BORGIAS OF CHICAGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

BORGIAS OF CHICAGO.

POISON AND HANGING REPLACE GUNS. Chicago is disgusted with the incriminating evidence that modern gang-war weapons leave behind. Gunmen of that city have now turned to the death-dealing methods of the Borgias in the dispatch of their victims. They have abandoned sawnoff shot-guns, machine guns, and automatics in favour "of poison, torture and hanging. In a savage renewal of warfare between gangs fighting for control of the underworld liquor traffic, the terrorising methods practised by Italy's notorious family have been brought into play. The police recently found the body of a man upon whom sentence of death by hanging had been imposed and executed. A noose was looped round his neck, with the other end made fast to a post. The trampled ground gave mute evidence of the struggle, and fresh motor car tyre tracks showed how the executioners had made their escape after the perpetration of the crime. All identifying marks had been removed from the dead man's clothing. Another man who took part in a profitable beer-running campaign had lost his eyesight. The police state he had been poisoned, and the victim's brother asserted: "Somebody put stuff in his milk." Two other men are held by the police on a charge of torturing a negro who told the story of his capture. "They kidnapped me," he said, "and took me to a house. They kept asking me where two other men they wanted were hidden. I said I didn't know. Then they got mad and heated up a fork until the prongs were red hot, and burned me around the face and neck. "Then the 4 v burned me with cigarettes. I hollered some, and finally they let me go."