Authors: Paul R. Kavieff
Known in the Detroit underworld as a trigger-man, Detroit police believed that Phillip Kozak’s chief value to the gang was his brutal temper and ability with a gun. The true leader of the Kozak outfit and the man given credit by police for the gang’s early success was James “Jimmy” Carson. Jimmy Carson was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1896; Carson’s parents had originally immigrated from Denmark. Carson was arrested in Ohio for bank robbery when he was in his teens. He was tried and convicted of bank robbery and served four years in the Ohio state-prison system. After his release, he moved to Detroit, where he planned to go straight and get a job. He found employment on a Great Lakes freighter as a merchant marine. Carson stayed on the boats for a short time. Tired of life as a sailor, he returned to Detroit and worked at various jobs. Carson eventually decided that his financial progress was too slow. He began holding up grocery stores and filling stations to supplement his income. His success at eluding the police soon attracted other underworld characters to Carson.
The charismatic Carson became the leader of a gang of safecrackers and gunmen that included Phillip Kozak, Clarence Madden, James Allen, Chester Tutha, Joseph Konon, Steven Raczkowski, Alex Hanacki, and Frank Dion alias Frank Clark. It was conservatively estimated that the gang was involved in at least 100 holdups during a period of approximately 12 months. Carson claimed that in one night on his way from Detroit to Ann Arbor, he held up eight oil stations to supply himself with what he called “chicken feed.”
The gang specialized in holding up banks, grocery stores, filling stations, and drugstores. Operating in similar fashion to Detroit’s earlier Shotgun Gang, the bandits would commit their holdups and then scatter to various rural hideouts. They eventually made their headquarters on a farm at Ridgeway, Michigan, in Lenawee County, about 60 miles south of Detroit. The farm was owned by John Barlow. From this location, the gang regularly committed robberies in Detroit, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Milan, Saline, and other towns and villages in southern Michigan. Barlow’s daughter, Miss Irene Walling Smith, was a girlfriend of Carson and later Dion.
After the arrest of most of the gang as a result of the Cassopolis holdup, Kozak and Carson decided they needed some money. They planned another bank robbery, but decided that it would first be necessary to steal a car that they could use for the heist. On January 11, 1926, Kozak and Carson boarded a jitney in front of the Ford Motor Company Plant in Highland Park, Michigan. They rode in the vehicle to the corner of Six Mile Road and Woodward Avenue in Detroit. The jitney driver stopped to let out the only other passenger besides the two thugs, a young woman. Once the woman got out and disappeared around a corner, Kozak and Carson both pulled guns in an attempt to rob the driver and hijack his vehicle. Ordered to get out of the jitney, the driver put up a fight, and one of the bandits hit him in the head with the butt of a pistol and pushed him out of the vehicle. The commotion attracted the attention of a Detroit police officer named Andrew Rusinko. Rusinko had just walked out of a nearby bank. Observing the robbery in progress, he ran towards the jitney. Both Carson and Kozak fired at the officer, killing him instantly. The two gunmen escaped in the jitney that was found by Detroit police later the same day wrecked in Detroit. With a combined effort of the Detroit, Hamtramck, and State Police departments, a manhunt began. Detectives of the Detroit Police Department later received an underworld tip that Kozak and a man named Jimmy killed Rusinko.
At 1 a.m. on January 16, 1926, Detective John Mickley of the Hamtramck police spotted Kozak and another man, later identified as Carson, coming out of a Hamtramck restaurant on Joseph Campau Avenue. Mickley had arrested Kozak on three previous occasions and knew the gunman well. As Mickley approached the two men and started to reach for his pistol. Kozak grabbed hold of his arm and asked, “What’s the matter, Mickley?” Mickley jerked away, and Carson shot him several times in the back. Kozak and Carson fled, leaving Mickley lying on the sidewalk. Although he was in serious condition, Mickley would eventually recover.
Later the same evening, Carson and Kozak suspected that they were being followed by a Detroit police patrolman. Officer Edward Gerdes had been on his way home when Carson fired at the patrolman. The bullet ricocheted off his badge and hit Gerdes in the hand. At 3 a.m. on the morning of January 16, 1926, Detroit police received a tip that a man fitting Carson’s description had used a public phone in Hamtramck to call a garage in Ridgeway, Michigan. A group of Detroit, Hamtramck, and Michigan State Police officers accompanied by Washtenaw County deputy sheriffs drove out to Ridgeway at 9 a.m. that morning. The officers made inquiries around the village, and by 9 p.m., January 16, they had located the Barlow farm, which the gang was using as a base of operations.
