by Owen Forsyth | Jun 15, 2019 | Chicago, Mafia, Notorious
Billy McCarthy was a stick up man and a members of Frank Cullotta’s burglary crew in Chicago, Illinois. McCarthy wouldnt be a household name but a series of events would lead him to be remembered in a scene in Martin Scorsese’s classic Casino. One night...
by Owen Forsyth | Apr 14, 2019 | Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Early Characters, Gangs of New York, New Jersey, New York, Other
Sophie Lyons was called the queen of thieves but while she was under the guidance of Frederika “Marm” Mandelbaum she was known as the princess of thieves. Sophie Lyons was one of Marm’s best and brightest, almost like a daughter to her. Lyons would...
by Owen Forsyth | Mar 31, 2019 | Chicago, Early Characters, Mafia, Notorious, Politicians
Ragen’s Colts were a street gang which dominated the Chicago underworld during the early twentieth century. Made up of mainly Irish gangsters but there were also Italian, Polish and Jewish gangsters in their ranks. By the late 1920s and early ’30s, the...
by Owen Forsyth | Mar 5, 2019 | Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Colorado, Cops, Featured, Mafia, Mob Moll's, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York, Notorious, Owney Madden, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Police, Politicians, Prohibition, St. Louis
The Roaring Twenties. The Prohibition Laws, the Eighteenth Amendment & Volstead Act, had just been passed banning the sale of alcohol across the United States but it was largely ignored in the cities, New York, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis etc.Before Prohibition...
by Nev Morgan | Feb 22, 2019 | Chicago, Cops, Mafia, Notorious, Police, Prohibition
On the afternoon of January 24, 1925, the Czar of bootlegging and vice in Chicago, Johnny Torrio and his wife Anna pull up to their apartment building, 7011 Clyde Avenue, in a black chauffeured Lincoln around 4.30pm. Anna stepped out of the car and walked to the...
by Owen Forsyth | Feb 19, 2019 | Chicago, Colorado, Mafia, Notorious, Prohibition
Diamond Jack had a fascination and love for the Western lifestyle and made his way out to Denver, Colorado to become “a peaceful rancher with persons of culture around me,”. Hank Bosco who was a young boy at the time, would take gum and rides in the passenger seat of...
