Mob Hitman - "Pittsburg Phil" Harry Strauss

"Pittsburgh Phil" Harry Strauss (July 28, 1909 – June 12, 1941) was a prolific contract killer for Murder, Inc. in the 1930s. He purportedly killed over one hundred men (some historians put the number as high as 500) using a variety of methods, including: shooting, stabbing with ice picks, drowning, live burial, and strangulation. Strauss never carried a weapon in case the local police picked him up on suspicion. He would scout his murder spot for any tool handy that would do the job.

He was arrested 18 times but was never convicted until he was found guilty of the homicide that sent him and fellow Murder, Inc. hitman Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein to the electric chair. After hitman Abe "Kid Twist" Reles turned informant, Strauss was arrested for the murder of Irving "Puggy" Feinstein, and at least five other known murders. Strauss tried to avoid conviction by feigning insanity in the courtroom and on death row. He was executed by electrocution using Sing Sing's Old Sparky on June 12, 1941.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9vNNT-WLLU

its interesting that murder inc, wasn't originated by Italians, but by the jewish.

it seems to be most people think of murder inc. as an Italian thing though.

but, most of the killlers were jewish.

I wonder if any of the Italian members were made into the mafia. Frankie Carbo and Jack Parisi surely were, but were they made AFTER the dismantling of Murder Inc or were while it was still active?

Great vid. The 500 figure is a bit surprising.

At the end of the video, when he is being taken in to Sing Sing, it looks like he was throwing a fit. Or was that his lawyer?

How strange.

He pretended to be insane till the end to escape punishment, right?

I'm assuming. That's sure what it looks like.

Who survived the onslaught my law enforcement ? Who was the Murder Inc guys who got away ?

I'm still not convinced about exactly what Murder Inc is. It seems to be remnants of the Bug and Meyer Mob, the then-current Buchalter gang, and the aforementioned two Italians. But were they an organized killing squad taking marching orders from the governmental body known as The Commission? There are so many erroneous reports surrounding the Inc, and so much media sensationalism during their heyday, that whatever happened is best left to the historians. Unfortunately, in older mob lore it becomes unclear exactly what is myth (The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano) half-truth (the Commission controlling OC rather than arbitrating it) or hard to believe, but true (Pittsburgh Strauss' killing hundreds of people). Anyone want to take their best guess?

I too wondered if Parisi was made. He fled New York in 1949 and Albert, his patron, took over two years later, but there's no reason to believe Albert couldn't propose him for membership, unless working for Murder Inc. makes you ineligible for made status, which seems pretty hard to believe. Here's a story about an old murder Parisi and Anastasia were both involved in. It says he was collecting union kickbacks in the prime of Mangano territory as far back as 1939. The article is a bit long, so use command F on a mac or ctrl f on windows, and type "parisi".
http://www.transportworkers.org/node/1618

Great comments to all! Thanks:)

Deep within the text of Nicholas Pileggi's book, Wiseguy, is a hint, a single clue.

Henry Hill recounted that at the taxi stand he hung around when he was a lad were some old Murder Inc guys.

That right there confirms any possible suspicion that all of the Murder Inc crew members were not in fact caught. Some got away, and they are not in the history books.

edit: Henry Hill was born in 43. The hierarchy of Murder Inc was supposedly executed around 42. So if Henry saw some of these hitmen from the original Murder Inc at the taxi stand when he was a youngster, it would imply that these hitmen outlived the prosecution and destruction of Murder Inc.

I read in Albert d'meos book that Neil dellacroce was in murder inc?

Murder Inc. started out as a gang of mostly Jewish thugs who ran rackets in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in the Thirties. Brownsville was one of the highest-crime areas of NYC. They also fought--and won--wars with other Brooklyn gangs.

Lepke Bucholter was probably the most powerful and richest individual gangster of the Thirties. He started as a labor racketeer, then branched out into running unions and several big garmet firms. Then he knocked over trucking in and out of the District; nailed bakery unions, and had a foothold in the movie industry by dominating the projectionists' union. He was so big that the first federal charge against him was violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which put him in the same legal league as US Steel and Standard Oil.

