It never hurt to have an Irish name when conversing with cops).  They were joined that fall of 1923 by Owney Madden, recently released from Sing Sing, who enjoyed a reputation as one of the most vicious of the city’s Irish gang leaders.

Big Bill and Owney were partners with another of Rothstein’s proteges, “Smiling George McManus,” in a number of lucrative gambling schemes.   George McManus was a brawny, barrel-chested fellow, with a lantern jaw and a wide crooked grin that lit up when he was in good spirits.  His family had deep ties to the NYPD, which frequently came in handy.

Big Bill and Owney were partners with another of Rothstein’s proteges, “Smiling George McManus,” in a number of lucrative gambling schemes.   George McManus was a brawny, barrel-chested fellow, with a lantern jaw and a wide crooked grin that lit up when he was in good spirits.  His family had deep ties to the NYPD, which frequently came in handy.

Both were extroverted Irishman -- Dwyer from Hell’s Kitchen, McManus from Harlem -- who relished the limelight and the role of lavish host.  They also shared that most valued of traits in a madam’s estimation: a total disregard for the value of money.  Dwyer was famous for never allowing anyone to pick up a check, no matter high the bill, and McManus was beloved by waiters, entertainers and gold diggers up and down the Avenue for dropping $20 tips without blinking an eye.  


George McManus in 1929, when he was on trial for murdering Arnold Rothstein. Author’s collection.

That fall McManus and Dwyer, along with Owney Madden’s brother Marty, were running the hottest regular crap game in New York, with action running as high as $700,000 some nights.   There was nothing like shooting craps to stoke the appetite for a prostitute, Polly soon discovered. “Money meant nothing to these fellows,” she remembered with pleasure; “they sometimes spent five hundred or more in an evening. Whoever won the crap game paid the bill.”[7]

The games didn’t start till nearly midnight and ran till four or five in the morning.  Winners looking to celebrate their good luck had to worry about muggings and kidnappings, so providing a place that was safe, secret and always open into the wee hours quickly made her joint the preferred after-hours clubhouse of the late night dice-tossers.  

“It had not occurred to me to sell drinks until one of the bunch remarked that I was a sap to let them buy their booze from a bootlegger and cart it up to my apartment,” recalled Polly. “Why didn’t I get smart and sell them drinks at a buck a throw?  I took his advice, and, in his own words, cut myself in for a nice piece of change.”[8] 

She encouraged the johns to buy drinks for the girls, padding the bills further.  Of course, a tipsy girl was an uninhibited playmate, but a sloppy drunk was no use to anyone.  So she employed an old trick of brothels, serving the girls cold tea brewed to match the golden color of rye and whiskey.  On a good night, her bar bills dwarfed her profits on the bedrooms.

McManus and Dwyer were two of the most popular men on Broadway, and with their seal of approval her house quickly gained a reputation among underworldlings as, in her words, “a sort of combination club and speakeasy with a harem conveniently handy.”[9]   

But the gangsters came at a high price.   “They were a wild bunch all right,” she mused. Like most of the male half of Broadway, they all adored practical jokes and pranks, the more elaborate the better.  “They liked a joke all right -- when it was on someone else,” especially George McManus.[10] “The kids with him played the jokes and he would get a hell of a kick out of it at my expense.”[11]

Polly could tolerate the pranks, the chiseling and small cons. Unpaid loans and bad checks – stiffs -- were regular thorns. “I have enough stiffs to paper my garage,” she groused while going through a box of old papers years later.  She was freshly annoyed by one dated October 22, 1923.[12]  “It was given to me by one of the McManus gang telling me that he was president of the bank. I was gullible enough to believe that,” she remembered. “It probably was the bastards [sic] way to teach me not to believe everything told to me.”[13]  

But it was the ever-looming threat of violence that really wore on her nerves. The brass knuckle boys were notoriously unpredictable, especially when they were on a losing streak or a drunken, coked-up spree.  To prevent friendly arguments from turning fatal, she requested the boys check their guns at the door, along with their felt fedoras and bulky overcoats.  “I usually hid them in the stove,” she remembered, “figuring it wasn’t likely anyone would get a yen to bake a cake.”[14]

While that cut down on random gunplay, it didn't do much to improve their manners. George McManus, in particular, was a dangerous wildcard. “McManus was always quiet, and a gentleman when sober,” said Polly.[15]  But when liquored up, his mood could suddenly turn mean, and his jokes became cruel and dangerous.

Nonetheless, it was a price she was willing to pay.  The gamblers and bootleggers were spending like mad and her reputation was spreading fast.  She bought herself some swell clothes and showy jewelry.  “I had a big important project those days,” said Polly. “I was saving up to buy a mink coat.”[16] On Broadway, a full-length mink was the sin qua non of the fashionable flapper, just as monogrammed silk-shirts and spotless white spats marked the new status of the bootlegger.  “I talked about it so much that when a guy was trying to make a point at craps, he’d holler, ‘Come on, little Joe! This is for Polly’s mink coat,’” Polly recalled. “They told me it brought them luck.”[17] 

Business was so brisk that it wasn’t long before she had the cash in hand.   The night she brought the coat home the fellows passed it around, while Polly chuckled gamely, playing the good sport and watching nervously in fear they would spill cigar ashes or drinks on the precious mink before she could safely stow it away. 

Later that evening, as she’d returned from the kitchen, one of the gang called out, “Put your coat on, Polly.  We’d like to see it again.”

But when she opened the closet, it had disappeared.  Polly began to panic. The fellows made a show of helping her search, clowning around as they bustled about the apartment. Suddenly, one of them cried out, “You little dope, why did you put it out on the fire escape?” The boys roared with laughter. 

“I laughed loudest and longest of all – with relief,” remembered Polly.[18] 

But not every joke was so funny.   Between answering the phones, keeping an eye on the bedrooms, and serving drinks – “whiskey for the guys, tea in highball glasses for the girls”  -- it was inevitable that there would be screw-ups.  One night, McManus picked up a glass, took a deep gulp, and began gagging and sputtering.  “I knew what had happened even before he swiveled around and hurled the glass again the wall, splattering tea far and wide,” remembered Polly. “Of course he knew he had got the drink meant for his girl of the evening, and at the rate he was paying, each drink cost more than several pounds of tea.” 

Everyone in the room froze, awaiting his response.

“Okay, Polly,” McManus said evenly, “so you got to make a living…Well, fix me another drink.”

But McManus “couldn’t stand being played for a sucker,” Polly remembered. “He had to get even.” [19]  The next evening he doctored a tray of drinks with Mickey Finns, a mild poison or emetic, usually a horse laxative mixed with crushed ice that induced vomiting or diarrhea.  Several of the johns spent the rest of the night vomiting in the alley, and the girls were so sick they couldn't work for three days. It could have been worse though; he could’ve used choral hydrate, better known as knock-out drops, employed in clip joints to rob customers.            

