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Murder Incorporated - The Canary that Could Sing But Couldn’t Fly

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Title: Murder Incorporated - The Canary that Could Sing But Couldn’t Fly

Original Publication Date: 8/2/2023

Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/Czku39RnwTN

Description: In this episode, Mustache Chris and Steve dive into the dramatic end of Murder Incorporated and the shocking demise of its notorious hitman, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. Join us as we explore the aftermath of Reles' mysterious death and the impact it had on the infamous crime syndicate. From the gritty streets of 1940s New York to the courtroom battles that followed, we uncover the secrets and twists that unfolded in the wake of Murder Incorporated's demise

#TrueCrimeStories #OrganizedCrime #MurderInc #Mobsters #CriminalUnderworld #Assassins #CrimeSyndicate #Hitmen #InfamousKillings #GanglandHistory #CrimeFamily #MafiaChronicles #ContractKillers #Crime

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Begin Transcript:

[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime. With your hosts, Steve and Mustache, Chris.

Welcome back to the program and thank you for joining Mustache, Chris and I as we weave our way through the fascinating story of the Industrial Lies Death Machine, murder Incorporated, we are approaching the end of the story of Murder, Inc. We are finally going to see the downfall of Murder Inc. And it will be confirmed that man can't fly.

But they can sing. Each of these episodes in this series on Murder Inc. Can be enjoyed and listened to [00:01:00] individually, but altogether they tell, uh, and Weave a really fascinating story of Murder Incorporated, the Mafia's Killing Machine. But let's move on. There's another character, Charles Workman, and he has a really interesting trial where, um, Abel will come in again.

Yeah. Charles Workman is a. It's an interesting case in the demise of, uh, murder Inc. Uh, cuz it's one of the few that didn't actually end up, up in the, in the death penalty. Uh, Workman was one of the hitman in the, uh, uh, on the Dutch Schultz hit. Uh, And the trial opened up in, uh, uh, June, 1941. And, uh, yeah, a bras was, uh, testifying at this trial once again, uh, and on this case.

But like, uh, a young lady also made an appearance too. She, uh, she used a pseudonym. So we don't actually really, we don't know her name. Um, She testified that like workman, uh, showed up to like Dutch's apartment [00:02:00] the day after the murder, like demanding his clothes so he could burn them. I think literally was saying that like, I need to burn his clothes.

She also said that like workman would like openly talk about. Killing Dutch around like her and like on the streets, you know, like bragging like, look, I took out Dutch soul. It's like, what an idiot. Like are you, do you know what I mean? Like, what do you, like I said, like some of these guys are not the smartest guys in the world.

Like if I'm him and I took out a guy like Dutch Souls, like I'm out of town for at least a couple months. Do you know what I mean? Like, just get out of there. Don't go, don't be anywhere near there. But I don't know. Some of these guys, they, you know, Was a, just to kinda use an example, a math Tory, we had talked about earlier, and apparently he didn't even know the street that the Statue of Liberty was on because he was saying, you know what I mean?

Like he was so like closed in like his little community. Like, you know, it's like you live in New York, like how do you not. I don't know. It just, some of these guys are just not very smart. Um, yeah. And then the, [00:03:00] this is where it kind of gets a little bit like I, it gets a little bit interesting. So, uh, like a funeral home director like testified that workman was employed by him during the, the time, the murder of Dutch.

And, but he would like, later he would like recant this and thus, like the workman lost his alibi and then, Like his, his lawyer would end up changing his position to like not guilty to pushing for like a no contest because like, you know, his witness basically lied under oath and then it was just, and the evidence was actually quite thin that.

Sticking workman to the Dutch salts hits where like you had people, Bri, you know, maybe there was a lot of people bragging on the streets at the time saying I killed Dutch. You know what I mean? And you had umbrella sharing like, oh, I heard it from this person or this person. And so it's not like the other cases that we had talked about earlier.

Abra else is like, I was there, I saw it, I did it. Um, and basically, I guess they, they came to some kind [00:04:00] of agreement where, you know, like, we're gonna drop the death penalty, but you're gonna get life. In prison And Workman ended up, yeah, he ended up getting life in prison and he would end up actually getting out.

Uh, I'm not sure what age he was at that time, but he ended up getting out in 1964. What was Abe Res doing during all of this time? He's bopping from one case to the next, but in his, uh, off time you might say, what was he doing? Oh yeah. So this is the, uh, the wonderful umbrella. This is what a Ross is doing, you know, showing all the, uh, the gratitude of, uh, you know, Being some star witness and, uh, you know, having his life spared and not having to pay for any of the crimes that he committed throughout his entire life.

Uh, yeah. So when the guards were watching him, uh, he was actually staying, he was staying at a hotel, um, and he would have armed guards there at the, the entire time. Uh, he basically just, just stopped bathing. He would stop cleaning himself. So when then every time the guards would have to go in, it would smell [00:05:00] putrid.

Um, he also would cough up, uh, violently and spit blood, uh, and, uh, like blood and spit into this cup that he would keep around. And then he would make the guards empty out the cup. Uh, thought he was dying of lung cancer. He would get into it a little bit later than he wasn't dying of lung cancer. But, uh, Just imagine that, you know, it's like, oh, thanks for, you know, protecting my life guys.

And Oh yeah, by the way, do you, can you dump my, uh, spit cub, you know, because, you know, if anything happens to me, it's your guy's next. Right? And, uh, just like, just a real piece of work, man. Um, yeah, like they, I dunno, the Abe would like taunt the guards too, talking about like the murders that he had committed and I stuff, you know, like the, he would just say stuff to the guard.

So like, set them off, like just try to piss them off and like get underneath their skin. Like just terrorize them in a lot of ways. Uh, I mean, I even write about a story at one time where I guess he had like the, he can get ahold of [00:06:00] these, uh, guards at any time and one of the guards, I guess he was at, It was his, uh, wedding night, and Abe knew this and he ended up like bugging him and calling him at like two o'clock in the morning saying like, I need this to get done.

Like, they're trying to get me yada, yada, yada. And like the guard knowing like it's his job and he had just got married, ends up going there and Abe's just like laughing at him, you know, and like literally making like spitballs, kind of like you do in high school, like these big giant spitballs. And he would just throw 'em at the guards.

Like, this is, this is, uh, the state's, uh, You know, number one witness. You know, like just what a piece of work, man. Like what do you say about any of this? I mean, I think in a way he must have had a complete mental breakdown just because he clearly knew that he was, well, obviously he, everybody knew he was marked for death.

And then you're talking about. Your guards are city employees where any one of them could be [00:07:00] easily bribed to get into, uh, meet with res. I mean, you look at Joe Vici, when he finally turned, I think they put him initially in an Army base. The, that was the only thing that they could do that they knew was.

