You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. 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. Step back in time to the winter of nineteen twenty nine, where the magic of Christmas in Brooklyn, New York was shattered by a heinous act that reverberated through the ages. In the Murder of Mary Falzone, a shocking true crime story, Rod Cackley unravels the chilling tale of a family torn apart by an explosion that claimed the lives of Mary, Philip and Rose Falzone, innocent children whose lives were extinguished by a bomb disguised as a
holiday gift. As the city grappled with the aftermath of this unspeakable tragedy, a relentless investigation unfolded to unmask the perpetrators behind the merciless attack. Rod Cackley takes readers on a gripping journey through the dark alleys of nineteen twenties Brooklyn, where organized crime thrived and the thin line between justice and retribution blurred. The narrative unfolds like a suspenseful thriller,
capturing the tension of a city on the brink. Through painstaking research and vivid storytelling, Rod Cackley paints a vivid picture of a bygone era, immersing readers in the sights, sounds, and emotions of a community grappling with grief and the quest for justice. As the investigation deepens, readers will be engrossed by the cast of characters, dedicated detectives, reaving family members,
and the shadowy figures lurking in the criminal underworld. The book unveils the layers of deception and betrayal that led to that fateful December morning, keeping readers on the edge of their seats with every revelation. The murder of Mary Falzone transcends the true crime genre, becoming a poignant exploration of the enduring quest for justice and the impact of
violence on a family and a community. This is a tale that goes beyond the headlines, inviting readers to contemplate the fragility of life and the strength that can emerge in the face of tragedy. Gripping, evocative, and profoundly moving. This true crime narrative is a must read for those seeking an unforgettable journey into the heart of a dark chapter in American history. The book that were featuring this evening is The Murder of Mary Fellzone, a Shocking true
crime Story with my special guests, author Rod Cackley. Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Rod Cackley, Hi, good morning, Dan, good morning. Thank you so much for this interview.
You're welcome, thanks for having me.
You take us in the Murder of Mary Fellzone, a shocking true crime story, certainly is. You take us to October fourth, nineteen twenty nine, and in an apartment on the outskirts of Brooklyn, New York, and a nineteen year old, you say, a hulking nineteen year old and his older accomplice in his early thirties, and these people are drafting a letter. The nineteen year old is drafting a letter, and they have in the letter. You say, somebody in
their crosshairs. Tell us about this letter writing duo and what they are writing about. Before you tell me, or tell our audience exactly what they have drafted in that letter and whoever they are sending it to.
Sure, Yeah, we've got a nineteen year old, as you said, with a pension for intimidation. His accomplice, I write as a seasoned brute in his early thirties, with the demeanor is whether it has a scuffed leather boost. These guys are partners, but not friends. Okay, they don't care for each your other, munch, but they're joined in this mutual business, if you will, of intimidating people and extorting money. Now they have set their sites to be Now on a
guy by the name of Joseph Falzone. He's a rich Sicilian immigrant, very well to do. He owns with a partner, he owns a marble contracting company. They really specialize in tombstones, ironically enough, and they made three hundred thousand dollars in profit last year, which is in nineteen twenty eight, which is we're talking several million dollars in today's money. And living in Brooklyn, New York. Now this is October fourth,
nineteen twenty nine. The date is important because right now, for the past ten years, living in Brooklyn is a license to print money. The factories are humming the waterfront is bustling with activity every day. Tony Island was jammed last summer and it should be next season to see you at least, that's what they think. Money is everywhere, and this guy, this nineteen year old, wants his on fair share. He's a high school graduate, a rarity in
nineteen twenty nine. And right now he's at a chipped, scratched wooden desk in his buddy apartment. The thirty year old hard at works scribbling out a letter.
He's wearing a.
Well worn tweed suit featuring a jacket just a bit too small for his large muscular frame. He's got a thin tie hanging loosely around his neck, a dingy white shirt on button to the collar, and right now he's on his fourth attempt to get the wording of this letter just right. He's using a fountain pen, and if you've ever used a fountain pen, we don't use them
much anymore. But they've got a nub on the front, on the tip, and he's doing his best or the nib, doing his best not to crush it into the paper at the same time he's writing. He's pressing hard enough on his paper. It's like the paper owes him money. He's trying to get this right the fourth time out, and he's doing more now than just extorting money. He wants this guy, the target of his letter, to leave Brooklyn. So he writes, if you don't leave this city within
thirty days, you will hear from us. You are a sneak, and we, with a sneak, are going to.
Cut the head. This is what he wrote.
Okay, what he means to write is the snake, but he wrote it with a sneak, and we are going to cut the head. Be quick to send if you value your life and that of your wife, and that's all. We won't sign surname, not because we're afraid, but just because you are a rat. And he turns to his partner and says that great, isn't it. You know, the partner really couldn't care less. He just wants to get
this done now. Back in nineteen twenty nine, when gangs ran out of money, they kidnapped and they extored it. It was a quick way to print money, if you will. And that's what these guys are doing right here, is they're trying to get money and get money fast. But the nineteen year old now there's a reason he wants his target to leave town.
