Assassination
On July 10, 1934, at 3:00 a.m., Lazia arrived at his hotel residence after spending the night touring his nightclubs and gambling dens with his wife and Carolla. As Lazia was exiting from the car, gunmen armed with a submachine gun and a sawed-off shotgun emerged from the bushes. Lazia pushed his wife back into the car and told Carolla to drive off. The gun sprayed Lazia with bullets and left him on the sidewalk.
Lazia later died at St. Joseph's hospital in Kansas City. Speaking to his doctor before expiring, Lazia said:
- "Doc, what I can't understand is why anybody would do this to me? Why to me, to Johnny Lazia, who has been the friend of everybody?"
Lazia associates immediately blamed LaCapra for Lazia's murder and tried to assassinate him several times, succeeding in August 1935 in New Paltz, New York. However, law enforcement traced some of the bullets in Lazia's body to bullets found in the Union Station massacre, creating suspicions that it was a Lazia ally who murdered him.
Read more about this topic: John Lazia