World's Worst Crimes: An A-Z of Evil Deeds Read online

  Beer Baron of the Bronx

  Like many other mobsters of his generation – from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to Meyer Lansky – it was Prohibition that made Schultz his fortune. Known for a time as ‘The Beer Baron of the Bronx’, Schultz became one of the most powerful and feared men in New York, before his violent life finally led to a violent death.

  Dutch Schultz was born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer on 6 August 1902 in the Bronx, New York. His parents were both German Jews and his mother Emma, in particular, tried to pass religious values on to her son. She was successful only to a limited extent. Schulz did take an interest in religion, but not a consistent one. He described himself at various times as Jewish, Protestant and Catholic. As he grew up, he joined one of the street gangs that ruled the streets of the Bronx. When Schultz was fourteen, his father abandoned the family, and young Arthur decided to adopt the criminal life. He started doing jobs for a local mobster, Marcel Poffo. In 1919, when he was seventeen, he was caught burgling an apartment and received his one and only prison sentence.

  As often happens, prison only served to turn the young Arthur from apprentice hoodlum to fully fledged criminal. When he came out he had a new name, ‘Dutch’ Schultz, and a reputation as a hard man. Prohibition had come in the previous year and it was becoming clear that there was big money to be made now that alcohol was illegal. Schultz worked his way up, starting as a hired muscle protecting deliveries, then driving a beer truck, then working in a speakeasy run by a gangster named Joey Noe, a childhood friend. Noe saw Schultz’s potential and made him a partner in their bootlegging business. The duo bought their own delivery trucks and gradually forced all the other speakeasy owners in the Bronx to buy their beer from them. Anyone who refused was treated with extreme brutality.

  War In Gangland

  Once they had taken over the business in the Bronx, they turned their attention to Manhattan and stated delivering to speakeasies across the Upper East Side. This soon brought the gang into conflict with ‘Legs’ Diamond, the mobster who dominated the Manhattan scene. On 15 October 1928, Diamond’s men ambushed Joey Noe outside the Chateau Madrid nightclub, shooting him dead. War had been declared; mob money man Arnold Rothstein was shot dead two weeks later. Schultz’s main gunman, Bo Weinberg, eventually shot Diamond dead, but not for another three years.

  The next threat to Schultz came from within his own organization. In 1931, a gunman named Vincent Coll set himself up as a rival. Angry over an unpaid loan, Schultz brought matters to a head by assassinating Coll’s brother. Coll responded by killing four of Schultz’s men and hijacking his beer lorries. Schultz refused to stand for this and, after several near misses, he finally had Coll shot dead in a drugstore in February 1932.

  Easing In On The Numbers Racket

  By now it was clear that the great Prohibition experiment was coming to an end. Schultz was smart enough to look for another lucrative scam. His attention alighted on the numbers racket, a popular form of gambling particularly prevalent in New York’s black communities.

  Organized crime had paid little attention to the numbers because the individual stakes were generally very small. Schultz, however, realized that if all the different small-scale outfits could be brought together, the total daily take would actually be sizable. With a characteristic mixture of diplomacy and ruthless violence, Schultz proceeded to take over the Harlem lottery.

  Soon afterwards, Schultz alighted on another scheme: systematically intimidating the restaurants of New York into paying a weekly amount of protection money – disguised as voluntary membership dues paid to a front organization called the Metropolitan Restaurant & Cafeteria Owners Association. This was run for Schultz by a hood named Jules Martin. Schultz appeared to be riding higher than ever as Prohibition drew to a close, helped by his links to the city’s corrupt mayor.

  The Law Closes In

  Nemesis, however, was just around the corner in the shape of Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, who was determined to nail Schultz.

  His chosen weapon was the one that had been so effective against Al Capone in Chicago: tax evasion charges. Rather than catch a gangster red-handed, all the prosecution needed to do was prove that he had received substantial earnings and that he had paid no taxes on them.

  Thus, on 25 January 1933, Dutch Schulz was indicted for tax evasion. His immediate response was to go on the run. For more than a year, he avoided the law and carried on running his businesses.

