Roger "The
Terrible" Touhy's Gang
Escape from Stateville Penitentiary, Joliet, Illinois, October 9, 1942
In
the latter part of 1933 and the early part of 1934,
the Chicago gang of Roger "The Terrible" Touhy
was smashed.
Singly
and in groups, the Touhy mobsters were accounted
for. James Tribble was murdered on September 8, 1933,
in Chicago. William Sharkey committed suicide at
St. Paul on December 1, 1933. Touhy himself and two
of his henchmen were convicted in state court at
Chicago on February 23, 1934, and sentenced to serve
ninety-nine years imprisonment for kidnapping John "Jake
the Barber" Factor and holding him for ransom.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had investigated
the Factor kidnapping, but had stepped out at the
conclusion of the investigation and turned over all
evidence to state authorities. The federal courts
had no jurisdiction because the kidnappers had not
taken their victim across a state line.
Charles
C. Connors was murdered at Willow Springs, Illinois,
on March 13, 1934. On the same date, Basil "The
Owl" Banghart, machine gunner and aviator for
the mob, was convicted in state court in Chicago
and sentenced to serve ninety-nine years for participating
in the Factor kidnapping. Two months later, Banghart
was also tried in federal court at Asheville, North
Carolina, and sentenced to serve thirty-six years
in prison on a charge of robbing United States mail.
Two
remaining members of the Touhy gang, Isaac A. Costner
and Ludwig Schmidt, were also convicted on the mail
robbery charge.
Thus,
by the end of May, 1934, three members of the mob
were dead and eleven were in prison serving long
terms.
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Members
of the Touhy Gang
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For
half a decade, the northwest section of Cook County,
Illinois, had been known as Touhy Territory and the
infamous mob had made bizarre history throughout
the Midwest and along the Atlantic seaboard under
the leadership of Roger Touhy, one of six notorious
sons of James Touhy, deceased, a former patrolman
in the Chicago Police Department.
Touhy "The
Terrible" was quickly forgotten after he was
received in Stateville Penitentiary at Joliet in
1934. Banghart started serving his long term in the
Illinois State Prison at Menard. After a break from
Menard in 1935, however, he was transferred to Joliet,
where he renewed acquaintance with Touhy.
For
seven years, Touhy and Banghart remained in prison,
keeping in touch with their old outside contacts
through the fantastic medium of the underworld grapevine,
watching for any possible chance of escape.
They
took no one into their confidence. Banghart already
had four previous escapes on his record, and when
he went to Joliet, he boasted that no prison in the
world could keep him. He observed the activities
of prison guards and assimilated every item of information
that might be important in a planned escape. He learned
the exact location of all prison facilities; the
height of the walls; the position of the prison towers
and the distance between them; and the number of
guards and the kind of weapons they carried. He even
claimed to know that the guards carried rifles sighted
in at one hundred yards, although they manned towers
which were three hundred years apart.
Ultimately,
a plan of escape matured, a plan which necessitated
assistance both inside and out.
First
of all, Touhy and Banghart needed guns; so they took
Big Ed Darlak into their confidence. Edward Darlak
was a thirty-two year old lifer, received at Joliet
on October 14, 1935, under a 199 year sentence for
murder. Darlak sent word to a young brother, Casimir,
on the outside. Casimir got two .45 caliber revolvers,
together with ammunition, and one night in August,
1942, tossed them into bushes near the prison. The
guns were smuggled into the prison by a trusty who
had the duty of lowering the prison flag each evening.
He carried the guns in, wrapped in the flag.
With
this accomplished, Banghart started negotiations
for outside assistance. He needed a getaway car and
a hide-out. Tentative arrangements were made but
the plans were never consummated. The shabby characters
willing to provide such services for a fee were not
punctual or reliable. Again, it was "The Owl" who
overcame the difficulties. He observed that a prison
guard who manned tower number three drove his own
car to work and left it parked near the tower gate,
outside the prison wall. Banghart felt he could shift
for a hide-out once he reached that car, because
the entire Chicago area was familiar territory.