Fairly much incorruptible. I also think that, you know, somebody like a Ellis, he's a murderer who's murdered hundreds of people. He's a psychopath too, and this is a power trip for him. I think there's a lot of stuff going on and this guy's head and, uh, I mean, he's not capable of, I mean, to look for rationality from somebody like him is, yeah.

Uh, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. I, I'm gonna say like a bros is probably one of the, I can't think of a single thing to say, good to say about him. Like, and I can't, you know what I mean? Like, there's like people you could, like, you could look at Stalin and go, you know what? Early in Stalin's life, like this guy robbed banks and like he was [00:08:00] willing to sacrifice his life for a cause that he actually believed in.

And I could objectively go like, I might hate that cause, but I can think that's admirable. You know what I mean? With, with Abe, I can't look at a single thing that this guy did and think, you know what? That's admirable. I can't. I really can't. That's, uh, and that says a lot, Steve, here again, we are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like Josh Cohen's, eye Eyewitness History, and many other great shows.

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Now let's move on to our next, uh, uh, you know, we're kind of working our way up the pyramid here. Leke Balter and Jacob Shapiro. What are they doing during all of this? [00:09:00] Yeah, this is kind of one of the more crazy stories than the, uh, downfall of Murder Inc. Uh, Leke and Jacob would end up going on the run from the government, stemming from, uh, both of them was with the Racker, but it was also a heroin smuggling scheme where they were actually smuggling heroin from, uh, China and then, Typically they would give money to like elderly couples to like, keep inside their car or what have, you know, like people that are like relying on not my, they don't have much money, right?

Uh uh, and then they, uh, they pay off the Coast Guards, and this is kind of how they were sneaking the heroin in, uh, Jacob actually didn't run all that much. It just, I don't think it was really part of his personality to run, uh, run from the cops, even though he seems like the type of guy, he's like, you know what, I'm gonna own up to what I did.

Uh, so he turned himself in on April 14th, 1938. But, uh, Leke would, uh, Still decided that he was still still gonna keep on the run. [00:10:00] Uh, at which point the government put out a 5,000, a five grand, uh, uh, reward was put out on him. And, uh, during the two year, uh, Manheim, they that quite literally spread across the globe.

People reporting, they saw Leke in Poland and Palestine and across the United States and. Thomas Dewey at one, uh, Thomas Dewey ended up requesting that the, the reward be changed to $25,000, which at this time was that there's no jump change. That was a lot of money. Uh, uh, basically hoping that like one of the, you know, Loren, uh, mob guys would be like, oh, well I'm not turning down $25,000 or, Maybe even one of the bosses would turn him in, you know what I mean?

Like, uh, but, uh, Lepke would end up, uh, actually just turning himself in directly to, uh, Jay Edgar Hoover. Uh, and some, I guess the, I guess the deal was like he was gonna be shown a little bit of leniency, but we'll find out that that's, Not what actually happened. And, uh, on a side [00:11:00] note I was doing, and in researching this episode there, apparently I, I can't confirm this story, but, uh, Walter Winchell, he was like a famous radio personality slash like gossip columnist at the time, uh, helped negotiate the surrender.

And then I went a little deeper into who this Walter Guy was. Uh, Apparently he narrated the Untouchables, uh, TV series, kind of like, uh, like a famous, like, you know, like a columnist or something like, you know, helped negotiate like probably the biggest mobster in the United States at the time to surrender.

I mean, that's pretty crazy really. And then ends up like narrating a TV show, but basically about these events in a lot of ways. Um, Yeah, and then it was revealed that like apparently Lefty had been in New York the entire time. Like Lefty had this reputation where you could lock him in a room with just books and he'd stay there for six months.

You know, as long as somebody would bring him food, like, uh, It wasn't very hard for him to stay low cuz he wasn't one of these kind of flashy [00:12:00] gangsters that had to be out in public and, you know, out drinking and having a good time. He just liked to read and be left alone, so it was quite easy for him to stay in New York.

Jacob Shapiro, actually on May 15th, uh, would end up, uh, he would be convicted of like conspiracy and extortion and rocketeer. He ended up getting sentenced to 15 life, uh, 15 uh, years in prison. Um, There's no way of telling the, the, this little bit I'm gonna tell you. There's, I can't say with a hundred percent certainty of it happened apparently when Leke was in jail.

Jacob Shapiro was able to sneak in, uh, a note simply saying, I told you so. And, uh, he would've known exactly what this meant. But this was in reference to, uh, Jacob Shapiro was one of the guys that was in support of, uh, killing Thomas Dewey, along with Judge Soltz and uh, a couple of others. But Jacob was the one that really.

Pushed for killing Thomas Dewey. I mean, I mean, in some ways Jacob's right, right. Like if you had listened to me, maybe you wouldn't be [00:13:00] in this situation. I wouldn't be in this situation either. Um, Jacob, would he ever now dying of a heart attack in 1947? Um, But leading up to basically the entire time he was in prison, he'd tell everybody, uh, you know, if we had just taken care of duty, uh, do we, none of this would've happened.

And I mean, we talked about it on the previous episode. I, I. I tend to kind of agree with them. I, I think it's one of those things that either us sitting here right now or Jacob sitting in jail, you just don't know. And I can see why Jacob would wanna say I told you so. But, um, I mean, you just, you never know what would've happened.

And I mean, in the end it's probably Jacob, all of these guys, Shapiro, uh, book halter, all of them were, they were going to go down and to, I think that's a. [00:14:00] Really typical criminal blame game. Oh, if we had just done what I said, we'd all be fine. And if we just use this story as a, uh, as a learning tool, nobody gets out of this.

And especially th these bigger names that we're going, we've talked so much about, uh, Louis Leke Balter, Louis Capone, and Mendy Weiss. What happens to these? The biggest names in Murder, Inc. Now we're finally, we're at the really top of the org chart here. Yeah, yeah. Leke was arraigned in, uh, uh, to court on, uh, May 9th, 1941 for the murder of Joel Rosen.

We had talked about, we talked about that murder on the, uh, previous episode two, uh, Abe Ellis was, uh, would also implicate Leke and like four other murders, and like to make out matters worse. Another guy named Alberta Tannenbaum would also end up, uh, testifying. He was also another member of Murder Inc.

Basically, yeah. Jury would [00:15:00] end up taking like four hours to, uh, come to Enclosement that, uh, you know, they were all guilty and, uh, first degree, uh, murder, which was an automatic, uh, death sentence. Uh, And, uh, LE's Lawyers along with, uh, you know, loose component and many Weiss, uh, they would end up taking this, they would end up making appeals and then it would end up going all the way to the Supreme Court.

And, but in 1941, the Supreme Court affirmed that LE's uh, conviction seven to zero. And he basically had no other options. There was no other appeals to make. And on, uh, January, 1944, lucky. Was, uh, turned over to New York State where he was sent to Sing Sing Prison, where he would be killed. Uh, Leke would make some pleas for his life, but they obviously, you know, it obviously didn't work.

