The Lethal Legacy of Murder Incorporated

Organized Crime and Punishment

Title: The Lethal Legacy of Murder Incorporated

Original Publication Date: 7/19/2023

Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/Ah4X1GH5pQ3

Description: In this gripping episode, we delve into the chilling world of Murder Incorporated, a notorious criminal organization responsible for some of the most heinous murders in history. Join us as we explore the disturbing stories behind key murders committed by this deadly syndicate and attempt to unravel the motivations behind their existence. While the idea of a national crime syndicate employing a specialized murder organization may seem inconceivable, we examine the factors that led to the rise of Murder Inc. and why such an entity was deemed necessary. We discuss the social cost of Murder Inc., highlighting the devastating impact their actions had on communities and society as a whole. Tune in as we peel back the layers of this dark chapter in criminal history, shedding light on the hidden truths and sinister consequences of Murder Incorporated.

#TrueCrime #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 Organized Crime and Punishment. We are continuing our discussion of the incredible story of Murder Incorporated, the violence arm of the Mafia. Isn't that just crazy mustache that the Mafia had a special organization for enforcing violence. That fact will get us into all sorts of fascinating conversations.

But let's start off with a quick recapitulation of what we've talked about so [00:01:00] far. You can listen to any of these episodes that we've done so far on Murder, Inc. By themselves. They stand alone, uh, all the in as, uh, all the information presented, but they paint a much. Uh, richer and clearer picture of this deadly organization, murder Inc.

When you put 'em all together. So, um, with that mustache, Chris, can you just recap the elements so far that we've talked about that set us up to how Murder Inc was formed? Yeah. So to, uh, kind of reintroduce some of the major players we have, uh, Abe Ellis, uh, Harry Strauss, happy Mayon, um, Frank Amano, uh, let alter Albert Anastasia, Louis Capone, and.

All these guys together kind of loosely create what we known as, uh, murder Inc. Uh, lpi Bulk Alter and Albert Anastasia were the two heads of the organization. There was two heads, right? And Albert was kind of responsible [00:02:00] for the, uh, the Italian, uh, element of Murder Inc. And lpi, uh, bulk Halter was responsible for the Jewish element of.

Murder Wing, uh, murder Inc. So the, we have those, those basic pieces and there's a whole lot of context that leads us up to how it's formed and labor, slugger, wars, so many other elements that come together. The whole. Situation that was going on in these neighborhoods, these ethnic enclaves, but we've gotten to this point.

Let's talk about the founding and now that we have all these pieces, how is Murder Inc actually put together and why? So after like the cast of Lamar War really and when the, the creation of the National Crime Syndicate, and we talked about this earlier on the episode, one of Murder Inc. Like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and the top top cream of the top mafia came [00:03:00] with this idea of, uh, creating lenar enforcement wing for.

This newly, uh, created national crime syndicates and, you know, it makes sense where, you know, it only takes kind of one person who, uh, start squealing into the police or fly off the handle. And all this hard work that, uh, went into creating something like the national crime syndicates could all just come collapsing.

So basically you have to make people. Terrified of the fact that, you know, your life's gonna be at risk. If you even think about talking, uh, about Lucky Luciano, they probably wouldn't be talking about him cuz he was so high up. But, you know, talking about Lucky Luciano to the cops or anything like that in a lot of ways is basically kind of how our police force works.

In some ways it might get me a little bit of trouble, but it's, it's, it's the threat of violence that really stops a lot of people from committing crimes where, You know, the violence that could happen to them, but the, you know, the, um, [00:04:00] The fact that they can get thrown in jail for many years, or the cops show up and it basically, it's the foundation of almost every society in a lot of ways where without that threat of violence, it's really hard to keep control of anything.

I mean, that, that really is, I mean, I. I don't think that that's a controversial opinion, that the police is the violence arm of the state, and that the state has the monopoly of violence through the police. I mean, that's why if I have a dispute with my neighbor, I can't. Even if it was a, a completely legal dispute, and we went through the courts and it said that my neighbor owes me $10,000 because their tree fell onto my fence.