Now.
I don't know if you want to talk about that right now, but there is a reason that he wants more from money, or more than money from this guy. Dan.
Let's get to we opened that October fourth, nineteen twenty nine, and this letter was constructed, drafted that day. Certainly the target received that in a certain amount of time, within a week or so. But you take us in the story to October twenty third, nineteen twenty nine, and these guys are talking about not getting a response from that letter that they had drafted.
They can't believe it.
Of The nineteen year old is totally fomis. He cannot believe that this Sicilian businessman, this immigrant, has not even responded to the letter. The older man, the guy in his thirties, he's ready to do whatever it takes, but he's not getting excited about too much. The nineteen year old, though, says, we need to get more explicit and give this man a better idea of what will happen if he ignores the ultimatum. And so she writes another letter, and which
he writes, so you've come back again, skunk. I thought you'd gone. Maybe you think that in the last letter I wrote you I was fooling. But listen to rant and get this straight. If you don't do as I ask in the last letter, you know what to expect. Since you couldn't get that straight, get this straight.
Friday.
You are to get on the boat for Boston, which leaves Friday, October twenty five, at six pm p here fourteen. You are to get on this boat alone. You are to have with you six thousand dollars in cash American money, all in twenty dollars bills wrapped in plain brown paper. You will be informed what to do with the package when you were on the boat. Remember this does not mean you were paying for your liberty. You will have thirteen days to leave the country. So he's upping the
ante here, obviously. And I should say that when I get the story the letters mainly out of newspaper accounts from that day. This is how it was reported. This is where I'm getting it from the way he's writing the letter.
Absolutely. Now you take us just a couple of days later, October twenty fifth, nineteen twenty nine, and so you say that they're meeting at eight pm. There's no sign of their mark, and so they wonder what went wrong. They contemplate what went wrong, and you say that there was an incredible moment in history that was occurring at the same time, especially in New York.
Yeah, right, exactly. This is the crash on Wall Street. And so our nineteen year old here now the boat we're talking about the boat from Boston to New York. These boats would go back and forth. It was really the most efficient way to travel between the two cities. So there were many boats going back and forth. And the nineteen year old is thinking, you know, his mark has not shown up with the cash.
The mark.
He's thinking, he's wondering if the guy got on the wrong boat, if he was ignoring him, or just simply made a mistake.
But at the same time, this is the crash.
This is when the newspapers are reporting that business people are jumping out of their windows. They have no idea how bad it's going to get, but it's bad enough that he's thinking that this business maybe he jumped out a window. So they really don't know where to go next.
So what's their next step to try to determine what had happened.
Well, their next step is to write another letter well, and but they decide to up the ante too.
They're going to make it clear.
To this guy that they're not messing around. They put together a pipe bomb and wrap it in, put it inside a Christmas package and take it to the target's home.
You take us to December eighth, nineteen twenty nine, and Jenny fell Zone, the wife, is struggling to get her five children ready for her fifteen year old daughter, Mary fell Zone's first communion. It's a big deal. The family has to be at Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic Church before nine am, and it's eight twenty am. And Joseph, her husband, has promised to be there for that first communion, and so she's busy getting the kids ready. She's bemoaning the
fact that he's not around. He has said he is on one of his numerous hunting trips with his friends, but he assured her he would be back. Tell us what happens with Jenny and the children and getting them ready for this first communion.
Yeah, Jenny is struggling to get her daughter, her oldest daughter Mary in you her communion dress. They have not many they don't have long as you said, It's about eight twenty in the morning. They have to get to the church before nine am to get this communion going. This happens to be a rather warm day in December, warmer than they usually have in Brooklyn. That's where the home is in Brooklyn. Not a drop of rain is falling, not a flake of snow. It's really a spring day.
As a matter of fact. New Yorkers are not playing golf. They have been yesterday and they will be again today. But Jenny doesn't care about that. What she's interested in is getting her kids together. She's upstairs in the bedroom with Mary, Peter Rose. She's with Mary, also with the youngest kids, Patrick and Sally, now Peter and Rose and Mary, the three middle aged.
Peter and Rose are down in the kitchen. She hears noise.
Jenny hears a lot of noise downstairs. She's wondering what's going on. She's got two choices here. Either she can stay with Mary and get her dressed, or she can go downstairs and find out what all the noise is about. She decides to stay upstairs with Mary and get her in her dress. Now, as he said, Joseph is not there. The husband, the father, is not there. He promised he put his hand literally put his right hand on a bible,
promising that he would be home for Mary's communion. But so far, no, he's not there, So she's doing this all on her own. Finally she goes downstairs. Mary gets downstairs in her white communion dress. Bill up and Rose look at her. Not because of the dress, but Mary's eyes also grow wide as saucers when she spots the source of all the noise from downstairs.