Touhy,
Banghart, and Darlak passed word to four other Joliet
long-termers willing to risk a break:
-William
Stewart, forty-three years old, under two twenty-year
sentences as a habitual criminal, parole violator
and highway robber;
-Eugene
Lanthorn, thirty-six years old, under a sentence
of one year to life for assault to commit murder
and for two previous escapes from Joliet;
-St.
Clair McInerney, thirty-one years old, under
sentence of one year to life for robbery, burglary,
and violation
of parole; and,
-Martilick
Nelson, forty years old, under sentence of one
year to life as a robber, habitual criminal and parole
violator.
Shortly
before 1:00 p.m., on October 9, 1942, Touhy began
the break from Joliet. He assaulted the driver of
a prison garbage truck, obtained the truck and drove
to the mechanical shop where Lanthorn was working,
arriving there simultaneously with Banghart, McInerney,
Darlak, Stewart, and Nelson. Working together, the
seven convicts overpowered guards on duty in the
shop, cut telephone wires, ripped some ladders out
of locked racks, piled into the truck and headed
for the northwest corner of the prison yard, holding
two guards as hostages. Touhy and Banghart were brandishing
.45 revolvers. Lanthorn was armed with a "Molotov
Cocktail" - a crude incendiary bomb which he
had fashioned in the prison shop and which he intended
to use to start a panic if necessary. He did not
need to use his bomb, however.
When
the truck pulled up at the foot of tower number three,
one of the convicts fired at the guard in the tower,
bringing him under control. Others threw ladders
up against the wall. Touhy led five of the men up
into the tower where they disarmed the guard and
seized the keys to the tower gate and the keys to
the guard's car. Banghart stayed below to cover them
and the guards who had been brought from the shop
as hostages. Nelson went down the outside wall by
rope, opened the tower door with the guard's keys,
and the gang ran out. They fled in the guard's automobile
taking the cinder road that would bring them out
on the highway to Chicago. The convicts were well
armed. From tower number three, they had taken two
high-powered rifles and a .45 caliber handgun.
At
eight o'clock that evening, the getaway car, traveling
at furious speed, broke through a police blockade
at Elmhurst. At 11:00 p.m., the car was abandoned
at Villa Park, in the middle of town where it could
not be missed; the gang's way of notifying the FBI
that they had not taken a stolen car across a state
line.
From
Villa Park, they fled into the Cook County Forest
Reserve on foot and hid out in a shack for four days.
Banghart foraged for food at night. On the evening
of October 13, he returned to the shack with a stolen
automobile and moved the gang to a 13th street apartment
on the West Side.
Posing
as long-distance truck-drivers, they all lived in
his apartment for almost two months. Banghart was
trying to hold them together long enough to plan
and execute some big-time hold-ups which would bring
in the fabulous sums of money needed in their schemes.
They wanted to buy a farm near Chicago for a hide-out;
they wanted legitimately purchased automobiles to
obviate the danger of traveling in "hot" cars;
and they wanted plastic surgery work done to change
their appearances and destroy their fingerprints.
Touhy was said to have the contacts for the plastic
surgery, but the cost was $100,000.
Holding
such a collection of desperate men together and keeping
them in safe hiding was no easy job. Banghart ruled
them with an iron hand. He allowed no drinking, except
for an occasional bottle brought into the apartment,
and permitted no promiscuous associations with outsiders.
Every day when a man went out for food and supplies,
Banghart, armed with a sawed-off shotgun wrapped
in a newspaper, followed to convoy. The convicts
changed clothes with each other frequently, made
every effort to disguise themselves and, when on
the streets, always walked facing oncoming traffic
so that police or FBI cars could not slip up on them
from behind.
About
December, 1, 1942, the gang, feeling that neighbors
had begun to notice them, moved to a nearby apartment,
but bedbugs drove them out in two days. Their next
residence was in the Doversun Apartments on Sunnyside
Avenue.
They
had been at Doversun only a few days when the first
serious rift occurred; Stewart and Nelson went out
alone one night and returned to the apartment drunk.
