famous criminals in the 1950s
6. The recovery of part of the loot was a severe blow to the gang members who still awaited trial in Boston. Three years later, almost to the day, these ten men, together with another criminal, were to be indicted by a state grand jury in Boston for the Brinks robbery. Accordingly, another lock cylinder was installed until the original one was returned. By fixing this time as close as possible to the minute at which the robbery was to begin, the robbers would have alibis to cover their activities up to the final moment. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society. He told the interviewing agents that he trusted Maffie so implicitly that he gave the money to him for safe keeping. All were guilty. An acetylene torch had been used to cut up the truck, and it appeared that a sledge hammer also had been used to smash many of the heavy parts, such as the motor. Here are 9 of Ontario's most notorious criminals ever: 1. The most important of these, Specs OKeefe, carefully recited the details of the crime, clearly spelling out the role played by each of the eight defendants. The ninth man had long been a principal suspect. Although the attendant did not suspect that the robbery was taking place, this incident caused the criminals to move more swiftly. Two other Baltimore police officers who were walking along the street nearby noted this maneuver. Subsequently, OKeefe left his carand the $200,000in a garage on Blue Hill Avenue in Boston. Despite the fact that substantial amounts of money were being spent by members of the robbery gang during 1954, in defending themselves against legal proceedings alone, the year ended without the location of any bills identifiable as part of the Brinks loot. The Boston hoodlum told FBI agents in Baltimore that he accepted six of the packages of money from Fat John. The following day (June 2, 1956), he left Massachusetts with $4,750 of these bills and began passing them. Richardson had participated with Faherty in an armed robbery in February 1934. Approximately one and one-half hours later, Banfield returned with McGinnis. With the death of Gusciora, only eight members of the Brinks gang remained to be tried. Well-known Boston hoodlums were picked up and questioned by police. The Italian Mafia seems to have a monopoly on crazy nicknames, but the Japanese Yakuza has a few colorful characters as well. Through long weeks of empty promises of assistance and deliberate stalling by the gang members, he began to realize that his threats were falling on deaf ears. At the time of the Brinks robbery, Geagan was on parole, having been released from prison in July 1943, after serving eight years of a lengthy sentence for armed robbery and assault. I think a fellow just passed a counterfeit $10.00 bill on me, he told the officer. In the 1950s the list tended to be comprised of bank robbers, burglars and car thieves, but in the 1960s revolutionaries involved in kidnappings and destroying government property became prominent. An official website of the United States government. Read more: The unsolved murders that shook Wales - 12 heinous crimes that remain a mystery. - Attempted bank robberies were less after the Public Enemy Era. 4 Kazuo "The Bear" Taoka. This was in their favor. Before removing the remainder of the loot from the house on January 18, 1950, the gang members attempted to identify incriminating items. In December 1948, Brinks moved from Federal Street to 165 Prince Street in Boston. Local officers searched their homes, but no evidence linking them with the truck or the robbery was found. 3 Blackbeard Then she expanded her territory and became a highway robber dressed in men's clothing. At that time, Pino approached OKeefe and asked if he wanted to be in on the score. His close associate, Stanley Gusciora, had previously been recruited, and OKeefe agreed to take part. OKeefe had no place to keep so large a sum of money. The 1920s era of Prohibition gets a lot of attention as the decade when many gangsters got their start, but the rise of Las Vegas and California as gangster hot spots in the 1940s also made certain gangsters famous. They were the first victims of the person who would become known as the Axeman of New Orleans. Before the robbery was carried out, all of the participants were well acquainted with the Brinks premises. Oklahoma's Legendary Outlaws. Gusciora also claimed to have been drinking that evening. The FBI further learned that four revolvers had been taken by the gang. The Boston underworld rumbled with reports that an automobile had pulled alongside OKeefes car in Dorchester, Massachusetts, during the early morning hours of June 5. The discovery of this money in the Tremont Street offices resulted in the arrests of both Fat John and the business associate of the criminal who had been arrested in Baltimore. Prominent among the other strong suspects was Vincent James Costa, brother-in-law of Pino. You get me released, and Ill solve the case in no time, these criminals would claim. The robbers did little talking. Henry Baker, another veteran criminal who was rumored to be kicking in to the Pennsylvania defense fund, had spent a number of years of his adult life in prison. Click through this slideshow to see the 16 most infamous crimes in Bay Area history. All had been published in Boston between December 4, 1955, and February 21, 1956. Except for $5,000 that he took before placing the loot in Maffies care, OKeefe angrily stated, he was never to see his share of the Brinks money again. E lena Ferrante's Neapolitan . The families of OKeefe and Gusciora resided in the vicinity of Stoughton, Massachusetts. They were held in lieu of bail which, for each man, amounted to more then $100,000. And the gang felt that the chances of his talking were negligible because he would be implicated in the Brinks robbery along with the others. An automobile identified as the car used in the escape was located near a Boston