Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 1: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 1: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 2: Good evening. Step back in time to the winter of
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty nine, where the magic of Christmas in Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: New York was shattered by a heinous act that reverberated
Speaker 2: through the ages. In the Murder of Mary Falzone, a
Speaker 2: shocking true crime story, Rod Cackley unravels the chilling tale
Speaker 2: of a family torn apart by an explosion that claimed
Speaker 2: the lives of Mary, Philip and Rose Falzone, innocent children
Speaker 2: whose lives were extinguished by a bomb disguised as a
Speaker 2: holiday gift. As the city grappled with the aftermath of
Speaker 2: this unspeakable tragedy, a relentless investigation unfolded to unmask the
Speaker 2: perpetrators behind the merciless attack. Rod Cackley takes readers on
Speaker 2: a gripping journey through the dark alleys of nineteen twenties Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: where organized crime thrived and the thin line between justice
Speaker 2: and retribution blurred. The narrative unfolds like a suspenseful thriller,
Speaker 2: capturing the tension of a city on the brink. Through
Speaker 2: painstaking research and vivid storytelling, Rod Cackley paints a vivid
Speaker 2: picture of a bygone era, immersing readers in the sights, sounds,
Speaker 2: and emotions of a community grappling with grief and the
Speaker 2: quest for justice. As the investigation deepens, readers will be
Speaker 2: engrossed by the cast of characters, dedicated detectives, reaving family members,
Speaker 2: and the shadowy figures lurking in the criminal underworld. The
Speaker 2: book unveils the layers of deception and betrayal that led
Speaker 2: to that fateful December morning, keeping readers on the edge
Speaker 2: of their seats with every revelation. The murder of Mary
Speaker 2: Falzone transcends the true crime genre, becoming a poignant exploration
Speaker 2: of the enduring quest for justice and the impact of
Speaker 2: violence on a family and a community. This is a
Speaker 2: tale that goes beyond the headlines, inviting readers to contemplate
Speaker 2: the fragility of life and the strength that can emerge
Speaker 2: in the face of tragedy. Gripping, evocative, and profoundly moving.
Speaker 2: This true crime narrative is a must read for those
Speaker 2: seeking an unforgettable journey into the heart of a dark
Speaker 2: chapter in American history. The book that were featuring this
Speaker 2: evening is The Murder of Mary Fellzone, a Shocking true
Speaker 2: crime Story with my special guests, author Rod Cackley. Welcome
Speaker 2: back to the program, and thank you very much for
Speaker 2: this interview. Rod Cackley, Hi, good morning, Dan, good morning.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 3: You're welcome, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: You take us in the Murder of Mary Fellzone, a
Speaker 2: shocking true crime story, certainly is. You take us to
Speaker 2: October fourth, nineteen twenty nine, and in an apartment on
Speaker 2: the outskirts of Brooklyn, New York, and a nineteen year old,
Speaker 2: you say, a hulking nineteen year old and his older
Speaker 2: accomplice in his early thirties, and these people are drafting
Speaker 2: a letter. The nineteen year old is drafting a letter,
Speaker 2: and they have in the letter. You say, somebody in
Speaker 2: their crosshairs. Tell us about this letter writing duo and
Speaker 2: what they are writing about. Before you tell me, or
Speaker 2: tell our audience exactly what they have drafted in that
Speaker 2: letter and whoever they are sending it to.
Speaker 4: Sure, Yeah, we've got a nineteen year old, as you said,
Speaker 4: with a pension for intimidation. His accomplice, I write as
Speaker 4: a seasoned brute in his early thirties, with the demeanor
Speaker 4: is whether it has a scuffed leather boost. These guys
Speaker 4: are partners, but not friends. Okay, they don't care for
Speaker 4: each your other, munch, but they're joined in this mutual business,
Speaker 4: if you will, of intimidating people and extorting money. Now
Speaker 4: they have set their sites to be Now on a
Speaker 4: guy by the name of Joseph Falzone. He's a rich
Speaker 4: Sicilian immigrant, very well to do. He owns with a partner,
Speaker 4: he owns a marble contracting company. They really specialize in tombstones,
Speaker 4: ironically enough, and they made three hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 4: profit last year, which is in nineteen twenty eight, which
Speaker 4: is we're talking several million dollars in today's money. And
Speaker 4: living in Brooklyn, New York. Now this is October fourth,
Speaker 4: nineteen twenty nine. The date is important because right now,
Speaker 4: for the past ten years, living in Brooklyn is a
Speaker 4: license to print money. The factories are humming the waterfront
Speaker 4: is bustling with activity every day. Tony Island was jammed
Speaker 4: last summer and it should be next season to see
Speaker 4: you at least, that's what they think. Money is everywhere,
Speaker 4: and this guy, this nineteen year old, wants his on
Speaker 4: fair share. He's a high school graduate, a rarity in
Speaker 4: nineteen twenty nine. And right now he's at a chipped,
Speaker 4: scratched wooden desk in his buddy apartment. The thirty year
Speaker 4: old hard at works scribbling out a letter.
Speaker 3: He's wearing a.
Speaker 4: Well worn tweed suit featuring a jacket just a bit
Speaker 4: too small for his large muscular frame. He's got a
Speaker 4: thin tie hanging loosely around his neck, a dingy white
Speaker 4: shirt on button to the collar, and right now he's
Speaker 4: on his fourth attempt to get the wording of this
Speaker 4: letter just right. He's using a fountain pen, and if
Speaker 4: you've ever used a fountain pen, we don't use them
Speaker 4: much anymore. But they've got a nub on the front,
Speaker 4: on the tip, and he's doing his best or the nib,
Speaker 4: doing his best not to crush it into the paper
Speaker 4: at the same time he's writing. He's pressing hard enough
Speaker 4: on his paper. It's like the paper owes him money.
Speaker 4: He's trying to get this right the fourth time out,
Speaker 4: and he's doing more now than just extorting money. He
Speaker 4: wants this guy, the target of his letter, to leave Brooklyn.
Speaker 4: So he writes, if you don't leave this city within
Speaker 4: thirty days, you will hear from us. You are a sneak,
Speaker 4: and we, with a sneak, are going to.
Speaker 3: Cut the head. This is what he wrote.
Speaker 4: Okay, what he means to write is the snake, but
Speaker 4: he wrote it with a sneak, and we are going
Speaker 4: to cut the head. Be quick to send if you
Speaker 4: value your life and that of your wife, and that's all.
Speaker 4: We won't sign surname, not because we're afraid, but just
Speaker 4: because you are a rat. And he turns to his
Speaker 4: partner and says that great, isn't it. You know, the
Speaker 4: partner really couldn't care less. He just wants to get
Speaker 4: this done now. Back in nineteen twenty nine, when gangs
Speaker 4: ran out of money, they kidnapped and they extored it.
Speaker 4: It was a quick way to print money, if you will.