I can't go and collect it from them personally. I can't take their property. The mafia needed something like that because otherwise it would be chaos. You think about different situations where clans, I mean on Sicily, even clans fight each other [00:05:00] and they have wars that go over the course of generations.

The National Crime Syndicate, if it was going to be a professional operation needed, needed that ability to impose its will on people who are members. Exactly, and it, I mean, it's a natural, I think it's a natural, uh, uh, progression of just organized crime in general in the United States becoming more organized.

You, you mentioned like the tree falling, like I'd recently been listening to, uh, some history on the Vikings and the Vikings Society kind of ran, it was like an honor society where, oh, Your tree fell on my tree and it like, you're not gonna pay for it. I'm gonna personally go and take care of you myself.

And, you know, for like a somewhat like less organized society. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, we, we talked about earlier in the series, this is how the mafia used to take care of proms. They'd have [00:06:00] these like crazy shootouts in the middle of the streets, but at this point they start realizing. You know, as a state realizes like we can't just have like the neighbor shooting the other neighbor because you know, he flipped his cow or something like that.

It just doesn't work like that. Like the neighbor has to be able to go to this third party, which is the legal system, or let's say for arguments, like just say the police, this is what my other neighbor did. They have to investigate it, see what happened, and. Come to the conclusion like, who's at fault here is, or if anybody's at fault.

And a lot of ways, this is kind of how Murder Inc was used, where they get hired to do the jobs, but people within the national crime sate would sit for a very long time discussing, you know, what to do about so-and-so individual. And we'll get into it. Uh, when we talk about Judge Schultz, when there was a very long meeting about.

What to do about him. Exactly. So in, in a way it was, it was [00:07:00] professionalizing, uh, the mafia. I know it sounds crazy cuz we're talking about something called Murder Inc. And once we start getting into some of these murders, it doesn't seem very professional, but it, it really was in a lot of ways, especially when you compare it to how the early mob ran.

And you don't have to look very like. Bar just listened to some of our earlier episodes and we talked about it on there. You needed this mechanism to keep everybody honest and try and quell as much violence as much as you can. And now this geographically, Speaking, we're really talking mostly about the New York City area.

Where was Murder Inc. Based out of inside of New York City. We've talked so much about Brownsville and parts of Manhattan, and a lot of these characters come from this Brownsville neighborhood. Is this carried through? One of its nickname was, was the Brownsville Boys. So that just tells you basically was, uh, all the major players [00:08:00] were from Brownsville or pretty close to it.

Uh, it also went by, another nickname was called The Combination, I believe that was, I can think it was like, kind of like a nickname. It was like a reference to like the combination of like the, the Jewish. Mafia and the Italian mafia coming together to work, uh, um, to work together. Almost like a combination.

The group's like main base of operations, believe it or not, was a place called Midnight Rosie's, uh, candy Store. And this is a, Rosie Gold was a, she was 60 years old. Uh, it was a six year old lady running this candy store, uh, that was like harboring some of the most ruthless, uh, killers that the United States has ever seen.

Um, and probably this, I would say that the most ruthless, uh, killing machine the mob ever created. I mean, you could make an argument, maybe Roy, a male, but I don't think Roy to male put up the type of numbers that murder machine ends [00:09:00] up putting up. Uh, when we do our wrap up of it, Now, uh, how were these, the Combination or Murder Inc.

This group, how were they employed, so to speak, or contracted as Murder, Inc. For the National Crime Syndicate. Oh yeah. What more crazy story, but like that candy store, uh, it's surprisingly, you'll hear, you'll hear a lot of about candy stores in the next couple episodes. They headphones would be lined up in the back and all the, the, you know, the, uh, members of Murder Inc.

They wouldn't literally be just sitting there by the phones, but apparently when these phones went off, like the guys wouldn't answer the call and they're like, oh yeah, there's a, there's a job coming up. And I get this image of them like, You know, like all times are tough and then like they hear the phone go off and they're all like chasing over each other to go get the, to go answer the call for the, for the next job.

But it sounds like something of a, like a kind of a cheesy Tarantino movie. I mean. Well, and that will, will start discussing that. You can see why they [00:10:00] would want to literally fight each other for these contracts because of how much they got paid for them. Oh yeah. Yes. So you were talking, you mentioned earlier, basically how like Murder Inc worked and it, it kind of gets back into what we were talking about earlier, but the, the mafia becoming more of a professional operation was each member of Murder Inc.

