On
June 7, 1930, a tugboat chugging through a drainage canal outside of Chicago churned up a body
that had been weighted down with seventy-five pounds of iron. Inside the dead
man’s suit was a photo of pretty girl with the inscription, “Gene, I’ll be
loving you always, Maria.” Could Maria have been Mary Collins? According to one
writer; yes. As the body sat on the slab waiting for identification, somebody
called Tom McLaughlin, the president of the Checker Cab Company, and asked him
if his younger brother, Eugene “Red” McLaughlin—the very same gangster who was
arrested for the murder of victim number two, Irv Schlig— was missing. Tom said that Red hadn’t
been seen in two weeks. The caller then told him about what the police dragged
out of the drainage canal and Tom raced over to the morgue. There he officially
identified the corpse as his younger brother. Shown the photo Tom reportedly
said, “Yes, that’s Mary all right. I told him she was poison and he would get
his, if he went around with that skirt.” Apparently Red laughed off the curse,
not realizing he was victim number six.
#6
Headline for #7
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