When to cops came to the crime scene they were stunned. They found the smoldering corpse in the dinning room of the young redhead girl in a very horrid state. They were very confused because they didn’t have a clue on who and why would do such a terrible thing. When Estelle’s cousin came to the crime scene she was questioned by the cops if Estelle had any enemies on the side. Her cousin told them that she was good to everyone, but later noticed that her fur coats were missing. Now the cops were even more confused because her coats were missing but her expensive jewelry was untouched. Also what kind of burglars are known to carry a bottle of flammable liquid to a heist. So the cops started to question all of the residents around Estelle’s apartment if they saw anything suspicious. The cops also showed pictures of known gangsters to the residents. One woman resident unhesitatingly made the identification of Thomas Stapleton and she told the cops that she saw Stapleton exiting Estelle’s apartment but couldn’t say what time period that happened. The detectives immediately arrested Stapleton and questioned him about the murder. Stapleton told the cops that he knew Estelle very well and that he visited her but left her alive and very well. He also denied any gangster connections but the cops knew that was a lie. So one of the detectives, Captain William Drury of the Town Hall police, knew who was who in Stapleton’s gangster connections and also knew that Stapleton wasn’t able to do such a gruesome murder by himself. Drury knew that the only gang that can do such a terrible thing was the Chicago Outfit. So Drury ordered the arrests of Sam Battaglia, Marshal Caifano, Les Kruse and Ralph Pierce. All of the gangsters were represented by the attorney Sid Korshak and as usually no one knew anything so later all of them were released. Estelle Carey’s murder remained unsolved. This kind of a bloody message maybe worked on Circella because he turned off just like an electric light but all of threats to the families of Bioff and Browne, backfired because both of them agreed to testify against the Outfit bosses. So on December 30th, 1943, Ricca and the rest of the gang each received a 10 year sentences in federal prison but the “workers” like Battaglia and Caifano remained free on the streets of Chicago and operated as Ricca’s legacy.


On August 18, 1943, Battaglia and Caifano were riding in their black sedan when suddenly a cruising police car stopped them after recognizing their faces. The cops searched the car and found a whole arsenal of weapons such as sawed off shotgun, a rifle, a hand grenade and five pistols. Battaglia told the cops that he didn't know who the weapons belonged to. The cops didn’t believe them and took them to the station for further questioning. At the station Battaglia and Caifano pulled out a document that the car was a rental and both said that the weapons were placed in car by someone else before they rented it. So the cops had no choice but to release them and the case was dropped. From that day onwards, not a single ranking member of the Outfit ever rode around in a car that was owned by him.


After the murder of the old time mob boss Lawrence Mangano in 1944, Tony Accardo became the boss of the Outfit while Ricca served time in jail. So by natural order of things, Giancana became the number one man on Taylor Street which was a very good news for Battaglia and the rest of the old 42 gang because now they had the chance to make some real money. The West Side bloc of the Chicago Outfit was led by Giancana but the Melrose Park area was led by Rocco “Rocky” DeGrazia, an old time Capone gangster. Although Battaglia was very close to Giancana, he was ordered to work under the auspices of DeGrazia. The old man was heavily involved in gambling and often held court at his gambling joint known as the Casa Madrid. While DeGrazia enjoyed his profits from the gambling racket, Battaglia expanded his loan sharking operations. Battaglia served as DeGrazia’s enforcer who enforced the rules on many debtors and also killed the ones that refused to pay. According to mob lore during one occasion, Battaglia brought a debtor to the basement of the Casa Madrid and was beating him for hours. One of the mob guys who witnessed the savage thrashing of the victim, had the nerve to question Battaglia on how was he handling the guy who owed him. Battaglia became angry and yelled at him "Shaddup, or I'll bust ya in da teets!" By "teets" he obviously meant teeth. Some Italians, especially Sicilians, can’t pronounce the word “teeth” so they say “teets”. The nickname stuck for the rest of his life. Battaglia’s chief commander DeGrazia was also involved in another racket known as selling narcotics. He had few guys who robbed pharmacy stores around town for opium and morphine and re-sold it on the black market. So in later years Battaglia will inherit this business which was known as the “forbidden fruit” among the Outfit’s members under the rule of Tony Accardo.


There were three groups of ruthless enforcers on the West Side, first one led by “Teets” Battaglia and Marshall Caifano, second one by Fiore Buccieri and his brother Frank, and the third group was led by the Jewish faction of Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras. Patrick, Yaras and William Block answered only to Battaglia. These groups of “young bloods” were overseen by Giancana and Leonard Caifano and were also considered the most evil and menacing individuals in the whole organization.


On February 25, 1944 Sam and Angela Battaglia brought another child to this world, but this time it was a son. As any Italian father, Sam was very happy that he got a son and so he named him Sam John Battaglia. Few years later he received another son who was named Richard. But Sam Sr. wasn’t a very faithful husband to his wife. He was known to be very fond of beautiful women and always kept a mistress on the side. For now Angela always kept a blind eye.


Now Tony Accardo’s main illegal business was gambling and he had a desire to control the racket all over the Midwest. So by the mid 1940’s the Chicago mob started a move to push their gambling and terror operations in Indiana. With the help of their multimillion-dollar schemes and the corruption of all local and state officials, the gangsters spread their operations from Hammond to South Bend. By directing the drive to control all gambling and vice operations on that territory and to take over carefully every illegal operations, the Outfit needed to remove few stones here and there. For example in 1945 Alexander Chase, who was known handbook operator and gambler from Hammond was resisting the Outfit’s control and refused to pay his tribute to the organization. So Battaglia received the order to go to Indiana and take care of the problem. Battaglia orchestrated the operations and took two other associates with him. The plan was first Battaglia would have a more than few drinks with Chase and later when they depart, the two hoodlums would seize Chase and take him for a ride. So on September 28, 1945 Battaglia met with Chase in a saloon in Gary, Indiana and the pair started to drink heavily. Two hours later, the duo left the local and a dark automobile was waiting for them outside. Battaglia told Chase to get in the car and they departed together. Few hours later Chase’s body was found shot to death on a street in Hammond. Almost two weeks later, Battaglia was identified by witnesses from the saloon, as being the last person who saw Chase. On October 13, 37 year old Sam Battaglia was arrested at his home in Chicago. When the cops searched him he had $3,000 in his pockets, which was a quite huge amount to have it in the pockets in his pajamas. Battaglia refused to waive extradition to Indiana so he was sent to Felony Court in Chicago and as usual later he was released for the lack of evidences.



Mugshot of Battaglia during his arrest


In 1946, the leader of the “young bloods” Sam Giancana became very greedy and declared war to the African-American policy kings. Giancana wanted the policy racket under his wings because it brought millions of dollars in just one week and it was the only thing that was going to bring him to the top of the Chicago Outfit. So he and Leonard Caifano decided to use an old 42 gang tactic, known as kidnapping, on one of the most prominent and also very wealthy police king known as Edward “Eddie” Jones. Giancana met Jones few years previously and Jones made Giancana his partner in the policy business. Now Giancana wasn’t the first Outfit member that got involved in this racket because Sam “Golf bag” Hunt, an old Capone killer from the South Side, was involved years before him. But the difference between Hunt and Giancana was that Hunt collaborated with the black racketeers and only took his cut, as for Giancana he wanted all of it for himself and the rest of his followers. So in May 1946, Jewish hoodlums Lenny Patrick and Dave Yaras kidnapped Jones and brought him to a house in Oak Park. In the house, Jones was met by Giancana, Leonard Caifano, Leonard Gianola and Fiore Buccieri, all former and most ruthless members of the 42 gang. Jones was forced to surrender his most profitable business. After that Jones was released and never stepped foot again in Chicago. But not all of Jones’ associates joined the Outfit.


Theodore “Teddy” Roe was the main black policy king that refused to give his hard made business into the hands of Sam Giancana. The problem was that Roe was very distrustful and suspicious of the Italians, especially Giancana, and he also virtually controlled all the other small-time black wheel operators. So Giancana made plan and formed a hit team made of Leonard Caifano, Vincent Ioli and another hitman. The plan was to kidnap Roe and later to bring him to a yacht that was rented by Caifano, and to give Roe the same treatment that Eddie Jones got before him. So on June 19, 1951, Roe was driving along with his two bodyguards when suddenly a darkened sleek sedan was stealthily stalking their car. Roe recognized some of the stalkers and got off from his car, together with his bodyguards, and started shooting with their guns towards the sedan. The three Italians were caught completely off guard and during the process Caifano got shot directly in the head and died right on the spot. From the other side of the car, Ioli screamed he’d also been hit and instinctively the other hitman got the wheel and sped off into the night, leaving Caifano in a pool of blood. After that Roe was considered untouchable and many Outfit members were afraid to take the contract of Roe’s life. Now this is the time when Sam Battaglia came to the big picture. So he and the revengeful Marshal Caifano took the contract on Roe’s life. So Battaglia waited for things to cool down and to make his move at the right moment. Even though Battaglia had a high stature and was very well known around Chicago by now, he still loved to do the dirty work, but this time he knew that Roe might recognize their faces so he sent two of his underlings Joseph Amabile and Armando Fosco. During the 1940’s these two men served as muscle for Battaglia and were very much trusted. On August 4, 1952, the two hitmen jumped in their 1950 grey Chevrolet sedan and drove across Michigan Avenue. The hit team parked their car behind two signboards in a vacant lot south of the building where Roe lived at 5247 South Michigan Avenue and waited. After half an hour Roe came out of the building and approached his car which was parked in front. Suddenly the hitmen pulled out their 12 gauge shotguns filled with double-o-buckshots and fired 4 times at Roe. The blasts sent 45 large pellets, about as large as a .32 caliber bullets. The pellets entered Roe’s chest and also struck his head below the left ear. After that the killers sped off in the dark of night. When the ambulance came, Roe was still breathing but later died shortly after his arrival in the Provident hospital. Behind the signboards where the killers stayed, the cops found five empty shotgun cartridges, tire tracks and an empty half-gallon beer bottle. No one was ever charged with the murder of Roe.


Now Giancana was very grateful to Battaglia because the murder of Teddy Roe was very important for Giancana’s prosperity. The significance was that the policy racket first of all brought a lot of cash and traditionally supplied the campaign funds for many politicians. With that the Outfit was now able to spread its political influence from the West Side strongholds into the black wards on the South Side. By now Giancana became the number two guy under Accardo so many of his underlings such as Battaglia and Bucceri started to climb up the ladder. Battaglia’s influence in Melrose Park was spreading like a plague, but Rocco DeGrazia was still the number one guy even though everybody knew that Battaglia was the real power. So now some of the old time bosses realized that the younger faction of the Chicago Outfit was becoming more and more powerful and because of that they started to loose their grips over the organization. Ricca and Accardo were very much aware of this “phenomenon” but they didn’t move a finger because they needed the new guys like Giancana and Battaglia to clean up every possible old member that wanted to be above the organization. Plus, who was going to take the contract on the West Side boys? Claude Maddox, the “underboss” of the aging “Don” Louis Campagna who controlled the Cicero area, was very much involved in the illegal operations of the West Side bloc. Ross Prio the boss of the North Side was also in connection with the young bloods, same as Murray Humphreys and Gus Alex from the South Side. So eventually the old Capone mob became a victim of its own legacy. You see, guys like Battaglia and Giancana were “one way street” individuals, there was no way of reasoning with these people. If they wanted something very badly, there was nothing in the world that could’ve stopped them. They were not the biggest earners in the organization, but they made the right move at the right time, such as the policy racket. I mean they also had the juice business, narcotics, prostitution same as any other crew in the city, but the important thing was that almost every member in the West Side bloc had more than few skeletons in their closets.


For example, there was also another Chicago group known as the "west side bloc" which was formed by politicians who were elected from Chicago wards or districts where the Chicago crime syndicate had its deepest roots. The bloc members invariably supported bills intended to further syndicate businesses and opposed those designed to curb crime. Some of these men were Representatives James Adduci, Peter Granata and Clem Graver. All three members were secretly financed by Giancana and Battaglia.


Clem Graver began his political career in the old "bloody 20th" ward, part of which was the 21st, as the protege of his brother-in-law, Harry Hochstein, former intimate of Al Capone. Later he became the state representative and 21st ward Republican. He was also in the excellent position of being not only a representative but a successful ward committeeman from an organized and controlled “vest pocket" ward. Granata's district, the 17th, was just to the north and east of Clem's and Adduci’s was just to the west. Many of their voters were living in identical types of communities and had similar problems. There was a story that every member of the west side bloc usually said “If you can tell me how Pete and Jimmy are voting then I'll go along them.” So this tells us that Adduci and Granata controlled the whole bloc but the problem was that Graver never did this and he always held his own opinions. In other words he stood on his own feet. That was a big problem for Adduci, Granata and the Chicago Outfit because Graver had announced his stands on other matters which the bloc opposed. These included Gov. Stratton's proposal to redistrict the state, for the first time in its history, and in the process wipes out such vest pocket areas as Graver's, Adduci's, and Granata's by balancing the voting numbers amongst them. Graver stated publicly, in such a way that he could hardly reconsider, that he would support reapportionment. He also announced that he would support two bills filed on behalf of the Republican controlled sanitary district of Chicago. One of these allowed the district to use current tax income for building purposes, thus saving the cost of bond issue financing. The west side bloc was outspoken against these bills, for a special reason. This involved action by Anthony Olis, president of the sanitary district, and other Republican board members in firing 31 employees who had been sponsored by the bloc group. These firings coincided with the indictment and trials of Adduci for taking kickbacks from state suppliers while he was in the legislature. The indictment came in 1951, and two trials in 1952 and 1953. Adduci finally was declared not guilty after the second hearing but the first one ended with a hung jury. Adduci was persuaded to withdraw his candidacy for re-election to the legislature. Now Pete Granata became the acknowledged authority for the bloc in the house and the Outfit became stronger than ever. Granata immediately fired Graver and so he became resentful for losing his $325 a month job and never had the chance to get it back.



Clem Graver


So on June 10, 1953, Graver and Granata had a whispered heated conversation on the floor of the house during an afternoon hearing on the sanitary district bills. Granata had made a motion to consider the bills to delay and possibly prevent them from following the procedures thru various and to a final vote. When a roll call was ordered on the motion, Granata called Graver to his desk and the two became red faced and heated in their low toned exchange. Graver has made Granata very angry and so Granata took it to Giancana and Battaglia. Giancana immediately gave order to Battaglia to take care of the problem. The next day on June 11, 1953, Graver drove to his home at 976 W. 18th pl. He got out of his car to open the garage doors, he drove inside, but before he could close the doors, two men, who got out of a dark colored Ford automobile, pushed their way inside the garage. Than the kidnappers closed the garage door from the inside and emerged from a smaller door which was cut in the larger door. Graver’s arms were pinioned behind his back and he was struggling with his captors and was forced into the Ford, which was driven by a third person. That was the last time that anyone ever saw or heard about Clem Graver. It was a “clean job” because no trace of him ever has been found. The only clue that the cops had was the witnessing of Graver’s wife. She said that the three kidnappers were very well dressed…that was it. There was also another theory, which was later developed, that Graver obtained money from Giancana himself in order to “spring” an unknown individual from prison and Graver failed to do this. So Giancana assigned three suspected underlings, including Frank Ferraro, Gus Alex and Sam Battaglia to handle the kidnapping either by themselves or through others.



1953 Press Photo Mrs. Emily Graver collapses after seeing husband Clem kidnapped


Anyways, Battaglia again showed his skills for masterminding a clean and neat job for making people disappear and in the end got away clean. But the thing was that the rightful politicians were not the biggest problem for Battaglia and the Outfit, but it was the people among them. For example, in 1953 two North Side members Paul “Needle Nose” Labriola and Jimmy Weinberg planned the potential murder of the infamous Capone lawyer Abraham Teitelbaum. Teitelbaum was president of the thriving Chicago Restaurant Association and Labriola and Weinberg wanted a piece of it. Both gangsters were backed by the syndicate’s big shots Sam Hunt, Bruno Roti, Ross Prio and Tony Accardo. Now, when Labriola and Weinberg were making arrangements for setting up their beverage association, Hunt and Roti advised them that they should get in touch with Giancana’s representative on the West Side Sam Battaglia and inform him that their association was coming in his territory, and that he and Giancana are going to get their share. But there was problem when Battaglia realized that he and his cohorts were going too receive a much smaller share from the operation that the other old time bosses such as Hunt, Prio, and Roti. So Labriola and Weinberg failed to get permission from Battaglia to enter their operations on West Side unless they were able to give Battaglia and Giancana an equal share. That’s when Labriola and Weinberg made a huge mistake by threatening Battaglia with the information that behind their operation stood three Outfit bosses. Previously Labriola and Weinberg were told by Hunt, Roti and Prio that their names should be kept out of any conversation. The deal was that if Labriola had any trouble with the West Side bloc he was to contact Ben Warner, who was more or less a messenger for Hunt. So in an effort to impress Battaglia, the problem backfired to Labriola and Weinberg. Also the two gangsters thought that the “young bloods” were not going to make any move with out the “ok” from Accardo, so Labriola decided to further establish his operations on the West Side without the approval of Giancana and Battaglia.



Paul "Needle Nose" Labriola(on the left)

Battaglia decided to take this problem to the higher ups, not Accardo but Paul Ricca. By now Battaglia had a very close relationship with Ricca so he decided to ask the top guy of the organization to settle the problem. So Ricca advised Roti and Hunt to withdraw their support for Labriola and Weinberg. Roti and Hunt had a good reason to withdraw their support and turn their backs because their involvement was already exposed by Labriola and Weinberg. Ricca realized that if Hunt or Roti still supported the operation there was going to be an all out war. As for Roti and Hunt they already had things pretty well wrapped up so they didn't want any violence because it brought a lot of heat on their operations. Now both Labriola and Weinberg were in real hot water because the infuriated Sam Battaglia required justice, meaning he wanted blood as an example to the other members of the organization. Labriola and Battaglia knew each other since the old days. In fact Labriola was the stepson of Lawrence Mangano. After the murder of his stepfather, Labriola moved his operations on the North Side under Nick DeJohn who was also slain in San Francisco in 1947. So death was following almost every mentor of Labriola and this time it caught up with him too. Giancana and Battaglia pressured Ross Prio to take care of his two underlings in the most gruesome way. On March 15, 1954 the police found Paul Labriola and James Weinberg garrotted and stuffed together in a car trunk. Later their autopsies revealed that they were also poisoned.


From this previous example, we saw that the underworld is full of treachery and back stabbing games. Some of the Outfit’s members were led and later betrayed by their superiors because of greed for the old mighty dollar. Now I’m going to show you another example, where some Outfit associates made a lot of cash for the organization until they were uncovered by the government which brought them to their demise. Anthony Pape was a known West Side hoodlum with high profile connections within the Chicago Outfit. He was only 15 years old when he became a close friend of Sam Battaglia and other 42 gang members. Pape was arrested 22 times since 1929 and also served 14 months in jail on murder charges. At first Pape was a major player for Battaglia in the sale and distribution of counterfeit cash but the thing was that Pape was later involved in another business which some of the old Outfit members like Rocco DeGrazia supported it, and that was the sale of narcotics. Pape had a very large crew of west side dope peddlers, including his younger brother James Pape, Anthony Ponzi, Joseph Iacullo, Tony Sperna, Frank Coduto, Harold Scales, Samuel Felton, Joseph Burns, Anthony Schullo, Frank DeMarie and Roy Pinna. According to government investigations, this large crew made over $5,000,000 a year only from the narcotics trade. So I believe that Battaglia very well enjoyed the fruits from this allegedly forbidden business. Now we all know that Tony Accardo was the boss during this period and we all read about his alleged hatred towards the narcotics trade. But FBI surveillances said otherwise. In a matter of months one of Pape’s top men in the narcotics trade, Joseph Iacullo, was seen going in and out of Accardo’s home for more than 20 times. My opinion is that Accardo also enjoyed the big amounts of cash which was made by the narcotics crew but he always respected the old rule “deal but don’t get caught…if caught, you die”. In reality, Accardo was scared from the bad publicity given by the narcotics trade and avoided any government heat that might jeopardize his vast gambling operations but my opinion is that he never refused the fat envelopes. So this meant that Accardo was ready to kill anyone at anytime if things went out of control.