On the kitchen table. In the middle of the kitchen is.
An ornately decorated package, wrapped with bright Christmas paper, ribbons and bows, and bound with a string. All three kids, Mary, Peter, and Rose gather around the table, jumping up and down. They're excited, as any kid would be with a mysterious Christmas package mysteriously appearing on.
Their kitchen table.
Well, the thing is is that they're looking at that Christmas looks like a Christmas present in their minds. What do the children You can only suppose, But what were they thinking this present on December eighth?
Might be they're thinking their father might have dropped the package off. First off, the house was locked, so you know, kids don't think like this, but how did the package get there? So they're thinking and Jenny, when she comes downstairs with Patrick and Sally, the two youngest kids, she's thinking that maybe Joseph put this Christmas package on the table as a present or had it sent over as a way of apologizing for being light this morning.
So she allows the kids to.
Jump around in the kitchen and try to open the package. They pull a string and it explodes. There was a pipe bomb inside this package. It explodes, and it is just a pipe bomb of death. Iron and steel slugs ripped through the kitchen. The concussion of the blast rips through the kitchen. The children and Mary, Peter and Rose are grievously injured.
You say, this blast is right outside and has an effect on the literally the skin of this Giuseppe dee Benedetto's his body.
Yeah. The wave, Yeah, the blast wave is incredible. This is an incredible bomb. Now this is in the kitchen, Okay. It destroys the kitchen, the ice box, the stile. They are destroyed. The kids are literally blown to pieces. Mary and Peter are killed instantly. Rose is still breathing. Jenny, Patrick and Sally all suffer concussion. They were not actually at the table, They were kind of in the hallway off the kitchen. They saw what happened, but they are
blown back. But yeah, there's a taxi driver, Giuseppe de Benedetto. He's in a taxi that happens to be driving by the house when it explodes. The windows on the right side of his taxi are blown out. He feels the concussion of the blast and he's outside. Now windows in the neighborhood. Houses in the neighborhood lose their windows. The concussion is so extreme that it blows the windows out of houses, It blows the windows out of cars parked across the street. This is an incredible explosion.
Now right away you say that or Giuseppe runs in and grabs the two children, the two younger children, then comes back for Jenny. They seem to be okay. And then right away, of course, the police are called, and you say, they're contingent of people, including people associated with the mayor, the district attorney. And people are soon at this bombed out home, aren't they.
Yeah, Giuseppe was in the World War, the first what we call now the First World War, but back then was just the World War or the Great War. Giuseppe was in the war, so he's familiar with the concept of triage and wounded people. He immediately goes to the mother, Jenny, and the two youngest kids, Patrick and Sally, and gets them out of the house because in terms of triage, they are the most likely they do not need as
much attention as anyone else. He goes back in the kitchen then, and he looks at Mary and Peter and realizes they're gone.
There's dead.
There's nothing that they can he can do for them. But Rose is still alive and breathing. So he struggles to get hurt out of the house. At the same time, as you said, now, this is Brooklyn. This is a very nice, upscale neighborhood in Brooklyn, and neighbors from blocks away are coming over to find out what's going on. And at the same time, excuse me, at the same time,
city officials are showing up right away. As I write in the book, Joseph bel Zone the husband here, he's not a nobody, Okay, this guy's got money, this guy's got power, this guy's got influence. And all of a sudden, police officials, the mayor shows up. Jenny looks around and realizes there have never been so many Irish in this Sicilian Italian neighborhood before, and they're all on her front lawn.
You say that picking through the rubble. This Inspector Sullivan, who heads up this team of investigators is discovers an alarm clock, a spring, and a six volt battery.
Right. John J.
Sullivan is a very interesting guy who was destined to rise in an NYPD in the New York Police Department. He takes the lead of all the Irish cops on the scene. He takes the lead in this and he goes into the house and he finds the kitchen is absolutely destroyed. There's really nothing left.
Really.
He finds, as you said, he finds the alarm clock.
You find.
He realizes right away that when the children pulled the string. He heard from Giuseppe and the kids he survived that the string was pulled. That didn't have anything to do with his bomb going off. The reason the bomb went off is it was timed. There was a clock in there and it was time to go out. This obviously was put together by a professional. They knew what they were doing. Sullivan decides, so the cops descend into the kitchen while taking Rows on the stretcher to Whycloth Heights Hospital,
hoping that she will survive. Jenny is outside with her two surviving kids, Patrick and Sally, and it's a manic scene, as you can imagine. So Sullivan's in the house with all the cops and suddenly, guess what, the phone rings. The phone is still working, and who's on the phone. It's Joseph Fellzone.
He's one.
He's saying he's in Brooklyn, He's on his way back. I want to say hello to the family and assure them that he was going to be back. And at the church. Well, Sullivan is suspicious right away.
I mean, why.