Lepke needed muscle to enforce his will. His partner, Jacob (Gurrah) Shapiro grew up in Brownsville, so Lepke reached out to the Brownsville mob as enforcers. A sharp businessman, Lepke didn't pay Murder Inc. by the hit--that would have encouraged them to hold out for the highest bidder. Instead, he put them on retainer--salaries--which enabled them to pursue their own rackets while being on 24-hour call to Lepke. Lepke also shopped out their services to others, for profit. When Charlie Luciano and the Commission agreed that Dutch Shultz had to go, the job was farmed out to Murder Inc. Charlie "the Bug" Workman was the leader of that hit squad. Albert Anastasia, then a capo in the Mangano Family in the Ocean Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, also had a piece of Murder Inc. and supplied shooters.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Murder Inc. had enough people, and did enough violence, to produce weak links. Brooklyn DA Bill O'Dwyer and his deputy, Burton Turkus, nailed two of them--Abraham "Kid Twist" Reles and Allie "Tick Tock" Tanenbaum--who implicated Lepke in several murders. Lepke took it on the lam and was convicted and executed. The garment rackets went to the Gambinos and the Luccheses.

The name, "Murder Inc." was provided by a tabloid newspaperman of the era. While they did plenty of violence, I seriously doubt that they pulled off 1,000 hits, or that Pittsburg Phil did 500 or even 100.

My thoughts exactly Brownsville thugs naturally pulled in to the oribit of the fearsome racket leader. I also wholeheartedly agree about Buchalter. Most powerful in the 1930's, as Rothstein was the most powerful in the 20's. The last myth to put to rest would be that Lansky and Adonis chaired the inc, and you have an accurate depiction of what they really were.

But do you think he was more powerful than any individual Cosa Nostra boss? Nobody bothered to kill Abe Reles to get Lepke off the hook, yet when Anastasia who wasn't even boss, was about to go to the chair with Reles's testimony, they used their connections to have him thrown out of the window. Doesn't this imply that Anastasia was more powerful than Lepke?

I knew one murder inc guy who was not a killer. They called him to dispose of bodies that were killed.

He owned a furniture moving truck in italian Harlem. He actually moved furniture when he was not picking up bodies wrapping them up in those thick furniture protection blankets.

When he was not doing that in the summer time. He would pick up a truck load of people from my neighboor hood including me as a kid. Then he would take us all to that beach in Long Island for the day.

I think the distinction is Lepke could threaten multiple industries whereas Mangano, Bonanno, Profaci, etc. couldn't. Power is subjective, but we singled out labor because its gateway to industry control, legitimacy, and and was a key part of the development of Cosa Nostra a decade alter, which goes to show how much labor racketeering makes the difference for an aspiring don. The mob only achieved control over the garbage industry in the 1940's once they infiltrated the Teamsters and were able to dictate to the industry which truckers to hire and since then look what it's done for them, for example. Mangano was big on the waterfront, Bonanno and Gagliano had vast garment industry interests, but Lepke's labor rackets were bigger in scope.

The Abe Reles situation, I believe, was a Costello move which goes to show again he was the most powerful mob political operative.

Well said, Barrett.

I have a (sort-of) connection with Murder Inc.:

I grew up in Brownsville, and lived a block from Midnight Rose's candy store, which was their hangout. When I was 14, I took an after-school job working at that candy store. It wasn't called Midnight Rose's by then (years after the demise of Murder Inc.), and neither I nor the owners knew of its grim past. People in the neighborhood by then tended not to talk of our unsavory past.

I took a photo of the former Midnight Rose's when I made a nostalgic visit to the old neighborhood in 1997. It's the storefront that's under the awning says "Shop Smart Mini-Mart." For those of you who know Brooklyn: Saratoga Avenue, near the corner of Livonia Avenue. The stairs lead to the Saratoga Avenue station (3 and 4 subway lines).

http://prntscr.com/6slwod

nice pic, lot of history in that building, thank you for the pic turnbull.

"I read in Albert d'meos book that Neil dellacroce was in murder inc?" -Dbm7

That's believable. True? Not for me to say. Believable? Yes. And if Neil Dellacroce was involved in that, I doubt he was just a clean up guy or getaway driver.

"Lepke Bucholter was probably the most powerful and richest individual gangster of the Thirties." - Turnbull

I'm skeptical about that. Lepke was depending on the Mafia to pull strings to cut him some slack on his indictments, and it never came through. He was also paying a cut on everything he did to the Mafia. Do we know what the Mafia's cut was? It could have been half of everything Lepke pulled in for all we know. Maybe more.

The 1000 estimate came from the Brooklyn DA. Seems like he pulled this number out of thin air.

Alfa - do you have a source regarding Lepke cut? How would anyone know? It's doubtful even Reles would know about that. I think Lepke was the most powerful when it came to labor racketeering.

Lepke was still alive when Reles died. Lepke was trying to negotiate his own backroom deal to get off death row, but it was rejected.

I don't have one, but that's my point. Where is it recorded? If Lepke was predominant in the garment industry, then he would not have to pass any of his earnings to the mob at all. This is assuming he was paying tribute. If you have to pay tax, you are not the strongest factor.