Banghart disarmed them and pistol whipped them both,
beating them until they were unconscious. Leaving
the two battered and apparently dying, the other
five convicts immediately abandoned the apartment
and lived for a few days in a garage where they had
their stolen car hidden. Banghart, Darlak, Touhy,
McInerney, and Lanthorn ultimately moved into the
Norwood Apartments at 1256 Leland Avenue. Stewart
and Nelson somehow recovered, got out of the Doversun
Apartments before they were discovered, and separated
- Nelson to go to Minneapolis and Stewart to seek
refuge with a former girlfriend in Chicago.
Although
this crowd escaped from Joliet on October 9, 1942,
the FBI did not enter the search for them until October
16, 1942. They were state prisoners, and in escaping
they violated no Federal law. But after a week had
passed and they had failed to present themselves
for registration under the Selective Service Law
they became draft delinquents. The FBI formally filed
on them for failure to register and obtained Federal
warrants of arrest.
Realizing
that this gang of desperadoes constituted a grave
threat to the public safety, Mr. Hoover personally
took charge of the Touhy investigation at its inception.
From his Washington headquarters he directed a continent-wide
man hunt that had no equal since the days of Dillinger.
Agents
at FBI Headquarters dug into the old voluminous files
on the Factor kidnapping for every fragment of information
about Touhy and Banghart's past associates, hide-outs,
habits, friends and relatives. Agents were sent into
Joliet to review prison records for the names of
all relatives, visitors, and correspondents of all
seven escapees. They interviewed prison guards and
convicts who were known to have associated in any
way with any of the seven subjects. Convicts who
had formerly associated with them but who had already
been discharged from prison were located. Old prison
records in other institutions where the subjects
had served time were examined. Every known relative,
every former friend or character witness, every attorney
who was known to have represented the men - every
possible contact of all seven subjects was located.
Those who were cooperative were interviewed for their
assistance, while others were watched night and day.
Photographs, descriptions, and brief criminal histories
of all the escapees were sent to every law enforcement
agency in America, to all leading newspapers and
to agencies in Canada and Mexico. Stops were placed
along the borders and all patrol stations were given
photographs of the convicts.
Every
lead, no matter how shadowy, was cautiously and thoroughly
run out.
In
the initial stages, the investigation was primarily
an exhaustive preparation of a nation-wide network
of ambushes. Sooner or later a break would come --
one of the fugitives would attempt a contact that
was covered.
Mere
waiting, however, was not enough. To conserve manpower
and expenses and to bring these desperadoes into
custody at the earliest possible moment, it was necessary
to make deductions on which to predicate offensive
action.
Mr.
Hoover and his staff deduced that Banghart would
try to hold the gang together; that they would hide
out in Chicago; and that, by means of pocket picking
and petty stick-ups, they would obtain identification
papers such as Selective Service cards to avoid an
accidental arrest for vagrancy or the like.
Agents
carefully reviewed the Chicago police files on unsolved
petty stick-up cases in which the victim had lost
a wallet containing draft cards and other identification.
The
first break came on December 15, 1942, when Nelson
attempted to contact a relative in north Minneapolis.
Knowing, therefore, that Nelson was in the area and
that he was not staying with relatives, Agents assumed
that he was stopping at some cheap hotel using an
alias. A logical alias would be the name of some
Chicago citizen who had lost his wallet in a recent
stickup.
An
FBI Agent and an officer of the Minneapolis Police
Department checked these possibilities. The next
day, December 16, 1942, they found Nelson in a hotel,
in bed with a loaded gun under his pillow and his
door barricaded with a chair. He was registered under
the name of Harold Seeger. Harold Seeger, it should
be noted, was a Chicago grocerman who was held up
by a masked bandit on December 11, 1942, and robbed
of his wallet, identification papers and pocket money.
Nelson
would not talk, but the half-healed, grievous wounds
on his head were a significant indication that the
gang had had trouble. On
the same day that Nelson was arrested, Agents located
Stewart.