Would out of the blue fell Zone Paul, Why would he stop and call? Why wouldn't he just come to the house. Remember this is the Joseph fell Zone is the only surviving family member here who wasn't hurt by this explosion. And he calls out of the blue. Well, they tell him what's happened, and so he says, I'll be right there. The same time, Sullivan looks around and he hears he hears a bird singing. There's a bird singing, a canary there's a canary in a cage in the kitchen,
not hurt, absolutely not hurt. This canary survived and was not injured at all, and Sullivan just can't believe it.
Now, Sullivan is very interested, along with the other police. But Sullivan is very interested to see Joseph's reaction when he comes to the site of this bombing and finds out about his dead children. So what is his reaction and what does Sullivan note?
Balzan comes in Sullivan, as he said, is very interested in going on, and Sullivan asks him, you know where are you? He talked to him on the phone and told him to get down right away. When Sullivan, or when Falzona rather, comes in the kitchen, he's still wearing his khaki hunting outfit. He's got a double barreled shotgun on the crook of his arm, and he strides into the house like a man who knows he's supposed to
be there. He still has burrs and stick tights in his clothing, his hands and face scratched by briars, his beard badly needing a shave to scrape off a four days worth of growth. His eyes bounce around the kitchen. He can't believe what's going on? His response, what does
Joseph do? He raises that double barreled shotgun in his clenched fist, and with furious anger, swears a terrible vengeance upon the killer of his children, a slow, painful death, he says, even worse than what happened to his offspring. Detectives still don't believe him, though they see him as the number one suspects here.
Now, what does he tell him about his experience with receiving letters from this Black Hand gang.
He's been saying.
He tells Sullivan and the other detectives that he well, he goes outside and collapses too. We shouldn't say that. He goes outside on the front lawn and just collapses. It takes a couple of the strongest detectives to pick him up and put him in the car. He immediately starts talking about the threatening letters he's been receiving from what he describes as the notorious Black Hand Gang. Now, the Black Hand Gang was big back in the day.
I don't know if he saw Godfather too, the movie, but you'll remember one of the characters in there was supposedly connected with the Black Hand Gang. And this is what we're talking about here. The black in the movie Got Father too, You remember the Black Hand guy, he preyed upon Italians and Sicilians in America. That's exactly what
the Black Hand gang was doing in real life. And that is you know, Joseph del Zee figures the letters he's getting must be from Black Hand, because, as I cite in the book, there are several other cases of the Black Hand extorting Sicilian and Italian immigrants, especially business people who obviously had money. So that's what he's telling them right away, is he's been getting these letters, threatening letters, extorting money, and he refused to give any money.
They're also looking this Detective Carrol believes that maybe a couple of the employees at this marble company might be involved in this blackmailing operation as well, so they look into that, right.
Yeah, there are a couple of employees that he thinks that might be at the Marble contracting company Columbia that might be involved in this too. But if I get back to Black Hand for instance for a minute again, with Godfather to the head of this black Hand gang that they're looking at, I was never able to find his name in any other research I did but what was clear there was his front company was an olive
oil importing business, just like in Godfather. Okay, I just thought that was really interesting that connection there.
So yeah, now fell Zone lays out.
He tells him about the first message he got, the letters that we talked about. But now they're looking at the Columbia Marble Works company too, and they believe there are a couple of people there who've got scrupulous backgrounds and are bad backgrounds and they might have been in on this as well.
There's also the issue, and they believe this could be a possible motivation. They ask who is may store.
Yeah, this is where it gets really interesting. You know what they do after the explosion. They take Joseph and Jenny right away to the police station. And what did Joseph and Jenny, two grieving parents do. They go wild by each other. They start screaming and yelling at each other. And the reason is Joseph has been cheating on Jenny. Made no secret. Well, he didn't make a secret of it until his mistress got in touch with Jenny and told her all about it and also told her that
she's pregnant. So Jenny is loaded for a bear when she gets Joseph in this interrogation. They put them in the same interrogation room, which is an interesting thing to do, and these two just onloaded on each other. Finally Sullivan realizes they're speaking in Italian, cursing at each other in Italian. Joseph can Sullivan rather John T. Sullivan, the chief inspector in this case. He can't understand a word they're saying. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out
that these two are at each other's throats. So if we're no other reason than to keep their two their main suspect alive, they put Joseph and Jenny in separate interrogation rooms, and Jenny just spills the beans on everything, and she names the mistress may Store and even gives them the address the house where she lives may be. And she knows that because may has been sending her letters and she has been intercepting letters that may send us well to Joseph, and where she put them under
the linoleum in her kitchen. So we've got this track right, A paper trail of Joseph and his mistress, and the fact that Joseph knows she's pregnant let's use this as an opportunity to hear these messages. Now we have the motivation of this mistress. But to be fair, a wealthy Italian Sicilian businessman at that time not so unusual to have a mistress either, oh right, and especially in that day and age. Believe me, they were, you know, not
just the Talian businessman. But you know, one thing I point to in this story is I try to put some give you some real context about everything that was happening and what it was like to live in those days and the salacious affairs that were. You know, we think that in our media today anything goes well.
