It began in a candy store in Brooklyn. Behind the counter, children bought sweets. In the back room, contracts were assigned and names were written down.
In the 1930s, the American Mafia created something new: a corporation for murder. They called it the combination. The newspapers called it Murder Inc.
This is the story of how organized crime built a killing machine, and how one man's testimony brought it crashing down.
It started in New York in the early 1920s, when the city was learning to live with Prohibition and the underworld was learning to organize itself.
Two young Jewish gangsters, Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, built what became known as the Bug and Meyer mob. They were not street punks looking for headlines. They were disciplined operators who understood numbers, territory, and loyalty.
Their crew ran bootlegging, gambling, and other rackets with a level of coordination that separated them from the neighborhood gangs that came before them.
At the same time, across the Italian underworld, another transformation was taking place. Charles "Lucky" Luciano, a Sicilian-born mobster who had risen through the ranks in New York, recognized that the old ways of doing business, built around rigid ethnic lines and personal vendettas, were inefficient and dangerous.
He envisioned something structured and stable. In the early 1930s, after internal Mafia conflicts reshaped leadership in New York, Luciano created what became known as the commission.
It was a governing body, a board designed to settle disputes among crime families and prevent wars that attracted unwanted attention from law enforcement.
The commission formalized cooperation between powerful figures, including Luciano, Lansky, Siegel, Frank Costello, Vincent Mangano, Joe Adonis, Louis Lepke Buchalter, and Jacob Gurrah Shapiro.
Out of this arrangement grew what law enforcement would later call the National Crime Syndicate. It was not a corporation on paper. There were no offices and no charters, but it functioned with structure.
Italian-American Mafia leaders and Jewish mob figures worked in tandem. Disputes were mediated, profits were shared, and violence was regulated rather than chaotic.
The alliance between Luciano and Lansky became central to that system. Lansky served as a bridge between ethnic factions, smoothing tensions and encouraging cooperation.
The syndicate's leadership understood something simple: internal bloodshed weakened business, and organization strengthened it.
As this multi-ethnic coalition expanded, one problem remained. Contracts still needed to be enforced, informants still needed to be silenced, and rivals still needed to be removed.
Up to that point, enforcement had been handled by individual crews. That approach created exposure, with too many direct connections and too much risk flowing upward to the bosses.
The Bug and Meyer mob, which had served its purpose in the 1920s, was eventually disbanded as its leading figures folded into the broader syndicate structure. What replaced it was not another street gang, but the groundwork for something more centralized.
Between 1931 and 1934, that idea took form. The syndicate needed killers who were disciplined, compartmentalized, and disconnected enough from leadership to shield those at the top.
Out of that strategic decision, the structure that became known as Murder Incorporated began to take shape. The underworld had built its board of directors. Now it was preparing its execution department.
By the early 1930s, the syndicate had structure, leadership, and rules. What it needed was a disciplined enforcement arm that could operate at a distance from the men giving the orders.
That responsibility fell to Louis Lepke Buchalter. He was already established in New York's underworld through labor racketeering and union control. He understood leverage. He understood silence.
Around 1931 to 1934, as the National Crime Syndicate solidified its power, Buchalter was placed in charge of a centralized murder-for-hire operation that would answer to the highest levels of organized crime.
The operating head of this new enforcement division was Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia, an Italian-born gangster affiliated with the Mangano crime family. Within the organization, Anastasia was referred to as the Lord High Executioner.
If Buchalter represented the administrative authority, Anastasia oversaw the practical work. Orders moved from the syndicate's board through Buchalter and Anastasia down to the men who carried them out.
Recruitment focused on neighborhoods where violence was familiar and loyalty was tested early. Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill in Brooklyn produced many of the core members. Others came from Manhattan's Lower East Side.
The crew was largely Jewish and Italian-American, reflecting the syndicate's multi-ethnic structure. Among the most prominent were men like Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein, Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, Harry "Happy" Maione, and Frank Abbandando.
Some had already built reputations as enforcers in Brooklyn. Together, they became known internally as part of the combination, the name used in the underworld before newspapers popularized the phrase Murder Inc.
