 |
| Jake Lingle |
When Alfred “Jake” Lingle, a crime-beat
reporter with the Chicago Tribune, was murdered in the city subways on
June 9, 1930, the police immediately blamed the city’s gangsters, declaring his
death was a warning to newspapers. If they wanted to take on the criminals,
they were fair game.
If that were the case, Lingle seemed the ideal
target. He’d spent the last nineteen years prowling the city’s underbelly,
exposing criminals, cozying up to cops and gangsters, and now they had silenced
him.
All signs pointed to a mob hit.
Lingle followed his usual routine that day. He
ate lunch at the Hotel Sherman, visited with friends in the lobby, going
outside at about 1:15 p.m. He walked up Randolph Street toward the Illinois
Central Subway Station. From all appearances, he planned to spend the day at
the Washington Park Racetrack in Homewood. After the races, he was going to the
reopening of Bugsy Moran’s Sheridan Wave Tournament Club, a gambling den on
Waveland Avenue. The club had been closed after a raid in June 1929.
Lingle stopped at a newsstand near the library,
where he grabbed a racing form. As he started walking away, a man in a roadster
hollered, “Don’t forget to play Hy Snyder.”
Lingle called back, “I’ve got him.” He waved
his racing form at the car and continued down the stairs into the terminal. Two
men fell in step with him—one on either side.
It was over in seconds. Witness Patrick
Campbell said one of the two men lagged to buy a paper. “Then I passed them. A
second later, I heard a shot.”
Alfred “Jake” Lingle lay dead on the ground.
His smoking cigar was still clenched between his teeth, and his newspaper was
clutched in his hand.
Dr. Joseph Springer saw a man running away. He
jumped the fence between the tracks and headed down Michigan Avenue, then
doubled back, racing by Lingle’s body before making his getaway.
The shooter stood five feet ten inches, weighed
160, had light brown hair, and was between 27 and 32. He wore a gray suit and a
straw hat.
His accomplice was older, about 35, five feet
eight inches, and weighed 150. He had dark hair and wore a dark blue suit.
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| Al Capone |
The killer dropped the gun a short distance away, giving the police hope it would help identify the shooter. But it was no help. The identification numbers had been filed away. And any hope of getting fingerprints disappeared when a witness said the shooter removed a pair of silk gloves before dropping the gun.
For a short time after his death, Jake Lingle
became a public hero—a martyr to the mobs. Nearly 25,000 people attended his
funeral. The funeral of a man who was virtually unknown a few days earlier.
Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the editor and
publisher of the Chicago Tribune, posted a $25,000 reward within hours
of Lingle’s death. The Chicago Evening Post added $5,000 to the kitty.
And the Chicago Herald & Examiner pitched in another $25,000,
bringing the reward for Jake Lingle’s killers to slightly over $55,000.
The next day’s paper carried a seething
editorial, blaming the city’s gangs for the reporter’s death.
“The meaning of this murder is plain,” said the
Tribune. “It was committed in reprisal and an attempt at intimidation.
Mr. Lingle was a police reporter and an exceptionally well-informed one. What
made him valuable to his newspaper marked him as dangerous to the killers.
“There have been eleven gang murders in ten
days. That has become the accepted course of crime in its natural stride, but
to the list of all the other victims of assassination, the name is added of a
man whose business was to expose the work of killers.
“The Tribune accepts this challenge. It
is war. There will be casualties, but that is to be expected; it being war.”
Jake Lingle’s death also caused a major shakeup
in the police department. Police Commissioner William Russell and Chief
Detective John Stege resigned less than a week later, saying they did not want
to “impede the investigation.” But strangely, they remained members of the
Chicago Police Department. Russell became a captain assigned to the civil
service division, and Stege was made captain of the Irving Park Police
District.
Toward the end of June, a different, much
darker picture of Jake Lingle started coming together. As a result, the Chicago
Tribune began distancing itself from Jake Lingle.
 |
| Exterior view of passage Lingle entered before his killing |
“He was not and could not have been a great reporter,” said the Tribune. “He did not write stories, but could get information in police circles.” His actions did not influence the editorial policies of the paper.
They said Lingle was “accepted in the world of
politics and crime for something undreamed of in his office....” And “he used
this in undertakings that made him money and brought him to his death.”
Everyone who knew Jake Lingle should have known
something was wrong with his situation. His lifestyle was the ultimate tip-off.
The Tribune paid Jake Lingle
$65 a week. And yet somehow, in a few short years, he had squirreled away
$63,000 (over one million dollars today). In addition, he cashed $17,600 in
checks at the horse and dog tracks. And the $250 diamond-studded belt buckle he
wore when gunned down was a gift from Al Capone.
