SONGSTER IN DEATH CELL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 108, 8 May 1937, Page 4 (Supplement)

SONGSTER IN DEATH CELL.

RUTHLESS AMERICAN SLAYERS

CARDINELLA'S BLOODTHIRSTY THUGS — LONG STRUGGLE TO ROUT UNDERWORLD GANGSTERS — NOVEL ATTEMPT TO

REVIVE CORPSE AFTER EXECUTION

SAM CARDINELLA, called "II Diavolo" (the Devil), whose vain

attempt to frustrate the hangman and baffle the law by resuscitation, alter he had been pronounced dead was described in this page last week, had an amazing career in crime, according to Dr. Francis W. Macnamara, for many years chief physician at the Cook County gaol, Illinois.

He was the proprietor of a poolroom at 22nd and Clark Streets, Chicago, and there he whispered softly to young Italians who came from humble homes in "The Valley," a slum area west of the river, or from the Oak Street district on the north side, where Mafia killings were a commonplace. They came as if to a college of crime, and he taught them well. Under his instructions they ravaged the dark streets of the west and north sides, and each of their crimes was as baffling in itself as a single piece of a jig-saw puzzle. Months after their arrest the police were still filling in the pattern of that picture. Their depredations continued unchecked for more than a year.

Then came the "break" of the story —the murder of Andrew P. Bowman, a saloon keeper at 447, West 22nd Street, and Benjamin Windle, one of his patrons,, Seven youths entered the premises, shouted, "Stick 'em up!" and then began to shoot. Their names were Tom Errico, Nicholas Viana, Leonard Crapo, Frank Oampione, Santo Orlando, Frank Gibbia, with on« other, never identified.

A witness to their flight jotted down the number of the automobile they used, and within a few hours the police traced it to Santo Orlando, who made a complete confession not only erf the Bowman killing but also of other exploits by the gang. His evidence involved the men named above and several others— Antonio Lopez, Joe Costanza, Sam Ferrara and Tony Sansone —in the Cardinella web of crime. Associates Betrayed. Orlando's betrayal of his associates won him a term of freedom during which the police used him as a bait for the capture of the others. They were caught one by one, and at last, when a composite of their stories formed a clear picture of their chieftain, Cardmella was apprehended at his home late in December, 1919.

Long before, however, the fate of a traitor to the underworld had overtaken Orlando. His body, blasted by pistol shots, was fished out of the drainage canal at Lockport on June 27. He had been in the water for about a week.

One of the band had escaped the police dragnet—Frank Gibbia. He and Cardmella, then at liberty, were suspected of Orlando's assassination. But there are wheels within wheels in the system of Italian underworld life loosely called Camorra, Mafia, or Black Hand and Orlando, although a "squealer," had friends who thought that revenge should be taken for his death.

Gibbia had fled to New Orleans, but he returned to Chicago Becretly to visit his sister, Mrs. Angelo Monteleone, 1934, Wabansia Avenue. On August 12,1920, she received an anonymous telephone call to this effect:— _"You will find your brother dead at Chicago Heights. Gibbia has been shot. Orlando is avenged." The information was accurate. Gibbia's body, bearing th,e cruel evidence of a 'ride" slaying, was picked up on a lonely stretch of the Ridge Line road, four miles south of Chicago Heights. The Penalty of Crime. Viana, youngest member of the gang, called "The Choir Singer," wag on December 10, 1920. Joe Costanza and Sam Ferrara were executed together 10 minutes after Cardinella. Antonio Lopez, nick-named "The Rooster," also was to have been executed that dav. but was granted a reprieve. He perished on the scaffold several months later. Tom Errico and Frank Campione were sentenced to be hanged; the former's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Leonard Crapo and Tony Sansone were given life sentences.

. Lopez was called "The Rooster" because of his practice of breaking out into a shrill "cock-a-doodle-doo" at frequent intervals. This was his wav of amusing himself in the courtroom 'during his trial, and in the gaol. It was apparently a neurotic habit carried over from his boyhood rather than a symptom of an unbalanced mind. He crowed gleefully and also flapped hi* arms like a rooster on the morning of the execution of Cardinella, Costcnza and Ferrara. after receiving his reprieve. The others heard his barnyard cackle as he was being moved from the death cell back to "murderers' row"; but it didn't seem to cheer them. "The Rooster" may have believed then that he would esca'pe the rope; but his time to strut soon ended. The Chicago crime commission checked a movement to commute his sentence to life imprisonment.

Nicholas Viana's sobriquet of "The Choir. Singer" had been earned in actual service with a Church choir. He had a neat tenor voice and liked to use

it, even during his imprisonment. His carolings in his cell won him the additional title of •"Songbird of the Comity Gaol." "When I first entered Cardinella's poolroom," Viana said shortly before his execution, "1 was a boy in short trousers. Within a week I was a criminal. After I was arrested Cardinella threatened to kill my mother and my three sisters if I gave the police any information. He is the man who should be going to the gallows to-day." He sang the "Miserere" from "n Trovatore" when he was escorted to the death cell. When his mother came to say good-bye he sang her favourite song, "Heart o' Mine," at her request. Attempts to Revive Corpse. This story now returns to Cardinella, stretched out in a mortuary basket in the gaol's basement with a scarlet circle around his neck. This basket was brought in from the ambulance which was waiting outside the gate to receive the body, on order from his friends and family.

The gaol attendant, glancing at the ambulance, sees a woman in nurse's costume sitting inside it, and also two men, one of whom looks as if he might be a doctor instead of an undertaker's assistant. He then recalls the unusual condition of the basket in which he had

helped to place Cardinella's body. He had felt hot water bottles under the blanket which covered its bottom. The deputy-warden of the gaol, Lorenz Meisterheim, enters the room, and the guard mentions these fact*. Meisterheim feels the bottom, of the basket, running his hand under the blanket, and also finds the hot water bottles. He stares at the waiting ambulance with its unusual crew and says quietly: "Keep 'em waiting." After a delay of nearly an hour he gave permission for Cardinella's removal. As the body is taken into the funeral car Meisterheim and the guard see the woman in nurse's costume begin to rub Cardinella's cheeks and wrists, and the man who looks like a doctor preparing to inject a stimulant. It was apparent that a well-planned attempt to bring Cardinella back from the valley of the shadow of death was in progress. A police car was promptly ordered to follow the ambulance and halt the work of resuscitation. The officers overtook it without delay, for it was being driven slowly through heavy traffic. They ordered its crew to deliver Cardinella's body at the morgue. On inspection the ambulance was found to contain a specially equipped bed with a rubber mattress filled with hot water, an oxygen tank, an electrical battery, various hypodermic syringes and other appliances that might be of use in resuscitation. Xo arrests were made; it was a matter outside the law. Ingenious Scheme Fails. Thus an ingenious and macabre scheme, typical of the crafty "Diavolo" and his allies,.came to naught. I will not say that it would have failed but for the delay in delivering the body to the resuscitation workers, because medical history contains a number of cases of restoration to life after hanging and apparent death. These, however, have been chiefly revivals after attempts at suicide by hanging, where the professional technique of the executioner had been lacking. I would *ay that there had been a chance for Cardinella—a remote, chance—because he died of strangulation and asphyxia. If the sharp shock of the fall from the scaffold had broken his neck the attempt would have been hopeless. My story has touched on certain details of Cardinella's life in prison which suggested the resuscitation plot and his collaboration with it. His frequent refusal of food, for example, which caused him to lose 40 pounds in weight. This was plainly intended to lessen the shock of the drop and thus prevent fracture of the cervical vertebrae. I believe also that his collapse before the march to the gallows, which caused him to be hanged in a chair, was a sham, for the same purpose. He mav have thought that this would shorten his fall by the difference between the location of the neck at standing and sitting .postures—say. 19 inches. The shock would have been the same, but in his situation any idea was worth trying. Moreover, when seated, with head bent, the rope probably would be placed above the larynx and might slip upward a trifle to find partial support of the shock on the bony structure of the jaws. Whispered Legends. I have mentioned as significant the fact that in his talk with his familv Cardinella frequently mentioned Yiana, who had been executed several months earlier. This brings me to the strancest part of the tale. I cannot vouch "for it as completely authentic, because it comes out of the whispered legends of the underworld—the "grapevine" communication system of criminals—but I

believe that it is in large part a~ trn* story. Knowledge of it was the can*, of Deputy Warden Meisterheim's vjoi lance and delay while Cardinella's bodi was in the gaol's mortuary. After Viana's hanging the same facts were observed by gaol attendants— the hot water bottles under the blanket in the basket, the ambulance containing a woman dressed like a nurse and a man who might have been a physician. The body was delivered to them promptly and they drove away in a hurry. This much is fact. Then, according to the "grapevine," Viana was taken to a room within two blocks of the gaol, where an elaborate course of resuscitation work w - as administered. This was intended as an experiment or "try-out" performance with the more important ease of Cardinella in mind. , Moreover, if jt succeeded, "11 Dia\oloV .-tato of niinj and co-operation would Ik* improved. And it worked, according to bizarre mutterings in west bide poolrooms and thugs' rendezvous that winter and spring. Furtive, sinister, superstitious men, invoking omens that avert the evil eye, told one another hu\v had been used which after an hour caused the eyelids of the dead Viana to open and a faint moan to come from his gaping jaws. But then, at a signal from a ganir. ster leader in attendance on these oeeutt rites, the magicians had ceased their incantations and put away their instruments. Viana was beginning to come back to life, like Lazarua, and that was • enough. The experiment had been successful. But Viana, the young "Choir Singer," had broken the faith of gangland on the edge of the gallows and " "squealed." Such a traitor, gangland decreed, was not worthy of the miracu- I lous gift of a second life by scientific resuscitation. Therefore Viana, the boy whom Car- 5 - 5 ' dinella had corrupted, was permitted to die again. He had been merely a human guinea pig in the experiment planned for the benefit of his evil genius.