Their headquarters was deceptively ordinary. Rosie Gold's candy store, at the corner of Saratoga and Livonia Avenue in Brooklyn, served as the base of operations.
From the front, it was a neighborhood shop that catered to children. From the back, it functioned as a coordination point for contract killings that stretched beyond New York City and into other states.
The structure of the operation was methodical. Killers were placed on a regular retainer, receiving steady pay to remain available. For each contract, they were paid an additional fee, typically between $1,000 and $5,000 per murder, a substantial sum in the 1930s.
According to accounts in the record, families of the gunmen also received financial support, reinforcing loyalty and reducing the incentive to cooperate with authorities.
Operationally, the system was compartmentalized. A single murder might involve several men, each assigned a limited role. One would identify the target, another would act as the shooter. A driver might handle transportation, and others could assist with body disposal.
Each participant knew only what was necessary for his part of the job. That structure shielded Buchalter and Anastasia from direct exposure and made prosecutions difficult.
Estimates of the group's total victims vary widely, ranging from approximately 100 to as many as 1,000 killings between 1929 and 1941. Harry Strauss alone was credited by some historians with more than 100 murders. The exact number will never be known with certainty.
By the mid-1930s, the system was fully operational. The syndicate had built a corporate-style enforcement arm, one that could eliminate informants, rivals, and liabilities across the country.
What had begun as a strategic decision in boardroom-style meetings of crime bosses had become a standing death squad, organized, salaried, and ready for assignment.
By 1933, the enforcement arm was no longer theoretical. It was active.
On November 25, 1933, 19-year-old Alex Alpert was shot in the back on a street corner in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Alpert was described as a minor gangster.
His murder would not immediately bring down those responsible, but it would later become one of the cases that helped prosecutors unravel the organization. At the time, it was another body in a neighborhood already familiar with violence.
The men carrying out these assignments were refining their roles. Brownsville had become a proving ground. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein, Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, and Harry "Happy" Maione operated with confidence.
They were young, organized, and protected by the insulation built into the system. Orders came from above, but the mechanics were local.
On March 3, 1935, gangster John "Spider" Murtha was killed. Frank Abbandando and Max "The Jerk" Golob were indicted for first-degree murder in the case. The evidence was thin.
Golob was permitted to plead guilty to second-degree assault and received a maximum term of five years. It was an early example of how difficult it was to secure murder convictions against members of the combination.
That same year, three more victims were linked to the group. Morris Kessler and brothers Louis and Joseph Amberg were murdered in 1935. Their bodies were later discovered in a Brooklyn garage.
The killing sent a message inside the underworld. Disputes were settled quickly, and public spectacle was part of the calculation.
By this point, enforcement was no longer confined to Brooklyn streets. The syndicate's authority stretched beyond New York City. Murder contracts were accepted from mob bosses across the United States.
The men based out of Rosie Gold's candy store were dispatched where needed. They traveled to other boroughs, to upstate New York, and across state lines.
The structure allowed national reach without visible national infrastructure. A contract could originate from a syndicate board decision and be executed by Brooklyn gunmen who had never met the ultimate beneficiary.
Payment moved through intermediaries. Responsibility dissolved into layers. Inside the organization, violence had become procedural.
Targets included rival gangsters, suspected informants, debtors, and anyone deemed a liability. Ice picks, firearms, garrotes, and meat cleavers were used. The methods varied. The purpose did not.
Between 1933 and 1935, Murder Incorporated moved from formation to consolidation. It demonstrated reliability to the syndicate's leadership. It proved that contracts could be carried out efficiently and with limited exposure to those giving the orders.
In those years, the enforcement arm earned its reputation. And the body count was rising.
By the fall of 1935, the syndicate faced a different kind of threat. Not a rival gang, not a debt dispute, but a prosecutor.
Thomas E. Dewey, the ambitious special prosecutor in New York, had already begun targeting organized crime with unusual persistence. His investigations into racketeering and corruption put pressure on several high-ranking figures, including Dutch Schultz.