Lingle smoked dollar cigars when five-cent
smokes were the norm and bought them in boxes of fifty. He often bet $500 or
$1,000 “across the board” at the horse races. Lingle gave ten-dollar tips for
dinner and drinks. And he was probably the only reporter in the city with a
chauffeur on his payroll.
Yes. Lingle had often explained the
inconsistencies, telling those who asked that the money came from an
inheritance. But a little digging would have exposed the lie.
An investigation into Lingle’s finances showed
he received less than $500 from his father’s estate and only $1150 from his
uncle, Thomas Jenkins Lingle. The numbers were far from the $50,000 and
$100,000 Lingle said he received.
Lingle invested heavily in the stock market
during its run-up. His brokerage accounts rose to $85,000 at the market’s peak,
but he lost most of it in the crash. At the time of his death, Lingle owed his
broker $22,000.
He kept a joint brokerage account with Police
Commissioner Russell at Jackson Bros., Boesel & Co. They each invested
$10,000, quickly made a profit of almost $25,000, then lost it in the crash.
When Lingle died, their account sat at a negative $30,748.
 |
| Joe Aiello |
Lingle’s wife and children lived in a luxurious brick home near Michigan City. He spent most of his time at the racetrack or in his suite at The Stevens Hotel on Michigan Boulevard. Some sources suggest the couple had been slipping apart for at least six months, and divorce was imminent. But there’s no proof the couple was breaking up.
The Chicago Tribune did its best to
explain why the paper was unaware that Lingle had been leading a double life.
They reported Jake Lingle had his own “peculiar
style of news gathering.” He had a wide variety of acquaintances in all areas
of society.
The Tribune acknowledged
Lingle was useful to them primarily for his contacts with organized crime
leaders.
As a reporter of gangster activities, “Lingle
called frequently upon [Al] Capone, interviewed him, and for want of a better
phrase, won his confidence. Lingle had to have Capone’s confidence in order to
have access to his haunts. In order to find Capone when information from or
about the gangster was sought either as background or for the news itself.”
The thing to remember was that Lingle knew Al
Capone before he became an important figure in the mob. He continued to
cultivate his favor as Capone’s influence grew.
“There seemed nothing sinister about that
relationship.”
During his years in the field, Lingle had
become friends with Mossy Enright, Vincent Altman, Al Capone, and many other
crime bosses.
Johnny Torrio came from New York and teamed up
with Colosimo. As he grew his organization, Torrio brought in another New
Yorker, Alphonse Capone, who then went by the name Al Brown.
You could say Jake Lingle grew up with the mob. He befriended Colosimo, Torrio, and Capone before they hit the big time.
Lingle often complained to fellow reporters
about how the various criminals tried to get him to use his influence with
Police Commissioner Russell. Often, someone would pull him aside to ask a
favor. Lingle would push him away, shaking his head.
Then he’d tell his friends, “I haven’t got a
damn thing to do with it. Russell, don’t take his orders from me.... Go ahead
and open if you want to, but you’ll probably get pushed over (raided) as soon
as you do. Now get out of my way, bum.”
No one doubted Jake Lingle was tight with the
gangsters. But he also mingled with politicians, judges, and the police.
Lingle was friendly with Governor Louis
Emmerson, Attorney General Oscar Carlstrom, and many members of Congress,
senators, and judges. He counted millionaire businessmen like Arthur Cutten and
Jay Morton among his many acquaintances.
Lingle got his start as an office boy at the Tribune
in 1912, when he played semi-professional baseball. He became friends with
William Russell, a beat cop who patrolled the games. They remained friends as
Russell moved up the ranks, eventually becoming the commissioner of police.
Along the way, Russell fed him information.
Then Lingle reported it to the Tribune.
Finally, the Tribune said what almost
everyone was thinking.
“It seems amazing that a police reporter who
had not even the ability to write for his paper should have risen to such
heights. Even to the people who knew him best, Lingle’s ready access to many
social levels was hardly comprehensible.”
When a story broke, he talked to the men making
the news, then fed it back to the journalist writing it. Lingle’s information
“gave the article color and authenticity.”
As for his spending, Lingle had explained that
many years back. He said he had inherited $100,000 from his father. No one had
any reason to doubt him.
The same was true for his gambling. Everyone on
the staff knew Lingle liked to gamble, but he only talked about his wins. He
never mentioned his losses. So everyone assumed he was “lucky.”
Shortly after Lingle’s death, the police began
picking up known mob shooters. Unfortunately, there were many false leads in
the investigation.