It was a devil’s bargain, courting them as customers.  But as she put it, “there was nothing I could do about it.  I had chosen running a house as my profession and whatever the customers did, I had to take it and keep smiling.”[20]

 

 

References 

1. Polly Adler, A House is Not a Home (Rinehart, 1953), 144.

2. Art Cohn, The Joker is Wild: The Story of Joe E. Lewis (Bantam Books, 1957), 113. 

3. Adler, House, 32.

4. Adler, House, 55.

5. “Special Adler Supplement,” 4, Virginia Faulkner’s Notes for A House is Not a Home;  New York Times, February 2, 1934, 9.

6. Leonard Katz, Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello (Drake, 1973), 63.  

7. Adler, House, 56.

8. Adler, House, 56.

9. Adler, House, 96.

10. Adler, House, 56.

11. Polly Adler to Virginia Faulkner, Dec. 10, 1951, Faulkner Notebook, 13, Faulkner’s Notes for A House is Not a Home.

12. Adler to Faulkner, Oct. 13, 1951, Faulkner Notebook, 17, Faulkner’s Notes for A House is Not a Home.

13. Adler to Faulkner, Oct. 13, 1951, Faulkner Notebook, 13, Faulkner’s Notes for A House is Not a Home.

14. Adler, House, 56.

15. Adler to Faulkner, Dec. 10, 1951, Faulkner Notebook, 13, Virginia Faulkner’s Notes for A House is Not a Home.

16. Adler, House, 57.

17. Adler, House, 57.

18. Adler, House, 58.

19. Adler, House, 56.

20. Adler, House, 58.

 

DEBBY APPLEGATE is a historian based in New Haven, CT. Her first book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for biography and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography. Her second book Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age was published by Doubleday in November, 2021.

https://debby-applegate.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Polly-Adler-Madam-The-Biography-of-Polly-Adler-Icon-of-the-Jazz-Age-105313019559817


05 November 2021

Author discusses Polly Adler bio, 'Madam'

In this interview by Gerald Howard for CUNY's Leon Levy Center for Biography, biographer Debby Applegate discusses her just-released book, Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age (Doubleday). 

Polly Adler operated New York City brothels during the Prohibition Era, becoming associated with well known gangsters (Dutch Schultz, Capone, Luciano), politicians, entertainers and literary figures. The former madam became a best-selling author when she released her tell-some autobiography in the 1950s.

Applegate won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for her 2006 book, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (Doubleday).

See book excerpt: "Polly Adler as Al Capone's guest at the 'Battle of the Long Count,' September 22, 1927" (Writers of Wrongs, Sept. 27, 2021).

24 April 2020

Owney Madden dies at Hot Springs, Arkansas

On this date in 1965...

NY Daily News.
Owen "Owney" Madden, once a gangland power in New York City, died of lung disease in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the early morning of Saturday, April 24, 1965.

Madden, seventy-three, had been admitted to the hospital, suffering with chronic emphysema. He passed away at ten minutes after midnight on the twenty-fourth.

As the New York press announced his death, it referred to Madden (known in some circles as "Killer") as a former Prohibition Era beer baron and an ex-gangster with a reputation for murder. But it became clear that Madden had become something more in Hot Springs.

His funeral on the twenty-seventh was well attended by local dignitaries, including Mayor Dan Wolf, Police Chief John Ermey, State Senator Q. Byrum Hurst and former Prosecutor Walter Hebert. Hurst delivered a eulogy. Wolf, Ermey, Hebert and several local police detectives served as honorary pallbearers. Following services at the Gross Mortuary Chapel, Madden was buried at Greenwood Cemetery about a mile from his longtime home.

One press report of the funeral stated, "In his later years, Madden was known more for his gifts to charity than for his earlier gang war years. He lived a quiet life in this resort city."

Early life


Madden was born to Irish parents in Leeds, County of West Yorkshire in northern England, late in 1891. He reportedly spent his early childhood in Wigan, a town outside Manchester, and coastal Liverpool. His father worked in textile mills.

The family broke apart for a time around his father's death. The 1901 England Census shows Owen and his older brother Martin as "inmates" of a Leeds home overseen by matron Annie Farkin. The home hosted a total of ten inmates at that moment, six girls and four boys.

It appears that Owen's mother, Mary O'Neill Madden, went ahead to the United States during this period and moved in with her sister Elizabeth on Manhattan's West Side. Owen, Martin and a younger sister, Maria, crossed the Atlantic aboard the S.S. Teutonic in June 1902 to join her. The family settled at 352 Tenth Avenue.

Madden (center) with the Gophers.

Madden and his brother almost immediately got in trouble with the law. In spring 1903, Martin Madden was labeled "incorrigible" and sent off to a Roman Catholic protectory for a term of a year and eight months. He would be in and out of penal institutions for years. Owen advanced within a network of street gangs along the Hudson River docks. He eventually became the recognized leader of the Gophers Gang.

Madden was involved in a number of shootings, both as gunman and as victim. Within a five-month period from late 1911 to early 1912, Madden was believed responsible for two fatal shootings. The victims were Luigi Molinari and William Henshaw. Over time, the list of suspected Madden victims grew to six men. Later in 1912, Madden was nearly killed when Hudson Dusters gangsters surrounded him at a dance hall and opened fire. He eventually recovered from multiple gunshot wounds.

Prison, Prohibition, Renaissance


The November 1914 killing of William "Patsy Doyle" Moore resulted in a May-June 1915 murder trial for Madden. The jury refused to convict on the charge of first-degree murder that would have sent Madden to the electric chair and instead convicted him of manslaughter. Judge Nott sentenced the twenty-three-year-old Madden to ten to twenty years in prison.

In the months after the conviction, several prosecution witnesses against Madden changed their stories and supported Madden's appeal for a new trial. Judge Nott would not budge.

Madden did time at Sing Sing and Auburn State Prison. After seven years, he was paroled early in 1923. He emerged a Manhattan gangland legend in the period of Prohibition and the Harlem Renaissance. Madden reportedly capitalized on both by engaging in bootlegging rackets, including a massive beer brewery, and investing in night clubs like Lenox Avenue's Cotton Club. These ventures made him fabulously wealthy and brought him into business relationships with such crime figures as "Big Frenchy" DeMange, Salvatore "Lucky Luciano" Lucania, Frank Costello, Dutch Schultz, Legs Diamond and Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll.

While amassing a personal fortune, he was generous with the community: "His benefactions have been many and timely. For three winters hundreds were fed daily through the Cotton Club, where many families were given Christmas baskets. Out of his pocket he has paid the rent for families threatened with eviction. At no time has he refused to aid a worthy cause."