Schultz, born Arthur Flegenheimer, was a volatile and powerful bootlegger who controlled lucrative rackets. As Dewey tightened his case against him, Schultz grew impatient. He believed the solution was simple: eliminate the prosecutor.
In October 1935, Schultz insisted that a contract be placed on Dewey's life. The proposal was brought before the syndicate's governing body.
The decision was deliberate. Killing a public prosecutor, especially one so visible, would ignite outrage and bring a level of scrutiny the organization did not want. The board overruled Schultz.
Schultz did not accept the ruling quietly. He reportedly vowed to move forward with the hit on Dewey himself, ignoring the syndicate's authority.
That act of defiance placed him in direct opposition to the same organization that had helped stabilize organized crime in New York. The response was swift and calculated.
A contract was issued, not against Dewey, but against Schultz. The assignment went to Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss and Charles Workman. Both were trusted enforcers within the Murder Incorporated structure.
They tracked Schultz to Newark, New Jersey. On October 23, 1935, Schultz and several of his associates were gathered at the Palace Chop House in Newark.
Shortly after 10:00 p.m., the gunmen entered the restaurant and opened fire. Schultz was shot along with three of his closest associates: Otto Berman, his accountant and adviser, Abe Landau, and Lulu Rosenkrantz.
Berman, Landau, and Rosenkrantz died almost immediately. Schultz survived the initial assault but succumbed to his wounds the following day, October 24, 1935.
Workman remained behind at the scene while Weiss escaped with their driver, Seymour Schechter. Years later, Workman would face prosecution in New Jersey for the murder. In the courtroom, testimony from former associates would place him inside that restaurant.
The killing of Dutch Schultz was more than an execution. It was a statement of governance. The syndicate had drawn a line. No individual, regardless of wealth or reputation, could unilaterally bring that kind of heat down on the organization.
Schultz's death reinforced the authority of the commission. It demonstrated that Murder Incorporated did not act on impulse. It acted on directive. And in October 1935, that directive was clear: the prosecutor would live, and the dissenter would not.
By 1936, pressure from law enforcement was tightening. Thomas E. Dewey had already secured major convictions, including that of Charles "Lucky" Luciano in 1936.
His office continued to investigate racketeering, labor slugging operations, and the financial machinery behind organized crime. Louis Lepke Buchalter, deeply involved in union control and extortion schemes, found himself under increasing scrutiny.
As prosecutors built cases, the syndicate responded the way it always had: with silence. And when silence was threatened, with violence.
On May 25, 1937, George "Whitey" Rudnick was murdered in Brooklyn. Rudnick was suspected of being an informant. Four killers carried out the attack inside a Brooklyn parking garage.
According to later testimony, Rudnick was garroted with a sash cord and repeatedly stabbed with an ice pick. When he was still alive after the initial assault, the attack continued. A meat cleaver was used to finish the killing.
The brutality was intentional. It reinforced discipline inside the organization and warned others about the consequences of cooperating with authorities.
Just weeks later, on July 31, 1937, the body of racketeer Walter Sage surfaced in Swan Lake, New York, in Sullivan County. Sage had been stabbed multiple times with an ice pick.
A slot machine frame and a 30-pound rock were tied to his body in an attempt to weigh it down. The effort failed. Tourists discovered the remains when the body floated to the surface.
According to later testimony presented in court, Sage had been riding in a car when he was attacked and stabbed dozens of times. The murder extended the reach of Murder Incorporated beyond New York City and into the Catskills, demonstrating that geography offered no protection.
On October 1, 1937, Max Rubin was shot and seriously wounded. Rubin had been a former associate of Buchalter. Prosecutors believed he had disobeyed orders to leave town and avoid being summoned as a witness in cases against Buchalter.
The message was consistent. Those who did not comply with instructions would be removed.
As these killings unfolded, prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn intensified their efforts. Dewey's campaign against racketeering had already destabilized several criminal enterprises. In Brooklyn, investigations into corruption and bail bond schemes were underway. Federal authorities were also pursuing Buchalter on narcotics charges.
