In January 1978, a crew of professional burglars smashed through a reinforced glass window at the rear of a fortified mansion in River Forest, Illinois. The house belonged to Anthony Accardo, a 71-year-old man who passed for a wealthy, fragile grandfather. The thieves had tracked the family’s movements for weeks, and when they were certain Accardo and his wife, Clarice, had flown to California for a winter vacation, they moved in. Inside, the crew tore the house apart.
They forced open heavy steel safes and emptied them of gold coins, rare stamp collections, and high-end diamond jewelry. Then they made a decision that would cost nearly all of them their lives. They marched into the master bedroom, ripped open Clarice Accardo’s closets, threw her personal clothing onto the floor, and trampled her belongings under their boots. To the thieves, it was a successful score.
They loaded their bags, drove away, and divided the loot in a suburban safe house. They had not robbed a bank or a corporation. They had broken into the private sanctuary of the supreme boss of the Chicago Outfit and insulted his wife in the process. Tony Accardo, known on the street as Joe Batters, did not call the police.
Instead, the enforcement machinery of the most disciplined criminal organization in America went to work. Within weeks, bodies began appearing in abandoned car trunks and along dark Chicago streets. The victims showed clear signs of prolonged interrogation before their throats were cut with heavy meat cleavers. Accardo had ordered a systematic purge, and the message was written in blood: rob a commercial bank if you dare, but touch the family of Tony Accardo and your life is forfeit.
To understand why the burglary ended the way it did, it is necessary to understand the man the thieves chose to rob. In 1978, Anthony Accardo was the most untouchable mafia boss in the United States. Unlike the flamboyant mobsters of New York, who courted reporters and sought the spotlight, Accardo ruled from the shadows. He controlled the Chicago Outfit for more than thirty years without spending a single day in prison.
His lethal reputation went back to the 1920s, when he served as a personal bodyguard and primary enforcer for Al Capone. The story that made his name took place at a private dinner. Capone had discovered that two of his trusted lieutenants were plotting betrayal. He invited them to a lavish meal, and in the middle of it, Accardo stepped from the shadows carrying a heavy wooden baseball bat.
Without a word, he beat both men to death at the table. Capone looked at the blood-splattered scene and reportedly declared, “This kid is a real Joe Batters. ” The nickname stayed with him for life. Federal agents long suspected Accardo of being one of the shooters in the St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929, the attack that eliminated Capone’s main rivals. When Capone went to prison, Accardo took over the empire and rebuilt the Outfit into a sophisticated corporate syndicate. He expanded into labor racketeering, illegal casino skimming in Las Vegas, and international loan sharking. He demanded absolute discipline and absolute silence.
His wife and children were kept completely insulated from the underworld. Their home was an untouchable sanctuary. The crew that gathered in Chicago in January 1978 had no regard for the old rules of the Mafia. The burglars were experienced street criminals, including men named John Fecarotta and Michael Volpe.
They spent weeks scouting the Accardo estate, tracking the guards, and waiting for the mansion to be left vulnerable. The break-in itself was fast. They bypassed the security lines and headed for the hidden safes. But their professionalism turned into malicious arrogance when they entered the master suite, destroyed Clarice’s closets, and stomped on her clothing.
The phone rang in Accardo’s California hotel room. A trusted associate reported that the residence had been violated. Accardo listened in cold silence. He asked a single question: had they touched Clarice’s things?
When the associate confirmed that the burglars had ransacked his wife’s bedroom, Accardo hung up. He cut his vacation short and flew back to Chicago. He summoned his most trusted execution squad, an elite team of hit men led by Michael Spilotro. Accardo gave the order in a quiet voice.
Every person involved in the burglary, everyone who helped plan it, and anyone who had heard rumors about the stolen goods was to be hunted down, tortured until they confessed where the jewelry was, and executed as a public warning. The hunt began immediately. The Outfit’s network tracked anyone trying to sell unregistered diamonds or antique gold coins. One by one, the burglars and their associates disappeared.
Some were pulled from their cars, some from their homes, some from outside diners in broad daylight. The punishment was designed for maximum terror. The thieves were dragged into soundproof basements beneath mob-controlled auto body shops. Strapped to heavy wooden chairs under harsh lights, they were beaten with iron bars and meat cleavers until they confessed the location of the stolen goods and named every accomplice.
Then they were killed. The enforcers cut their throats from ear to ear, dismembered the bodies, and stuffed them into car trunks or left them in industrial dumpsters. By the time the purge ended, nearly ten men connected to the burglary crew had been executed. Among the dead was an independent associate who had done nothing more than stand in the same room while the thieves bragged about the score.
He was killed with a knife to guarantee his silence. Police and FBI agents watched the body count grow with frustration. They knew Accardo had ordered the killings, but knowing and proving were different things. The street code of silence held.
No one was willing to testify against Tony Accardo, because everyone knew that doing so meant a death sentence for themselves and their families. Homicide detectives went to the Accardo mansion to question the boss. Accardo received them in his sitting room, sipping tea while Clarice sat in the next room. In a calm, steady voice, he told the detectives he had no knowledge of the missing men.
He said he was a retired citizen who spent his days tending his garden, wholly detached from the violent stories in the newspapers. The detectives had no evidence, no warrants, and no witnesses. They closed their notebooks and walked out. Tony Accardo lived the rest of his life in luxury, never facing prison for the assassinations and purges he ordered over a fifty-year career.
He died of natural causes in May 1992 at the age of 86, holding his wife’s hand in a hospital room. He died a free man. The 1978 River Forest burglary became part of Chicago history as a lesson in the reality of underworld power. The thieves who entered that mansion believed they were outsmarting an elderly couple for an easy payout.
They did not understand that they had provoked a man who had spent his youth killing with a baseball bat for Al Capone. In the history of the Chicago Outfit, it was a mistake they only got to make once.