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THE BARREL MYSTERY
by
WILLIAM J. FLYNN
Chief of the United States Secret Service
Author of "The Eagle's Eye"
New York
The James A. McCann Company
1919
Copyright 1919, by
the James A. McCann Company
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BARREL MURDER 1
II. WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE FOR THE MURDER? 18
III. ORGANIZED TERRORISM 23
IV. COUNTERFEIT BILLS APPEAR 31
V. THE GREENHORN'S STORY 44
VI. DON PASQUALE, BLACK-HAND SKIRMISHER 51
VII. THE PLANT OF THE COUNTERFEITERS 65
VIII. THE COW THAT CAUSED A DOUBLE MURDER 83
IX. THE SOCIETY 85
X. MEETING THE ARCH-BANDIT 88
XI. THE BLACK-HANDER'S POLICE PROTECTION 97
XII. A KNOCK AT THE DOOR AT 2 A. M. 110
XIII. THE BLACK-HANDERS IN SESSION 117
XIV. PRINTING THE BAD MONEY 130
XV. SOME "AFTER-DINNER" CONFESSIONS 140
XVI. EVADING THE GANG IN VAIN 148
XVII. CAUGHT AGAIN! 157
XVIII. PINCHING THE GREENHORN 169
XIX. THE "BLACK-HAND" DOCTOR 172
XX. THE "BLACK-HAND" TESTAMENT 199
XXI. "THE VERMILION FLOWER ON THE BIG TOE" 203
XXII. THE GENTLE ART OF WRITING "BLACK-HAND" LETTERS 206
XXIII. FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A BADLY WRITTEN LETTER 215
XXIV. METHODS OF BLACKMAILING 221
XXV. TRACING A LETTER 226
XXVI. "BLACK-HAND" PROPAGANDA 239
XXVII. THE WATCHWORD OF THE "BLACK-HANDERS" 262
THE BARREL MYSTERY
CHAPTER I
THE BARREL MURDER
Where the East River swims around the foot of Eleventh Street is an
old abandoned wooden dock that looks more like the broken skeleton of
a buried wreck than the thing it used to be. A covey of barges are
huddled against the wharf opposite, and this wharf gradually becomes
solid pavement where the lumber yard begins. It fronts the street with
the most dilapidated board fence in Christendom made up of broken odds
and ends covered with a crazy patchwork of corrugated iron scrap
stained and rusted by the weather. If an old-time pirate--one of those
romantic devils with scarred and battered features and a black patch
over one eye--should suddenly peer at you through one of the many
cracks in the splintered stockade you could not be very surprised; in
fact, you would almost expect it to happen.
Farther up is a livery stable, a mere hole in a pile of bricks, once
red now slavered over with white-wash once white. Outside is a man
clipping the mane of a truck horse with its harness dragging in the
filth. On the corner is a saloon, such as you find on the East Side,
shouldering against the dry dock storage for live poultry with chorus
of cackling inmates. On the corner opposite is a huge, green cheese of
a building occupied by various small manufacturers. The third corner
bulges with the huge cisterns of the gas works soiled and smeared with
soot and fumes. The fourth corner has become historic. Every Secret
Service man in the city knows what is on the Northwest corner of East
Eleventh Street and Avenue D. They know the old, battered red brick
walls that belong to the New York Mallet Works, walls that look as if
they have been scarred by a fusillade of machine guns, walls with
rusted chicken-wire netting before windows that are never cleaned
except when the rain is drumming against them, walls that are broken
by a huge portal closed by a worm-eaten, wooden gate quite in keeping
with the whole thing. There is a ramshackle tenement next door with
rooms for rent and shutters all drawn--shutters that were doubtless a
shrill green once upon a time but now camouflaged by the blasts of
blistering sun and cutting rains into a crazy-quilt of strange hues,
shutters maimed and broken and dangling and just hanging together. The
only open aperture in the weird and forbidden dwelling is the
entrance, breathing filth and the sour odor of poverty. Crowding close
to the tenement is an almost cavernous fodder and feed store, its
broken, soiled windows half-hidden behind shattered boards and laths
from which remnants of bill-posters, stained and ragged, flutter now
and then. A heap of rubbish, garlanded with a jumble of rusty wire and
battered tin cans, adorns the broken curb. A pair of cast-off baby
shoes with buttons dangling are sailing on a pool of dirty water.
