The Violent Years (11 page)

Walters was never indicted for being a member of the Legs Laman Gang. He was not positively linked with the gang until several months after his murder in 1930. Walters was arrested as a suspect in the Cass kidnapping in July of 1929, but later released due to lack of evidence. He was eventually connected to the Laman Gang, when “Legs” Laman became a state’s witness.

On April 13, 1930, Jimmy Walters was shot to death while working on his car in the driveway of his home. His killers were never identified. One underworld rumor that had circulated at the time was that Jimmy had been muscling in on the east side drug trade and was murdered as a result. Walters was mixed up in so many different rackets including beer, drugs, kidnapping, and murder, it was hard to pinpoint with any accuracy which of his many enemies finally eliminated him.

The Michigan State Police and Detroit Police Department created a special task force in June of 1929 to deal with the Detroit kidnapping problem. According to Captain Fred G. Armstrong of the Michigan State Police, the task force was formed for two main reasons. The first reason was due to the terror that the kidnapping gangs generated among the public, and the second because of the general disrespect for law and order that resulted. Often it appeared that an underworld character could do more to get a kidnapping victim released than the police.

For a short time, the Laman Gang had great success kidnapping Detroit area businessmen. Most of their victims were thankful to be released unharmed and were terrified into silence by the threats and warnings of the kidnappers. This period of success ended abruptly with the kidnapping of David Cass, a 23-year-old gambler and the son of a wealthy Detroit real-estate operator. The Cass kidnapping would spell the beginning of the end for the Laman Gang.

At 4 a.m. on the morning of July 22, 1929, the telephone rang at the home of Gerson C. Cass in Detroit. Cass was well known around Detroit as a wealthy land speculator. His son David left the house early Sunday morning July 21, 1929, and had not been heard from since. Cass was worried that evening, as it was unusual for his son to be gone so long without calling home. He hurried to the phone in anticipation of hearing David’s voice.

Instead of talking to his son, Cass was shocked to hear a strange voice tell him that David had been kidnapped. He was instructed to look in his mailbox for a note. Cass rushed to the mailbox, where he found a note written in his son’s hand. The note was signed by David and demanded a ransom of $25,000 for his release. Gerson Cass, still reeling from the shock of the horrible discovery, picked the telephone back up and acknowledged to the kidnappers that he had read the ransom note. He was warned that his son would be murdered if he notified the police. Cass was then told that he would be contacted later and given further instructions, and the party hung up. Aside from working in his father’s business, David Cass was also a part-owner in a handbook place located on Sibley Street just off Woodward Avenue in Detroit. Young Cass was also known as a man who enjoyed nightclubs and gambling. Possibly his peripheral connection with the Detroit underworld led to his kidnapping. Out of fear for his son’s life, Gerson Cass followed the kidnappers’ instructions implicitly. He never notified the Detroit police about his son’s kidnapping.

Gerson Cass continued to get telephone calls from the kidnappers during the next several days, demanding various amounts for David’s release. The gang finally agreed upon the amount of $4,000, payable in 20-dollar bills. On Thursday, July 25, 1929, Gerson Cass was contacted by the kidnappers and instructed to get the ransom money ready. According to Gerson Cass, in a statement later made to Detroit police at approximately 7:45 p.m. that night, he was called and given specific instructions as to where to deliver the ransom money. Cass was told to go to the corner of Linwood Avenue and Chicago Boulevard at exactly 8 p.m. He was instructed to walk west on Chicago towards Linwood and a man would overtake him. When the stranger whispered “number 8,” Cass was to hand him the package of ransom money. The Detroit police were tipped off about the kidnapping of David Cass and the time and place of the ransom exchange, shortly before these events were about to unfold. Crime and Bomb Squad Detectives Albert Shapiro, Lloyd Duane, Charles Wood, and George Nosworthy were dispatched to the scene to arrest the man that the gang had sent to pick up the ransom money. The detectives arrived and took up positions near the corner of Linwood Avenue and Chicago Boulevard. Shapiro, Wood, and Duane hid in an alley between Chicago Boulevard and Rochester Avenue. Nosworthy lay down on the lawn of the Sacred Heart Seminary. Nosworthy would later state in his official report about the incident that when the four detectives arrived at the scene, they noticed a man loitering on the corner of Linwood and Chicago Boulevard. The man appeared to be nervous. This suspicious-looking character would later prove to be Legs Laman. The Cass car pulled up to the curb on Chicago Boulevard about a half block east of Linwood. Gerson Cass got out carrying the package and began walking slowly west toward Linwood. Laman quickly walked up alongside of Gerson Cass and whispered something. Cass handed the ransom money to him. Nosworthy drew his gun and started after Laman. When Legs noticed he was being followed, he took off running towards the alley where Detectives Duane, Wood, and Shapiro were hiding. The officers yelled for Laman to halt. When he kept running, they opened fire. Laman collapsed on the lawn of the Sacred Heart Seminary. Eight shots were fired between Nosworthy and Shapiro, and it was Shapiro who would be credited with bringing Laman down.

Laman had been shot in the back near his spine and was severely wounded and not expected to live. He was taken to Detroit Receiving Hospital and was partially paralyzed as a result of his wounds but later recovered. The Detroit police initially thought that Laman may have been involved in the kidnapping of David Cass entirely on his own. When first questioned by detectives, Laman told the police that he had been hired by a bootlegger named Jack Kelson to pick up the money from Gerson Cass as part of a liquor transaction. Laman told the police several different stories. At one point, he stated that he was in desperate need of money and had planned the kidnapping himself. When it later became apparent to detectives that Laman was not involved in the Cass kidnapping alone, he refused to name his accomplices. At one point, however, he did tell the police that Cass was not in any danger and that he would not be harmed by the gang, as they would not have anything to gain at that time by hurting Cass, Laman adding. “They’re too yellow to hurt him.”

On Saturday, July 27, 1929, a combined force of Detroit Police Department detectives and Dearborn police officers busted into a house in Dearborn, Michigan. The building turned out to be one of the locations used by the Laman Gang to hide their victims. Henry “Ray” Andrews, 31 years old, and his wife Jean, 25 years old, were arrested at the location. The kidnappers’ castle had been located by police through the help of a retired Wyandotte bootlegger named Fred Begeman. Several months earlier, Begeman had been one of the victims of the Laman Gang. In an article that had been published in the
Detroit Free Press
two months before, the Laman Gang’s Dearborn hideout had been described in detail by an anonymous source who was supposed to be a close associate of some of the gang’s victims. In the article, the kidnap victims stated that they had all been chained to a bed in the house. The bed was located in a second-floor room. By stretching the length of their chains, they all reported that they could see a church steeple with a cross on top and the green roof of a nearby building through a crack at the top of the boarded-up bedroom window. When Begeman accompanied police on a tour of the Laman Gang’s Dearborn headquarters the day of the raid, he lay on the bed where he had been chained. Through the space at the top of the boarded-up window in the room he could see the church steeple and the green roof that had been described in the earlier
Free Press
article. Begeman also pointed out to the police some writing he had scribbled on the wall of the room in which he had been held prisoner. Begeman identified Laman in Detroit Receiving Hospital as one of the men he had seen enter the room in which he was held at the Dearborn address. Although the room in which Begeman was chained had been kept dark, Begeman identified Henry Andrews as the man who had brought him food. Andrews was identified by his voice. Several sets of handcuffs, leg irons, chains, and a box of dynamite caps were also found by police in the Dearborn house.

The church steeple that had been described by some of the Laman Gang’s kidnapping victims was identified later as the top of the St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Dearborn. A water tank that had also been identified by some of the gang’s prisoners was located by police along nearby railroad tracks that could easily be seen from the second-floor bedroom window of the Anthony Street address.

Fred Begeman lived in Wyandotte, Michigan. On April 20, 1929, he was washing his car in the driveway of his home when he was suddenly assaulted by several men who threw a burlap bag over his head. He was trussed up, thrown into a nearby car, and taken to the Anthony Street address. At first, the kidnappers had demanded a $25,000 ransom from Begeman’s wife. He was held prisoner for six days in the Dearborn house and finally released for a payment of $5,000. After Begeman was released, the gang continued to harass him. Begeman claimed that he paid the Mob an additional $1,900. The second payment did not satisfy the kidnappers either, and on June 11, 1929, a bomb was thrown onto Begeman’s porch, blowing away part of the front of his home. The stress caused by the Laman Gang’s extortion techniques finally took its toll on Begeman’s family. On July 12, 1929, his wife died of a heart attack. Her doctors blamed her death on the stress that had been created as a result of the kidnappers’ harassment campaign. On July 31, 1929, Henry Andrews and his wife were officially charged with kidnapping in the Begeman case.

Shortly after David Cass was kidnapped and “Legs” Laman had been arrested, Cass’s girlfriend voluntarily appeared at Detroit police headquarters. She told police that she had been the last person to see David the night he was abducted. She then described to police how they had spent their last night together. The unidentified woman had supposedly accompanied Cass to the Eastwood Inn on Seven Mile Road in Detroit, for dinner and dancing. Later that evening, according to her story, Cass drove downtown and parked in front of the Savoy Hotel. The woman had gotten out of the car to go to a nearby drugstore. As she was coming out, she saw a man she did not know climb into Cass’s car. She got back in, but Cass did not introduce her to the stranger. Cass then drove his girlfriend to her home. The unidentified man had never spoken during the trip, and that was the last time she had seen Cass.

Shortly after Laman was shot down by detectives, the officers picked up two men who had been waiting at Laman’s home. The men were Guy Tremaine and Andrew Reardon. Reardon was Laman’s brother-in-law. The two men denied knowing anything about the Cass kidnapping. They claimed that they were only waiting for Laman because they had all made plans to attend a boxing match that evening. Both men had police records. At first, police officials believed that they were somehow connected with the kidnapping gang. Upon further investigation, no evidence could be found against the two men, and they were released. Detroit police officials hoped that the shooting and arrest of Legs Laman would cause the kidnappers to believe that they had nothing to gain by holding Cass any longer and that he would soon be released. As the days and weeks passed, it became obvious that something more sinister had happened.

In a warrant recommended by Wayne County Prosecutor James E. Chenot, Joseph “Legs” Laman was officially charged with extortion in the Cass kidnapping case on August 7, 1929. Fred Begeman, the ex-Wyandotte bootlegger and previous victim of the gang, positively identified Laman at Receiving Hospital as one of the men he had seen enter the room in which he was held prisoner. Begeman refused to sign the kidnapping complaint against Laman at the time, however, telling police that he wanted to wait until after the trial of Henry “Ray” Andrews. Begeman was probably fearful that Andrews might be acquitted, weakening the case against Laman and putting Begeman in danger of being murdered by the gang in revenge.

• • •

On August 2, 1929, another member of the Laman Gang was arrested in a Toledo, Ohio, apartment. The thug’s name was Andrew Germano. Acting on a tip from an informer, members of the Detroit Police Department’s Crime and Bomb Squad and Toledo officers located the Toledo, Ohio, base of operations of the Laman Gang. The officers broke into the apartment, surprising Germano, who was carrying three pistols at the time of his arrest. Detroit police officials suspected that Germano was somehow connected with the Cass kidnapping. Once Germano was arrested, he denied any connection with the Laman Gang but admitted to participating in several bank robberies. He also told the arresting officers that he “might have shot a cop or two.”

Andrew Germano, like Laman, was a career criminal. Born in Italy in 1900, Germano was brought to the U.S. with his family at age seven and grew up in Flint, Michigan. He was first arrested in Flint for carrying a concealed weapon in 1920. In late November of 1921, Germano was convicted of armed robbery as a consequence of participating in a Flint holdup. On December 3, 1921, he was sent to Marquette Prison. He served five years of his original 10- to 25-year sentence and was paroled on December 31, 1926. While serving time in Marquette, Germano became friendly with two Detroit gangsters named Frank Hohfer and Edward Wiles. Hohfer was serving a 10 to 25 year sentence on an armed-robbery conviction. Wiles had been convicted of breaking and entering and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison in Flint, Michigan. It is likely that Hohfer may have originally befriended Henry “Ray” Andrews when the two were serving time together in Jackson Prison. Andrews had served some time during the early ‘20s on an auto theft conviction. He was released but later returned to prison as a parole violator. It was a result of Hohfer’s connection with Henry Andrews that Germano, Hohfer, and Wiles would eventually become associated with the Laman Gang.