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How did Richard Cain become a Chicago cop

Gary interviews Chicago Outfit historian and Administrator of the Chicago Outfit – Old and Current News and Articles Mike Byrne. Richard Cain was born to an Irish-American father and Italian-American mother.  He would sometimes go by Richard Scalzitti. Richard Cain started as a private Investigator learning about wiretapping and conducting surveillance. by the time he was in his twenties, he was recruited by Sam Giancana to join the Chicago Police Department. Sam wanted a trustworthy “bagman” to help find and pay Chicago police officers. Interestingly, at the same time, a man named William Hanratty will also join the Chicago PD. He will rise to become a high ranking officer and retire after a long career. Both men were actually associate members of the Outfit.

Richard Cain and the Cuban revolution

He takes a leave of absence and gets a job as an investigator working for Richard Ogilvie who was the U. S. Attorney in the Chicago area investigating Tony Accardo. He leaves from there and works with Cuban Revolutionaries prospering for the Bay of Pigs. After his return to Cook County in 1962, he works on Richard Ogilvie’s successful campaign for Cook County sheriff. Ogilvie appoints hi as his chief criminal investigator. By 1964, Cain is caught lying to a grand jury about his recovery of stolen legal drugs.  At the same time, he is accused of being an accessory to a bank robbery. He eventually serves time for all these crimes and is no longer able to infiltrate law enforcement.

 Richard Cain and Sam Giancana

Giancana is demoted by Accardo and exiled to Mexico. Richard Cain shows his true allegiances and follows Giancana to Mexico. he becomes the liaison between Chicago and Giancana who was still running international rackets from Mexico. FBI agent Bill Rohmer has made a career of putting Giancana in jail and he is able to turn Cain into an informant during this time. Richard Cain returns to Chicago along with Giancana. He starts making moves like forming a burglary gang with Marshall Caifano. It is believed that he and Giancana may have had dreams of returning Giancana to the position of boss in the Outfit.

The death of Richard Cain

On December 20, 1973, witnesses reported that Richard Cain was talking with four unidentified men at a booth in Ross’s Sandwich Shop on the north side of Chicago. They claimed that two of the four men left by a back door and the others left via the front. A short time later, two masked gunmen entered carrying a shotgun, a pistol, and a two-way radio. The witnesses said they used the radio to communicate with someone outside. They ordered all the patrons and the staff to line up against a wall like this was a robbery. They went down the line asking for money and when they got to Cain, the man with the shotgun pulled him away from the wall and shot him point-blank in the head. At that, the second gunman fired his pistol into Cain’s head. They ran out the door to a waiting getaway car.

The aftermath of the murder

FBI Agent Bill Rohmenr will tell everyone and report in his books that Richard Cain had been his informant for years. He claimed that Cain requested that if he was ever murdered by the Outfit that Rohmer should let everyone know that he (Cain) had been a top-echelon informant for years. Less than two years later in 1975, an unknown assassin murdered Sam Giancana in his home as he prepared some peppers and sausage for dinner.

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