Desolate as the spot is it appeared even more so on the morning of
April fourteenth, 1903, in the haze and the drizzling rain of an early
hour. But Mrs. Frances Conners, an Irish woman, did not notice these
things as she crossed the spot on her way to the bakeshop to get rolls
for breakfast. She was used to the place. Wrapped up in the red
sweater affected by East Side women and bending her head under her
umbrella, she paid no attention to the very things that would have
made a stranger pause and gaze. As she slipped across the corner,
however, she noticed a barrel standing on the curb in front of the
mallet works. That barrel was not there the day before. It was quite a
big barrel, the kind they use for shipping sugar. Her feminine
curiosity was aroused and she retraced her steps. In this instance
curiosity revealed a deed that horrified the entire country,
frightened the citizens of New York, and threw the Detective Bureau at
Police Headquarters into a panic. The revelation also brought home to
many people the disquieting realization that there were assassins in
our midst that defied the efforts of our police to cope with them.
An overcoat was thrown over the top of the barrel. It was fairly damp
but not quite wet, indicating that it could not have been there very
long. Mrs. Conners raised the coat. Quickly she let it drop and
screamed. There was a man's body crushed into the barrel. The body was
in a doubled-up position, both feet and one hand sticking over the rim
of the barrel.
Summoned by Mrs. Conners' screams the neighborhood was on its feet in
an instant. A panicky crowd gathered on the fateful corner listening
with gaping mouths and blanched faces to the frightened chatter of the
Irish woman. Morbid curiosity prompted a few to raise the coat and
take a look. Every time this was done some of the women would scream
hysterically.
A policeman came running up. The body in the barrel was still warm
when the officer examined it after rolling the barrel over and
dragging the victim out. About the dead man's neck was wound a strip
of gunny-sack. When removed it revealed more than a dozen wounds any
one of which would have resulted in death. An ambulance surgeon came
at a gallop. He declared that the man could not have been dead more
than two hours at the most.
The corpse was taken to the Union Market Police Station. The
examination made there led to the conclusion that the victim was a man
about the age of forty. His complexion was swarthy and his ears were
pierced with rings. The clothing about the dead man's body was of good
quality, and there was nothing about the physical make-up to indicate
that he belonged to the laboring class. The forehead was of the high,
receding type, and it was partly covered with thin, curly hair of a
light-brown tinge. The moustache was turning grey. On the left cheek
were two scars an inch or more in length forming the letter "V"
inverted. It was an old scar.
A closer inspection of the body revealed that at least two weapons
must have been used by the assassin or assassins. A narrow, two-edged
blade had evidently been used for inflicting the wound just below the
left ear. This stab was made by a powerful hand for it was at least
three inches deep. A wound above the Adam's apple penetrated sheer to
the spinal cord, and was doubtless done by the same weapon. Numerous
other and smaller wounds were of a like character. A slash extending
from ear to ear across the throat was probably done with a long, sharp
blade.
In searching the clothing of the dead man a little brass bound crucifix
was found. It was of foreign make with a Latin motto on the scroll work
above the figure of the Saviour, and a skull-and-cross-bones at the
base of the crucifix. This was found in a waistcoat, in which we also
located a silver watch-chain similar in make to those common to the
peasantry of Southern Italy. The crucifix was one that is not common
to any locality. There was an overcoat on the body, and in one of the
pockets two handkerchiefs were found, one of which was small in size
and faintly perfumed. The only identification mark on the clothing was
on the shoes, which were marked "Burt & Co., opposite Produce
Exchange." The shoes were worn, and there was a small patch on one of
them. The gunny sack about the throat was marked by the blood stains
only. Stencilled on the barrel were the initials "W & T" on the bottom;
on the sides "G 233." It was a regulation sugar barrel, and the bottom
was covered with about three inches of sawdust soaked with blood. Onion
peels and some stubs of cigars of the stogie make were scattered in the
sawdust, the kind of cigars that are sold in Italian stores and
bar-rooms. A charred note in the handwriting of a woman was found in
the barrel. Two written lines were in part legible: "Giorne che
venite--subito l'urgenza." Translated the words might read: "Day that
you come--suddenly the urgency."
Every device of detection known to the New York Detective Bureau was
brought into service. Inspector George W. McCloskey, head of the
bureau in person, aided by picked men, scoured every nook and corner
of New York in an effort to learn, first of all, the identity of the
victim. The whole uniformed force was also instructed to follow any
little lead of information which might indicate a connection with the
murder. No identification, however, developed.
