A GHOUL GOES TO JAIL

3/12/1883 - After nine years on the run from Colorado authorities following his escape from a Saguache jail, cannibal killer Alfred "Alferd" Griner Packer is discovered living in Cheyenne, Wyoming, under the alias of John Schwartze.  Arrested, he is quickly sent back to Colorado to stand trial for his crimes.

Packer

Born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in 1842, Packer leads a fairly innocuous existence until he is hit by a bad case of gold fever in November, 1873.  Posing as an expert on the Rocky Mountains, 31-year-old Packer is part of a group of 21 prospectors headed for the mineral rich diggings outside of Breckenridge, Colorado (all greenhorns when it comes to wilderness travel and gold mining).  Leaving Provo, Utah, the group struggles through winds and snows, loses equipment, and consumes all its food before finding the camp of Chief Ouray of the Ute Indian tribe on January 21, 1874.  Knowing the mountains the men must cross to reach their destination, Ouray warns the group to continue no further until spring ... and provides provisions for his visitors.  Eleven heed Ouray's advice, put nine others in the party foolishly listen to Packer state he knows the route and move off into the San Juan Mountains with a ten-day supply of food for a 75-mile journey. 

Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta

A major error in judgment, following the Gunnison River into the high country, the group soon runs through its supplies again and fractures after several vicious arguments, four decide to quit their quest and head for the Los Pinos Indian Agency (in poor condition, only two will make it back to civilization), while the others push on with Packer ... a luckless quintet consisting of Shannon Bell, James Humphrey, Frank Miller, George Noon (only 18-years-of-age), and Israel Swan (65-years-old).  Fighting the elements and snow drifts over six-feet tall, starving, the men become lost and hopelessly trapped in the high wilderness near the current day town of Lake City, Colorado.

Lake City Winter

Looking more fit than he should after months in the mountains, Packer alone finally staggers out of the high country and makes the Los Pinos Indian Agency himself on April, 16, 1874 ... and immediately goes on an extended rot-gut whiskey bender in the saloons of Saguache ... where in babbling about his adventure, eventually admits to surviving by eating his companions, even signing a confession to that fact.  Arrested, sobered up behind bars, realizing he is probably facing a hangman's noose, the failed mountain man escapes his cell (with the help of a key provided by persons unknown) and vanishes.

Victims

Recognized by one of the original members of the Provo party and arrested, Packer goes on trial for murder in Lake City on April 6, 1883 and tells a new story in which he leaves camp to hunt for food, and when he returns, finds that Shannon Bell has gone mad and murdered the other men with a hatchet ... and when he goes after Packer too, Packer kills him with two well placed rounds from his Colt revolver ... the cannibalism is only a last resort to survive.  The jury isn't buying the new tale though, and after seven days of testimony finds Packer guilty.  A verdict the judge in trial, M.B. Gerry stands behind completely, uttering one of the most famous sentences of all-time (and pretty funny too!), according to the local paper he states, "Stand up yah voracious man-eatin' sonofabitchand receive yir sintince.  When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven Dimmycrats.  But you, yah et five of 'em, goddam yah.  I sintince yag t' be hanged by th' neck until yer dead, dead, dead, as a warnin' ag'in reducin' th' Dimmycratic populayshun of this county.  Packer, you Republican cannibal, I would sintince ya ta hell but the statues forbid it."   

Luckily for Parker though, the Colorado Supreme Court reverses the decision and grants the confessed cannibal another trial (due to a legislative error in the criminal code when Colorado goes from a territory to a state in 1876) ... and the second time around, he is found guilty of the lesser crime of five counts of manslaughter and sentenced to 40 behind bars.

Convict at Canon City

Convinced of his innocence however, reporter Polly Pry and the editors of the Denver Post begin a campaign that eventually results in Packer's parole in 1901.  Free, he quickly finds a job ... working for his friends at the Denver Post as a building guard.  Spending his last days near Littleton, Colorado, Packer dies of liver disease and stomach issues on April 24, 1907, at the age of 65 ... going to his grave a changed man ... A VEGETARIAN!

