Cesare Mori

Probably no individual was more responsible for the mass exodus of mafiosi from Sicily to the United States than Cesare Mori, one of Benito Mussolini’s most devoted agents of suppression. Mussolini had used Mori earlier to wipe out socialist unrest during his political campaign in Bologna, and Mori was one of the chief architects of Mussolini’s 1922 march on Rome when he seized complete power.

As a reward for fascist labors, Mussolini appointed Mori prefect of Palermo, the most powerful position on the island. Mori’s principal task in Sicily was to unseat the lazy and corrupt administrators and replace them with ardent Fascists. Since the administrators in most of the towns were allied with the Mafia, the “Honored Society” fell into conflict with the Fascists.

The Mafia used the same tactics of terrorism in fighting the government that it used against its many victims. Many of Mori’s new appointees were assassinated as soon as they took office. The Mafia even carried its vengeance into downtown Palermo, murdering leading Fascists in the streets before hundreds of witnesses.


In 1924 Mussolini himself visited Sicily and was embarrassed by the Mafia in Piana dei Greci, where the mayor, Don Ciccio Cuccia, who was also the Mafia boss of the area, bawled Mussolini out for coming with so many police motorcyclists to guard him. He said, “Your Excellency has nothing to fear when you are by my side.” Then he turned to his men and announced, “Let no one dare touch a hair of Mussolini’s head. He is my friend and the best man in the world!”

Inwardly, Mussolini seethed, understanding full well Don Ciccio’s message that he, not the leader from Rome, was the true power. Don Ciccio made the point all the more clear when Mussolini was slated to make an address from a balcony to the local populace. The only audience the Mafia leader permitted to show up, one account states, was “twenty village idiots, one-legged beggars, bootblacks and lottery-ticket sellers.”

The enraged Mussolini afterward ordered Mori to wage all-out war against the Mafia. Two months later Cuccia vanished into a Fascist prison, and the drive to stamp out the Mafia went into high gear. Mori’s methods were, if anything, more ruthless and barbarous than those used against the socialists. Rights of those arrested were wantonly abused. Confessions were extracted by torture.

One of the most common methods involved stretching a suspect on his back over a wooden box with his hands and feet wired to the sides of the box. The victim was then drenched with brine and whipped. The brine made the lashes more painful but left no marks. Other tortures involved administering electric shock to the genitals, one of the earliest known uses of this brutal method, and forcing prisoners to swallow saltwater through a funnel until their stomachs swelled painfully.

Fascist judges paid no attention to such minor details and convicted accused mafiosi by the hundreds. An estimated 600 innocent persons were also convicted through such tortures and the lying testimony of jealous neighbors or Fascist Party members.

In some cases members of separate Mafia gangs were convicted of the same crimes in different courts, and others were convicted of crimes that had never occurred. From the American point of view, the worst aspect of Mori’s campaign was that it caused at least 500 young mafiosi to seek refuge in the United States.

Mori terrorized the citizenry in the Mafia-infested Western provinces and paraded about as a conquering Roman of old. It was common for towns he visited to decorate triumphal arches with the welcoming words, “Ave Caesar.”

Mori’s campaign ended in 1929 following the conviction of Don Vito Cascio Ferro, the most charismatic of all the Mafia leaders, on a framed-up charge of smuggling. Don Vito, who died in prison in 1932, denounced his judges in court, saying, “Gentlemen, since you have been unable to find any evidence for the numerous crimes I did commit, you are reduced to condemning me for the only one I have not.” In any event, by the time of Ferro’s death, Mori had crushed most Mafia organizations. Those that survived pledged fealty to Mussolini, a position they maintained until the Allied invasion of Sicily during World War II.

Whatever is thought of Mori’s methods, there was little doubt that he offered the world the most authentic description of the Mafia, one that applies still today both in Italy and in the United States— even if it conflicts with the versions offered by American governmental agencies and such controversial informers as Joe Valachi.

In a book he later wrote, The Last Struggle with the Mafia, Mori noted it was not an “association in the sense of being a vast aggregate organized and incorporated on regular principles.” The Mafia, he observed, functions with statutes, rules of admission, and election of chiefs. The chief attained power simply by imposing his will on others. Members were accepted automatically if they had the proper qualifications and were automatically expelled or permanently eliminated when they no longer met these qualifications.