Frank Bell confessed to being in on the Lingle
murder after he was arrested following a robbery at the end of June. Bell
admitted committing sixty-eight robberies at a wide variety of businesses.
Then he shocked detectives. Bell said he and
his partner, Richard Sullivan, went to the Villa Rica Cafe to collect payment
from Christ Patras for killing Jake Lingle. He didn’t know who put up the money
for the hit, but it was to be divided four ways.
Bell’s story quickly fell apart as
investigators fact-checked his testimony.
Sullivan insisted they went to the Villa Rica
Cafe to rob it, not to collect blood money for the Lingle killing. The Lingle
task force questioned Ted Geisking after his arrest for running booze in
Kentucky.
“I never heard of Lingle until four weeks ago
when I heard they wanted me in that case,” said Geisking. “I’ve run plenty of
booze in Indiana and may have hijacked a load here and there, but I never saw
Lingle or Zuta in my life. You can’t pin that on me.”
A few days later, witnesses said Geisking
wasn’t the shooter. That got him off the hook for Jake Lingle’s murder, but he
didn’t escape justice. Kentucky officials shipped him back to Indiana, where he
was wanted for a long string of crimes, including arson, terrorism, and booze
running.
Detectives decided Bell and Sullivan had
nothing to do with Jake Lingle’s death. However, both men went to the electric
chair for another murder.
Sam Hunt, a Capone gunman, was arrested in May
1930 after attacking Leo Mongoven, one of Bugsy Moran’s bodyguards. The police
caught him carrying a golf bag loaded with pistols and shotguns.
Witnesses said he resembled the man who
accompanied Lingle’s shooter, but detectives weren’t so sure. Hunt surrendered
a few days later.
Dominick Aiello was another suspect. When the
police picked him up, he had two loaded pistols and a shotgun nearby. Not long
after that, detectives arrested his brother, Carl Aiello.
The police held them for several months, but
eventually released them for lack of evidence.
Jack Zuta was a shrewd businessman who was said
to be the “brains” behind Jake Lingle’s murder. Zuta was a Russian immigrant
who made his way to Chicago when he was seventeen. He started out as a peddler
and junk dealer, saved money, and bought several hotels. Then he turned them
into brothels.
At one point, the gangsters drove him out of
the city. But like an evil seed, Zuta came back. This time, he aligned himself
with Bugsy Moran and the Aiello brothers.
The police arrested Zuta and several of his
henchmen on June 30. A few days later, he was released on bail.
Zuta had second thoughts as soon he stepped
outside. He turned to Lieutenant George Barker and said, “I don’t want to go
outside. I got it that the mob is gunning for me. I’ll never get home alive.”
Barker just smiled. “So, they’ve got you
worried, eh?” He offered to take Zuta to the loop. After that, he could call a
cab or do whatever he wanted.
A few minutes after they took off, a dark blue
sedan pulled up alongside Barker’s car. A man hopped onto the running board and
unloaded his pistol into the backseat of the police car. Another man opened
fire from the window.
Barker stopped the car, jumped out, and started
pumping hot lead into the shooter’s car. The men sped away, their auto spitting
a smoke screen to cover their escape.
Jack Zuta survived the attack, but he would die
within a month. On August 1, five gunmen invaded a resort along the shores of
Upper Nemahbin Lake near Delafield, Wisconsin. They emptied their guns into
Zuta, then left as quickly as they had come.
Was Jack Zuta killed to shut him up after
ordering the hit on Jake Lingle? No one knows, but the proximity of his death
to Lingle’s made investigators wonder.
Eventually, Frank “Frankie” Foster, a hitman
for the Moran-Zuta-Aiello gang, was indicted for Lingle’s murder.
Foster said the murder weapon wasn’t his, but
the police insisted the .38 caliber Colt, known as a “Detective Special,”
belonged to him.
Unfortunately, the murder weapon opened a whole
new can of worms.
Peter Von Frantzius, a gun dealer on Diversey
Parkway, took the fifth when asked if he sold Foster the murder weapon. At
best, the police could prove that Colt Firearms Company sold Frantzius the gun.
Where it went after that was all supposition.
Frantzius made his living selling arms to the
gangsters. The police had discovered he sold the weapons used in the St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre, but they couldn’t prosecute him because there was no
law against selling guns.
Frantzius admitted selling the snub-nosed Colt
revolver to Frank Foster, only he knew him as Mr. Williams.
That tied Frankie Foster to the murder weapon,
but it was only half the story. Detectives knew from the witness’s descriptions
that Foster wasn’t the triggerman. The hope was that he could fill in the
blanks and lead them to the shooter.