Police surrounded the house and outbuildings. However, Kozak and Carson, who were hiding in a barn, managed to escape the dragnet. Carson was able to get a ride back to Detroit later the same evening, while Kozak hid in a Ridgeway, Michigan, garage. On Sunday, January 17, 1926, Kozak was arrested in Ridgeway and returned to Detroit. He denied having anything to do with the Rusinko shooting but admitted that he had been present the night that Detective Mickley had been shot. He also implicated fellow gang member Frank Dion. The day the police raided the Barlow farm they found a telegram from Barlow’s daughter, Irene Smith. Miss Smith had been visiting Dion’s parents and had accompanied the gangster to Montreal, Canada. The telegram, which was sent to her father, stated that she would arrive in Detroit by train the following Monday. Montreal police were wired, and Dion was picked up and returned to Detroit. A week before Kozak was apprehended in Ridgeway, a warrant had been issued for his arrest as a suspect in the Cassopolis, Michigan, robbery. This warrant was the result of statements made to police by Alex Hanacki implicating Kozak. Kozak later admitted that he was present at Cassopolis the night the gang attempted to rob the bank.
On January 19, 1926, Kozak confessed to Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor James E. Chenot that he was present when Officer Andrew Rusinko was killed but refused to name who shot the officer. Kozak also confessed to a number of other robberies, both in Michigan and out of state. He told police that Frank Dion had been with him the night that Rusinko was shot. When faced with a first-degree murder charge, Dion began to talk. He denied being present or having anything to do with the Rusinko shooting. He readily confessed to participating in 15 holdups in the Detroit area. He also admitted that he had been with several members of the gang when they held up a D.S.R. streetcar barn in Detroit on November 29, 1925. Both Dion and Kozak later pled guilty to the D.S.R. holdup. On February 3, 1926, they were sentenced in Detroit Recorders Court to 15 to 30 years with 20 recommended in Marquette Prison.
James Carson was still being sought by police. His sometime girlfriend, Irene Walling Smith, was picked up by Detroit police for investigation. Through the efforts of detectives, Miss Smith was persuaded to call Carson and arrange to meet him in Detroit. Smith had known Carson’s whereabouts all along but had steadfastly refused to tell police anything. When she finally agreed to set up the meeting, she told officers, “I wouldn’t help you against him if he had stuck to holdups, but when he began to shoot people he was done for, as far as I was concerned. He told me once he would never shoot a man to kill.”
Smith called Carson and arranged a meeting for 7 p.m., February 7, 1926, in Detroit. At 7:20 p.m., Carson was surrounded by Detroit and Michigan State Police. He surrendered without a fight. Carson had roughly disguised himself by growing a mustache and dyeing his hair, mustache, and eyebrows black. He was poorly dressed in an old brown sweater, old trousers, and he wore rubbers on his shoes. He had smeared his face with coal dust.
On February 9, 1926, both Carson and Kozak made joint confessions that they had both shot Rusinko. Kozak finally admitted to pulling the trigger. Carson claimed that he had fired the first shot at Rusinko, and Kozak had fired afterward. It was determined that either wound could have killed the police officer.
Kozak was sent to Marquette Prison on his robbery conviction. On December 14, 1928, he was discharged from Ionia State Hospital for deportation to Poland. Carson was convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying of Detroit Police Officer Andrew Rusinko and sentenced to life in prison.
A total of eight members of the Kozak Gang were tried on various charges:
James Allen
and
Clarence Madden
were tried in Cass County Circuit Court for the November 24, 1925, Cassopolis robbery. Both men were found not guilty.
Joe Konon
was tried and convicted in Detroit Recorders Court for the November 29, 1925, robbery of a D.S.R. car barn in Detroit. He was sentenced to 5-15 years in Jackson Prison.
Steven Raczkowski
was tried and convicted in Detroit Recorders Court for the November 29, 1925, robbery of the D.S.R. car barn in Detroit and sentenced to 15-30 years in Marquette Prison.
Frank Dion aka Clark
was tried and convicted in Detroit Recorders Court for the November 29, 1925, robbery of the D.S.R. car barn in Detroit and sentenced to 15-30 years in Marquette Prison.
Phillip Kozak
was tried and convicted in Detroit Recorders Court for the November 29, 1925, robbery of the D.S.R. car barn and sentenced to 15-30 years in Marquette Prison.
James Carson
pled guilty to the murder of Detroit Police Officer Andrew Rusinko on January 11, 1926, and was given a life sentence.