Bodies were appearing across boroughs and in upstate counties. Patterns were emerging, though connections were still incomplete. Law enforcement agencies had suspects, but convictions were elusive.
The structure of Murder Incorporated, with its compartmentalized roles and insulated leadership, made it difficult to tie the violence directly to those issuing the orders.
Between 1936 and 1937, witness elimination became central to the organization's survival strategy. The killings were not random. They were defensive. Prosecutors were closing in, and the response was systematic intimidation backed by execution.
By 1938, Murder Incorporated was no longer a regional enforcement crew. It was functioning as a national instrument of intimidation and execution answering to the highest levels of the syndicate. The structure had matured. So had the violence.
On January 9, 1939, Albert Shuman was murdered in Brooklyn. According to later courtroom testimony, Shuman was targeted because he had cooperated with authorities investigating Louis Lepke Buchalter's involvement in labor racketeering.
The decision to eliminate him was not impulsive. It was discussed among leadership, including Buchalter, who was already a fugitive at the time.
The mechanics of the killing reflected the organization's operational discipline. Albert Tannenbaum later testified that he acted as the driver. Shuman was lured into a car under the pretense of committing a robbery.
Irving Nitzberg sat in the backseat. When Tannenbaum gave a predetermined signal, Nitzberg shot Shuman twice in the back of the head. The vehicle was abandoned and the participants dispersed in a separate getaway car driven by other members of the crew.
Each man had a defined role. The driver did not plan the murder. The shooter did not select the victim. Others stole the car used in the crime. Compartmentalization shielded the upper ranks and limited what any single participant could reveal if arrested.
Later that year, on September 4, 1939, Irving "Puggy" Feinstein was murdered. Feinstein was a bookmaker. According to testimony presented at trial, he was killed on orders of Albert Anastasia after allegedly crossing Vincent Mangano.
Feinstein was strangled inside his home. His body was later set on fire and left in a vacant lot. The brutality was calculated. It reinforced the consequences of defiance within organized crime circles.
Witnesses later described how Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein, and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles participated in the killing. Strauss, whose reputation for violence was already established, was identified as one of the most prolific executioners in the organization.
Some historians have credited him with more than 100 murders, though exact numbers remain uncertain.
By this stage, the group operated with increasing boldness. Killings were carried out in broad daylight. Victims were attacked in homes, garages, parking lots, and on public streets.
The sense of insulation built through layers of intermediaries and disciplined silence gave the gunmen confidence.
Estimates of the total number of murders attributed to Murder Incorporated range widely. Some contemporary investigators placed the figure above 100. Other accounts pushed it closer to 1,000 between 1929 and 1941.
The precise number cannot be verified with certainty, but the scale was substantial enough to alarm prosecutors across multiple jurisdictions.
Between 1938 and 1939, the organization reached its operational peak. Contracts were executed efficiently. Witnesses were silenced. Rivals were removed. The structure appeared durable.
But inside that structure, pressure was building. Arrests were increasing. Informants were beginning to surface. And one man in particular, Abe Reles, was about to become the most dangerous threat the organization had ever faced.
By late 1939, the system that had protected Murder Incorporated for nearly a decade began to crack.
In February 1940, William O'Dwyer became the District Attorney of Kings County. O'Dwyer inherited a borough that had seen bodies turn up in garages, vacant lots, and upstate lakes. Many of the same names surfaced again and again.
What had been missing was a witness willing to speak from the inside. That changed with pressure.
Professional criminal and occasional police informant Harry Rudolph had been held as a material witness in connection with the November 25, 1933 murder of Alex Alpert in Brownsville. While in custody, Rudolph communicated with the District Attorney's office.
His information pointed toward members of the Brooklyn Combination, including Abe Reles, Martin Goldstein, and Anthony Maffetore.
Around the same time, Anthony "Duke" Maffetore began to shift. Maffetore had been involved in gangland activity and was implicated as a driver in multiple murders.
