The Violent Years (8 page)

Amico and Locano were not apprehended by Detroit police until July 30, 1930, when they were arrested along with other Westside mobsters in a police raid on the Grosse Pointe home of Sam Catalanotte. Joe Amico was a freelance underworld gunman who had once been a member of the Giannola Mob. Amico had then only recently become associated with Chester LaMare and the West-siders. He was considered to be an unprincipled gunman who sold his services to the highest bidder. Amico was not well trusted by either side until LaMare took him into his confidence and made him his bodyguard. Joe Locano was a gunman and strong-arm man for Joe Tocco’s Wyandotte Mob. The Tocco gang was a satellite branch of LaMare’s Westside outfit.

Both Amico and Locano were held for trial in the murder of Gaspare Scibilia, after they were arrested on July 30, 1930. This was based on the earlier identification of mug shots by witnesses who were at the scene of the shooting. The Scibilia murder trial opened in Detroit Recorders Court on October 17, 1930. Almost immediately, the state’s case against the two men was severely weakened. Both state’s witnesses now claimed in open court that they were no longer positive of their original identification of the defendants. They had only seen the backs of the men as they left the rear door of the fish market and walked down an alley. Philip Gaustello, the owner of the market, told the court that Locano and Amico had been in the front of the fish market talking to him when the murders had occurred. Two other men had actually been in the back room talking with Scibilia and Parina. Gaustello named these two men as Ben “Benny the Ape” Sebastiano and Sam Lombino.

The case was given to a jury on October 23, 1930. Both Locano and Amico were acquitted of the murder of Gaspare Scibilia. The jury returned its verdict after deliberating for five hours and 45 minutes. The two men were immediately rearrested for the murder of Sam Parina. Sebastiano was also picked up and held for trial as the third suspect in the Parina case. The second murder trial in the fish market case presented even more confusing evidence to the jury. Now all three defendants, Amico, Locano, and Sebastiano, claimed that they had talked to Scibilia and Parina the day that they were murdered but had stepped out of the room shortly before the two men were shot to death by unknown assassins. The defense attorney, Emil Colombo, was successful at creating enough doubt in the jurors’ minds that all three defendants were acquitted after the jury had deliberated for only one hour and a half.

The Fish Market Murders were the spark that exploded into an all-out gang war between the Eastside and Westside Mafia factions. Meli swore to avenge the deaths of his two representatives and vowed that the war would not end until Chester LaMare was dead. There would be no further peace meetings or compromises.

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Gangland executions were often carried out in broad daylight in front of many witnesses. On June 7, 1930, two of LaMare’s ace gunmen, Joe and Sam Gaglio, were brutally shot down while changing a tire at a gasoline station at Mack and Mt. Elliot Avenues in Detroit. Another car filled with rival gangsters noticed the two men working on their vehicle and casually pulled up alongside of the men and opened fire. Shortly afterwards, a Meli gunman named Sam Cillufo was shot 11 times in the back when he stopped for a traffic signal on a busy Detroit street. Potential witnesses would quickly forget everything when confronted by police investigators.

Between May 31, 1930 and July 23, 1930, at least 14 men were murdered, all the victims of gangland guns. The high-profile gang war seemed to stop abruptly with the murder of Gerald Buckley on July 23, 1930. Buckley was an extremely popular WMBC radio commentator suspected of having underworld ties. He was shot to death in the lobby of the LaSalle Hotel in Detroit the same night that Detroit citizens voted to recall Mayor Charles Bowles. It was generally believed that Buckley’s participation in the recall campaign led to his death. Angelo Livechi, Ted Pizzino, and Joseph (Scarface) Bommarito, all Eastside Mob gunmen, were later tried and acquitted of the Buckley murder. Following Buckley’s death was an all-out Detroit police crackdown on the underworld that all but ended the high-profile gangland murders that were occurring with alarming regularity in Detroit. The Buckley Grand Jury was called to investigate both the Buckley murder and the rampant crime conditions in the city. After Buckley was murdered, most of the leadership of both the Eastside and Westside Mobs went into hiding. Their soldiers continued to snipe at each other on the streets, but the gang war took on a much lower profile.