And then on March, uh, fourth, 1944, Leke finally got what was coming to him, and he was killed by Old Sparky Lewis. Capone and Weiss [00:16:00] were killed a few minutes before Leke. Uh, and like I pointed out earlier, they, they were part of all these appeal processes and, uh, That's it, man. Like, that's, those are all the major guys.

The, basically that were sentenced to death because of a rows, and, and this is, that's the downfall of Murder Inc. Like, you know, Le, he's dead, no head anymore. I think it's just amazing. This whole story comes down. Everybody's dead right now. Where we stand really, the, the only two people that are really left standing are Albert Anastasia and.

Abe res, but that's not gonna last for long. With almost all of these big players having been found guilty, they're put to death. What happens to Abe? And does Abe res live happily ever after? You could tell us, uh, from giggling at, uh, it's not a hap Yeah. A but, uh, yeah. And, uh, November [00:17:00] 12th, uh, 1941 a Ellis fell from his window and he was in room, uh, 6 23 at the Half Moon Hotel, uh, with two uh, guards at the door.

This happened, this actually happened during the, uh, Leke Lewis Capone Mendi Weiss trial. That's why, uh, Albert Tenenbaum's, uh, testimony, which is so important cause. There was nobody to collaborate Abe's story. Who knows the appeals process might have worked. Um, initially it was reported that Abe Willis like tried to lower himself out the window using like a combination of like wiring and tied up bedsheets into like a rope.

Uh, and it simply came undone and, uh, he fell to his death. Me personally, I just think this is absurd cuz everything that I've read about Abe Ellis, uh, he was terrified of being killed by, you know, fellow members of Murder Inc. Uh, he didn't wanna leave the police protection even for a minute, really. He wanted a guard with him at all times.

So, I dunno, why was he trying to escape [00:18:00] this just doesn't make, doesn't make much sense to me. What makes a little bit more sense to me though, is a, was getting ready to talk about Albert Anastasia. Um, And, uh, the, he had information that directly relate directly, uh, connected Albert, Albert Anastasia to the murders of, uh, a Teamsters Union official, uh, Morris Diamond and Peter Panto.

Uh, like Morris Diamond was a high ranking Teamsters rep. Uh, he was actually trying to get the likes of Albert and his client outta the, uh, dock Workers Union and Peter Panto was, uh, Was a, he was a labor organizer that led a revolt against the. Basically the cropped, uh, I l A, the i I l uh, U, the International Longshore Men's Union, um, that the likes of like Albert and his friends, uh, they basically ran like a Ponzi scheme in a lot of ways.

Like they were stealing from the workers, they were stealing from the pension fund. All di [00:19:00] all different types of horrible stuff. And I don't know if you know anything about like longshore men work. Like it is hard, brutal work. It's dangerous. And they're, you know, they're just stealing from guys that are just trying to make ends meet and raise their family.

Um, but as you can kind of see, like with these two murders, uh, with, um, panto and, uh, Morris Diamond, like we're not dealing with say, like killers killing other killers. We're dealing with guys that were like, Highly respected members of society, you know, with, uh, with the blue collar workers and even the middle class workers and people who were like legitimate union men.

Um, so if Alberta got implicating these murders, it was gonna wind up for like really bad for, uh, everyone involved. Um, And if, you know, say Albert ended up getting implicating these murders and he, he himself starts seeing like, oh, maybe I can face the death penalty if Albert starts talking. That's when you start getting to the, like the very tops of organized crime in New York and [00:20:00] potentially could have taken out the, the entire.

Um, could have taken out the entire mafia. And this is to me where, um, it seems believable that this, like as soon as they found out that he was gonna start talking about Albert, uh, this is when the commission decided they were gonna start doing something about it. You know, it was a little side note though, when Albert heard that maybe April else was gonna start talking about him.

He ran, but probably in the more unlikely spots, he like ran to the army. So he joined the army for a bit and actually became like a technical sergeant. I don't know what that term means in the army. Anybody's in the army to just tell me what that actually means. But from what I read, he was like actually training soldiers how to do like longshoremen work cuz it was a skilled labor, how to unload ships and pack ships properly and to get as much cargo out and in as quickly as possible.

Um, he would actually get rewarded for a medal for his service, and he ended up [00:21:00] earning his, uh, citizenship during the stint in the Army. I think there was a, like a detective and a prosecutor, and they asked him about it afterwards. Like, I don't even thought about looking, you know, at the Army when we were trying to find words.

Pretty brilliant idea. Like basically hide where Right out in the open, a technical sergeant. It's, uh, in World War II was somebody who had a specific knowledge, a technical expert, and, uh, they don't have it anymore. I think it's. That kind of, uh, specialty has been split into different ranks, but you could see that they probably would bring somebody aboard because, because he would've been pretty old.

He would've been in his. Early forties, which would've, yeah, you know, that's certainly no spring chicken to, uh, join up into the army even during wartime. So he must have had a, a, especially a specialty in [00:22:00] longshoreman ship and unloading ships and that sort of thing for it to have been even considered to join the, the military at that point.

Yeah, so, and that's what he ended up, that's what he ended up doing. Right. So I mean that's pretty, it's pretty crazy. Like, I mean one day we're gonna do like a, probably end up doing like a whole series in Albert Anastasia, cuz he just led such a, such a crazy life, but actually happened to Abe Rawles. I mean, to me there's.

A couple things that maybe are possible. I mean, we had talked about earlier how terrible he was just to put the final touches that he, so he does, he, he is somehow goes out of the window at this hotel and Coney Island in the, the big question is how and why that it happened. Yeah. Um, like I pointed it out, I mean, earlier, I think, I personally think like the commission was like, as soon as he was gonna start talking about Albert, they're [00:23:00] the ones who, uh, decided that we're gonna try to do something about this.

But I mean, there's other possibilities, like, I mean, we talked about earlier just how horrib he was to the guards. I went and put it past them. Maybe it be one of the guards. They're like, you know what, like, we're done with this guy. He's a murderer too. Like, why? Why is this guy gonna get off with everything?

They just chucked him out the window themselves. What? Uh, that's a possibility. Um, I mean, the possibility is he, I simply killed himself by accident. Like he actually did just climb out the window and, you know, fell. I don't, I think it's a little ridiculous cuz if you, if you kind of look at where the body was found, it's so far away from where the window was.

Right? So if it was just simply like the ropes gave out that he create, that he made, or the outta these bed sheets, he wouldn't, his body wouldn't have been where it was like, It, it indicates that somebody either chucked him out or he, like, he jumped out. I mean, by himself. I just, cuz the [00:24:00] body's so far away from where the, the window is.

But, you know, my personal opinion, I think they, Frank Costello and the commission, I, I believe they paid off the guards and, uh, To get to Rella so they can take care of their business. Um, and it would be incredibly tough to prove this anyways, cuz the only way that you would be able to find out whether, you know, it was like Frank Costello and the commission that, uh, did this.

