New in paperback: Fred 'Killer' Burke

Just released: Fred “Killer” Burke: The Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive by Chriss Lyon. The book is available in paperback, 394 pages, through Amazon.

This is an updated special edition of A Killing in Capone’s Playground: The True Story of the Hunt for the Most Dangerous Man Alive, which won a National Indie Excellence Award for True Crime in 2016. It includes new details and photographs acquired since the earlier book's release in 2014.

“Bloody Chicago” was the name given to America’s most corrupt city after the grotesque scene that left seven humans embedded into masonry walls and oil-slickened concrete. Two Thompson submachine guns did the majority of the damage, but the masterminds behind the St. Valentine's Day Massacre escaped. Ten months later on December 14, 1929, St. Joseph, Michigan Police Officer Charles Skelly, working a routine traffic crash, came face to face with a killer.

Shots were fired, the assailant escaped, and the dying Officer Skelly identified his murderer before taking his last breath. The trail led to a home in Stevensville, Michigan, where authorities found an arsenal of weaponry, over $300,000 worth of stolen bonds, bulletproof vests and two Thompson submachine guns. The hideout belonged to Fred Burke, a highly sought suspect in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the most wanted man in the nation.

Lyon

The “backwash of bloody Chicago” had made its way into the rural neighborhoods of Southwestern Michigan and Northern Indiana. Citizens who turned a blind eye to crime helped create “Capone’s Playground,” an environment abundant in all that is illegal and immoral.

Using unpublished police reports, interviews with family members of key witnesses and leading experts, historian Chriss Lyon establishes the foundation for what would develop as a haven for gangsters from the onset of the Prohibition Era through to the mid-twentieth century, while revealing new information about the eventual capture of notorious gangster Fred “Killer” Burke.

Chriss Lyon, a retired public safety professional and historian, has not only walked the beat but shot the most famous Thompson submachine guns in the world, all while documenting and researching the historic era of "The Roaring Twenties." Using techniques of forensic genealogy combined with investigative research, Lyon has been able to uncover little known facts about the people and events surrounding the notorious St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Ex-New England boss Manocchio dies

Former New England Mafia boss Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, known by the nickname "Baby Shacks," died Sunday, December 8, 2024, at the age of ninety seven. He was a resident of the Rhode Island Veterans Home in Bristol, Rhode Island, at the time of his death.

Manocchio

Manocchio was the last New England crime boss based in Rhode Island before the mob's power center shifted back to Boston. He term as boss began with the 1995 arrest of Boston-based leader Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, and it concluded with his retirement in 2009.

Manocchio was born in Providence in June of 1927. He provided birth dates of June 9 and June 23 for official records. His parents were Nicola and Anna Mary Marino Manocchio. His father, Nicola, originally from the community of Baranello, within Campobasso, Molise, Italy, settled on Providence's Acorn Street with his family while still a minor. Anna Mary was a Rhode Island native born to immigrants from Pietra Vairano, Caserta, Campania, Italy. She was raised on Vinton Street, near Gesler Street, about a block south of Atwells Avenue in the northern portion of Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood. Anna Mary was not yet fifteen when she and Nicola were married on May 17, 1921. 

Luigi Giovanni Manocchio was the second son born to Nicola and Anna Mary. Five years separated him from older brother Andrew. A third brother, Anthony, was born more than a decade after Luigi, about 1939.

Luigi grew up in the Little Italy neighborhood on Providence's Federal Hill during the desperate years of the Great Depression. The family home in 1930 was an apartment at 34 Vinton Street, close to Gesler Street. Nicola worked in the Fulford Manufacturing Company jewelry factory in East Providence. Soon after the state census of 1936, the family moved to 36 Gesler Street. Nicola was a foreman for Fulford by that time, and Andrew had begun work in jewelry manufacturing.

At the age of eighteen, early in 1946, Luigi Manocchio enlisted at Boston as a private in the U.S. Army. His enlistment stated his education included just one year of high school and his civil occupation was "semi-skilled chauffeurs and drivers, bus, taxi, truck and tractor." His term in the Army lasted just one year. He was discharged in March 1947. The reason for the discharge is uncertain. He returned to live with his parents and little brother, then residing at 17 Vinton Street just south of Atwells Avenue. 