Both the Detroit Police Department and the Eastside Mob were desperately hunting for Chester LaMare. According to underworld rumor, LaMare fled to New York, where he was reported to be under the protection of the powerful New York Mob. Police also learned through informers that LaMare’s 17-year-old son Nicholas was kidnapped by the Eastsiders in an effort to draw LaMare out of hiding. This rumor was later proven to be false when Mrs. LaMare told police that her stepson was actually away at school somewhere in the Western U.S.

Despite the findings of the court, Meli found out almost immediately that Joe Amico and Joe Locano were the two Westside gunmen who pulled the triggers in the Scibilia and Parina slayings. Meli sent word to Amico and the other men who were actually involved in the fish market assassinations that unless they put Chester LaMare “on the spot,” they would die in his place. Amico was the closest of the plotters to LaMare, and it was Amico who would orchestrate the final betrayal of the boss.

LaMare had turned his house into a veritable fortress since the Crosstown Gang War had begun a year earlier. Attack dogs roamed the grounds and loaded guns were hidden in every room. LaMare needed only to take a step in any direction to put his hands on a loaded pistol or shotgun. He foolishly believed he was safe. On the evening of February 6, 1931, LaMare arrived at his Grandville Avenue home in Detroit with Joseph Girardi, one of his bodyguards. According to a statement later made by LaMare’s wife Anna, the two men sat and conversed in Italian while she made a pot of coffee. After spending some time with his bodyguard, LaMare asked his wife to drive Girardi home. Mrs. LaMare left the house with Girardi at 9:30 p.m. She was gone for almost three hours. Sometime after she left the house, LaMare allowed two men to enter. The two guests were later identified by fingerprints as Joe Amico and Elmer Macklin. Both men were two of LaMare’s most trusted aides. As Amico and Macklin sat in the kitchen of the LaMare home talking with the boss, Macklin got up to carry some dirty dishes to the sink. As LaMare turned his head to speak to Amico, Macklin slid a .32 caliber automatic pistol out of his pocket and shot LaMare twice in the head.

Both Amico and Macklin were suspected of the slaying even before their fingerprints were identified on dishes used the night of the murder. Shortly after LaMare’s body was found, the Detroit police put out an alert to arrest Amico and Macklin. Detectives got a tip that the two gunmen were leaving town. They rushed to the Michigan Central Station, where they supposedly missed the two thugs by 15 minutes. All points bulletins were circulated, but they proved to be useless as the two gangsters left the southbound train en route.

Mrs. Anna LaMare was one of the first suspects arrested in the murder. Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Frank G. Schmanske suspected that she might have been involved in the crime. It took Mrs. LaMare more than two and a half hours to drive her husband’s bodyguard home. It was during this time that LaMare was conveniently home with no witnesses in the house. The drive of approximately 10 miles round trip should not have taken more than an hour and a half to complete. According to Mrs. LaMare, she left home at 9:30 p.m. and did not return until after midnight. When she walked into the house, she found Chester lying on the kitchen floor with two bullet wounds in the head. At 12:30 a.m., she called the Coolidge police station and summoned officers to the scene. After being held for several days, Anna LaMare was released on a writ by Judge John A. Boyne in Recorders Court on February 9, 1931. She was served with a grand jury summons by Assistant Prosecutor Schmanske before being released from custody.

Both the Detroit Police Department and the grand jury investigators held great hope that a box of personal papers and documents found in LaMare’s home might shed some light on his possible connection to corrupt city officials. The box of papers was turned over to the Buckley Grand Jury. Detectives had been hunting LaMare for months to bring him before the jury for questioning. Based on a tip received from an underworld informer, a police raid had been planned on LaMare’s home less than six hours after he was murdered. The raid was scheduled for 6 a.m., February 7, 1931.

Chester LaMare was buried after a small funeral service at Mt. Olivet Cemetery. There were almost as many plainclothes detectives at the funeral as there were friends and family. No important underworld leaders were in attendance.

Elmer Macklin was arrested on October 3, 1931, and charged with the slaying of Chester LaMare. On October 14, 1931, Macklin went before Judge John P. Scallen in Detroit Recorders Court for his preliminary examination on the LaMare murder charge. Macklin was held over for trial. His original warrant was later dismissed, and a new warrant charging Macklin, Amico, and Joe Girardi was obtained. In February of 1932, both Joe Amico and Joe Girardi were picked up by Detroit police and held for trial. The three men were arraigned on the murder charge on February 18, 1932.