Was paid a retainer. So people like Louis Capone we had talked about on previous episodes, uh, previous episode, we would, would, um, Go out and find prospects. Right. And if they were good, they'd get hired to be part of Murder Inc. They obviously have to show that they were good or had previously shown that they were good.

And yeah, they would be paid a retainer, which is. Basically a salary, um, just to be there, right? So to answer any calls where if they needed somebody needed something done and they wanted you to do it, you'd have to do the job, right? Um, and for each [00:11:00] hit that these guys would get, they get paid around, depends on the hit, where it is, uh, how important that is, a thousand dollars to.

Uh, uh, $5,000 per hit, which at the time that we're talking about, that's, that's a lot of money. Uh, and even the families, uh, like even the hitman's uh, families were compensated too. So I assume maybe they didn't have to pay for groceries or, you know, things of that nature or certain medical bills. Uh, basically this kind of ran.

Like you would, like a modern corporation would run in a lot of ways, or you know, like you get your base salary and then you get commission depending on like what you're selling or if you do something really good. It's a, it's amazing to me too that you think about the mafia and you think that they're all killers, but in a lot of cases, they're not all killers.

They might be Tufts and they might have no problem beating somebody up, but it, it's a big step to be a [00:12:00] killer. And then you see a lot of the people who were. In the mafia who were killers, they weren't smart about it at all, or they weren't hardcore enough of killers to be hit men. So I, you can see how you would have to put together a group of people who are just absolutely bloodless, cold blooded killers.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, we will like later on we'll get into like when we do like the wrap up episode by baby, in some ways this wasn't the greatest idea. But I mean if, I guess if I was lucky Luciano, or if I was Meyer Lansky, I would be, yeah, this is a brilliant idea. Why would not do this? I mean, and it did work for a very, Very long time.

But in this system of paying like the retainers and like, uh, uh, helping the Hitman's families, it basically like, kind of ensured, uh, that this people [00:13:00] involved in Murder Inc. Were, would stay loyal for one. But it also made sure that potentially that these crazy killers that they were hiring, cuz they knew they were crazy killers, that's why they hired them in the first place, wouldn't.

Turn on them because a lot, in a lot of ways their, you know, their salary dependent on working for the people who actually ran Murder Inc. The National Crime Syndicate. That was probably one of the biggest things that the guys at the top were very worried about was these other bosses. Um, hiring these crazy like people like Pittsburgh, Phil, to go take out another boss and remarkably it.

That never actually happened. It's crazy to think about it, but it, it didn't happen. And, and following up on that, you don't maybe necessarily want to have that kind of person sitting in a family. It's uh, kinda like the, what do they say? That, uh, if you have a hammer, everything problem becomes a nail.

Maybe getting these guys into their [00:14:00] own. Silo where they won't be out on the street and they have to feel like they need to run scams. And you have just absolutely psychopathic killers out there who are either gonna be used against other gangs or they're just going to be unleashed and you're basically unleashing serial killers out onto the, out onto the town when.

Luciano and Meyer Lansky and all these people, they wanted to run an operation that was designed to just make money. I think a lot of the, I mean really a lot of the. Older mafia people making money was definitely important, but they also liked to break heads and they weren't as singularly focused, uh, as making a moneymaking operation.

Steve, here we are, a member of the Parthenon Podcast Network, featuring great podcast like Mark v Net's, history of [00:15:00] North America Podcast. Go over to paron podcast.com to learn more. And now a quick word from our sponsors. Yeah. You know, I guess, uh, I guess you can like crack a joke about like, you know, American capitalism changed the mafia for better.

I don you. No, but it's the truth though. Like, as in Sicily, a lot of the petty vendettas and stuff like that we talked to, well the, like, people like Lucky Luciano would complain about the mustache. Petes that, I mean, still ran in Sicily like that in a lot of ways for a very, very, very, very long time. Much longer than Sadie.