Back to prison, off to Hot Springs


Madden in 1961
He was returned to Sing Sing for parole violations in the summer of 1932. He was released after one year, during Prohibition's final days. Apparently sensing the changing situation in New York City, Madden soon relocated to Hot Springs and made that resort city his home for the rest of his life. He was noted back in New York only a couple of times - in 1940, when he attended a prizefight at Madison Square Garden (and local authorities insisted he leave New York), and in 1947, when he went to the funeral of his mother.

Late in 1935, he married Agnes (perhaps Florence) Demby, daughter of a former local postmaster. Though Madden reportedly involved himself in city gambling ventures, such enterprises were generally ignored by law enforcement.

By the mid-1940s, he had attained a measure of respectability, at least within the Hot Springs community. He was naturalized a citizen of the U.S. and made 506 West Grand Avenue - neighboring the residence of local Police Chief John Ermey - his home.

In 1961, Madden was called before a Senate committee investigating illegal gambling. He repeatedly declined to answer senators' questions. The questions focused on allegations that he controlled a Hot Springs service supplying gambling facilities with horserace results obtained from a New Orleans based provider.


Sources:
  • Arkansas County Marriages Index, Ancestry.com.
  • "Arrested as Gopher feud murderer," New York Sun, Sept. 10, 1911, p. 5.
  • "Beer king Owney Madden dies," New York Daily News, April 24, 1965, p. 3.
  • Births registered in January, February, and March 1892, England Civil Registration Birth Index, p. 332, Ancestry.com.
  • "Brother of gangster Owney Madden faces deportation as undesirable criminal alien," New York Times, Sept. 10, 1953, p. 13.
  • "Chase for a slayer," New York Times, Feb. 13, 1912, p. 1.
  • "Dry padlocks snapped on nine wet doors; 'Owney' Madden's 'Club' is one of them," New York Times, June 23, 1925, p. 23.
  • England Census of 1901, Yorkshire County, Leeds, orth Leeds, District 35.
  • Gambling and Organized Crime, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, Part 2, U.S. Senate, 87th Congress, 1st Session, August 28-31, 1961, p. 557-561, 566-567, 570-572.
  • "Gangsters seek writs to gain their freedom," New York Evening World, Dec. 14, 1914, p. 4.
  • "Girl says she lied when told to do so at murder trial," New York Evening World, Oct. 7, 1915, p. 2.
  • "Girls arrested for perjury in murder case," Brooklyn Standard Union, Nov. 4, 1915, p. 10.
  • "Girls held in Madden case," New York Tribune, Nov. 9, 1915, p. 6.
  • "Girls in Owney Madden case indicted," New York Evening World, Nov. 8, 1915, p. 3.
  • "Given Owen Madden a chance," New York Age, Aug. 13, 1932, p. 4.
  • "Gun man, in feud, is shot at dance," New York Herald, Nov. 7, 1912, p. 15.
  • "Held on charge of murder," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 13, 1912, p. 3.
  • Levins, Peter, "Justice versus Owney Madden," New York Sunday News, Nov. 6, 1932, p. 52.
  • "Madden convicted of manslaughter," New York Sun, June 3, 1915, p. 14.
  • "Madden gets limit for gang murder," New York Press, June 9, 1915, p. 14.
  • "Madden gets ten to twenty years," New York Tribune, June 9, 1915, p. 16.
  • "Madden on trial as promoter of murder," New York Sun, May 25, 1915, p. 11.
  • New York City Extracted Death Index, certificate no. 33926, Nov. 28, 1914.
  • New York State Census for 1905, New York County, Assembly District 11, Election District 2.
  • New York State Census of 1915, Westchester County, Town of Ossining, Assembly District 3, Election District 1, Sing Sing Prison.
  • "Owney Madden, found guilty in gang killing, escapes chair by manslaughter verdict," New York Tribune, June 3, 1915, p. 14.
  • "Owen Madden final rites held at spa," El Dorado AR Times, April 27, 1965, p. 13.
  • "Owney Madden goes on trial for murder," New York Evening World, May 24, 1915, p. 3.
  • "Owen Madden sentenced," New York Sun, June 9, 1915, p. 7.
  • Owen Madden World War I Draft Registration Card, No. 606, Sing Sing Prison, Westchester County, New York, June 5, 1917.
  • "Owen V. Madden," Sing Sing Prison Receiving Blotter, no. 66164, received June 16, 1915.
  • "Owen Vincent Madden (1891-1965)," The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, Central Arkansas Library System, encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
  • Owen Vincent Madden World War II draft registration card, serial no. U561.
  • "Oweny Madden, 'Killer' shot, sneers at sleuth," New York Sun, Nov. 7, 1912, p. 9.
  • "Owney Madden, 73, ex-gangster, dead," New York Times, April 24, 1965, p. 1.
  • "Owney Madden's girl witnesses held for perjury," New York Evening World, Nov. 4, 1915, p. 8.
  • "Owney travels to his reward as a real gent," New York Daily News, April 28, 1965, p. 15.
  • "Owney: From bullets to tranquility," New York Daily News, April 25, 1965, p. 10.
  • Passenger manifest of S.S. Teutonic, departed Liverpool, England, on June 4, 1902, arrived New York City on June 12, 1902.
  • Polk's Hot Springs City Directory 1949, St Louis: R.L. Polk & Co., 1950, p. 184.
  • "Prisoner says Gopher leader shot himself," New York Evening World, Nov. 7, 1912, p. 2.
  • Schedule B, Passenger list of S.S. Teutonic, departed Liverpool, England, on June 4, 1902, bound for New York City.
  • "Shot dead by five men," New York Times, Nov. 29, 1914, p. 13.
  • "Shot dead in row over armies of war," Brooklyn Standard Union, Nov. 29, 1914, p. 1.
  • Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 432-62-2509, Ancestry.com.
  • "Takes back testimony against Owen Madden," New York Sun, Oct. 19, 1915, p. 5.
  • Turner, Wallace, "Hot Springs: gamblers' haven," New York Times, March 8, 1964, p. 1.
  • United States Census of 1910, New York State, New York County, Ward 20, Enumeration District 1219.
  • United States Census of 1920, Westchester County, Town of Ossining, Enumeration District 159, Sing Sing Prison.
  • United States Census of 1940, Arkansas, Garland County, Hot Springs, Ward 1, Enumeration District 26-11.
  • Waggoner, Walter H., "Herman stark dies; owned Cotton Club from 1929 to 1940," New York Times, July 9, 1981.