Several
days before, Stewart had made a telephone call to
Milwaukee. The call was traced to a pay station telephone
in a drug store on North Broadway in Chicago. Within
an hour after this call was made, Agents were combing
that area of Chicago. Contacts were developed in
hotels, barrooms, night spots, rooming houses, and
restaurants. Many reliable persons, when shown Stewart's
photograph, believed that they had seen the man recently.
Finally
on December 16, 1942, Agents observed a known acquaintance
of Stewart's standing near a bank at the intersection
of Oak Park and Harrison Streets. He was carrying
a newspaper high under his left arm, rather awkwardly.
To the trained observer, he had the air of a man
waiting to be met by someone he did not know. The
newspaper could very well be the tag by which he
was to be recognized.
The
Agents waited. Their assumption was correct. The
man did have a rendezvous but Agents did not recognize
the individual who came to meet him. They followed
the unknown man and found that he lived in a hotel
on West Harrison Street. A surveillance at the hotel
soon located Stewart. He was known at the hotel as
James Shea, this being the name of a man robbed of
his wallet and identification papers in Chicago on
November 22, 1942. He was also known as "The
Deacon," because he dressed in black and wore
his clothing like a minister in an effort to disguise
himself. When in public, he always carried a Bible,
which he frequently opened and read.
Agents
did not arrest Stewart immediately. They hoped he
would lead them to Touhy and his gang. For four days
there were no significant developments.
Then,
on December 20, 1942, Stewart had a rendezvous with
two men unknown to surveilling Agents. The Agents
surmised that Stewart was not in direct contact with
the gang and that these two men were couriers between
him and Banghart. Agents quietly took Stewart into
custody and followed the two couriers.
The
next day, December 21, 1942, Agents following one
of the couriers recognized Banghart and Darlak whom
the courier met in a crowded, downtown area. Agents
instinctively realized what was wrapped inside the
newspaper that Banghart was carrying. They also realized
that it was not time to take Banghart and Darlak.
They knew that Banghart, if approached on the street,
would start shooting wildly and that the lives of
bystanders would be imperiled. They also knew that
if they took Banghart and Darlak, the search for
the remaining fugitives would become even more difficult.
The thing to do was to follow Banghart and Darlak
until they led to the hide-out so that all five fugitives
could be taken at once without endangering the lives
of innocent citizens.
The
surveillance on Banghart for the next seven days
was most difficult. He carried his shotgun at all
times and he knew all of the tricks of shaking off
or detecting surveilling officers. The hazardous
surveillance, however, paid off. Banghart never realized
that he was being followed.
Within
five days, Agents had learned that the entire gang
had been living in apartment number 31 at 1256 Leland
Avenue, but that they were splitting into two groups.
McInerney and Lanthorn were remaining in apartment
number 31; Darlak, Touhy, and Banghart were moving
into an apartment at 5116 Kenmore Avenue.
Only
one thing remained to be done before arrangements
could be made for the arrests. The Agents, who had
never before seen McInerney and Lanthorn, had to
be absolutely certain that these were the right men
before attempting the arrest, because they knew there
would be gunplay. On Sunday afternoon, December 27,
1942, the two men believed to be McInerney and Lanthorn
both left their apartment for a few minutes. While
Agents were following them on the streets, two other
Agents slipped into their apartment and obtained
some discarded bottles which could be processed for
fingerprints. In the Chicago office they developed
on these bottles fingerprints identical with those
of the two fugitives.
Mr.
Hoover hurried to Chicago to make final plans for
the raid. In both apartment houses, unsuspecting
neighbors who might be in the line of fire had to
be secretly evacuated. Arrangements had to be made
with the police department to block off the streets.
Every conceivable means of an exit had to be covered,
and the Agents deployed so that they would not be
caught in their own cross fire.
On
Monday evening, December 28, 1942, McInerney and
Lanthorn again left their apartment and went to visit
the other fugitives. Two Agents slipped into their
room to await their return. other Agents filtered
into the building to cover all possible means of
escape. At 11:20 p.m. the two fugitives returned.
They approached the door of their apartment with
their guns drawn. After a tense, listening pause
before the door, Lanthorn inserted a key and threw
the door open.
One
of the Agents in the room called for their surrender: "We
are federal officers. Put your hands up."