It really was.
Back in those days when there were a lot more newspapers competing with each other for a reader's attention and their pennies that they were paying for the newspaper. So these relations affairs, you know, this is not real news.
But they were wondering.
The cops had to wonder, how was this another motivation for Joseph.
To plant this pipe bound or may have done it.
Now getting back to Joseph as well, is that he says he continues with the letters that were sent to him via what he says, the black Handed Gang and with the instructions about going on the boat to Boston and having the six thousand dollars with them in twenty dollars bills. But he says that he didn't follow he
contacted the police. This is interesting. The police are talking to Joseph and he says, well, I contacted the police at that time, and I worked with the detective Carol, but I got the directions wrong.
Right.
So yeah, so just as the nineteen year old blackmailer thought, he did get the directions wrong, he wound up on the wrong boat, and he had been working with the police. He did go to the police, this detective Carrol. So Sullivan brings Carol into the room, into the interrogation room, and Carrol, Detective Carroll, confirms everything that tala Zone has been saying. So now they're backing away from Joseph tel Zone as a suspect.
Now, the thing is is that there are reports of Falzone three hours before the explosion. A restaurant owner witness comes forward and tell us about this witness and a couple other witnesses that give information to the police that send them in a different direction.
Yeah, this is now we're talking about about the same timeframe. This is all very close to the day of the explosion. But they do have a restaurant owner on the Wycoff Avenue a few blocks from fell Zone's home who swears he saw Joe fell Zone three hours before the explosion. A second cop, that's one cop says that gives that advice to information to the Sullivan So there's no way that fell Zone could have been traveling home from a hunting trip.
When the bomb went off.
Two taxi drivers say they saw a guy matching Joseph's description outside the fell Zone home at five thirty am the morning of the bombing, So again we're looking at so they've caught feldsone they believe in a couple of lives, an rock solid eyewitness who places them at the restaurant and Wycoff when the bomb went off, and another two taxi drivers who say they saw him outside of the
house before the bomb went off. So now Fella Zone's got to find some collaboration for his alibi, and he brings in three of his buddies, Philip gold Benjamin and Philip Goldman, all from Mineola, and another guy by the name of Edward Frieda and he lives at one twenty sixth Irving Avenue. These four are grilled separately by the toughest cobs in the house.
All four.
So they spent several days tramping through the woods of Pike County, Pennsylvania. They all slept in one room of a hunting lodge and came back to New York with Joseph yesterday.
So they are.
Disputing the witnesses who say they saw Joseph and the diner.
And outside the house there's a witness though that says they're looking again simultaneously, just like as the police should, but they're looking again at the marble company that Joseph Falzone headed up, and they see that there are a couple people that the witness corroborates that they had seen them in the area as well. Tell us about this witnesses testimony.
Yeah, Joseph gives Sullivan the names of three Black Hand gang members who he believes might be tied to this plot. And there's one other Angelo Sullivan's detectives are working on. Jenny tells them the first of the Black Hand blackmail notes received.
So they're really looking at this Black Hand. They're looking at the Black Hand.
And they want to talk to another Sicilian concerning the murder of they're looking at other murders now and looking for connections. Okay, there have been other pipe bombs, there have been other murders. They're trying to find a connection. And they look at one guy by the name of Harry or Ruizi. He works at the marble company, the Columbia Marble Company, and they're thinking he now is one
of the prime suspects. And there's another guy, Savera Theoria, who has experience in demolitions from the Great War.
And when they have these people in their site, there is a witness that says that they that Ruisie is cited with alongside an other person.
Yeah, Frank Simoni Junior, is that here you're referring to. Yes, Yeah, Frank Simone Junior, who is the son of Joseph fell Zone's partner. Okay, this get's kind of like really complicated here. But and by the way, and after the funeral, they buried the three children and fell Zone retires at that point from.
His marble company.
But yeah, his partner, Frank Simone has a son, Frank Simone Junior, and he becomes a suspect innes Now, so he because he was seen with Harry Luisi and severa piori.
And you talk about what happens again, we were skipping over some things. This incredible funeral where they have the three children in three white caskets and hundreds of people and nothing but police looking for potentially the killers to come and be present at this funeral. Remarkably, they also.
Very emotional scene too.
Jenny, the mother collapses, Joseph has to carry her back to one of the cars in the funeral procession. It's a very emotional scene.
And you're right too that the Fellazone is devastated. Not only does he neglect himself, but he neglects the surviving members of the family. He's a shadow of himself. The wife continues to just put his meals at his door. He's not eating, he's not sleeping. He is racked with incredible amount of guilt. So anybody suspecting him of being complicit in this might think otherwise when they see what he has become.
