The Sly-Fanner Murders
The Sly-Fanner Murders

Author: Allan R. May

Publisher: Conallan Press LLC

Published: 2014-06-25

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9780983703747

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The Cleveland Police Department Never Gave Up! From the moment of the double-murder the police never gave up in the hunt for the six suspects involved in the payroll robbery-gone bad. Cleveland detectives and prosecutors pursued and/or arrested the killers in Los Angeles, Mexico City, San Francisco and finally Sicily, taking some fifteen years to make sure justice was served. The crime was carried out by members of Cleveland's infamous Mayfield Road Mob. The plot to rob the local businessmen was hatched after one gang member, convicted of auto theft, was desperate for cash to file an appeal. Short on manpower, the gang's leader was forced to involve himself and an immature teenager in the daring hold-up. The young man's inexperience led to the double slaying and the manhunt was on. In the end, three of the participants would pay with their lives in the electric chair, one would be sent to prison for life, another received 30 years at hard labor; the last one, the younger brother of Cleveland's first Mafia boss, would go free. This story also gives a chilling look at one of the most violent periods in the history of Cleveland. When a new prosecutor takes office on January 1, 1921, he is confronted with handling three sensational murder trials in addition to the killings, which just took place the day before. This lawless period resulted in the Cleveland Crime Survey of 1921, the country's first in-depth study of the justice system of a major United States city

Mobbed Up
Mobbed Up

Author: James Neff

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2015-04-07

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1504007352

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The spellbinding saga of Teamster boss Jackie Presser’s rise and fall In his rise from car thief to president of America’s largest labor union, Jackie Presser used every ounce of his street smarts and rough-edged charisma to get ahead. He also had a lot of help along the way—not just from his father, Bill Presser, a Teamster power broker and thrice-convicted labor racketeer, but also from the Mob and the FBI. At the same time that he was taking orders from the Cleveland Mafia and New York crime boss Fat Tony Salerno, Presser was serving as the FBI’s top informant on organized crime. Meticulously researched and dramatically told, Mobbed Up is the story of Presser’s precarious balancing act with the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the Justice Department. Drawing on thousands of pages of classified files, James Neff follows the trail of greed, corruption, and hubris all the way to the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, where Bill and Jackie Presser were treated as valued friends. Winner of an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award for best reporting on organized crime, it is a tale too astonishing to be made up—and too troubling to be ignored.

Hidden History of Northeast Ohio
Hidden History of Northeast Ohio

Author: Mark Strecker

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2021-10-04

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1439673829

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Northeast Ohio is awash with nearly forgotten historical events. In 1780, American scout Captain Samuel Brady leaped across the Cuyahoga River where Kent now stands to evade a party of Native Americans aiming to take his scalp. During the Civil War, Confederates tried to free their compatriots from the Johnson's Island prisoner of war camp by capturing two ferries and attempting to poison the crew of the Union's only gunboat in Lake Erie. The town of Kirtland was briefly the national headquarters of the Mormons and the location of one of the Church of Latter-day Saints' most revered temples. Mark Strecker has unearthed a hidden gem of local history for each of Northeast Ohio's twenty-two counties.

Chin
Chin

Author: Larry McShane

Publisher: Citadel Press

Published: 2018-08-28

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 080653916X

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This true crime biography chronicles the life of the so-called “Oddfather” who ran a powerful NYC crime family while playing crazy to avoid prosecution. Vincent “Chin” Gigante was a professional boxer before discovering his true calling as a ruthless contract killer. When Vito Genovese went to prison, he picked Gigante to run the Genovese crime family in his absence. While raking in more than one hundred million for the family, he routinely ordered the murders of mobsters who violated the Mafia code—including John Gotti. At the height of Gigante's reign, the Genovese Family was the most powerful in the United States. And yet he was, to all outside appearances, certifiably crazy. He wandered the streets of Greenwich Village in a ratty bathrobe and slippers. He urinated in public, played pinochle in storefronts, and hid a second family from his wife. On twenty-two occasions, Gigante admitted himself to a mental hospital—evading criminal prosecution while maintaining his nefarious operations. It took nearly thirty years of endless psychiatric evaluations by a parade of puzzled doctors for federal authorities to finally bring him down.

Women Behaving Badly
Women Behaving Badly

Author: John Stark Bellamy, II

Publisher: Gray & Company, Publishers

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1598510002

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Women who murder . . . why are they so much more fascinating than their male counterparts? For evidence, dip into any of the sixteen strange-but-true tales collected in this anthology by Cleveland’s leading historical crime writer. You’ll meet: • Ill-fated Catherine Manz, the “Bad Cinderella” who poisoned her step-sister in revenge for years of mistreatment, then made her getaway wearing her victim’s most fetching outfit, a red dress and an enormous feathered hat . . . • Velma West, the big-city girl who scandalized rural Lake County in the 1920s with her “unnatural passions”—and ended her marriage-made-in-hell with a swift hammer’s blow to the skull of her dull husband, Eddie . . . • Eva Kaber, “Lakewood’s Lady Borgia,” who, along with her mother and daughter, conspired to dispose of an inconvenient husband with arsenic and knife-wielding hired killers . . . • Martha Wise, Medina’s not-so-merry widow, who poisoned a dozen relatives—including her husband, mother, and brother—because she enjoyed going to funerals . . . And a cast of other, equally fascinating women who behaved very, very badly. This is wickedly entertaining reading!

The Maniac in the Bushes and More Tales of Cleveland Woe
The Maniac in the Bushes and More Tales of Cleveland Woe

Author: John Stark Bellamy

Publisher: Ohio

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781886228191

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Thirteen more incredible true stories of Cleveland crime and disaster from the author of "They Died Crawling." Meet Martha Wise, the Merry Widow of Medina, who poisoned relatives because she enjoyed funerals; Cleveland Safety Director Eliot Ness and his nemesis, the "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run"; and many other local heroes and villains.