The Barrel Murder of 1903

New York Evening World, April 14, 1903.

On this date in 1903 - Agents of the United States Secret Service were called upon to help New York City police identify a corpse found in a barrel on Manhattan's East Eleventh Street near Avenue D. 

Frances Connors was on her way to work at 5:30 in the morning, when she spotted a garment sticking out of a sugar barrel between piles of lumber on the sidewalk in front of the New York Mallet and Handle Company (743 East Eleventh Street). She thought she could make use of the fabric and went to take it from the barrel. As she removed it, she uncovered the dead man inside. The corpse had been folded and crammed into the barrel. The body showed a number of stab wounds. The obvious cause of death was a pair of razor slashes that nearly severed the head from the torso.

The victim.
NY Evening World, April 15, 1903.

Connors' screams caused Special Officer Joseph McCall, on patrol on East Eleventh Street, to rush to the site. He summoned detectives. When the body was removed from the barrel, a slip of paper containing Italian language writing was found. That was sufficient reason for Detective Bureau supervisor "Chesty George" McCluskey to assign the case to Detective Joseph Petrosino, who resolved many criminal matters relating to the immigrant Italian community in New York City. 

Reports of the barrel victim reached William Flynn, chief agent of the New York office of the U.S. Secret Service. Flynn's men, assigned to surveil the counterfeiting gang of Mafia leader Giuseppe Morello, had noticed some odd behavior and a stranger with gang members the night before. Flynn arranged for his men to take a look at the victim and cooperate with the NYPD murder investigation.

The agents recognized the deceased man as the stranger they observed with the Morello Mafia members. Police gathered up known members of Morello's organization, including top Mafiosi Giuseppe Morello and Ignazio Lupo. They were unable to locate Morello adviser Vito Cascio Ferro. They later learned that Cascio Ferro fled back to his native Sicily through New Orleans.

The Morello Mob
NY Evening World, April 16, 1903.

The victim was eventually identified as Buffalo resident Benedetto Madonia, brother-in-law of Giuseppe DePrima, a Morello gangster recently imprisoned for counterfeiting. Authorities believed the New York City Mafiosi lured Madonia to his death because DePrima was judged a traitor. (Secret Service Agent Flynn gave Mafia leaders this mistaken impression through a favorable treatment of DePrima, which he hoped would lead other gang members to cooperate.)

Using the barrel's label and some sawdust and garbage found at the bottom of it, police were able to link the barrel to a Morello gang hangout. They also found that a Mafia suspect known as Petto the Ox was in possession of a pawn ticket for a watch that belonged to the victim. Though certain of the gang's responsibility for Madonia's killing, authorities could not assemble a convincing case. 

Read more about the Barrel Murder on the American Mafia history website:

• The Barrel Mystery by William J. Flynn (1919)
• Memoirs of a Murder Man by Arthur A. Carey (1930)
• "Sinistro: The underworld career of Giuseppe Morello" (2015)
• "Badges in Little Italy" (2007) 

Sources:

• "Barrel murder inquest," New York Times, May 8, 1903, p. 7.
• "Counterfeiters cut throat of the man whose body was packed in barrel of sawdust," New York Press, April 16, 1903, p. 1.
• "Killed and packed in barrel," New York Sun, April 15, 1903, p. 1. 
• "Madonia's knowledge cost him his life," Washington D.C. Times, April 21, 1903, p. 1.
• "Mafia murder victim," New York Tribune, April 15, 1903, p. 1.
• "Man found in barrel known," New York Sun, April 21, 1903, p. 1.
• "Man in barrel was tortured, then murdered," New York World, April 14, 1903, p. 1.
• "Slain man in barrel; may be a Brooklyn crime," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 14, 1903, p. 1.
• "Twelve suspects held in barrel murder case," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 16, 1903, p. 22. 
• Carey, Arthur A., Memoirs of a Murder Man, Garden City NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1930.
• Flynn, William J., Daily Reports, April 13-22, 25, 29-30, May 1, 7-8, 1903, Department of the Treasury, United States Secret Service Daily Reports, R.G. No. 87, Roll 109, Vol. 9, National Archives.
• Flynn, William J., Daily Report, March 21-22, 1904, Department of the Treasury, United States Secret Service Daily Reports, R.G. No. 87, Roll 109, Vol. 11, National Archives. 
• Flynn, William J., The Barrel Mystery, James A. McCann Company, 1919.
• Benedetto Madonia Certificate and Record of Death, certificate no. 12640, City of New York, April 14, 1903.
• Prisoner's Criminal Record, Bureau of Detectives, Police Department of the City of New York, Giuseppe Morello Prison File, inmate no. 2882, Atlanta Federal Prison, National Archives and Records Administration.