American Mafia. I mean, I guess adopting its, uh, view like its, uh, economic. Outlook on, uh, the world. Um, definitely did change it. I mean, what's the economic outlook on the, that the Americans have about the rest of the world? It really, at its core, it's, it is capitalistic [00:16:00] and it's, it's turning things into businesses.

The, that's what Luciano and Meyer, Lansky and those guys did is that they turned. Organized, they turned crime into a business. I mean, we'll get into it in future series, but you look at a lot of these mafia people that we will talk about, it's pretty indistinguishable between them and businessmen. Some of the people are obviously, Street guys who liked to just sit around all day playing, uh, cards and drinking coffee, but there was a lot of them who were basically running completely legit businesses with, with organized crime running underneath.

But that leads us into, we'll get into the actual business now of Murder, Inc. You've curated a few of the more infamous or really wild tales of hits done by Murder [00:17:00] Inc. Now, you're, we're not gonna get into the super graphic details on this. Podcast is, we try to keep this as family friendly as you can keep a topic such as this, but we are going to talk about some of the things that happened.

Uh, this might be a time that you would wanna turn it off in the, the minivan, but let's start off with the murder of Abe Wagner. Yeah, so Abe Wagner was a, like a smallish kind of bootlegger in around the Brownsville, uh, I'm sorry, uh, on the Lower East Side with his brother Ali. And this is, from what I've read, um, there was a new upstart gang and I've heard conflicting information about this gang, the Maza gang.

Some people say it was, uh, It was a real gang, but then it wasn't a real gang and I couldn't really get a clear answer about this. Like, I think I remember reading, I think people at the time were [00:18:00] confused that it was just like, it was just the Italian mafia. It wasn't like this different type of gang. I, I don't know.

It's confusing. If anybody has any information about that, uh, they can point, you know, show me, um, Because I was having difficulty finding out whether this was like a real, like an actual gang or not a gang, or just a confusion. Like a lot of this time period, a lot of this stuff is, a lot of people are kind of confused exactly what happened.

Um, but yeah, to get back on track, um, Yeah, they, they, from what I read, they moved in and started, moved in on his, him and his, uh, brother's, uh, bootlegging operations. And they attempted to kill Abe by, uh, via drive-by. But Abe was, uh, surprisingly, um, able survive this situation from what I read. He rolled out of the passenger's passenger door and they shot up.

The truck with like hundreds of bullets shot up the car with like hundreds of [00:19:00] bullets. But yeah, he was able to roll out and ran away, you know, something straight out of Hollywood. Crazy, crazy, you know? And that's not the only time. He'll, he'll get away. One more time. Um. Yeah, Abe used to like, I don't know, he used to like going around town telling everybody like, you know what a tough guy he was.

But like, as soon as uh, um, you know, things got really serious, he, you know, he wasn't like a real tough guy. And, uh, one of Abe's brothers went to, uh, actually went to this Maza gang and offered a truce and they killed him. And, and uh, basically sending Abe the message like, yeah, there's gonna be no truth.

You're just gonna stop doing what you're doing or we're gonna get you next. Uh, you know, and Abe obviously being a smart man, fearing for his life, uh, obviously went into hiding. Uh, and this is where kind of things get a little bit murky, where I've, I've read conflicting [00:20:00] things where maybe he became an informant or maybe he didn't, um, It would make sense if he kind of became an informant.

He'd go the one group of people that might be able to save his life, the police and the legal system. Um, but it doesn't really, it's not really relevant in terms of Murder Inc though, where the national crimes indicate is that. The way they looked at it, it's like if you even had the potential of being an informant, that was in a lot of ways just good enough to take you out because it just wasn't worth the risk for them.

Um, cuz like I said, it could take one informant to take down the whole system and, you know, when Abe Ellis becomes an informant, uh, when we got into the trial aspect of Murder Inc. Uh, he almost did that. So, um, Yeah. And, uh, Abe ended up just, uh, running out to, uh, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he actually opened up a grocery store and took out a different name and started living [00:21:00] like a semi legitimate life.

