Betrayal
When prohibition went into effect in 1920, Torrio pushed for the gang to enter into bootlegging, but Colosimo refused. In May 1920, Colosimo went out of town to marry his second wife, Dale Winter (he had deserted his first wife). After Colosimo returned to Chicago a week later, Torrio called him and let him know about a shipment arriving at his cafe. When Colosimo appeared at the cafe to wait for its delivery, he was shot and killed. The initial murder suspect was his new wife Dale, but no one was ever arrested for the murder. It was widely believed that Torrio ordered Colosimo's killing so that the gang could enter the lucrative bootlegging business. Torrio reportedly brought in New York colleague, Frankie Yale, to murder Colosimo. Al Capone has also been suspected as Colosimo's assassin.
Colosimo was the first to organize disparate parts of Chicago's crime scene. After his death, his gang was controlled first by John Torrio and then by Al Capone. It became the infamous Chicago Outfit.
Read more about this topic: James Colosimo
Famous quotes containing the word betrayal:
“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up as we did yearly
under the crayoned-in sun.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)