Early life
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William Jack "Three Fingers" White (1900-January 23, 1934) was a Prohibition gangster and member of the Chicago Outfit.
His nickname was related to a childhood accident after a falling brick from a construction site had crushed his right hand, resulting in the loss of two fingers. Self-conscious of his deformed hand, White would wear a white glove in public with cotton stuffed in the empty fingers.
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In 1919, he was convicted of robbery and served a prison sentence in Joliet Correctional Center until winning parole within four years.
An early member and much respected gunman of Johnny Torrio-Al Capone organization, White would be declared a public enemy in the Chicago Crime Commission's first published report in 1923 of those "who are constantly in conflict with the law" along with James "Mad Bomber" Belcastro, Edward O'Donnell, Jake Guzik, and Al Capone. The following year, White was twice convicted for the murder of Forest Park policeman Edward Pflaume and, despite being released on appeal by the State Supreme Court, he was imprisoned for several years.
Following his release, White returned to work for the Chicago Outfit as a labor racketeer competing against rival mobster Roger Touhy (eventually planning the murder of Touhy supporter Teamsters International Vice President Paddy Barrel). In 1933, White and Frankie Rio were supposedly sent to Florida by Paul Ricca to oversee the assassination of Anton Cermak, appearing with Franklin Roosevelt, by Giuseppe Zangara. However, they were held in custody and searched by Chicago police while waiting with politician Harry Hockstein in the main terminal of a Chicago train station on February 13.
According to the testimony of Roger Touhy to the Illinois Parole Board in 1957, White and Rio began shooting at Zangara however hit several bystanders instead before disappearing into the crowd dressed in police uniforms of the Cicero Police Department. [1]
In May 1933, he was convicted on weapons charges and served a year in jail as well as issued a $300 fine although an appeal was later taken.
His body was found in his Oak Park apartment, suffering gunshot wounds to the head and body, after a gunfight with two unidentified gunmen seen fleeing from the building on the night of January 3, 1934.
He would later be portrayed by Gavin MacLeod as "Three Fingers" Jack White on the original television series The Untouchables .
In a 1935 letter to the FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, amateur investigator Frank Farrell identified White as the organizer of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. According to Farrell, White perpetrated the massacre as a revenge against Frank Gusenberg and Peter Gusenberg for the murder of his cousin William Davern Jr the previous year. Farrell's theory is generally discarded, mainly on the grounds that there is strong evidence that White had still been in jail at the time of the massacre. [2]
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred 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 dressed as police officers.
George Clarence "Bugs" Moran was an American Chicago Prohibition-era gangster. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Seven members of his gang were gunned down and killed in a warehouse in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of February 14, 1929, supposedly on the orders of his rival Al Capone.
Frank Ralph Nitto, known as Frank Nitti, was an Italian-American organized crime figure based in Chicago. The first cousin and bodyguard of Al Capone, Nitti was in charge of all money flowing through the operation. Nitti later succeeded Capone as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit.
Paul De Lucia, known as Paul Ricca, was an Italian-American mobster who served as the nominal or de facto leader of the Chicago Outfit for 40 years. In 1958 he was named "the country's most important criminal" by a Senate crime investigating subcommittee. Ricca died on October 11, 1972.
Chicago, Illinois, has a long history of organized crime and was famously home to the American mafia figure Al Capone. This article contains a list of major events related to organized crime.
Frank Gusenberg was an American contract killer and a victim of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago, Illinois.
Giuseppe "Joe" Aiello was a Sicilian bootlegger and organized crime leader in Chicago during the Prohibition era. He was best known for his long and bloody feud with Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone.
Peter Gusenberg a.k.a. "Goosey" and his brother Frank were German-American contract killers and members of Chicago's North Side Gang, the main rival to the Chicago Outfit. Peter Gusenberg participated in an infamous attack on Al Capone during a vicious gang war.
Roger Touhy was an Irish American mob boss and prohibition-era bootlegger from Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. He is best remembered for having been framed by his rivals in Chicago organized crime for the fake 1933 kidnapping of Jewish-American organized crime figure and Chicago Outfit associate John "Jake the Barber" Factor, a brother of cosmetics manufacturer Max Factor Sr.. Despite numerous appeals and at least one Federal court ruling freeing him, Touhy spent 26 years in prison until he was finally exonerated and released in November 1959. In retaliation for filing a lawsuit against acting boss Tony Accardo and other senior Mafiosi, Touhy murdered in an alleged contract killing by the Chicago Outfit less than a month after his release.
Salvatore Joseph "Sam" Battaglia was an American mobster and high-level member of the Chicago Outfit criminal organization.
Louis "Little New York" Campagna was an American gangster and mobster and a high-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit for over three decades.
Peter von Frantzius was a Chicago businessman and arms dealer to the Chicago underworld during Prohibition, later dubbed by the press as "The Armorer of Gangland".
Claude "Screwy" Maddox, born John Edward Moore, was a Chicago mobster and head of the Circus Cafe Gang whose ranks included future Chicago mobsters Anthony "Tough Tony" Capezio, Vincenzo De Mora and Antonino "Tony" "Joe Batters" Accardo.
Lawrence "Dago Lawrence" Mangano was a Chicago organized crime figure and member of the Chicago Outfit during the 1920s to the 1940s. He was a relative of Joseph Mangano and Philip Mangano, of Chicago, and a suspected relative of New York City Mafia Boss Vincent Mangano.
Antonio "Tony the Scourge" Lombardo was an Italian-born American mobster. He was consigliere to Al Capone, and later the President of the Unione Siciliana.
Michael "The Pike" Heitler was a Prohibition gangster involved in prostitution for the Chicago Outfit. A Jewish mob boss born in what is today Ukraine, Heitler is buried at Waldheim Cemetery Co. in Forest Park, Illinois.
Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik was the financial and legal advisor, and later political "greaser," for the Chicago Outfit.
John U. Zuta was an accountant and political "fixer" for the Chicago Outfit and the North Side Gang.
Walter Stevens (1877–1931) was a freelance enforcer and "hitman", popularly known as "dean of the Chicago gunmen", during Prohibition. Although having the reputation of a violent gangster, credited with the deaths of at least 60 men, Stevens was a devoted husband to an invalid wife and his three adopted children. Stevens was uncharacteristically cultured compared to his fellow gangsters, refraining from drinking and reportedly quoting classical literature from authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson and poet Robert Burns.
Franklin Rio also known as "Frank Rio" and "Frank Cline" was a member of Al Capone's Chicago-based criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit. He was also an alleged gunman in the famous 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
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