I read of the murder in the afternoon newspapers. This was on April
fourteenth. I recalled certain unusual activities among the band of
"Black-Handers" on the night of April 12, which was about thirty-odd
hours before the murder must have been committed. It came to my mind
that I had seen a face new among the members of the gang. I went to
the morgue and looked at the dead man. I identified him as the
stranger who recently appeared at the haunts of the Black-Handers.
(When I say Black-Handers, I mean also counterfeiters.) Two other
Secret Service men also identified him. The body was taken out of the
ice and measured according to the Bertillon method.
For some time prior to the murder I had been closely in touch with
Morello, with Lupo and others of their band. I had them under
surveillance for the purpose of arresting them on a charge of
counterfeiting.
On the night of April 12, having accumulated considerable information
concerning this band, I personally picked up the trail and followed
several members of the band from their counterfeiting headquarters in
the café at Elizabeth and Prince Streets. Just around the corner from
this café was the saloon of Ignazio Lupo, another rendezvous of the
gang. In the rear of Lupo's saloon Giuseppe Morello conducted an
Italian restaurant.
Trailing along, I followed several of the gang to the butcher store of
Vito La Duca, at No. 16 Stanton Street, which is just east of the
Bowery. Among those present in the store was Morello, whom I had
arrested four months previously for counterfeiting. He was the only
one of the gang which I had arrested who had escaped conviction. Two
others of the men present were Antonio Geneva and Domenico Pecoraro,
both of whom I knew well. And while the three whom I have already
named were in animated conversation near the rear of the shop, a
fourth man, a face new to me, stood apart from the others near the
door. He was the same man found less than forty hours later in the
barrel.
While the conversation took place in the rear of the shop I saw a
piece of bagging being hung up as a curtain over the glass in the door
leading from the street into the store. It was but a few minutes later
that I saw a covered wagon driving up to the door. Two men hopped down
from the seat and entered the shop. One of them came out again after a
couple of minutes and drove away. Shortly after eight o'clock that
evening the visitors left La Duca's store. They split up into two
groups, the stranger going toward the Bowery with Morello and
Pecoraro.
* * * * *
I communicated with Inspector McCloskey, then in charge of the
Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters, and told him what I have just
related. Immediately there was a rounding up of the gang, my men
pairing off with the headquarters detectives and locating eleven of
the members of the Black-Hand Society. Here is the list of those
arrested as suspects for the murder:
Giuseppe Morello, of No. 178 Chrystie Street.
Ignazio Lupo, of No. 433 West Fortieth Street.
Messina Genova, of No. 538 East Fifteenth Street.
Vito La Duca, of No. 16 Stanton Street.
Pietro Inzarillo, of No. 226 Elizabeth Street.
Domenico Pecoraro, of No. 198 Chrystie Street.
Lorenzo Lobido, of No. 308 Mott Street.
Giuseppe Fanara, of No. 25 Rivington Street.
Giuseppe La Lamia, of No. 47 Delancey Street.
Nicola Testa, of No. 16 Stanton Street.
Luciano Perrino, of No. 47 Delancey Street.
Perrino was also known as Tomasso Petto. He was known among the
members of the Black-Hand aggregation as "Il Bove," meaning "The Ox."
Here was certainly a murderous aggregation of the most pronounced
criminal type. They were all of them from Sicily. Most of them were
armed with a revolver, some also had knives and even stilettos. On
Morello the police found a .45 caliber revolver. A knife was tucked
away in the waistband of his trousers, a cork being fixed at the point
of the blade so that it would not scratch his leg. Petto, the Ox,
whom Inspector McCafferty of the detective bureau, and I arrested
later, carried his pistol in a holster and a sheath for his stiletto.
Most of the suspects had permits from the New York Police Department
to carry revolvers. It was this incident, practically, which brought
on the crusade against, and the passing of the law forbidding, the
carrying of dangerous weapons.
The prisoners were presently hurried to the Morgue, where each of them
had a look at the dead man. They were asked individually whether they
knew him. The answer was the usual one--a shrug of the shoulders and
the words "No understand," "don't know." Morello and Pecoraro were
both asked whether they knew the dead man, but denied that they had
ever seen him; this in face of my seeing the two in the company of the
man now dead less than forty hours before he was murdered. The dead
man still remained without a name, and without a friend or relative
coming to claim kinship.
Information began to percolate into my office which induced me to take
a trip to Sing Sing prison in an effort to bring about the
identification of the dead man. It was plain to me already then that
the police force was failing in its efforts. I resolved to take a
personal interest in the murder and to clear it up if possible.
