Susan M Guy - Mobsters, Madams & Murder in Steubenville, Ohio: The Story of Little Chicago

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by Susan M. Guy

All rights reserved

Front cover, far left: Vincent Caparra, killer of Mingo Junction police lieutenant William J. Snider. Public domain photo from Ohio DRC website.

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62585.101.7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Guy, Susan M.

Mobsters, madams and murder in Steubenville, Ohio : the story of Little Chicago / Susan M. Guy.

pages cm. -- (True crime)

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-567-7 (paperback)

1. Organized crime--Ohio--Steubenville--History--20th century. 2. Crime--Ohio--Steubenville--Case studies. 3. Criminals--Ohio--Steubenville--Case studies. I. Title.

HV6452.O3G89 2014

364.1523097716909042--dc23

2014017145

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.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is dedicated to the Steubenville and Mingo Junction police officers and Jefferson County Prohibition dry agents who lost their lives during the Little Chicago days in this county. Dry agents are a forgotten branch of law enforcement when it comes to remembering those who fell in the line of duty.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following people were instrumental in helping me get this book off the ground:

Karen Majoris Garrison (Karina Garrison), author and president of the Tri State Writers Society, who encouraged me to write a short story assignment on prostitution in Steubenville. Thank you, Karen, for your guidance and support through all of this and for all of the good stuff to come.

Danice Ryan, my friend and genealogy sidekick, whose encouragement and support during this whole process has been invaluable. Thank you for being my test reader and letting me bend your ear.

Dave Guy Jr., my son, whose eye for photography is incredible. Thank you for letting me borrow some of your pictures and for being my son.

Thank you to my mom, Eloise Pompa, for your encouragement and support in everything I do. I inherited my love of reading and writing from you.

Thank you to my dad, retired Wintersville Police captain Robert Red Nottingham, from whom I inherited a love for law enforcement.

INTRODUCTION

If you want to commit a murder and get away with it, just go to Jefferson County, Ohio. Thats a phrase that I grew up hearing all my life. I never really knew the reason behind it, and Im sure that the people saying it probably didnt know either. Whispers of mobsters, madams and unsolved murders floated around for decades, but nobody wanted to come right out and talk about it. The mob, Water Street madams and unsolved murders were topics that interested me. To dig up the past and tie it all together in one book seemed like a challenge, but I didnt realize what a huge challenge it would be. Too many murders and other crimes were coming to the surfacetoo many to cover in one book. The Prohibition era was a headline-making time for Steubenville and all of Jefferson County.

Steubenville, the county seat of Jefferson County, Ohio, lies on the banks of the Ohio River, with the West Virginia Panhandle towns of Weirton and Follansbee directly east, across the river. Wellsburg, West Virginia, is just south of Follansbee, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is thirty-eight miles east of Steubenville. Cleveland, Columbus and Youngstown are a couple hours away by car. Steubenvilles location will become important as you delve into the stories within the covers of this book. It has had a knack for gaining negative worldwide attention for over one hundred years. The number of murders that occurred within its corporation limits during Prohibition was far too many for a town of its size. Convictions for murders during that time were rare. In the early 1920s, this negative attention earned it the nickname of Little Chicago by the national press. Its an unwelcomed reputation that the city has been unable to shake, as history seems to keep repeating itself. The small towns that dot the countryside throughout Jefferson County were not spared this reputation, either.

The 1890s through the 1900s saw a rise in Steubenvilles murders and other major criminal activities, such as gambling, bootlegging and prostitution. Ohio had already become the major target of the Anti-Saloon League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union. Citizens of Steubenville started their own chapters of these two organizations to try to close down over 80 saloons within the city limits and over 140 throughout Jefferson County. They believed that liquor was the cause for a decline in morals and family values and wanted the manufacture and distribution of it stopped. Without the evil influence of alcohol, it was believed that this deluge of immoral behavior would cease, once and for all, and peace would come to Jefferson County.

In the 1910s, 20s and 30s, allegations of political corruption arose, as vice crimes appeared to be overlooked or given light fines by city and county officials. The corruption and lack of convictions for major crimes caused the fully hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan chapter from just across the river in Wellsburg, West Virginia, to make their first appearance in the city. Twelve local ministers joined forces against the violence and corruption in Steubenville in the 1940s, and their story was documented in the 1947 book Twelve Against the Underworld.

In spite of their valiant fight, the tarnished image of the city didnt get any cleaner in the years to come. In the late 1960s, Madam Judy Jordan made front-page news after being given an alleged uniformed bodyguard from the sheriffs department. She would serve her jail sentences at the Ohio Valley Hospital instead of in a jail cell. Her miraculous recovery from a mysterious illness would coincide with the day that her jail sentence was up. Unsurprisingly, her client list contained many notable men.

In 1970, Steubenville was named one of the top ten dirtiest cities in the United States. It was dirty because the steel mills, power plants and other industries were working full steam ahead, and the city was prospering. People were gainfully employed, and sons and daughters followed in their parents footsteps by working at the local steel mills. Now the steel mills have gone by the wayside, and Steubenville is fighting to find itself once again. It became cleaner, thanks to government regulations, but the young people started moving away to find jobs elsewhere.

In the 1990s, the Steubenville Police Department came under fire for numerous civil rights lawsuits filed against it, and the federal government stepped in to investigate. As a result of the findings, Steubenville, Ohio, became the second city in the United States to sign a consent decree. Under the decree, the city agreed to give its officers more training, to implement new guidelines and to add an internal affairs division to oversee any alleged wrongdoings.

Steubenvilles proximity to larger cities in the tri-state area and Interstate 70 has made it a hub for drug runners. Shootings, mostly drug-related, occur on an all-too-frequent basis, leaving the local citizens to wonder when, not if, the next shooting will happen. This is reminiscent of the Prohibition era, when rumrunning was the shoot-em-up crime of the day.