Profits were not divided by any set measure but went proportionally to the strongest. Only in a few cases, Mori said, were there any Mafia groups that held regular meetings, had secret laws and used concealed marks of recognition, but they were clearly the exception to the rule. Most important, Mori found the Mafia to be a “potential state which normally takes concrete form in a system of local oligarchies, closely interwoven, but each autonomous in its own district.”

This description is true of organized crime in the United States today. A crime family in New York would not dream of going into Detroit to kill an individual without clearing it first with the local powers and indeed would most likely request the local organization to take care of the matter for them. It would then be up to the local organization to comply if it so wished.

If however it preferred to grant the proposed victim sanctuary, there is little the outside crime family can do. The organization of such crime fiefdoms clearly is not based on tradition, but rather on raw power. It is this tradition of Mafia power and regional autonomy that keeps organized crime in America somewhat disorganized.

The disorganized nature of the Mafia kept Mori from achieving total victory and left him with many adversaries in Sicily. Mori died in 1942, probably a pity from the mafioso point of view since Mafia vengeance on him under protection of the Allies would certainly have been as brutal as the justice accorded Mussolini by the partisans.

Samuel J. “Nails” Morton

Within the madcap underworld of 1920s Chicago, Nails (so called because he was as tough as nails) Morton was always believed to have died because of treachery, and a treachery most despicable because it was carried out by a dumb animal.

Nails was a top enforcer for the Dion O’Banion Gang, virtually the only Jew among the North Side Irish mobsters. As much as any single gunner, Morton was responsible for holding the Italian gangsters under Torrio and Capone—as well as the Genna brothers and others—at bay on the North Side from 1920 to 1924.

Morton, known by the police to have committed several murders, enjoyed respect bordering on terror from other mobsters mainly because he had won the Croix de Guerre in France in the Great War and been promoted on the battlefield to a first lieutenancy. That, and the fact that he concocted very inventive death traps for foes, made rival gangsters avoid confrontations with him. Often he would try to lure an enemy into combat by accusing him of making anti-Semitic slurs.

However, as celebrated as Morton could be for his killing ways, he was to become most noteworthy for the way he died and the gangland vengeance that followed.


Nails, who developed a yen to circulate in finer circles, took to horseback riding in Lincoln Park “where the society swells ride.” One day in 1924, a riding stable horse threw Nails and kicked him to death. It was an act that could not be overlooked or forgiven. Four leading O’Banions—Bugs Moran, Little Hymie Weiss, Two Gun Alterie and Schemer Drucci—descended on the riding stable and at gunpoint kidnapped the offending horse.

The creature was led to the spot where it had dispatched Morton, and there, after the very angry Alterie punched the horse in the snout, was shot in the head, once by each gangster, in worthy underworld fashion. Gang boss O’Banion bewailed the fact he had not been around when Nails was killed and vengeance exacted; such moronic behavior fit O’Banion as well as his men.

Yet despite his unsavory record, Nails was accorded an elaborate funeral with considerable military, fraternal and religious honors. City, county, state and federal officials were prominent in attendance, and the Chicago Daily News reported: “Five thousand Jews paid tribute to Morton as the man who had made the West Side safe for his race. As a young man he had organized a defense society to drive ‘Jew-baiters’ from the West side.”

A year after Morton’s death ill-fated plans were laid for a memorial tribute to him. The printed announcement of the service bore the names of Rabbi Felix A. Levi, General Abel Davis, Captain Ed Maher and the Reverend John L. O’Donnell. The principal address was to be made by a leading attorney, Frank Comerford.

Perhaps what sent matters awry was the added announcement that also participating in the tribute would be Johnny Torrio, Terry Druggan and Hymie Weiss (the new leader of the North Siders, Dion O’Banion having by then been assassinated). General Davis backed out of the arrangements, saying it would be an error to flaunt such gangsters and Morton’s record “in the faces of decent citizens.” The whole affair then fell apart. It was, said one writer, “another kick in the head for poor Nails.”

Motorcade murders

During the inception of organized crime in the 1920s, the motorcade system of killing came into vogue. Whether Hymie Weiss or Bugs Moran—both subsequent leaders of the Irish O’Banion Gang, the prime opposition in Chicago to the Torrio-Capone forces—invented the system is unclear.

Bugs Moran, a cunning if rather pathological killer, was always attracted to spectacular killings and probably deserves the credit. Certainly he headed up more such murder convoys than any other gangster.

