out of a black car and shot him dead at close range, close enough that his female accomplice did not get in the way of any bullets.
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By early 1934, murder warrants were out on Mirabella for the Kennedy and Buckley rubouts, as well as for a half-dozen others. Yonnie Licavoli went to prison for conspiracy to commit murder, and many other top mafiosi faced serious legal problems. If John Mirabella could be found, he might spill the secrets of many Mafia murders and could send many a member of the Honored Society to prisonprobably even to the electric chair.
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The general rule of thumb is that a hit man with that much knowledge is better off dead. But Mirabella did not face that fate. No one would take him on, and he disappeared into the grimy, steeltown surroundings of Youngstown. In 1945, Mirabella, long carrying the name of Paul Magine, married a local woman. Mirabella appeared to be the owner of a produce business, but he was never on the premises. Instead he was a constant habitue of gambling joints and bookie parlors. He was never short of money and was seldom without a bottle of Scotch in his hand.
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Once a week, Mirabella, the FBI was later to discover through informers, had a visit from Cadillac Charley Cavallaro, a top Youngstown mafioso. Author Hank Messick in
The Private Lives of Public Enemies
relates the testimony given the FBI by Cavallaro's chauffeur-bodyguard: "They always embraced and kissed each other on the cheek, each cheek, and had a helluva reunion, as if they hadn't seen each other for years. Then Charley would hand over a wad of dough. All the way home he would curse and rave about having to give money to 'short coats and leeches,' but the next week he'd go back and the same thing would happen all over again."
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Nobody could figure out anything to do with Mirabella but pay him off. Even in a perpetual alcoholic haze, he inspired nothing but fear.
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In the end, Mother Nature did the Mafia a favor. At the age of 48 Mirabella died of cirrhosis of the liver. Killer Scotch had taken the Detroit. Cleveland-Toledo-Youngstown mobs off the hook.
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Moran, George "Bugs" (18931957): Gangster foe of Capone
By the late 1920s, Al Capone was the rising star of organized crime in Chicago. Left in his way were only a few potent foes, chief of whom were the Aiello family of mafiosi and the depleted ranks of Dion O'Banion's North Side Gang. The latter was bossed by George "Bugs" Moran. Although he gained his nickname from his often bizarre and flaky behavior, Bugs was known, especially to Capone, as a brutal and efficient killer.
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Bugs Moran ascended in the O'Banion Gang largely due to Capone's machinations. In 1924, Capone had engineered O'Banion's murder, and in 1926, he got the successor, Hymie Weiss. The leadership of the North Siders next fell to Schemer Drucci who was killed by a policeman in 1927. That elevated Moran to the top spot.
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Capone realized with Moran in charge, the shooting war with the O'Banion gang would escalate. That was the Bugs's way. Through the years it would have been impossible to dredge up an O'Banion mob shooting caper in which Moran was not involved. He was said to be the first to put a bullet in the head of a riding academy horse the O'Banions snatched and "executed" after it had thrown and kicked to death their celebrated compatriot Nails Morton. He was the gunman who charged across the street to finish off Johnny Torrio after he had been hit four times by shots fired at his limousine (Moran's gun misfired and Torrio lived.) Moran was also in the lead car in the famous machine-gun motorcade that sprayed Capone's Hawthorne Inn with over 1,000 slugs.
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Moran's hatred for Capone bordered on the pathological; he often referred to him, in or out of his presence, as "the Beast" or "the Behemoth." To vex him, Moran would frequently make peace with Capone and then break the agreement within a matter of hours.
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Bugs considered Capone a lowly human, especially since he'd deal in prostitution. A regular churchgoer, Moran, like his predecessors, refused to let whorehouses operate in the gang's North Side territory. Capone kept trying to set up shops, sending offers to split the profits evenly with Moran. Irate, Bugs once thundered, "We don't deal in flesh. We think anyone who does is lower than a snake's belly. Can't Capone get that through his thick skull?"
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Moran, born of Irish and Polish immigrant parents in Minnesota in 1893, grew up in the predominantly Irish North Side of Chicago. He grew up with street gangs, committing 26 known robberies and serving three incarcerations before he was 21. He was soon running with Dion O'Banion, who loved him like a brother. A natural pair, both possessed the same sort of homicidal "wit." Once Moran ran into Judge John H. Lyle, one of the city's few honest and courageous jurists of the era, at a baseball game and said, "Judge, that's a beautiful diamond ring you're wearing. If it's snatched some night, promise me you won't go hunting me. I'm telling you now I'm innocent."
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Moran's sense of humor made him rather a darling of newspapermen. Portrayed as something of a jolly good murderer, he was made out to be a likeable fellow. This good press probably put more Chicagoans on
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