29 October 2019

Intimate family portrait, detailed Mafia history

[Disclaimer: The author provided me with several revisions of Colorado's Carlino Brothers before publication. I contributed edit suggestions and provided a foreword to the book.  - TH.]
 A decade ago, Mountain Mafia: Organized Crime in the Rockies by Alt and Wells first put the Colorado underworld on the map. Now, author Sam Carlino has provided the map with important connections between Denver and Pueblo Italian-American racketeers and national organized crime leaders.

https://amzn.to/2WmNdKR
His just-released book, Colorado's Carlino Brothers: A Bootlegging Empire (The History Press), is at once an intimate family portrait and a detailed Mafia history. The author deftly tracks the development of the regional crime family before and through the Prohibition Era, revealing its proper place in the national scene, while providing personal insight into his ancestors, who were members and leaders of the organization. The author's unique perspective helps to fully develop and humanize the book's primary subjects, brothers Pete (the author's grandfather) and Sam, and reveals the often painful impact of their career choices on their extended families.

The book deals in depth with the career and murder of early Pueblo Mafia leader Pellegrino Scaglia, the long and violent Carlino-D'Anna rivalry, the successful infiltration of the Carlino operation by an undercover federal agent and the Denver police raid that exposed a budding regional bootlegging syndicate. It explores Pete Carlino's travels to Mafia home cities in the Midwest and the East in a seemingly desperate effort to strengthen his position at home. And it chronicles the tragic and bloody ends of the Carlino faction leaders.

But its most momentous revelation concerns a link between Pete Carlino and the powerful but short-lived New York City-based Mafia boss of bosses, Salvatore Maranzano.

The author uses some circumstantial evidence and a long-forgotten ("missing link") news source to build a convincing case for a connection between the two old-school "Mustache Pete" Mafiosi. For researchers of underworld history, this heightens the importance of the often overlooked Colorado underworld. It also adds greatly to the significance of the nearly simultaneous murders of Maranzano and Carlino, occurring 1,800 miles apart on September 10, 1931, and may be viewed as supportive of the legendary "Night of Sicilian Vespers" purge of Maranzano loyalists.

From Colorado's Carlino Brothers
Carlino Bros. contains a wealth of photographs supporting its history text. These include family photos, gangland group shots, mug shots, news photos, scenics, document images and newspaper clippings.

The author's deep affection for the subjects of the work and his joy at having discovered their true stories - long-closeted skeletons and all - are evident in his selection of family images, in his commentary in the "Introduction," "Conclusion" and "Special Thanks" sections of the book, and certainly in his decision to share with the reader the often praised Carlino family recipe for spaghetti sauce.

Colorado's Carlino Brothers was released October 28, 2019, in 160-page paperback and Kindle editions.

12 September 2019

'Death Valley' end for ambitious gangster

Old pal of 'Clutching Hand' put on the spot in Brooklyn

New York Daily News
On this date in 1931...

Scores of afternoon produce shoppers on a busy Brooklyn street scurried for safety on September 12, 1931, as underworld gunmen blasted away at a gangster with ambitions to resurrect the former "Clutching Hand gang" and dispose of its enemies.

The gunmen vanished into nearby buildings, leaving Joseph Manino (also known as "Marino") dead at the entrance of 149 Union Street in South Brooklyn. He had been struck by eight slugs - one in the head, four in the chest and three in right arm.

When police arrived, they found no trace of the killers and learned little of any use from the pushcart peddlers and their patrons. The neighborhood had grown accustomed to violence - it was known at the time as "Death Valley" - and it had grown accustomed to remaining mum about it.

Reluctant witnesses said only that three men (early reports said there were only two) met Manino at a little before three o'clock, got into a loud argument and drew handguns. Manino tried to escape through the hallway of 149 Union Street but didn't make it.

Manino's body was identified by his brother Anthony, a nearby resident. Police found Manino's Lincoln automobile parked at the curb just a few doors from the spot of his murder.

Manino background
As they began their investigation into the murder, detectives theorized that Manino may have been killed because of a relationship with a woman in the Union Street neighborhood or because he was trying to muscle in on some local underworld rackets.

Brooklyn Standard Union
They learned that he was the married resident of 332 Bay Eleventh Street in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn, had no children and worked with his father-in-law at a butcher shop at 273 Thatford Avenue in the Brownsville section. (Newspapers reported his age as 35, but official death records indicated he was 33.) It was said that he had arrived in the U.S. from Italy about fourteen years earlier. Manino's wife told police that he had no interest in underworld rackets and was involved in nothing that would get him killed.

Early in the investigation, police discovered that Manino had once been arrested for a Prohibition violation and was given a suspended sentence. They toyed with the idea that Manino's killing might be related to the assassination of Mafia chief Salvatore Maranzano in Manhattan two days earlier. It took a little longer for Manino's underworld connections to become clear.

Arrested with him in the 1920 Prohibition matter were his close friend Giuseppe Piraino (also written "Peraino") and some other associates. Piraino, whose twisted and partially paralyzed hand resulted in his "Clutching Hand" nickname, was a major Prohibition Era power in the Italian underworld of Brooklyn. The group was convicted of stealing alcohol from a pier at Atlantic Basin in Red Hook. Though Manino escaped with a suspended sentence, Piraino went to prison.

Clutching Hand gang
During Piraino's incarceration, Manino continued his bootlegging activities. In spring of 1923, he and four other men were arrested and charged with operating a large distillery in a supposedly vacant building at 61 Kouwenhoven Place (this short street formerly ran between Overbaugh Place and Kings Highway in Flatlands, southeastern Brooklyn). Press coverage at that time noted that it was Manino's third Prohibition violation. For the offense, he was sentenced to pay a $250 fine. His codefendants were each fined $25.

When Piraino was released from prison, Manino reassumed his top lieutenant role, and the rackets of the Clutching Hand gang expanded. The group came into violent conflict with other underworld powers. Piraino was considered a top contender to assume the Brooklyn rackets and gang membership of the Frankie Yale organization following Yale's 1928 murder.

Rivals put Piraino on the spot in March of 1930 during a visit to South Brooklyn. He was shot to death in front of 151 Sackett Street, near Hicks Street.

Manino reportedly tried to hold the Clutching Hand gang together after the loss of his friend and boss. The forces arrayed against him were powerful, but he reportedly swore that he would drive them all out of Brooklyn.

Authorities decided that Manino's stated determination to eliminate his rivals prompted them to arrange his murder. The Union Street location where Manino breathed his last was one city block south of the site of Piraino's murder.

Aftermath
Due to a tip provided in October to Detective Cal McCarthy of the Hamilton Avenue Police Station, Brooklyn racketeers Guglielmo Guica and Tito Balsamo were arrested and charged with participating in the Manino murder. But the evidence was insufficient to make the charges stick. Guica and Balsamo went free early in November.

Vengeance for Manino appeared to be the motive behind Guica's murder two weeks after his release.

Near midnight on November 16, 1931, Guica sat down in the Court Open Kitchen restaurant, 337 Court Street, with Benedetto Ruggiero and a third man, name unknown. Almost immediately, the third man dropped to the floor beneath the table as four other men jumped out of a car and entered the restaurant with guns blazing.

Guica's unknown companion crawled out of the restaurant through the kitchen. Shot ten times, Ruggiero died at the table and slumped onto the floor. Guica lunged for the kitchen but was brought down by the gunfire. He had been shot a dozen times.

Postscript
The Prohibition Era exploits of the Clutching Hand gang made news again in March of 1949, as police in Brooklyn arrested Nicolo Failla, who had been a fugitive since jumping bail in the alcohol theft case back in 1920. The sixty-three-year-old Failla was arrested at an apartment used by some of his children. At the time, authorities speculated that Failla was the last surviving member of the Piraino underworld faction.

Sources:
  • "13 suspects in new roundup," Brooklyn Standard Union, Oct. 7, 1931, p. 7.
  • "Arrest three men for barrel murder," Brooklyn Standard Union, Jan. 24, 1919.
  • "Brooklyn man slain amid rush hour crowd," Syracuse American, Sept. 13, 1931, p. 3.
  • "Brooklyn shooting laid to gang war," New York Times, Sept. 14, 1931, p. 6.
  • "'Clutching Hand's' son assassinated as his father was," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 7, 1930, p. 23.
  • "Gang killing perils crowd in Brooklyn," Syracuse Herald, Sept. 13, 1931, p. 1.
  • "Gunmen kill two in Court Street restaurant trap," Brooklyn Standard Union, Nov. 17, 1931, p. 2.
  • "Holdup man gets 3 to 7-year term for $7,500 failure," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 17, 1923, p. 3.
  • "Man shot dead in Union Street," Brooklyn Standard Union, Sept. 12, 1931, p. 1.
  • "Manino killed in rum squeal, police theory," Brooklyn Standard Union, Sept. 14, 1931, p. 2.
  • "Many see killing in Brooklyn street," New York Times, Sept. 13, 1931, p. 25.
  • "Prohibition days reviewed by arrest," Kingston NY Daily Freeman, March 7, 1949, p. 12.
  • Giuseppi Piraino death certificate, Department of Health of the City of New York, no. 7070, filed March 29, 1930.
  • New York City Extracted Death Index, certificate no. 19560, Sept. 12, 1931, Ancestry.com.
  • O'Brien, Michael, "Mafia victim slain, 2 shot; hint revenge," New York Daily News, Sept. 13, 1931, p. 56.

14 July 2019

Maranzano-focused Informer issue taking shape

The August 2019 issue of Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement will focus exclusively on Prohibition Era Mafia leader Salvatore Maranzano: life, career, assassination and post-assassination aftereffects. Through articles, photos and maps, Informer will tackle many questions about Maranzano, including:

  • Who was Salvatore Maranzano?
  • What did he look like? (And what did he certainly NOT look like?)
  • What does a recent discovery tell us about him?
  • What was said about him by those who knew him in life?
  • Where were the locations significant to his life and career?
  • When did Maranzano-related events occur?
  • Why was he important in U.S. Mafia history?
  • How has he been portrayed by Hollywood?
  • What do we know of Maranzano's life in Sicily?
  • Was there really a post-Maranzano Mafia purge?

Pages for the issue are currently being assembled. (Issue is expected to weigh in at around seventy-two pages.)

Plans call for the August Informer to be released in the usual print and electronic (PDF) formats, both available through the MagCloud service. And, with some luck, the issue also will be available in a Kindle ebook format.

Stay tuned.

19 May 2019

The Pittsburgh machine gun murder that wasn't

'The Big Gorilla' may have been
killed with his own shotgun

On this date in 1927...

Lamendola
A Pittsburgh booze racketeer known as "The Big Gorilla" was murdered May 19, 1927, in what was initially proclaimed by the local press to be the city's first underworld assassination to involve machine guns. Newspapers subsequently backed away from the machine gun claim, when law enforcement concluded that a shotgun was instrument of death.

Coverage of the killing of Luigi Lamendola involved a great many journalistic disagreements. Newspapers could not agree even on the age of the victim. He was reported to be twenty-seven years old, thirty-two and thirty-five. (He was probably close to twenty-seven.) And the uncertainty did not end there. He was said to be a member of a Black Hand extortion organization or a victim of a Black Hand extortion organization or possibly neither. He suffered either three or six bullet wounds in the head. And he was killed in a hail of machine gun fire or through a double-barreled blast of a shotgun. Or possibly two shotguns.

There was general agreement that Lamendola - known to his friends as "The Big G" - was a bad guy. He was a brutal Prohibition Era gang leader, who held a monopoly on moonshine liquor distribution in Pittsburgh's Hill District and used threats of violence and a fair amount of actual violence to maintain that monopoly.

Some have claimed that he learned his craft from the Capone Outfit in Chicago before striking out on his own. (It is difficult to support this claim. However, Lamendola may have had connections with the underworld in the Hamilton, Ontario, area.) He may have served as a lieutenant of sorts for the Pittsburgh Mafia organization (led in the period by Stefano Monastero) until ambition caused him to strive for greater status.

Lamendola knew well that he had enemies. It was said that he did not often stray from the Hill District restaurant, 27 Chatham Street, that served as his headquarters. The building was also his home, as it contained a well furnished bachelor apartment upstairs. When he did go out, he carried a sword-cane with him. With the touch of a button, the outer cane covering fell away to reveal a fifteen-inch blade.

Late Thursday evening, May 19, after he locked up the restaurant and relaxed in the establishment with a couple of business partners, some enemies came calling. A large touring car with curtained windows pulled up in front. Two men got out and tapped on the restaurant's front window and called for Lamendola to come outside.

The Big Gorilla made it to the doorway. The two who tapped on the window ducked behind the car, and two others pointed weapons - most likely shotguns - at Lamendola through the car window curtains. The weapons fire, according to the Pittsburgh Press, "shattered" Lamendola's head. The damage done left the impression that a machine gun was used.

Pittsburgh Post


Lamendola partner Peter Curatolo, nearby at the time of the shooting, was superficially wounded by some of the shrapnel.

The automobile then proceeded north on Chatham Street, while the gunmen inside of it continued to fire. At least one bit of the fired lead cracked through the window of Charles Sparano's New Italian cafe at the corner with Webster Street - still busy at that late hour - and passed within inches of the head of a violinist in the cafe orchestra. The vehicle turned onto Bigelow Boulevard and sped away to the northeast.

Lamendola was rushed to Mercy Hospital. He was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Authorities noted that he was wearing diamonds valued at about $12,000 and had four $1,000 bills in his wallet. His death certificate attributed the end of Lamendola's life to "shock and hemorrhage following gunshot wound of head. Prob. murder."