Moran and a dozen gangsters, each armed with a fully loaded tommy gun and riding in a half-dozen limousines, swept past the victim’s home, place of business or hangout. As the motorcade slowed, each gunner spattered a thousand or so .45-caliber cartridges in the general direction of the target. Such overkill was generally effective, even if a few innocent bystanders occasionally got caught in the deadly hail of bullets. That was merely an unfortunate sidebar to otherwise spectacular success.


The most publicized murder motorcade of all was one that failed, an attempt to rub out Al Capone at the Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, Illinois, in 1926. A two-story brick structure, the inn had been converted to Capone’s specification into a fortress. Bulletproof steel shutters protected every window, while armed guards were stationed at every entrance. The second floor was reserved for Capone’s private use.

The building, dubbed Capone’s castle, almost became Capone’s deathtrap. On September 20, Capone and bodyguard Frankie Rio were dining in the rear of the Hawthorne’s restaurant when a single car drove past and opened fire with a machine gun. When the shooting stopped, the pair, with the other diners, rushed to the windows and doors to see what had happened. There were no bullet marks. The gunners had been firing blanks.

Frankie Rio understood instantly and knocked Capone to the floor, falling on top of him. Just then a convoy of 10 cars passed slowly in front of the inn, and a seemingly endless number of guns protruding from every one of the curbside windows let loose a deadly hail of fire.

Directly above Rio and Capone, woodwork, mirrors, glassware and crockery splintered. A Capone gunman, Louis Barko, who had rushed into the restaurant when the blank shots were fired, went down with a bullet through his shoulder.

In all 1,000 bullets were fired, and the inn, restaurant, lobby and offices were literally ripped asunder. Thirty-five cars parked at the curb were riddled with bullet holes. Remarkably, no one was killed, although Mrs. Clyde Freeman, sitting in a car with her infant son on her lap, was struck by a bullet that creased her forehead and injured her eyes. Capone footed $5,000 in medical bills to save the woman’s eyesight.

Movie racketeering

The mobs moved in on Hollywood moviemakers during the reign of Al Capone, when the industry was still silent. Movie executives tended to be silent, too, when faced with Capone threats.

The Capones made their first move through George Browne and his associate Willie Bioff, a longtime pimp. Together, they ran Local 2 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE).

To show what fine fellows they were, Browne and Bioff had the union ladle out free soup for unemployed actors. And the two proceeded to ladle more than soup. That same year they pressured a large financially pressed Chicago movie chain to cancel 20 percent paycuts on its employees. As an alternative, Bioff said they would take $20,000 under the table.


By the time Capone went to prison for income tax evasion, his titular successor, Frank Nitti, had decided to move heavily into movie extortion. He slated Browne to run for the IATSE presidency in the 1934 election. Browne predictably had the Chicago votes sewn up; Lucky Luciano and Louis Lepke saw that he got support in New York; and Al Polizzi took care of the campaign in Cleveland. Browne won in a walk. And Willie Bioff went along to watch over Browne.

For delivering unto Browne the union presidency the Chicago Outfit took 50 percent of all illegal money that was taken in. Later, the fee was raised to 75 percent. This did not represent a squeeze on Browne and Bioff. There was so much money coming in they had no complaint.

The fee for avoiding a strike by projectionists in New York was set at $150,000 (a fabulous sum for Depression days), in Chicago $100,000. Refusal resulted in stink-bombings of the theaters. In 1936 Bioff told the head of Loew’s, Inc.: “Now your industry is a prosperous industry and I must get two million dollars out of it.”

Bioff and Browne then worked out a settlement that called for the four big distributors—MGM, Loew’s, Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox—to cough up $50,000 a year each, and a smaller company to pay $25,000. In addition, the two leaders got a number of concessions that pleased the union membership, and they were hailed at the 1938 convention.

Browne and Bioff then turned around and levied a 2 percent tax on all their members’ earnings, which brought in $60,000 a month. This did not please the membership; it led to a revolt. That, combined with exposures by columnist Westbrook Pegler, led finally to the duo’s conviction on racketeering charges in 1941.

Facing long prison terms, Bioff and Browne started talking. As a result of their testimony most of the Chicago Outfit’s leadership were convicted— Nitti, Phil D’Andrea, Paul Ricca, Charlie Gioe, Lou Kaufman and Johnny Roselli—and given 10-year prison terms.