One of the guards that got paid off would have to talk, and they're not gonna talk. There's no cameras at that time. Really, they this idea of like mobile, like mobile surveillance or what have you, that just didn't exist. So one of those guys would have to talk and none of them were gonna talk. So how would you prove it?

And to me, like you just gotta kind of just do the process of elimination. Like who had the most to lose? If Abras was gonna talk, it was the commission. Right. It, like I said, if Albert is on the. You know, potentially looking at old Sparky and he starts talking, they're all gonna go down. [00:25:00] Cause Albert knew, knew everything.

He was part of the, the higher ups. Right? He was part of the Holy of the Holies. Um, here. Like there's no cameras, right? So they, they, I don't know. We're just kind of guessing at this point. I don't know.

Steve, here again with a quick word from our sponsors. I mean, I would have to say that of the two possibilities, I think it's probably the least likely that the guards just got sick of him and killed him. I think the guards probably did kill him, but of payola from. Frank Costello and the Mafia. I think that it's not completely outside of the realm of possibilities that Abe did do something stupid.

Uh, they said that he would play tricks, uh, on people, and maybe he was trying to jump out of the window and go scare that, but that seems unlikely. I think of the two [00:26:00] possibilities, what's the most likely is. The mafia and the powers that be got to the guards and they killed him. I think that that's probably, I mean, that's the slam dunk of the, the whole thing.

But now it's really time to put an end to Murder Incorporated. What's the rest of the story? We have reached the, uh, conclusion of Murder Inc. And, uh, what, uh, uh, what left is there to say, well, there are, you know, well, there are a couple things in the, in the history of the mob. Something like Murder Inc.

Never happened again. It'll probably surprise, uh, people considering the amount of success, success it had. Once the, uh, murder Inc. Trials happened, the five major families, uh, began to just contract out, hits on their own family members. Uh, Contract hits, uh, to their own family members. And once, uh, once in a while they would tear eyes.

Uh, you know, they came to the conclusion not having a gang that was exclusively [00:27:00] for killing was just, uh, too much of a risk as proved by ais. And there's talking cuz it could potentially drag the entire commission down with it. When you have like individual families taking care of its own hits, the potential of all the other families, uh, going down with it obviously drops Dr.

Drastically, right? You gotta looking at a different angle. What was Murder Inc. Uh, you know, isn't Murder Inc just like kind of a natural tribal mechanism of like an organized, uh, of organized physical violence that. Every society, big or small, that reaches a certain level of organization, like I, I think so, you know, before Murder Inc.

The, the violence that happened in organized crime, and it was like random, personal petty, but most importantly it was disorganized. Um, Murder Inc. Like never came back, but the, you know, like the lessons learned from it, you know, stayed, you know, no, no longer remembers the mafia just [00:28:00] flying off, uh, hack cock, half cocked, uh, frequently murder would be, you know, organized, not personal and.

Most importantly, efficient. When you're talking about a criminal element, it's really hard to have a professional efficient murder organization, especially, you know, who's really, their whole and sole job is to murder people, and you're doing it really for crime. You know, if you take a look at something like snipers in the military, they're doing it for something.

Bigger country, this, that, and I think it weeds out some of the people who are maybe doing it just for, basically for being psychos. Uh, and yeah, something like the army, right? And police, hopefully they're really trying to weed out that you don't have just pure people who want to hurt and abuse people and kill for [00:29:00] enjoyment.

And with Murder Inc. And with any, with a criminal organization, you're, you're really attracting those sorts of people. So I can see why they did an experiment with this Murder Inc. It didn't, it worked pretty well for a while, but I think that keeping it inside of the families probably was a better thing in the end because it was a lot more easy to control.

Oh yeah. You know, and if like one guy got caught, he can't, he's not gonna burn down the, the Gambino and the Bonanos and the Colombos and everybody else with them, where this potentially, if a Ellis, you know, didn't end up trying to fly, he really could have just taken them all down with him, you know? Um, Also with the, like, the Death of Murder, Inc.

Too would also mark the, uh, uh, point of when Jewish organized crime would, would become less and less powerful. Like it didn't happen all at once, but like no longer was, uh, [00:30:00] Jewish organized crime gonna reach the levels of say, Lepke and Schultz, and a Rosa again. Yes, there were like Jewish gangsters still, but it became kind of like an endangered species, you know, from this point on.

The mafia became, um, more and more exclusively Italian with the odd Irish and Jewish associate. Um, That was my biggest surprise during the research of this series was just how Jewish this entire time era of the mob was. Like I knew about Lepke a bit, I knew about, I obviously knew about Meyer Lansky, I knew about Bugsy Siegel, but just how powerful the Jewish mafia at this time was like.

It was a real shocker for me and uh, I'm sure for our audiences, it's probably gonna be the biggest eye opener that they're gonna get from this series. It really does seem that to. By this point, the mafia, the organized crime and is, is an Italian organization. And one, we'll see some different places where that's not [00:31:00] exactly true, but the, the Italians are really taking it over and J Jews and Irish are going to be satellites.

To the main show, even Hispanics. And as we move on later, especially in a place like New York City, these other ethnicities will Beso, will become mafia associates, but they're never really running the show. Oh yeah, for sure. Right. And just in particular in like Jewish organized crime, like it was really big and it was really big for a time period, and then it just, Stop being like really big.

Like I said, there was associates, but they would never reach the power that they reached during, say the heyday of Murder, Inc. It's just not gonna happen again. You know, it's never, I don't think it's ever gonna happen again. Sparring, you know, some Black Swan event or something happens. I just [00:32:00] don't see it happening.

Right. Uh um, Just basically as a community, they moved on. Really, they moved up within, they moved up within American Society and they kind of left this part behind them. There's a book, uh, that I used, uh, for the research during this series, uh, tough Jews by Rob Cohen, and he talks about this, where this part of Jewish history in America, they, they.

It just kind of moved on. Past Murder Inc. Like the, the community itself just, just not part of it anymore, really. Like we're the, the Italian community. I'm not, it's not saying like all Italians or what have you, it's just like it stayed within the Italian community for a much longer time. It's still there to this day.

You know, we're doing a podcast on it. So with that, we're moving on from Murder Inc. Into all sorts of new, different avenues. If the people out there, if there's some aspect of organized crime that you'd really love for us to delve into, reach out, [00:33:00] email, Facebook, social media. And if you wanna help us out, the best way to help us out is to tell your friends so that your friends can become friends of ours.

Yeah, guys, I really hope you enjoyed, uh, this series cuz I, I had a blast researching it. I learned a ton. Hopefully you guys learn a ton and yeah, make sure to tell your friends so they become friends of ours. Forget about it.

You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a History and Crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links to social media and how to support the show. Go to our website, A to z history page.com. Become a friend of ours by sending us an email to crime A to z history page.com.