Both
convicts fired in the direction of the voice. The
Agents opened fire. Both men lurched from the room,
stumbled over the banister and fell dead on the second-floor
landing. On the bodies of both men were found large
sums of money. In McInerney's pockets were two strange
items: (1) the address of an undertaker, and (2)
a fragment of verse:
I wish I now were old enough
To give some sound advice
To make each person weigh his thoughts
And turn over twice.
I wish my eyes had seen enough
So I could make him see
The way impressions in this life
Can fool us easily.
I wish my heart had held enough
So it could not impart
The worthiest philosophy
To every human heart.
McInerney,
thirty-one, was the youngest of this group of convicts.
Mr. Hoover next took his men to 5116 Kenmore Avenue where they surrounded
the building and took up their assigned posts in adjoining apartments.
They waited
until just before dawn.
At
5:00 a.m., on December 29, 1942, powerful searchlights
were turned on to illuminate the apartment building
and to play on the windows of the fugitives' first-floor
apartment. As the lights went on, one of Mr. Hoover's
assistants began speaking into a microphone connected
with a loudspeaker outside the apartment door.
"Touhy,
Banghart, Darlak, we are the FBI. Surrender and come
out with your hands up. There is no hope of escape.
You are surrounded. You have ten minutes to decide.
We will then start shooting."
These
words were repeated several times, then: "Banghart,
you come out first. Come out backwards with your
hands in the air. Touhy, you come out next and Darlak,
you come last. Come out one at a time. Come out backwards
with your hands in the air." The Agents could
hear excited and muffled voices in the apartment:
"Let's fight."
"No! They've got us covered on all sides."
"What do you say - let's give up. I know how these guys operate!"
"Listen to that voice. It sure gives me the creeps!"
A
few seconds later, Banghart backed out of the apartment,
hands held high in the air, talking fast:
"Don't
do anything. Don't do anything. Don't worry -- I
won't do anything!"
He
had no chance to do anything. Mr. Hoover seized him
and he was handcuffed.
Next
came Touhy, the very ghost of the once feared "Black
Roger." His curly, black hair had been peroxided
to a reddish-blond and was the texture of straw.
Clad in flaming red satin pajamas, he was trembling
and silent as he backed out of the apartment holding
his hands over his head. He stared morosely at the
floor while he was being handcuffed. Darlak, as instructed,
backed out last.
Banghart
was the first to regain his composure. His owl-like
eyes had been darting about, taking in everything
that happened. He was the first to speak after all
the convicts had been taken into custody.
"You're
Mr. Hoover, aren't you? I pegged you from your picture
in the paper. It's not everybody that has the honor
of having the big Chief get him."
Touhy
was glum and one of the Agents asked
him what he was thinking. Banghart chirped a reply: "Well,
Boss, he's thinking as Molly said to Fibber the other
night -- it ain't funny anymore." On
the way to the FBI office, Banghart
chattered endlessly:
"We picked the wrong time for this break. A fellow has to have a Selective
Service card, a Social Security card, and is hindered by too
many wartime restrictions."
After
wistfully thinking it over, Banghart added:
"If I had broken out two years ago, I could have gotten out of the country,
maybe gone to South America and gotten a job flying."
He
even grew expansive and paid the FBI a compliment:
"Mr. Hoover," he said, "you've got a good outfit. That sound chilled
us. It was coming through the window, through the front door, through the back
door -- from all over. At first, I thought some of our enemies were out to get
us."
In
connection with this investigation and the searches
incidental to the arrests, FBI Agents recovered a
total of $13,605.84 which the gang had taken in the
robbery of an armored car in north Chicago on December
18, 1942. Also recovered were stolen automobiles,
guns, expensive clothing and draft and Social Security
cards of persons who had been robbed.
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Weapons
Seized by FBI Agents
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The
Selective Service complaints which Agents had filed
in October were all dismissed. Nelson, Stewart, Darlak,
and Touhy were returned to state custody. Banghart
was sent to Alcatraz.
All the way through, Banghart had been the undisputed leader of this mob.
