Caged Wolves

Chapter II. What Was the Motive for the Murder?
The Barrel Mystery
by William J. Flynn (1919)

Copyright 1919
The James A. McCann Company
Printed in the U.S.A.
McClelland & Stewart

Chapter II
What Was the Motive for the Murder?

How do I know that Petto, the Ox, murdered Benedetto? you would ask.

And what could be the motive for his crime?

Follow me a little further.

In January, 1903, several months before Benedetto's body was found in the barrel, three Italians were arrested in the City of Yonkers. They were Isadoro Crocervera, Salvatore Romano and Giuseppe DePriema. The latter is the brother-in-law of the barrel-murder victim. The three men were apprehended by the local police in Yonkers on the charge of passing counterfeit five-dollar notes on the National Iron Bank of Morristown, New Jersey. The secret service men were well aware that these notes were being imported from Italy by the Morello gang.

When I was called in the case, the Yonkers police, who made the arrest, told me that the three men were accompanied by another Italian,

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WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE? - 19

a short fellow, who got away. Knowing the ways of the gang, it was plain to me that the escaped Italian was the treasurer of the crew passing the counterfeit money. Such a treasurer is always hiding in the distance with the greater bulk of the counterfeit bills for the purpose of making a get-away if the passers get into trouble and are arrested. The treasurer is supposed to rush away to the secret meeting place of the Black Hand Society, where a counsel is held to decide just what plan to follow in the effort to get the members who have been arrested out of their peril.

From the description given me of the Italian who made his get-away, I recognized him as a counterfeiter already registered in the files of the Secret Service as Number Six. I was also able to identify Crocervera and DePriema as members of the Corleone gang.

My next move was to bring the Yonkers officers to New York and place them where they could have a good look at Number Six. The officers identified the man without hesitation. Number Six was arrested, therefore, on February 19, and gave the name of Giuseppe Giallambardo. He got six years.

20 - THE BARREL MYSTERY

The Black Handers were puzzled. They could not understand how it happened that Giallambardo had come into the toils unless one of the three men arrested had "squealed." And perhaps I should say right here that the gang never realized they were ever under surveillance, and that every move made by them individually was noted in the daily reports of Secret Service sent to Washington.

When Crocervera and DePriema were brought to my office I knew in advance that neither of them would talk, having had the characteristics of the men recorded long before they were arrested. However, in order to give Crocervera the impression that DePriema had told me a lot of the workings of the gang, I hit upon the idea of keeping DePriema in my inner office for several hours while Crocervera remained in an outer office. I was timing my effort for a purpose. As DePriema was leaving, I stepped to the door with him and shook his hand warmly and patted him on the back in order that Crocervera, seeing the performance, might gain the impression that DePriema had confessed all he knew about the gang. Naturally, the object of this move was to tempt Crocervera to talk and give information-

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important to the government. But Crocervera did not talk. The subsequent arrest of Giallambardo served to strengthen the impression already planted in the mind of Crocervera that DePriema had betrayed him, and we overheard Crocervera telling this to the members of the gang while they were in our office.

The gang was not in position to take revenge on DePriema, as he was in Sing Sing prison, where the three men had been sent upon conviction on the charge of passing counterfeit money. Following the hereditary Sicilian custom, the gang then proceeded to select a blood relative of DePriema and mark him for murder. There being no male blood relative of DePriema on this side of the Atlantic, the Black Hand Society decided that the nearest male relative must pay the penalty for DePriema's treason. Benedetto, the brother-in-law, was chosen as the sacrifice.

These details of the motive of the murder, and the society's choosing Petto, the Ox, to do the killing were confessed to me several years later by members of the gang after I succeeded in convicting them for counterfeiting and had them sentenced to long terms in the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia.

22 - THE BARREL MYSTERY

As to the identity of Benedetto's kinsman, who made certain of his aim at Petto, the Ox, near the Italian rendezvous where "Il Bove" held sway in the little Pennsylvania city, I can only answer at the present writing that the kinsman was not DePriema, because the latter was still in Sing Sing when the murder of the man in the barrel was avenged.