Don Herion - Touhy vs. Capone: The Chicago Outfits Biggest Frame Job

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2017 by Donald H. Herion

All rights reserved

First published 2017

e-book edition 2017

ISBN 978.1.43966.165.9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934941

print edition ISBN 978.1.62585.893.1

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

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CONTENTS

MY INTRODUCTION TO ROGER TOUHY

It was December 16, 1959, when my partner, Bob Peters, and I reported for work on the four-to-twelve watch. I had joined the Chicago Police Department on February 1, 1955. Bob became a cop about the same time, and we were partners on squad car no. 121. As usual, the weather was miserableabout eight degrees, damp, windy and very nasty. We both smoked, so we had opened our windows slightly to keep from getting asphyxiated.

At night, sound traveled more clearly because of less traffic and the open windows. Traveling west on Washington Boulevard near Pine and Lotus Avenuesat the west end of our districtwe heard what sounded like a truck backfiring. I asked Bob if he thought what I thought: those were not backfires but gunshots, and the hunting season was over. We headed toward the area where we heard the shots. Just then, the squad operator gave out a message of shots fired at 125 North Lotus Avenue and instructed responders to check out two men running from the scene with what appeared to be rifles.

When we arrived at the scene, which was a two-story brick building, we saw two men lying on the front porch, with blood everywhere. Both men had been shot in their lower extremities. This was my introduction to Roger Touhy and his bodyguard Walter Miller, a retired Chicago cop.

When Touhy told me his name, I remembered reading about him in the newspapers and hearing stories about him on the radio when I was a teenager. I told him and Miller that we had called for an ambulance and to hang in there. All he kept saying was, Those fucking Dagoes, they never forget.

Roger Touhy, who was wrongfully imprisoned from 1934 to November 1959 and slain less than a month later. Courtesy of the Chicago Daily News.

W. Miller, bodyguard for Touhy, also shot. Courtesy of the CPD.

Touhy Slain in Ambush! Authors collection; courtesy of the CPD.

I asked Touhy what had happened. He said that when he and his bodyguard walked up the front steps and were about to enter his sisters apartment, they were ambushed by two guys with shotguns who came out of nowhere. He said that they were both knocked down by the blast.

Miller said he did fire a few shots at them, and he thought he may have hit one of them in the leg. Touhy was transported to St Annes Hospital and arrived at the emergency room at 10:35 p.m. Walter Miller was taken to Loretta Hospital, and he survived. A shock trauma team headed by Dr. Vitullo attempted to apply a tourniquet to Touhys leg to stop the massive loss of blood. The doctor worked frantically to save Touhy, but there had been too much blood loss already. A Catholic priest was brought in, and Touhy was given the last rites of the Catholic Church. Roger Touhy expired at 11:25 p.m.

My curiosity concerning Roger Touhy got the best of me, so I started checking on what the hell he did to have the Outfit kill him. Through numerous investigations and interrogations of mobsters I busted in my career of forty-six years of fighting the Outfit, I developed reliable informants who told me that the two hit men who shot and killed Roger Touhy were Milwaukee Phil Alderisio and Obie Frabotta. They killed him because Touhy was a potential threat to their operations.

ROGER TOUHY

The Beginning

Roger Touhy was born in Chicago in 1898 to Irish immigrant parents. His father, James A. Touhy, and his wife, Mary, were the parents of six sons and two daughters. James A. Touhy was a policeman on Chicagos Near West Side. When Roger was a small child, his mother died in a house fire. Roger Touhy grew up to be five feet, six inches tall, had curly hair and a hawk-like nose and was highly intelligent.

James Touhy could not properly raise his sons by himself, and five of them eventually turned to crime. James Touhy Jr. was shot and killed by a policeman during an attempted robbery in 1917. John Touhy was killed ten years later by gunmen from gangster Al Capones Chicago Outfit. Joseph Touhy was shot dead by Capone gunmen in 1929.

Tommy The Terrible Touhy became a major organized crime figure in Chicago and was named Public Enemy Number One in 1934. Only Edward Touhy managed to stay out of trouble, by becoming a bartender.

Roger Touhy, the youngest of James Touhys sons, tried to remain on the right side of the law. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade, not unusual at the time, and worked at various jobs, including as a telegrapher, an oil field worker and a union organizer. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War I and was discharged at the wars end. When he was a teenager, he got a job with Western Union, which gave him a chance to learn Morse code; the job paid twelve dollars a week.

He met his wife, Clara, at Western Union when she was sixteen years old and eventually married her in 1922. Touhy had learned a great deal about unions and how they worked within Western Union. Every employer fought the unions then, and because he gave honest answers to a superintendent of the company and expressed his feelings about unions, he was fired.

He then moved west, where he was employed as a telegrapher with a railroad in Denver, and then migrated to Oklahoma to work as an oil field engineer for a short period of time. In an effort to get back to work, he heard that a New York geologist, Dick Raymond, needed a helper. Touhy got the job and traveled with Raymond all over southwest Oklahomathis turned out to be very profitable for him. He invested in oil leases and sold them for a total of $25,000.

Being a city guy at heart, he returned to Chicago and married Clara; they moved into an apartment in Oak Park, Illinois. His next move was to buy a taxicab, which he drove nights. After a few months, he opened his own garage and auto sales place with a capacity for ten cars. Business was very good, and he sold it and bought a bigger place on North Avenue. Up to this point, I couldnt find evidence of Touhy ever having been arrested or being in trouble with the law, as most alleged mobsters usually are.