Packer's Grave

Gone but not forgotten due to the horrific nature of the events that took place in that long ago mountain winter, Packer lives on in current-day popular culture ... folk singer Phil Ochs writes an ode to the cannibal, "The Ballad of Alfred Packer," in the 60s, in 1968, the students of the University of Colorado at Boulder name their new cafeteria the Alferd G. Packer Memorial Grill (way too much happy smoke prior to the vote I'm thinking!), and give the establishment the slogan of "HAVE A FRIEND FOR LUNCH," the year 1990 sees country artist C.W. McCall record a tune about Packer's ghost haunting Lake City called "Coming Back for More," also in 1990, the death band Cannibal Corpse dedicates their debut album, "Eaten Back to Life," to Parker, in 1993, the co-creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, former students at the University of Colorado, make a film called "Cannibal! The Musical," based loosely (VERY loosely!) on Packer's life, in 2002, the self-described "murder-band," Macabre, releases a song about Packer's search for gold called "Into the Mountains," and in 2005, the cannibal becomes the subject of a horror film entitled "Devoured: The Legend of Alferd Packer."

  

Boulder, Colorado

And Packer's victims haven't been forgotten either ... a short distance from Lake City, at the spot where five savaged bodies were found in 1874, a memorial recalls the men that never made it out of the mountains.

Rest in Pieces!

NOT FAST ENOUGH MR. THOMPSON

3/11/1884 - Live by the sword, die by the sword, once again that ancient truth plays out ... this time in the Wild West of 1884 San Antonio, Texas ... with ace gunfighters Ben Thompson and King Fisher being the dearly departed that go to Boot Hill

  

Ben Thompson

Born in England in 1884, Ben Thompson crams a lot of living into his 40 years of life.  Settling in Texas with his family at 8-years-old, Thompson's wild resume includes killing a young Frenchman, Emile de Tours, in New Orleans in a knife fight (big mistake insulting a woman in Ben's presence), fighting a raiding band of Comanche and Kiowa Indians that kidnapped a group of children from Austin (the Texicans get all the children back), serving in the Confederate during the Civil War, breaking out of jail (in for a killing his brother actually committed) and escaping to Mexico, where he serves in the command of Emperor Maximilian, surviving a bout of yell fever caught in Vera Cruz, sepending two years in Texas' Huntsville Prison (again due to one of his brother's shooting escapades), tangling with Wild Bill Hickok in Abilene, Kansas (due to the marshal painting over a mural of bull with a huge erection that decorates the outside of the Bull's Head Saloon that Thompson co-owns with gambler Phil Coe), owning a saloon with his brother in Ellsworth, Kansas (which closes after Billy Thompson accidentally kills his friend, Sheriff Chauncey, in another shooting scrape, gambling and operating saloons in Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, teaming up with Bat Masterson in the Colorado Railroad War between the Santa Fe and the Denver & Rio Grande railroads (on the side of the the Santa Fe, for which he is paid $2,300 and a handful of diamonds) and becoming the City Marshal of Austin, Texas (not a single murder takes place during Thompson's term in office).  Feuding with the owner of the Vaudeville Variety Theatre in San Antonio, gambler Jack Harris over the value of his Colorado diamonds, in 1882, when Harris points a shot gun his way as he enters the Vaudeville, Thompson slaps leather and puts down his antagonist with three well placed bullets to the chest, then, though found innocent of homicide, resigns to spend time ranching and gambling.

