Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In our last episode, Profit and Loss, we looked at the brutal and disturbing murder of the Evangelista family in Detroit in nineteen twenty nine.
With so many separate elements to this extraordinary story, I must confess that in the chaos of it all, as was pointed out to me by one listener last week, I actually forgot to wrap up one of the more mysterious aspects of the crime. I mentioned early on in the story that when police found Benny Evangelista's head, it was surrounded by three pictures of a child lying dead in a coffin that, as far as we can tell
from the reports, appear to have been deliberately placed there. Sadly, however, and possibly why I so carelessly neglected to elaborate on this, the significance of these photos was never actually established. It's been speculated that the child was either another of the Evangelist's children who died, or it was someone related to the killer. Who'd possibly once been a patient of Benny's but had died despite Benny's self proclaimed powers of healing.
If it was the latter, determining the child's identity would have gone some way to revealing the identity of the culprit and possibly their motive, but sadly, nothing to that effect seems to have been established. One possible reason for this was because so few people in the local community were willing to come forward with information to help the investigation.
Some have suggested this was largely due to fear of reprisal from the culprit, or more pertinently, fear of reprisal from the supposed organized crime group known as Lumano Neera or the Black Hand, who some suspected were ultimately responsible for the murders. But who were the Black Hand and were they even real at all? On the afternoon of Wednesday, May thirteenth, nineteen fourteen, at the intersection of Bleaker Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, a deeply troubled Maria Longo
was pacing the streets outside her home. Her six year old son, Francesco, who attended the local public school at Grove and Hudson less than ten minutes walk away, who yet to return home despite school ending hours ago. Maria's husband, Frank, who ran the family's bakery located on the ground floor of their home on Bleaker Street, did his best to calm her down, believing the boy was probably just playing with friends in the street and would return unscathed any moment.
But as evening began to descend, with none of his usual companions having seen him since lunch, the boy had yet to appear. Unable to wait any longer, Maria was about to call the police when a letter arrived at the bakery addressed to Frank, sent special delivery from Brooklyn earlier that afternoon. It read, dear friend, beware not to seek your son Francesco. He will be found in good hands and we want the sum of five thousand dollars.
Beware not to have anything to do with the police, because it will be worse for you and your son if this comes to the attention of the police. You will receive the body of your son by parcel post. Wait and keep your eyes open, Signed the Black Hand. Maria's worst fears had been realized, and she had good reason to be worried. As many as five children had been kidnapped and killed under similar circumstances in the last
few years. In fact, only two years ago, Maria's brother Felippo di Fiore, had been a victim of the exact same crime, when his four year old son, Giuseppe, was abducted and held for ransom. Despite a commitment from the police to help locate the boy, Felippo was too scared to wait and wasted little time in paying the money.
His son was immediately returned unharmed. Not one to be messed with, Maria's husband, Frank stormed to Filippo's house and scolded him for paying Giuseppe's ransom, believing that had now made their family an easy target. Frank, who couldn't possibly pay the ransom, then marched Felippo to nearby McDougall Street police station and demanded he tell them everything he knew about the people who abducted Giuseppe in the hope it might help them find frances. Here's something you don't know
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before use. If you have a serious medical condition, or use prescription medications at the station. Maria and Frank were fortunate to be met by Lieutenant Rocco Cavoni, who'd worked at Giuseppe's ransom case two years before and had been left disappointed not to have found the culprits. Though he couldn't be sure it was the same people, there was
good reason to suspect it was. He was also well versed in the workings of the apparent Black Hand group who'd been terrorizing the Italian immigrant community for years with their sinister letters. Though mainly focused on extortion, child abduction for ransom, had become somewhat of a growing trend in recent months. Lieutenant Cavonie, the first Italians in New York to become a member of the New York Police Department, had once been a colleague of Joseph Petrocino, the former
head of the NYPD's Italian Squad. The squad had been set up to deal with a rise in organized crime among the Italian communities that had emerged in a number
of major US cities over the last few years. With as many as three million Italians moving to America since the turn of the century, with the majority coming from the south of Italy, it was becoming apparent that some of the South's leading crime organizations, specifically the Sicilian Matthia and the Camorra from the region of Campania, had also come too. The Black Hand, however, was something new, with
the Italian Squad formed in nineteen oh eight. Joseph Petrocino, who in eighteen eighty eight became the first Italian Speaker to join the NYPD and had since establist himself as an uncompromising enforcer of the law, was promptly appointed as its head the following year, while on an intelligence gathering
trip to Palermo in Sicily, Petrosino was assassinated. The next day, an anonymous letter was sent to the Italian Squad headquarters stating that the New York Black Hand had arranged the murder. By nineteen fourteen, this enigmatic group appeared to have established itself as a serious challenger to the better known crime families. Apart from the occasional arrest, however, little progress had been
made in getting to the heart of the organization. With the abduction of Francesco Longo, Lieutenant Cavoni was determined to get his men. After initial investigations, the police soon turned their attention to local green Francesco Macaluso, who, along with the network of twenty or so individuals, appeared to be at the center of the case. Finally, after forty nine days of stakeouts and close police surveillance, Cavoni orchestrated a
pretend deal in exchange for the young boy. When Francesco Longo was finally returned to his family, the NYPD swept in, arresting everyone they believed to be involved in the crime, although some were able to escape prosecution. The grocer Macaluso was convicted and sent down for twenty five years, with the individual who'd kept the boy prisoner all that time
receiving fifty years. And Yet, despite the clear criminal intentions of those claiming to be representatives of the Black Hand, as it turned out, none of the individuals involved actually belonged to any such organization. The men had merely used the name as a tactic to instill fear in their victims. Incredibly, despite hundreds of seemingly Black Hand related crimes and extortion demands occurring each year, it is thought this might be
all it ever was. Though, a loose criminal organization known as the Society of the Black Hand is said to have existed in Spain in the late nineteenth century. Its association with the Italian immigrant community in America is thought to have been simply invented by an overzealous journalist back in nineteen oh eight, writing about the murder of an
Italian man in New York's The Herald newspaper. The journalist appears to have plucked the apparent involvement of a black Hand organization out of thin air, using the name of the Spanish group as inspiration. From that moment, however, the phrase and all its sinister connotations, was gleefully lapped up by the press looking for a quick way to sensationalize
stories relating to the new arrivals from Italy. Amazingly, it seems that precisely due to the hysteria drummed up around the notion of this secretive band of criminals, a number of opportunistic individuals quickly began to take advantage, with only a pen, some paper and the name being required to strike immediate fear into their victims, and before long, suddenly
the Black Hand was seemingly everywhere. In the year after the Herald article alone, there were said to have been as many as four hundred and twenty four reported cases involving the Black Hand throughout the major cities where Italian immigrants had settled, from New York all the way to San Francisco. It had become such a powerful tool even established mafia leaders such as Giuseppe Morello in New York
had taken to using it in their extortion enterprises. In the end, however, due to a zero tolerance policy adopted by local police forces on any one claiming association with the group, with no reason to remain loyal to it since it never truly existed in the first place, the Black Hand soon evaporated back into the air from where it had once come. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now do so via Patreon.
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