Really. Uh, maybe this was an honest attempt by him to be like, you know what, I, I don't want anything to do with this crime stuff anymore. I'm just gonna open up a grocery store and one of the quietest places in the world, Minnesota, and, you know, just want to be left alone. Uh, But, uh, I guess the national crime ate, uh, got information where, uh, Abe was, and they hired two guys named Joseph Young and, uh, sorry, uh, George Young and Joseph Schafer to, uh, perf go take out Abe.

And, uh, that's what they did. Um, I think it was, um, one night, uh, Abe and, uh, his partner, I guess is who were helping him run the grocery store. They, they were leaving a pharmacy and they, uh, George and Joseph Sawm, and they immediately started shooting, killing, uh, Al Gordon almost instantaneously. And Abe was able to run away again, and he got away for a little bit.

And then he got, [00:22:00] he ran into, uh, the Green Dragon restaurant and, uh, uh, George and uh, Joseph got went in there and they shot him up. Uh, many times and then, uh, you know, gave them a few wax on the head with the butt ends of their guns right in front of all the customers. I just not say it just shows you that even back then, you just couldn't get away with it.

Get away from the mafia. Like once they put their sights on you, they were going to fulfill the contract. Now this next one you picked is probably one of the most famous murders that they did, and that's the murder of George Rudnick. And that plays into a lot of the themes of the things that we've been talking about, uh, through this entire series on Murder Inc.

Yeah. George Rudnick. He was, um, Like a petty criminal that was, you know, in and around all these guys. Right. And, uh, like during the thirties, uh, we're, when we get into the trial episode episode, we'll [00:23:00] end up having to talk about Thomas Dewey. We'll probably end up doing a. Series on Thomas Dewey, just cuz he was such an important, uh, figure in the early in, not just early mob, just mob history in general in terms of the, the punishment aspect of it.

Um, yeah, so it was, yeah, during this time period, like Thomas Dewey's, like crusade against organized crime, um, Really started wrapping, uh, RA ratcheting up and his main target, uh, right at the, well, one of his main targets was Lepke Bo Holter, cuz the Lepke was probably one of the, it. The most powerful racketeer in the United States at that time period.

So Lepke started getting like super paranoid about people becoming informant or ratting on him, or, you know, squealing, you know, all that type of stuff. And Rudnick had the reputation of maybe being a stool pigeon. He also was a, like a opium addict. So that also that which was well [00:24:00] known, which, you know, made people very nervous even, uh, Even a later mob, right?

That one of the reasons, it's kind of a lie, but one of the reasons they had like kind of a harsh stance on drugs was, you know, you can't really trust a junkie. You know, you can't really, it doesn't matter whether it's the, you know, they're an organized crime or not, right? Like you can't trust a drug addict cuz they're a drug addict.

Drugs are first, you know what I mean? That's, yeah, that's basically it. Right? Um, And, um, Leke had to order George Rodnick to leave New York as he was worried that he was talking. So in some ways, Leke kind of gave him an opportunity. He's like, but you know what? Like, I really don't wanna, I don't wanna do this, so just leave New York, right?

Just get outta here. Go wherever you want. I don't care where you go. Um, just can't be here right now. Uh, and obviously George didn't listen to, uh, you know, well, well, you'll find out in a little bit. Uh, it was probably not a good idea. [00:25:00] And in 19, uh, 37, uh, Frank Abano picked up redneck with a stolen car.

This was one of murder Inc's, uh, techniques is they would steal a car. I mean, they would use this for the murder and then they ditch the car. Uh, so it'd be harder to trace back to, uh, anybody cuz it was a stolen vehicle. Right. Makes sense. I'm sure it's probably a technique that's still used nowadays. Um, Yeah.

And they picked up, uh, he picked up redneck, uh, redneck, probably not realizing what was in, uh, what was gonna happen in the next couple of minutes. They dropped him off at the garage, I guess, where they were all gonna hang out and, you know, happy my own, uh, Harry Strauss and Abe, uh, res were waiting for him and yeah.

George Rudnick, yeah. Ended up getting stabbed 63 times with, um, With a nice pick. You can actually see, if you're not squeamish, you can actually see pictures of the, the crime scene as crazy as that sounds there. There, yeah, there's [00:26:00] quite a few of them actually. Um, Yeah. And they would end up, uh, dumping George's body in the car on the streets, and the cops, uh, would find him later, you know, with one of the most crisply crime scenes, uh, probably they've ever seen.