Chester Tutha and Joe Konon were returned to the custody of Detroit officers on February 21, 1926. Residents of Cassopolis had been unable to identify either of the two men as being the bandits who attempted to rob the town bank. Upon their return to Detroit, they were both immediately charged with a December 5, 1925, holdup of the Michigan Savings Bank, in which $808 had been taken. Both men were later released on this charge. Konon was later convicted of another robbery. The Cassopolis robbery was the beginning of the end for the Kozak Gang. Somehow Chester Tutha managed to evade prosecution on the various charges that were thrown at him. In so doing, he had gained a reputation as a safecracker and a stickup man in the Detroit underworld.
On the morning of April 2, 1927, four men walked into the shoe store of Abe Hallmeyer at 10232 Grand River Avenue in Detroit. Three of the men sat down and were fitted with shoes. A fourth man stood by the door. Suddenly, all four men pulled guns. One hundred dollars was taken from the cash register, a ring was taken from Hallmeyer’s nephew, and another customer was robbed of $10. One of the holdup men walked out of the store wearing a new pair of shoes. Hallmeyer called the police.
Less than 10 minutes after the shoe store holdup, two men fitting the description given by Hallmeyer were spotted by police. A detachment of detectives from the Bethune Station noticed the men sitting in a Hudson Coach auto at Poe and Bethune Streets. As the officers approached the car on foot, both men attempted to pull guns. They were quickly overpowered and placed under arrest. The two suspects gave their names as Chester Tutha, 18 years old, and Alfred Grabale, 19 years old. Both men were wearing new pairs of shoes with the Hallmeyer trademark. Several boxes of new shoes that had been taken from the store were found in the car. The two men were taken to Detroit police headquarters, where they were identified by both Hallmeyer and the owner of a Detroit clothing store that had recently been robbed. Another man who worked as a filling-station attendant also identified Tutha and Grabale as the bandits that had robbed him of $70. This station and three others were all robbed the same day within a period of seven minutes. Both Tutha and Grabale were held on a charge of armed robbery. On the second day of their trial in May of 1927, both men pled guilty in Detroit Recorders Court to the charges. They were sentenced to serve 7½ to 15 years in Jackson Prison. It was Tutha’s first conviction.
Tutha made important underworld contacts while serving his first hitch in state prison. His previous association with the Kozak Mob no doubt enhanced his reputation as a safecracker and gunman. He served almost five years of his original sentence and was paroled to Detroit on November 24, 1931.
Shortly after Tutha was released from prison, he was arrested in the company of a tinsmith named Joe Sceatko. Tutha was arrested for investigation, and Sceatko was held as a suspect in the gun-smuggling plot that led to the August 27, 1931, attempted jailbreak at Marquette Prison. During the chaos, a prison doctor and a trustee were slain and four convicts had committed suicide. Information as to who was responsible for the smuggling had been obtained from a well-known Detroit and Hamtramck gunman named Walter Tylczak. Upon his conviction in Detroit on an armed-robbery case, Tylczak suddenly became talkative. According to a statement by Tylczak, a Hamtramck gangster named Chester Kolodzieski was responsible for shipping the guns to “Hardrock” (underworld slang for Marquette Prison). Tylczak claimed that every convict that was released from Marquette promised to try and ship contraband back into the prison. In Tylczak’s words, “Most don’t, Chester did.”
Tylczak told police that the gang had hired Sceatko, who was a tinsmith, to put false bottoms in cans of whole chicken. Canned chicken was allowed to be ordered by individual inmates at Marquette Prison. According to Tylczak the guns and ammunition were put into the cans and then closed back up again. Tylczak confessed that he, Alex “Lefty” Zydowski, and Sceatko got $50 each for the job. The Detroit police claimed that shortly after the Marquette Prison trouble of August 1931, prison officials had confiscated a letter written to Zydowski from Stanley “Big Stack” Podolski, thanking him “for keeping your promise and not forgetting your pals in stir.”
After this information became public, Circuit Judge Victor E. Sprague of Cheboygan, Michigan, was immediately appointed as a one-man grand jury to investigate the attempted Marquette Prison break of August 27, 1931. Sceatko was sent to Marquette to testify before the grand jury as to his role in the gun-smuggling incident. Chester Kolodziewski, who was on trial at that time for breaking parole, also named Sceatko in a confession he made to police. According to Kolodziewski, who vehemently denied any involvement in the job, Tylczak had planned the gun smuggling, and “Lefty” Zydowski drove the cans of chicken up to Marquette and hid them in thick underbrush near the prison. They were supposedly picked up and carried into the prison by a trustee who was paid off by the gang. “Big Stack” Podolski was named by both Tylczak and Zydowski as the man behind the attempted “blastout” at Marquette Prison in August of 1931.