“Who killed Momo” is the Chicago Outfit’s final household secret.
NBC 5 Investigates dug right into a case that has been dormant and gathering mud. We spoke with males as soon as on the within of the mob and those that have examined the Sam Giancana assassination from the surface. We have scoured legislation enforcement recordsdata, photographs and lab stories, and we have interviewed police, prosecutors and mob figures to find out who pulled off Chicago’s best hit.
There have been greater than 1,400 mob murders in Chicago because the Roaring 20s.
Practically all of them have gone unsolved.
Formally that quantity incudes the killing of villainous Outfit legend Giancana. His mob moniker “Momo” is brief for Mooney, aka loopy.
“Giancana was a really influential particular person within the Outfit,” mentioned Douglas Depodesta, special-agent-in-charge of the FBI Chicago.
“He led the Outfit from the late ’50s to the center ’70s. He was courting one of many McGuire sisters. He frolicked with the Rat Pack. So in fact there was loads of consideration on the time,” mentioned DePodesta.
Fifty years in the past, in spring 1975, Momo was in his west suburban Oak Park dwelling, residing in a basement condominium. Police photographs of Giancana’s precise abode — and what would turn into the crime scene — have by no means been proven publicly till now.
There are framed illustrations of circus clowns adorning his workplace wall and a stand-up ashtray on scene, the depository for his cigar butts. And there’s this hardline home telephone, the place 67-year-old Giancana performed crime syndicate enterprise.
He had simply returned from gall bladder surgical procedure in Houston, and some associates have been over to welcome him dwelling.
One picture exhibits how Chicago police detectives had the gangster’s bungalow underneath surveillance, confirmed by a police report we obtained. However NBC Chicago sources say what is not within the report is that when Giancana’s company left, so did CPD intelligence officers — into the lifeless of night time.
Earlier than 11 p.m. there was a customer, somebody Giancana apparently trusted sufficient to permit in via a basement stairwell.
The hoodlum began making a late-night snack. Giancana was standing over this frying pan, scorching sausage and escarole with beans, when his houseguest fired one shot from this silencer-equipped 22-caliber pistol proper into to the again of Giancana’s head. After which after the mobster collapsed, six extra photographs into his mouth, symbolizing the Outfit’s golden rule: Thou shall not discuss.
“Whoever it was, was skilled sufficient to know that they wished to verify he didn’t survive,” mentioned reformed Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese, Jr.
Calabrese, Jr. has mob DNA in his blood. His dad Frank “the Breeze” Calabrese, Sr. was a Chicago crime boss and an Outfit hitman.
In 1975, with Giancana underneath subpoena to testify earlier than the U.S Senate Intelligence Committee, some syndicate insiders could have been jittery about whether or not he was going to interrupt his vow of omerta, or secrecy, and say an excessive amount of about ties between the mob and the Central Intelligence Company. Motive sufficient for homicide.
“The world of the Chicago Outfit and arranged crime is a unclean, nasty little world,” said mobologist John Binder, who mentioned there have been quite a few homicide suspects within the mob hit 50 years in the past, however by no means sufficient proof to prosecute.
“There’s varied claims about completely different folks, credible claims to some extent, kind of about who might need killed Giancana,” mentioned Binder, who authored a 2003 guide on the mob, “The Chicago Outfit.”
“I feel the almost definitely model of occasions is it was Butch Blasi,” mentioned Binder. “He was there that night time. There was somewhat social gathering at Giancana’s home. Included have been two Outfit guys: Blasi and Chuck English.”
Chuckie English was a Chicago Outfit rackets boss, who himself could be murdered a decade later. He was by no means charged and neither was Dominic “Butch” Blasi, Giancana’s longtime bodyguard and wheelman.
Throughout the nation, at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas, the place Sam Giancana is a outstanding face on the wall, Outfit professional Jeff Schumacher mentioned Momo’s demise confounded detectives from Day One.
“There are suspects. There are theories. However you understand, at this time limit, it will be fairly robust,” mentioned Schumacher, vice chairman of museum displays and applications.
In Half Two of “Who Killed Momo,” we go contained in the Giancana police recordsdata. NBC Chicago will revisit the proof, hint the gun, look into who confirmed up at the hours of darkness and reveal the identify of the person who did it.
Who pulled the set off? And why will that man by no means be charged?