Speaker 4: And that's what these guys are doing right here, is
Speaker 4: they're trying to get money and get money fast. But
Speaker 4: the nineteen year old now there's a reason he wants
Speaker 4: his target to leave town.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you want to talk about that
Speaker 4: right now, but there is a reason that he wants
Speaker 4: more from money, or more than money from this guy. Dan.
Speaker 2: Let's get to we opened that October fourth, nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 2: and this letter was constructed, drafted that day. Certainly the
Speaker 2: target received that in a certain amount of time, within
Speaker 2: a week or so. But you take us in the
Speaker 2: story to October twenty third, nineteen twenty nine, and these
Speaker 2: guys are talking about not getting a response from that
Speaker 2: letter that they had drafted.
Speaker 3: They can't believe it.
Speaker 4: Of The nineteen year old is totally fomis. He cannot
Speaker 4: believe that this Sicilian businessman, this immigrant, has not even
Speaker 4: responded to the letter. The older man, the guy in
Speaker 4: his thirties, he's ready to do whatever it takes, but
Speaker 4: he's not getting excited about too much. The nineteen year old, though, says,
Speaker 4: we need to get more explicit and give this man
Speaker 4: a better idea of what will happen if he ignores
Speaker 4: the ultimatum. And so she writes another letter, and which
Speaker 4: he writes, so you've come back again, skunk. I thought
Speaker 4: you'd gone. Maybe you think that in the last letter
Speaker 4: I wrote you I was fooling. But listen to rant
Speaker 4: and get this straight. If you don't do as I
Speaker 4: ask in the last letter, you know what to expect.
Speaker 4: Since you couldn't get that straight, get this straight.
Speaker 3: Friday.
Speaker 4: You are to get on the boat for Boston, which
Speaker 4: leaves Friday, October twenty five, at six pm p here fourteen.
Speaker 4: You are to get on this boat alone. You are
Speaker 4: to have with you six thousand dollars in cash American money,
Speaker 4: all in twenty dollars bills wrapped in plain brown paper.
Speaker 4: You will be informed what to do with the package
Speaker 4: when you were on the boat. Remember this does not
Speaker 4: mean you were paying for your liberty. You will have
Speaker 4: thirteen days to leave the country. So he's upping the
Speaker 4: ante here, obviously. And I should say that when I
Speaker 4: get the story the letters mainly out of newspaper accounts
Speaker 4: from that day. This is how it was reported. This
Speaker 4: is where I'm getting it from the way he's writing
Speaker 4: the letter.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now you take us just a couple of days later,
Speaker 2: October twenty fifth, nineteen twenty nine, and so you say
Speaker 2: that they're meeting at eight pm. There's no sign of
Speaker 2: their mark, and so they wonder what went wrong. They
Speaker 2: contemplate what went wrong, and you say that there was
Speaker 2: an incredible moment in history that was occurring at the
Speaker 2: same time, especially in New York.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, exactly. This is the crash on Wall Street.
Speaker 4: And so our nineteen year old here now the boat
Speaker 4: we're talking about the boat from Boston to New York.
Speaker 4: These boats would go back and forth. It was really
Speaker 4: the most efficient way to travel between the two cities.
Speaker 4: So there were many boats going back and forth. And
Speaker 4: the nineteen year old is thinking, you know, his mark
Speaker 4: has not shown up with the cash.
Speaker 3: The mark.
Speaker 4: He's thinking, he's wondering if the guy got on the
Speaker 4: wrong boat, if he was ignoring him, or just simply
Speaker 4: made a mistake.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, this is the crash.
Speaker 4: This is when the newspapers are reporting that business people
Speaker 4: are jumping out of their windows. They have no idea
Speaker 4: how bad it's going to get, but it's bad enough
Speaker 4: that he's thinking that this business maybe he jumped out
Speaker 4: a window. So they really don't know where to go next.
Speaker 2: So what's their next step to try to determine what
Speaker 2: had happened.
Speaker 4: Well, their next step is to write another letter well,
Speaker 4: and but they decide to up the ante too.
Speaker 3: They're going to make it clear.
Speaker 4: To this guy that they're not messing around. They put
Speaker 4: together a pipe bomb and wrap it in, put it
Speaker 4: inside a Christmas package and take it to the target's home.
Speaker 2: You take us to December eighth, nineteen twenty nine, and
Speaker 2: Jenny fell Zone, the wife, is struggling to get her
Speaker 2: five children ready for her fifteen year old daughter, Mary
Speaker 2: fell Zone's first communion. It's a big deal. The family
Speaker 2: has to be at Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic Church before
Speaker 2: nine am, and it's eight twenty am. And Joseph, her husband,
Speaker 2: has promised to be there for that first communion, and
Speaker 2: so she's busy getting the kids ready. She's bemoaning the
Speaker 2: fact that he's not around. He has said he is
Speaker 2: on one of his numerous hunting trips with his friends,
Speaker 2: but he assured her he would be back. Tell us
Speaker 2: what happens with Jenny and the children and getting them
Speaker 2: ready for this first communion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jenny is struggling to get her daughter, her oldest
Speaker 4: daughter Mary in you her communion dress. They have not
Speaker 4: many they don't have long as you said, It's about
Speaker 4: eight twenty in the morning. They have to get to
Speaker 4: the church before nine am to get this communion going.
Speaker 4: This happens to be a rather warm day in December,
Speaker 4: warmer than they usually have in Brooklyn. That's where the
Speaker 4: home is in Brooklyn. Not a drop of rain is falling,
Speaker 4: not a flake of snow. It's really a spring day.
Speaker 4: As a matter of fact. New Yorkers are not playing golf.
Speaker 4: They have been yesterday and they will be again today.
Speaker 4: But Jenny doesn't care about that. What she's interested in
Speaker 4: is getting her kids together. She's upstairs in the bedroom
Speaker 4: with Mary, Peter Rose. She's with Mary, also with the
Speaker 4: youngest kids, Patrick and Sally, now Peter and Rose and Mary,
Speaker 4: the three middle aged.
Speaker 3: Peter and Rose are down in the kitchen. She hears noise.
Speaker 4: Jenny hears a lot of noise downstairs. She's wondering what's
Speaker 4: going on. She's got two choices here. Either she can
Speaker 4: stay with Mary and get her dressed, or she can
Speaker 4: go downstairs and find out what all the noise is about.
Speaker 4: She decides to stay upstairs with Mary and get her
Speaker 4: in her dress. Now, as he said, Joseph is not there.
Speaker 4: The husband, the father, is not there. He promised he
Speaker 4: put his hand literally put his right hand on a bible,
Speaker 4: promising that he would be home for Mary's communion. But
Speaker 4: so far, no, he's not there, So she's doing this
Speaker 4: all on her own. Finally she goes downstairs. Mary gets
Speaker 4: downstairs in her white communion dress. Bill up and Rose
Speaker 4: look at her. Not because of the dress, but Mary's
Speaker 4: eyes also grow wide as saucers when she spots the
Speaker 4: source of all the noise from downstairs.