  Finally, however, he grew tired of running and, in November 1934, he gave himself up for trial.

  While out on bail, Schultz discovered that Jules Martin had been skimming money from the restaurant shakedowns. Schultz invited his own lawyer and Martin to a meeting. When Martin admitted skimming, Schultz shocked the lawyer by immediately shooting Martin in the head, killing him instantly.

  Violent Death

  Soon after this incident, Schultz’s trial began. The first jury was unable to come to an agreement. A retrial was ordered and, much to Dewey’s fury, the jury this time acquitted Schulz. When Dewey started preparing new charges. Schultz decided to put out a hit on Dewey. Fellow mob bosses, including Lucky Luciano, decided it would be very bad for business to have Dewey murdered. Instead, they put out their own hit on Schultz. On 23 October 1935, Schultz and three of his men were shot dead in the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey. Thus ended the career of one of the mob’s most formidable gangsters.

  There was more than just a fly in his soup when Dutch Schultz was killed – by order of the Mob – in a Newark chop house.

  The Beltway Shootings

  For three weeks in October 2002, John Allen Muhammad, a black ex-US army sergeant, and John Malvo, a Jamaican teenager Muhammad had adopted as his son, brought terror to the area surrounding Washington DC. Known to the media as the ‘Beltway Sniper’, Muhammad and Malvo killed at least fourteen people and wounded at least five more before they were finally captured. Muhammad was definitely the dominant partner in the killings but his motivation remains obscure. Some believe that, as a convert to Islam, Muhammad may have been carrying out a deliberate terror attack on Washington. By contrast, his ex-wife, Mildred, believes it was part of an elaborate, if crazy, plot to kill her and gain custody of his three children.

  Expert Marksman

  John Muhammad was born John Allen Williams in Louisiana on 30 December 1960. His mother died when he was young and his father was absent, so his grandfather and aunt raised him. Muhammad became a excellent football player, marrying his high-school sweetheart Carol Williams in 1982. He enlisted in the army in 1985, training as a mechanic and combat engineer. He was transferred to Germany in 1990, fought in the Gulf War in 1991, returned to the United States the following year, and was given an honourable discharge from the army, as a sergeant, in 1994. Unconfirmed reports suggest that his discharge was connected with a grenade attack that Muhammad was accused of carrying out on his fellow soldiers. He did not receive specific sniper training while in the army, but qualified as an expert with the M-16 rifle, a civilian version of which – the Bushmaster .223 – would be the weapon he had when he was finally arrested.

  Conversion To Islam

  After leaving the army, Muhammad settled in Tacoma, in Washington state. By now he was living with his third wife, Mildred, and their three children. Muhammad worked as a car mechanic and started a martial arts school. He converted to the Nation of Islam, changing his name to Muhammad.

  At his stage, Muhammad appears to have been a well-respected member of the community. Then things started to go wrong. Soon, he was locked in a bitter custody battle with Mildred. He took the children and fled to Antigua in the Caribbean. There he tried to establish himself as a businessman but ended up helping people to obtain false papers for entry into the US. One of those he helped was a teenage boy called Lee Malvo, originally from Jamaica. When things failed to work out in Antigua, Muhammad returned to Washington state with his three children plus Malvo, whom he claimed was his stepson. Muhammad moved to the to
wn of Bellingham, close to the Canadian border, and attempted to register his children in school there. At this point investigators tracked him down and returned his three children to their mother, who promptly left the state and went into hiding in Maryland.

  Muhammad and Malvo, now calling himself John as well, stayed in Bellingham for a while. They lived in a homeless shelter but Muhammad seemed to have enough money to take regular flights around the States. During this period, the pair carried out their first murder: they intended to kill a friend of Mildred’s in Tacoma, but accidentally shot the woman’s niece instead.

