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Fascinating and Lesser Known People Who Changed American History

Khalid Elhassan May 5, 2020 33 min

Normandy landings - Operation Overlord — Men of the 320th in Normandy. YouTube

25. The Murder Machine’s Unraveling

Wanted poster for Louis “Lepke” Buchalter after he jumped bail and went on the lam in 1936. Tablet Magazine

Lepke Buchalter’s downfall began with the 1936 Murder Inc. killing of a Brooklyn candy store owner, Joseph Rosen, whom Buchalter had shaken down out of a garment factory, then feared he would snitch to the authorities. The Rosen murder went unsolved for some time, but two months later, Buchalter was convicted of anti-trust violations. He went on the lam while out on bail, and was sentenced in absentia to two years. Albert Anastasia took over as boss of Murder Inc.

Buchalter eventually surrendered in 1939, and got a 14-year federal sentence, plus another 30 years on state charges. While Buchalter was imprisoned, a Murder Inc. hitman named Abe Reles turned state evidence, and implicated Buchalter in the 1936 Rosen killing. In 1941, Murder Incorporated’s founder and two of his key lieutenants were tried for four homicides, convicted, and sentenced to death. He met his end on “Old Sparky”, Sing Sing Prison’s infamous electric chair, in 1944. Buchalter was the only major American mob boss executed or sentenced to death.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.