All of this and more can be found in the show notes. We'll see used next time on Organized Crime and punishment. Forget about it.[00:34:00]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Title: Murder Incorporated - The Canary that Could Sing But Couldn’t Fly

Original Publication Date: 8/2/2023

Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/Czku39RnwTN

Description: In this episode, Mustache Chris and Steve dive into the dramatic end of Murder Incorporated and the shocking demise of its notorious hitman, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. Join us as we explore the aftermath of Reles' mysterious death and the impact it had on the infamous crime syndicate. From the gritty streets of 1940s New York to the courtroom battles that followed, we uncover the secrets and twists that unfolded in the wake of Murder Incorporated's demise

#TrueCrimeStories #OrganizedCrime #MurderInc #Mobsters #CriminalUnderworld #Assassins #CrimeSyndicate #Hitmen #InfamousKillings #GanglandHistory #CrimeFamily #MafiaChronicles #ContractKillers #Crime

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Begin Transcript:

[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime. With your hosts, Steve and Mustache, Chris.

Welcome back to the program and thank you for joining Mustache, Chris and I as we weave our way through the fascinating story of the Industrial Lies Death Machine, murder Incorporated, we are approaching the end of the story of Murder, Inc. We are finally going to see the downfall of Murder Inc. And it will be confirmed that man can't fly.

But they can sing. Each of these episodes in this series on Murder Inc. Can be enjoyed and listened to [00:01:00] individually, but altogether they tell, uh, and Weave a really fascinating story of Murder Incorporated, the Mafia's Killing Machine. But let's move on. There's another character, Charles Workman, and he has a really interesting trial where, um, Abel will come in again.

Yeah. Charles Workman is a. It's an interesting case in the demise of, uh, murder Inc. Uh, cuz it's one of the few that didn't actually end up, up in the, in the death penalty. Uh, Workman was one of the hitman in the, uh, uh, on the Dutch Schultz hit. Uh, And the trial opened up in, uh, uh, June, 1941. And, uh, yeah, a bras was, uh, testifying at this trial once again, uh, and on this case.

But like, uh, a young lady also made an appearance too. She, uh, she used a pseudonym. So we don't actually really, we don't know her name. Um, She testified that like workman, uh, showed up to like Dutch's apartment [00:02:00] the day after the murder, like demanding his clothes so he could burn them. I think literally was saying that like, I need to burn his clothes.

She also said that like workman would like openly talk about. Killing Dutch around like her and like on the streets, you know, like bragging like, look, I took out Dutch soul. It's like, what an idiot. Like are you, do you know what I mean? Like, what do you, like I said, like some of these guys are not the smartest guys in the world.

Like if I'm him and I took out a guy like Dutch Souls, like I'm out of town for at least a couple months. Do you know what I mean? Like, just get out of there. Don't go, don't be anywhere near there. But I don't know. Some of these guys, they, you know, Was a, just to kinda use an example, a math Tory, we had talked about earlier, and apparently he didn't even know the street that the Statue of Liberty was on because he was saying, you know what I mean?

Like he was so like closed in like his little community. Like, you know, it's like you live in New York, like how do you not. I don't know. It just, some of these guys are just not very smart. Um, yeah. And then the, [00:03:00] this is where it kind of gets a little bit like I, it gets a little bit interesting. So, uh, like a funeral home director like testified that workman was employed by him during the, the time, the murder of Dutch.

And, but he would like, later he would like recant this and thus, like the workman lost his alibi and then, Like his, his lawyer would end up changing his position to like not guilty to pushing for like a no contest because like, you know, his witness basically lied under oath and then it was just, and the evidence was actually quite thin that.

Sticking workman to the Dutch salts hits where like you had people, Bri, you know, maybe there was a lot of people bragging on the streets at the time saying I killed Dutch. You know what I mean? And you had umbrella sharing like, oh, I heard it from this person or this person. And so it's not like the other cases that we had talked about earlier.

Abra else is like, I was there, I saw it, I did it. Um, and basically, I guess they, they came to some kind [00:04:00] of agreement where, you know, like, we're gonna drop the death penalty, but you're gonna get life. In prison And Workman ended up, yeah, he ended up getting life in prison and he would end up actually getting out.

Uh, I'm not sure what age he was at that time, but he ended up getting out in 1964. What was Abe Res doing during all of this time? He's bopping from one case to the next, but in his, uh, off time you might say, what was he doing? Oh yeah. So this is the, uh, the wonderful umbrella. This is what a Ross is doing, you know, showing all the, uh, the gratitude of, uh, you know, Being some star witness and, uh, you know, having his life spared and not having to pay for any of the crimes that he committed throughout his entire life.

Uh, yeah. So when the guards were watching him, uh, he was actually staying, he was staying at a hotel, um, and he would have armed guards there at the, the entire time. Uh, he basically just, just stopped bathing. He would stop cleaning himself. So when then every time the guards would have to go in, it would smell [00:05:00] putrid.

Um, he also would cough up, uh, violently and spit blood, uh, and, uh, like blood and spit into this cup that he would keep around. And then he would make the guards empty out the cup. Uh, thought he was dying of lung cancer. He would get into it a little bit later than he wasn't dying of lung cancer. But, uh, Just imagine that, you know, it's like, oh, thanks for, you know, protecting my life guys.

And Oh yeah, by the way, do you, can you dump my, uh, spit cub, you know, because, you know, if anything happens to me, it's your guy's next. Right? And, uh, just like, just a real piece of work, man. Um, yeah, like they, I dunno, the Abe would like taunt the guards too, talking about like the murders that he had committed and I stuff, you know, like the, he would just say stuff to the guard.

So like, set them off, like just try to piss them off and like get underneath their skin. Like just terrorize them in a lot of ways. Uh, I mean, I even write about a story at one time where I guess he had like the, he can get ahold of [00:06:00] these, uh, guards at any time and one of the guards, I guess he was at, It was his, uh, wedding night, and Abe knew this and he ended up like bugging him and calling him at like two o'clock in the morning saying like, I need this to get done.

Like, they're trying to get me yada, yada, yada. And like the guard knowing like it's his job and he had just got married, ends up going there and Abe's just like laughing at him, you know, and like literally making like spitballs, kind of like you do in high school, like these big giant spitballs. And he would just throw 'em at the guards.

Like, this is, this is, uh, the state's, uh, You know, number one witness. You know, like just what a piece of work, man. Like what do you say about any of this? I mean, I think in a way he must have had a complete mental breakdown just because he clearly knew that he was, well, obviously he, everybody knew he was marked for death.

And then you're talking about. Your guards are city employees where any one of them could be [00:07:00] easily bribed to get into, uh, meet with res. I mean, you look at Joe Vici, when he finally turned, I think they put him initially in an Army base. The, that was the only thing that they could do that they knew was.

Fairly much incorruptible. I also think that, you know, somebody like a Ellis, he's a murderer who's murdered hundreds of people. He's a psychopath too, and this is a power trip for him. I think there's a lot of stuff going on and this guy's head and, uh, I mean, he's not capable of, I mean, to look for rationality from somebody like him is, yeah.

