Murder, Inc.
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| “ | You better check over your shoulder, everywhere that you go. Walkin' down the street, there's eyes in every shadow. Now, take a look around you, come on, now. It isn't too complicated. You're messing with Murder, Incorporated. |
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| ~ Bruce Springsteen, "Murder, Incorporated" |
Murder, Inc. (Murder, Incorporated) was an organized crime group, active from 1929 to 1941, that acted as the enforcement arm of the Italian-American Mafia, the Israeli Mob, and other closely connected organized crime groups in New York City and elsewhere.
The group was composed of Jewish-American and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class neighborhoods in Manhattan (primarily the Lower East Side) and from the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill. It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia.
Murder, Inc. was believed to be responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings, until the group was exposed in 1941 by former group member Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. Murder, Inc. committed hundreds of murders on behalf of the National Crime Syndicate during 1929 through 1941. In the trials that followed, many members were convicted and executed, and Abe Reles himself died after suspiciously falling from a window. Thomas E. Dewey first came to prominence as a prosecutor of Murder, Inc. and other organized crime cases.
Members edit
- Albert Anastasia (co-founder and second leader)
- Louis Buchalter (co-founder and original leader)
- Bugsy Siegel (co-founder)
- Meyer Lansky (co-founder)
- Jacob Shapiro (co-founder)
- Frank Abbandando
- Harry Strauss
- Louis Capone
- Frankie Carbo
- Aniello Dellacroce
- Vincent Mangano
- Seymour Magoon
- Charles Workman
- Louis Kravitz
- Joe Adonis
- Jack Parisi
- Mendy Weiss
History edit
Murder, Inc. was established after the formation of the commission of the National Crime Syndicate, to which it ultimately answered. Largely headed by former mob enforcers Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, it also had members from Buchalter's labor-slugging gang (in partnership with Tommy Lucchese) as well as from another group of enforcers from Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York, of the late 1920s led by Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, based out of an unassuming candy store known as Midnight Rose's. Buchalter, in particular, and Joe Adonis occasionally, gave the outfit its orders from the board of directors of the syndicate. Albert Anastasia was the troupe's operating head, or "Lord High Executioner", assisted by Lepke's longtime associate Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro.
In 1932 Abe Wagner informed on the syndicate to the police. He fled to Saint Paul, Minnesota, and adopted a disguise to evade possible pursuit. Two killers, George Young and Joseph Schafer, found and shot him but were later apprehended. Bugsy Siegel failed to get them released.
In the 1930s Buchalter used Murder, Inc. to murder witnesses and suspected informants when he was investigated by crusading prosecutor Thomas Dewey. In one case on May 11, 1937, four killers hacked loan shark George Rudnick to pieces on the mere suspicion he was an informant.
On October 1, 1937, they shot and seriously wounded Buchalter's ex-associate Max Rubin. Rubin had disobeyed Buchalter's orders to leave town and "disappear" in order to avoid being summoned as a witness against Buchalter.
Probably their most well known victim was Dutch Schultz, who had openly defied the Commission the governing body of the American underworld and the American Mafia. In October 1935, Schultz insisted on putting a hit on U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Dewey, who was leading an all-out effort to put Schultz out of business. The Commission overruled Schultz; they felt that killing government officials would bring too much heat. They feared – with good reason – that Dewey's murder would inflame public outrage to new heights and result in an even greater campaign to try to shut down the rackets. Schultz vowed that he would ignore the Commission's decision and kill Dewey himself.
The Commission decided they needed to act immediately to kill Schultz before he killed Dewey. Therefore in an ironic twist Buchalter actually saved Dewey's life, which allowed Dewey to continue his efforts to bring down Buchalter. This led Shapiro to suggest years later that Schultz should have been allowed to kill Dewey, although at the time he supported the syndicate's decision to overrule Schultz.
Hitmen Mendy Weiss and Charles Workman were given the assignment to kill Schultz. On October 24, 1935, they tracked down Schultz and his associates Otto Berman, Abe Landau, and Lulu Rosenkrantz and shot them at the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. Berman, Landau, and Rosenkrantz died almost immediately, while Schultz clung to life until the following day. As the thorough Workman stayed behind to make sure they had completed their assignment and finished off Schultz in the men's room of the restaurant, Weiss escaped the scene with their Murder, Inc. getaway driver Seymour Schechter.
Furious at being abandoned by his confederates, Workman had to make his way back to Brooklyn by foot. A day or two later Workman filed a 'grievance' with the board against Weiss and Schechter. Although he had simply followed Weiss' frantic orders to drive away without waiting for Workman, the unfortunate Schechter ended up bearing the punishment, becoming a Murder Inc victim himself a short time later. In 1944 Weiss ended up in the electric chair for another murder. Workman was eventually tried by the State of New Jersey for the Schultz murder and served 23 years in prison.
In January 1940, professional criminal and police informer Harry Rudolph was held as a material witness in the murder of 19-year-old minor gangster Alex Alpert. Alpert was shot in the back on a street corner in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn on November 25, 1933. While in custody, Rudolph talked with Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer. With Rudolph's testimony, O'Dwyer secured first-degree murder indictments against Abe Reles, Martin Goldstein and Anthony Maffetore.
After the three were indicted, O'Dwyer learned from Special Prosecutor John Harlan Amen that Rudolph was reportedly offered a $5,000 bribe by another prisoner, on behalf of the syndicate, to "put Reles and Goldstein on the street". O'Dwyer stated that when Maffetore learned of the bribe offer to help clear Reles and Goldstein and after several talks with New York City Detective John Osnato, he decided to turn state's evidence. Detective Osnato talked with Maffetore even though he had worked with Rudolph previously and did not put much credibility in his story since Rudolph was paid for information in other cases that turned out to be false.
Eventually, Maffetore decided to cooperate, stating that he was not involved in the Alpert murder, but was the driver in six gangland murders. Maffetore then convinced Abraham Levine to talk. Reles was next to cooperate with the District Attorney's office. Soon after the trio started talking, numerous first-degree murder indictments were issued in Brooklyn, (The) Bronx, and in upstate Sullivan County (Catskills).
Additional members of the "Combination" then were added to the list of cooperating witnesses, including Albert Tannenbaum, Seymour Magoon and Sholem Bernstein. Ironically, Harry Rudolph's testimony was never used in any of the trials, as he died of natural causes in the infirmary at Rikers Island in June 1940. Abe Reles fell to his death from a room at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island on November 12, 1941, even though he was under police guard. The official verdict was accidental death by defenestration, but the angle of his trajectory suggests that he was pushed.