They served the minimum sentence and were paroled in a little over three years, a development that provoked a national political scandal. When they got out, the mob influence in Hollywood had hardly deteriorated. Roselli continued to be a power in the movie capital and even turned movie producer himself, turning out a number of law-triumphs-overcrime epics such as He Walked by Night.

Roselli had no trouble getting to make these projects. He made the movie moguls an offer they couldn’t refuse. And when the mob wanted to promote the career of some worthy or unworthy actor or actress it had little trouble getting the proper results.

Since the movie shakedown convictions of Browne and Bioff, the mob has become much more sophisticated in its operations. A union threatens a strike and a lawyer-labor relations expert arbitrates it. He draws a colossal fee for his services on which, minus expenses, he pays the taxes. The balance is then cut up with Chicago.

Murder, Incorporated

Nine of the most important men in Murder Inc.

When the national crime syndicate was being set up in the early 1930s, they realized that “muscle” would always be necessary for the maintenance of order. Since the mob never had any of society’s misgivings about the justification of the death penalty, they decided it would be very businesslike to set up a special troop of killers that all the crime groups around the country could call on for rubouts.

The most attractive feature about such a troop was that the killer could come in from out of town, knock off a victim he wouldn’t even know, and disappear, leaving the authorities without even a suspect or motive. Police investigations are based on looking for motivation and when a stranger kills a stranger, they seldom can get a handle on the matter. They might suspect the local crime figures of instigating the rubout but they can’t prove a thing.

Many forerunners to the syndicate murder troop existed in American criminal history, including killer gangs in the 19th century who committed murders for pay, with prices generally ranging from a low of $2 to a king’s ransom of as much as $100. However, the syndicate bosses set up something new, Murder, Incorporated, a very elite group of killers, based in Brooklyn. Unlike the bloodletters who preceded them, they were not available for hire by outsiders, but were reserved strictly for mob business.


The purpose of the new crime syndicate, composed of an ethnic conglomerate of Young Turk mafiosi, Jewish, to a lesser extent Irish, and Polish and Wasp gangs—that blossomed in Prohibition—was to cut up the rackets in orderly fashion. These included gambling, loan-sharking, labor racketeering, narcotics and prostitution.

Syndicate founders sagely figured there would be some opposition to their plans, hence the need for an enforcement arm to back up the national board’s decisions. (It was probably little different than in the corporate world where every powerhouse executive has his hatchetmen.)

Under the rules, Murder, Inc., killed only for pressing business reasons and was never to be brought into action against political figures, prosecutors or reporters. Lansky and Moe Dalitz, then the most potent criminal power in Cleveland, were most adamant on these rules.

The other big shots concurred, feeling that rubouts of such “civilians” would stir the public too much and produce “heat” that would be bad for the syndicate. Bloodletting of good guys, they agreed, would complicate their ability to bribe politicians and the police, a vital ingredient in any crime syndicate operation.

Louis Capone and Emanuel 'Mendy' Weiss, two killers-for-hire, share a carefree laugh.

A whole new vocabulary was introduced by the members of Murder, Inc. The killers accepted “contracts” to “hit” “bums.” Many psychologists have pointed out the significance of the term bum. It was a rationalization that allowed the killers to regard their victims as being of a lower species and deserving to die. It was little different than Nazi death camp executioners speaking of the victims as “scum” and “subhumans.”

Albert Anastasia is often described as the Lord High Executioner, or operating commander of the troop, but he took orders from Louis Lepke, the country’s number one labor racketeer and a member of the syndicate’s ruling circle. At times, Joey Adonis also issued orders.

However, none of the estimated 400 to 500 murders believed to have been committed by Murder, Inc., ever went ahead without the concurrence, or at least the absence of any negative vote, of other crime bigs, notably Lansky, Luciano and Frank Costello. Bugsy Siegel probably best summarized the top gangsters’ attitudes toward Murder, Inc., when he informed construction executive Del Webb, rather philosophically, that he had nothing to fear from the mob because “we only kill each other.”


Directly below Anastasia, Lepke and Adonis were a number of lieutenants, including Louis Capone (no relation to the Chicago Capones), Mendy Weiss and Abe “Kid Twist” Reles. Instructions for specific murder assignments were generally passed from on high to just one underling who in turn passed the word on so that it could not be proved in any criminal prosecution that the men at the top were involved.