And then I always, that kind of just blew my mind that they would just leave the body and just I, in the middle of the street, I mean, I guess at that point they just thought they were untouchable. They'd gotten away with so many murders beforehand and nothing had happened. You know, why isn't anyone gonna care about this stupid, uh, Junkie and we really get to see how v vicious and violent and brutal they were.

And we're gonna see that in the next really high profile murder that of PGY Feinstein. We talked about one of the Shapiro brothers getting buried Alive, which was. I mean, that just makes my skin crawl, just even faking about it. But I guess you could argue this is probably the [00:27:00] most ruthless murder that Murder Inc.

Ever did. PGY used to do business with Leke and the gambling and labor racketeering. Uh, so, you know, him and Leke were, you know, business partners, probably kind of friends in some ways. Uh, but, uh, PGY would end up making a, like a pretty big mistake. He was by moving in territory that wasn't his and. Know he was getting in Leke way.

Um, this murder would actually occur in, you know, a les's own house. Uh, I believe his, I believe his grandmother was living at that house at the time. So she was like upstairs sleeping while this was all going on. Um, in the year 19, uh, 39 Abe Res, Harry Strauss, and, uh, Martin Gold being went ambush pgy, you know, once he was invited into the house.

Uh, and, you know, Harry Strauss, uh, his specialty was using an ice pick. And apparently while he was, uh, doing the job, [00:28:00] PGY uh, had the audacity to, uh, take a few bites out of his finger and, uh, It's for as mean and as ruthless as a man like, uh, Harry STRs was and didn't mind killing people and all the messiness that was involved in that.

Apparently he was a hypochondriac cuz he apparently freaked out when Pgy bit his finger. He thought he was gonna get lock jaw and he just could not believe that like somebody would bite his finger. Um, It sounds like something kind of like out of the comedy, he loses it, uh, he freaks out that, you know, he, we'll get into it in a little bit, like during the trial and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah. He was like worried that he was gonna get lock jaw. And then this is all based off what a Ellis said. I mean, a Ellis was there. I don't know. No reason not to believe him or anything. There's no reason to really lie about a detail like that. Uh, it seems inconsequential really to the trial. So, um, And [00:29:00] basically what they ended up doing with PGY is they were so upset with him, you know, that he just, I don't know, he just didn't take it.

They tied him up in such a way that, um, I don't know how to describe it via podcast. Like it's even hard to. They basically like tied him up in such a way that his feet were like, kind of attached to his, like the rope were tied, was tied around his feet, and then it was tied around his neck. And basically what what ended up happening is if his feet moved a little bit at all the, the knees around his neck would slowly tighten.

Um, and it would slowly, uh, kill 'em. And apparently they, all these guys just sat around and enjoyed watching 'em do this. Like this is, uh, people say, uh, you know, which guys are like, are mob killers, like serial killers? I mean, this is straight up. That's, that's serial killer stuff.

Steve, here again with a quick word from our [00:30:00] sponsors. Yeah, that's, I, I a hundred percent agree that you really see the, the step here. They are not people who are just murdering for work. This is pure enjoyment for them, and the money is probably a side benefit that they really are serial killers. Now, here's a really interesting one that you picked the murder of Joe Rosen.

Joe Rosen was a legitimate, uh, businessman his whole life. He didn't have any. Run-ins with the laws. And I, I picked this one for a very particular reason. I think by the end of it, you'll, you'll understand. Like he had no runs, run-ins with the law. He was born in Brownsville too. And unlike many of the characters that we've been talking about, he actually decided, you know what?

I'm actually just gonna work. So he worked and in the trucking industry and through hard work and sacrifice, he was able to save up enough money on his own to start his own little trucking business to. Cater to, uh, non-union tailor [00:31:00] companies in Pennsylvania. Um, But Leke didn't, didn't like having non-union business in his neighborhood cuz he, you know, he ran the unions.