NYPD detective fatally shot by cafe robbers

Detective Michael J. Foley

On this date in 1937 - Gunmen attempting to rob the Cafe Boulevard restaurant in Manhattan fatally shot Police Detective Michael J. Foley.

The incident led to the wrongful conviction and nearly to the execution of New York resident Isidore "Beansy" Zimmerman.

In 1938, Zimmerman and four other men were convicted of the murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. The case against Zimmerman rested on testimony of alleged accomplices who received immunity from prosecution, a common occurrence in high-profile cases handled by the office of District Attorney Thomas Dewey. Those witnesses stated that, while Zimmerman was not present when Detective Foley was shot, he had planned the armed robbery that resulted in the fatal shooting.

On the day scheduled for execution, Governor Herbert Lehman commuted Zimmerman's sentence to life in prison. "Beansy" was taken from Death Row and evaluated for emotional problems by medical staff before being moved to the prison's general population. He spent the next twenty-three years in penitentiaries - Sing Sing, Auburn, Dannemora and Green Haven. Bitter over his treatment and emotionally scarred from his near-execution, Zimmerman was an uncooperative prisoner and frequently served disciplinary terms in solitary confinement.

Isidore 'Beansy' Zimmerman

Later investigations revealed improper actions by Dewey assistant Jacob Rosenblum. Rosenblum was found to have hidden evidence of conflicting statements by the witnesses used against Zimmerman.

In January 1961, the New York State Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Zimmerman. Prosecutors decided not to retry the flawed case. Zimmerman was released from prison in February 1961. The original indictment against him was dismissed in March 1967.

In 1981, two decades after he was released from prison, New York Governor Hugh Carey agreed to permit a Zimmerman lawsuit. Zimmerman won a court judgment of $1 million in the late spring of 1983. He was left with $660,000, after paying off his large legal expenses. He had little time left to enjoy the money. He bought a new car and took a short vacation in the Catskills before he died.

Sources:

• “Detective is slain battling 4 thugs,” New York Times, April 11, 1937, p. 21.
• “Indicted in police death,” New York Times, April 23, 1937, p. 2.
• “Five are convicted in police killing,” New York Times, April 15, 1938, p. 11.
• “5 young bandits sentenced to die,” New York Times, April 23, 1938, p. 32.
• “3 die, 2 are spared for hold-up death,” New York Times, Jan. 27, 1939, p. 42.
• Howard, Jane, “Wrong man in jail,” LIFE, May 15, 1964, p. 57-64.
• “Resigns as Dewey aide,” New York Times, Dec. 31, 1941, p. 20.
• Isidore Zimmerman v. City of New York et al., Supreme Court of New York, Special Term, New York County, 1966, ny.findacase.com, accessed May 5, 2016.
• “Jacob J. Rosenblum dead at 73; Dewey homicide bureau chief,” New York Times, Jan. 24, 1971, p. 65.
• Zimmerman v. State of New York, Court of Claims, 76 Misc. 2d 193, 1973, casetext.com, accessed May 5, 2016.
• “What price a Zimmerman?” New York Times, June 5, 1983.
• McFadden, Robert D., “Isidore Zimmerman, 66, man unjustly jailed for a murder,” New York Times, Oct. 14, 1983.