During their investigation of the killing, police searched the Lamendola restaurant and discovered several hundred gallons of moonshine whiskey. In the upstairs apartment, they found automatic pistols, knives and ammunition, including shotgun shells that matched those that took his life. They found no shotgun. At least not right away.

When detectives traced the escape route taken by the gunmen, they found a shotgun discarded on Bigelow Boulevard, near Washington Street. They assumed the gunmen tossed it out of the car as they drove away.

Days later, rumors circulated that Lamendola had been betrayed by someone in his own organization and had been killed with his own shotgun.

Adding further insult to fatal injury, press coverage subsequently suggested that Lamendola was working in the U.S. as an agent of the Fascist government of Italy. That charge seems to have resulted merely from the fact that Lamendola's remains were returned to his native city of Caltanissetta, Sicily, for burial.

Authorities held Lamendola's business partners for a while and questioned known members of the Pittsburgh underworld. But Lamendola's murder was never solved.

Sources:

  • "'Ghost' of murdered bootleg czar stalks through 'Hill' with death in either hand," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 23, 1927, p. 3.
  • "Death spurts from auto in Chatham St.; misses girl," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 20, 1927, p. 1.
  • "Hill District man victim of machine gun slayers," Pittsburgh Post, May 20, 1927, p. 1.
  • "Hunt slayers of Lamendola," Pittsburgh Press, May 20, 1927, p. 23.
  • "Italian murdered by gang here believed Fascist agent," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, July 16, 1927, p. 3.
  • "Lamendola, slain here, is buried in Italy," Pittsburgh Press, July 16, 1927, p. 1.
  • "Machine gun killers sought in Pittsburgh," New Castle PA News, May 20, 1927, p. 26.
  • "Machine gun theory falls when weapon that killed Hill District man is found," Pittsburgh Post, May 21, 1927, p. 5.
  • "Man ambushed and killed," Pottsville PA Evening Herald, May 20, 1927, p. 9.
  • "Murder cafe owners held," Pittsburgh Gazette Times, May 22, 1927, p. D-12.
  • "Nab gangster as murderer of Monastero," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 9, 1929, p. 1.
  • "Pittsburgh police probe slaying of restaurant owner," New Castle PA News, May 20, 1927, p. 31.
  • "Two more padlocks are clamped on," Pittsburgh Post, April 9, 1926, p. 3.
  • Gazarik, Richard, Prohibition Pittsburgh, The History Press, 2017.
  • Luigi Lamendola Certificate of Death, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, file no. 45184, registered no. 4142, May 19, 1927.
  • Passenger manifest of S.S. Conte Rosso, departed Naples, Italy, on Nov. 20, 1926, arrived New York, NY, on Nov. 30, 1926.

24 January 2019

Torrio surrenders Chicago rackets after ambush

On this date in 1925...


Chicago rackets boss Johnny Torrio, at liberty before beginning a nine-month sentence for Prohibition violations, was shot and seriously wounded in front of his home on the afternoon of January 24, 1925.

The attack did not result in Torrio's death but it did effectively remove him from the Chicago underworld. Following weeks in the hospital and months in Lake County Jail in Waukegan, Illinois, Torrio sold his interests in bootlegging businesses and left Chicago. His top lieutenant, Alphonse Capone, took over Torrio's gang and built the Chicago Outfit.

Bullet holes in the Lincoln auto used by the Torrios.

A portion of the Chicago Daily Tribune account of the attack on Torrio - linking it with the recent murder of rival Chicago gang boss Dean O'Banion - follows:

John Torrio, czar of bootlegging and vice in Chicago, was shot five times yesterday in front of his home, 7011 Clyde avenue. He is expected to recover.
The assailants escaped. The police and the underworld are convinced they are gangsters loyal to the memory of Dean O'Banion, the beer runner who was murdered in his flower shop two months ago. O'Banion had challenged Torrio's control of beer running and was killed by Torrio's men, police are certain.
Torrio attended O'Banion's wake. His presence was interpreted by the underworld as a warning to any who challenged him that they might expect to sleep in silver-bronze caskets surrounded by thousands of dollars worth of flowers.
But Torrio's enemies were not cowed. A week ago they tried to assassinate his first lieutenant, Al Capone.
That attempt failed. Yesterday three of them lay in wait for half an hour opposite the Torrio home, waiting for Torrio to return. At 4:30 o'clock Torrio and his wife, Anna, drove up in a heavy sedan. While one of the gunmen remained at the wheel, the other two jumped out and shot Torrio, who tried to escape by running into the apartment building. The attackers leaped back into their machine and fled.
["Torrio is shot; police hunt for O'Banion men," Chicago Sunday Tribune, Jan. 25, 1925, p. 5.]

Mrs. Anna Torrio
The newspaper noted that Torrio left the country for a time following O'Banion's wake. It said that he and his wife traveled to Hot Springs, Arkansas, before embarking for Havana, Cuba, and then reentered the U.S. at St. Petersburg, Florida, before returning to Chicago. The Tribune suggested that friends of O'Banion followed them every step of the way, waiting for an opportunity to avenge O'Banion's murder.

The trip outlined by the newspaper was not out of the ordinary for the Torrios, who frequently traveled inside and outside the U.S. (Their visit to Havana following O'Banion's death was documented by a passenger manifest of the S.S. Governor Cobb, the ship that brought them from Cuba to Florida on December 13, 1924.) But it is odd that Torrio was permitted to leave the country between his May 19, 1924, arrest on federal Prohibition charges and his January 17, 1925, sentencing.

Anna and John Torrio pulled up to their apartment building on January 24 in a chauffeured Lincoln automobile borrowed from a friend. Anna stepped out of the car and walked to the apartment steps, while John gathered a bunch of packages from the vehicle. Two gunmen - one carrying a shotgun and the other a handgun - climbed out of a gray Cadillac around the corner, approached Torrio and opened fire. Torrio made a dash for the building but fell to the sidewalk. The gunmen escaped in their Cadillac.

The chauffeur of the Lincoln, wounded in the knee by a bullet, drove off as the first shots were fired. He was later found and questioned by police. He refused to discuss the shooting.

John Torrio
Torrio, wounded in the chest, arm and jaw, was treated at Jackson Park Hospital. He also refused to provide any information to investigators. According to the Tribune, he told Assistant State's Attorney John Sbarbaro, "I know who they are. It's my business. I'll tell you later." The paper reported that Alphonse Capone was in tears when he rushed to his boss's hospital bed. After Capone made arrangements for Torrio's care and safety, he was taken in for questioning.

As a result of the shooting, federal authorities postponed for thirty days Torrio's scheduled January 28, 1925, entry into DuPage County Jail in Wheaton. Just two weeks later, however, Torrio said he was sufficiently healed to begin his sentence. He requested that he be allowed to serve his time at Waukegan in Lake County, which would be better able to treat any health complications. Federal officials found the request suspicious but granted it.