    

Fisher

Born in Texas in 1854, John King Fisher mixes ranching work with being an outlaw (during rustling raids into Mexico, he will kill 10 Latin cowboys), endeavors he supports with lightning quick pistol work (he sports a rig of two silver-plated, ivory handled revolvers in two fancy hand-tooled leather holsters).  In 1878, after an argument goes from hot to bloody, he kills four Mexican vaqueros ... clubbing the nearest man to death with a branding iron, gunning down a cowboy that tries to draw on him, then pivoting, and killing two friends of the dead men that are sitting on a nearby fence watching the action.  Flip-flopping between the law and disorder, in 1883 Fisher will briefly serve as the acting sheriff of Uvalde County, Texas ... long enough to chase down and kill a stagecoach robber named Tom Hannehan (not a fan of Fisher, for the rest of her life, on the anniversary of the killing, Hannehan's mother will travel to the grave of her son's killer, build a fire on it, and then dance around it for hours on end).  Fisher is 30-years-old when he makes the mistake of deciding to party in San Antonio with his pal, gunfighter Ben Thompson.

   

Thompson

Fisher

Not a good place to visit, the town is full of Harris friends that have not forgiven Thompson for his killing of the gambler ... including Harris' former partners in the Vaudeville, Billy Simms and Joe Foster. Arriving in San Antonio, Thompson and Fisher attend shows at the Turner Hall Opera House, getting drunk enough that Thompson decides to visit the Vaudeville and put the Harris killing behind him; with friendly forgiving handshakes, or by way of his pistols. 

San Antonio

Stepping into the Vaudeville a little after 10:30 in the evening, everything is all smiles at first, the pair of gunmen are greeted by Simms, given a table (which Simms joins them at, and order drinks ... and at their table they are joined by local lawman Jacob Coy, who moonlights as a guard at the establishment.  The friendly conversation does not last long however, and ends abruptly when the group is joined by Foster.  Extending his hand to shake to a truce over the Harris killing, Thompson offers to buy his adversary a drink ... and is instantly rebuffed by Foster, who refuses to shake or drink with Thompson, and states he will never forgive the gunman for the killing.  Fighting words, after stating his enmity, Foster, Coy, and Simms suddenly jump away from the table ... causing both Thompson and Fisher to leap to their feet and go for their guns.  Rattlesnake quick, but not fast enough, as Thompson and Fisher stand, they are hit by a volley of rifle bullets sent their way from a screened upstairs theater box ... Thompson goes down on his side, gets off two shots, then is killed by a point-blank pistol shot to his skull by Coy. Fisher, dies from thirteen bullet wounds, but does manage to get off two shots before going to see his maker ... one of which hits Coy in the leg and cripples the man for life.

Pistol presented to Ben Thompson from Buffalo Bill

And the man who set up the assassination ... Foster hits himself. Being more of a gambler and lover, rather than a duelist, and knowing the reputation of the men he is going against, he launches into a faulty quick draw that causes his gun to discharge into his own leg ... a wound so grievous that the leg will require amputation ... a procedure that he does not survive due to the extensive blood he's lost.  Only Simms comes out of the encounter unscathed (and remains so when the local authorities decide not to pursue the matter or look for the upstairs riflemen). 

Thompson

Thompson at Rest

THE COST OF TREASON

THE COST OF TREASON

On this day in 1949, 48-year-old Mildred Elizabeth Gillars finds out what happens to folks that jump to the losing side in a world war ... found guilty of one count of treason (she is originally brought up on ten charges) and sentenced to a 10 to 30 year prison sentence (along with a fine of $10,000!) ... 10 to 30 years for making a Nazi propaganda radio show called "Vision of Invasion" ... hard time for "Axis Sally!"

Gillars

Born Mildred Elizabeth Sisk (she will become Gillars in 1911 when her mother remarries) in Portland, Maine, in 1900, she appears to lead a normal life trying to break into show business (if that is EVER actually normal) ... in 1918 she studies dramatic arts at Ohio Wesleyan University (but doesn't graduate), lives in Greenwich Village and takes drama lessons, appears in vaudeville and tours with stock companies, works as an artist's model in Paris in 1929, returns to the United States, moves to Algiers in 1933 and gains coin by serving as a dressmaker's assistant, then in 1934, moves to Dresden, Germany, to study music, and later, teaches English at the Berlitz School of Languages in Berlin.  And it is in Berlin where war and love bring darkness into her life.