Luigi Manocchio's first known arrest occurred in December of 1952. He and two accomplices were charged with the $3,800 gunpoint robbery of a D.R. Carner Company payroll truck. Initially charged with two counts of assault and robbery, illegal possession of a revolver and driving a stolen car, Manocchio managed to have all but the possession charge dropped. He received a suspended sentence.

In the later 1960s, Manocchio was apparently part of the Providence Mafia organization run by Raymond L.S. Patriarca out of the Coin-O-Matic Distributing Company headquarters on Atwells Avenue. He had acquired the nickname "Baby Shacks," an apparent reference to an older underworld-connected relative known as "Shacks" for his common practice of "shacking up" with women. 

Patriarca

At that time, Patriarca had a brief conflict with the Marfeo brothers, stubbornly independent gambling racketeers in Providence. On July 13, 1966, William Marfeo was shot four times in a Federal Hill restaurant phone booth. He died on the way to Rhode Island Hospital. Press reports indicated that the forty-one-year-old Marfeo had a police record dating back twenty-five years. Manocchio, then forty two, was shot and wounded in the neck in a gunfight on Federal Hill on December 1, 1967. Police later arrested his pal Joseph A. Schiavone, who was found to be carrying a pistol. They initially (and, it seems, incorrectly) charged Schiavone with committing the shooting assault of Manocchio. According to reports, Manocchio and Schiavone went into hiding in the Midwest for a time until the matter was forgotten.

Rudolph Marfeo, younger brother of the murdered William, was struck and killed by a shotgun discharge on April 20, 1968, while in Pannone's Market, 282 Pocasset Street in Providence. His associate and supposed bodyguard Anthony Melei was also killed. The market was a regular hangout for Marfeo, who lived in an apartment upstairs. Police determined that Patriarca had ordered the killing of Marfeo because, despite what occurred to his brother, he still refused to share the proceeds of his gambling operations with the crime family. The order reportedly was passed through Patriarca aide Henry Tameleo and Ronald Cassesso. Manocchio was one of the men accused of taking part in the planning of the hit.

In the fall of 1968, Manocchio was arrested in connection with the killings of Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei. By that time, Patriarca and two codefendants had already been convicted of the earlier murder of William Marfeo. Manocchio was released on bail and promptly disappeared. 

A nationwide search was conducted for him over the course of the next decade. The FBI watched and repeatedly questioned those known to be close to him, including attorney and friend Thomas DiLuglio and Manocchio's brother Anthony, by then a practicing medical doctor. FBI agents received tips that Manocchio was hiding in New York with Nicholas Bianco. A Providence native and a former New England mafioso, Bianco had relocated to Brooklyn and associated himself with the Colombo Crime Family. Agents found no evidence to support the tip and learned from police agencies in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that there was no information connecting Manocchio with Bianco. Interviewed by the FBI in autumn 1970, Bianco denied knowing Manocchio. Agents also looked into tips that Manocchio was in Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Baltimore, Maryland; Florida; various locations in Europe.

During Manocchio's absence, Patriarca's problems grew. He was tried (acquitted) for loan sharking in 1969 and indicted in that same year of conspiracy to murder in the Rudolph Marfeo case. He and four codefendants were convicted in March 1970. The different cases and convictions resulted in Patriarca being transferred back and forth between state and federal lockups. He was paroled from his last remaining state sentence early in 1975. (He faced additional charges of murder conspiracy and labor racketeering late in life but died in 1984 before those could be brought to trial.)

Manocchio surrendered himself to authorities on July 13, 1979, apparently believing that advancing years and declining mental faculties of a key witness against him would prevent him from being convicted. However, a jury found him guilty as an accessory to murder in 1983, and he was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences plus ten years. He won release on bail during a 1985 appeal and succeeded in having his conviction overturned.