Allowing for a sentence reduction of forty-five days for good behavior, Torrio's sentence expired near the end of September. His release was held up when some accused the Lake County sheriff of providing Torrio with illegal privileges during his incarceration. It was said that Torrio had his own comfortable furniture placed in his cell, was permitted to possess a loaded automatic pistol for his defense and even repeatedly left the jail for nights out in the company of the sheriff.

Torrio remained in custody as hearings were conducted into the actions of the sheriff. He was released on a $5,000 bond on October 6, as federal Judge Adam C. Cliffe considered the evidence. Cliffe decided a few days later that there was insufficient proof of any wrongdoing. Torrio left Chicago almost immediately after the judge's decision.

John and Anna Torrio set out again that fall for Havana. They traveled with Alphonse Capone and his wife Mae. All four indicated that they lived in New York. They returned to the U.S. together through Key West, Florida, on November 14, 1925. Capone went back to Chicago as a newly appointed underworld boss.

The Torrios headed to an apartment on Shore Road in Brooklyn, where John Torrio continued his involvement in liquor-related rackets. In 1939, he was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison for evading income taxes. Upon his release from Leavenworth, he worked in real estate. He reportedly died of a heart attack while in a Brooklyn barber's chair on April 16, 1957. He was seventy-five years old and had outlived his far more notorious protege Capone by nearly a decade.

Torrio's death went unnoticed by the media until more than two weeks later, when his will, leaving an estate estimated at $200,000 to his wife, was filed in Brooklyn.

Sources:

  • "Al Capone's mentor dies of heart attack," Bloomington IL Pantagraph, May 8, 1957, p. 1.
  • "Chicago police make big haul in war on beer," Freeport IL Journal-Standard, May 19, 1924, p. 1.
  • "Denies Torrio's plea," Chicago Sunday Tribune, Sept. 27, 1925, p. 2.
  • "Drop Torrio inquiry," Decatur IL Herald, Oct. 9, 1925, p. 1.
  • "Johnny Torrio gets 2 1/2 years," Brooklyn Eagle, April 12, 1939, p. 1.
  • "Johnny Torrio, ex-bootlegger who gave Capone start, dies," Richmond IN Palladium-Item, May 8, 1957, p. 9.
  • "Johnny Torrio, ex-public enemy 1, dies; made Al Capone boss of underworld," New York Times, May 8. 1957, p. 32.
  • "Johnny Torrio, once Capone's boss, is dead," Chicago Daily Tribune, May 8, 1957, p. 3: 11
  • "O'Bannion, arch gunman, killed," Decatur IL Daily Review, Nov. 11, 1924, p. 1.
  • "Pistol kept in cell," Cincinati Enquirer, Sept. 29, 1925, p. 3.
  • "Scarface Al Capone, ex-king of crime, dies," Brooklyn Eagle, Jan. 26, 1947, p. 1.
  • "Torrio and 2 aides admit tax frauds," New York Times, April 11, 1939, p. 1.
  • "Torrio free on bonds pending contempt edict," Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct. 7, 1925, p. 12.
  • "Torrio is shot; police hunt for O'Banion men," Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan. 25, 1925, p. 1.
  • "Torrio offers $10,000 if jail lark is proved," Chicago Daily Tribune, Sept. 18, 1925, p. 1.
  • "Torrio under heavy guard as he quits jail," DeKalb IL Daily Chronicle, Oct. 7, 1925, p. 1.
  • "Torrio's power in rum ring bared," New York Times, April 1, 1939.
  • "U.S. is wary of Torrio's request for jail tonight," Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 9, 1925, p. 3.
  • "Woman involved in Dion O'Bannion's murder in Chicago," Brooklyn Eagle, Nov. 11, 1924, p. 3.
  • Gordon, David, "Torrio admits guilt, halts tax evasion trial," Brooklyn Eagle, April 10, 1939, p. 1.
  • John Torrio World War II Draft Registration Card, serial no. U1962, Local Board no. 171, Brooklyn NY.
  • Passenger manifest of S.S. Cuba, arriving Key West, Florida, on Nov. 14, 1925.
  • Passenger manifest of S.S. Governor Cobb, departed Havana, Cuba, on Dec. 13, 1924, arrived Key West, FL, on Dec. 13, 1924.
  • Peterson, Virgil, "Inside the Crime Syndicate (No. 2)," Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine, Oct. 14, 1956, p. 28.
  • Stelzer, Patricia Jacobs, Prohibition and Organized Crime: A Case Study, An Examination of the Life of John Torrio, master's degree thesis, Dayton OH: Wright State University, 1997, p. 7.

16 September 2018

The Unsolved Murder of Officer Edward Riphon

While researching my latest book, Murder Capital, one of the astounding facts I discovered was that in Madison, Wisconsin’s 170-year history, only four police officers were killed in the line of duty. I say “only” because one might expect a state capital to be slightly more dangerous. The even more interesting part of this historical footnote, however, is that all four murders occurred around the time of Prohibition – for the over 80 years since combined, the level of danger comes nowhere close to the risk of patrolling in those 13 lawless years.

Three of those four deaths are covered in Murder Capital. The fourth, that of Officer Edward Riphon, was excluded because it could not be directly connected to the group of bootleggers and bloodthirsty killers I was putting the spotlight on. This does not mean, however, that Riphon’s story is not worth telling. With that in mind, the following summary of his heroic death is provided in remembrance.

Edward Francis Riphon was born on March 3, 1894 in the rural Dane County community of Spingdale, where he was raised by his parents, Martin Riphon and Sarah Moran Riphon, and helped out on the family farm at an early age and through his early 20s. The town was rural enough that his address was simply “on the Mount Horeb Road”[i] Even as recently as 2010, much of the town was without water and sewer facilities.

By the middle of 1917, Edward was married and still working on the family farm.[ii] What made his decide to switch careers is unknown. After getting hired on as a police officer in June 1927, Riphon apparently moved into Madison gradually. The 1930 Federal Census has him boarding at 615 West Main Street without his family joining him.[iii] From his first day on the force, he was scheduled on the night shift.

The most memorable moment in Riphon’s career came in December 1931, when he encountered John Schyler in the Forrest Taylor soft drink place. Schyler appeared to be reaching for a gun when Riphon intervened. After a short hand-to-hand melee, Riphon came out on top. Back at the station, it was determined that Schyler was the head of a bank robbery gang out of Fond du Lac. From his jail cell, Schyler gave up gang member Herman Ringhand. Riphon was highly commended and the pair were sent up to the state prison for 25 years.


