Murder Inc.

to hear their stories. And the rapidly growing and ever changing America of the eighteen twenties, street gangs flourished, especially in New York City. Historians are credit this rise in the early nineteenth century to two things, the Industrial Revolution and the large influx of immigrant workers. Ironically, Americans weren't very tolerant of people coming to the United States in search of a better life, and whatever ethnicity seemed to

be the majority arriving. Name calling, stereotyping, and all that goes with racism and xenophobia prevailed tension and fear fracture communities. Historians and those who study in the field of human behavior agree anytime a society faces division, extremest groups appear and get people riled up about the economy, on top of those fears, and it's a powder keg one that unscrupulous corporations, politicians, and individuals take advantage of. Edward Coleman

was one of those people. Tall and intimidating, he ruled the Forty Thieves gang in New York City with a combination of promise and terror. He targeted children living on the streets, regardless of race. Often neglected and underfed, He took them in, promising them food and shelter. No such manipulation would be complete without instilling that the gang was family and society were the outsiders. He made sure they knew he had stepped in to help them when society

had not. The children trusted him, and he used that trust to his advantage. He used children to squeeze through windows too small for adults. Those showing loyalty were given better roles within the gang. Their favorite spot to pickpocket steel and otherwise worked their trades was the Five Points neighborhood. The community consisted of mostly immigrants who had little police protection,

making it an easy choice. The gang set up headquarters in the back of the Center Street grocery, where owner Rosanna Piers worked out a deal with the gang She made good money selling anything from stolen goods to rock gut whiskey. Every job and every penny the gang brought in was evenly distributed. Those who failed to pull their weight, or anyone thought to be stiffing group were dealt with

in the harshest of terms. And if you're asking how Coleman could order the beatings or murder of gang members and have the others still be loyal to him, well, that's sadly how abusers work. He might have made the kids and other gang members believed they were family, but no one was exempt from his rules, not even his wife. And she had once worked as a street vendor, pedaling hot corn. Like most immigrants selling wares on the street, she was poor and Coleman offered her a way to

make more money. But when Anne didn't meet the quota had set, he beat her badly enough that she died days later from her injuries. Police arrested Coleman, and after a short trial, the judge sentenced him to death by hanging. After his execution in eighteen thirty nine, the gang continued without him, finally disbanding in the early eighteen fifties, a few started their own gangs using the same methods to gain new member, but plenty of gang members had come

from real families, good families. For them. It wasn't so much a sense of belonging they were looking for. It was a thrill and the rise to power. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. Louis Boculter was the youngest of seven children, or maybe it was eleven, It depends on the source. A few facts are consistent though he was small for his age, intelligent, soft guyed, and very shy. His parents had fled the violence against the Jewish community

in Russia. Though they weren't well off, his father earned a respectable living as the owner of a small hardware store in New York's Lower East Side in the eight nineties. His father worked long hours to provide for the sizeable family. The schooling was important, and his parents strived to make

sure the children had an education. Like all parents, they wanted them to have the best tools to grow into successful adults, after all, But schooling alone isn't parenting, and with such long hours, Louis's father wasn't home much To make up for that. His mother doated on the children and gave them pet names. She called Louis her lep Cola, loosely the Yiddish for little Louis, and like most nick names, it became shortened over time. Before long, everyone just called

him Lepkey. When he turned thirteen, his father died and the family struggled financially. Some of his older siblings left New York to strike out on their own. Lepke's mother did her best to make ends meet and ensure the rest of her children still did their school work. Without his disciplined father, Lepkey took advantage of his mother's soft

method of parenting and at school. He refused to return despite the rest of the family's urging, and instead found himself a job as a delivery boy for three dollars a week. He also began to spend time with a variety of known troublemakers. By the time he turned fifteen, Leppi had committed a string of petty thefts and extortions.

In nineteen twelve, his mother decided that New York wasn't the place to live any longer, and accepted an offer to move in with one of Lepke's older brothers in Colorado, A Lepki refused to go, claiming he'd stay with another relative. He assured his mother he would be fine, and she made the journey. Lepki moved as well, to a rented room on the Lower East Side with his friend Jacob Shapiro.

