ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE CONNECTION TO SOUTHWESTERN MICHIGAN

BUNGALOW RESIDENCE IN STEVENSVILLE

Bungalow residence in Stevensville, Michigan, thought to be that of Fred Dane, however on December 14, 1929, after St. Joseph Police Officer Charles Skelly was gunned down, it was learned that Fred Dane was actually Fred "Killer" Burke. Residence is located on Red Arrow Highway south of Glenlord Road on the east side of road. Structure is still standing, however has been converted over to the business of Coldwell Banker Real Estate.

 WEAPONS CACHE

When Deputies made entry into the residence of Fred "Killer" Burke, they forced open a locked upstairs closet and found:
Two Thompson machine guns w/ Nine ammunition drums - One gun was assembled, loaded and ready for instant use while the other was in a black suitcase
Five 100-shot .45 caliber drums loaded, many other smaller drums
Three 20-shot clips
Two high powered rifles, one was Winchester .350 automatic, other was Savage .303
One sawed off shotgun with pistol grip
Two bags of ammunition estimated at 5,000 shells
½ dozen fruit jars and tin cans filled with misc. ammunition, including smokeless shotgun shells, shells loaded with iron slugs and small shot.
½ dozen tear gas bombs
In addition to the arsenal, deputies found trap doors, several disguises, well-thumbed detective novels and $390,000 worth of stolen bonds from a Jefferson, Wisconsin Bank.

Sheriff Fred Bryant and Deputy Charles Andrews pose wearing bulletproof vests from the Burke residence and brandishing two weapons also confiscated, including one of the Tommy Guns.

WANTED MAN

Wanted Poster put out by the Michigan State Police for Fred "Killer" Burke in 1929.

FORENSIC INNOVATIONS

Colonel Calvin H. Goddard, first Director of privately funded scientific crime detection laboratory which later became the Chicago Police Department Crime Lab as a result
of St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Calvin Goddard examining a weapon

HISTORY TODAY

Berrien County Sheriff's Office Historian and 911 Quality Assurance Supervisor Chriss Lyon holding one of two Thompson Sub-Machine Guns seized from the Stevensville
residence of Fred "Killer" Burke on December 14, 1929. 
Photo by John Madill, The Herald-Palladium, October, 2006.

Fred "Killer" Burke house in 2008, now home of Coldwell Banker.
 Photo by Chriss Lyon, 2008

One of the Thompson sub-machine guns, bulletproof vest and drum magazine, 2019.

'Joe Baker' gunned down on Belmont Ave.

On this date in 1931:

Mafia gunmen working for Castellammarese insurrection leader Salvatore Maranzano on February 3, 1931, ambushed Joseph "Joe the Baker" Catania in the Bronx. A key figure in the administration of boss of bosses Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria, Catania was gunned down in front of a candy store at 2373 Belmont Avenue. He was struck by slugs in the neck and upper body. He was rushed to Fordham Hospital, where he died the following morning.

Catania

The Mafia's Castellammarese War had been raging for months. The devastating loss of Catania occurred at a time when Masseria was insisting that his loyalists disarm to avoid provoking police. Convinced that the disarmament strategy would cause them to quickly follow Catania to the grave, Masseria's lieutenants began plotting his assassination.

Joseph Catania, twenty-eight,* was a nephew of Masseria group leader Ciro "the Artichoke King" Terranova. The married father of two children, Catania lived at 2319 Belmont Avenue, about two blocks from the scene of his murder. He was known as "Joe the Baker" or "Joe Baker" because of his involvement in the bakery business since childhood.

Catania reportedly was well liked by New York Mafiosi, but somehow managed to deeply offend Maranzano. The rebel leader felt that Catania must be killed before the end of the war. Maranzano sent hit teams to known Catania hangouts in the neighborhood of Arthur Avenue and 187th Street. (The Catania family had a bakery at 2389 Arthur Avenue in this period and years earlier lived in an apartment above it. The address is now home to an Italian restaurant and apartments.) These teams were unable to locate their target.

Maranzano next negotiated with Frank Scalise of the Bronx, a recent convert to the rebel cause, to eliminate the Baker. After two weeks, Maranzano gave up hope of Scalise taking care of things. The Castellammarese leader stationed a team, including Salvatore "Sally" Shillitani, Nick Capuzzi, Joseph Valachi and Maranzano's top assassin Sebastiano "Buster" Domingo, in a top-floor apartment across narrow Belmont Avenue from an office known to be used by Catania. The office was just a two-minute walk from Catania's apartment but was in a busier and more commercial setting.

