Perils of Petrosino

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 198, 25 September 1914, Page 3

Perils of Petrosino

By A. R. PARKHURST, JR.

Eflore Notes from Petrossno's Diary. Death, to ike Informer (Copj-r.?!;!. 1014. N y lin> '•(• > - Yui:. Up Jld C\>. A.'. ri.-l:ls ri'SiTVLMI.) M . IOATH for those srspected; « H ,tu "' im * s,ill ' death to the a H,i.iitoj anl the i:iii>rn:ei I" ' | Tiiis. is the f-ite ail look' forwaid to who enlist in the rniiks of lilt' IJlack Hand and when called upon to do the bidding of the Coiu.cil of Uoarh qrail :md fjiv*lr!>ftire striking the Mow that would send into -eleriUiy some \!etim marked for Mano Noro'ij ;t'oa.ii::nce. The nr. , .i , (K , ror..s. gripping finders of the IlJ'ick Iliiiil never u-Li-i their hold rpon the throats, of its victims. They strangle any outcry thai mteht le ivade. All who, sit in the eoiinci'- -if the Mafia ■realize.'tii.-it the lot of the traitor is even harder thati tha; of, those who'defy the blackmnUing' demands of the chieftains. Death ."rs the penalty for nonpayment, but to.tlse traitor every (-mining and Jiorrible form of torture that a cruel and | .ingenious mind can conceive is me:edj -OKI before the death dealing stfletto is ] plmiffcd"into his liody. ; Time and ' .'listn n'ce matter, not' to the; JJafia. The high councillors are always j liberally supplied with funds, and if it | .is necessary to' spend a fortune in trail- j ing to his death one of its members who j played it false,.-the mo::ey is cheerfully \ .-spent. Its agents are stationed in all parts of the world, and there is no place so remote tliat the eye of the Cam or ra -cannot penetrate. The;.fugitive knows this, and flight ftvails him little. He is marked; for death ami, as one doomed, he travels oh "'atid - on. only prolonging his .-miserable existence in"•,accordance with that eternal.instinct, life is sweet at any -cost ■■'".■■'•

In all the years that Lieutenant.'Jo*-! rseph Petrosiuo, commander of the ltd- . ian squad of the New York Police De- j partmont, spent in running down the ! Black Hand- in this country and Italy i -he had no miv? arduous or perilous ; work than in trying to save some victim : ■from the vengeance of the society whosefi •secrets ho had.revealed. AJor.?-than one ; •of these, in lact many of them who ■lifter b.T.n,j J corr.ered by the fearless detective professed a change of heart and •CMifosseu to him plots and counterplots thai ilad 1 een hatched in"the councils <•£' Mano Nero, begged him to save their lives. The- detective realized what the fate of this convict would be once the long and cruel fingers of the Black Hand began groping for his" throat. Therefore, he would set to wo'U to safeguard this man. and in some iiistarn.es he succeeded though he failed in others. No better illustration of the long arm that directs the vengeance of the. Black Hand is nvcrded than the case of Angelo Defino, murdered in Brooklyn a little more than a year ago. His was.an exceptional case inasmuch as leu years were required to accomplish his end. Although many attempts were made on his life he managed to survive the as-" eassin's bullets and knife thrusts and, to speed away when his wound.) had healed to some new haven which for a time hid him from the pursuer's vision.

y While living in Palermo in 100> Angclo, then twenty-three years old a.id bearing a bad reputation, became associated with the Camorra. He was wild, reckless and unscrupulous and for a timo found favor with his leaders. He was frequently in trouble and was arrested by the Italian police a number of times, but through the sinister influence of his leader he managed to escape punishment. The last time he was placed in prison, fearing lws associates would not come to his rescue, he made overtures to the police, with revelations as to the activities of his comrades as the price of. liberty. In fact he offered to reveal all the secrets, of the Camorra in his possession If they would let down the bars of his prison cell and permit him to flee the country. They readily consented. One of the names he gave to the Italian police was that of Pasquale de Laporte. Angelo knew that the greater the dis-