Speaker 3: On the kitchen table. In the middle of the kitchen is.
Speaker 4: An ornately decorated package, wrapped with bright Christmas paper, ribbons
Speaker 4: and bows, and bound with a string. All three kids, Mary, Peter,
Speaker 4: and Rose gather around the table, jumping up and down.
Speaker 4: They're excited, as any kid would be with a mysterious
Speaker 4: Christmas package mysteriously appearing on.
Speaker 3: Their kitchen table.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing is is that they're looking at that
Speaker 2: Christmas looks like a Christmas present in their minds. What
Speaker 2: do the children You can only suppose, But what were
Speaker 2: they thinking this present on December eighth?
Speaker 4: Might be they're thinking their father might have dropped the
Speaker 4: package off. First off, the house was locked, so you know,
Speaker 4: kids don't think like this, but how did the package
Speaker 4: get there? So they're thinking and Jenny, when she comes
Speaker 4: downstairs with Patrick and Sally, the two youngest kids, she's
Speaker 4: thinking that maybe Joseph put this Christmas package on the
Speaker 4: table as a present or had it sent over as
Speaker 4: a way of apologizing for being light this morning.
Speaker 3: So she allows the kids to.
Speaker 4: Jump around in the kitchen and try to open the package.
Speaker 4: They pull a string and it explodes. There was a
Speaker 4: pipe bomb inside this package. It explodes, and it is
Speaker 4: just a pipe bomb of death. Iron and steel slugs
Speaker 4: ripped through the kitchen. The concussion of the blast rips
Speaker 4: through the kitchen. The children and Mary, Peter and Rose
Speaker 4: are grievously injured.
Speaker 2: You say, this blast is right outside and has an
Speaker 2: effect on the literally the skin of this Giuseppe dee
Speaker 2: Benedetto's his body.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The wave, Yeah, the blast wave is incredible. This
Speaker 4: is an incredible bomb. Now this is in the kitchen, Okay.
Speaker 4: It destroys the kitchen, the ice box, the stile. They
Speaker 4: are destroyed. The kids are literally blown to pieces. Mary
Speaker 4: and Peter are killed instantly. Rose is still breathing. Jenny,
Speaker 4: Patrick and Sally all suffer concussion. They were not actually
Speaker 4: at the table, They were kind of in the hallway
Speaker 4: off the kitchen. They saw what happened, but they are
Speaker 4: blown back. But yeah, there's a taxi driver, Giuseppe de Benedetto.
Speaker 4: He's in a taxi that happens to be driving by
Speaker 4: the house when it explodes. The windows on the right
Speaker 4: side of his taxi are blown out. He feels the
Speaker 4: concussion of the blast and he's outside. Now windows in
Speaker 4: the neighborhood. Houses in the neighborhood lose their windows. The
Speaker 4: concussion is so extreme that it blows the windows out
Speaker 4: of houses, It blows the windows out of cars parked
Speaker 4: across the street. This is an incredible explosion.
Speaker 2: Now right away you say that or Giuseppe runs in
Speaker 2: and grabs the two children, the two younger children, then
Speaker 2: comes back for Jenny. They seem to be okay. And
Speaker 2: then right away, of course, the police are called, and
Speaker 2: you say, they're contingent of people, including people associated with
Speaker 2: the mayor, the district attorney. And people are soon at
Speaker 2: this bombed out home, aren't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Giuseppe was in the World War, the first what
Speaker 4: we call now the First World War, but back then
Speaker 4: was just the World War or the Great War. Giuseppe
Speaker 4: was in the war, so he's familiar with the concept
Speaker 4: of triage and wounded people. He immediately goes to the mother, Jenny,
Speaker 4: and the two youngest kids, Patrick and Sally, and gets
Speaker 4: them out of the house because in terms of triage,
Speaker 4: they are the most likely they do not need as
Speaker 4: much attention as anyone else. He goes back in the
Speaker 4: kitchen then, and he looks at Mary and Peter and
Speaker 4: realizes they're gone.
Speaker 3: There's dead.
Speaker 4: There's nothing that they can he can do for them.
Speaker 4: But Rose is still alive and breathing. So he struggles
Speaker 4: to get hurt out of the house. At the same time,
Speaker 4: as you said, now, this is Brooklyn. This is a
Speaker 4: very nice, upscale neighborhood in Brooklyn, and neighbors from blocks
Speaker 4: away are coming over to find out what's going on.
Speaker 4: And at the same time, excuse me, at the same time,
Speaker 4: city officials are showing up right away. As I write
Speaker 4: in the book, Joseph bel Zone the husband here, he's
Speaker 4: not a nobody, Okay, this guy's got money, this guy's
Speaker 4: got power, this guy's got influence. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: police officials, the mayor shows up. Jenny looks around and
Speaker 4: realizes there have never been so many Irish in this
Speaker 4: Sicilian Italian neighborhood before, and they're all on her front lawn.
Speaker 2: You say that picking through the rubble. This Inspector Sullivan,
Speaker 2: who heads up this team of investigators is discovers an
Speaker 2: alarm clock, a spring, and a six volt battery.
Speaker 3: Right. John J.
Speaker 4: Sullivan is a very interesting guy who was destined to
Speaker 4: rise in an NYPD in the New York Police Department.
Speaker 4: He takes the lead of all the Irish cops on
Speaker 4: the scene. He takes the lead in this and he
Speaker 4: goes into the house and he finds the kitchen is
Speaker 4: absolutely destroyed. There's really nothing left.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 4: He finds, as you said, he finds the alarm clock.
Speaker 3: You find.
Speaker 4: He realizes right away that when the children pulled the string.
Speaker 4: He heard from Giuseppe and the kids he survived that
Speaker 4: the string was pulled. That didn't have anything to do
Speaker 4: with his bomb going off. The reason the bomb went
Speaker 4: off is it was timed. There was a clock in
Speaker 4: there and it was time to go out. This obviously
Speaker 4: was put together by a professional. They knew what they
Speaker 4: were doing. Sullivan decides, so the cops descend into the
Speaker 4: kitchen while taking Rows on the stretcher to Whycloth Heights Hospital,
Speaker 4: hoping that she will survive. Jenny is outside with her
Speaker 4: two surviving kids, Patrick and Sally, and it's a manic scene,
Speaker 4: as you can imagine. So Sullivan's in the house with
Speaker 4: all the cops and suddenly, guess what, the phone rings.
Speaker 4: The phone is still working, and who's on the phone.
Speaker 4: It's Joseph Fellzone.
Speaker 3: He's one.
Speaker 4: He's saying he's in Brooklyn, He's on his way back.
Speaker 4: I want to say hello to the family and assure
Speaker 4: them that he was going to be back. And at
Speaker 4: the church. Well, Sullivan is suspicious right away.
Speaker 3: I mean, why.
Speaker 4: Would out of the blue fell Zone Paul, Why would
Speaker 4: he stop and call? Why wouldn't he just come to
Speaker 4: the house. Remember this is the Joseph fell Zone is
Speaker 4: the only surviving family member here who wasn't hurt by
Speaker 4: this explosion. And he calls out of the blue. Well,
Speaker 4: they tell him what's happened, and so he says, I'll
Speaker 4: be right there. The same time, Sullivan looks around and
Speaker 4: he hears he hears a bird singing. There's a bird singing,
Speaker 4: a canary there's a canary in a cage in the kitchen,
Speaker 4: not hurt, absolutely not hurt. This canary survived and was
Speaker 4: not injured at all, and Sullivan just can't believe it.
Speaker 2: Now, Sullivan is very interested, along with the other police.
Speaker 2: But Sullivan is very interested to see Joseph's reaction when
Speaker 2: he comes to the site of this bombing and finds
Speaker 2: out about his dead children. So what is his reaction
Speaker 2: and what does Sullivan note?
Speaker 4: Balzan comes in Sullivan, as he said, is very interested
Speaker 4: in going on, and Sullivan asks him, you know where
Speaker 4: are you? He talked to him on the phone and
Speaker 4: told him to get down right away. When Sullivan, or
Speaker 4: when Falzona rather, comes in the kitchen, he's still wearing
Speaker 4: his khaki hunting outfit. He's got a double barreled shotgun
Speaker 4: on the crook of his arm, and he strides into
Speaker 4: the house like a man who knows he's supposed to
Speaker 4: be there. He still has burrs and stick tights in
Speaker 4: his clothing, his hands and face scratched by briars, his
Speaker 4: beard badly needing a shave to scrape off a four
Speaker 4: days worth of growth. His eyes bounce around the kitchen.
Speaker 4: He can't believe what's going on? His response, what does
Speaker 4: Joseph do? He raises that double barreled shotgun in his
Speaker 4: clenched fist, and with furious anger, swears a terrible vengeance
Speaker 4: upon the killer of his children, a slow, painful death,
Speaker 4: he says, even worse than what happened to his offspring.
Speaker 4: Detectives still don't believe him, though they see him as
Speaker 4: the number one suspects here.
Speaker 2: Now, what does he tell him about his experience with
Speaker 2: receiving letters from this Black Hand gang.
Speaker 3: He's been saying.
Speaker 4: He tells Sullivan and the other detectives that he well,
Speaker 4: he goes outside and collapses too. We shouldn't say that.
Speaker 4: He goes outside on the front lawn and just collapses.
Speaker 4: It takes a couple of the strongest detectives to pick
Speaker 4: him up and put him in the car. He immediately
Speaker 4: starts talking about the threatening letters he's been receiving from
Speaker 4: what he describes as the notorious Black Hand Gang. Now,
Speaker 4: the Black Hand Gang was big back in the day.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he saw Godfather too, the movie,
Speaker 4: but you'll remember one of the characters in there was
Speaker 4: supposedly connected with the Black Hand Gang. And this is
Speaker 4: what we're talking about here. The black in the movie
Speaker 4: Got Father too, You remember the Black Hand guy, he
Speaker 4: preyed upon Italians and Sicilians in America. That's exactly what
Speaker 4: the Black Hand gang was doing in real life. And
Speaker 4: that is you know, Joseph del Zee figures the letters
Speaker 4: he's getting must be from Black Hand, because, as I
Speaker 4: cite in the book, there are several other cases of
Speaker 4: the Black Hand extorting Sicilian and Italian immigrants, especially business
Speaker 4: people who obviously had money. So that's what he's telling
Speaker 4: them right away, is he's been getting these letters, threatening letters,
Speaker 4: extorting money, and he refused to give any money.
Speaker 2: They're also looking this Detective Carrol believes that maybe a
Speaker 2: couple of the employees at this marble company might be
Speaker 2: involved in this blackmailing operation as well, so they look
Speaker 2: into that, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are a couple of employees that he thinks
Speaker 4: that might be at the Marble contracting company Columbia that
Speaker 4: might be involved in this too. But if I get
Speaker 4: back to Black Hand for instance for a minute again,
Speaker 4: with Godfather to the head of this black Hand gang
Speaker 4: that they're looking at, I was never able to find
Speaker 4: his name in any other research I did but what
Speaker 4: was clear there was his front company was an olive
Speaker 4: oil importing business, just like in Godfather. Okay, I just
Speaker 4: thought that was really interesting that connection there.
Speaker 3: So yeah, now fell Zone lays out.
Speaker 4: He tells him about the first message he got, the
Speaker 4: letters that we talked about. But now they're looking at
Speaker 4: the Columbia Marble Works company too, and they believe there
Speaker 4: are a couple of people there who've got scrupulous backgrounds
Speaker 4: and are bad backgrounds and they might have been in
Speaker 4: on this as well.
Speaker 2: There's also the issue, and they believe this could be
Speaker 2: a possible motivation. They ask who is may store.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is where it gets really interesting. You know
Speaker 4: what they do after the explosion. They take Joseph and
Speaker 4: Jenny right away to the police station. And what did
Speaker 4: Joseph and Jenny, two grieving parents do. They go wild
Speaker 4: by each other. They start screaming and yelling at each other.
Speaker 4: And the reason is Joseph has been cheating on Jenny.
Speaker 4: Made no secret. Well, he didn't make a secret of
Speaker 4: it until his mistress got in touch with Jenny and
Speaker 4: told her all about it and also told her that
Speaker 4: she's pregnant. So Jenny is loaded for a bear when
Speaker 4: she gets Joseph in this interrogation. They put them in
Speaker 4: the same interrogation room, which is an interesting thing to do,
Speaker 4: and these two just onloaded on each other. Finally Sullivan
Speaker 4: realizes they're speaking in Italian, cursing at each other in Italian.
Speaker 4: Joseph can Sullivan rather John T. Sullivan, the chief inspector
Speaker 4: in this case. He can't understand a word they're saying.
Speaker 4: But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out
Speaker 4: that these two are at each other's throats. So if
Speaker 4: we're no other reason than to keep their two their
Speaker 4: main suspect alive, they put Joseph and Jenny in separate
Speaker 4: interrogation rooms, and Jenny just spills the beans on everything,
Speaker 4: and she names the mistress may Store and even gives
Speaker 4: them the address the house where she lives may be.
Speaker 4: And she knows that because may has been sending her
Speaker 4: letters and she has been intercepting letters that may send
Speaker 4: us well to Joseph, and where she put them under
Speaker 4: the linoleum in her kitchen. So we've got this track right,
Speaker 4: A paper trail of Joseph and his mistress, and the
Speaker 4: fact that Joseph knows she's pregnant let's use this as
Speaker 4: an opportunity to hear these messages. Now we have the
Speaker 4: motivation of this mistress. But to be fair, a wealthy
Speaker 4: Italian Sicilian businessman at that time not so unusual to
Speaker 4: have a mistress either, oh right, and especially in that
Speaker 4: day and age. Believe me, they were, you know, not
Speaker 4: just the Talian businessman. But you know, one thing I
Speaker 4: point to in this story is I try to put
Speaker 4: some give you some real context about everything that was
Speaker 4: happening and what it was like to live in those
Speaker 4: days and the salacious affairs that were. You know, we
Speaker 4: think that in our media today anything goes well.