After discussions with law enforcement, including Detective John Osnato of the NYPD, Maffetore agreed to cooperate. He admitted to acting as the driver in six gangland killings.
Maffetore's cooperation created leverage. He convinced Abraham "Pretty" Levine to talk. Levine had direct knowledge of several murders, including the killing of Walter Sage in Swan Lake, New York, on July 31, 1937.
As more statements were taken, the structure that had once shielded the organization began to expose it.
Then came the most significant break. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, one of the most feared members of Murder Incorporated, agreed to turn state's evidence in 1940.
Reles was not a peripheral figure. He was central to operations in Brownsville. He had been arrested repeatedly over the years, including multiple times on murder charges, but had avoided conviction.
Now facing serious charges and the possibility of the electric chair, he chose to cooperate. Reles provided detailed accounts of killings dating back years. He identified shooters, drivers, planners, and the chain of command.
His testimony tied individual acts of violence to the broader structure under Louis Buchalter and Albert Anastasia. According to records, Reles described involvement in dozens of murders and helped prosecutors connect cases that had previously appeared isolated.
His cooperation was not isolated. Albert "Tick Tock" Tannenbaum joined him. Seymour Magoon provided corroboration. Sholem Bernstein, who had previously refused to carry out a murder contract and had been marked for death, also cooperated.
The wall of silence that had protected the organization began to fracture from multiple points.
With insider testimony in hand, prosecutors moved quickly. First-degree murder indictments were issued across Brooklyn, the Bronx, and upstate Sullivan County in the Catskills.
The same names appeared repeatedly: Martin Goldstein, Harry Strauss, Harry Maione, Frank Abbandando, Irving Nitzberg, Vito Gurino. Others followed.
For years, law enforcement had suspected a coordinated killing operation. Now, they had witnesses who could describe it from the inside. The turning point was not a single arrest. It was the moment when men who had enforced silence began to speak.
By the spring of 1940, the investigation moved from grand jury rooms to open court.
On May 15, 1940, the trial of Harry "Happy" Maione and Frank "Dasher" Abbandando began in Brooklyn. They were charged with the May 25, 1937 ice pick murder of George "Whitey" Rudnick in a Brooklyn parking garage.
The prosecution's case relied heavily on the testimony of Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. Reles took the stand and described how Rudnick had been marked for death after being labeled a police informant.
He testified that Maione, Abbandando, and Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss were inside the garage with Rudnick. According to Reles, Rudnick was garroted and stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick. When the victim was still alive, Strauss continued the assault. Maione used a meat cleaver to complete the killing.
Angelo "Julie" Catalano corroborated parts of the account. He testified that he helped move Rudnick's body and drove the car used to dispose of it. Anthony "Duke" Maffetore and Abe "Pretty" Levine testified that they stole the automobile used in the disposal.
Maione presented an alibi claiming he had been at his grandmother's wake at the time of the murder. Fourteen witnesses supported him. But the funeral home undertaker and embalmer contradicted that claim. One of Maione's key witnesses later admitted he had committed perjury at the direction of Maione's brother.
On May 23, 1940, Maione and Abbandando were convicted of first-degree murder, carrying a mandatory death sentence.
In December 1940, New York's Court of Appeals overturned the conviction by a four-to-three vote. A second trial began on March 10, 1941.
The atmosphere in the courtroom was tense. At one point during the retrial, Maione threw a glass of water at Reles while he was on the stand.
Despite the appeal and retrial, the outcome did not change. On April 3, 1941, Maione and Abbandando were convicted again of first-degree murder. On April 14, 1941, they were formally sentenced to death for a second time.
Meanwhile, another trial was underway. In September 1940, Harry Strauss and Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein stood trial for the September 4, 1939 murder of Irving "Puggy" Feinstein.
Feinstein had been strangled, his body later set on fire and abandoned in a vacant lot. Once again, the prosecution's case centered on insider testimony, primarily from Reles.
Strauss attempted to feign insanity during the proceedings. He chewed on a leather strap from a briefcase and refused to take an oath when briefly placed on the witness stand. His defense claimed he was mentally unstable. Goldstein's attorney chose not to present a defense.
