Murray Humphreys - Arrest and Death

Arrest and Death

"I'm so tired," he'd say. "I want out so bad, but I made my decision and I have to live with it." Llewella Humphreys

In 1965, Chicago boss Sam Giancana was jailed by Federal Judge William J. Campbell for his refusal to answer questions regarding the syndicate’s activities. Campbell had blocked Giancana’s plan to, "Plead the Fifth," by announcing at the start of the hearing that Giancana would be granted automatic immunity for anything self-incriminating the gang-boss might reveal in his testimony. When Giancana refused to say anything, he was charged with, "Contempt of Court," and sentenced to be jailed “for the duration of the grand jury or until he chooses to answer.” Three weeks after Giancana’s arrest Humphreys was issued a subpoena to appear before the same grand-jury. When Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Agent William Roemer came to Humphreys’ Marina Towers apartment to deliver the subpoena he was met at the door by Ernest Humphreys, who told Roemer that his brother had just left for parts unknown. When leaving the apartment, Roemer noticed a distinctly colored blue blazer hung on a chair.

Knowing that because of increasing blindness in one eye Humphreys always visited his family in Oklahoma by train, Roemer promptly checked the Polk Street railroad station and called ahead for agents to stop the Oklahoma bound train. Humphreys was met by federal agents in Norman, who escorted him back to Chicago. At this time Roemer began to assemble proof that Humphreys had been intentionally fleeing the subpoena. The railroad employee who had sold Humphreys his ticket remembered what Humphreys had been wearing and described the same blue blazer that Roemer had seen while speaking to Ernest Humphreys. Also, a porter recalled how while on the train Humphreys was reading a newspaper which he eventually threw aside. Picking up the paper, the porter had been surprised to see the late-reader’s face displayed on page one, accompanied by an article about his being sought by the grand jury for questioning. Humphreys’ subsequent testimony to the grand jury that he had not known about the subpoena when he left the state was thereby disproved, and three agents were sent to arrest Humphreys on the charge of perjury.

Roemer, who had surprisingly evolved a liking for Humphreys in the course of his dealings with him, purposely did not include himself among the agents he sent to arrest the mobster. When the three selected agents knocked on the door of Humphreys’ apartment it was opened by Humphreys, with a 38-caliber revolver in his hand. One of the agents is quoted as saying: “Murray, for Christ’s sake, you know we’re FBI agents, put down the gun.” The agents overpowered the aging mobster without much difficulty and handcuffed him. There was a safe in the apartment, and the agents decided to invoke, "search and seizure," "incidental to arrest," which was new to Humphreys’ knowledge of law. They asked Humphreys to hand over the key, which Humphreys refused to do. Another struggle ensued, which ended in the agents forcibly taking the key from Humphreys’ pants pocket and opening the safe. Its contents and Humphreys were taken downtown where Humphreys’ restaurateur friend, Morrie Norman, posted bail for him.

That night, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Ernest Humphreys found his dead brother lying fully clothed and face down on the floor of the same room where he and the agents had fought. Humphreys had apparently been vacuuming the room at the time of his death. The Cook County coroner Andrew Toman attributed cause of death to an acute coronary occlusion.

Humphreys’ Oklahoma family, composed of Clemi, Llewella, and George, took a plane to Chicago and attended a private service at the Donnellan Funeral Home, where Humphreys’ remains were cremated despite the wish he had expressed for his body to be donated for medical research. After the service Morrie Norman, having been a mutual friend to both Roemer and Humphreys, arranged a meeting between the family and Bill Roemer at his restaurant. "I told them all how much I respected their husband, father, and grandfather,” recalled Roemer, “and that I deeply regretted what had happened."

"I had clearly developed an affinity for Hump – more so by far than for anyone else in the mob. The man had killed in the Capone days on the way up. He had committed my cardinal sin, corruption, many times over. But there was a style about the way he conducted himself. His word was his bond … Without question, I preferred working against a despised adversary such as a Giancana rather than a respected adversary such as a Humphreys. Each was a challenge – the difference being that I enjoyed the fruit of my success so much more against Giancana than I did against 'The Camel' … in Chicago there would be plenty more mobsters to choose as targets. But none like Hump." Roemer: Man Against the Mob, by William F. Roemer Jr.

Sandy Smith, the Chicago Tribune’s top crime journalist, reported Humphreys’ death in an article entitled, “His Epitaph: No Gangster Was More Bold.” Another newspaper man, Mike Royko, had the following quip to offer: " died of unnatural causes – a heart attack."