April 6, 1950: Bullets take KC political leader, aide

On this date in 1950, Charles Binaggio and Charles Gargotta were found dead inside the First District Democratic Club headquarters,  716 East Truman Road, on the North Side of Kansas City. They were found, several .38-caliber bullet wounds in their heads, at about four o'clock in the morning.

Binaggio was found dead in his political club office.

Binaggio, 40, was the Democratic Party boss in the North Side, where many Italian-Americans resided and voted. A one-time follower of the late Democratic machine boss Thomas Pendergast and John Lazia, who was murdered in 1934, Binaggio served as a link between Missouri Democratic politicians and the Italian underworld of Kansas City and St. Louis. His command of the North Side vote gave him great political power across the state. He was believed to be a close ally of Kansas City Mafiosi, including James Balestrere.

Binaggio's political faction rivaled and quickly eclipsed the Pendergast machine when, after the death of Tom Pendergast, that organization was controlled by Pendergast's nephew James.

Gargotta, 49, was Binaggio's bodyguard and right-hand-man. The local press noted that Gargotta been arrested forty times in a thirty-year period. Charges of murder, gambling, robbery, extortion, carrying concealed weapons and violating liquor laws were all dismissed. Gargotta was convicted once, on an assault to kill charge stemming from the attempted murder of Sheriff Tom Bash. Gargotta served a 19-month prison sentence for that offense. Gargotta also rose to power under the guidance of Pendergast and Lazia.

Before his murder, Binaggio announced that he would soon be leaving politics. His failed efforts in recent years to win approval for legal gambling in the State of Missouri was a costly disappointment to his underworld associates. Binaggio's political manipulations and criminal connections were constantly in the press during that time, and Binaggio became the target of federal investigations.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 6, 1950.

Binaggio's body was found slumped in a swivel chair behind a desk in the headquarters' outer office. There were powder burns around his wounds, indicating that a pistol had been placed against his head and fired.

Gargotta's body was found on the floor near the door. He had a gunshot wound to the base of his skull, apparently due to a bullet fired from some distance. Three other wounds in the left side of his head were closely grouped and powder burned.

Recommended books on the Kansas City underworld:

•  The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob
•  Open City: True Story of the KC Crime Family 1900-1950

New Orleans underworld boss murdered

On this date in 1869, New Orleans Mafia boss Raffaele Agnello was shot to death during an underworld feud. 

New Orleans Crescent, April 2, 1869.

Agnello, accompanied by his godson and bodyguard Frank Sacarro, was on a walk around the French Quarter when a noise from Old Levee Street behind him caught his attention. When he turned back to resume his walk, a bareheaded man in a long frock coat stepped forward and pointed a brass-mounted blunderbuss pistol at the boss's head.

The pistol fired, launching chunks of metal into Agnello's skull and killing him instantly. Some of the blunderbuss's projectiles missed the mark and cracked through the windows and walls of the Joseph Macheca produce store and the Norman & Reiss bakery on Toulouse Street. Sacarro's left index finger was wounded when he thrust out his left hand toward the weapon as it fired.

The gunman in the frock coat fled through the bakery pursued by Sacarro, who drew a pistol and managed to wound him with a shot. The gunman, leaving behind a trail of blood, escaped through a rear exit. Frank Philips, a baker working at Norman & Reiss, was wounded in the right leg by some flying lead.

In the summer, authorities arrested Joseph Florada (who may also have been known as Gaetano Arditto) as a suspect in the Agnello killing. Sacarro would not identify Florada as the man he saw shoot his godfather, and the suspect was set free.

Agnello had been leader of a Mafia organization comprised of Palermitani. His enemies, an alliance largely made up of Messinesi and Trapanesi, had a momentary advantage in an underworld struggle that had already lasted several months, since the killing of Litero Barba, reputed leader of a Messinian gang. The war was not yet over, however. Raffaele Agnello's brother Joseph stepped up to the leadership of the Palermitani and continued the fight until his own murder in 1872.

For more about this subject try Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia.