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You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The night Stalker VTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author.
Dan Zupanski, Good evening. Nothing like it before, nothing like it since. Murder, Inc. Was the most un you, visual, brutal, and extensive collection of characters the American underworld had ever produced. Called primarily from Brookland's Brownsville and Ocean Hill sections, these official on call killers of New York's larger crime syndicate were a unified force of Jewish and Italian gangsters. They treated murder as an art form for an entire decade.
They were called mobsters, thugs, hoods, and racketeers, but at the very core they were assassins. When gangland kingpins such as Lewis Lepki Buchalter, Charles Lucky Luciano, and Benjamin Bugsy Siegeld needed a contract fulfilled, the combination boys would eagerly take the task. The enforcement duties, which included methods ranging
from gunfire to fire axes, incineration to ice picks. These are the mysteries, the sordid stories, the character profiles, alluring and lesser known tales of the Mob's most deadly hit Squad. Meet the killers, the victims, the bosses, the lovers, the deceivers, and the gangsters that made up a nationally reaching ensemble cast rivaling anything organized crime or law enforcement had ever
imagined to that point in time. Discover the nuances, the attitudes, the motivations, the ambitions, and, thanks to little honor among thieves, the scathing revelations that lead to an inevitable downfall. The book that we're featuring this evening is Murder inc. Mysteries of the Mob's most Deadly Hit Squad, with my special guest, journalist and author Christian Cippolini. Welcome back to the program,
and thank you for a greeting this interview. Christian Cippolini, Dan, thank you for having me again.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you very much, and it's always a pleasure. And we'll get right into this most extraordinary tale. For every body that thinks they know about the Mob, this is one more layer of understanding, I believe incredible. Now you start off by explaining that that the mob was not designed, not organized, not operated for the purpose of killing. What was the purpose of you know, what was the purpose of the mob, And before we get into murdering itself.
But basic economics, to make money. The mob existed for achieving the American's dream, just in a different way than legitimate society did. It wasn't about killing or being brutal tough guys. That comes with it, you know, because it's such an illegitimate thing that we're doing. But no, it was about making money. It was that simple.
Now you say that, like any any organization, even legitimate corporations, they operated the same way. They would have accounts payable, they'd have public relations that have logistics, and then they would have an enforcement arm. So we always know that there's somebody is going to do the dirtiest of dirty work. Tell us about that. How did how did that come to be? And how did they pick people for enforcement? How did that works?
It's such a mind boggling But I don't know, simplistic in a way dynamic to the whole thing. They needed a self policing unit. I suppose what happened. The short version is the guys who were becoming big time, like Luciano Lanski, Boucalper, all those guys. But some of them had been watching these youngerhoods and what they had achieved on their own, and it sort of evolved into the situation where they figured these guys would be good at handling the really nasty stuff, and they brought them in.
These guys were these younger guys were looking to make a name for themselves and they were doing that in the established guys saw it happen. They saw what was happening, So that's sort of why they selected them.
They were they weren't. None of these people really shy from murdering anyone in sort of the course of doing business. But what were the things that really brought to attention these guys that these this enforcement arm. What were the kind of infractions that were just not going to be you know, not going to be brushed aside. What would bring the enforcement arm, this team of guys to your door. What kind of rules were you not to ever break?
Well, obviously if you were suspected of speaking to law enforcement, if you stole from the mob, if you wanted to exit the mob. These are just a couple of the reasons in order to get a death sentence. And of course we're talking about roughly nineteen thirty through nineteen forty
is when these guys were doing it. But the biggest things were obviously stealing from your own people, skimming, you know, whatever you could get killed for, you know, skimming a couple of dollars if one of the bosses wanted it done. But the worst in fraction, the one where you were probably going to be made an example of, is if you were thought to be a stole pigeon, you want to be a rat, whatever you want to call it. That that usually got the worst punishment.
Now, when you talk about what we alluded to it, or we mentioned it in the opening about incineration and ice picks, there are many ways to kill someone. There's been in many ways of sending a message. What were these guys sometimes known for? What was there? What were they characterize their behavior? We'll say, of these guys that would kill, especially when it was an informant.
Uh, the word psychopathic definitely comes to mind with a few of them. And though I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, when you see these guys go from young men and shooting someone to evolving to the point where they would use an ice pick for example. And one of the best examples to paint this picture is there was a reporter who wrote an article about one of
their murders and how he characterized it. What if it takes three plunges of an ice pick to kill you, these guys make sure they tack on fifty more plunges of that ice pick for good measure, and then go sit and have a lobster dinner. It's it was brutal. They made this. They made a point of becoming more and more brutal as the years went on.
What's interesting, too, is that where they basically got some of these guys from, like we talked about in the opening, was from Brooklyn. They'll tell us why in particular Brooklyn, and then tell us begin to introduce some of the characters that were the main players in organized crime at that time. Like you said, in this era of this decade of horrific murder and the you know, the reign of murder Inc. In particular, named some of the main players in this cast.
Well, these guys, the ones that were the core of what would later be called Murder Inc. Were led by Abe Kid twist Rellis. They were a handful of Jewish guys and Italian guys from Brooklyn, and it could have been any any part of New York, and there were guys from the Bronx and Upper areas, but it just so happened that these guys all sort of joined up their gangs as young men and took out some up
and coming other gangsters. The really big up and coming gangsters saw this happening in Brooklyn and that's how they became part of it. Like I said, it could have been anywhere. It just so happened that these guys were particularly well known within Brooklyn and outside of Brooklyn as being constantly arrested and let go for any crime under
the sun. They were a gang who liked to be known for what they did, and that caught the attention of guys like Luciano, who was basically a Manhattan gangster, and Buchalter, who was a racketeer in the Brooklyn area and beyond. These guys saw this and that's why they sort of chose them. But other guys that were Harry Happy may Own, Harry Pittsburgh, Phil Strauss, Martin Bugsy Goldstein,
Frank Dasser, abendando. These were the main guys of the group, but they had hired guns that would do maybe one or two jobs that were from other areas, even other parts of the country. This became national by the mid nineteen thirties. These guys were going all over the country and had contacts in various parts of the country.
Lucky Luciano tell us about the rise of Luckily Luciano because there was a couple of crime bosses that were obstacles and so you can tell us about this sort of this conspiracy here basically for how he came to power with Masuria and Marenganzo Marizano. So tell us about the Ria Arenzano and Lucky Luciano and this play for power.
Well, I sort of did this book to follow up my last one, which was on Luciano, and I kind of knew this would be a fitting following because what was happening in nineteen thirty nineteen thirty one, this major mafia boss war, and Lucky Luciano and his buddies, both Italian and Jewish, decided we need to take out both these guys. And you know, obviously I'm oversimplifying this, but here were these young Turks basically saying we got to get rid of the old school. They knock off both
guys by a fall of nineteen thirty one. And at the same time it was a parallel thing. You had these young guys from Brooklyn who were taking over rackets from other young racketeers. It was like two parallel worlds, you know, on different scales of size. Luciano, Lanski, Costello, Bluclter, all these guys basically by the end of nineteen thirty one had changed the face of organized crime. Some people will argue how much they did or how I'll stand by this. They changed. It was a whole new era
by nineteen thirty one. And at the same time, these young guys they knew what was going on with all that too, and they were doing their own little thing, and sooner or later that gap is bridged, and that's how the murdering people hooked up with bosses. Well, by that time, Luciano was a boss, Lanski was a boss. If you want to call you know, they were all bosses.
The prosecution, the authorities, the government, they noticed who these people were. Despite when we talk about organized crime in and denial in the sixties, in the fifties, when forties that there was such a thing as the mafioso. Authorities knew what was going on here, were determined to try
to take these people to court. Tell us about the state of prosecution at that time in the thirties and some of the attempts, the first attempt to try to take these guys to court and arrest them and have them imprisoned.
But with the guys that were in murder incorporated one of the biggest problems that society was dealing with. These guys had money and were developing a lot of backing, and had decent lawyers, and they could march in for any infraction and months later be dismissed because witnesses wouldn't
come forward or it just wasn't enough evidence. And remember, of course, we're talking about a time before there was any CSI or DNA, So basically, these guys were getting off scott free, and prosecutors were going after the big fish. For the most part, they were going after the culters and Lucciano's, that's who they were. They did not know for a decade that those guys had all these underlinked carrying out hundreds of deaths that were all connected to
the same group. That's where there was this this disconnect. And plus you don't have like today databases. You know you had Brooklyn. There would be people here that know about this, but they don't know about it in Manhattan or Queens necessarily until it comes out in the newspapers of what happened. So it was very difficult for the judicial system, for law enforcement to put this all together until nineteen forty.
They're not really known for leaving too much forensic evidence, namely just you know, they they're well versed in knowing how to dispose the bodies for the most part.
You would think you would think it's funny you bring that up, because they here's something that happens when you're too much of a narcissist or two cocky, it's going to come back to bite you. These guys got away with a lot, and no, there wasn't a lot of evidence. Bodies were buried in lime pits and dumped in lakes, but some of them reappeared. And these guys were even a time stunned that they weren't i don't know, as medically versed or scientifically as versed as they thought they were,
as to what happens to a decomposing body. So again that actually that's more of when your head gets too big, you make mistakes, and they did. It's just I think, Dan, they were very, very lucky for a long time in that they had such a support network to protect them.
Now you were talking, well, they weren't as well versed as they might have thought. You give some prime examples. Again a little bit gory, but hey, that's program. The audience can handle it. You cite an example of them underestimating their ability to dispose of a body. Just give us that one example of the body they threw in the water.
Well, so they ice picked a fellow gangster. And I'm gonna throw this out there too. I try to point out the book though this doesn't make it right, and society did pay for this. I mean, there's always collateral damage. But really a lot of their victims were bad guys too. I just want to point that out. These guys were often killers too. And one example is Walter Sage. He was one of their friends, fellow gangster, did bad stuff.
They thought he was skimming. The order came down. Take this guy out, They take him for a ride, ice pick him I think fifty. Sometimes they tied his body with pieces of metal, throw them in the lake, and a few days later, or actually it was two weeks later, people are a tourists are out having fun at the lake and up pops this bloated body in the middle of the lake. It horrified everybody, and the guys didn't understand what happens with a tiny hole that an ice
pick does to a body. It actually ends up sealing itself up and blows up with the gases, and it lifted parts of a car engine when that body came to the surface. That's how they did not understand how that happened. So it just goes to show they were a little too big for their bridges. To use really old school term.
What we're seeing in this almost one hundred years ago in nineteen thirties, and anybody it's a big fan like myself and probably a big part of the audience knows this from watching mob stories. Is that is that how do these guys really get to be able to do the kind of hits that they need to get. What I'm saying is that they really these guys are a suspicious lot. Like you say, these guys are fellow killers and men around these guys who are killers, and so
they're cautious. They know the drill, they know what really goes on, and yet they're still hit. How does that happen?
You know?
That's maybe the million dollar question, Dan. I think a lot of these guys were very overconfident period, and even though you would think you're naturally paranoid and cautious. In my research and again none of us were there, we don't know, and just based off in general psychology, it seems to me they didn't think anything would happen to them. It's like you walking down the street and just thinking
nothing's gonna happen to you. It's gonna happen that guy across the street, even when you were part of it. So what happens on top of that? And it's like what we saw in all the mob movies. Your buddies are the ones that are going to kill you, and they're friendly, and of course that fools you too. You
feel that comfort. So that's what they would do. Murder inc didn't just kill strangers, and they did kill a lot that you know, they didn't personally know, but they also killed a ton of their own over the years because there's that comfort level. Like the example Walter Stage, he had no idea. He thought he was going for a ride like he always does with the same guys. It's just he had a contract on his head that day.
Yes, Now you talk about the Abe Reelis gang kid twist, and you also talk about something called the Sullivan it's a Sullivan law, and tell us about the Sullivan Sullivan law and a Relea skaning and again prosecution trying to prosecute these guys effectively and put them in prison.
Okay, the short version of this. In early thirties, a law was in stated they were tiggyback laws to disorderly conduct. What they were trying to do is crack down on some organized crime by arresting people in large groups. If they thought if they suspected you or your friends were criminals, they could arrest you all and then figure it out later. The law came under some scrutiny, of course, because some
judges thought, you know, this isn't right. But what the police thought they could do is grab all of you like they could grab the whole Relis gang, just because they you know, have heard these guys are bad bring them in and then try to hold them on vagrancy, which basically means you don't have any money, we can hold you for one hundred days and there's nothing you
can do about it. But what happened that backfire all the time because these young gangsters had money, they had lawyers, and by then they had impressed people like Lepki and Jacob Shapiro and Luciano. So these guys had a whole network in place of bail. They had houses, they had cars. You couldn't say it was vagrancy. And some judges, even though they knew these guys were bad, their hands were tied. They said, we can't you can't even use this law. So it was it was a weird time for legal
issues as well. I mean, it was quite a dynamic that whole time period. There were there were so many factors that went into how Murder Inc. Act actually existed in thrived for as long as it did.
Now you go on with with the and talk about Mayor Lansky and in some of his cohorts and Bugsy Seagulls, So tell us a little bit more about Murder inc. And how it came to be known as Murder inc.
Well, murder Inc. The name was definitely a product of the press, not that it's any different than today in terms of Hey, the most eye catching, outrageous headlines are what sell you know, the news, that's what they did. There's definitely been debate over the last century as to where the name Murder Inc. Really originated, and I addressed a couple of the you know, theories I found in my research over the years that people had discussed of who really came up with it, But it was definitely
a name that's stuck. Once, you know, the whole case broke in early nineteen forty, it was quickly dubbed murder Inc. Those guys themselves Dan They referred to that group as the combination that's what they call themselves, were Combination guys. Murder Inc. Again was you know, labeled by the press.
Now, you outline a lot of the characters that people have been interested in mob stories would know, of course, like Prel's Lucky Luciano and and Lewis Lepki, Blue Calter at Mary Lansky. But you do have quite a bit of information on the you know, the striking characters that are the gangbusters as you call them. John Harlan Amon, Thomas Dewey, William Dickleman, all Burton Turkis so talk especially
about William O'Dwyer and Thomas Dewey, both district attorneys. Tell us a little bit about Thomas Dewey first introduced this character.
Well, Dewey was definitely a politician or he he had aspirations. He saw his future by taking down New York's crime lords, and he went after the big fish. He went after Bouchalter, he went after dutch Schultz, he went after Luciano, and he was quite successful on a lot of those levels, and it made a name for him. He was he was basically a celebrity. And then William O'Dwyer he came in as the DA for Brooklyn and he started going after what what I put in the book is like
the lower tier type of gangsters. But it ended up Wow, that was even to me, that was even bigger than what Dewey did with the murdering. But yeah, o dwyer came in and he he I say, a lot of it was luck in how this whole thing unfolded before him, because really it was Burton Turkish, his assistant district attorney, that was the true gangbuster a man he was. He was really good too with what he did. I think he opened the door for it. But that's what it
took a lot of people. Just like with the mob Dan, there's never one person, it's it's a whole sort of alliance or you know where things are are just aligned perfectly.
Now with these lawmen, when when do they get an ink nation that there is this enforcement arm? And who some of those members might be. When does that happen? And who is who can you say is most responsible for discovering and putting things together to say this is this enforcement arm, it's murder inc that discovery? Wh would that too?
I really, I'd have to say John Harland. He didn't realize at the time, but he was the one that really started probing all these guys uh in the in the candy shop that they were hanging out. He knew something was really wrong, something was going on, and that opened the door for O'Dwyer and Duly to an extent, who was already sort of beyond and going elsewhere. But I really, I really credit John Harlan for cracking that
door open, and then O'Dwyer. There's o'dwar well as you're in the book, you'll see there's some controversy even over what he did and didn't do during that and Burton Turkas I really think was the man that totally smashed it.
It's an interesting tale that you have as well, and as very important to the story as you talked about the candy store and the motherly figure that was the front for it, Rose, I believe. So tell us about the candy store and its importance to this story and to these mobsters.
The realis gangs they were called that became what murdering was. They all hung out at a candy store in Brooklyn which was operated by an illiterate old lady who was a grandma, and she and her son and some of his cronies ran different rackets out of the joint or she allowed it, let's say, and she made some nice money from it. These guys eventually made her candy store their office for murder incorporated.
It was.
There were a lot of people involved. That's why this book book there's so many names, because there really were a lot of people involved. But yes, their ground zero was a candy shop in Brooklyn.
And tell us about law enforcement's discovery of this.
Well, that was definitely John Harlan trying to clean up Brooklyn. They kept hearing these names of abe Rellis and Happy may Own and Pittsburgh Phil and these guys that were always milling around this place. They knew there was gambling, they knew there was bootlegging, they knew there was prostitution, they knew there was morphine being traffic through there. And when they started to put it all together, they realized, oh,
that's why these guys are always hanging out here. This is where they basically take their phone calls from the boss bosses telling them here, you need to take out this person, You need to take out that person. That's really how it all unfolded.
In the short version, you also mentioned a detective named John Osnado, So tell us his importance to this story.
What does he do?
Asnado was with O'Dwyer during the very first interrogation of one of Murdering's underlings that what really broke the case open was as Nato and O'Dwyer's little reverse psychology plan to get this young guy named Anthony Duke Mafatore to explain to them what the hell was going on with all these other guys, and it was I don't want to give away what they did to them, but they eventually got him to talk and he was the very first one to start naming names, and it was it
was an incredible downfall from that minute on.
Now, we won't give that away, but tell us what the prosecution finally looks like when they I believe it's nineteen forty, when they finally can attempt to pick this to a courtroom and make these charges stick. So tell us about that whole initiative.
Well, very unlike today and not always for what turned out to be good, but justice was a little more swift. Literally within three months of finding out what they thought was going on, they rounded everybody up that any name that came to mind, they rounded them up, and they immediately started putting two to three guys on trial together. And they were going straight for the electric chair. That's what the prosecution wanted. So by May of nineteen forty,
they had already started putting these guys on trial. It was that fast. And with that Dan oddly where I say there's sort of a downside to this. Again, we're not talking about a time where you had a lot of evidence to use they were basically sending people to the electric chair based on another bad guy's testimony. That is pretty much and not that these guys weren't really
bad and the prosecution knew it. But at the same time, could you imagine that today where just a couple of people get to go and stand and then they send you the electriccare It was just it's hard to digest in certain ways.
Yeah, it certainly wouldn't happen now, it's a it wouldn't happen now. The thing is we talked about in the introduction that and everybody talks about how they only kill their own if you're an informant. That's the worst offense ever. They have this murder ink to deal with those informants that would dare to file their their bosses and their fellow gangsters and be an informant. And really the key to the successful prosecution is guys turning informant right from
this murder ink. So tell us about the first first guys that jump ship and help out the prosecution.
The prosecution part of it be lucked out, and part of it was very clever thinking that they grabbed the younger guys right who were not the biggest players in Murder Inc. But were very privy to the actions of murder Inc. These were young family men. They knew we can probably break them. And because I would say one of the biggest mistakes the Murder Inc. Boys made was having so many extended people involved in one way or another that had knowledge of the worst stuff they did.
So the prosecution breaks a couple of the young ones, the young ones who are always hanging around here and see everything. So they start talking, naming names the bigger guys. Most of them didn't want to talk, except for and this is where I say there's no or little honor
among thieves. The biggest cruelest member of the group, abe Ellis, himself, decided to save his own skin as well when he heard other people were turning informant and he was the prosecution star witness then, so even their boss, their main guy, turned uh, you know, state's witness against them. So it was it was definitely a lesson, or you know, you would think it would be a lesson. There is no honor among thieves.
When these trials began, what was the media response, how was it received? Tell us a little bit about that, about the coverage of the testimony and tell us about that media response.
That was, well, it was national and of course by the time the press was really all over it. Now local press was on it. And of course the term murdering was you know, labeled, that was it then everybody was using it. But once the news broke, because these guys were national you know, traveled around to do hits, it became one of the most sensational stories of that era. I know, there were definitely a few. You know, you had the Lindbergh baby thing going on, you know, and
of course the war, Yeah, it was going on. This was a sensational uh filler for sure. But yeah, especially in New York obviously because because you can imagine being there at that time and just having not being able to fathom how extensive this was unless you were part of it or lived, you know, through it. Maybe some of those people weren't surprised.
So who is the you say, a realist kid twist is their their star witness? What's he like on the stand when he finally gets there, what does demeanor like, how does he act? Is he is he a good witness? And what kind of information is he is providing? How is the tell us about the details of that interaction.
In terms of going up on the witness stand and delivering testimony, he was good in the sense that he told everything. What was creepy and odd about it is that he was very nonchalant even in his own actions that he admitted to, and there were moments where that was even questionable. What drew some controversy or detractors against the prosecution was just that how can you use a guy that admitted to basically killing someone in his own house while his mother in law was asleep in the
next room. You know, how can you use this guy and expect, you know, anybody to feel something when he is your star witness. So it's it's a double edged sword. But was he good? Yeah? The prosecution thought he was a godsend because he was the boss of that group and he told on all of them.
Yeah.
Incredible.
Now, how effective are they in terms of actual numbers? You say this would not would not happen now, and I would agree with you that there's no way that this stuff would happen, especially in short order. So tell us about how many of those people are convicted by this these techniques or in these courts and so tell us about sort of their success rate.
Hmmm. Well, when you look at the whole picture, and these trials went on for several years. It first it looked good because immediately they were getting death sentences for the main guys, okay, like real quick. But then those went into appeals and it almost looked for a moment like some of them might have, you know, got a reprieve. What ended up happening though with a lot of these other I want to say the extended members, a lot
of them oddly walked. Some of them skit were given death sentences and were able to not only walk away from that, walk out of jail. It was not I think the prosecution was happy dan in if he got the main poster boys, but they didn't get a lot of the extended players. These guys, a lot of them lucked out, either got a few years in jail, or got out of the death sentence all together. Some got no jail time. So you never know what's going to
happen in court law. You know, everybody knows that, you never know what's going to happen.
Right, And you say some people that deserved old Sparky there didn't get their chair and ended up really well. So you do talk about and chronicle the ones that did quite well and the guys that didn't do well at all. When you say, some of these death penalties were carried out in fairly short order compared to some of the states now that have taken you fifteen years on death row.
So right right, yeah, in regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, well, yeah, the wait is way too long now, I guess, and back then it was way too quick. I'll say this. The one trial that I personally think was questionable, to say the least, was Lefki, Lewis Capone, and Mandy Weiss. Now those three were put on trial and they were all executed together, but there is plenty to show. I don't know that they really should have executed Lepk. I mean, though he was the
boss and called these orders in. It was weird. And the other two guys were basically bad guys too, But the ones that really did the crime that they put them on trial for weren't even on trial for that crime. It was a weird thing, Dan. And I'm not a lawyer or judge, but I look at it like, wow, that one. I think they just wanted to fry everybody. And what ended up happening is a couple of years later, a lot of the guys that they still thought were going to go to jail or whatever walked free and
either retired or became criminals in a different realm. So to me, the prosecution really didn't win in the end anyway.
Were there any players that arose in terms of defense of some of these gangsters, You say the tide turned in the shortened the four years of these trials, or so right, really good?
And then well what happened? Right? They think they have such a strong case, and they did, and how else can I put this? They blew it all on the first few trials and they got their best sentences, but when it came to all the extended bunch, they ended up not really having as much as they wanted because certain witnesses all of a sudden were like, I don't remember, or I didn't you know, I'm not sure it was him.
And then defenses became a little better, a little more savvy to it, and got reduced sentences for plea bargains, and all of a sudden people were going free or getting a few years in prison. No, no, don't get me wrong. Some of them did end up dying in prison anyway, but there were more than a handful that ended up walking. And that's why later in the book I have a whole section called you know, whatever happened to some of the stories I could find about these people the post murdering hype.
Yeah, well, let's talk about one of those stories too, because one of them I thought was very interesting and I probably see this stuff re regurgitated or recycled in fictional accounts about the wife that believed she knew who had killed her husband, testified or went to the police and then at some point recanted that, or had some kind of memory laps. Tell us about that.
Oh, there were a few cases of that. Of the one of the best ones has to be Elsie Feinstein. She was married to a guy named Sam Feinstein. He was involved with the Murder Inc.
Guys.
Decided he wanted to go straight, and he started verbally expressing that, well, that was a bad move. And one day Sam goes for a ride and he doesn't come back. The guys from Murder Inc. Then provided Elsie with fifty dollars in an envelope every week. Well, once the murdering trials started, they brought Elsie in and questioned her, and she acknowledged that her husband disappeared. They didn't know, you know, they didn't know where he was, and that she was
getting fifty dollars a week from the mob. However it was, it was brought, It was brought to the attention of prosecutors that was not telling the whole story. One of the state's witnesses, Albert TikTok Tannembomb, had a sixteen millimeter film of Elsie frolicking on a be with three or four members of Murder Incorporated. He brings this into the prosecutors and what really had to be one of the
first ever used cases of sexualize and videotape. This guy at a home movie of them partying on a Miami beach, and his assistant, Da Burton Turkis described what he saw. You know, he said, Elsie frolicking around in a bikini the size of two handkerchiefs with all the guys that basically killed her husband. So they presented this tour. She
tried to say it wasn't her. They locked her up for a few months and then she had a change of heart and admitted that you know, yeah, my husband was probably killed by them, and I partied in Miami with all of them. Yeah, it was just it truth to strangers. In fiction, it's just crazy stories. That's what I tried to do with this book, is give all this the wild side. Stuff that isn't is covered as much.
Yeah. The other thing too, was this is another one I've read as well. And you know, I am a big fan of the Sopranos, and right out of real life, right out of true crime, you talk about a hit on the wrong person. Tell us about that story, which was fascinating.
Uh. Yeah. They wanted to take out somebody involved with you know, unions and you know strong arming unions, and LEPKI decided a contract needed to be put out on this guy. They sent Jack Parici, Seymour Magoon and Cuppy Migden to go take this guy out. Cuppy Migden says, oh, I know who he is. I know who he is. I'll point him out Jack Parice, he's gonna shoot him. Well, here comes this guy out of his apartment walking down
the street to go to work or parisy blasphem. They get in the car, they go home and find out a day later they killed a completely innocent guy who happened to physically look like the guy they were supposed to hid and lived in the same building. So that was an epic fail on their part. But back to your earlier about guys that ended up getting off, you know what, all three of the men involved basically skated from that one. That was a perfect example. One turn
state's witness. One hid for a few years, the other hid for ten years, and then when they were caught, they ended up getting off of everything. Anyway, it was just again this you just can't make this stuff up. How this all went down.
Yeah, you include what happens to kuppies. They're not too happy with his his eyewitness account of who the victim was supposed to be.
No, no, and it's amazing he didn't get killed just for you know, messing up. That's so bad. But you know what, you blame them all. It's the whole thing. These guys thought they knew everything they really did, and granted a lot of times when they didn't know who a guy was and were told or shown a picture, they were successful a lot of times. But for the
most part, again, there's such an arrogance. I think it's one of the most fascinating parts of the whole story is the unbelievable narcissism across the board with these guys.
Now you talk about murder Inc. Being this unprecedented, you know, murderous group that rose to prominence and carried out all these assassinations after this trial in the forties beginning of nineteen forty did organize crime? Obviously organized crime? The membership
changes all the time, that's one thing about it. Always freshmen, right, But did the landscape change in terms of did they learn any lesson from having this enforcement arm go so public and be so such a loose canon, such an overkill and so much attention from the authorities, and so tell us if they learned anything and did they conduct themselves differently after this?
I would I would have to say absolutely they did. I mean, there was actual discussions or you know gangland lore that you know, some of the even top bosses didn't really like how it was going on anyway, were the ones that were a little more diplomatic. And then there's some debate that even the diplomatic ones still thought you needed, you know, killer arm. It's just a God out of hand. And also you're talking about by nineteen
forty a lot you know, Lepki was executed. Well, you know, by the mid forties, Luciano was already in jail Meyer Lansky. He always kind of tried to stay under the radar. Frank Costello, you know, was shaking hands with everybody, so he stayed out of a lot of trouble. But you also had the actual mafia was had evolved from nineteen thirty on into the Five Families, So there was a whole new dynamic that I would imagine had learned a lot of lessons from what murdering did. It's and here's
the other thing. When murdering ended, I don't even like to say it ended, because it didn't just people didn't stop getting killed. It was that that ten year span ended. But there were still things that lagged and carried over, you know, even to the mafia as it rose. And then when the Jewish faction sort of assimilated more into legitimate society. You know, it was a change, like you said, it was a change of guard membership. The way it worked.
I'll asked this question too, Did prosecution learn anything from the Again, some of the missteps that they did in this almost fifteen years of trying to prosecute these gangsters. Did they learn anything and did they make any headway themselves in terms of changing the laws to accommodate themselves when they're trying to prosecute these guys.
Absolutely, And I think it took a long time for it really to come in. And I'll go as far as say, like the Rico Act late, you know, many many years later. But what happened in the early nineteen fifties is this didn't die in the eyes of some of these Senate committees. They really wanted to know how things went well and how things went badly with the murder inc trials. And they were calling people, a lot of people before them, to question and say, hey, you know,
how did this get screwed up here? And why did this happen here? So it didn't just die. And I do think that it improved, you know, law enforcement and you know how the laws were applied to things. Yeah, you had from that decade, Dan, my god, so many missteps and wacky stuff. They definitely learned.
What we didn't talk about is that there were some spectacular fines, burial grounds, shallow Graves tell us a little bit about what you talk about in the book about some of these discoveries.
Well, that was that is definitely a fascinating part of it. Again, for almost ten years, all these people disappear and nobody's putting two and two together. And it was very hard too. There was no way to really put two and two together. Once they did in nineteen forty and witnesses were taking them to dumping grounds in the Catskills. There were properties and lakes and yes, lime pits with bodies. New Jersey. They were getting rid of the cars where they murdered
people in pieces in junk yards throughout Brooklyn. Everything was being disposed of, but nothing is truly gone. So by the end of nineteen forty two they had found not all and that's why we'll never know how many people they really killed, but they did find a hell of a lot of bodies and car parts and other things that were related to these killings. Based on witnesses remembering and saying, hey, let's take a ride. I'll show you where they dumped the bunch up and Sullomon, you know,
or Monticello, New York. Yeah, it was crazy stuff.
