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Al Capone — Part 8
Page 19
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2 en ae ne oe ole ale ie ER oe oe wt ca Penge ee ©
Benny hasn’t been seen or
heard from since the tele-
phone rang. On November 17,
the body of Johnny “Billiken”
Rito, a Newberry bourbon
hustler, who had formerly
worked for the Gennas, was
found floating down the Chi-
cago river. The manner in
which “Billiken” had been dis-
posed of was unusually horri-
ble, for he had been thor-
oughly chopped up and the
pieces bound together with
hay-wire. The disappearance
of Bennett together with the
later absence of another New-
berry aid, Harry Higgins who
hailed from St. Paul, gave
credence to the grim rumor
that Gangland killers, seeking
to destroy the corpus delicti,
had established a crematory
somewhere on the Near North
Side where business competi-
tors and disgruntled gang-
sters were incinerated into
the ashes of oblivion. Ah, a
new spirit in Gangland! Who
said that killers have no imagination? At this
writing New York friends of Benny Bennett are,
running around town with lang farac affaring ra.
FUMING SPOund TOW Wii wOnE 1BCES Oring re-
wards for word of their missing playmate who
would come out west. Newberry eventually
stepped into the Capone inner circles, taking with
him Signor Frank Citro, he of the motionless
eyes and expressionless face, better known as
Frankie Foster. “All we ever got from ‘Bugs’
was 4 reputation,” explained Teddy and Frankie.
Well, the war was on again. Moran and the
Ajellos pressed northward into the grea? road-
house and summer resort area in the Northwest
suburbs.
The first shot in the new war, now going, was
fired on May 31, and the victim, Peter Plescia, an
Aiello organizer and collector, fell dead in the
mouth of an alley. Qn May 31, Phillip Gnolfo,
former Genna killer had been a pall-bearer at
Angelo’s funeral, was slain in his automobile. A
few hours later on the same day two more Aiello
boys bit the bricks—Samuel Monistero and Joseph
Ferrari. On June 1 came deadiy reprisals in the
sensational Fox Lake Massacre. Four men and a
woman, Mrs. Vivian Ponic McGinnis, wife of an
attorney, sat around a table in a roadhouse. Sud-
denly one of the men, turning his head saw a ma-
chine gun pointed towards him. He got up and be-
gan running. The rattle of the machine gun began
and he went down, as did two of his companions.
The woman was seriously wounded. One of the
victims was Sam Peilar, who, you wil] remember
used to work as a chauffeur and handy man for
“Little Hymie” Waiss and was walking across the
aid ey ee Si taste Seeehasip, See Beek,
street with his boss on the famous day that “Little
Hymie” fell before machine gun fire. Joseph
Bertsche, brother of Barney Bertsche, was another
‘Willie Miemoth and Frankie MacEarlane may
have been important cogs in Joe Haltis’ beer ma-
chine but they were bank robbers under the skiz.
Wiewioth was seized ty Chicago recently anf hor-
ried under heavy guard to Baltimore, Maryland,
where he was convicted in short order of oom-
plicity in & pay Foll robbery three years arc.
Hiemoth is helieved to have slain Fobnnuie “Ding-
bat” Oberts as a personal favor for McFarlane.
[e0}
victim as was Michael Quirk.
George Druggan, brother of
the famous Terry Druggan
was terribly wounded and he
is at this writing in a hospital
fighting for his life. A few
hours later in Chicago Thomas
Somnerio, Capone leader, was
strangled to death and his
body flung in an alley on the
West Side. One of the mourn-
ers for Mr. Somnerio was a
Gangland Queen, Margaret
Mary Collins, who had been
the sweetie for five other
gangsters, all departed. Some-
bedy put Somneric on the
spot, and it was said that a
woman had done it. More hor-
ror was produced by Gangland
four days Jater when a river
tug churned up the hay-wired
body of Eugene “Red” Mc-
Laughlin. Aloysius Kearney,
hard-boiled gangster doing a
specialty business in labor
racketeering, became the cause
of another murder mystery
when his bullet-ridden body
was discovered on the morning of June 9.
Kearney had been a friend of “Red” McLaugh-
‘
lin end an unesuesesefnl offart wae made to find 2
BAS) EAALL CHEE WLLL ME lV FF ER AE I BA
connection between the murders. From hills in
his pocket it was disclosed that he was a collector
for the National Garage Owners’ Association. It
was this association which, a few weeks before,
had inspired criticism from the then Commissioner
of Police, William Russell and Col. Robert Isham
Randolph, president of the Chicago Association
of Commerce, for waging a campaign to have all
automobiles found parked at night without lights
towed into garages. The cost would be $5.00 to
the car owners—a pleasant racket which, strangely
enough, didn’t go over. Samuel Maltz, president
of the association, questioned by police said:
“T’m strictly a business man. There is no racket-
eering or hoodlumism connected with my organi-
zation. I didn’t know Kearney very well. He had
worked for me only for a week. I was paying
him $40 a week to collect bills. Don’t give me
any hoodlum talk. I’m a business man and don't
go for that.” It was becoming warmer and warmer
in Chicago’s loop at this time for those gentlemen
of the gat. Jail sentences instead of the customary
fines were being handed out. As a result of this,
hoodiums hit upon a practice of parking their auto-
matics in cigar stores, speakeasies and other places
just outside the loop while transacting business
SSAA, DS IS al at eae aes
‘What the uo loop parking law means to gangsters,
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