  In the late summer of 2001, Muhammad and Malvo took a trip down to Louisiana, where Muhammad visited his relatives. He claimed to be doing well, to have a family and business in the Virgin Islands, but his big talk was belied by the fact he had not washed or cut his hair. His relatives were worried about him, as well they might have been. After leaving Louisiana, Muhammad and Malvo bought a car, a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice. As they roamed around the States they are suspected to have committed a whole series of robberies and shootings: three in Maryland, one in Alabama and one in Louisiana. Another murder, in Atlanta, is suspected to be their work as well.

  By the end of September, the duo may have killed as many as nine times. At first, the murders seemed to be part and parcel of robberies. However, they increasingly seemed to have been carried out for their own sake.

  Then came the events of October 2002. On the evening of 2 October, a fifty-five-year-old man was shot and killed in the parking lot of a grocery store in Wheaton, Maryland. The next day, five more people were shot and killed as they went about their business; one mowing a lawn, one mailing a package, one crossing a street, two filling their cars with gas – none of them with any inkling that their next breath would be their last.

  Random Victims

  Panic was immediate. What could be more terrifying than a sniper – few people imagined there were two of them – hiding out and taking pot shots at passers-by, deciding on a whim whose life to take, and whose to spare.

  The next shooting was of a woman in Spotsylvania, Virginia. She survived, but it was now becoming clear that the sniper was circling the Washington suburbs, keeping close to the Beltway, the ring road that surrounds the city. Three more days passed without a shooting, then the duo shot a thirteen-year-old boy outside his school in Bowie, Maryland, leaving a Tarot card at the scene.

  The following day, Baltimore police stopped a vehicle driving erratically. The driver identified himself as John Muhammad; John Malvo was also in the car. However, a background check indicated that Muhammad had no outstanding warrants, and – tragically, as it turned out – he was allowed to carry on. Over the next ten days the pair killed three more times.

  State Of Emergency

  The whole area was now in a state of emergency; people were afraid to go shopping or to fill their cars with gas.

  The day after the last killing – a bus driver in Aspen Hill on 22 October – the authorities, acting on a phone tip, searched a house in Tacoma, where Malvo and Muhammad had once lived. Neighbours had complained in January that Muhammad routinely used his backyard for target practice. The authorities issued a nationwide alert for the blue Chevrolet Caprice, and it was announced that an arrest warrant had been issued for Muhammad.

  Finally, on 24 October, the vehicle was spotted by a motorist at a rest stop. Washington police soon surrounded the car and found Muhammad and Malvo sleeping inside. They arrested both of them and found that the car had been modified for use as a sniper’s hideout. They also found a .223-calibre Bushmaster XM15 rifle in the car.

  At trial both Muhammad and Malvo were found guilty of murder. On 9 March 2004, Muhammad was sentenced to death, while Malvo received a sentence of life imprisonment.

  The Big Bankroll

  Arnold ‘The Brain’ Rothstein masterminded the transformation of the New York criminal underworld into a series of highly efficient organized crime syndicates, operating gambling, prostitution, bootlegging and narcotics operations on a grand scale. He is remembered today for his alleged involvement in the Black Sox scandal of 1919, in which it was rumoured that the Chicago baseball team was paid to lose an important match in the World Series. However, his involvement was never verified. He finally met his end in 1928, when he was shot, apparently in a drunken brawl, after failing to pay a gambling debt. Although Rothstein was not a violent man, his business dealings brought him into close contact with many cold-blooded killers, and it was his connections with these men that ultimately brought about his demise.

  ‘The Big Bankroll’

  Rothstein was the son of a wealthy New York Jewish businessman, Abraham Rothstein. As a child, he felt unloved by his parents, and was extremely jealous of his older brother Harry, whom he felt they preferred. Arnold did not do well at school, though he showed a talent for mathematics, and dropped out aged sixteen. While Harry chose to become a rabbi, Arnold began a career as a travelling salesman. Then tragedy struck: Harry contracted pneumonia and died. The effect on Arnold was to make him feel guilty for his past jealousy of his brother, and somehow responsible for his death. He attempted to improve family relations by returning home, working in his father’s factory and resuming his religious faith, but his father continued to reject him, so he gave up trying to please his parents and moved on.