Valachi later wrote about the assignment in his autobiography, The Real Thing, recalling that he personally liked Catania but hid that fact from his boss Maranzano.

New York Times

From the apartment windows, the team was able to spot and track Catania. They watched him go through the same routine at about nine o'clock every morning except Sunday - he appeared at the office, picked up some money, then came out and quickly walked a short distance to the corner, rounded the corner and disappeared. Each morning for weeks, Domingo prepared to take a shot at Catania as he reached the corner, but Domingo was too high over the street and Catania visible for too short a time to do so reliably.

Valachi became aware that a first-floor apartment in the building was vacant. He suggested that the team burst into that apartment one morning and target Catania from its windows. Maranzano approved the plan.

At eight o'clock on the morning of February 3, 1931, Valachi used burglar tools to open the door of the first-floor apartment, and the team members entered with guns drawn. Three painters were at work inside. When they saw the gangsters, they believed they were being held up and offered their money.

Valachi recalled, "I told them that we did not want their money, just go on painting the way you were doing and everyone will be happy and no one will bother you." The painters, whose names and home addresses were released to the press, later told the police that the gangsters entered with their faces masked with black scarves.

The other team members set up, but Valachi claimed that it was his job to go outside and start the getaway car. (With this claim, Valachi removed himself from the actual shooting of Catania. Interestingly, Valachi did not mention getting the car ready at any of the other times that Domingo had Catania in his sights.) In addition to putting six slugs in Catania, the shooters put numerous holes in the front windows of the candy store and an adjacent butcher shop.

Valachi estimated that he was in the car less than a minute when his associates arrived there. He did not recall whether he heard the gunshots. During their escape, Shillitani told him about the shooting:

He [Shillitani] felt bad because Joe Baker came out of the office and as he reached the corner his wife met him and she handed him something and they kissed and he went the other way and the wife just stayed there and was watching him go when Buster had to shoot... Solly said that he saw the dust come out of Joe's coat as the bullets hit him in the back.

A crowd gathered around the fallen Catania. One of the first to him was taxi driver Daniel Stefano. Catania was loaded into Stefano's cab and driven to Fordham Hospital. 

Portion of Catania death certificate.

The Baker died of his wounds at seven forty-eight the next morning. An autopsy determined that the cause of death was "multiple gunshot wounds, penetrating pharynx, trachea, lungs; internal hemorrhage."

Police questioned Daniel Stefano, Catania friend Daniel Iamascia and Catania's wife Louisa, but could not figure out the killing.

Catania (right) and underworld associates John Savino (left) and Daniel Iamascia

The New York underworld gave Catania a magnificent send-off. Press reports estimated that his funeral cost as much as $35,000, with about $10,000 said to have been invested in his coffin. (The coffin was bronze, according to the New York Times. The New York Daily News reported that it was silver.)

News from Catania's wake reached Maranzano through his spies: Ciro Terranova reportedly stood by the coffin, placed one hand on it and the other hand high in the air, and swore to avenge the killing of his nephew.

"When the old man [Maranzano] heard about this," Valachi recalled, "he sent someone at the funeral parlor to see if there was a chance to get [Terranova] at the wake. Naturally it was a spy but word came that it was impossible to do anything."

The funeral procession on February 7 was watched by about 10,000 people. It reportedly took forty cars to carry the floral offerings of friends, family and associates. Dozens of mounted and foot police officers kept order along the route and dozens of plain clothes detectives mingled in the crowd.

A Roman Catholic Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated by three priests at the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, about a block from the scene of the murder. Police frisked known crime figures, including Terranova, as they entered the church.

After the services, Catania's remains were placed temporarily in a crypt at Woodlawn Cemetery while a mausoleum was constructed at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx.


* Different records point to different birthdates for Joseph Catania, ranging from March 1900 to November 1902, but the most reliable available sources point to between September 29, 1902, and October 1, 1902.