At this point, let me inform the reader that an anonymous letter was
addressed to Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino of the Italian Detective
Squad, then a part of the New York Police Department. This letter
proved to be of value in elucidating particulars aiding us in
identifying the man found murdered in the barrel. The Lieutenant
showed this letter to me. Knowing that Petrosino was the best man in
the Police Department to handle the situation, I asked him to go to
Sing Sing Prison to investigate.
Petrosino took along a photograph of the murdered man. Several of the
convicts failed to identify the photograph, but the third man
questioned by Petrosino, Giuseppe DePriema, looked at the photograph
and said: "That is Maruena Benedetto, my brother-in-law. What has
happened?"
DePriema completed the identification by corroborating the watch chain
and the crucifix. He also described accurately the scar on Benedetto's
face. At first, DePriema was terror-stricken. Later on, however, he
grew angry, as only the Sicilian bent on murder can get angry. He
gave us the Buffalo address of Benedetto, and told us all about the
dead man's business as a stone cutter. DePriema said that his
brother-in-law had been out of work for some months past, that he had
left Buffalo to associate himself with a band of counterfeiters in New
York.
It is my personal opinion that if the New York police had not
blundered after arresting the gang named the murderer would have been
located in short order. The police made the mistake of locking up the
gang together, so that they could speak and plan together. Each man
should have been incarcerated separately. The detectives also failed
to examine all the letters and all the papers taken from the prisoners
when searched.
Returning to New York from Sing Sing, Petrosino came directly to me.
Together we went to Police Headquarters and asked to be shown the
letters and papers taken from the suspects. Among the litter I found a
pawn-ticket for a watch which had been pledged at a Bowery pawnshop
for one dollar on the day of the murder. The ticket was found on
Petto, the Ox. It was positively identified by the wife of Benedetto,
who was brought on from Buffalo. Certain markings and engravings were
described by Mrs. Benedetto, which could have been known only to one
closely acquainted with the time-piece.
With this evidence to proceed upon, Petto, the Ox, was indicted by the
Grand Jury, after being held without bail on the murder charge.
Meanwhile, the other suspects were turned out by Police Magistrate
Barlow because there was not sufficient evidence to hold them on the
murder charge. Murder in the first degree was the charge against
Petto.
From then on evidence began to accumulate that convinced me personally
of the existence of an organized "Black-Hand" society in New York
City. Eminent counsel was engaged and a large fund raised by the
criminal associates of Petto, the Ox, to fight for his freedom. During
the time that Petto was incarcerated, information came to me that each
and every one of the gang was from the same town in Sicily; a place
named Corleone, about twenty-seven miles from Palermo. It was in
Palermo that Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino, of the New York Police
Force, was murdered eventually while in quest of special information
for Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham. We also ferreted out the
significant fact that in order to gain the inner circle of the secret
society, which was furnishing funds for the defense of Petto, the
applicant would have to be from the town of Corleone.
When Petto had been held in the Tombs Prison for more than four months
his attorney asked that he be released on his own recognizance, the
attorney stating that there was not sufficient evidence upon which to
bring the accused to trial with any fair hope of convicting him. No
sooner was Petto released than he disappeared from his accustomed
haunts with the gang in New York.
But Petto did not escape the eye of the Secret Service. He was traced
to Pittston, Pa. Nor did Petto escape a blood relative of the murdered
man. Probably I had better explain at this point that there is an
unwritten law among the Italians of southern Sicily that when a member
of a family is murdered, the crime must be avenged by a blood relative
of the murdered person. If no blood relative is available, a kinsman
by marriage assumes the task.
Petto soon became the leader of a band of black-handers who preyed
upon the Italian miners in Pittston. Then one night, when the streets
were slippery with a cold, drizzling rain, there came an ominous knock
at his door. Petto sensed that something was wrong. He made ready for
any emergency and drew his big revolver. But the unknown visitor was
quicker than the murderer of Benedetto, and the aim was certain. Five
bullets stopped the Black-Hander forever. A dagger was sunk into the
heart of Petto, the Ox, to make doubly sure that he was not playing
'possum. Beside the warm body of Petto his revolver was found fully
loaded. The hand holding the revolver was partly shot away. On his
body was discovered a little brass-bound crucifix with a
skull-and-cross-bones at the Saviour's feet, an exact duplicate of
that taken from the body of the man found in the barrel. As far as the
police records show, the avenger of Benedetto has never been
apprehended. Whether the avenger has since suffered a fate similar to
his victim I cannot at this moment say.