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For four years, millions of American families watched the mischievous adventures of Dennis Mitchell on their black-and-white televisions, believing the bright-eyed boy on screen was living a picture-perfect childhood. The truth behind those broadcasts was dramatically different. Jay North, the actor who played Dennis, never experienced a single day of normal childhood. Behind his chemically … Read more

On the afternoon of October 22, 1934, in a cornfield in Columbiana County, Ohio, a man went down running. Nine lawmen had fired at him. He fell, got up, ran a few more yards, and went down for good. He was still alive when they reached him. He died in that field. They drove the … Read more

In October 1931, a federal court bailiff walked a corridor in Chicago carrying a list of names. Those names belonged to the men who would decide Al Capone's fate that morning. Capone's organization had possessed the list for weeks. His people had visited the addresses. Thousand-dollar bills had changed hands, roughly $21,000 per juror in … Read more

On October 11, 2004, two backhoes began cutting slowly into a vacant lot off Ruby Street in a sunken neighborhood on the Brooklyn-Queens border known as the Hole, a few minutes from Kennedy Airport. Around them, FBI agents in yellow rubber boots raked through the dirt by hand while cadaver dogs worked the edges. They … Read more

On the morning of April 19, 1951, a woman walking through the tall marsh grass near Avenue Y and East 72nd Street in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, found a man lying face down in the dirt. She had found a body on almost the same spot two years earlier, so she knew what she was looking … Read more

Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano was born in 1917 on New York City's Lower East Side, one of six sons in a Sicilian family. He migrated early to New Jersey, where he operated for the rest of his life. By the early 1950s, he had been identified as a top labor racketeer and New Jersey hoodlum. … Read more

A white deputy with his fingers locked around the arm of Bumpy Johnson’s wife dragged her backward on a Harlem street in broad daylight, and the entire block went silent. It happened just after 2:00 in the afternoon on 139th and Lenox, a quiet day so still it seemed Harlem itself was holding its breath. … Read more

On the morning of January 19, 1993, federal agents surrounded a brown wooden split-level house at 79 Waterlue Road in Mount Olive, New Jersey. Inside, Anthony Casso was taking a shower. He was 52 years old, and for 32 months he had been a fugitive running the Lucchese crime family through pay phones, messengers, and … Read more

On the morning of April 13, 1986, Frank DeCicco walked out of the Veterans and Friends Social Club in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, carrying a cup of coffee. He was 50 years old, dressed in a custom-tailored suit, and had recently been named underboss of the most powerful crime family in America. He approached his Buick Electra, … Read more

Before dawn on February 7, 2008, federal agents were taking positions for one of the largest Mafia takedowns New York had seen in years. By sunrise, an 80-count indictment was set to be unsealed in Brooklyn. Sixty-two defendants were named. The charges reached the acting boss of the Gambino family. They reached his acting underboss. … Read more