At 1:00am on May 16, 1932, Riphon made his report into headquarters from a callbox outside the Tenney building (110 East Main) on the Capitol Square. He had just finished a late night meal at Bailey’s (518 East Wilson) with cabbie Gus Wilson, just as he had many nights before.[iv] Around 1:30, he was seen by garage employee Carl Deering speaking with three men in a large, dark-colored sedan. The automobile was parked on South Pinckney, halfway between Main and Washington. When Riphon did not make his 2:00 telephone call in to Sgt. Patrick Powers, they knew something was wrong.

Officer Riphon was found around 7:50am in a gravel pit on Hope Road, east of Madison. Tragically, it was 10-year Olin K. Jacobson, on his way to school, who first saw the horrific sight. Jacobson thought the man in the ditch was merely asleep, and alerted Fred Horstmeyer, who relayed the word to Julius Irvin Witte, proprietor of the Hope general store (and the nearest telephone).[v] Riphon had been shot twice, with one bullet penetrating his temple. He was apparently also beaten, as his body was covered in bruises. His patrol car was parked at the capitol building in the center of town, further indicating he had been “taken for a ride”. Rumors circulated that Riphon had a “black book” with the names of local gangsters and this was the cause of his death.

Immediate suspicion was turned toward Archie Dell Delaney, who was seen with Riphon on the day he vanished. Delaney had been sent to the reformatory at Green Bay for burglary a few years prior. Questioning of Delaney cleared his name immediately; he may have been a burglar, but he was no murderer. Riphon’s wife suspected area bootleggers. She told detectives that they had received many threatening letters over the years, and on one occasion there was an altercation with a south side restaurant owner. She feared that his being transferred from the south side to the capitol square might give the bootleggers the false impression that he was scared, despite his not asking to be transferred.[vi]

Not long after the apparent abduction, an automobile matching Deering’s description was found abandoned in McHenry, Illinois, approximately 95 miles southeast of Madison. Today, McHenry is considered by some to be the northwest edge of the Chicago suburbs. An automobile had been hijacked near Rush Street in Chicago from Major F. O. Wood of Camp McCoy[vii], and police believed this car, a Studebaker, was driven to Madison and back to McHenry before being dumped. Wood was even an occupant for approximately twenty minutes before being forced out at Halsted and Fulton (in the River West neighborhood). During the ride, Wood was ordered to “look straight ahead” and had a nickel-plated .32 pointed at him. He initially described two of the hijackers as “an Italian” and “a Norwegian” who was a “darn nice looking boy”.


Unknown to Wood, the vehicle continued on to Madison, stopping multiple times to change license plates. In Whitewater, plates were stolen from garage owner Max Frederick Foerster. Upon reaching Madison, they stole another set from the Studebaker of Philo Buck, professor of comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin. Probably unknown to the men, they were also parked right outside the home of Dean Charles Schlichter. The stolen plates may have been the cause of Officer Riphon’s questioning, and if so, his death may have been spur of the moment rather than anything planned or “contracted”.

On the morning of May 18, law enforcement personnel had Wood look through thousands of rogues gallery photographs in Chicago. He picked out five men who seemed familiar to him: Albert Novak, Clarence Flynn, Minard Batjes, Henry Decker and William Kasierod. All the men were around age 20. The two most likely suspects according to Wood were Novak, a car thief who had once been an accessory to murder, and Flynn, a known rapist.[viii]

The sedan itself was a bloodbath; splatters were found on the ceiling, the rear door, the windshield and elsewhere. The belief was that Riphon had been bludgeoned repeatedly with a gas pipe. Two such pipes, both 18 inches in length, were found in the car, one of them still smeared with blood and hair. A pencil from Koch Rent-a-Car was found, as was a key, both items tracing back to Riphon.[ix]

After abandoning the murder vehicle, the killers stole another car in McHenry, one owned by grocery store proprietor Peter William Frett. According to the newspaper, by some strange coincidence, Frett had actually known Riphon in passing from being in Madison on business. The Frett car, in turn, was deposited in Chicago, and the men were seen fleeing by railroad porter Adolph Herman of 5442 Higgins Avenue (in the Jefferson Park neighborhood). As the newspaper put it, they “fled to cover in the Chicago underworld”.[x]

Patrolman Riphon had served with the agency for five years. He was survived by his wife, Isabelle Berg Riphon and their children Marian, Berniece, and Raymond. When the funeral took place at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church a few days later, 900 mourners came to pay their respects. Fifteen uniformed officers were on site, including the six pallbearers. Father John A. Risch told his parishioners, “When our friends close their eyes for the last time, we should open ours.” He swore that Riphon’s life was taken by “a detestable scoundrel endeavoring to undermine human society.”[xi]

Despite the identification of suspects by Wood, no arrests were ever made and the Riphon homicide remains unsolved.

The story of Officer Riphon briefly made the news more than 80 years after his passing, due to another family tragedy. His son, Raymond Riphon, had lost his father at the tender age of 7 and turned to the Catholic Church to be his guide. For the next eight decades, he attended school, he attended mass, and was well-known and respected by all who knew him. "He always sat in the third pew, aisle side, for five o'clock mass every Saturday," Father Michael Radowicz says. "He had a very good friend that would bring him to mass. He was always just a wonderful guy and just always had a bright smile." Therefore it came as a great shock when at Raymond’s funeral in 2012, someone stole the memorial box – not simply the money, but the cards, as well. Raymond’s “safe haven” was violated.[xii]


Gavin Schmitt's Murder Capital is available now.


[i] 1900, 1910 Federal Census
[ii] World War I Draft Registration
[iii] 1930 Federal Census
[iv] “Police Hunt Pair After Killers Take Officer Riphon for ‘Ride’” Wisconsin State Journal. May 16, 1932.
[v] “Police Hunt Pair”
[vi] “Police Hunt Pair”
[vii] There was some confusion on the identity of Wood. When consulted, Camp McCoy knew of no such man. A Major Norman B. Wood of Two Rivers, connected with Camp Grant, existed. Whether the man incorrectly identified himself or was misheard by police is unclear. The discrepancy is covered in William H. McCall, “Bloody Auto Points Slayers’ Trail to Lair”, Wisconsin State Journal. May 17, 1932.
[viii] McCall, William H. “Order Arrest of 5 ‘Bad’ Chicago Suspects in Riphon ‘Ride’ Murder” Wisconsin State Journal. May 18, 1932.
[ix] McCall, William H. “Patrolman Beaten with Gas Pipe, Death Car Tells” Wisconsin State Journal. May 18, 1932
[x] “Gas Pipe”
[xi] “Death Great Preacher, Teacher, Priest Tells Riphon Mourners” Wisconsin State Journal. May 18, 1932.
[xii] http://www.wkow.com/story/24139649/2013/12/Wednesday/tonight-at-10-donation-box-from-funeral-stolen-from-local-family