The two families that inherited his rackets, according to this thread, are the Lucchese and Anastasia families. I would hazard the guess that those two families were supervising Lepke all along. I really don't think there was a great deal of a percentage left over once the Anastasia family and the Lucchese family got a cut from Lepke. On top of that, I am of the belief that the garment district income was passed up to the Commission and split between the Bosses. I personally see Lepke as a minority shareholder there.

Well, this gets back to Barrett's point about how we define "power":

Lepke started out as a labor muscleman for a gang operated by Dopey Benny Fein, and later Jacob (Little Augie) Orgen, which hired out to the highest bidders in the constant labor/management wars in NYC's Garment Center. . Lepke and hs pal,Gurrah, took over after murdering Little Augie. But instead of continuing as thugs-for-hire, they set out to control both management and labor in the Garment District.

His first move was against the furriers’ unions. By the end of his first year, both unions and management were paying him $5 million annually for peace. He then attacked the garment unions. His target was the cutters’ union, small but highly strategic: no cutters, no patterns; no patterns, no dresses and suits. All the other unions shortly fell under his thumb. Then he muscled his way into controlling positions in three of the Garment District’s biggest manufacturing companies. Now Lepke had a commanding position in both labor and management. He recognized that trucking was crucial to the industry, so he knocked over the trucking companies and their unions.
By the mid-Thirties, Lepke controlled everything that was made in, and that went in and out of, the Garment District. Sidney Hillman, head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and President Roosevelt’s top labor adviser, allegedly paid Lepke $5,000 a week for peace. He knocked over the handbag industry, the bakers’ union and the movie projectionists' union.

That's where he accumulated annual income estimated by some historians at $300 million. Another measure of his power was how completely he controlled the big-bucks garment industry. He was also smart enough to buy peace with the Mafia by sharing his wealth with Albert Anastasia (who was a partner in Murder Inc.) and Charlie Luciano, who doled out some of his Garment Center income to other mobsters.

But, where Lepke was weak was in overextending himself and being too close to the violence he ordered--a mistake most Mafia Dons avoided by distancing themselves from day to day operations. It was inevitable that someone in Murder Inc. would rat him out. He took it on the lam for almost a year. Finally, three of his "friends--Meyer Lansky, Albert A. and Abner (Longy) Zwillman, convinced him to surrender on Federal drugs and racketeering charges, which they assured him would result in no more than a five- or six-year sentence and protect him from New York’s special prosecutor, Thomas E. Dewey, who wanted to send him to the electric chair for his murders. Lepke met with famed radio and newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, who drove him to a car containing FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, to whom he surrendered. He was convicted on the Federal raps in 1941, and sentenced to 14 years in Leavenworth.

But, Lepke was so big that he had become a factor in Presidential politics. Dewey (who was to be the GOP Presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948) charged that FDR was being “soft” on Lepke to keep him quiet about his relationship with Sidney Hillman. The Justice Department obligingly turned Lepke over to Dewey, who prosecuted and convicted him for murder. Lepke was executed in 1944, the first and only mob boss to die in the chair. The Mangano/Anastasia/Gambino family, and the Luccheses,took over his labor and trucking rackets.

Well, there was also John "Cockeye" Dunn, although I don't know if he could be considered a boss or rather a second-in-command for Eddie McGrath. Also, Rosario Borgio, a rather prominent gangster in Akron, died on the chair, although I am not sure if he was Cosa Nostra or just a "black hand" gang; and Dominic Benigno, a boss from Cleveland in the first 20s, for a double murder/robbery, he was considered the first boss of the Mayfield Road Mob.

Several other gang bosses have been also executed, although not on the chair, but on the gallows:

Sam Cardinelli (Chicago)
Rocco Racco (Pennsylvania)
Charlie Birger (southern Illinois)

Just for the record

There was a Mayfield Road boss before Milano?

This book says there was; it says Benigno was the first one who really organized the local rackets, but for some reason personally participated in the crime, and that was a big mistake:
http://www.amazon.com/Sly-Fanner-Murders...ords=sly+fanner
Dominic Lonardo (I think he was Joseph Lonardo's brother) also participated in the robbery.

$300 Million a year. That's what I mean Turnbull. That money was funneled up to the Mafia and then split up further. After Lepke was off the scene, that is exactly how the Mafia managed that cash cow, as a criminal commonwealth, not a monopoly.

Obviously the unions and industry heads saw Lepke as representing something larger. He was only the representative.

Back to Pittsburgh Strauss:

Since more guys than were actually caught were probably core members of Murder Inc., the inflated number of hits attributed to Strauss might have actually been done by a wider group of individuals who were never caught. That's if the number is actually inflated. It might not be.