Uh, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. I, I'm gonna say like a bros is probably one of the, I can't think of a single thing to say, good to say about him. Like, and I can't, you know what I mean? Like, there's like people you could, like, you could look at Stalin and go, you know what? Early in Stalin's life, like this guy robbed banks and like he was [00:08:00] willing to sacrifice his life for a cause that he actually believed in.

And I could objectively go like, I might hate that cause, but I can think that's admirable. You know what I mean? With, with Abe, I can't look at a single thing that this guy did and think, you know what? That's admirable. I can't. I really can't. That's, uh, and that says a lot, Steve, here again, we are a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like Josh Cohen's, eye Eyewitness History, and many other great shows.

Go to Parthenon podcast to learn more. And now here is a quick word from our sponsors.

Now let's move on to our next, uh, uh, you know, we're kind of working our way up the pyramid here. Leke Balter and Jacob Shapiro. What are they doing during all of this? [00:09:00] Yeah, this is kind of one of the more crazy stories than the, uh, downfall of Murder Inc. Uh, Leke and Jacob would end up going on the run from the government, stemming from, uh, both of them was with the Racker, but it was also a heroin smuggling scheme where they were actually smuggling heroin from, uh, China and then, Typically they would give money to like elderly couples to like, keep inside their car or what have, you know, like people that are like relying on not my, they don't have much money, right?

Uh uh, and then they, uh, they pay off the Coast Guards, and this is kind of how they were sneaking the heroin in, uh, Jacob actually didn't run all that much. It just, I don't think it was really part of his personality to run, uh, run from the cops, even though he seems like the type of guy, he's like, you know what, I'm gonna own up to what I did.

Uh, so he turned himself in on April 14th, 1938. But, uh, Leke would, uh, Still decided that he was still still gonna keep on the run. [00:10:00] Uh, at which point the government put out a 5,000, a five grand, uh, uh, reward was put out on him. And, uh, during the two year, uh, Manheim, they that quite literally spread across the globe.

People reporting, they saw Leke in Poland and Palestine and across the United States and. Thomas Dewey at one, uh, Thomas Dewey ended up requesting that the, the reward be changed to $25,000, which at this time was that there's no jump change. That was a lot of money. Uh, uh, basically hoping that like one of the, you know, Loren, uh, mob guys would be like, oh, well I'm not turning down $25,000 or, Maybe even one of the bosses would turn him in, you know what I mean?

Like, uh, but, uh, Lepke would end up, uh, actually just turning himself in directly to, uh, Jay Edgar Hoover. Uh, and some, I guess the, I guess the deal was like he was gonna be shown a little bit of leniency, but we'll find out that that's, Not what actually happened. And, uh, on a side [00:11:00] note I was doing, and in researching this episode there, apparently I, I can't confirm this story, but, uh, Walter Winchell, he was like a famous radio personality slash like gossip columnist at the time, uh, helped negotiate the surrender.

And then I went a little deeper into who this Walter Guy was. Uh, Apparently he narrated the Untouchables, uh, TV series, kind of like, uh, like a famous, like, you know, like a columnist or something like, you know, helped negotiate like probably the biggest mobster in the United States at the time to surrender.

I mean, that's pretty crazy really. And then ends up like narrating a TV show, but basically about these events in a lot of ways. Um, Yeah, and then it was revealed that like apparently Lefty had been in New York the entire time. Like Lefty had this reputation where you could lock him in a room with just books and he'd stay there for six months.

You know, as long as somebody would bring him food, like, uh, It wasn't very hard for him to stay low cuz he wasn't one of these kind of flashy [00:12:00] gangsters that had to be out in public and, you know, out drinking and having a good time. He just liked to read and be left alone, so it was quite easy for him to stay in New York.

Jacob Shapiro, actually on May 15th, uh, would end up, uh, he would be convicted of like conspiracy and extortion and rocketeer. He ended up getting sentenced to 15 life, uh, 15 uh, years in prison. Um, There's no way of telling the, the, this little bit I'm gonna tell you. There's, I can't say with a hundred percent certainty of it happened apparently when Leke was in jail.

Jacob Shapiro was able to sneak in, uh, a note simply saying, I told you so. And, uh, he would've known exactly what this meant. But this was in reference to, uh, Jacob Shapiro was one of the guys that was in support of, uh, killing Thomas Dewey, along with Judge Soltz and uh, a couple of others. But Jacob was the one that really.

Pushed for killing Thomas Dewey. I mean, I mean, in some ways Jacob's right, right. Like if you had listened to me, maybe you wouldn't be [00:13:00] in this situation. I wouldn't be in this situation either. Um, Jacob, would he ever now dying of a heart attack in 1947? Um, But leading up to basically the entire time he was in prison, he'd tell everybody, uh, you know, if we had just taken care of duty, uh, do we, none of this would've happened.

And I mean, we talked about it on the previous episode. I, I. I tend to kind of agree with them. I, I think it's one of those things that either us sitting here right now or Jacob sitting in jail, you just don't know. And I can see why Jacob would wanna say I told you so. But, um, I mean, you just, you never know what would've happened.

And I mean, in the end it's probably Jacob, all of these guys, Shapiro, uh, book halter, all of them were, they were going to go down and to, I think that's a. [00:14:00] Really typical criminal blame game. Oh, if we had just done what I said, we'd all be fine. And if we just use this story as a, uh, as a learning tool, nobody gets out of this.

And especially th these bigger names that we're going, we've talked so much about, uh, Louis Leke Balter, Louis Capone, and Mendy Weiss. What happens to these? The biggest names in Murder, Inc. Now we're finally, we're at the really top of the org chart here. Yeah, yeah. Leke was arraigned in, uh, uh, to court on, uh, May 9th, 1941 for the murder of Joel Rosen.

We had talked about, we talked about that murder on the, uh, previous episode two, uh, Abe Ellis was, uh, would also implicate Leke and like four other murders, and like to make out matters worse. Another guy named Alberta Tannenbaum would also end up, uh, testifying. He was also another member of Murder Inc.

Basically, yeah. Jury would [00:15:00] end up taking like four hours to, uh, come to Enclosement that, uh, you know, they were all guilty and, uh, first degree, uh, murder, which was an automatic, uh, death sentence. Uh, And, uh, LE's Lawyers along with, uh, you know, loose component and many Weiss, uh, they would end up taking this, they would end up making appeals and then it would end up going all the way to the Supreme Court.

And, but in 1941, the Supreme Court affirmed that LE's uh, conviction seven to zero. And he basically had no other options. There was no other appeals to make. And on, uh, January, 1944, lucky. Was, uh, turned over to New York State where he was sent to Sing Sing Prison, where he would be killed. Uh, Leke would make some pleas for his life, but they obviously, you know, it obviously didn't work.