Right. Uh, it wasn't like we've talked about like it was the garment union, I think we were particularly focused on, and the episode we talked about the labor slugger wars, but Leke was involved in all different types of like, Unions, you know, trucking, even like, I think it was like flowers too and like flower arrangement shops and he was involved in all of it.

Um, lots of different things. Um, but yeah, to get back to it, uh, and at this, the reason why he didn't want, uh, Joe Rose Rosen doing like catering to like non-union companies in Pennsylvania was because he ran the el amalgamated clo uh, clothing workers union. Uh, and it was like kind of cutting into his business, right?

Uh, you know, you're paying, you know, not having to pay for like union dues and stuff like that. Maybe the costs were a [00:32:00] little bit lower and, you know, for the products and, you know, life. He just didn't want, I didn't want any competition. Like, this is my territory. You're not allowed to do this. This poor guy, this poor little guy that's just running like this small little trucking company.

Kind of irrelevant to what luck key's doing. The amount of money that Lucky's bringing in. Right. Just a, just a power hungry control freak. Um. Yeah. And Joe Rosen, he like even sits down and talk to Lepke, it's like, well, if I lose this Pennsylvania contract, I might as well just shut down everything. Um, and Lepke apparently sets him up with a job in the Garfield Express Trucking company.

Um, Apparently Lewis, uh, that he owned like 50% of, uh, eight months later the owner, the other half of the owner of the truck company, uh, fires Rosen and you know, Rosen's outta work for 18 months. And it really just kind of show you at the core of it what the mob [00:33:00] is really all about. It's intimidation.

It's. This is the hidden cost of the mob. This is the part that people don't see, like they think like the mob guys are just, you know, they're just taking out other mobsters or it's just affecting other mobsters. That's just not reality. It's affecting the, you know, the everyday working Joe too, and like Joe Rosen kind of perfectly.

Represents this. And what do you think Joe Rosen, I mean, he's the American dream really when you think about it. But think about it yourself. You're uh, just a regular guy, a regular Joe trying to make your way, and then you get forced, uh, forced into this situation where you have to deal with these, you know, brutal, violent thugs.

What do you do? Do you play ball with them? Do you, uh, Try to work around it. Do you go through the system, through the police? I mean, you're basically, Joe's put in a completely impossible situation. Yeah. You [00:34:00] know? Yeah, for sure. Right. And what is Joe supposed to do in this situation? What is he gonna. I mean, maybe he could have beat up Lepke in a fight.

Like, you know what I mean? But like, yeah, maybe Joe was, what was that guy to, you know what I mean? He just signed up getting killed. Right. Um, I, and, but like Joe was able to, uh, he was able to secure a small loan. He was able to open up an, you know, here was a candy shop coming up again, uh, and uh, opening up a small candy shop.

But apparently he was very vocal around town that he was, uh, screwed over by Lepke and his friends. And you know, Thomas Dewey apparently starts hearing, or at least Lepke thinks that Thomas Dew is hearing Joe Rosen talk about how he got screwed over. Um, because at this time Thomas Dewe is investigating the amalgamated, uh, clothing, uh, clothing workers union and various other rockets that Leke is involved.

And, you know, in a lot of ways Leke was justified in being, you know, paranoid about people routing [00:35:00] on him. He had, look, here's an example of just one guy, Joe Rosen, that he screwed over completely that. Just was unnecessary. Of course, he's gonna have a lot of enemies. Lucky actually tries to buy Joe Rosen off.

He sends one of his coworkers, uh, co mobsters if you wanna call them to his candy shop and. Basically says over here's 200 bucks, just get outta town until things cool off. Apparently Joe Rosen's like, well, okay, whatever, I'll take the 200 bucks. And he does leave for a bit, uh, but only a bit. He ends up just coming back and apparently when, um, Leke found out that Joe Rosen came back, he.

Completely, uh, blew a gasket. You know, it's like, oh, I gave him 200 bucks to leave town. You know, completely forgetting about the fact that you'd completely ruined this man's life and all the hard work that he had done, and now you're paranoid that he's gonna, you know, he's gonna ride on you. Uh, to, uh, Thomas Dewey, I just, these, these guys are [00:36:00] in a lot of ways, like children, like he could have paid them.

