By Burt Constable
From his boyhood memories of
the raid on a bookie joint under the Chicago apartment where he grew up to the
murder cases he worked on as an officer with the Chicago Police Department's
organized crime division, Harper College professor Wayne A. Johnson has been
steeped in the violence of mobsters.
Isolated murders, such as the
infamous Valentine's Day Massacre or the beating deaths of brothers Anthony
"Tony the Ant" and Michael Spilotro, have become scenes in mob
movies. "But nobody ever put it in one place before," says Johnson,
who has done that with his new book, "A History of Violence: An
Encyclopedia of 1,400 Chicago Mob Murders."
From the stabbing death of
Harry Bush during the newspaper "circulation war" on July 6, 1900, to
the Aug. 31, 2006, disappearance of 71-year-old Anthony "Little Tony"
Zizzo of Westmont, Johnson has used court documents, police records, newspaper
accounts and 14 years of personal research to compile more than a century of
suspected mob murders.
"You know what makes it so
insidious? Their ability to get into places that affect every aspect of our
lives," says Johnson, who notes cases where politicians, judges and police
officers cooperated with mobsters. "Once you are into these guys, they own
you."
Appearing in countless articles
and TV shows as an expert on the mob, Johnson spent 25 years as a Chicago
police officer and served as chief investigator for the Chicago Crime
Commission before getting his doctoral degree in education. He's now an
associate professor and program coordinator of law enforcement programs at
Harper College.
Harper will host a public
reception celebrating Johnson's book launch at noon Tuesday in the lower level
of the library on the college's main campus, 1200 W. Algonquin Road, Palatine.
The stereotype of the Chicago
mob as the Italian Mafia known as Cosa Nostra is a myth, says Johnson, who says
organized crime boasts a diverse collection of people, including many
immigrants, who learned how to make money through illegal methods. The criminal
groups formed partnerships and cut deals with each other, he says.
Of the 1,401 murders Johnson
details, he lists only 278 as "solved," and the number of people
convicted of those murders is even lower. "Just because they weren't
charged doesn't mean it's not solved," says Johnson.
In teaching his "Organized
Crime" class, Johnson tells the Harper students that reputed mob boss Tony
"Big Tuna" Accardo, who died in 1992 at the age of 86, lived the last
years of his life just a short drive away, on Algonquin Road in Barrington
Hills.
Student Jackie Cooney, 30, of
McHenry wrote a research paper that ended up adding early 20th-century murders
to Johnson's book.
"I logged 108 murders,
and, of those murders, a portion of them were mob murders," says Cooney,
who says she's been interested in the mob since she got her bachelor's degree
in history from Roosevelt University in 2008. "I find it fascinating how
people make alternative choices to provide for themselves and their
families."
Studying to become a physical
anthropologist while excelling in her art classes at Harper, Daniella Boyd, 21,
of Wheeling responded to Johnson's request to draw a grisly scene for the cover
of his book.
"I did some
research," says Boyd, who spent about 12 hours making a graphite drawing
of the toe tag on the left foot of mobster Sam Giancana, who was gunned down in
his Oak Park home in 1975.
The suburbs are home to some of
the most infamous mob murders. On Feb. 12, 1985, the body of 48-year-old Hal
Smith of Prospect Heights was found in the trunk of his Cadillac in the parking
lot of an Arlington Heights hotel. Suspected of being a sports bookie who had
run afoul of the mob, Smith was lured to the Long Grove home of his friend William
B.J. Jahoda and was tortured, had his throat cut and was strangled. Jahoda, who
became a friend of Johnson's before his death of natural causes in 2004,
testified against the mob and helped send reputed mob leaders including Ernest
Rocco Infelice and Salvatore DeLaurentis of Lake County to prison.
Another gambling operator who
angered the mob, Robert Plummer, 51, was found dead in a car trunk in Mundelein
in 1982. He was murdered in a Libertyville house already notorious before it
was purchased by a mobster and turned into an illicit casino. In 1980, in a
crime that went unsolved for more than 15 years, William Rouse, 15, used a
shotgun to murder his millionaire parents, Bruce and Darlene Rouse, in a
bedroom of the family home.
"Some people romanticize
the mob," says Johnson, who adds that he hopes his book not only makes
people recognize the heinous brutality of mobster killings, but might also help
solve some of the remaining mysteries. "I hope they read my book and say,
'Yeah, it was 20 years ago, but I know who killed so-and-so.' Maybe we can
still do something."