Yeah, and that's exactly the conclusion that the inspector, John J. Sullivan comes to. He sees him a couple Now, if we can fast forward a couple of years to June nineteen thirty one. So it's been a couple of years, no one's been arrested yet. Fela Zone is still kind of a suspect, but then Sullivan sees him. Fella Zone goes into his office and Sullivan sees that he is not the man that he saw two year years ago. As he said, he had hardly eaten in two years.
He hardly ever sleeps its guilt. It's the inability to seek vengeance. This guy, fell Zone is just wasted. He is a shadow of what he used to be. So Sullivan now really begins looking for other suspects. He's kind of written fell Zone off that suspect list.
So how do they continue with their investigation and where does their break come?
They start following Frank Simone Junior, Harry Luisi and Severa Peori. They start following the three of them because they seem to be their top suspects. October twenty ninth, nineteen thirty one. Just about two years have passed since the bombing, and the two orchestrated the deadly attack are becoming increasingly suspicious of each other. Now, so you've got Frank Simone Junior and Harry Luisi Frank Simone Junior is that nineteen year
old we talked about. Harry Luisi is the older, bigger guy in his early thirties, and they now are starting to become suspicious of each other. Sullivan's got a feeling that that's the wedge he can work between them, so they put an undercover cop on the payroll at Columbia Marblewards, a guy by the name of Henry as a friendly
German who just happens to speak fluent Italian. He starts hanging out with Frank and Harry kind of never sometimes together, but he tries to be separately with them too, so he can kind of this is a great undercover cop story too, where Henry points to the older he's talking to the younger guy, Frank, and he points over to Harry. He says he's a great guy, isn't he? And Frank says, I'm glad you think so, but I think he's a snake. You don't like him, I hate him, Frank says, So
he's got this wedge now. Henry says, walk with me. I need to tell you something. When he's with Frank, so they know they've got this wedge now between Frank and Harry, and he's walking with Henry and he walks him right into a police car and a couple of the biggest cops you can find on the NYPD jump out of the car and they say, Frank Simul Junior, you are under arrest, and get this. Your buddy's a squealer. He put all the blame on you. So now they're
putting Henry against Frank and Frank against Henry. And you've got a couple of other cops involved in this now too. Remember this is two years down the road. So you've got Captain McGowan, detectives Carol who we talked about before, and Detective Guess Dartists.
And Henry isn't in the cover cop.
That's what Frank realizes when Henry grabs him by the collar, by the neck of his shirt and throws him into the car.
Yeah, so it's very typical. Both perpetrators are blaming each other, but very much like the not so intelligent criminals, there is more evidence against the nineteen year old and obviously more motivation to be the letter writer of this Skimone Junior Frank Scimone Junior. But they also investigate whether the father, the actual silent partner of Joseph Alzone, was involved in this lot to blackmail.
Yeah, they do.
They investigate the father as well and find there's no connection at all. What happened was skimone junior Frank. He remember we said that he wanted more than money and he wanted to get fil Zone out of the country. That's because he wanted a partnership at the Marble company. He not only wanted money, he wanted power because he knew too the power it would give him in the Italian community if he was a partner at the table at Columbia Marble. So he wanted in.
Now.
Yeah, as you're saying, they've got a lot of evidence against Frank, they're also looking at the Severa Piori because it seems that he's the one who actually put the bomb together, so they've got him too.
So you've got three.
Suspects involved in this. Frank and Severa are more experienced at this than Frank is. Frank's only a nineteen year old. Remember, he's just a couple of years out of high school. He's a kid basically compared to these other two. So they put them in separate interrogation rooms as you might imagine, trying to turn one against the other. Harry and Severa know how this game is played, so they immediately turned on Frank and tell everything about Frank.
Now in these confessions, the horrible truth about how this was done, how they got in the home, the actual plot itself, why there was a bomb that went off and killed what looked like was going to kill everybody at a breakfast table, because this man wasn't paying his tribute to this black hand gang. Tell us what is ascertained from this about what actually happened that morning and why.
Yeah, it's release the size and opens that it's time to tell everything. He's with the cops now. He says, we never meant to kill nobody. Eyes on the floor, not wanting to look at anyone in the eye. He says, we broke into the Felazone house at two am. Everybody was asleep. The bomb was supposed to go off before they woke up and came downstairs, not when those poor little kids were around it. Skimone did it so he
could scare Falzona away from Columbia. Marble, says Ruisi. When the letters didn't work, he put the bomb together at his brother in law, Savera Priori's place on Flushing Avenue. So Priori wasn't home when Frank put the bomb together. He just wanted a place to build the bomb where he wouldn't be interrupted by his wife. And besides, Savera had all the tools he needed since he was an electrician. So mulroot now we've got another character in here, Edward mulrooney,
the new police commissioner in New York. He's in on this. This is a huge story in New York. He doesn't believe Severa is innocent, and as much as the trio of uniform cops standing in the hallway believe he is, Neither of these idiots Simon or We knows enough about making a bomb to do a professional job like this. Mulrooney says, Priori must have been in on it. So now they've got Priori. Now they're really convinced. They've got three main suspects here, Frank Skamlone Junior, Henry Harry Ruisi,
and Severa Prioria. And they're looking at all three and they're trying to turn all three against each other. And it turns out what happens is Harry and Severa they work at Plea Bargain, and so they are they become State's witnesses.