The LaMare murder trial began before Judge John P. Scallen in Detroit Recorders Court on April 27, 1932. All three defendants were represented by some of the top criminal legal talent available in the city at that time. Joe Amico was represented by Rodney Baxter, Macklin by Van H. Ring, and Girardi by Ralph Baker. The case was declared a mistrial on May 4, 1932. The mistrial motion was based on a question Rodney Baxter asked of Mrs. LaMare, which the prosecution believed was extremely prejudicial to the case. On June 1, 1932, Joe Girardi was dismissed by Judge Scallen from the murder trial due to insufficient evidence. He was endorsed soon afterward as a state’s witness but later refused to testify at the trial of Joe Amico and Elmer Macklin. On June 9, 1932, a directed verdict of not guilty was ordered by Henry S. Sweeny in Detroit Recorders Court. The judge stated that he did not believe that there was sufficient evidence available to the prosecution to successfully try the two defendants.

Joe Amico disappeared abruptly in 1937. Detroit police believed he had been taken for a ride as he did not appear at the funeral of his mother. In 1934, Elmer Macklin was convicted of counterfeiting. He later served a six-year prison term on this conviction. Macklin in later years was given a job on Mathew “Mike” Rubino’s horse farm in Macomb County. Rubino was an Eastside Mob gunman during the Crosstown Mob Wars of 1930-31. He later became a boss in the Detroit Mafia family hierarchy.

The Fish Market Murders and resulting Crosstown Mob War ended with the murder of Chester LaMare in 1931. This war was the last major intergang dispute within the Detroit branch of La Cosa Nostra. In the wake of the Crosstown Mob Wars, the modern Detroit Mafia family would be born.

The summer of 1930 marked the beginning of significant changes in the underworld and upper world of Detroit. As the war between Crosstown Mafia gangs for supremacy of the Italian underworld came to a head, the city witnessed the beginning of the Great Depression. The economic effects of the stock market crash were being felt across the nation. As the economy began to collapse, more people found themselves out of work and without the bare necessities of life. High-profile gangland operations tolerated by the public during the boom period of the roaring ‘20s were no longer acceptable as hopes and dreams were being shattered by the Great Depression. Petty gambling became a way for the working man to pursue his dreams. Numbers operations flourished in the city as did all types of gambling.

The Italian Mafia family that formed as a result of the Crosstown War would prosper in both legal and illegal enterprises for many years beginning during the Great Depression. Pete Licavoli, John Priziola, Angelo Meli, Joseph Zerilli, and William Tocco would form the ruling commission of the Detroit Mafia. As prohibition was repealed, the liquor racket was quickly replaced by the new Depression-era demand for gambling rackets. And the newly formed Mafia family was there to cash in.

By 1963, the Detroit Mob would be estimated to have infiltrated legal businesses worth more than $50 million a year. This figure was in addition to an estimated minimum income from illegal enterprises of $150 million a year. This included profits from gambling, narcotics, loan sharking, labor racketeering, and extortion.

“These fellows and many others could have been put away years ago if we’d only had witnesses who stood up. That has always been the great problem. To get witnesses who would dare to go into court and testify.”

—James E. McCarty
Chief of Detectives

T
he Purple Gang began as a juvenile street gang formed during the World War I years in the old Hastings Street section of Detroit’s lower east side. The original core group of Purples were the children of predominantly Eastern European Jews who had recently immigrated to the U.S. These young toughs attended the Bishop ungraded school and quickly became a nuisance to area shopkeepers and residents. From petty street crimes such as robbing from hucksters and rolling drunks, the young Purples quickly graduated into the hijacking and extortion rackets. The advent of statewide Prohibition on May 1, 1918 accelerated this process. By the early ‘20s, the Purples were working for Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr. These two older mobsters essentially became the mentors of the younger Purples, who they used as muscle for their alley brewing racket. Shorr and Leiter operated a legitimate corn sugar outlet known as the Oakland Sugar House, which they used as a front for many illegal operations including hijacking, extortion of local businesses, and setting up large-scale brewing plants in old warehouses and other buildings capable of producing large amounts of beer and whiskey. The Purples also branched out into gambling and the protection rackets. Many Purples had part-time employment in the flourishing Detroit area gambling industry, where they sold their services to wealthy gambling operators to protect their establishments against robbery from other underworld predators.