  

Gillars

Europe already at war, in 1941, the U.S. State Department begins advising Americans to return home ... but Gillars refuses because she is in love with a naturalized German citizen, Paul Karlson, who tells her if she goes back to the States the couple will never be married (like millions of others, he will die in action on the Eastern Front).  So she stays and is working as an announcer at Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft, the state radio, when word of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor goes out to the world.  Caught in a country at war with her country, facing joblessness and the prospect of being sent to a concentration camp, Gillars protects herself by signing an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Koischwitz

At first her on-air time is apolitical, but in 1942, 40-year-old Max Otto Koischwitz (and yes, with the other guy a corpse they become lovers), is made the program director of the American Zone of RRG Radio and Gillars on-air role changes.  A German with United States citizenship (obtained in 1935 while he is a professor of German literature at Hunter College in New York), anti-Semitic and a heart felt supporter of National Socialism, Koischwitz soon creates radio shows for Gillars that are designed to hurt the morale of American G.I.s fighting in Europe by producing profound states of homesickness (and he gets what he deserves for his inspiration, dying of tuberculosis and heart failure in a Berlin hospital in 1944):

*"Home Sweet Home Hour" featuring tales of the infidelity of soldiers' wives and sweethearts ... each broadcast starting with a mournful train whistle

*"Midge-at-the-Mile" interspersing American songs with hate rhetoric about Jewish people, defeatist propaganda, and assaults on the character of F.D.R. and Churchill

*"G.I.'s Letter-box" and "Medical Reports" discussing wounded and captured American soldiers and airmen with a bent towards terrifying the men's families back in the United States

*"Vision of Invasion," broadcast just prior to the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, in which Gillars plays an Ohioan woman named Evelyn. a mother that dreams of her son dying a horrific death on a ship in the English Channel participating in the invasion of Occupied Europe

Homeward Bound

Pissing off soldiers and authorities (along with Axis Sally, she is also called the Berlin Bitch), she makes her last broadcast two days before Germany surrender on May 8, 1945, then vanishes, starting a manhunt by special U.S. prosecutor Victor C. Woerheide and Counter Intelligence Corps special agent Hans Wintzen that lasts until she is finally put in cuffs on March 15, 1946 (the important lead that results in her capture comes as a result of a captured B-17 pilot, Raymond Kurtz, that Gillars interviews in his prison camp while using her alias, Barbara Mome).

  

Headlines

Found guilty, Gillars will be sent to the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia, becomes a Roman Catholic, and is paroled in 1961 after serving 13 years behind bars.  Out finally, Gillars lives at the Our Lady of Bethlehem Convent in Columbus, Ohio, and teaches German, French, and music at the St. Joseph Academy of the same city (she completes her degree at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1973), dying at the age of 87 in 1988 from colon cancer.

VILLA RAIDS COLUMBUS, NEW MEXICO

Columbus, New Mexico

3/9/1916 - Looking for supplies and weapons (money, munitions, and grub ... the whole enchilada), and a moral booster after his bad defeat against government forces at the Mexican Civil War Battle of Celaya in 1915 (over 4,000 men killed and another 8,000 captured in a massacre of cavalry charging machine guns in the sixth year of the contest for control of the country), General Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula turns north, away from the forces of President Venustiano Carranza, to go after what he believes he has identified as a plum ripe ready for the plucking ... the sleepy little border American town of Columbus, New Mexico, a community of a couple hundred citizens thought to be protected by only 30 soldiers of the U.S. Army.  A feast for a bandit king, for that is what General Arambula really is, and why he is known throughout the southwest by his more familiar other name ... Pancho Villa!