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dot com slash murder for twenty five percent off. Now you say, this is a huge story, and at the same time, there is a possibility of a death penalty in Brooklyn in New York. So tell us what the choice, what the discussion is about in terms of the most humane way to die in New York.
Oh yeah, this is you know Frank now, Harry and severa they turn on Frank. Okay, they do a plea bargain in essence, and so it's all on Frank now he's up on first degree murder. He's charged with first degree murder, and he's definitely afraid of heading to Singing The Sing Sing prisons electric chair. You know this electric chair. It doesn't work as well as you would think it
would from watching the movies and TVs they've got. The electric chair is known as Old Sparky, as electric chairs were often.
Known back in those days.
The prison has a terrible reputation. Sing Singh has such a bad reputation. The people in the town of Sing Sing, New York, where it's located, they changed the name of their town just so they wouldn't be associated with the prison. So Frank is really faced with two choices here. He can go to hell through Old Sparky, or he can live in hell.
In Sing Sing prison.
And if he gets busted on first degree murder, if he takes it to wrap on first degree murder, it's one of those two. Either he's going to spend the rest of his life in hell or he's going to go in hell for eternity through Old Sparky.
If you get what I'm trying to say.
There, all of these three people that are facing an incredible fate, they also see at the same time, this woman that has been executed, and they see the photos in the newspaper.
Yeah, that is like I was saying that the execution in an electric chair is not a pleasant way to go. And we've got a woman there who was executed and it was a picture in the paper and your eyes bulging out and it was just a horrendous way to die. And they're looking at that. So Frank is looking at that thinking, you know, am I going to go that way? He decides that no, he is not going to go
that way. By the way, the old sparky that we're talking about here was actually wired by Thomas Alva Edison.
Yeah, I'm credible. Now, when they're talking about this plea bargain, they have to get a judge to agree to lower this first degree to second degree to be able to do this. And what is the premise of this, What does what does this these two perpetrators say happened that night that would negate them being the cold blooded killers that would deserve execution.
Well, this goes to the fact that they're saying that they never really wanted to kill anybody, that the bomb was supposed to go off a QWAM and now we're so we're looking at Frank and if he's going to go up on first degree or second degree over and they're a meeting with Judge elgeron Nova and negotiating of settlements of spare French life. And all the players are there, attorneys, the biggest das, chief Assistant District Attorney, the ADA, they're
all there at this meeting. Frank's attorney maintains it although he did concoct this extortion plot, all he wanted to do was put a scare into Joseph. He had no desire to kill anyone, and if it all gone according to Plant, no one would have been hurt. That's why his attorney Vera is arguing today he would be on fair to charge Frank with first degree murder and end his life on death row. And eventually Judge Noba agrees.
With that argument.
So Frank is going to stand before Judge Noba in County Court Brooklyn, pleading guilty to a charge of second degree murder and that will be enough to spare Frank from death in the electric chair. However, he will have to do twenty years to life behind bars inside sing sing.
What we skipped over just a bit was a very very interesting I guess, evidence of the lack of loyalty between thieves and murderers, I guess. I imagine the police find a little key on Skimone, Frank Skimone Junior, and they ask him what the key is, and he smirks.
Oh, yeah, it's a key to the tombs.
Remember Columbia Marble, they were into building mausoleums and tombstones and that kind of thing. It's a key to the tombs. And he figures Frank Skimone Junior had it in his head that he was going to kill Harry Luisi and probably Savera too, his brother in law. He was going to kill both of them and put him in the mausoleum and the tombs, and they wouldn't be found for years, because like they say, three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead.
But at the same time he smirks, and then what he finds out is that his partner also had a key as well.
Yeah, his partner for Harry had the same plan. Harry was going to kill him and put him in the tombs too. So these guys, that's what I'm saying, you know, there is no honor among these guys, and they all knew that the only way this secret was going to be kept is if two of them were dead.
It's very interesting that Frank Skimone junior gets twenty years in sing sing pardon me, and but this Rusie and Sivora Priori somehow get plea deals and you say walk away as free men from.
Yeah, they walked away free. They told you know, they rated out Frank. Frank did not rat out them for some because, like I say, they understood how this kind of thing worked, especially Harry, he understood the game. And yeah, they rad it because the cops did tell them about the tunes idea with the keys. They said, hey, you know,
the cops made it clear. They told everybody you were all going to kill each other, and so Harry and Severa right away, that's when they do their plea deal and they walked away free.