And then on March, uh, fourth, 1944, Leke finally got what was coming to him, and he was killed by Old Sparky Lewis. Capone and Weiss [00:16:00] were killed a few minutes before Leke. Uh, and like I pointed out earlier, they, they were part of all these appeal processes and, uh, That's it, man. Like, that's, those are all the major guys.

The, basically that were sentenced to death because of a rows, and, and this is, that's the downfall of Murder Inc. Like, you know, Le, he's dead, no head anymore. I think it's just amazing. This whole story comes down. Everybody's dead right now. Where we stand really, the, the only two people that are really left standing are Albert Anastasia and.

Abe res, but that's not gonna last for long. With almost all of these big players having been found guilty, they're put to death. What happens to Abe? And does Abe res live happily ever after? You could tell us, uh, from giggling at, uh, it's not a hap Yeah. A but, uh, yeah. And, uh, November [00:17:00] 12th, uh, 1941 a Ellis fell from his window and he was in room, uh, 6 23 at the Half Moon Hotel, uh, with two uh, guards at the door.

This happened, this actually happened during the, uh, Leke Lewis Capone Mendi Weiss trial. That's why, uh, Albert Tenenbaum's, uh, testimony, which is so important cause. There was nobody to collaborate Abe's story. Who knows the appeals process might have worked. Um, initially it was reported that Abe Willis like tried to lower himself out the window using like a combination of like wiring and tied up bedsheets into like a rope.

Uh, and it simply came undone and, uh, he fell to his death. Me personally, I just think this is absurd cuz everything that I've read about Abe Ellis, uh, he was terrified of being killed by, you know, fellow members of Murder Inc. Uh, he didn't wanna leave the police protection even for a minute, really. He wanted a guard with him at all times.

So, I dunno, why was he trying to escape [00:18:00] this just doesn't make, doesn't make much sense to me. What makes a little bit more sense to me though, is a, was getting ready to talk about Albert Anastasia. Um, And, uh, the, he had information that directly relate directly, uh, connected Albert, Albert Anastasia to the murders of, uh, a Teamsters Union official, uh, Morris Diamond and Peter Panto.

Uh, like Morris Diamond was a high ranking Teamsters rep. Uh, he was actually trying to get the likes of Albert and his client outta the, uh, dock Workers Union and Peter Panto was, uh, Was a, he was a labor organizer that led a revolt against the. Basically the cropped, uh, I l A, the i I l uh, U, the International Longshore Men's Union, um, that the likes of like Albert and his friends, uh, they basically ran like a Ponzi scheme in a lot of ways.

Like they were stealing from the workers, they were stealing from the pension fund. All di [00:19:00] all different types of horrible stuff. And I don't know if you know anything about like longshore men work. Like it is hard, brutal work. It's dangerous. And they're, you know, they're just stealing from guys that are just trying to make ends meet and raise their family.

Um, but as you can kind of see, like with these two murders, uh, with, um, panto and, uh, Morris Diamond, like we're not dealing with say, like killers killing other killers. We're dealing with guys that were like, Highly respected members of society, you know, with, uh, with the blue collar workers and even the middle class workers and people who were like legitimate union men.

Um, so if Alberta got implicating these murders, it was gonna wind up for like really bad for, uh, everyone involved. Um, And if, you know, say Albert ended up getting implicating these murders and he, he himself starts seeing like, oh, maybe I can face the death penalty if Albert starts talking. That's when you start getting to the, like the very tops of organized crime in New York and [00:20:00] potentially could have taken out the, the entire.

Um, could have taken out the entire mafia. And this is to me where, um, it seems believable that this, like as soon as they found out that he was gonna start talking about Albert, uh, this is when the commission decided they were gonna start doing something about it. You know, it was a little side note though, when Albert heard that maybe April else was gonna start talking about him.

He ran, but probably in the more unlikely spots, he like ran to the army. So he joined the army for a bit and actually became like a technical sergeant. I don't know what that term means in the army. Anybody's in the army to just tell me what that actually means. But from what I read, he was like actually training soldiers how to do like longshoremen work cuz it was a skilled labor, how to unload ships and pack ships properly and to get as much cargo out and in as quickly as possible.

Um, he would actually get rewarded for a medal for his service, and he ended up [00:21:00] earning his, uh, citizenship during the stint in the Army. I think there was a, like a detective and a prosecutor, and they asked him about it afterwards. Like, I don't even thought about looking, you know, at the Army when we were trying to find words.

Pretty brilliant idea. Like basically hide where Right out in the open, a technical sergeant. It's, uh, in World War II was somebody who had a specific knowledge, a technical expert, and, uh, they don't have it anymore. I think it's. That kind of, uh, specialty has been split into different ranks, but you could see that they probably would bring somebody aboard because, because he would've been pretty old.

He would've been in his. Early forties, which would've, yeah, you know, that's certainly no spring chicken to, uh, join up into the army even during wartime. So he must have had a, a, especially a specialty in [00:22:00] longshoreman ship and unloading ships and that sort of thing for it to have been even considered to join the, the military at that point.

Yeah, so, and that's what he ended up, that's what he ended up doing. Right. So I mean that's pretty, it's pretty crazy. Like, I mean one day we're gonna do like a, probably end up doing like a whole series in Albert Anastasia, cuz he just led such a, such a crazy life, but actually happened to Abe Rawles. I mean, to me there's.

A couple things that maybe are possible. I mean, we had talked about earlier how terrible he was just to put the final touches that he, so he does, he, he is somehow goes out of the window at this hotel and Coney Island in the, the big question is how and why that it happened. Yeah. Um, like I pointed it out, I mean, earlier, I think, I personally think like the commission was like, as soon as he was gonna start talking about Albert, they're [00:23:00] the ones who, uh, decided that we're gonna try to do something about this.

But I mean, there's other possibilities, like, I mean, we talked about earlier just how horrib he was to the guards. I went and put it past them. Maybe it be one of the guards. They're like, you know what, like, we're done with this guy. He's a murderer too. Like, why? Why is this guy gonna get off with everything?

They just chucked him out the window themselves. What? Uh, that's a possibility. Um, I mean, the possibility is he, I simply killed himself by accident. Like he actually did just climb out the window and, you know, fell. I don't, I think it's a little ridiculous cuz if you, if you kind of look at where the body was found, it's so far away from where the window was.

Right? So if it was just simply like the ropes gave out that he create, that he made, or the outta these bed sheets, he wouldn't, his body wouldn't have been where it was like, It, it indicates that somebody either chucked him out or he, like, he jumped out. I mean, by himself. I just, cuz the [00:24:00] body's so far away from where the, the window is.

But, you know, my personal opinion, I think they, Frank Costello and the commission, I, I believe they paid off the guards and, uh, To get to Rella so they can take care of their business. Um, and it would be incredibly tough to prove this anyways, cuz the only way that you would be able to find out whether, you know, it was like Frank Costello and the commission that, uh, did this.