While his sisters and brothers were excelling as dentists and rabbis and in other professions, nineteen year old Lepkeep stole five hundred dollars worth of goods and landed in a different room one in the Connecticut Reformery for two years. He convinced the war and that had just gotten caught up with the wrong crowd, and that at heart he was a good person. He claimed that the death of his father had affected him greatly and had just made a mistake. The lie fooled the warden, and Lepkey stant

behind bars was reduced. Once out. Petty theft escalated to armed robbery and grand larceny, all before he turned twenty five. He rotated between gangs, joining whoever could serve his needs the most while he feigned allegiances. It was all for show, but it worked and he quickly moved up the ladder. For the time he was thirty five, had been arrested eleven times for everything from assault to homicide, and every

single time he managed to avoid prison. He might not have been great at avoiding the cops, but he was exceptional at reading and playing people. Lepki and longtime friend Shapiro found employment as sluggers, Essentially. Businesses at the time often hired men to break up labor strikes by whatever means possible, including extreme violence. When workers went on strike for better pay, time off benefits, or safety concerns, the

sluggers went into the crowds with pipes and clubs. In turn, unions hired their own sluggers, and the fights escalated on both sides until guns became as common as bludgeons. Lepkey was small, the hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet that meant he wasn't well suited for brawls. While he lacked in physical strength, he made up in other ways, namely

his ability to organize, scheme and motivate others. New York's Garment district became a hotbed of strikes and violence, and lepp Key found a way to make the most of it. He earned a hundred and fifty dollars for breaking up small sweatshops and six hundred for larger ones, with sixty dollars for shooting someone in the leg two hundred for breaking a union boss's arm or throwing them down an

elevator shaft. Lepkey, Shapiro and the fellow slugger named the Holtz thought infiltrating the unions wouldn't let them even more money. Their boss, Jacob Augie Organ, disagreed. He wanted to stick to their tried and true methods. The men got along with their boss and played by his rules for a while. That changed when Aggie was offered fifty thousand dollars to

end to strike by threatening to kill the union leaders. Lepki, Shapiro, and Holtz believed cultivating the union leaders would work better. Aggie cut them out of the deal and turned to another gang, the Diamond Brothers, to accomplish his goal. As you might imagine, that didn't sit well with Lepki and the others. On October fifteenth, seven, Aggie and Jack Diamond were driving on the Lower east Side when another car cut them off. Three men jumped out an opened fire

on Aggie and Diamond. Aggie died on the spot, but Diamond survived. During the police interrogation, he refused to name the three men who had shot at them, knowing the clo this relation Aggie had with Lepki, Shapiro, and Holtz. They were questioned well naturally, they had an alibi. All three men claimed they were at the movies together at the time of the shooting. Lepki had taken out his former friend and boss, effectively putting himself in power, but

that didn't mean there wouldn't be consequences. On November nineteenth, one of Aggie's most loyal men shot and killed Holtz in a drive by shooting. Lepki found out who had pulled the trigger and had him killed, then announced he'd be taking over as the gang's new boss. Lepki and Shapiro changed the way the business worked. Where Aggie had taken on any client with a paycheck, the new bosses

were more discerning. They set their sights on the garment trade, which expanded their territory beyond the boroughs, narrowing their scope, and they established themselves into other states Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Instead of plane brute force, Lepke added bribery. The combination altered labor racketeering, giving him solid leverage in the garment industry. By nine there were fifty enforcers, bookkeepers, and foremen, bringing

in millions for Lepki and Shapiro. By the two had a monopoly on extortion in the industry. Lepti assimilated smaller gangs. Like many big city crime bosses, he subscribed to the murder in Mayhem style of controlling his ranks. He became so proficient journalists began reporting Lepke's business as Murder Incorporated. As you might guess, all of this attracted the attention

of New York's most influential mob bosses. Five Italian families known as the Commission, had established themselves as the governing body for the American Mafia. The head of one of those families, marious mobster Lucky Luciano, authorized Lepkey's boss status, but at a cost. Leppi and his organization would become the mafia's enforcement squad. As a retainer for their services, Murder Incorporate had received twelve thousand dollars yearly to be

on call day or night. While the Commission could have easily put in their own men, they liked Lepkey. He had a way of conning people, ruled with an iron fist and was heartlessly brutal. He also had no problem sending his men anywhere in the country for hits. To distance the families from the hired help. For reasons of plausible deniability, Luciano had lep Key report to a Brooklyn mobster by the name of Albert Anastasia. Layers between the men made it difficult for the legal system to prove