Speaker 3: It really was.
Speaker 4: Back in those days when there were a lot more
Speaker 4: newspapers competing with each other for a reader's attention and
Speaker 4: their pennies that they were paying for the newspaper. So
Speaker 4: these relations affairs, you know, this is not real news.
Speaker 3: But they were wondering.
Speaker 4: The cops had to wonder, how was this another motivation
Speaker 4: for Joseph.
Speaker 3: To plant this pipe bound or may have done it.
Speaker 2: Now getting back to Joseph as well, is that he
Speaker 2: says he continues with the letters that were sent to
Speaker 2: him via what he says, the black Handed Gang and
Speaker 2: with the instructions about going on the boat to Boston
Speaker 2: and having the six thousand dollars with them in twenty
Speaker 2: dollars bills. But he says that he didn't follow he
Speaker 2: contacted the police. This is interesting. The police are talking
Speaker 2: to Joseph and he says, well, I contacted the police
Speaker 2: at that time, and I worked with the detective Carol,
Speaker 2: but I got the directions wrong.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so just as the nineteen year old blackmailer thought,
Speaker 4: he did get the directions wrong, he wound up on
Speaker 4: the wrong boat, and he had been working with the police.
Speaker 4: He did go to the police, this detective Carrol. So
Speaker 4: Sullivan brings Carol into the room, into the interrogation room,
Speaker 4: and Carrol, Detective Carroll, confirms everything that tala Zone has
Speaker 4: been saying. So now they're backing away from Joseph tel
Speaker 4: Zone as a suspect.
Speaker 2: Now, the thing is is that there are reports of
Speaker 2: Falzone three hours before the explosion. A restaurant owner witness
Speaker 2: comes forward and tell us about this witness and a
Speaker 2: couple other witnesses that give information to the police that
Speaker 2: send them in a different direction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is now we're talking about about the same timeframe.
Speaker 4: This is all very close to the day of the explosion.
Speaker 4: But they do have a restaurant owner on the Wycoff
Speaker 4: Avenue a few blocks from fell Zone's home who swears
Speaker 4: he saw Joe fell Zone three hours before the explosion.
Speaker 4: A second cop, that's one cop says that gives that
Speaker 4: advice to information to the Sullivan So there's no way
Speaker 4: that fell Zone could have been traveling home from a
Speaker 4: hunting trip.
Speaker 3: When the bomb went off.
Speaker 4: Two taxi drivers say they saw a guy matching Joseph's
Speaker 4: description outside the fell Zone home at five thirty am
Speaker 4: the morning of the bombing, So again we're looking at
Speaker 4: so they've caught feldsone they believe in a couple of lives,
Speaker 4: an rock solid eyewitness who places them at the restaurant
Speaker 4: and Wycoff when the bomb went off, and another two
Speaker 4: taxi drivers who say they saw him outside of the
Speaker 4: house before the bomb went off. So now Fella Zone's
Speaker 4: got to find some collaboration for his alibi, and he
Speaker 4: brings in three of his buddies, Philip gold Benjamin and
Speaker 4: Philip Goldman, all from Mineola, and another guy by the
Speaker 4: name of Edward Frieda and he lives at one twenty
Speaker 4: sixth Irving Avenue. These four are grilled separately by the
Speaker 4: toughest cobs in the house.
Speaker 3: All four.
Speaker 4: So they spent several days tramping through the woods of
Speaker 4: Pike County, Pennsylvania. They all slept in one room of
Speaker 4: a hunting lodge and came back to New York with
Speaker 4: Joseph yesterday.
Speaker 3: So they are.
Speaker 4: Disputing the witnesses who say they saw Joseph and the diner.
Speaker 2: And outside the house there's a witness though that says
Speaker 2: they're looking again simultaneously, just like as the police should,
Speaker 2: but they're looking again at the marble company that Joseph
Speaker 2: Falzone headed up, and they see that there are a
Speaker 2: couple people that the witness corroborates that they had seen
Speaker 2: them in the area as well. Tell us about this
Speaker 2: witnesses testimony.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Joseph gives Sullivan the names of three Black Hand
Speaker 4: gang members who he believes might be tied to this plot.
Speaker 4: And there's one other Angelo Sullivan's detectives are working on.
Speaker 4: Jenny tells them the first of the Black Hand blackmail
Speaker 4: notes received.
Speaker 3: So they're really looking at this Black Hand. They're looking
Speaker 3: at the Black Hand.
Speaker 4: And they want to talk to another Sicilian concerning the
Speaker 4: murder of they're looking at other murders now and looking
Speaker 4: for connections. Okay, there have been other pipe bombs, there
Speaker 4: have been other murders. They're trying to find a connection.
Speaker 4: And they look at one guy by the name of
Speaker 4: Harry or Ruizi. He works at the marble company, the
Speaker 4: Columbia Marble Company, and they're thinking he now is one
Speaker 4: of the prime suspects. And there's another guy, Savera Theoria,
Speaker 4: who has experience in demolitions from the Great War.
Speaker 2: And when they have these people in their site, there
Speaker 2: is a witness that says that they that Ruisie is
Speaker 2: cited with alongside an other person.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Frank Simoni Junior, is that here you're referring to. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Frank Simone Junior, who is the son of Joseph fell
Speaker 4: Zone's partner. Okay, this get's kind of like really complicated here.
Speaker 4: But and by the way, and after the funeral, they
Speaker 4: buried the three children and fell Zone retires at that
Speaker 4: point from.
Speaker 3: His marble company.
Speaker 4: But yeah, his partner, Frank Simone has a son, Frank
Speaker 4: Simone Junior, and he becomes a suspect innes Now, so
Speaker 4: he because he was seen with Harry Luisi and severa piori.
Speaker 2: And you talk about what happens again, we were skipping
Speaker 2: over some things. This incredible funeral where they have the
Speaker 2: three children in three white caskets and hundreds of people
Speaker 2: and nothing but police looking for potentially the killers to
Speaker 2: come and be present at this funeral. Remarkably, they also.
Speaker 3: Very emotional scene too.
Speaker 4: Jenny, the mother collapses, Joseph has to carry her back
Speaker 4: to one of the cars in the funeral procession. It's
Speaker 4: a very emotional scene.
Speaker 2: And you're right too that the Fellazone is devastated. Not
Speaker 2: only does he neglect himself, but he neglects the surviving
Speaker 2: members of the family. He's a shadow of himself. The
Speaker 2: wife continues to just put his meals at his door.
Speaker 2: He's not eating, he's not sleeping. He is racked with
Speaker 2: incredible amount of guilt. So anybody suspecting him of being
Speaker 2: complicit in this might think otherwise when they see what
Speaker 2: he has become.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's exactly the conclusion that the inspector, John J.
