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The Milaflores Massacre is the name given to the shooting of three gangsters in retaliation for two murders and a kidnapping in the winter of 1927 in Detroit, Michigan. The crime was suspected to have been perpetrated by the Purple Gang. [1]
By the mid-1920s, the Purples had formed a working alliance with former members of the Egan's Rats gang, specifically Fred "Killer" Burke and Gus Winkler. These two, and a group of gangsters associated with them, were responsible for distributing Purple Gang booze and handling any strong-arm work that was needed. The trouble began on Christmas night, 1926, when saloon keeper Johnny Reid was shotgunned to death in the rear of his apartment building at 3025 East Grand Boulevard. Reid was an ex-Rat and liquor agent for the Purples. Earlier in the year, he and his St. Louis friends had gotten into a shooting war with Sicilian gangster Mike Dipisa. The ex-Rats defeated their opponent, but he was assumed to have arranged Reid's murder in revenge.
Johnny Reid's killer was assumed to have been Frank Wright, a Chicago-based jewel thief and all-around hood who had recently relocated to Detroit. Wright, along with two New York burglars, Joseph Bloom and George Cohen, began kidnapping local gamblers for ransom. Many of the people they snatched were connected with the Purple Gang. The foolhardy trio crossed the line when they gunned down Purple drug peddler Jake Weinberg in the North End on February 3, 1927. The Bernstein brothers hired Fred Burke and Gus Winkler to avenge their friend.
Frank Wright was lured into the open with the kidnapping of his friend Meyer "Fish" Bloomfield. Winkler telephoned Wright and told him he could re-acquire his friend in Apartment 308 of the Milaflores Apartments, located at 106 East Alexanderine Avenue. At 4:30 on the morning of March 28, 1927, Frankie Wright, Joseph Bloom, and George Cohen arrived at the Milaflores and knocked on the door of 308. As they did, the fire door at the end of the hallway opened, and three men opened fire with a concentrated volley of pistol and submachine gun fire. All three gangsters fell to the ground. The three triggermen escaped down the back stairway once their weapons were empty.
Bloom and Cohen were DOA (they had been so riddled with bullets the coroner could not tell how many times they had been shot.) Frank Wright was still alive despite fourteen bullet wounds. When asked if he saw the killers, he moaned, "The machine gun worked. That's all I can remember." Wright died of his wounds about twenty hours later. The shooting made multiple headlines in the local newspapers. It was the first time the Thompson submachine gun had been used in Detroit gang warfare. While searching Apt. 308, police found items implicating Purple gangsters Eddie Fletcher, Abe and Simon Axler, Joe "Honey Boy" Miller, and John Tolzdorf.
The day after the massacre, three Detroit police officers pulled over a car on Woodward Avenue and arrested Abe Axler and Fred Burke. While both men were suspected in the slaughter, neither was charged, nor was anyone else. The incident solidified the reputation of the Purple Gang in Detroit. It was believed at the time that Fred Burke had been the machine-gunner, assisted by Purple hitmen Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher aka The Siamese Twins.
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago garage on the morning of February 14, 1929. They were lined up against a wall and shot by four unknown assailants, two of whom were disguised as police officers.
Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was an Irish-American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the alleged accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt.
Francesco Ioele, known as Frankie Yale or Frankie Uale, was an American gangster based in Brooklyn and the second employer of Al Capone.
Jewish-American organized crime initially emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In media and popular culture, it has variously been referred to as the Jewish Mob, the Jewish Mafia, the Kosher Mob, the Kosher Mafia, the Yiddish Connection, and Kosher Nostra or Undzer Shtik. The last two of these terms are direct references to the Italian cosa nostra; the former is a play on the word for kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a calque of the Italian phrase 'cosa nostra' into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States.
Abe Bernstein was a Detroit-based Jewish-American organized crime figure and leader of the infamous Prohibition-era Purple Gang.
Gus Winkler was an American gangster who headed a Prohibition-era criminal gang specializing in armed robbery and murder for hire with Fred "Killer" Burke. Winkler was a senior associate of Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone and is considered a suspect in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Winkler is believed to be the first member of the National Crime Syndicate to be murdered for talking to the FBI.
Egan's Rats was an American organized crime gang that exercised considerable power in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1890 to 1924. Its 35 years of criminal activity included bootlegging, labor slugging, voter intimidation, armed robbery, and murder. Although predominantly Irish-American, Egan's Rats did include a few Italian-Americans and some Jewish immigrants, most notably Max "Big Maxie" Greenberg.
Frank McErlane (1894–1932) was a Prohibition-era Irish-American organized crime figure. He led the Saltis-McErlane Gang, allied with Rusyn American gangster Joseph Saltis and the Johnny Torrio-Al Capone led Chicago Outfit, against rival Irish-American bootleggers, the Southside O'Donnell Gang. He is credited with introducing the Thompson submachine gun to Chicago's underworld. The Illinois Crime Survey called him "the most brutal gunman who ever pulled a trigger in Chicago."
William P. "Dint" Colbeck was a St. Louis politician and organized crime figure involved in bootlegging and illegal gambling. He succeeded William Egan as head of the Egan's Rats bootlegging gang in the early 1920s.
Fred Samuel Goetz, also known as "Shotgun" George Ziegler, was a Chicago Outfit mobster and a suspected participant in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in 1929.
Fred "Killer" Burke was an American armed robber and contract killer responsible for many crimes during the Prohibition era. He was considered a prime suspect in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929.
David "Chippy" Robinson (1897–1967) was a St. Louis armed robber and contract killer responsible for many crimes during the Prohibition era. He was a top ranking member of the Egan's Rats gang.
William Egan was a St. Louis politician and organized crime figure involved in bootlegging and illegal gambling. His brother was the namesake of the infamous Egan's Rats.
John "Pudgy" Dunn was a St. Louis gangster and member of Egan's Rats.
Robert Carey was a Midwestern armed robber and contract killer responsible for many crimes during the Prohibition era. He is considered a suspect in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929.
Max "Big Maxie" Greenberg (1883–1933) was an American bootlegger and organized crime figure in Detroit, Michigan, and later a member of Egan's Rats in St. Louis. He oversaw the purchasing of sacramental wine from Orthodox rabbis, then allowed under the Volstead Act, which were sold to bootleggers in the St. Louis–Kansas City, Missouri area during Prohibition. He was also associated with mobsters in this particular method of acquiring illegal liquor including Waxey Gordon, Meyer Lansky and Arnold Rothstein.
Walter Costello was a St. Louis gangster and member of the Egan's Rats.
Frederick George Barker was an American criminal who, along with Alvin Karpis, co-founded the Barker-Karpis gang, which committed numerous robberies, murders and kidnappings during the 1930s. Barker was the youngest son of Ma Barker, all of whose children were criminals. He was killed in a lengthy gunfight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935.
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers composed predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detroit's dominant criminal gang. Excessive violence and infighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s.
The Hogan Gang was a St. Louis–based criminal organization that sold illegal liquor during Prohibition in addition to committing labor slugging, voter intimidation, armed robbery, and murder. Although predominantly Irish-American, the Hogan Gang included several Italian and Jewish mobsters amongst their ranks; most notably, Max "Big Maxie" Greenberg. They fought a notoriously violent gang war with Egan's Rats in the early 1920s.