The later 1980s saw Manocchio rise to become a powerful leader in the New England Crime Family and a close ally of Boston-based "Cadillac Frank" Salemme. Manocchio reportedly oversaw bookmaking, loan sharking and robbery rackets in Rhode Island. He used a Federal Hill laundromat as his headquarters and lived modestly in an apartment above the Euro Bistro restaurant on Atwells Avenue. Overall leadership of the New England organization was cloudy in the period. Patriarca was succeeded for a time by his son. Factions emerged and some violence erupted. Bianco returned to New England to oversee operations for a time, but he was removed by a successful prosecution for racketeering conspiracy. By 1991, Salemme was in control.

Manocchio (1990s)

A reputed hit man, Kevin Hanrahan was murdered in 1992. Law enforcement later learned that Hanrahan had been involved in a failed effort to murder Manocchio through a bombing of the Euro Bistro. Statements obtained for court documents indicated that Salemme and Manocchio planned the vendetta murder of Hanrahan, but neither Mafia leader was charged.

Salemme was taken into custody in 1995, and Manocchio was elevated to the position of boss. In the following year, Manocchio was tied in with a large New England burglary ring. Investigators learned that he installed stolen appliances, gifted to him as tribute from ring members, in an apartment he renovated for his mother. After some negotiations, Manocchio pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of accepting stolen applicance and received a suspended sentence. 

FBI agents in 2008 linked Manocchio to the extortion of protection payments from Providence-area strip clubs, but he was not immediately prosecuted. Perhaps anticipated the case against him, in 2009, Manocchio decided to step down from New England Mafia leadership. The federal extortion case proceeded in 2011 with his January arrest at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida, airport. The case involved threats of violence against strip club owners if monthly payments were not provided. Though Manocchio insisted that he had never threatened anyone, early in 2012 he reached another plea deal. He admitted conspiring in a racketeering enterprise. On May 11 of that year, he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. He made a brief comment at his sentencing hearing: "By virtue of my position, I inherited the deeds of my associates. I simply do not want my family and my friends to think that I personally threatened anyone."

He was released from federal prison in North Carolina in 2015 and was allowed to spend six remaining months of his sentence in home confinement. He reportedly lived quietly through his remaining years.

Sources

• "Alleged N.E. Cosa Nostra chieftain faces trial," Springfield MA Union, Dec. 14, 1967, p. 15.
• Barry, Dan, "R.I. crime figure Nicholas Bianco dies in prison," Providence Journal, Nov. 15, 1994, p. 1.
• Berger, Joseph, "Raymond Patriarca, 76 dies; New England crime figure," New York Times, July 12, 1984.
• Clendinen, Dudley, "Of crime, equal rights and a mental hospital," New York Times, Nov. 5, 1984.
• Connolly, Richard J., and Jim Calogero, "Raymond Patriarca dies at 76; reputedly ruled N.E. organized crime," Boston Globe, July 12, 1984.
• "FBI nabs a fifth in R.I. gang killings," Newport RI Daily News, Aug. 15, 1969, p. 1.
• "Gang killing being probed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, July 14, 1966, p. 13.
• "Hub death may be gang slaying; man also wounded in Rhode Island," Holyoke MA Transcript-Telegram, Dec. 1, 1967, p. 14.
• Krupa, Gregg, "A look inside the Boston mob," Providence Journal, May 26, 1985, p. A1.
• Louis Manocchio World War II Army Enlistment Record, Fort Banks, Boston MA, service no. 31507596, Jan. 10, 1946.
• MacGougall, Ian, "Reputed mob boss pleads not guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 25, 2011, p. B3.
• Marriages registered in the City of Providence R.I. for the Year Ending December 31st, 1921, p. 197, Ancestry.com.
• McWeeney, Sean M., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio... Fugitive," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-42, NARA no. 124-10212-10052, Oct. 23, 1969.
• Mooney, Tom, "'I inherited the deeds of my associates,'" Providence Journal, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Murphy, Shelley, "Reputed ex-N.E. mob boss arrested," Boston Globe, Jan. 21, 2011, p. 1.
• Nicola Manocchio World War I Draft Registration, serial no. 3871, order no. 3746, Division No. 9, Providence RI, Sept. 12, 1918.
• Nicola Manocchio World War II Draft Registration, serial no. T-790, oreder no. T10-160, Local Board No. 11, Providence RI, Feb. 16, 1942.
• "Patriarca is released in $25,000 bail; arrested for first time in 20 years," Nashua NH Telegraph, June 22, 1967, p. 20.
• "Patriarca jailed," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 19, 1969, p. 5.
• "Patriarca released on parole," Berkshire Eagle, Jan. 9, 1975, p. 8.
• "Patriarca, 2 others sentence date set," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 9, 1968, p. 1.
• "Patriarca, four others convicted," Fitchburg MA Sentinel, March 28, 1970, p. 1.
• "Patriarca: The man and the mob," Providence Journal, July 15, 1984.
• "Raymond Patriarca," TIME, July 23, 1984, p. 103.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchi, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-98, NARA no. 124-10207-10267, Sept. 25, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-100, NARA no. 124-10207-10269, Oct. 30, 1970.
• Reppucci, Charles A., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio," FBI report BS 166-845, NARA #124-10207-10271, Jan. 29, 1971. 
• State of Rhode Island Census, Providence County, Providence City, Census Tract 253, Jan. 20, 1936.
• Sullivan, John G., "Luigi Giovanni Manocchio, aka-Fugitive...," FBI report of Boston office, file no. 166-4355-120, NARA no. 127-10207-10290, Jan. 31, 1972.
• "Two men slain gangland-style in Providence," Boston Globe, April 21, 1968, p. 22.
• "Two mob members admit to extortion," Boston Globe, March 14, 2012, p. B2.
• United States Census of 1920, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 286.
• United States Census of 1930, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 9, Enumeration District 4-104.
• United States Census of 1940, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Ward 13, Enumeration District 6-253.
• United States Census of 1950, Rhode Island, Providence County, Providence City, Enumeration District 7-366.
• White, Tim, "Manocchio, last New England mob boss from Rhode Island, dead at 97," WPRI, wpri.com, Dec. 8, 2024.
• Valencia, Milton J., "5 Mafia figures to plead guilty," Boston Globe, Feb. 17, 2012, p. B1.
• Valencia, Milton J., "Former N.E. mob boss gets 5 1/2 years," Boston Globe, May 12, 2012, p. B2.