Really well. And like children had cheap too, right? Like 200 bucks. Really. Like you're paying guys like $5,000 to do ahead. If you had given Joe Rosen say, I don't know, 10 grand. Probably a good chance. Maybe Joe Rosen just leaves. I mean, I wouldn't say it's completely fair financial compensation considering all the other stuff that he had put 'em through.

But $200, it's like a slap in the face really. It's just so disrespectful. Um, Yeah, but to get back to it, uh, Leke ends up ordering the hits for, uh, ordering the hit on Joe Rosen and. On September 13th, 1936, a band of killers led by Harry Strauss broke into the candy shop, uh, waiting for drill Rosen to, uh, open up.

And once, uh, Rosen did open up, he was ambushed, uh, shooting him 17 times with Harry, adding a, another [00:37:00] four when it was very clearly dead, um, caught. It's just, just brutal. Like this guy didn't do, this guy didn't do anything to deserve this. You know? And when Leke ends up going to the chair, anybody that even remotely, thanks.

If there's anything to look up to these guys or even remotely feels, I don't know. Oh, did he deserve the Le Leke deserved the electric chair? I mean, you know, people can argue, and this is literally why the electric chair was invented. It was for people like Leke Boulter, out of the alma, maybe hundreds, thousands of murders that these guys did.

Murder Inc. Under the orders of the National Crime Syndicate, and you really touch upon this, that it's not just inside of the mafia. They're killing people outside of the mafia as well and outside of crime. But why do you think that these five murders were so, representative Murder Inc. Was responsible for hundreds of murders.

And you may be asking, like you pointed out, asking yourself like, why I picked, uh, these four to talk about. [00:38:00] And I, I thought to myself like, I don't know these. Out of, uh, out of all the murders, I felt like these four covered pretty much everything that Murder Inc. Did. You know, with Abe, we saw they hunted for a guy like all around the United States, which is something that Murder Inc.

Did. They quite literally, like killed people in, you know, Miami Cleveland. Um, I remember reading, and I can't confirm this, I believe the first official mob hit that was done in the West, done on the West Coast, I believe it was LA, was by Murder Inc. But it had a little bit of difficulty. Uh, Finding the exact information on that, but once I do, we'll probably end up discussing it.

Uh, just to give you an example, like it literally was across the entire United States and Abe. Kind of perfectly represents that. You know, with Rodnick, Rodnick and, uh, pgy, we, uh, we see like a lot of, like, like you pointed out, we see that, uh, they were taking out fellow criminals with, uh, PGY being, uh, competition and rodnick and junkie that [00:39:00] maybe was gonna talk.

And with Rosen, it perfectly represents, uh, what the mob actually is at its core. Like the mob is. It's intimidation, it's cutting down anyone, and everyone stands in their way. You know, they are society unto themselves with little regard to anyone outside of that society. The mob, you know, will kill a little guy like Rosen, and all the people you know, and all the people that idolize them, they'll rob and kill from you too, if it served their purposes, really at the end of the day.

And these four murders that, uh, I think really just captures the full spectrum of everything that, uh, murder Inc. Was all about. It's, um, I just don't think you can say enough of how brutal they are and they really set the, they set the standard, I guess, for Mafia hitman, and I don't think even in some of the people that will talk about later on in this series and another series that they really.

[00:40:00] Anybody could hold a candle to the brutality, the violence, and the organization of Murder, Inc. No, not really. I mean, off the research that I've done so far, I mean down, this is like way, way down the road, but you know, Roy, the Roy DeMeo gangs, pretty much the only one that I think comes close to what Murder Inc.

Was doing. And even the Roy Deel gang, I don't, they didn't really have, they didn't have a Pittsburgh fill. Right. We're not quite done with Murder Inc. Not even close. The Collapse of Murder Inc is just as fascinating and, and unbelievable as it's founding. We'll also take some time to look at some of the, the specific characters and members of Murder Inc.

We'll, we'll see how they all fit together and how each one of these, I mean, Well, we can call 'em psychopaths really brought something different to this organization and they all had their eventual fall. But, uh, we will see you next time. But [00:41:00] don't forget to tell your friends about organized crime and punishment so that your friends can become friends of ours.

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