One of the guards that got paid off would have to talk, and they're not gonna talk. There's no cameras at that time. Really, they this idea of like mobile, like mobile surveillance or what have you, that just didn't exist. So one of those guys would have to talk and none of them were gonna talk. So how would you prove it?

And to me, like you just gotta kind of just do the process of elimination. Like who had the most to lose? If Abras was gonna talk, it was the commission. Right. It, like I said, if Albert is on the. You know, potentially looking at old Sparky and he starts talking, they're all gonna go down. [00:25:00] Cause Albert knew, knew everything.

He was part of the, the higher ups. Right? He was part of the Holy of the Holies. Um, here. Like there's no cameras, right? So they, they, I don't know. We're just kind of guessing at this point. I don't know.

Steve, here again with a quick word from our sponsors. I mean, I would have to say that of the two possibilities, I think it's probably the least likely that the guards just got sick of him and killed him. I think the guards probably did kill him, but of payola from. Frank Costello and the Mafia. I think that it's not completely outside of the realm of possibilities that Abe did do something stupid.

Uh, they said that he would play tricks, uh, on people, and maybe he was trying to jump out of the window and go scare that, but that seems unlikely. I think of the two [00:26:00] possibilities, what's the most likely is. The mafia and the powers that be got to the guards and they killed him. I think that that's probably, I mean, that's the slam dunk of the, the whole thing.

But now it's really time to put an end to Murder Incorporated. What's the rest of the story? We have reached the, uh, conclusion of Murder Inc. And, uh, what, uh, uh, what left is there to say, well, there are, you know, well, there are a couple things in the, in the history of the mob. Something like Murder Inc.

Never happened again. It'll probably surprise, uh, people considering the amount of success, success it had. Once the, uh, murder Inc. Trials happened, the five major families, uh, began to just contract out, hits on their own family members. Uh, Contract hits, uh, to their own family members. And once, uh, once in a while they would tear eyes.

Uh, you know, they came to the conclusion not having a gang that was exclusively [00:27:00] for killing was just, uh, too much of a risk as proved by ais. And there's talking cuz it could potentially drag the entire commission down with it. When you have like individual families taking care of its own hits, the potential of all the other families, uh, going down with it obviously drops Dr.

Drastically, right? You gotta looking at a different angle. What was Murder Inc. Uh, you know, isn't Murder Inc just like kind of a natural tribal mechanism of like an organized, uh, of organized physical violence that. Every society, big or small, that reaches a certain level of organization, like I, I think so, you know, before Murder Inc.

The, the violence that happened in organized crime, and it was like random, personal petty, but most importantly it was disorganized. Um, Murder Inc. Like never came back, but the, you know, like the lessons learned from it, you know, stayed, you know, no, no longer remembers the mafia just [00:28:00] flying off, uh, hack cock, half cocked, uh, frequently murder would be, you know, organized, not personal and.

Most importantly, efficient. When you're talking about a criminal element, it's really hard to have a professional efficient murder organization, especially, you know, who's really, their whole and sole job is to murder people, and you're doing it really for crime. You know, if you take a look at something like snipers in the military, they're doing it for something.

Bigger country, this, that, and I think it weeds out some of the people who are maybe doing it just for, basically for being psychos. Uh, and yeah, something like the army, right? And police, hopefully they're really trying to weed out that you don't have just pure people who want to hurt and abuse people and kill for [00:29:00] enjoyment.

And with Murder Inc. And with any, with a criminal organization, you're, you're really attracting those sorts of people. So I can see why they did an experiment with this Murder Inc. It didn't, it worked pretty well for a while, but I think that keeping it inside of the families probably was a better thing in the end because it was a lot more easy to control.

Oh yeah. You know, and if like one guy got caught, he can't, he's not gonna burn down the, the Gambino and the Bonanos and the Colombos and everybody else with them, where this potentially, if a Ellis, you know, didn't end up trying to fly, he really could have just taken them all down with him, you know? Um, Also with the, like, the Death of Murder, Inc.

Too would also mark the, uh, uh, point of when Jewish organized crime would, would become less and less powerful. Like it didn't happen all at once, but like no longer was, uh, [00:30:00] Jewish organized crime gonna reach the levels of say, Lepke and Schultz, and a Rosa again. Yes, there were like Jewish gangsters still, but it became kind of like an endangered species, you know, from this point on.

The mafia became, um, more and more exclusively Italian with the odd Irish and Jewish associate. Um, That was my biggest surprise during the research of this series was just how Jewish this entire time era of the mob was. Like I knew about Lepke a bit, I knew about, I obviously knew about Meyer Lansky, I knew about Bugsy Siegel, but just how powerful the Jewish mafia at this time was like.

It was a real shocker for me and uh, I'm sure for our audiences, it's probably gonna be the biggest eye opener that they're gonna get from this series. It really does seem that to. By this point, the mafia, the organized crime and is, is an Italian organization. And one, we'll see some different places where that's not [00:31:00] exactly true, but the, the Italians are really taking it over and J Jews and Irish are going to be satellites.

To the main show, even Hispanics. And as we move on later, especially in a place like New York City, these other ethnicities will Beso, will become mafia associates, but they're never really running the show. Oh yeah, for sure. Right. And just in particular in like Jewish organized crime, like it was really big and it was really big for a time period, and then it just, Stop being like really big.

Like I said, there was associates, but they would never reach the power that they reached during, say the heyday of Murder, Inc. It's just not gonna happen again. You know, it's never, I don't think it's ever gonna happen again. Sparring, you know, some Black Swan event or something happens. I just [00:32:00] don't see it happening.

Right. Uh um, Just basically as a community, they moved on. Really, they moved up within, they moved up within American Society and they kind of left this part behind them. There's a book, uh, that I used, uh, for the research during this series, uh, tough Jews by Rob Cohen, and he talks about this, where this part of Jewish history in America, they, they.

It just kind of moved on. Past Murder Inc. Like the, the community itself just, just not part of it anymore, really. Like we're the, the Italian community. I'm not, it's not saying like all Italians or what have you, it's just like it stayed within the Italian community for a much longer time. It's still there to this day.

You know, we're doing a podcast on it. So with that, we're moving on from Murder Inc. Into all sorts of new, different avenues. If the people out there, if there's some aspect of organized crime that you'd really love for us to delve into, reach out, [00:33:00] email, Facebook, social media. And if you wanna help us out, the best way to help us out is to tell your friends so that your friends can become friends of ours.

Yeah, guys, I really hope you enjoyed, uh, this series cuz I, I had a blast researching it. I learned a ton. Hopefully you guys learn a ton and yeah, make sure to tell your friends so they become friends of ours. Forget about it.

You've been listening to Organized Crime and Punishment, a History and Crime podcast. To learn more about what you heard today, find links to social media and how to support the show. Go to our website, A to z history page.com. Become a friend of ours by sending us an email to crime A to z history page.com.

All of this and more can be found in the show notes. We'll see used next time on Organized Crime and punishment. Forget about it.[00:34:00]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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