Some of the more celebrated killers of the mob included Pittsburgh Phil Strauss, the man who easily held the top score in kills; Vito “Chicken Head” Gurino, who honed his shooting skill by blasting off the heads of chickens; Happy Maione, the wearer of a perpetual scowl; Buggsy Goldstein; Blue Jaw Magoon; and Frank “the Dasher” Abbandando.

The Dasher could lay claim to having obtained the quaintest nickname of the troop. It was the result of one of his earliest hits, one that he almost bungled. Assigned to take out a big, lumbering longshoreman, he aimed his gun at point-blank range, only to have the weapon misfire.

Thoroughly embarrassed, Abbandando dashed off with his angry would-be victim thundering after him. Abbandando raced around the block so fast he actually came up behind his target again, and this time succeeded in pumping three bullets into the man. Thereafter Abbandando was known to his cohorts as the Dasher.

Overall, the Dasher was said to have been involved in about 50 murders. Pittsburgh Phil was named in 58 murder investigations and authorities agreed his total of kills was probably about twice that number.

The boys, headquartered at a 24-hour candy store in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn called Midnight Rose’s, awaited assignments and swapped intelligence of effective murder techniques. When an assignment came in, the designated killer hit the road to wherever the victim lived. He didn’t come back until the job was done.

The principal that “we only kill each other” was never better illustrated than in the rubout of crime lord Dutch Schultz, himself a founding ruler of the crime syndicate. In 1935, Schultz had become the prime target of special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, and he demanded that Murder, Inc., hit Dewey. This was in direct violation of the founding rules of the organization, and Schultz was voted down. Only Albert Anastasia thought the idea had merit, but he backed off under the withering opposition of his superiors, Luciano, Lansky, Costello and Adonis.

Harry Millman, a former big shot mobster in Detroit,
lies dead on the ground after a visit from Murder Inc.

Schultz stormed out of the meeting, insisting he was not bound by such a decision and that he would handle the job himself. Immediately, a new vote was taken, and the principle of law and order prevailed. Schultz got the death penalty. The job was carried out shortly thereafter in a Newark chop house. Two of the three Murder, Inc., gunmen involved were Charlie “the Bug” Workman and Mendy Weiss.

In 1940 Murder, Inc., unraveled when a number of lesser mob members were picked up on suspicion of various murders. Also picked up was Abe Reles, not a smalltimer. Reles got the idea that someone might talk and doom him, so he decided to talk first. He became known as “the canary of Murder, Inc.,” and eventually gave details on some 200 killings in which he personally participated or had intimate knowledge of.

Several top killers went to the electric chair, including Pittsburgh Phil, Louis Capone, Mendy Weiss, Buggsy Goldstein, Happy Maione and Dasher Abbandando. Also executed was Louis Lepke, the first and only top chief of the syndicate ever to suffer that fate.

In November 1941, Reles was still doing his canary act, and it was believed his testimony would eventually doom Albert Anastasia, Bugsy Siegel and quite possibly others. However, before he could testify in what were described as “perfect cases,” Reles “went out the window” of a Coney Island hotel where he was supposed to be under ironclad police protection.

Whether Reles’s death was suicide, accident or murder has never been established, but later Luciano, Lansky and Doc Stacher told friends and interviewers that through the good political offices of Frank Costello (and a sum believed to be $100,000, a king’s ransom in that period) it was arranged to see to it that “the canary who could sing couldn’t fly.”

Of course, all this meant was the end of Murder, Inc. Other troops of killers were started up, one known to be centered in New Jersey. Murder, Inc., remained in business.

Murders of dons

When Sam Giancana was murdered in 1975, a theory immediately developed that it could not have been a Mafia job. He had not been shown the “respect” due a don in death. Giancana was shot in the back of the head as he grilled some Italian food for himself and whomever murdered him. Then the killer had rolled him over and fired bullets from beneath his chin up into his jaw and brain.

If the mob had had Giancana murdered, the theory went, it would have been respectful; he would have been shot in the face because a don is entitled to see the shot that kills him. Ergo, the Giancana rubout had been a CIA job.

This notion is about as nonsensical as the idea that big bosses are entitled to a last meal, hence they are often shot at a restaurant table, facing their killers. True, Joe the Boss Masseria and Carmine Galante, to name just two, really were killed after they had partaken of their main courses—and they were shot from in front.