General Arambula - Center

Carranza

Pancho

An error in information, Columbus is actually garrisoned by some of the best troops in the country (their quarters known as Camp Furlong), over 300 men of 13th Cavalry, veterans of fighting in the Philippines, under the command of Colonel Herbert Jermain Slocum (though he is over 30 miles away, at the town of Deming to catch the train to El Paso for an "officers call" there) ... and its citizens are the Wild West types that know how to use hand guns and rifles when put upon.

Slocum

Rumors running rampant for days of large bands of armed men moving about the border, moon down (and the city is without electricity and has no street lamps), in the darkness of 4:00 in the morning the gossip turns real when Villa, and a raiding party of 500 soldiers, attack the town.  

On guard duty, Private Fred Griffin of K Troop calls out, "Halt!  Who goes there?" as footsteps approach his station.  His last words as he is mortally wounded by a rifle shot the punctures his belly ... dead, but not quite yet ... the wounded sentry empties his weapon before leaving, taking out three Villistas and alerting the rest of the town that an attack is underway.  Hearing the shots, Lt. James P. Castleman, the officer of the day, dashes out of the guard shack, kills a passing Villista with his .45 automatic, and then reasoning that the raiders might be after the assets in the town bank, heads toward the center of day, gathering just waking soldiers as he heads towards his destination on Main Street ... a 500-yard run that is stopped five times for Castleman and his men to put down Mexican assaults.  At the same time, First Lt. John B. Lucas, just returned from nearby Fort Bliss where he'd been playing polo, barefoot, grabs his pistol and races for the guard shack that contains the troop's four Benet-Mercie Machine rifles, an early form of machine gun weighing 27 pounds firing steel clips of 9, 14, or 30 rounds.  Throughout the ensuing clash, at least two of the weapons are firing at all times, spitting out bullets at a rate of 10 per second, firing over 20,000 rounds in holding back the raiders.  

Hotel & Bank

Kept at bay for the most part (one band that goes after food supplies is stopped by Army cooks using Winchester Model 97 12-gauge pump shotguns ... weapons the service has provided them with to hunt for fresh meat for the command), where they find no resistance, the Villistas steal anything they can carry away on their horses, fire at any window that shows light, and burn down a hefty portion of the town.  A bad night and morning for the hamlet, in the attack 18 Americans are killed ... ten civilians and eight soldiers (with an additional 8 woundings).  It is much worse however for the soldiers of Villa.

Ruins

Counting on resupply for his men, and a modicum of rest, though Villa and his band capture 300 rifles and shotguns, along with 80 mules and horses, they are forced back across the border by Slocum's men (15 miles into Mexico though the intrusion has not been approved by either country) and return to the mountains of Chihuahua missing almost 200 soldiers (the dead Villistas littering the streets of Columbus are dragged south of town, soaked in kerosene, and burnt in a mass grave).  And worse, along with the Mexican forces arrayed against him, Villa now must contend with a pissed off United States!

Columbus, New Mexico in the morning

Bonfire Time

Responding to the attack, President Woodrow Wilson authorizes a 5,000 man incursion into Mexico to kill or capture Villa ... an unsuccessful expedition (Villa is never seen and only a few of his lieutenants are brought down in the six months the campaign lasts) led by General John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing (soon to command the American forces that fight in France during WWI and ironically a former friend of Villa during happy times ... he receives a condolence notice from Villa when his wife and three young daughters die in in a 1915 fire in San Francisco), featuring the first use of airplanes and supply trucks by the military, and the first time the public hears of the exploits of a soldier who will become very famous as a general during WWII ... Lt. George Smith Patton, Jr. (he will be called the "Bandit Killer" by the press for his offing of outlaw Julio Cardenas).