anyone's involvement. If one went to prison, would be less likely to implicate the others. It had worked so far. As a layer between Lepkey and his boss, mafia hitman Abe Rellis, paired Murder Incorporated's hitmen to various jobs. Lepki ensured everyone followed the script. After a hit, they had returned to their home base in Brooklyn, the police would scramble to find a local killer, not realizing the murderer wasn't tied to the victim and was no longer in

the state. The Commission's crime bosses always had a block tight alibi when a hit went down. Between nineteen thirty one and nineteen forty, Murder Incorporated was contracted for a thousand hits, only two hundred of them in New York City. Life was good for Lepki and Shapiro. Lepki got married on March twentie of nineteen thirty one to Betty Wasserman, a waitress who had caught his eye at a nightclub.

She had been married before, but then widowed. Lepki adopted her young son as his own, and the three lived in a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park West. To occupy her time, Betty ran a handbag many It all seems like a Hollywood script for your average neighborhood crime boss family. Things were about to get complicated, though. In the mid nineteen thirties, at the height of Lepke's power, he arranged

his most significant murder yet. Dutch Schultz made his living much like most other New York gangsters, bootlegging, tax evasion, and restaurant owner extortion. He also ran an illicit lottery fixed of course, of all his crimes, it was tax evasion that got him into trouble with the courts and the toughest nails prosecutor by the name of Thomas Dewey. But by the time Schultz finally made it to trial, in four Dewey had left the d a's office. The

trial ended in a hung jury. Despite the clearly damning evidence, Schultz didn't seem particularly surprised with the outcome. He painted himself as a good man who did good things for the community whom the government had unfairly targeted. He gave toys to sick children and donated to charities with anti government sediment running high. His lies and misdirection worked, but his freedom came at a cost, and Schultz didn't have

the money for the payoff. Taking from the committee would be a death sentence, so he stiffed his subordinates instead, mainly his runners. It didn't take long for word to reach upper level bosses that the runners weren't getting paid. Schultz claimed it was an oversight. No one particularly bought his excuse, and it permanently damaged his relationship with the gang. To make matters worse, Mayor Enrico Le Guardia ordered Schultz's arrest if he ever stepped foot in New York City again,

forcing him to move to New Jersey. Not long after that, Dewey came back to the d a's office and began working on an air tight case to convict him. All the attention didn't put Schultz on Luciano's good side, and in a tempt to show he was loyal, he converted to Roman Catholicism, and then he asked for a favor a hit on Prosecutor Dewey. Lepki didn't like the idea. It was too high a profile. He argued it would

bring too much attention. Luciano agreed with Lepkei Schultz was furious, threatening that if Murder Incorporated didn't take care of Dewey, he would do it himself. In fact, he went directly to several men in the organization to stake out the Prosecutor's building. The committee met to discuss the situation. In the end, they decided to eliminate Schultz. Two Murder Incorporated hit men walked into the Palace chop House restaurant on October and opened fire on his bodyguards. They found Schultz

in the bathroom and shot him as well. The bodyguards died within a couple of hours, and Schultz died from his injuries a day later. His guts had been ruptured. For the committee, the Proud Bloom appeared to be solved. Thomas Dewey however, had other plans. What had happened was this, After watching the city's growing crime rate and corruption within the government, Thomas Dewey left his comfortable job in a private law firm to return as special prosecutor at the

District Attorney's office. In fairness, the job had been offered to others, but considering the Committee and the other crime bosses in the area, no one wanted the job. Dewey was smart, highly motivated, dedicated, and darn good at his job, which was bad news for New York's underworld. And still

he had his work cut out for him. District Attorney William Copeland Dodge was rumored to be in the mob's pocket, and despite the rumors, Dewey's first order of business was to take down Luciano, and in nineteen thirty six he managed to do just that. He collected enough evidence to put the mob boss away for fifty years. Though Lucciano

was behind bars, Murder Incorporated continued to thrive. Lappy hunted down those he thought might be working with Dewey, including a former garment industry worker who would refuse to leave town. With Schultz gone and Luciano behind bars, Dewey set his sights unlep Key and Shapiro. While he wanted them for their roles and murder incorporated, he had them arrested for