On September 19, 1940, Strauss and Goldstein were convicted of first-degree murder. A week later, both were sentenced to death in the electric chair.
On April 24, 1941, the Court of Appeals upheld their convictions by a 4-to-3 decision. On June 12, 1941, Harry Strauss and Martin Goldstein were executed at Sing Sing prison.
The legal process continued to run its course for Maione and Abbandando. On January 8, 1942, the Court of Appeals upheld their second conviction. On February 19, 1942, they were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing.
The first wave of trials had ended with four executions. For the first time, members of Murder Incorporated were not walking out of courtrooms. They were being carried out of prison.
While executions were being carried out in New York, another courtroom drama was unfolding across the Hudson River.
On March 27, 1940, Charles Workman was indicted in Essex County, New Jersey, for the October 23, 1935 murder of Dutch Schultz at the Palace Chop House in Newark.
The case had remained unresolved for nearly five years. Now, with insiders cooperating in New York, prosecutors believed they could finally secure a conviction. Workman was extradited to New Jersey in April 1941. His trial opened in June 1941.
The state called Abe "Kid Twist" Reles and Albert Tannenbaum as its primary underworld witnesses. Both placed Workman at the scene of the Schultz assassination. They described how the hit had been carried out after the syndicate decided to eliminate Schultz for defying its authority.
The trial did not begin smoothly for the prosecution. Two initial state witnesses, a bartender inside the restaurant and a woman who had been outside, failed to identify Workman as one of the shooters. The case hinged almost entirely on testimony from former accomplices.
Another key witness, a woman described as a friend of slain gangster Danny Fields, testified under a pseudonym. She stated that Workman came to her apartment the day after the Schultz murder and asked Fields to burn his clothes. According to her testimony, Workman openly discussed the killing and described being left behind inside the restaurant after the shooting.
In his defense, Workman called Marty Krompier, a close associate of Schultz who had been shot in Manhattan the same night Schultz was attacked in Newark. Krompier testified that Albert Tannenbaum had told him he did not shoot him because he was in New Jersey killing Schultz at the time, a statement intended to undermine Tannenbaum's credibility.
Midway through the proceedings, Workman changed his plea from not guilty to no contest. The shift came after one of his primary alibi witnesses, a Manhattan funeral director who had claimed Workman was employed by him during the time of the Schultz murder, recanted his testimony.
That witness had provided Workman with a crucial alibi. Once it collapsed, so did the defense strategy. Workman was sentenced to life in prison. He would serve 23 years before being paroled on March 10, 1964.
Back in New York, prosecutions continued to expand beyond Brooklyn. Cases were brought in the Bronx and in upstate counties, including Sullivan County in the Catskills, where earlier murders such as that of Walter Sage had occurred.
Extraditions moved defendants between jurisdictions. Prosecutors coordinated across county lines to connect killings that had once seemed isolated.
One of the most complicated legal battles involved Irving Nitzberg, who was tried for the January 9, 1939 murder of Albert Shuman. Nitzberg was convicted of first-degree murder on May 23, 1941, and sentenced to death.
In December 1941, the New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction by a 4-3 vote, questioning the reliance on testimony from accomplices who had been promised leniency.
Nitzberg was tried again in 1942. This time, the testimony of the now-deceased Abe Reles was read into the record. He was convicted a second time on March 12, 1942.
Yet again, the Court of Appeals overturned the conviction by a 4-3 decision, ultimately dismissing the indictment on the grounds that the grand jury had relied solely on uncorroborated accomplice testimony.
These appellate reversals exposed the legal fragility of cases built primarily on insider witnesses. Prosecutors were aggressive, but defense attorneys pressed hard on the credibility of men who had admitted to participating in murders themselves.
Between 1940 and 1944, the legal assault on Murder Incorporated extended across state lines. New Jersey prosecuted the Schultz case. New York pursued multiple homicide trials in several counties. Appeals reached the highest courts in the state.
The organization that once operated with national reach was now fighting for survival in courtrooms from Brooklyn to Newark. And the outcomes depended less on gunmen and more on juries.
By the summer of 1941, the focus of the prosecution narrowed to the men at the top.
Louis Lepke Buchalter had already surrendered to federal authorities in 1939 on narcotics charges. He was serving a 14-year federal sentence, but New York prosecutors were determined to try him for murder.
The case they built centered on the September 1936 killing of Joseph Rosen, a Brooklyn candy store owner and former trucking company employee. Rosen had once worked for a company connected to Buchalter's labor racketeering operations.
Prosecutors argued that Rosen was targeted because he was cooperating with investigators and posed a threat to Buchalter's interests. According to testimony later presented in court, Buchalter issued the contract for Rosen's murder through intermediaries within Murder Inc.
On August 5, 1941, the trial of Louis Buchalter, Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss, and Louis Capone began. Weiss was a close associate of Buchalter and had participated in prior enforcement activities, including the Dutch Schultz killing. Capone, unrelated to Al Capone of Chicago, was another trusted member of the organization.
The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from former insiders. Among them was Albert Tannenbaum, who testified that he had been present when Buchalter discussed the Rosen contract. Other cooperating witnesses helped establish the chain of command that connected the killing to the leadership of Murder Inc.
The case was not simple. Jury selection itself was difficult, reflecting the notoriety of the defendants. Once underway, the trial unfolded with detailed accounts of how Rosen had been lured and killed in 1936.
The prosecution's argument was clear. This was not an isolated act of violence. It was an execution ordered from the top.
On November 30, 1941, Buchalter, Weiss, and Capone were convicted of first-degree murder. The appeals process began immediately.
In October 1942, the New York Court of Appeals upheld the convictions by a 4-3 vote. The defense petitioned the United States Supreme Court, which initially declined to hear the case in February 1943.
In a rare reversal, the Supreme Court later agreed to review the matter in March 1943. In June 1943, the Supreme Court upheld the convictions, clearing the way for execution.
There was one final complication. Buchalter was in federal custody. Before New York could carry out the death sentence, the federal government had to release him to state authorities.
Legal maneuvers continued as Buchalter attempted to delay the transfer and execution, but those efforts ultimately failed.
On March 4, 1944, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, Louis Lepke Buchalter, Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss, and Louis Capone were executed in the electric chair.
Buchalter became the only major American mob boss ever put to death by execution. For nearly a decade, he had overseen a centralized murder-for-hire operation that enforced the will of the National Crime Syndicate.
His death marked the collapse of Murder Incorporated as a functioning arm of organized crime. The man who had managed the system from above was now gone. And with him, the structure he built.
By the fall of 1941, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles had become the most important witness in New York. He had helped secure convictions against Harry Strauss, Martin Goldstein, Harry Maione, and Frank Abbandando.
He had provided detailed testimony about dozens of murders, and he was expected to play a central role in the prosecution of Louis Lepke Buchalter and potentially Albert Anastasia.
Reles was placed under heavy police protection. He was housed at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, guarded around the clock. Detectives were assigned to watch him. The state understood his value. Without Reles, several pending prosecutions would weaken considerably.
In the early morning hours of November 12, 1941, that protection failed.
Reles fell from a sixth-floor window of the hotel and landed on a second-floor roof below. He was found dead, his body twisted in bed sheets.
Wire had reportedly been tied to a radiator inside his room, leading investigators to conclude that he had attempted to escape by lowering himself from the window. The official ruling was accidental death.
According to contemporaneous accounts, the police guards assigned to watch him were asleep at the time of the fall. That detail fueled immediate suspicion.
Reles had turned on some of the most powerful figures in organized crime. He was scheduled to testify further. His cooperation had already led to executions.
Questions surfaced quickly. Did he attempt to escape out of fear? Did he jump? Was he pushed? There has never been conclusive proof that his death was a homicide. No one was ever charged in connection with it. The official finding remained that it was an accident.
