Since someone brought up that psycho DeStefano I thought I'd make this point.
Angelo J. "The Hook" LaPietra (1920–1999) was a Chicago mobster and member of the Chicago Outfit, involved in extensive loansharking operations in the city's First Ward during the 1970s and 1980s. He earned his nickname "The Hook" due to the way he murdered his victims—those that did not, or could not pay up. He would take his victim—bound and gagged—and hang him on a meat hook, (piercing the victim's rib cage with the meat hook) and then torture him to death with a blow-torch. The torch would not actually be the cause of death. The victims most often died from suffocation.
Some of the Chicago stories, like this one, just seem like fantasy when not verified with an old document or autopsy report. I have no doubt that guys like Buccieri, Daddano, and Prio tortured people, but I don't feel like Daddano left every victim blowtorched and LaPietra meathooked many debtors.
The stuff we can prove is really fucking awful (especially what happened to William Jackson and the guy Spilotro vised) but I think standard Outfit "torture" was more like what happened to that bookie Hal Smith, nonfatal cuts on the neck and a broken arm.
I would be really interested to know if any Outfit expert can point to some really bad, Action Jackson-like slayings. I'm guessing there could have been a few incidents in the Giancana era. The 42 gang was pretty fucked.