outstanding antitrust charges from nineteen thirty three. The two were found guilty of racketeering on November eighth of nineteen thirty six. The judge handed them each a two year sentence and a ten thousand dollar fine. Dewey was ecstatic, though that was short lived when he learned the men's defense team had appealed and asked for bail. Though he presented his concerns to the judge, the men were free within twenty four hours. Leppi and Shapiro had two choices run or

serve their sentences. In the interest of the crime families, the committee strongly suggested they serve their time to keep the d A Offices Star prosecutor from digging further. On a hunch, Dewey took a closer look at the judge who had let Lepki and Shapiro walk. He discovered the men had given the judge a twenty five thousand dollar loan. He also uncovered a long list of cases where the judge had profited more than four hundred thousand dollars on

altering verdicts. The scandal lost the judge his job and landed him behind bars. For New York's underworld, Dewey was upsetting their way of life. Since they couldn't take him out, they took or threatened witnesses. Soon, with a lack of witnesses, any case had been building against Lepki and Shapiro nearly fell apart. Max Reuben had been one of Lepki's top men, well educated and good at paying attention to details. Rubens saw the Domino's falling. In the best interests of his

own skin, he made a deal. He appeared before the grand jury on September seventeenth of ninety seven and told the court everything the racketeering, bribes, murders, violent takeovers, and the names of Lepti's connections from kingpins to politicians. Leptin and Shapiro were found guilty. Instead of serving their time, both men made a run for it. However, hiding from their problems didn't make them disappear. Had also been indicted for extorting bakeries and a slew of new racketeering charges

that would guarantee a harsher sentence. To top it off, the FBI's Narcotics Division uncovered evidence that lept had been involved in a drug ring and bribery of US customs officials, and recovered ten million dollars worth of heroin. The Lower Players and Murder Incorporated also saw the writing on the wall and turned state's evidence. By the end of nineteen thirty seven, thirty one people, including Lepki, were indicted on drug smuggling charges. The FBI had an all out man

hunt for the fugitives. They applied pressure on contacts, family, and friends, as well as locking down the men's assets. Shapiro surrendered on April fourteenth of nineteen thirty eight. Lepki did not. The story spread Before long, it seemed every law enforcement agency in the country was looking for him. They had no idea he hadn't fled the state, the country, or even the city. Lepki was hiding exactly where no one expected him to be, Dewey's backyard. Not literally, mind you,

but Lepki had more contacts than anyone knew. He hid an apartments above Italian restaurants and in various mob widows back rooms. He called in every favor he could, and he was still doing business with Murder Incorporated. His boss, Anastasia, kept the whole operation moving as though nothing had changed. Alepp continued to heavily target those who turned against him. A hit on Max Reuben failed. He survived a shot

to the head and continued his testimony. Another hitman mistakenly took out the wrong person, killing a witnesses look alike instead. Alepke's attempt to tie up loose ends had started to unravel. Twenty of New York's finest were devoted to tracking him down. The city offered a dollar reward, the FBI up to the reward to five hundred thousand. Everyone expected a quick capture with such a price on Lepki's head, but it didn't happen. It took an entire year before Lepke turned

himself in. Dewey ensured that all testifying witnesses pad a police bodyguard, though that didn't always work out. By nine and with Lepkey still in the wind, resources were strained. Rumors flew that had fled to Poland and then to Palestine. A radio host, Walter Winchell, broadcasted messages in case Lepke was listening surrender. The radio host said, and the crime boss would have safe passage overseas. As it turned out,