He was born in 1900 at Berville, Michigan. He finished high school and had
one year at college before he turned definitely to a career of crime.
The record indicates that he stole over one hundred automobiles in and around
Detroit before his first arrest and conviction in 1926.
On January 4, 1926, he was arrested in Cincinnati and returned to Detroit to
stand trial for car theft. He pleaded guilty and threw himself on the mercy
of the court. The judge placed him on probation for one year.
Two months later in April, 1926, he was again arrested, this time in Dayton,
Ohio, and was charged with a violation of the National Motor Vehicle Theft
Act.
He was convicted and sentenced to serve two years in the United States Penitentiary
at Atlanta, Georgia, where he deliberately made the acquaintance of long-termers,
making what was the equivalent of a post-graduate study in crime.
Assigned to the window washing detail, Banghart had good opportunity to saw
the steel bars enclosing a window. At dusk on January 25, 1927, together with
other convicts, he made his escape through the window, jumped twenty feet to
the ground and made a headlong dash across an open field. Outrunning the bloodhounds,
he plunged through swamps and marshes to freedom.
He made his way to Montana where he cooled off for a period before going back
east to organize a business of stealing automobiles. He established a ring
of car thieves which operated in and around New Jersey. Some of the stolen
cars were driven south; others were sold in the same city where they had been
stolen after Banghart had changed the motor and serial number.
In October, 1928, he was arrested in Pennsylvania and
turned over to a United States Marshal at Pittsburgh
for arraignment
on a National Motor Vehicle Theft
Act charge. While in the custody of the Marshal in the Federal
Building at Pittsburgh, Banghart asked permission to
go to the lavatory. Walking down the
corridor, he suddenly shoved the Marshal off balance and
dashed out of the building, pointing in front of him
and shouting, "Get the police." Stop
that man!" The ruse worked and Banghart made good his
escape. Two weeks later, however, he was arrested in Philadelphia.
In that two weeks he had dyed
his hair, shaved his moustache, and put on glasses.
He was returned to Atlanta and served out his sentence, which expired on February
14, 1930. When he left, however, he did not go free. He was taken into custody
on a detainer and removed to Knoxville where he was confined in the Knox County
Jail to await prosecution in federal court. He made an unsuccessful attempt
to escape from this jail. When he was tried he pleaded guilty and asked for
probation, saying that he had never had a chance to go straight. The judge,
however, sentenced him to two more years in the penitentiary at Atlanta.
Banghart served this sentence, but in January, 1932, less than two months after
his release, he was arrested in Detroit as a robbery suspect. He was released
to local authorities at South Bend, Indiana, for prosecution on an armed robbery
that had occurred in that city in 1927. On his way to South Bend, Banghart
boasted that he had belonged to the Purple Gang in Detroit and that the South
Bend Jail could not keep him long. He was right. On March 27, 1932, he blinded
a turnkey with pepper, took his jail keys, seized a machine gun, and shot his
way out of jail.
It was at this point that he fled to Chicago and became a machine gunner and
top leader of the Touhy mob, at that time engaged in an underworld war with
the Capone interests.
It was Banghart who planned and led the kidnapping of John Factor by the Touhy
mob in 1933. In the final stages of this case he narrowly escaped capture after
a running gun battle with police. Accompanied by his paramour and two of the
Touhy gangsters, he left Chicago and hid out for a while in Tennessee, ultimately
moving to Charlotte, North Carolina.
In November, 1933, Banghart and his two henchmen robbed a United States mail
truck at Charlotte, obtaining $120,000. He was next arrested in a fashionable
apartment in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 10, 1934.
After standing trial in Chicago for participating in the Factor kidnapping
and standing trial at Asheville, North Carolina, for participating in the mail
robbery, he was returned to Illinois and incarcerated in the state prison at
Menard to serve the ninety-nine years for the sentence which he had drawn for
the Factor kidnapping.
On October 2, 1935, he and other inmates at Menard assaulted prison guards
and, in a commandeered truck, crashed through the prison gates. Banghart was
soon recaptured and, as previously pointed out, was sent to Joliet to complete
his sentence.
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