i tauce he eouid place between himself and j those he had betrayed the .greater' his \ -safety. At least he thought so. Slipping j > out of Italy under an assumed:b«iue, he j passage'..for Australia. Wh'iU* walk- j ; ing through a dark street,in" Sydney one J j uight, iiearijg footsteps softly patter- ! 'ing behind -hi:u, ,turned to s • catch a fleeting glance of the face of | i Laporte as, with asm extended, he fired ■ ; point blank at the terror stricken fugi- , t.ve. The assassin and the two com- j j panions who had been designated by the i Camorra to accompany Laporte and see | that he avenged the Camorra fled believ- [ ing they had left Angelo dying in, his ! tracks. But Angelo survived his wound, i through the ministrations of Sisters of 'Charity to whoso hospital lie was re■J moved. When partly recovered and able ! to travel he embarked for the Argentine j or. the first vessel he'could'engage pas- ! sage aboard. ! About a year after the first attack j Defino was shot down in the streets of Buenos Ay res.' The flash of the pistol ! ngain reyealed the features of De I.a- ---! Porte and the same two men Angelo had • seen with the gunman '.u Sydney. Again Define survived the attack, and after a j long illness he dragged himself from his 1 cot in the Bueuos Ayres hospital and, | boarding a steamship, bended for the j United States, hoping that in this big !: country he could outwit his pursuers. I He arrived in San Francisco and cn■j deavored to lose himself in the fastnesses of Barbary Coast and the Avine shops of Telegraph Hill. He Avent ont in the fishing-boats beyond the Golden Gate, thinking that better safety was afforded him afloat than ashore. But the old longing for the wild and reckless life ho had lived in Palermo became so insisteut that he deserted his fikhing boat to return to the shuns of VBarbary Coast. One night while drinking with a gay party in one of the all night resorts ho looked up to see De Laporte and his two companions enter. Escape was impossible, and as Angelo attempted to slip from his chair under tne table three shots in rapid succession rang out and Angelo rolled over with a bullet through his lung. The next seven months he spent in a hospital, and when able he "took ship for India and turned up In Bombay, where he felt positive none would find him. For a time the shims of Bombay swallowed the terror stricken and bullet riddled Italian. He rarely ventured out in daylight and crawled from nis miserable hiding place at night to join in the revels of the lowest wine shops to be found there. But the Black Hand was as rei lentless as it was cruel, and once more

De i.aporte uim «« ever present body, guard appeared on the scene and two more bullets pierced Angelo's body. Even these he survived, and flight back to the United States was in order as soon as he was strong enough to travel.; So far he had enjoyed a charmed life, even though he was crippled and scarred for life. ";. ".■'■■" Passing through San TTrancisco—for he feared to tarry there - Angelo made straight for-a mining camp in Nevada. There he was wounded in a brawl, although he later told a friend that he was sure one of De Laporte's two friends was the man who fired the shot. Fleeing Nevada, he arrived in,Duluth, where he was shot down in a saloon, and again it was De Laporte that held the revolver. This was in 1908, and two years later he was almost killed' when several bullets pierced him as he stood before a bar in Chicago. As he fell to the floor he saw De Laporte and the two Camorrist agents fleeing through" the door. One year later Angelo Defino arrived in Brooklyn. He took rooms at Noi 5,901 Thirteenth avenue, and obtained employment from Palidino Bros., contractors, with offices in Sixtieth street, near Twelfth avenue, Brooklyn. Not long afterward he married and continued to live in his Thirteenth avenue rooms. On the night of May 18, a year ago, Palidino Bros, gave a fete for their employes in the Oleraain dance hall. Angelo and his bride were among the happiest of the gay party that drank, feasted and danced to the strains of the orchestra present. So happy was poor Angelo on this occasion that he confided to a party of friends that sat at the table with him of his long race against death and the relentless pursuit of the Camorra agents. He added that now, for the first time, he felt safe and believed the cruel chase was at an end. As held his glass aloft and offered a toast to the pretty bride at hia side he paused. His staring eyes were riveted on the door where three strangers stood. His face turned the color of death and the wine glass he held crashed to the floor. As the three strangers slowly advanced in the room Angelo stood as if rooted to the spot, and then with a despairing cry sank to the floor as if in an effort to crawl under the table. One of the strangers, who proved to be De Laporte, had advanced to within a few feet of Angelo's rear. The other two circled about until one stood at each side of him. Six shots boomed out, and when the pall of smoke lifted the frenzied bride was found on the floor with the head of her husband resting in her lap. Any one of the six bullets would have

producer Tnstant death, for Aagelo had dropped dead in his tracks. One bullet, entering his back, had sped clear through the body. Another had pierced his heart. Three had crashed through hi; ribs and the sixth, entering the right eye, had penetrated the brain. At last De Laporte had done the Camorra's bidding, although the agents at his side evidently had tired of the world chase made necessary by his faltering j.im and had taken part in the killing themselves. All three fled, and De Laporte, after being traced to New I/ondon, Conn., escaped. His fellow slayers, the presumption is, made their way back to Italy to report in person the result of the world's chase and its final successful issue. The Camorra had been avenged and the fate of Angelo was held up to all members as an example of what a traitor might expect.

There ht;ve been instances where the Black Hand has demanded the lives of an entire family as a forfeit for the treachery of one of its members. Giuseppe Costa and his four sons and one daughter, Maria, lived ii. Palermo, where the father was well to do. Declining to be blackmailed, he caused the arrest of one of the leaders of the Mafia on an old embezzlement charge. The elder Costa was warned that unless he dropped the prosecution death would follow, and, further, that each male member of the family might expect the same fate. The father was fearless and patriotic, believing that the police, through information he was in a position to supply, would protect him and his. He reckoned without his host, however, for was shot to death and his mutilated body showed all those distinguishing r. arks, such as the cross on the forehead and the slit from mouth to forehead, which indicate the motive and at whose hands death was accomplished. The sons possessed none of their ill fated father's courage. They knew that safety alone lay in flight, and even then

ttieir ciiances of escape were meagre. With their isrster, Maria, the/ fled to the United States and scattered to far distant parts of the new, big country they hoped would protect them. Some went West, others settled in and arpund New York. Gaetanno Costa'and Maria chose Brooklyn as their future home, and the brother engaged in business as a butcher. Success attended his efforts and in time he was the owner of three well paying stores. For a time he heard from his brothers, but always through secret channels.

After being in this country three years Gaetanno began to hope that the throats of the Mafia had been empty and idle. Here he had established himself, he made money and he and Maria were enjoying it. Hearing but infrequently from his brothers he hoped that they, too, were prospering and free from the vengeance of his father's slayeiys. Gaetanno's peace of mind was but short lived. One morning he received a letter informing him of the murder of his oldest brother near Jackson Park, 111. On the body which had been riddled with slugs fired from a gun was found the sign of the cross and "the slash ftjom mouth to forehead. Gaetanno knew at once at whose direction the shot had been fired. In rapid succession letters followed announcing the deaths of others of the family. Another of the brothers had been tracked to a point near Erie, Pa. He, too, was killed with a shotgun and his body mutilated like that of his father and brother.. The Camorra was leaving its mark on each of its victims. In a week Gaetanno heard of the murder of still another brother at Geneva, 111., and on the night following his lone surviving brother was shot to death near Riverside, 111 All were hacked and their faces bore the sign of the traitor's cross. Gaetanno alone survived* and lie

realized that his days were numbered. • On .the-'"morning of October 13, 1905, ■Gaetarihb was opening one of his butcher shops for the day's business. As he stood in his'doonvii'y a load of buckshot was 'discharged', from a gun in the a man secreted in ..a bnildiug opposite. ■'Gaetanuo fell, dead, the last male member of his family to pay the forfeit for • the -prosecution of the blackmailing Camorrist wi'.oin the intrepid father' had sought to hand .over to the law. 'Many years wore retjuirqd. to wipe the score clean, but. five and four sons—were snuffed, out and vengeance was complete. Maria still lives to mourn her dead kinsmen, her tortuous paroxysms of grief being worse than death itself. "'Thus death and torture fell to the lot of the Costa clan. New York detectives -were able to establish beyond a question the link connecting the last of the.killings with all .that had gone before. Petrosino was in possession of all the facts bearing on the murder of Costa pere as well as those that had to do with the murder of his four sons. Several suspects were arrested and grilled, but all, fearing the vengeance .of <Mano Nero, held their tongues . and remained stolidly indifferent to the threats of the police. Petrosino persisted, but without success, and Gaetanno's murder was classified among that long list of unsolved killings in which it was known the Black Hand was the instigator and one of its agents the actual slayer. . ~ A year or two after Gaetanno's murder Tony N.'bilio, a youth of twenty living at No. 815 East lOSth street, staggered into the Detective Bureau at Police Headquarters and told "Captain McCauley, then in charge, this story of Gaetanuo Costa's murder:— "I was. a member of a Black Hand group with headquarters in . Brooklyn. At one of the councils of the group- I' was chosen to place and light a boom in the hallway of Gaetanno's home. At the eleventh hour I weakened and couldn't sum up courage enough to.carry out the death plot. I fled and hid for four months, but one day I was caught and literally dragged through the streets to a house in Sackett street,. Brooklyn. "I was taken into a darkened room,, . bound and gagged and then lashed to a chair which was made fast to the floor. Each of the eight of my captors stood over me with poised stilettos. At a given signal their steel blades descended and J was literally hacked to - pieces. Every, man in the party took a slash at me and each made the sign of the cross on my forehead, as well as-...making the, well known slit from mouth to forehead. I was unconscious long before they left me. Thinking I was dead, the Black Handers locked the door after them and ' left. "How long I lay there I don't know. But some one found me and I was rescued and taken to a hospital, where, I have been for six months. I felt stronger to-day, and as I lay on my cot thinking over what had befallen me I decided to tell the police all I knew. I fled, half clothed, from the hospital and came straight to Police Headquarters." Petrosino was placed in possession of all the facts as told by Nabilio. While the men who slashed the informer were not apprehended for several months, Petrosino' arrested four men implicated in the murder of Gaetanuo and two of these were convicted and sent to the chair. It was proved that these men all had a hand in the murder of the four sons-of the father who was slain in Italy.

On Christmas Day, 1906, five men stood at the bar of Vincenzo Caraciro's saloon, No. 1,449 Sixty-sixth street, Brooklyn. They talked in an undertone, but none the less Suddenly the voice of one of the men was raised to high pitch, and turning to the man at his exclaimed in Italian.:—"You are a traitor to the Cause and .'you'know you must die." >

In less time than it takes to tell itV each of the other four whipped but their revolvers and fired, the stranger toppling over dead with four bullet wounds iflr his body. Vincenzo in retailing the facts surrounding the slaying to Petrosinp swore that he knew none of the men implicated,repeating that all were strangers and had visited his saloon for the first

time. Petrosino. saw. however, a man peering In through a window of the saloon as he stood talking to Vincenzo. The knuckle of the index finger was clenched between his teeth, and that sign of instant death to the informer-was sufficiently terrifying to forever seal the saloonkeeper's lips. ' , A month after the slaying of the stranger in Vincenzo >Caraciro's saloon the wife of Vincenzo Dicerbo. a well-to-do tradesman in Hartford, Conn., hearing a noise early one morning, descendedthe steps to investigate. She was seized by three men, who bound and gagged lier and hurled her:to the floor. The strangers gathered up all the newspapers they could find and placing them beneath the body of the insensible woman set fire to ibern.

> Hearing the disturbance downstairs, the husband came hurrying down the steps, when lie was seized, a hand clapped oyer his mouth and thongs twisted about his legs and arms. A gag slipped into his mouth silenced him, and his captors, after slashing his forehead and face, thus branding him with the mark of a traitor; built a fire beneath him and fled.

Diccrbo and his wife -were rescued more dead than alive by their neighbors, and after a Jong stay in a hospital recovered. Petrosfno, who was called into the case, learned that Dicerbo had translated a letter that fell into the hands of the Hartford police. It was a Black Hand missive received by Pasquale Valenti. Petrosino trailed the three men who had sought to incinerate the Italian and his wife" to New York and arrested them.. As each" faced lif& imprisonment for crimes committed in Italy he turned them over to the* Italian authorities and they were deported. Italians in this country, innocent of any wrong doing, have been drawn into Black Hand plots and made to suffer for the deeds of others, as the case of Francisco Reccabene shows: He went to j New York from a point in Wohteliester [ county on December 20,.1907, to arrange I for passage of his wife in Italy to this country. He was met by a party of ■ Black ■.•Handers-. at First avenue and? Fortieth street, who greeted him as a fellow countryman whom they were desirous of welcoming to : New York. All adjourned to an Italian wine shop, where the cup Was frequently filled and at the end of a long drinking \>out the - /strange- was told that he had elected a member of their secret society, and further that he had been chosen to place a bomt) in the grocery store of a well Do do victim who had been marked i for death.

Francisco flatly refused to do the bidding of the murderous.band and so informed, them by declaring:—"'My honor is dearer to me than my life." "He was promptly told that it was a case of place and fire the bomb or suffer the fate of all'traitors. He was given twenty-four hours in which to deliberate, being .warned that he would be constantly watched and no chance of escaDe could arise.

The body of Francisco was found in a hallway at No. 342 East Fortieth street the next ufght. He had been shot to death. His honor was intact, for the bomb he had been bidden to place was never ignited. His'murderer is at large to this day. Another unsolved mystery, the notes of which I culled from Petrosino's diary, has to do with the slaying of Luigi de Lorenzo, of Xo. 37 East 107 th Street, whose body was found in Thomas Jef-" ferson Park, his throat cut from car to f . ear and flie sign of the cross on its' j forehead and mouth slashed. In the pocket of the dead man was a letter from his sweetheart in Palermo imploring him to break away from his Black Haud associates an New York. Evidently Luigi had Confided in some, associate that lie.intended to heed his sweet-" ' heart's warning and this confidant in turn had made known to the leader of the group, to which each belonged, thai there was a traitor in the camp. Luigi'a ■ sweetheart came to this country with • the avowed intention of avenging her lover, but so far she has hot found the man who had? slit her franco's throat. Giuseppe Giulliano kept a saloon in which Petrosino trailed a number of Black Hand agents. He' knew these cut throats used ,the saloon as a conven- -. ient rendezvous, but he was confident the saloonkeeper, who bore a good reputation, had no part in the plots of his customers,, Petrosino frequently visited the saloon* and urged the owner to keep this band away from the place, assuring him that 1-j would receive ample police protection. Giuseppe was anxious to do this, but, as he explained, if he made such a move he would be branded as a traitor and either he or some member of his family would be slain. As Giuseppe was preparing for bed one night, his four children and his wife standing near, a double barrel shotgun ■was discharged from a window on the opposite side of the street. The chargo of buckshot crashed through the window of the Giulliano flat and Giuseppe fell ilead, his body crashing down upon his four little children. Petrosino was not far away when report of the tragedy reached him, and when he arrived in the murder flat he found the widow crouched over tlio body of her husband -with a knuckle clenchedbetween her teeth. As she prayed at the side of her dead she registered a isacred-bath that she would avenge:his .* death. She then and there berated the detective, saying that Ms. frequent pres- • enee in the saloon" had brought about her husband's' murder, thus rendering her four little children orphans. The Austrian government has fixed maximum prices at which drugs and pharmaceutical preparations and supplies may be sold.