LEPKEI had been listening. One day, he turned himself in directly to J. Edgar Hoover in front of a Manhattan hotel, and he thought he would face lesser charges and serve a maximum of ten years. Of course, Winchell and the FBI had never offered such a deal. He was found guilty of narcotics trafficking and sentenced to fourteen years in federal prison. But New York wasn't done yet. They tried him on labor extortion. Soon Lepke was staring down thirty

to life and that was just the beginning. After being transferred to Leavenworth in Kansas to begin his sentence, he was indicted for the murder of a Los Angeles mobster and casino owner. Then in late ninety one, he was again indicted from murder three to be exact, A Brellis, who had once handed him hit lists, turned state's evidence against him. Lup Key was found guilty and sentenced to death. His defense team went to the Supreme Court, but in

the end they upheld the conviction. Alepkey was transferred to Sing Singh to await execution. On March four of guards led him to the electric chair a lepki, The man who had enjoyed the thrill of being king of Murder Incorporated, pleaded for his life, and, like his victims, those please fell on deaf ears. He would be the only crime boss to die by electrocution. There's more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all

about it. Aside from execution style and drive by shootings, Murder Incorporated hitmen employed another method of murder ice picks. Assassins like a Brellis and Irving Cohen would ran the ice pick through the target's ear and into their brain. No one noticed an ice pick or heard a gunshot. It was simple, effective and brutal. But regardless of the method, escaping a hit was usually futile, and for those on the inside, leaving the company alive was unheard of, but

Cohen managed to do just that. In July, the mob learned that underling Walter Sage had been skimming profits from the slot machines and the Catskill Mountains. Intending to show him the error of his ways, they sent Cohen and another hitman, Jack Drucker, to pay Sage a little visit. The two hitmen arrived at the Hotel Ambassador and the Cat Skills in a stolen green packard driven by an

unknown third party. Cohen was an old acquaintance, so Sage unsuspectingly slid into the passenger seat while Cohen and Drucker sat in the back. He also couldn't have suspected another hitman, pretty Levine, was following them. Halfway to their destination, Cohen grabbed Sage around the neck and Drucker repeatedly stabbed him with an ice pick. Sage managed to yank the steering wheel, sending the car out of control and into a ditch.

The stabbings continued, thirty two of them before Sage stopped fighting. All of this was par for the murder incorporated course, but then something truly unexpected happened. Cohen bolted. We can all understand if he felt a bit jittery. He had just helped carry out the murder of a close friend, and he was bleeding, and during the struggle, Drucker had struck Cohen as well. Seeing as he was friends with Sage, Cohen worried that Drucker and Levine had meant to target

him too. In a moment of panic, he ran from the car into the woods. Now on the run, he figured his best bet would be to put as many miles between him and Brooklyn as possible. He headed to Los Angeles, where he met heavyweight prize fighter turned actor Maxie Rosenbloom. Living under the assumed name Jack Gordon, Cohen began landing acting parts in small studio productions. Of course, he always played gangsters, a role he must have found

rather easy. Oddly enough, years later, Francis Ford Coppola drew inspiration from a few movies Cohen had acted in. Cohen didn't contact any of his friends or family back home in New York. Even though he was landing acting roles. No one recognized him, and no one knew where he had gone. For two years, until one afternoon, Levine and another associate decided to catch a movie The Golden Boy. Neither man could believe their eyes. While watching the climactic

boxing scene, they noticed Cohen in the crowd. The two immediately reported what they had seen, but no one believed them. They insisted that the man playing the part of a bystander didn't just look like Cohen, it was him. Their bosses finally relented to watch the late showing the next day, all joking that if crime didn't pay that head out to Hollywood. After the showing, they agreed that yes, Cohen was alive and in Hollywood, and naturally he couldn't be

allowed to just leave Murder Incorporated. Knowing all he knew. They dispatched one of their best to Los Angeles to take care of the problem, but word about Cohen's career change traveled fast, and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office made a phone call out West. Deputies found him in an apartment playing cards with friends just across from the Paramounts duty as lot he just landed a role in the

movie The Seahawk with Errol Flynn. As they handcuffed him, Cohen told the deputies that he had played a cop once. During the trial in New York, Levine told the court that he had watched Cohen help murder sage. The testimony upset Cohen so much that he broke down sobbing, causing the judge to call for a short recess. The defense insisted that Levine wasn't exactly the most reliable witness and asked the jury if they thought his word was gospel

enough to send Cohen to the electric chair. And they didn't, and so Cohen returned to Los Angeles to live out his days as Jack Gordon. Working for decades as an actor, he appeared in such classic shows as Bonanza, Gun Spoke, The Virginian, and even several episodes of Perry Mason, where I Believe It or not, he played a specific type of character, hitman and Gangsters. American Shadows is hosted by

Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed, and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show, visit grim and mil dot com. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts