The Violent Years (27 page)

Authors: Paul R. Kavieff

BOOK: The Violent Years

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According to Chris Scroy, Sam and Pete Lucido were murdered because Pete Licavoli and others associated with the Windsor race wire service believed that the Scroy brothers and Lucido were trying to muscle in on their gambling territory. Licavoli and other Detroit Mob figures had actually had a meeting with the Scroy brothers and Lucido and offered to pay them $45 a week to stay out of Windsor.

Another rumor that circulated in the Detroit underworld at that time was that the Scroy brothers were receiving race wire information from Howard Kerr, a former Chicago bookmaker and big-time gambling operator in Windsor. Kerr was reported to be operating with the okay from Detroit Mob boss Pete Corrado. When the Detroit Mob wanted the Scroy brothers out of Windsor, Kerr had given Lucido $7,500 to close his operation and stay out of gambling in the Windsor area. Prior to the disappearance of Sam Scroy and Pete Lucido, there had been numerous raids by Windsor police who were not on the payroll of the Detroit Mob. These raids were on the Polo Club operated by Kerr and on numerous other Detroit Mob operations in Windsor. Pete Lucido was believed responsible for tipping off the police. On June 12, 1948, the Windsor police raided and busted up the race wire headquarters of the Detroit Mob. That night Sam Scroy and Pete Lucido were called to a meeting and disappeared.

The trial of Chris Scroy for assault with intent to commit murder opened in Detroit Recorders Court on June 14, 1950. In typical underworld fashion, Max Stern denied that Scroy had shot him. “Scroy and I have been friends since we sold papers together as kids,” Stern told the court. The jury wasn’t convinced. On June 20, 1950, Chris Scroy was convicted of the felony charge. Two weeks later, Scroy was sentenced to serve 7 to 30 years in Jackson Prison. Scroy was 40 years old. Shortly after Chris Scroy was convicted, Detroit police received information that Sam Scroy and Lucido had been murdered by the Detroit Mob, and their bodies had been disposed of in a rock quarry somewhere between Detroit and Toledo.

While Chris Scroy was serving his sentence, Detroit police received other information from underworld sources about the murders of Sam Scroy and Pete Lucido. According to this story, Lucido and Scroy, who were known by police as sometime labor racketeers, had been paid $2,000 cash by a local Mob boss to beat two members of the Briggs UAW-CIO local. The purpose of this strong-arm work was to help certain anti-Reuther forces within the UAW gain control of the local. The Mob saw this as a chance to form an alliance with the anti-Reuther forces in the auto workers union and to profit enormously by this partnership. Scroy and Lucido did a good job and were given another strong-arm assignment. This time Scroy and Lucido decided to give the job to other muscle men for $400. The Detroit Mob found out about the subcontracting deal and only paid the two racketeers $400 when the assignment was completed. Scroy and Lucido were rankled by this gesture. On April 20, 1948, Walter Reuther was shot through the kitchen window of his home. Supposedly, Sam Scroy and Lucido knew specifics about the Detroit Mob’s involvement with the Reuther shooting and threatened to go to the police. As a result, they were killed.

Chris Scroy was released from Jackson Prison on July 14, 1955. He later opened a gas station in St. Clair Shores, a Detroit suburb. It was eventually discovered that the gas station was a front for a new handbook operation. On the afternoon of April 10, 1959, Scroy left the station telling an employee that he had an urgent meeting. The next day he was reported missing by his family. For 18 months his disappearance remained a mystery. On October 20, 1960, the dismembered body of Chris Scroy was discovered in seven burlap sacks in a ditch near Mt. Clemens, Michigan. State Police and St. Clair Shores police were notified of the grisly discovery. The body was later positively identified by fingerprints and clothing found with the remains. Dr. Richard Olsen, a Pontiac, Michigan, pathologist, conducted the post-mortem exam. According to Olsen’s report, Scroy had been killed by several hard blows to the head and had been dead approximately 18 months. The body was covered with lime and then buried. For some reason, several weeks before Scroy’s remains were discovered, someone had dug up the body, dismembered it, and dumped it in a north Macomb County field. Police theorized that when the killers checked the body and found it still fairly well intact, they chopped it up and left it exhumed, possibly as another warning not to do business in their town.

• • •

By the late ‘40s, the Detroit Mafia family had established themselves as the absolute rulers of the Detroit underworld. Eddie Sarkesian and the Scroy brothers were among the last of the Prohibition era rebels. For more than 40 years, the Detroit Mob was able to maintain a low profile while reaping fantastic profits in legitimate businesses and the rackets. Only the advent of a federal law-enforcement assault on the Detroit Mob in the 1990s using the RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) and aging leadership of the Detroit Mob marked the beginning of the end for the old-style organization.

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Michigan State Police Criminal Complaints

Case No. 2206; Location: St. Joseph, Michigan, Berrien County; Crime: Murder; Date: December 14, 1929; Victim: Charles L. Skelly; Suspect: Fred Burke alias Dane.

Case No. 2389: County: Wayne; Officers: William Watkins; Location: Detroit; Date: July 1, 1925; Crime: Bank Robbery; Victim: People’s Wayne County Bank; Suspect: Frank Cammarata.

Case No. 1136; Location: Cassopolis; Crime: Bank Robbery; Date: November 24, 1926; Victim: First National Bank; Suspects: Chester Tutha, Joe Konen, James Allen, Sam Bokosky, Clarence Madden, and Steven Racskewski.

Case No. 5970; Location: Albion, Calhoun County, Michigan; Crime: B&E Store and Safe Robbery; Date: March 9, 1936; Victim: Kroger Store; Suspects: Louis Fleisher, Chester Tutha, Sam Bernstein, Harry Fleisher.

Case No. 5954; Location: Jackson, Michigan, Jackson County; Crime: B&E and Safe Robbery; Date: May 11, 1936; Victim: Isabel Seed Co.; Suspects: Louis Fleisher, Sam Bernstein, Chester Tutha, John Godlewski, Robert Deptla.

Case No. 5954; Location: Jackson, Michigan, Jackson County, Crime: B&E and Safe Robbery; Date: June 2, 1936; Victim: Riverside Packing Co.; Suspects: Louis Fleisher, Sam Bernstein, Chester Tutha, John Godlewski, Robert Deptla.

Newspapers

Detroit Evening Times

Detroit Free Press

Detroit News

Hamtramck Citizen

Pontiac Press

Acknowledgments

Many people helped me in assembling research material used in
The Violent Years.
I would like to thank Pat Zacharias and her staff at the
Detroit News
Reference Library; Mark Harvey, photo archivist at the State Archives of Michigan; Thomas Featherstone of the Walter Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Sharon Brown of the Michigan State Police Central Records Division; John Currie and Mary Zumeth of the State Archives of Michigan; Penelope A. Morris, owner of the P. A. Morris Co., for her help in editing and creating a hard copy of the work; Walter Wasacz of the
Hamtramck Citizen
newspaper; and Officer Merle Van Marter.

For their support and encouragement, I would like to thank Rosalyn and Rick Smith; Georgia E. Wilder; Pat Henahan; my friends and colleagues at the Wayne State University Engineering Unit; and Mike Webb. A special thanks to Allan Wilson, Senior Editor, and Jeff Nordstedt, Vice President, Barricade Books; and to Carole and Lyle Stuart, Publishers, for having continued faith in my work.

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