  

1914 - L to R - General Obregon, Villa, and Pershing

Army Poster

Patton Before The Tanks - 1914

As for Villa, although he is never brought to justice for the raid, he eventually gets a dose of his own medicine in 1923.  Retired, thinking his bullet days are over, on July 20th, Villa takes his black 1919 Dodge roadster into the town of Parral without his normal allocation of more than a dozen body guards.  A fatal error on the part of the outlaw and rebel, as his vehicle maneuvers through the streets of the city, a pumpkinseed vendor shouts "Viva Villa!" ... the signal that causes seven assassins (members and associates of the Herrera Family Villa has been feuding with and has vowed to wipe out) to step into the middle of the road and blast over 40 dumdum rounds into the car and its occupants ... nine of which hit Villa in the head and upper chest, killing him instantly (along with Villa, two bodyguards, Claro Huertado and Rafael Madreno also perish in the fusillade, as do his personal secretary, Daniel Tamayo, and his chauffeur, Colonel Miguel Trillo.  Life fast and leave a pretty corpse ... in his going, Villa only gets on part of the equation right! 

Ouch

Adios!

LEPKE THE LOUSE

3/3/1944 - For the first and only time in American criminal history, a major mob boss is actually executed ... the unlucky kingpin is 47-year-old Jewish mobster, Louis "Lepke" (Yiddish for Little Louis) Buchalter.

Buchalter - 1939

Born in 1897 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Buchalter at first doesn't seem destined for a life of murderous crime ... his father operates a successful hardware store (until his death in 1909 when Lepke is 12) and he is a member of a loving family that includes his mom, Rose, a sister and three brothers (one becomes a dentist, another a college professor and rabbi, and the third will make his living as a pharmacist).  Things come unraveled though when his mom moves to Arizona for health reasons ... and leaves Lepke in the care of his older sister, Sarah.  Sister not the parents he needs, he is soon out of control, doing as he pleases, and in 1915 he is arrested for the first time on burglary and assault charges.

Lepke

Not a very good burglar, after yet another stint in New York's Sing Sing Prison (a 30 month sentence for attempted burglary), Buchalter comes up with a new money making career ... in association with a childhood friend who has become a hulking brute (not to his face, he is often described as "a gorilla in a suit"), Jacob "Gurrah" (a nickname that comes from his kid days of trying to rob pushcarts, and the words "GET OUT OF HERE" coming out sounding like GURRAH) Shapiro ... using muscle and fear, he will take over the city's garment industry by first taking over the union (and raiding their bank accounts), and then using the union as a cudgel to gain weekly payouts from strike threatened owners.  And anyone protesting management is either beaten into submission or murdered.  Lots and lots of murders! 

Gurrah

So many murders that the governing body for organized crime, The Commission created by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, begins contracting its killing through Lepke ... and so Lepke, along with running the garment industry in association with New York's Lucchese Crime Family, becomes the head of the infamous Murder, Inc. through the 1930s (they are also known as the Brownsville Boys and The Combination) ... and the wealth flows in, so much so that Buchalter spends his "glory" years residing in a posh penthouse on Central Park West.

Luciano

Operating out of a back room at Rosie "Midnight Rose" Gold's 24-hour candy store and coffee shop on the corner of Saratoga and Livonia Avenue in Brooklyn, with the help of second-in-command Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia of the Luciano Family, Murder, Inc., will murder between 400 to a 1,000 individuals through the 1930s and 1940s (their most famous hit takes out mobster Dutch Schultz and three of his associates at Newark's Palace Chophouse restaurant).  

Anastasia

Candy?