Joe 'Adonis' Doto dies in exile

On this date in 1971:

New York Daily News

Giuseppe Doto, better known by gangland nickname Joe Adonis, died Friday, November 26, 1971, at the general hospital in Ancona, Italy. He was sixty nine years old. Death was caused by complications of pneumonia and heart disease.

Born in Montemarano, near Naples, late in 1901, young Doto entered the U.S. with his parents and settled in Brooklyn. As Adonis, he grew into a U.S. Mafia powerhouse from the days of Prohibition into the 1950s. Hounded by city authorities in the early 1940s, he relocated to the Fort Lee, New Jersey, area. Though involved in numerous rackets for decades, he managed to avoid prison until a New Jersey gambling conviction in 1951 earned him a two- to three-year sentence.

In 1954, he got into some trouble due to his under-oath claims of being born in Passaic, New Jersey. A supporting record was found to be fraudulent, and Adonis was traced to his origin in Montemarano. Faced with prison sentences and likely deportation for perjury, Adonis agreed to leave the country.

Leaving behind his wife Jean and four children in New Jersey, he sailed for Italy aboard the ocean liner Conte Biancamano in 1956 (reportedly booking an expensive three-room cabin for the trip). He stayed for a time with relatives in the Naples area, but eventually settled in downtown Milan in northern Italy.

He was reported to be weak and in poor health in spring of 1971, when authorities decided that his apparent continuing underworld connections were a threat to order. A court sentenced him to four years of close police surveillance in the small community of Serra de Conti, about twenty five miles inland of the Adriatic coastal community of Ancona. At the time, Adonis protested his relocation: "I'm just a poor old man. I don't understand what you've got against me." He called the sentence an exile within an exile and expressed his certainty that the move "will kill me."

On appeal, Adonis succeeded in having the surveillance sentence reduced from four years to three. But he was losing a battle against pneumonia. On November 23, 1971, he was admitted to the hospital in Ancona. When he died, a few days later, his thirty-two-year-old secretary, Rosemarie Bloch, was by his bedside. According to one report, Adonis's wife and two of their four children, learning of his illness, flew to Italy and arrived in Ancona just minutes before he passed away.