The fact is that dining table murders are popular with the mob because the victim never has a chance to reach for a weapon. Of course, he is shot in front. A genuine custom for Mafia men is to sit with their backs to the wall.

Mob killers would much prefer shooting a boss or any victim from behind since it is obviously safer. But, when Frank Costello was almost assassinated, he was rushing for the elevator in the lobby of his Manhattan apartment building.

He passed a fat man standing there who called out after him, “This is for you, Frank!” As he turned, he saw his would-be assassin’s right arm extended and a gun pointing directly at his face at a distance of no more than 10 feet. The man fired. The fact that Costello saw the shot gave him just enough time to jerk his head to the side so that he wound up with no more than a bloody flesh wound.

Later the newspapers would say the gunman’s tactics were a mark of respect for Don Francesco, that he was only to get it up front. That was not so. His assailant, Vincent Gigante, had called to him to freeze him into a stationary target rather than a moving one.

Albert Anastasia got it sitting in a barbershop chair. He managed to jump from the chair and dive for the floor but 11 bullets tore into his body. Then one of the murderers stepped forward and applied the coup de grace, a shot to the back of the head. Anastasia got about as much respect as he ever gave his victims as the chief executioner for Murder, Inc.

Anastasia had succeeded to the head of the Mangano family by killing the boss, Vince Mangano, and his brother Phil. It has always been accepted that the kill-crazy Anastasia did it personally. How he got rid of Vince Mangano was never determined since the body was never found.

Phil Mangano was found. The details of his death can only be speculated upon since he was found immaculately dressed but pantsless. Questioned by police, Anastasia said the absence of Phil’s pants made him think he had been the victim of a crime of passion. Surely, he wasn’t the victim of a respectful hit man.

About the only major crime leader who was dispatched with a genuine show of respect was Willie Moretti, gunned down in a restaurant in New Jersey where he had been sitting with four men. When the waitress stepped into the kitchen, he and his assailants were chatting amiably in Italian.

Suddenly, she heard several gunshots. When she came out, Moretti lay on the floor dead, shot in the face. Actually the Moretti slaying was a Mafia “mercy killing,” made necessary because a mental illness brought on by syphilis was causing him to babble more than the mob could allow. It was decided he had to go.

However, no one had anything against poor Willie, and everyone felt he was entitled not to be shot in the back like a dog. And they gave him a wonderful funeral. Some bosses do get to go in style.

Murder Stable

In 1901, the Mafia presence in New York was considered by many citizens to be less than certain. But the disclosure of the infamous Murder Stable site convinced even the most skeptical that there was a “Mafia” or a “Black Hand” or some organized concern of Italian criminals. Oddly, the discovery came while the New York police and the U.S. Secret Service were more concerned about the presence of foreign anarchists.

Early in 1901, the Secret Service got wind of rumors that there was an anarchist plot to assassinate President William McKinley. The service enlisted the aid of New York police detective Joseph Petrosino, who would later become the first genuine police menace to the American Mafia and various groups of Black Handers.

Petrosino infiltrated anarchist circles in New Jersey and found there to be no organized plan to kill the president. His investigations, however, revealed that a number of individuals were all capable of trying the assassination.


More important, within the context of discovering the Mafia in action, Petrosino and the Secret Service stumbled across the “Murder Stable,” a property located at 323 East 107th Street in the heart of Italian Harlem. A gang of Italian criminals, headed by some brothers named Morello and a particularly fearful individual named Lupo the Wolf, were the terrors of the area; screams through the night struck dread in neighbors living in the stable area.

The authorities dug up the premises, unearthing the remains of about 60 murder victims. The property belonged to one Ignazio Saietta, a.k.a. Lupo the Wolf. It was determined that Lupo the Wolf and the Morellos used the place to torture their enemies into compliance or to death.

Among the murder victims was a teenage Morello whom Lupo the Wolf decreed had too loose a lip about gang affairs. He executed him slowly and savagely, striking fear in other gang members and discouraging them from straying in any fashion.

Remarkably, nobody was convicted for the wholesale killings in the Murder Stable. Lupo insisted he was no more than the landlord of the place and could hardly be held responsible for what his tenants did. The “tenants” turned out to be no more than Italian names that could not be traced.

Even more remarkably, the Murder Stable apparently continued to be used as a murder site until about 1917 by Lupo the Wolf (until he was imprisoned on unrelated charges), the Morellos and another relative through marriage, gangster Ciro Terranova.