Maniacs all, Buchalter's roster of contract killers (working for an average of $1,000 to $5,000 for each death they achieve) includes such vicious rogues as Jack "The Dandy" Parisi, Harry "Happy" Maione (called so sarcastically for his perennial scowl), Frank "The Dasher" Abbandando (named so for his youthful ability to run the bases on his reform school baseball team), Vito "Socko" Gurino (who perfects his shooting by target shooting at the heads of living chickens), Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss (a peach of a person believed to have killed 100 people or more by means of shooting, ice pick, drowning, strangulation, and burying his victims alive), Samuel "Red" Levine (an assassin with the deaths of mob bosses Joe "The Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Marazano who won't kill on the Sabbath), Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein (a charmer, he tells his death penalty sentencing judge he'd like to pee on the man's leg), James "Dizzy" Ferraco, Charles Workman (the gunman that gets Schultz and his companions), Emanual "Mendy" Weiss (also in on the Schultz hit), Irving "Big Gangi" Cohen, Louis Capone (no relation to Al), Irving "Knadles" Nitzberg (don't even ask, I have no idea what his nickname relates to), Abraham "Pretty" Levine, Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon (his mug always seems to have a five-o;clock shadow of whisker stubble), Philip "Little Farvel" Cohen, Albert "Tick-Tock" Tannenbaum (the killer, along with Bugsy Siegel of Harry "Big Greenie" Greenbaum), Jacob "Kuppy" Migden, Max "The Jerk" Golob, Sidney "Fats" Brown, and Abraham "Kid Twist" Reles (so named for his youthful inclination to strangle folks that displeased him).

"Happy" Maione

"Red" Levine

"Pittsburgh Phil," "Happy," and "Dasher"

Goldstein and "Blue Jaw"

Psychopath Reles (typical of his personality, in broad daylight he will attack a worker at a car wash for missing a smudge on his fender ... and another time, he kills a parking lot attendant for not bringing his car out quickly enough) brings it all down in 1940.  Implicated in a number of murders and facing execution, Reles turns canary and starts singing about his time with Murder, Inc, ... including giving up who is in charge ... Buchalter (for his services to authorities, though under 24-hour protection, Reles falls to his death from a six floor window at Coney Island's Half Moon Hotel ... a grand jury rules the death an "accident," but most everyone else knows that Kid Twist has been pitched into his life ending splat).

  

Reles

Half Moon Hotel - 11/12/1941

Ouch

In hiding against murder and racketeering charges, with a $25,000 reward on his head, Buchalter moves from place to place in New York City (including an apartment at the Oriental Danceland), disguises himself by gaining weight and growing a mustache. and operating under the concept of "no witnesses, no indictments" orders more murders of individuals that might have knowledge of his activities.  On the run for two years, tired of the constant hiding, and pressured by various mob leaders who have wearied of the police interrupting their rackets looking for Buchalter (lying that a deal has been arranged in which the mobster will not be put on trial for murder), Lepke finally surrenders himself to J. Edgar Hoover in Manhattan, an arrest orchestrated with the help of gossip columnist Walter Winchell.

1937 Wanted Poster (with Shapiro)

Brought to trial in 1941, Buchalter is sentenced to death (along with hitmen Mendy Weiss and Louis Capone) based on the testimony of Reles and "Tick-Tock" Tannenbaum (after four hours of jury deliberations) for the 1936 killing of Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen (a former garment industry trucker the gangster has told to leave town).  Appealing his conviction, Lepke's case will go all the way to the United States Supreme Court before the murderer gets his final thumbs down.

Center in Court - 1941

The world and his associates on The Commission wondering if Lepke will turn last minute rat to save himself, at Sing-Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, on this day in 1944, Buchalter wolfs down a last meal lunch of steak, French-fried potatoes, salad, and pie, and for dinner has a repast of roast chicken, shoestring potatoes, salad, and more pie (not the sharpest of knives, his two underlings order the exact same thing as their boss), before going to Hell at 11:15 in the evening in front of thirty-six witnesses, compliments 22,000 volts of electricity coursing through his 165-pound body (preceded by Capone and Weiss).  Getting a sigh of relief from Luciano, Anastasia, Lucchese and others, Buchalter goes to his death without uttering a word.

Capone & Weiss on the way to Sing-Sing  

Buchalter