Rosemarie Bloch and Adonis's daughter, Mrs. Dolores Maria Olmo, made arrangements with the U.S. consulate at Rome to have Adonis's remains flown back to the U.S. for burial. The body arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York on December 2. It was contained in a burnished bronze coffin in the cargo hold of an Alitalia jet. The A.K. Macagna Funeral Home of Anderson Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, handled the final arrangements. 

Adonis was buried at Madonna Cemetery in Fort Lee on December 6. His send-off was modest by gangland standards. Three cars of floral tributes led a cortege of fifteen cars between the funeral home and Epiphany Church, where a funeral Mass was celebrated. Family members and close friends proceeded on to Madonna Cemetery, straddling the Fort Lee-Leonia boundary. They were met there by a group of newsmen. The family left the site before the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Sources 

• "Adonis to lie in N.J. grave," New York Daily News, Nov. 30, 1971, p. 80.
• "Adonis' body returned for U.S. burial," Newsday (Nassau Edition), Dec. 3, 1971, p. 33.
• "Adonis' mourners," photo caption, Newsday (Nassau Edition), Dec. 7, 1971, p. 32.
• "Joe Adonis one of 8 cited in Dewey reply," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 3, 1937, p. 1.
• "Joe Adonis, underworld gambling king, dies," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 34.
• Charlton, Linda, "Returned to Italy in '56," New York Times, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 34.
• Lee, Henry, "Joe Adonis dies unwanted," New York Daily News, Nov. 27, 1971, p. 2.
• Murray, Leo, "Offer birth certificates from Italy in Adonis case," Paterson NJ Morning Call, Jan. 15, 1954, p. 1.
• Packard, Reynolds, "Adonis' kin here asks for body," New York Daily News, Nov. 28, 1971, p. 14.
• Plosia, Les, "Few turn out for Adonis burial," Passaic NJ Herald-News, Dec. 7, 1971, p. 12.
• Pugh, Thomas, "The late Joe Adonis home again," New York Daily News, Dec. 3, 1971, p. 4.
• Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 7, New York - New Jersey, U.S. Senate, 81st Congress 2nd Session, 82nd Congress 1st Session, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951, p. 280-301. 

November release planned for Gangster Hunters

Gangster Hunters

How Hoover’s G-Men Vanquished
America’s Deadliest Public Enemies

by John Oller

John Oller’s meticulously researched account of the FBI’s early days is due to be released by Dutton (imprint of Penguin Publishing Group) on November 26, 2024.

John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd – these infamous Depression-era criminals have been immortalized as some of the most vicious felons in our history, but they share another commonality: every single one was brought down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a chaotic war on crime, which started in 1933 and thrust the FBI into the national spotlight for the first time. 

Surprisingly little has been written about field-level agents responsible for hunting down the most dangerous criminals and bringing them to justice... until now. In this new book, Gangster Hunters, critically acclaimed author John Oller (also author of the 2021 release Rogues Gallery) brings to light the true stories of FBI’s unsung heroes. He gives play-by-play accounts of the G-men’s blood-soaked shootouts and intrepid pursuits of fleeing desperadoes while also exploring their methodical detective work.

John Oller

It might come as a surprise that most young FBI agents in the 1930s weren’t prepared for the wild lifestyle their careers would require. The Bureau initially had no jurisdiction over violent crimes, such as murders, bank robberies and kidnappings, and its special agents had little reason to believe they would be involved in such matters. But with Hoover at its helm, FBI quickly gained power and the fresh-faced agents found themselves in high-speed car chases wrapped in bullet-proof vests. Some agents sacrificed everything in the pursuit of justice, some were unceremoniously blacklisted by Hoover, and others simply never received the attention they deserved.

Gangster Hunters is full of exciting new primary research and dozens of never-before-seen photos. Oller interviewed thirty descendants of the early FBI agents he profiles. Weaving together their accounts, his book is able to correct historical accounts and myths about gangsters and manhunts that have long been considered fact.

The print edition of the book contains about 500 pages, including index, endnotes and bibliography. Hardcover and Kindle ebook formats can be ordered now through Amazon.com.