Sources:

• "10,000 at funeral of 'Joe the Baker,'" New York Times, Feb. 8, 1931, p. 30.
• "Bail runner shot in street ambush," New York Times, Feb. 4, 1931, p. 11.
• Birth records of Palermo, Italy, vol. 455, no. 108.
• "Gang shots fatal to Joe the Baker," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 4, 1931, p. 2.
• "'Joe the Baker' dies of wounds," Brooklyn Standard Union, Feb. 4, 1931, p. 1.
• Joseph Catania Certificate of Death, Borough of Bronx, registered no. 1453, Department of Health of the City of New York Bureau of Records, Feb. 4, 1931,
• "Machine gun pair in Bronx riddle thug," New York Daily News, Feb. 4, 1931, p. 38.
• Miley, Jack, "$35,000 funeral puts thug in last spot," New York Daily News, Feb. 8, 1931, p. 6.
• New York State Census of 1905, New York County, Assembly District 32, Election District Special no. 3.
• New York State Census of 1915, New York County, Assembly District 28, Election District 2.
• New York State Census of 1925, Bronx County, Assembly District 7, Election District 45.
• Passenger manifest of S.S. Trojan Prince, departed Palermo, Sicily, on April 15, 1903, arrived New York on May 1, 1903.
• United States Census of 1910, New York State, New York County, Ward 12, Enumeration District 341.
• United States Census of 1920, New York State, Bronx County, Assembly District 4, Enumeration District 393.
• United States Census of 1930, New York State, Bronx County, Enumeration District 3-552.
• Valachi, Joseph, The Real Thing - Second Government: The Expose and Inside Doings of Cosa Nostra by Joseph Valachi, Member Since 1930, unpublished manuscript, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, p. 323-328.
• Van`t Riet, Lennert, David Critchley and Steve Turner, "Gunmen of the Castellammarese War - Part 5: A lifetime of tangling with the law: Salvatore 'Sally Shields' Shillitani," Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement, April 2013.
• World War I Draft Registration Card, serial no. 3655, order no. 736, Local Board 17, New York City, Sept. 19, 1918.

'Lucky' out of prison, held at Ellis Island

Authorities prepare to deport NY Mafia boss

On this date in 1946:

New York Mafia boss Salvatore "Charlie Lucky Luciano" Lucania, age forty-eight, was removed from temporary custody at Sing Sing Prison on February 2, 1946, and placed in a holding area at Ellis Island, as authorities prepared to deport him to his native Italy.

Lucania

Lucania, leader of a powerful crime family (later known as the Genovese Family) and one of the architects of the Mafia's national Commission, was convicted about nine and a half years earlier on sixty-two counts of compulsory prostitution. On June 18, 1936, he was sentenced to a prison term of thirty to fifty years.

The case that put Lucania behind bars was handled by then-Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey also was responsible for Lucania's release. Entering the final year of his first term as New York governor, Dewey on January 3, 1946, commuted the remainder of Lucania's sentence on the condition that he be deported to Italy.

The governor issued a statement relating to the commutation, which revealed that the imprisoned Lucania rendered some sort of assistance to the U.S. military during World War II:

Luciano is deportable to Italy. He was a leader of a syndicate which supervised and gave orders relating to the operation of a vice combine which "booked" women for houses of prostitution and provided other service incidental to the operation of houses of prostitution. He has previously been convicted of the possession of drugs. Upon the entry of the United States into the war, Luciano's aid was sought by the armed services in inducing others to provide information concerning possible enemy attack. It appears that he cooperated in such effort, though the actual value of the information provided is not clear. His record in prison is reported as wholly satisfactory.

Wild stories quickly grew out of the news of Lucania's aid to the military. Just a few days after Dewey's statement, a New York Daily News entertainment page featured an article that claimed Lucania was single-handedly responsible for saving the lives of countless American servicemen. The article, by Robert Sylvester, quoted an unnamed underworld source:

Remember the Sicily campaign was one of the easiest of the war? Well, Charley made it that way. He turned over a whole Cloak & Dagger Crew which worked before and during the invasion. You can thank Charley Lucky for saving thousands and thousands of American lives.

Dewey

Some questioned Dewey's motivation for commuting Lucania's sentence. (The state administration conducted an investigation of its own decision-making.) Some years later, it was suggested that Lucania had obtained damaging information against Dewey. An autobiography of narcotics agent Sal Vizzini claimed that, while in exile, Lucania boasted about that: "I had a whole damned battery of lawyers. I told them I didn't care what it cost but I wanted them to dig into Dewey's background. They came up with a pile of information on him that might have put his ass in the can..."

SIx days after Governor Dewey's sentence commutation, Lucania was transfered from Great Meadow State Prison in the upstate New York hamlet of Comstock (just east of Lake George) to Sing Sing Prison at Ossining, about thirty miles from New York City.