  Rothstein now began to use his mathematical skills in the pursuit of gambling. He started to play pool, poker and craps for money. He also bet on boxing fights, elections, baseball games and horse races. In addition, he booked bets for other people and lent money at high interest rates. In order to impress his colleagues and customers, he began to carry a large wad of money around with him, thus earning the nickname ‘The Big Bankroll’. He soon gained a reputation as a cautious, intelligent gambler and began to make a lot of money, which he invested in legitimate businesses such as shops and car dealerships.

  A Life Of Luxury

  One of those whom Rothstein impressed was Carolyn Greene, a young actress. When the couple decided to marry, Rothstein took her home to meet his parents. Abraham asked Carolyn if she would change her faith to become Jewish but she refused. As a result, the Rothstein parents stayed away from the couple’s wedding; apparently, when Abraham heard news of it, he recited the Jewish prayer of the dead, the Kaddish, for his son.

  The newly married Arnold promised his wife that he would earn as much money as he could to keep her in luxury. She knew of her husband’s gambling interests, but later claimed not to have discussed any details of them with him. Over the next few years, Rothstein set up several gambling clubs, enhancing his reputation as one of the best pool players in the city. The clubs attracted wealthy customers who pitted their skills against Rothstein’s, both at pool and at cards. As well as running the clubs, Rothstein conducted his many other business ventures from his ‘office’ at Lindy’s Restaurant on the corner of Broadway and 49th Street, often standing on the street outside to collect money, surrounded by his bodyguards.

  Godfather of the Mafia

  By 1913, Rothstein had become one of the most powerful figures in New York, with friends in high places as well as low. His polite manner, his formidable intelligence and, of course, his tolerance towards all kinds of immoral activities made him a central conduit between the corrupt politicians of Tammany Hall and the ruthless mobsters of the criminal world. On the one hand, he received protection from Tammany Hall boss Charles F. Murphy and his advisor Tom Foley; on the other, he was in league with mob bosses such as Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. Such was his standing in the crime world that he became known by many nicknames, including ‘The Brain’, ‘The Fixer’ and ‘Mr Big’. As well as his gambling interests, he ran a real estate enterprise, a bail bond business and a racing stables. He amassed a fortune, and expanded his interests in and around the New York area. Today, Rothstein is credited with consolidating organized crime into what later became known as the Mafia.

  As well as betting on horse races
and baseball games, Rothstein was also rumoured to ‘fix’ them. The most sensational of these rumours hit the headlines in 1919, during the World Series, when members of the Chicago White Sox team agreed to lose the game to the Cincinnati team for payment. In 1921, eight of the men were convicted of fraud and were banned from playing baseball again professionally. Rothstein was also called to testify in the case, but was acquitted due to lack of evidence. To this day, it is still unclear exactly what his involvement was in the scandal.

  The Day Of Reckoning

  Despite his links with the criminal underworld, Rothstein always seemed to keep his hands clean and emerge unscathed from any scandal. Up until the day of his death, he was never convicted of any criminal activity. However, in 1928, his luck ran out. He took part in a high-stakes game of poker that lasted several days. In the end, he lost a total of over three hundred thousand dollars and, in the weeks that ensued, did not pay off his debts. The host of the game, George McManus, eventually called him to a meeting in a hotel room to settle the matter. Rothstein was then somehow shot in the abdomen. McManus was arrested but later acquitted due to lack of evidence. The shot proved fatal when Rothstein died several days later. Thus, the kingpin of the New York underworld was finally brought down by a dispute over a game of cards.

  Birmingham Church Bombing

  On 15 September 1963, one of the most significant racially motivated terrorist attacks ever to take place in the United States occurred at the 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, during a service. On that quiet Sunday morning, nineteen sticks of dynamite, secretly planted by Ku Klux Klan members in the church’s basement, detonated with a huge blast. Four teenage girls – Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley – were killed, and twenty-two more of the congregation injured.