The impact was immediate. Reles's death removed the prosecution's most detailed and direct witness against high-ranking figures. In particular, any case that might have directly implicated Albert Anastasia became significantly more difficult.
Anastasia had been identified in testimony as a senior operating figure within Murder Incorporated. Without Reles alive to testify in person, prosecutors lost a powerful voice linking operations to leadership.
In some proceedings, prior testimony from Reles was read into the record, but a live witness carries a different weight before a jury.
The timing of his death, coming just weeks before the conviction of Buchalter, Weiss, and Capone on November 30, 1941, cast a long shadow over the final phase of the prosecutions.
Reles had helped dismantle the organization from within. And on November 12, 1941, he was gone. Whether by accident or by design, the man who broke Murder Incorporated never made it to the end of the trials he helped set in motion.
By 1942, the executions at Sing Sing had sent a message through the underworld. Murder Incorporated was no longer untouchable. The courtroom had succeeded where street retaliation never could.
In March 1942, Vito "Sacco" Gurino pleaded guilty to three murders. Gurino had been identified as the man assigned to eliminate witnesses connected to the Brooklyn investigations.
Evidence presented in court showed that he had attempted to intimidate Joseph "Joe the Baker" Liberto, a material witness in the George Rudnick case, even arranging access to him through a corrupt Queens County Deputy Sheriff.
Gurino had fled and spent much of 1940 hiding in New Jersey before being arrested on September 12, 1940, at the Church of the Guardian Angel in Manhattan.
After confessing to multiple syndicate murders, he faced sentencing. In April 1942, Gurino received a sentence of 80 years to life in prison. He would die on April 22, 1957, at Dannemora Hospital for the criminally insane.
Other prosecutions continued into the mid-1940s. Jacob Drucker, implicated in the July 31, 1937 murder of racketeer Walter Sage in Swan Lake, New York, had been a fugitive for more than three years. Federal authorities eventually located him in Delaware.
On May 5, 1944, Drucker was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life. He died in Attica Prison in January 1962.
Irving Cohen, who had been tried separately for the Sage killing and acquitted in 1940, later served seven years of a 10-year federal sentence for narcotics trafficking. In 1949, several months after his release from prison, Cohen was murdered.
The aftermath of the trials included disappearances and unresolved endings. In October 1950, Anthony Maffetore, who had once cooperated with prosecutors, was arrested for grand larceny as part of a nationwide auto theft ring.
On March 7, 1951, he disappeared after missing a scheduled court appearance in Queens County. He was presumed murdered. His body was never found.
Other figures faded into obscurity or lived out their years quietly. Jack "the Dandy" Parisi, acquitted in multiple murder trials, died of natural causes on December 27, 1982.
Appeals, reversals, and procedural battles had marked the final years of many defendants. But the centralized killing apparatus itself did not survive the wave of convictions.
One figure, however, remained standing longer than the rest. Albert Anastasia, often described in the press as the Lord High Executioner of Murder Incorporated, had avoided conviction.
The death of Abe Reles in November 1941 weakened any case that might have directly tied Anastasia to capital charges. Over the following years, Anastasia rose within organized crime and eventually became head of what would later be known as the Gambino crime family.
On October 25, 1957, Anastasia entered the barber shop at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. While seated in the barber's chair, two masked gunmen entered and fired multiple shots. Anastasia was killed in the chair. The assassins were never officially identified.
By that point, Murder Incorporated no longer existed as an organized enforcement division. Its structure had been dismantled through indictments, executions, long prison sentences, and internal fractures.
The centralized murder bureau that once answered to the National Crime Syndicate had dissolved. What remained were individual careers, some ending in prison, others in quiet death, and a few in violence.
Between 1929 and 1941, the organization had been responsible for an estimated 100 to 1,000 killings. The precise number will never be known.
What is known is this: the system that once professionalized murder on behalf of organized crime was broken not by rival gangs, but by testimony, indictments, and the steady grind of prosecution.
Murder Incorporated did not collapse overnight. It was dismantled case by case, name by name, until there was nothing left to enforce.