Speaker 4: Sullivan comes to. He sees him a couple Now, if
Speaker 4: we can fast forward a couple of years to June
Speaker 4: nineteen thirty one. So it's been a couple of years,
Speaker 4: no one's been arrested yet. Fela Zone is still kind
Speaker 4: of a suspect, but then Sullivan sees him. Fella Zone
Speaker 4: goes into his office and Sullivan sees that he is
Speaker 4: not the man that he saw two year years ago.
Speaker 4: As he said, he had hardly eaten in two years.
Speaker 4: He hardly ever sleeps its guilt. It's the inability to
Speaker 4: seek vengeance. This guy, fell Zone is just wasted. He
Speaker 4: is a shadow of what he used to be. So
Speaker 4: Sullivan now really begins looking for other suspects. He's kind
Speaker 4: of written fell Zone off that suspect list.
Speaker 2: So how do they continue with their investigation and where
Speaker 2: does their break come?
Speaker 4: They start following Frank Simone Junior, Harry Luisi and Severa Peori.
Speaker 4: They start following the three of them because they seem
Speaker 4: to be their top suspects. October twenty ninth, nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 4: Just about two years have passed since the bombing, and
Speaker 4: the two orchestrated the deadly attack are becoming increasingly suspicious
Speaker 4: of each other. Now, so you've got Frank Simone Junior
Speaker 4: and Harry Luisi Frank Simone Junior is that nineteen year
Speaker 4: old we talked about. Harry Luisi is the older, bigger
Speaker 4: guy in his early thirties, and they now are starting
Speaker 4: to become suspicious of each other. Sullivan's got a feeling
Speaker 4: that that's the wedge he can work between them, so
Speaker 4: they put an undercover cop on the payroll at Columbia Marblewards,
Speaker 4: a guy by the name of Henry as a friendly
Speaker 4: German who just happens to speak fluent Italian. He starts
Speaker 4: hanging out with Frank and Harry kind of never sometimes together,
Speaker 4: but he tries to be separately with them too, so
Speaker 4: he can kind of this is a great undercover cop
Speaker 4: story too, where Henry points to the older he's talking
Speaker 4: to the younger guy, Frank, and he points over to Harry.
Speaker 4: He says he's a great guy, isn't he? And Frank says,
Speaker 4: I'm glad you think so, but I think he's a snake.
Speaker 4: You don't like him, I hate him, Frank says, So
Speaker 4: he's got this wedge now. Henry says, walk with me.
Speaker 4: I need to tell you something. When he's with Frank,
Speaker 4: so they know they've got this wedge now between Frank
Speaker 4: and Harry, and he's walking with Henry and he walks
Speaker 4: him right into a police car and a couple of
Speaker 4: the biggest cops you can find on the NYPD jump
Speaker 4: out of the car and they say, Frank Simul Junior,
Speaker 4: you are under arrest, and get this. Your buddy's a squealer.
Speaker 4: He put all the blame on you. So now they're
Speaker 4: putting Henry against Frank and Frank against Henry. And you've
Speaker 4: got a couple of other cops involved in this now too.
Speaker 4: Remember this is two years down the road. So you've
Speaker 4: got Captain McGowan, detectives Carol who we talked about before,
Speaker 4: and Detective Guess Dartists.
Speaker 3: And Henry isn't in the cover cop.
Speaker 4: That's what Frank realizes when Henry grabs him by the collar,
Speaker 4: by the neck of his shirt and throws him into
Speaker 4: the car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's very typical. Both perpetrators are blaming each other,
Speaker 2: but very much like the not so intelligent criminals, there
Speaker 2: is more evidence against the nineteen year old and obviously
Speaker 2: more motivation to be the letter writer of this Skimone
Speaker 2: Junior Frank Scimone Junior. But they also investigate whether the father,
Speaker 2: the actual silent partner of Joseph Alzone, was involved in
Speaker 2: this lot to blackmail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do.
Speaker 4: They investigate the father as well and find there's no
Speaker 4: connection at all. What happened was skimone junior Frank. He
Speaker 4: remember we said that he wanted more than money and
Speaker 4: he wanted to get fil Zone out of the country.
Speaker 4: That's because he wanted a partnership at the Marble company.
Speaker 4: He not only wanted money, he wanted power because he
Speaker 4: knew too the power it would give him in the
Speaker 4: Italian community if he was a partner at the table
Speaker 4: at Columbia Marble. So he wanted in.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as you're saying, they've got a lot of evidence
Speaker 4: against Frank, they're also looking at the Severa Piori because
Speaker 4: it seems that he's the one who actually put the
Speaker 4: bomb together, so they've got him too.
Speaker 3: So you've got three.
Speaker 4: Suspects involved in this. Frank and Severa are more experienced
Speaker 4: at this than Frank is. Frank's only a nineteen year old. Remember,
Speaker 4: he's just a couple of years out of high school.
Speaker 4: He's a kid basically compared to these other two. So
Speaker 4: they put them in separate interrogation rooms as you might imagine,
Speaker 4: trying to turn one against the other. Harry and Severa
Speaker 4: know how this game is played, so they immediately turned
Speaker 4: on Frank and tell everything about Frank.
Speaker 2: Now in these confessions, the horrible truth about how this
Speaker 2: was done, how they got in the home, the actual
Speaker 2: plot itself, why there was a bomb that went off
Speaker 2: and killed what looked like was going to kill everybody
Speaker 2: at a breakfast table, because this man wasn't paying his
Speaker 2: tribute to this black hand gang. Tell us what is
Speaker 2: ascertained from this about what actually happened that morning and why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's release the size and opens that it's time
Speaker 4: to tell everything. He's with the cops now. He says,
Speaker 4: we never meant to kill nobody. Eyes on the floor,
Speaker 4: not wanting to look at anyone in the eye. He says,
Speaker 4: we broke into the Felazone house at two am. Everybody
Speaker 4: was asleep. The bomb was supposed to go off before
Speaker 4: they woke up and came downstairs, not when those poor
Speaker 4: little kids were around it. Skimone did it so he
Speaker 4: could scare Falzona away from Columbia. Marble, says Ruisi. When
Speaker 4: the letters didn't work, he put the bomb together at
Speaker 4: his brother in law, Savera Priori's place on Flushing Avenue.
Speaker 4: So Priori wasn't home when Frank put the bomb together.
Speaker 4: He just wanted a place to build the bomb where
Speaker 4: he wouldn't be interrupted by his wife. And besides, Savera
Speaker 4: had all the tools he needed since he was an electrician.
Speaker 4: So mulroot now we've got another character in here, Edward mulrooney,
Speaker 4: the new police commissioner in New York. He's in on this.
Speaker 4: This is a huge story in New York. He doesn't
Speaker 4: believe Severa is innocent, and as much as the trio
Speaker 4: of uniform cops standing in the hallway believe he is,
Speaker 4: Neither of these idiots Simon or We knows enough about
Speaker 4: making a bomb to do a professional job like this.
Speaker 4: Mulrooney says, Priori must have been in on it. So
Speaker 4: now they've got Priori. Now they're really convinced. They've got
Speaker 4: three main suspects here, Frank Skamlone Junior, Henry Harry Ruisi,
Speaker 4: and Severa Prioria. And they're looking at all three and
Speaker 4: they're trying to turn all three against each other. And
Speaker 4: it turns out what happens is Harry and Severa they
Speaker 4: work at Plea Bargain, and so they are they become
Speaker 4: State's witnesses.
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Speaker 2: you say, this is a huge story, and at the
Speaker 2: same time, there is a possibility of a death penalty
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn in New York. So tell us what the choice,
Speaker 2: what the discussion is about in terms of the most
Speaker 2: humane way to die in New York.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this is you know Frank now, Harry and
Speaker 4: severa they turn on Frank. Okay, they do a plea
Speaker 4: bargain in essence, and so it's all on Frank now
Speaker 4: he's up on first degree murder. He's charged with first
Speaker 4: degree murder, and he's definitely afraid of heading to Singing
Speaker 4: The Sing Sing prisons electric chair. You know this electric chair.
Speaker 4: It doesn't work as well as you would think it
Speaker 4: would from watching the movies and TVs they've got. The
Speaker 4: electric chair is known as Old Sparky, as electric chairs
Speaker 4: were often.
Speaker 3: Known back in those days.
Speaker 4: The prison has a terrible reputation. Sing Singh has such
Speaker 4: a bad reputation. The people in the town of Sing Sing,
Speaker 4: New York, where it's located, they changed the name of
Speaker 4: their town just so they wouldn't be associated with the prison.
Speaker 4: So Frank is really faced with two choices here. He
Speaker 4: can go to hell through Old Sparky, or he can
Speaker 4: live in hell.
Speaker 3: In Sing Sing prison.
Speaker 4: And if he gets busted on first degree murder, if
Speaker 4: he takes it to wrap on first degree murder, it's
Speaker 4: one of those two. Either he's going to spend the
Speaker 4: rest of his life in hell or he's going to
Speaker 4: go in hell for eternity through Old Sparky.
Speaker 3: If you get what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: There, all of these three people that are facing an
Speaker 2: incredible fate, they also see at the same time, this
Speaker 2: woman that has been executed, and they see the photos
Speaker 2: in the newspaper.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is like I was saying that the execution
Speaker 4: in an electric chair is not a pleasant way to go.
Speaker 4: And we've got a woman there who was executed and
Speaker 4: it was a picture in the paper and your eyes
Speaker 4: bulging out and it was just a horrendous way to die.
Speaker 4: And they're looking at that. So Frank is looking at
Speaker 4: that thinking, you know, am I going to go that way?
Speaker 4: He decides that no, he is not going to go
Speaker 4: that way. By the way, the old sparky that we're
Speaker 4: talking about here was actually wired by Thomas Alva Edison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm credible. Now, when they're talking about this plea bargain,
Speaker 2: they have to get a judge to agree to lower
Speaker 2: this first degree to second degree to be able to
Speaker 2: do this. And what is the premise of this, What
Speaker 2: does what does this these two perpetrators say happened that
Speaker 2: night that would negate them being the cold blooded killers
Speaker 2: that would deserve execution.
Speaker 4: Well, this goes to the fact that they're saying that
Speaker 4: they never really wanted to kill anybody, that the bomb
Speaker 4: was supposed to go off a QWAM and now we're
Speaker 4: so we're looking at Frank and if he's going to
Speaker 4: go up on first degree or second degree over and
Speaker 4: they're a meeting with Judge elgeron Nova and negotiating of
Speaker 4: settlements of spare French life. And all the players are there, attorneys,
Speaker 4: the biggest das, chief Assistant District Attorney, the ADA, they're
Speaker 4: all there at this meeting. Frank's attorney maintains it although
Speaker 4: he did concoct this extortion plot, all he wanted to
Speaker 4: do was put a scare into Joseph. He had no
Speaker 4: desire to kill anyone, and if it all gone according
Speaker 4: to Plant, no one would have been hurt. That's why
Speaker 4: his attorney Vera is arguing today he would be on
Speaker 4: fair to charge Frank with first degree murder and end
Speaker 4: his life on death row. And eventually Judge Noba agrees.
Speaker 3: With that argument.
Speaker 4: So Frank is going to stand before Judge Noba in
Speaker 4: County Court Brooklyn, pleading guilty to a charge of second
Speaker 4: degree murder and that will be enough to spare Frank
Speaker 4: from death in the electric chair. However, he will have
Speaker 4: to do twenty years to life behind bars inside sing sing.
Speaker 2: What we skipped over just a bit was a very
Speaker 2: very interesting I guess, evidence of the lack of loyalty
Speaker 2: between thieves and murderers, I guess. I imagine the police
Speaker 2: find a little key on Skimone, Frank Skimone Junior, and
Speaker 2: they ask him what the key is, and he smirks.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, it's a key to the tombs.
Speaker 4: Remember Columbia Marble, they were into building mausoleums and tombstones
Speaker 4: and that kind of thing. It's a key to the tombs.
Speaker 4: And he figures Frank Skimone Junior had it in his
Speaker 4: head that he was going to kill Harry Luisi and
Speaker 4: probably Savera too, his brother in law. He was going
Speaker 4: to kill both of them and put him in the
Speaker 4: mausoleum and the tombs, and they wouldn't be found for years,
Speaker 4: because like they say, three men can keep a secret
Speaker 4: if two of them are dead.
Speaker 2: But at the same time he smirks, and then what
Speaker 2: he finds out is that his partner also had a
Speaker 2: key as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, his partner for Harry had the same plan. Harry
Speaker 4: was going to kill him and put him in the
Speaker 4: tombs too. So these guys, that's what I'm saying, you know,
Speaker 4: there is no honor among these guys, and they all
Speaker 4: knew that the only way this secret was going to
Speaker 4: be kept is if two of them were dead.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting that Frank Skimone junior gets twenty years
Speaker 2: in sing sing pardon me, and but this Rusie and
Speaker 2: Sivora Priori somehow get plea deals and you say walk
Speaker 2: away as free men from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they walked away free. They told you know, they
Speaker 4: rated out Frank. Frank did not rat out them for
Speaker 4: some because, like I say, they understood how this kind
Speaker 4: of thing worked, especially Harry, he understood the game. And yeah,
Speaker 4: they rad it because the cops did tell them about
Speaker 4: the tunes idea with the keys. They said, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: the cops made it clear. They told everybody you were
Speaker 4: all going to kill each other, and so Harry and
Speaker 4: Severa right away, that's when they do their plea deal
Speaker 4: and they walked away free.