The Board of Parole approved Lucania's release for the purpose of deportation on February 2. Immigration and Naturalization agents took custody of him on that date and brought him to the federal immigration facility at Ellis Island. While at Ellis Island, he was permitted to visit briefly with underworld associates Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello and Michael Lascari and with attorney Moses Polakoff.

His stay on the island lasted less than a week. He was taken to Brooklyn and put aboard the S.S. Laura Keene at Pier 7 of the Bush Terminal on February 8. The ship's departure was delayed by bad weather, but she sailed for Italy on February 10, reaching Naples seventeen days later.

Read the details of Lucania's imprisonment and release:
"When 'Lucky' was locked up," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us

Sources:

• Abrams, Norma, "Poor Italy: Defeat and now, Luciano!" New York Daily News, Feb. 9, 1946, p. 3.
• "Charles Luciano, Anti-Racketeering," translations of Italian language articles appearing in the Jan. 11, Jan. 18 and Jan. 25, 1959, issues of L'Europeo magazine, FBI memo, Feb. 18, 1959.
• Conroy, E.E., FBI teletype, file no. 39-2141-5, Feb. 26, 1946.
• Conroy, E.E., FBI teletype, file no. 39-2141-6, Feb. 27, 1946.
• Conroy, E.E., Letter to Mr. Hoover, Charles Luciano FBI file, no. 39-2141-8, March 1, 1946.
• "Dewey commutes Luciano sentence," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1946, p. 25.
• "A French payment," editorial, Brooklyn Citizen, Jan. 5, 1942, p. 4.
• Herlands, William B., Report of the Commissioner of Investigation to Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Sept. 17, 1954.
• Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce (Kefauver Committee), U.S. Senate, 81st Congress 2nd Session and 82nd Congress 1st Session, Part 7, Meyer Lansky testimony of Feb. 14, 1951, p. 606-607.
• "'Lucky' Luciano to be paroled and deported," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 3, 1946, p. 1.
• Rosen, A., "Charles 'Lucky' Luciano," FBI memorandum to E.A. Tamm, file no. 39-2141-39, May 17, 1946.
• "Salvatore Lucania...," FBI report NY 62-8768, file no. 39-2141-9, May 5, 1946.
• Sylvester, Robert, "A B'way hoodlum lives a melodrama nobody would write," New York Daily News, Jan. 8, 1946, p. 27.
• Vizzini, Sal, with Oscar Fraley and Marshall Smith, Vizzini: The Story of America's No, 1 Undercover Narcotics Agent, New York: Pinnacle, 1972, p. 77.

Death of Police Officer in 1927 finally being recognized in Washington DC

I was honored recently by St. Joseph Department of Public Safety (Michigan) Director Steven Neubecker for my contributions to the history of the department through my research and writing. My 2014 published true crime novel, "A Killing in Capone's Playground: The True Story of the Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive" highlighted the story of Officer Charles Skelly, who was killed in the line of duty by St. Valentine's Day Massacre hit man, Fred "Killer" Burke on December 14, 1929. However, Skelly was not the first officer to meet his fate on the job. Officer Francis LaMunion had started his job as a motorcycle officer in the spring of 1927, where he likely took up a friendship with Charles Skelly. Both men were 23-years old and had the desire to fight the illegal bootleggers who found their way into the city. Sadly, Officer LaMunion suffered serious injuries one day in June 1927, while chasing after a speeding bootlegger. LaMunion crashed into the back of a laundry truck at 50 mph and was thrown from his motorcycle. Doctors could do little for him and he died the next day of massive internal injuries.



Francis LaMunion, 1927

 

Charles Skelly, 1929

While researching the lives of the other officers included on the Berrien County Law Enforcement Memorial, I realized that Francis LaMunion's name was missing from the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington DC. With the help of Director Neubecker, we were able to contact the proper officials and send them the various newspaper articles that proved his death was related to injuries suffered while on duty. Two years later, it was announced that Francis LaMunion will be included on the national memorial and revealed on May 13, 2020, in Washington DC, 93 years after his death.

Having a law enforcement background and serving 25 years as a 911 Supervisor for the County of Berrien, I could not be prouder and more honored to play even a small role in seeing this through. Officer Francis LaMunion gave his life for the purpose of keeping our community safe and making sure that the bootleggers were not welcome.

I hope that the value of our research and commitment to telling true stories of the past will educate others about the Roaring Twenties and subsequent decades.

http://in-deptheditions.com/press/?page_id=220