On July 30, Policeman Anthony Ruthy identified
Frank Foster. Ruthy had been directing traffic at Michigan Boulevard and
Randolph Street when Lingle was shot. Witnesses hollered at him to hold the
subject; he had just killed someone, so Ruthy ran after Foster.
Foster ran west on Randolph Street, darted down
an alley that turns into Wabash Avenue, then he disappeared into a crowd of
shoppers.
Even though Ruthy never saw Foster’s face, he
made an identification based on his general build, the shape of his back, and
the color of his hair.
The defense attorney was dumbfounded.
“You did not see his face at any time, is that
right?”
“Just the back?”
“Just the back and the side of the man’s face.
I had a glance when I was standing, directing the traffic going by. “
Try as he might, defense attorney Harold Levy
couldn’t shake Ruthy’s story. The policeman was confident Foster was the man he
chased that day.
The police held Frankie Foster (real name Frank
Citro) in jail for four months. Then the charges were dropped for lack of
evidence.
After his release, Foster returned to Los
Angeles and worked as a bail bondsman. He spent some time in jail now and then
for minor slip-ups, but he lived a long life. Frankie Foster died of a heart
attack on April 22, 1967.
Ultimately, it sounded as if Jake Lingle had
gotten too big for his britches and had overestimated his importance to the
gangsters.
A few days before his death, Lingle got into a
heated argument with John “Boss” McLaughlin.
McLaughlin was trying to grab some territory on
the city’s north side and set up a few gambling dens, which was a significant
no-no. The Chicago Tribune explained that “the entire city was laid out
into territories. A definite area was allocated to each of the recognized
gangs.” They compared invading another gang’s territory to crossing another
country’s boundaries. Doing so would likely spark a war.
McLaughlin visited his old friend, State’s
Attorney John Swanson, to get his permission to open a few places. Swanson
didn’t say yes or no, so McLaughlin took it as an ok.
Next, he visited Jake Lingle in his Tribune
office. We can only assume it didn’t go well. McLaughlin walked out in a huff
and left Lingle, explaining the outburst to his editor.
“That was Boss McLaughlin,” he said. “He wants
me to get Russell to let him open some gambling joints. I don’t see why these
chumps come to see me. They seem to think I’m the chief of police instead of
Russell.” That line might have inspired Lingle’s nickname as the “unofficial
chief of police.”
Not long after that, McLaughlin opened his
first place at 606 West Madison Street. The police quickly shut it down.
McLaughlin figured it was a mistake, so he went to see Russell and told him he
had Swanson’s permission.
Russell talked to Lingle, then Lingle spoke to
Pat Roche.
“I heard the state’s attorney is giving the
right of way to gambling joints.”
Roche wasn’t sure where he was going with
this. So, Lingle explained, McLaughlin told Russell he had Swanson’s ok.
“Don’t make me laugh,” replied Roche. “I hadn’t
heard of this, but if that bird tries any of that kind of business, I’ll knock
him off so quick he’ll think he’s in a Kansas cyclone.”
And then, the night before McLaughlin’s
gambling den was to open, Lingle told him it was impossible unless he got more
money.
Boss McLaughlin called Lingle at the Tribune
offices later that evening. Lingle must have known something was up because he
had another reporter listen in.
“Swanson told me it was all right to go ahead,”
said Boss McLaughlin, “and I don’t see why Russell is buttin’ in.”
“I don’t believe Swanson told you any such
thing,” said Lingle. “But if it is true, you get Swanson to write a letter to
Russell.”
“Do you think Swanson is crazy?” screamed
McLaughlin. “He wouldn’t write such a letter.”
“Well. Russell can’t let you run. That’s
final.”
“I’ll catch up with you,” cursed McLaughlin.
“And it won’t be long either.”
Not long after that, Jake Lingle was dead.
When the police questioned him, Boss McLaughlin
admitted to making the call but denied threatening Lingle.
“Why I wouldn’t hurt a hair on his head,” he
said. “I like Jake. I might have asked him to do me a favor or two, but I
certainly never wished him any harm.”
That might have been true. It’s also possible
McLaughlin ordered the hit on Lingle.
The Herald & Examiner disclosed
Lingle had demanded $15,000 to open the Sheridan Wave Gambling Club. When Bugsy
Moran’s people refused to pay, Lingle threatened them, saying, “if you open,
you’ll see more squad cars than you ever saw together before.”
And Lingle was rubbed out on June 9, the day
the club reopened. Was it a coincidence, or did Bugsy Moran settle a score?
Harry Brundige, a staff correspondent for the St.
Louis Star & Times, interviewed Al Capone at his Florida home in early
July 1930.
