Gangland Wire Crime Stories

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Sam “Mad Sam” DeStefano will become the Chicago Outfit’s most notorious loan shark and sociopathic killer. No less an authority than FBI agent and mob fighter, William F. Roemer, Jr., considered DeStefano to be the worst torture-murderer in the history of the United States. Samuel DeStefano, Jr. was born on September 13, 1909 in Streator, […]

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L-R Aaron, Gary and Troy In this fourth and final episode of our interview with Troy Cole, we learn about Berdella’s frantic efforts to avoid the death penalty. First, he tries to plead guilty to one count of murder. The father of one victim attacks Berdella at a hearing. The prosecutor quickly moved and avoid

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In Part 3, Troy Cole relates how his detectives encountered problems trying to identify the young men in the photos found in the home of Bob Berdella. Most of these men had lived lives estranged from long time friends and even family. By the end of the first week into this investigation, a whole special

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In episode 2, Troy Cole tells about the search of this chamber of horrors. The house was in complete disarray, kind of like a teenage kid’s room. When Bob got done with something, he just threw it down. Except for the torture logs which were found on the second floor. An interview of Christopher Bryson

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L-R Aaron, Gary and Troy This is the first of a 4-part series of interviews with retired Kansas City Police Department Sergeant Troy Cole. On April 2, 1988, Homicide Sergeant Troy Cole was preparing to leave work and looking forward to watching his Oklahoma Sooners play Arizona in the NCAA tournament that night. He received

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Korner Sandwich in 2016 In this last episode of 2016, Retired Chicago P.D. Detective Jim Padar tells how he learned the real story behind why Chicago Outfit associates Samuel Marcello and Joseph Grisafe were killed. He also reveals how they learned about the subjects who placed the bodies in the drum and what happened to

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In our last episode we told a story about how just before Thanksgiving day in 1973, Chicago Outfit associates Samuel Marcello and Joseph Grisafe  parked in front of a fire hydrant at Taylor & Western on the west side of Chicago. They would enter the Korner Sandwich Shop just down the block and never be

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In the Cleveland mob war the Danny Greene gang (Danny was backed by mob associate and teamster John Nardi who had been mad because he thought he should be boss over Licavoli) the city experienced almost 40 car bombings. Nardi was killed on May 17, 1977 by a car bomb in the parking lot of the

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Angelo Lonardo Angelo Lonardo “Big Ange” In the 1980s, the FBI recorded Cleveland Mob Underboss, Joey Gallo, “Angelo Lonardo is probably one of the most respected guys in the whole United States.” Gallo went on to state, “He’s really the kind of guy we needed in this town a long time ago, but you know, nobody

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After the deaths of the Mangano brothers, Costello pushes Anastasia as the new boss of that family. The Commission confirmed Anastasia’s ascension to be boss of the renamed Anastasia family. To take control of the Luciano family, Genovese needed to kill Frank Costello. However, Genovese could not kill Costello without also eliminating Anastasia. To do that,