What we didn't talk about was the when they were looking at the Blackhand Gang to see their previous work, they also had that there was an association with one of these perpetrators to this murder of somebody named Frank Marlow, which was despite his name, another Italian gangster and he just couldn't pin this murder on the suspect. But this one was another pipe bomb that also was targeted at this wealthy retired baker who refused to pay his tribute
to the gang. And he was, as you right, he was mercilly executed and he was killed right in front of his kids, right in front of his children.
Yeah.
You know, the papers back in those days, they were just filled with stories and that's where I got this one from. They were filled with these stories of the Black Hand Gang. If you didn't respond to them, they would kill you, and they would do it in that way, in front.
Of your family.
The Black Hand Gang was a big deal back in those days. I guess it's no other way to put it.
We're also talking about how interesting it was that they would this extortion gang despite all of these other murders. Like I said, the similarity with the pipe bomb and the person killed in front of their children, that the courts were willing to listen to Frank Skimoni Junior's story and dismiss this Black Hand gang association and connection and then also these other two again because of the the nature of the story and how it resonated in the city.
For these other two perpetrators to be able to walk away from this was very very interesting.
Yeah, and it was.
You know, it's funny the way it was covered in the papers.
Back in those days.
It was just a little sidebar story, just a little two inch story that told that uh said that they walked away, but they.
This was the case. There was a lot of pressure to.
Kill this case or to close this case. I mean, you had children killed in their kitchen and with a Christmas package that floated with a pipe bomb.
There was an awful lot of pressure.
As I tried to describe in the book, there's a lot of pressure to get this case closed.
They wanted it to go away.
Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages. You're write in conclusion that April eleventh, nineteen thirty two, two members of the homicide squad were praised by the Commissioner mulrooney, and condemdations were for Detective Senith, which was the undercover cop playing Henry, and that the police said that the lessons of the arrests is that the knowledge that the police never tire in their search for criminals and criminals are never secure against an accounting to society.
Yeah, the fact is impressive.
It's the best deterrent to crime, giving notice to criminals that events which pass from the public mind are a source of never ending to concern it to the police, and the criminals are never were secure against an accounting to society. That was an editorial in the Standard Union newspaper. The editorial board devoted a couple of column issues to this congratulatory message. And so the cops came out of this as heroes.
In this story.
Why did you choose this story and how did you go about getting all of the pertinent information to put this story together?
Well, what I picked this story because it was so emotional. What I do again is I read through old newspapers. And if anybody's into that newspapers, dot com is the
place to go. And so I look through these old newspapers and I try to find period time periods that are interested in and to me, the late nineteen twenties and early thirties are a fascinating time and so I was looking there and then I came across this story of three children who had been killed when a Christmas pat package exploded in and I just kept working on it.
And you read these stories and one leads you to another, and you go down a rabbit hole, if you will, for lack of a better term, And it just became just a fascinating story to me. And then when you could see the similarities between this story and well Godfather too, but also you know, and you see the attitudes of
people when you look at these stories in context. You know, I mentioned a movie that was hot at the time with Spencer Tracy about how terrible Sing Sing Prison was, and you know, it's just it's just a fascinating thing to me to find these stories and to deal with your trying to express the emotions that were felt at the time.
It so vivid. Some of the revelations that you have, and some of the things that that we didn't really get to talk about was this funeral with so many people in the community that was such heartfelt pouring of
emotions in the community. And ironically the first communion that this marry and it's a big deal in the Catholic Church, as people know, first communion where she was buried not long after the first communion was supposed to happen, was this same church, the same church that they were rushing to that morning, waiting for Joseph Falzon to come home and be part of this first communityon very important moment in his daughter's life, and she ends up being buried
in this incredible funeral at that same church.
Yeah, the funeral itself was big news back in the day. It was covered by all the newspapers in New York. This was a story that just caught everyone's attention. And again, it's coming at a time when the world is changing. It's coming at a time when you had the Wall Street crash of October twenty ninth or October nineteen twenty nine, So the world is about to change, and at the same time this other story is playing out. It just was fascinating to me.
And as you include these other stories that happened previously with pipe bombs, this story really galvanized the public to understand. Again, you write that the Blackhand gang was known, and people's participation in the gang was known. What was going on was well known by people. But this case, this story changed things.
Yeah, because children were killed and it was a Christmas present disguised a pipe bomb described as disguised as a Christmas present. I mean it just galvanized the New York community. It really did. It went outside of the Italian community in Brooklyn.
I want to thank you so much for coming on and talking about the murder of Mary fell Zone, a shocking and true crime story. For those that might want to check out your other true crime books and fictional books. Where can people take a look?
Oh, my website is a good place to go, Rodcackley dot com, or simply to Amazon. You know everything's up on Amazon for sale.
Well, thank you so much, Rod Cackley. The Murder of Mary Falzone a shocking true crime story. You have a great evening, and thank you so much for this interview and good night. Thank you Dan, thank you,