Speaker 2: What we didn't talk about was the when they were
Speaker 2: looking at the Blackhand Gang to see their previous work,
Speaker 2: they also had that there was an association with one
Speaker 2: of these perpetrators to this murder of somebody named Frank Marlow,
Speaker 2: which was despite his name, another Italian gangster and he
Speaker 2: just couldn't pin this murder on the suspect. But this
Speaker 2: one was another pipe bomb that also was targeted at
Speaker 2: this wealthy retired baker who refused to pay his tribute
Speaker 2: to the gang. And he was, as you right, he
Speaker 2: was mercilly executed and he was killed right in front
Speaker 2: of his kids, right in front of his children.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know, the papers back in those days, they were
Speaker 4: just filled with stories and that's where I got this
Speaker 4: one from. They were filled with these stories of the
Speaker 4: Black Hand Gang. If you didn't respond to them, they
Speaker 4: would kill you, and they would do it in that way,
Speaker 4: in front.
Speaker 3: Of your family.
Speaker 4: The Black Hand Gang was a big deal back in
Speaker 4: those days. I guess it's no other way to put it.
Speaker 2: We're also talking about how interesting it was that they
Speaker 2: would this extortion gang despite all of these other murders.
Speaker 2: Like I said, the similarity with the pipe bomb and
Speaker 2: the person killed in front of their children, that the
Speaker 2: courts were willing to listen to Frank Skimoni Junior's story
Speaker 2: and dismiss this Black Hand gang association and connection and
Speaker 2: then also these other two again because of the the
Speaker 2: nature of the story and how it resonated in the city.
Speaker 2: For these other two perpetrators to be able to walk
Speaker 2: away from this was very very interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny the way it was covered in
Speaker 4: the papers.
Speaker 3: Back in those days.
Speaker 4: It was just a little sidebar story, just a little
Speaker 4: two inch story that told that uh said that they
Speaker 4: walked away, but they.
Speaker 3: This was the case. There was a lot of pressure to.
Speaker 4: Kill this case or to close this case. I mean,
Speaker 4: you had children killed in their kitchen and with a
Speaker 4: Christmas package that floated with a pipe bomb.
Speaker 3: There was an awful lot of pressure.
Speaker 4: As I tried to describe in the book, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of pressure to get this case closed.
Speaker 3: They wanted it to go away.
Speaker 2: Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: You're write in conclusion that April eleventh, nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 2: two members of the homicide squad were praised by the
Speaker 2: Commissioner mulrooney, and condemdations were for Detective Senith, which was
Speaker 2: the undercover cop playing Henry, and that the police said
Speaker 2: that the lessons of the arrests is that the knowledge
Speaker 2: that the police never tire in their search for criminals
Speaker 2: and criminals are never secure against an accounting to society.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the fact is impressive.
Speaker 4: It's the best deterrent to crime, giving notice to criminals
Speaker 4: that events which pass from the public mind are a
Speaker 4: source of never ending to concern it to the police,
Speaker 4: and the criminals are never were secure against an accounting
Speaker 4: to society. That was an editorial in the Standard Union newspaper.
Speaker 4: The editorial board devoted a couple of column issues to
Speaker 4: this congratulatory message. And so the cops came out of
Speaker 4: this as heroes.
Speaker 3: In this story.
Speaker 2: Why did you choose this story and how did you
Speaker 2: go about getting all of the pertinent information to put
Speaker 2: this story together?
Speaker 4: Well, what I picked this story because it was so emotional.
Speaker 4: What I do again is I read through old newspapers.
Speaker 4: And if anybody's into that newspapers, dot com is the
Speaker 4: place to go. And so I look through these old
Speaker 4: newspapers and I try to find period time periods that
Speaker 4: are interested in and to me, the late nineteen twenties
Speaker 4: and early thirties are a fascinating time and so I
Speaker 4: was looking there and then I came across this story
Speaker 4: of three children who had been killed when a Christmas
Speaker 4: pat package exploded in and I just kept working on it.
Speaker 4: And you read these stories and one leads you to another,
Speaker 4: and you go down a rabbit hole, if you will,
Speaker 4: for lack of a better term, And it just became
Speaker 4: just a fascinating story to me. And then when you
Speaker 4: could see the similarities between this story and well Godfather too,
Speaker 4: but also you know, and you see the attitudes of
Speaker 4: people when you look at these stories in context. You know,
Speaker 4: I mentioned a movie that was hot at the time
Speaker 4: with Spencer Tracy about how terrible Sing Sing Prison was,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's just it's just a fascinating thing
Speaker 4: to me to find these stories and to deal with
Speaker 4: your trying to express the emotions that were felt at
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 2: It so vivid. Some of the revelations that you have,
Speaker 2: and some of the things that that we didn't really
Speaker 2: get to talk about was this funeral with so many
Speaker 2: people in the community that was such heartfelt pouring of
Speaker 2: emotions in the community. And ironically the first communion that
Speaker 2: this marry and it's a big deal in the Catholic Church,
Speaker 2: as people know, first communion where she was buried not
Speaker 2: long after the first communion was supposed to happen, was
Speaker 2: this same church, the same church that they were rushing
Speaker 2: to that morning, waiting for Joseph Falzon to come home
Speaker 2: and be part of this first communityon very important moment
Speaker 2: in his daughter's life, and she ends up being buried
Speaker 2: in this incredible funeral at that same church.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the funeral itself was big news back in the day.
Speaker 4: It was covered by all the newspapers in New York.
Speaker 4: This was a story that just caught everyone's attention. And again,
Speaker 4: it's coming at a time when the world is changing.
Speaker 4: It's coming at a time when you had the Wall
Speaker 4: Street crash of October twenty ninth or October nineteen twenty nine,
Speaker 4: So the world is about to change, and at the
Speaker 4: same time this other story is playing out. It just
Speaker 4: was fascinating to me.
Speaker 2: And as you include these other stories that happened previously
Speaker 2: with pipe bombs, this story really galvanized the public to understand. Again,
Speaker 2: you write that the Blackhand gang was known, and people's
Speaker 2: participation in the gang was known. What was going on
Speaker 2: was well known by people. But this case, this story
Speaker 2: changed things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because children were killed and it was a Christmas
Speaker 4: present disguised a pipe bomb described as disguised as a
Speaker 4: Christmas present. I mean it just galvanized the New York community.
Speaker 4: It really did. It went outside of the Italian community
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: and talking about the murder of Mary fell Zone, a
Speaker 2: shocking and true crime story. For those that might want
Speaker 2: to check out your other true crime books and fictional books.
Speaker 2: Where can people take a look?
Speaker 4: Oh, my website is a good place to go, Rodcackley
Speaker 4: dot com, or simply to Amazon. You know everything's up
Speaker 4: on Amazon for sale.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Rod Cackley. The Murder of
Speaker 2: Mary Falzone a shocking true crime story. You have a
Speaker 2: great evening, and thank you so much for this interview
Speaker 2: and good night. Thank you Dan, thank you,