Brundige got to the point, asking Capone, “I
thought I would ask you who killed Jake Lingle?”
“Why ask me?” said Capone. “The Chicago police
know who killed him.”
“Was Jake your friend?”
“Yes. Up to the very day he died.”
He admitted giving Lingle the diamond-studded
belt buckle he wore the day he died. It cost $250.
Not long after that, Capone approached the
Lingle task force, trying to work out a compromise so the team would stop its
raids on his gambling dens and bawdy houses. The investigation was bleeding his
organization of much-needed cash.
The answer was simple. Tell the task force who
killed Jake Lingle.
“I don’t know what the fellow that killed Jake
looks like,” said Capone. “I know none of my fellows did it. I liked Lingle,
and certainly, I didn’t have any reason to kill him.”
Capone said he’d heard that Lingle had been
involved in an attempt to open a dog track in the Chicago Stadium on the north
side. Zuta had paid Lingle $30,000 to grease the wheels and ensure they
wouldn’t be raided.
And then, “when the gang saw they could not go,
they blamed Jake Lingle, and I think that’s why he got pushed (killed).”
“But I don’t know who they used to do the job,”
said Capone. “It must have been some fellow from out of town. I’ll try to find
out.”
 |
| Frank Foster |
Leo Vincent Brothers was indicted for the
murder of Jake Lingle in December 1930.
Brothers looked like a kid, but he had built up
a powerful record of crime—robbery, arson, bombing, and murder. Looking at him,
you’d never guess he was a killer. Brothers had short, curly hair and a winning
smile. The only giveaway that marked him as a hardened criminal was the “steel
glint in his smoky eyes.” Many witnesses remarked that they’d never forget
those eyes.
Brothers began his criminal career on the
streets of St. Louis as a member of Eagan’s Rats, a gang of street
thugs. He had a long rap sheet and had been arrested over sixty times in
St. Louis. He fled to New York in 1929 to escape a murder charge for the
killing of John Di Blase. Not long after that, he found work in Chicago with Al
Capone.
The trial received very little coverage for all
the hoopla over Lingle’s murder. Seven witnesses testified they saw Brothers in
the subway tunnel when Lingle was killed. Seven more jurors testified Brothers
wasn’t the man they saw. None of them saw him pull the trigger, although one
man swore he saw Brothers drop the murder weapon.
Brothers refused to testify at his trial. Doing
so would be the equivalent of signing his death warrant. It would have allowed
the prosecution to bring up his criminal record and his previous murder charge.
The jury battled it out, searching for a
compromise to satisfy everyone. Eleven jurors wanted to convict Brothers, while
one thought he might be innocent. Finally, the hold-out juror joined the
majority understanding that they would recommend the minimum sentence
available.
On April 2, 1931, Leo Vincent Brothers was
found guilty of murdering Alfred “Jake” Lingle and sentenced to fourteen years
in prison.
There was a huge outcry when the sentence was
handed down. The consensus was that if Brothers was guilty of murder, he should
have received a life sentence or been sent to the electric chair.
A few days after the verdict was handed down,
juror Jacob Schlosser explained why Brothers wasn’t given the death sentence.
 |
| Leo Vincent Brothers |
“The only reason the electric chair was not considered for Brothers was the testimony of a defense witness that she saw the man who fired the gun, and it was not Brothers. There was no doubt Brothers was at the scene of the slaying and was an accessory to the murder.”
Schlosser believed Brothers should have gotten
at least twenty-five years, but one holdout juror kept them from doling out
that penalty. Brothers might have escaped punishment altogether if they had
come in as a hung jury.
Brothers appeared unconcerned by his sentence.
“I can do that standing on my head,” he told reporters. He won an early release
in 1940, living another ten years.
The Illinois Supreme Court reviewed the
Brothers case in February 1932.
“The principal controversy relates to the
identification of the defendant as the man who shot Lingle and fled from the
scene of the crime. Various witnesses positively identified the defendant as
being in the tunnel and as the man who dropped the gun and ran up the stairs
across the street. Other witnesses testified with equal positiveness that they
were present, and the defendant was not the man. Defendant did not testify on
his own behalf, and no effort was made to establish his whereabouts on the day
of the killing.”
The court agreed with the verdict, saying the
jury had sifted the evidence and decided Brothers was the killer. They also
agreed with the lower court that murder was the only charge on the table.
Manslaughter was not an option. If anything, the jury might have imposed a
longer jail sentence.
Right away, people started saying Brothers was a fall guy. Someone Al Capone sacrificed to satisfy the feds. It’s possible, but Brothers lived another twenty years and never breathed a word about it, so that seems unlikely.
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