hospital, and police officers concealed themselves in the area. In examining the bill, a Federal Reserve note, the officer observed that it was in musty condition. Any doubts that the Brinks gang had that the FBI was on the right track in its investigation were allayed when the federal grand jury began hearings in Boston on November 25, 1952, concerning this crime. Debbie Reynolds, 18 years old. Pino had been questioned as to his whereabouts on the evening of January 17, 1950, and he provided a good alibi. Oklahoma City Bombing Famous crimes of the 1950's w Richard kuklinski Willam Nesbit William was arrested on march 18, 1950 in St Paul Minnesota after escaping a prison. Each robbers face was completely concealed behind a Halloween-type mask. (Following pleas of guilty in November 1956, Fat John received a two-year sentence, and the other two men were sentenced to serve one years imprisonment. $50.00 + $17.00 shipping. Pedro Lopez is linked to more than 300 murders in his native Colombia and in Ecuador and Peru. Underworld rumors alleged that Maffie and Henry Baker were high on OKeefes list because they had beaten him out of a large amount of money. Allegedly, he pulled a gun on OKeefe; several shots were exchanged by the two men, but none of the bullets found their mark. This incident also took place in Dorchester and involved the firing of more than 30 shots. He was paroled in the fall of 1944 and remained on parole through March 1954 when misfortune befell him. As a government witness, he reluctantly would have testified against him. OKeefe and Gusciora had been close friends for many years. All efforts to identify the persons responsible for the theft and the persons who had cut up the truck were unsuccessful. George Machine Gun Kelly was arrested for the kidnapping of Oklahoma City businessman Charles F. Urschel. On June 19, 1958, while out on appeal in connection with a five-year narcotics sentence, he was found shot to death in an automobile that had crashed into a truck in Boston.). That prison term, together with Pinos conviction in March 1928 for carnal abuse of a girl, provided the basis for the deportation action. Interviews with him on June 3 and 4, 1956, disclosed that this 31-year-old hoodlum had a record of arrests and convictions dating back to his teens and that he had been conditionally released from a federal prison camp less than a year beforehaving served slightly more than two years of a three-year sentence for transporting a falsely made security interstate. 10 The New Orleans Axeman1918-1919. This lead was pursued intensively. Even in their jail cells, however, they showed no respect for law enforcement. Two weeks of comparative quiet in the gang members lives were shattered on June 5, 1954, when an attempt was made on OKeefes life. On October 11, 1950, Gusciora was sentenced to serve from five to 20 years in the Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary at Pittsburgh. There had been three attempts on his life in June 1954, and his frustrated assassins undoubtedly were waiting for him to return to Boston. Others fell apart as they were handled. OKeefe and Gusciora reportedly had worked together on a number of occasions. During their forays inside the building, members of the gang took the lock cylinders from five doors, including the one opening onto Prince Street. His case had gone to the highest court in the land. Through the interviews of persons in the vicinity of the Brinks offices on the evening of January 17, 1950, the FBI learned that a 1949 green Ford stake-body truck with a canvas top had been parked near the Prince Street door of Brinks at approximately the time of the robbery. Jeffrey Dahmer: He committed his first murder at 18 Jeffrey Dahmer at his. During his brief stay in Boston, he was observed to contact other members of the robbery gang. The eight men were sentenced by Judge Forte on October 9, 1956. The alibi, in fact, was almost too good. The robbers removed the adhesive tape from the mouth of one employee and learned that the buzzer signified that someone wanted to enter the vault area. Two of the gang members moved toward the door to capture him; but, seeing the garage attendant walk away apparently unaware that the robbery was being committed, they did not pursue him. At 10:25 p.m. on October 5, 1956, the jury retired to weigh the evidence. The hideout also was found to contain more than $5,000 in coins. But the state's history also includes notorious figures such as bank robber . Ronald Kray was a British criminal involved in organized crime in the East End of London in the 1950s and 1960s. Again, he was determined to fight, using the argument that his conviction for the 1948 larceny offense was not a basis for deportation. Of the $4,822 found in the small-time criminals possession, FBI agents identified $4,635 as money taken by the Brinks robbers. He had been convicted of armed robbery in 1940 and served several months in the Massachusetts State Reformatory and the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony. ), (After serving his sentence, Fat John resumed a life of crime. Several hundred dollars were found hidden in the house but could not be identified as part of the loot. Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, Billy Wilder's Barton Keyes, and Roman Polanski's JJ 'Jake' Gittes: three iconic private investigators who popularised the Los Angeles crime story in the 20th century - a good man traveling solo through a hot, seedy, grimy city, where bad things happen to bad people. On January 12, 1953, Pino was released on bail pending a deportation hearing. "It's Friday, it's Five to Five and it's CRACKERJACK!". He claimed he had been drinking in various taverns from approximately 5:10 p.m. until 7:45 p.m. Costa was associated with Pino in the operation of a motor terminal and a lottery in Boston. Two of the prime suspects whose nerve and gun-handling experience suited them for the Brinks robbery were Joseph James OKeefe and Stanley Albert Gusciora. One of these officers quickly grabbed the criminals hand, and a large roll of money fell from it. Race tracks and gambling establishments also were covered in the hope of finding some of the loot in circulation. By this time, Baker was suffering from a bad case of nerves. Nonetheless, the finding of the truck parts at Stoughton, Massachusetts, was to prove a valuable break in the investigation. It was used by the defense counsel in preparing a 294-page brief that was presented to the Massachusetts State Supreme Court. In the hours immediately following the robbery, the underworld began to feel the heat of the investigation. He was certain he would be considered a strong suspect and wanted to begin establishing an alibi immediately.) Also not becoming series were adaptations of old time radio programs like The First Nighter, The Witch's Tale and Mandrake the Magician. A number of them discontinued their operations; others indicated a strong desire that the robbers be identified and apprehended. Well-meaning persons throughout the country began sending the FBI tips and theories which they hoped would assist in the investigation. Crime boss Yoshinori Watanabe was known as "Mr. Gorilla," and mobster Hisayuki Machii was called "The Ginza Tiger."But perhaps the coolest Yakuza nickname belonged to mob boss Kazuo Taoka, head of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's . In the deportation fight that lasted more than two years, Pino won the final victory. Harvey Miguel Robinson is one of the youngest serial killers in history, being just 18 when he was arrested and charged with the rape and murders of three people in Allentown: Joan Burghardt, a. Examination by the FBI Laboratory subsequently disclosed that the decomposition, discoloration, and matting together of the bills were due, at least in part, to the fact that all of the bills had been wet. Number of Victims: 8. At the Prison Colony, Baker was serving two concurrent terms of four to ten years, imposed in 1944 for breaking and entering and larceny and for possession of burglar tools. At the time of Bakers release in 1949, Pino was on hand to drive him back to Boston. After being wounded on June 16, OKeefe disappeared. Information received from this individual linked nine well-known hoodlums with the crime. Two hours later he was dead. The mass of information gathered during the early weeks of the investigation was continuously sifted. Six members of the gangBaker, Costa, Geagan, Maffie, McGinnis, and Pinowere arrested by FBI agents on January 12, 1956. And it nearly was. In the 1950s, most police forces were mostly white and almost exclusively male. A man of modest means in Bayonne, New Jersey, was reported to be spending large sums of money in night clubs, buying new automobiles, and otherwise exhibiting newly found wealth. The body of Albert Anastasia - who ran Murder, Inc., a gang of hired killers for organized crime, in the late 1930s - lies on the barbershop floor at the Park Sheraton Hotel, Seventh Avenue and . OKeefe did not know where the gang members had hidden their shares of the lootor where they had disposed of the money if, in fact, they had disposed of their shares. A federal search warrant was obtained, and the home was searched by agents on April 27, 1950. Many tips were received from anonymous persons. The thieves quickly bound the employees and began hauling away the loot. This vehicle was traced through motor vehicle records to Pino. On the afternoon of August 28, 1954, Trigger Burke escaped from the Suffolk County jail in Boston, where he was being held on the gun-possession charge arising from the June 16 shooting of OKeefe. A second shooting incident occurred on the morning of June 14, 1954, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, when OKeefe and his racketeer friend paid a visit to Baker. He needed money for his defense against the charges in McKean County, and it was obvious that he had developed a bitter attitude toward a number of his close underworld associates. Allegedly, other members of the Brinks gang arranged for OKeefe to be paid a small part of the ransom he demanded, and Costa was released on May 20, 1954. He was not able to provide a specific account, claiming that he became drunk on New Years Eve and remained intoxicated through the entire month of January. Posted in 1950s, Execution, Homicide, Los Angeles County, Orange County | Tagged 1957, 1958, 1959, El Mirador Hotel, Harvey Glatman, Jean Harlow, Judy Dull, Ruth Mercado, Shirley Bridgeford | Leave a reply Satin Pumps: The Moonlit Murder That Mesmerized The Nation [Book review] Posted on June 3, 2021 1 Even Pino, whose deportation troubles then were a heavy burden, was arrested by the Boston police in August 1954. Inside this container were packages of bills that had been wrapped in plastic and newspapers. Eduardo CastaldoHBO. Minutes later, police arrived at the Brinks building, and special agents of the FBI quickly joined in the investigation. Members of the Purple Gang of the 1930s found that there was renewed interest in their activities. He worked closely with the most famous mobsters and Mafia members in the world . OKeefe was enraged that the pieces of the stolen Ford truck had been placed on the dump near his home, and he generally regretted having become associated at all with several members of the gang. While OKeefe and Gusciora lingered in jail in Pennsylvania, Pino encountered difficulties of his own. Page 1 of 1 ( 15 Killers ) # 1 Carroll Edward Cole Carroll Cole 16 Victims 33 Years # 2 Elias Xitavhudzi Pangaman, Panga man 16 Victims 10 Years # 3 Florencio Fernndez The Argentine Vampire, The Window Vampire 15 Victims 11 Years # 4 Elifasi Msomi Tokoloshe Killer, The Axe Killer 15 Victims 7 Years # 5 Nannie Doss The land families of OKeefe and Gusciora lingered in jail in Pennsylvania, Pino encountered of. 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