James O'Toole (mobster) - Falling Out With The Mob

Falling Out With The Mob

He had been receiving death threats since 1963. In December 1964 Spike and Francis X. Murray received telegrams the day before they were set to be released saying, "You will receive the same benefits of Harold." The anonymous telegram sender was referring to mob associate Harold Hannon, a 54-year old criminal associate whose bound body was found floating in the Boston Harbor the previous August along with Wilfred J. Delaney. In September 1964 after Spike and Francis were released, there was an attempted shooting of Murray as he drove along the Southeast Expressway in South Boston. The shooter was never identified and his intended death sentence was never carried out unlike his friend O'Toole. James would later be arrested for another crime and served time in Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Cedar Junction as an accessory after the fact in the murder of Dorchester bank clerk, William Sheridan. Sheridan was shot to death by George McLaughlin while in the middle of an armed robbery. In December 1973, O'Toole (who had survived many assassination attempts) was run over by gangland assassin John Martorano while leaving Edward G. Connors' saloon in South Boston.