One of the great aspects of your book is the photos that you were able to get. The incredible amount of photos and the quality of these photos are just incredible the stuff. If you're ever interested in this stuff, you've got this incredible collection. So tell us about this incredible collection. Where was your source and tell us a little bit more about the photos that you've included.
All right, Well, first I have to give I have to give credit where credit is due. I really got hooked on acquiring these kind of things from a colleague of mine, Arthur Nash. He that his book just that did it. I was hooked like a crack addict. Then I started going after these and what I ended up doing is getting every press photo or police photo mugshots
of these guys. And what it evolved into was not just getting photos of crime scenes and these guys, but also the locations because back then, uh newspaper photographers took pictures of everything, not just you know, somebody walking in handcuffs, like an example, the picture of the junk yard. To me, that may seem like nothing special, but to me, that's one of my prize in the collections, like the actual junk yard search from murder Ink. Yeah, I have this,
it's my it's my other main thing. I like to say I'm a writer, and I also like to say I'm a curator of weird stuff.
Dan, Yeah, I noticed that that it we said your private collection, So I said, ah, interesting, Yeah, incredible. Yeah. Now with this uh, with this book, has there been any have you you ever get any gangsters, mobsters guys kind of disputing some of the things that are in the book. And with this book, was there any any contact at all like that, any kind of antidote that you might be able to pass on.
No, with this one, actually, well nothing, not in the way of detractors, which and that's fine too. Anybody. I love to, you know, find out where we were all wrong or whatever, you know, when you write one of these books, because we weren't there. But most of these
people are dead. What was fascinating is that I did another colleague and friend of mine, Michael Mordene, his grandmother's story with Happy to Own and letting me use a photograph of her and telling me how she, you know, just passed away a couple of years ago and used to talk about these guys, she knew them, And that was incredible. The only book and when I wrote Diary
of MotorCity hit Man. Now, there were people that were still alive from the seventies that were that book, but most of them were just very happy that the book was written. And then I was cleared up on some things that were incorrect and all that, which was great. But no, I've never had anybody like really detract yet.
No, that's good. Interesting. So now, what did you find anything surprising after all the research you did on this and being you know, basically for a better term and you know, an organized crime expert here, from the research that you've done in the books that you've written, was there anything really surprising, really surprising to you after writing this book?
You know, I'm sorry, I'm losing my voice, dan Ah. I've been fascinated with all this stuff for twenty some years, and yeah, I was surprised at every turn, and partially because it puts you in your place and you're like, oh wow, I thought I knew that you know everything and you don't. But what really surprised me the most, and maybe it's not in the terms of oh my god,
that's shocking. It was really the question that I wanted to answer but didn't know what question I was asking myself when I was writing the book, and that was what did these guys really really think of themselves? And when I found the quote which you probably saw, and I'm not going to say what it is that Bugsy Goldstein gave in the early nineteen thirties to a cop and a reporter, I think it totally answered the million dollar question what did these guys see of themselves? And
what were they aspiring to? That was the most shocking to actually find. Wow, there's the you know, they actually said it what they thought?
Yeah, systemab that to me?
Oh yeah, exactly, Yeah, incredible, incredible.
So now for people that would like to know more about this, do you have a website? Do you do Facebook? Tell us how people might contact you or find out more information about you and the other books they written.
Sure, my website is Gangland Legends dot com. They can I'm on Twitter at SIP the Scallion at CIP the Scallion, I'm on Facebook, look me up. I welcome questions, comments, complaints, anything. I love it. I love to hear what people think or I have to offer, and I certainly hope if anybody looks at my books it makes them want to go find out more from whatever source. That's part of what I do. So I love it. Yeah, come visit, say hi absolutely.
I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking about this Mysteries of the mobs most Deadly Hit Squad. I mean a lot of us have talked and not talked about it, but basically no, we think we know about Murder Inc. It's finally good to hear the low down on this and for anybody who was interested this evening, we did leave a lot of things things out we didn't there's a lot of spoilers here
that we we didn't leave. We didn't give everything away, so there's a lot of information in here that just blow your mind. And like I said, there's so many stories here that wow, I thought that was a fictional story, but no, sure as sure as that gets a true true life story. So again I want to thank you very much for a great book, Murder Inc. And for coming on and discussing it with us this evening.
Thank you very much, No, thank you Dan. Always a pleasure.
Okay, you have yourself a good night you too, by bye.