THE DETROIT TRUE CRIME CHRONICLES BY SCOTT M BURNSTEIN

Since we have been in lockdown for the past 3 months, I have been catching up on the stack of books that fans and readers have sent me over the past years. I just finished this cool book by Detroit Crime History Kingpin Scott M. Burnstein. 5 STARS

Scott M. Burnstein is an attorney, journalist, and organized crime historian. He is the author of Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit and Family Affair: Greed, Treachery, and Betrayal in the Chicago Mafia. He is the co-author (with Phil Leonetti) of Mafia Prince: Inside America s Most Violent Mafia Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra.

Scott, as you can see, wears a ton of hats, author, tv personality, newspaper reporter, documentary film collaborator, and true crime historian. I trust his information explicitly and believe me he knows all...

This book filled in a ton of blanks I had about crimes in Detroit. Check it out and follow Scott online too.

The Detroit True Crime Chronicles is a REAL Detroit kind of publication. It chronicles the rich history of criminal organizations and their activity in the Motor City.

Scott is amazing as a researcher and his book's focus is on the city's local Mafia, key mobsters, drug kingpins, serial killers, and unsolved crimes. Readers who crave Detroit crime history (like me) will be taken inside the city for dramatic tales of intrigue, betrayal, and murder.

The Detroit True Crime Chronicles sets forth the rich history of criminal activity in the Motor City. Using information from declassified federal documents and many firsthand accounts, the book focuses on the city s local Mafia, key mobsters, drug kingpins, serial killers, and unsolved crimes.

Included in this comprehensive account of criminal life in Michigan s great border city are the stories of Ernie the Greek Kanakis, Henry Blaze Marzette, Eddie Jackson, Baby Ray Peoples, Demetrius Holloway, Butch Jones, Leroy Buttrum, Frank Nitti Usher, Maserati Rick Carter, Rocking Reggie Brown, Wonderful Wayne Davis, Young Boys Inc. (YBI), Murder Row, Best Friends, Pony Down, John Wolfenbarger, Billy Wadd Smith, Harry Taco Bowman, Tony Jack Giacalone, Frankie the Bomb Bommarito, Singing Sam Cattalanotte, the Purple Gang and the Burnstein Brothers, Black Bill Tocco, Joseph Legs Laman, Christopher Busch, the Chaldean Mafia, the Chambers brothers, Joe Uno and Tony Z Zerilli, Black Jack Tocco, Papa John Priziola, Machine Gun Pete Corrado, Jimmy Q Quasarano, Gentleman John Claxton, Carmine The Doctor Lombardozi, Angelo The Chairman Meli, Frankie Three Fingers Coppola, Cockeyed Joe Catalanotte, the Badalamenti Group, Benedetto Evangelista, Bobby The Animal La Puma and, of course, Jimmy Hoffa.

No other American city can boast such a cavalcade of remarkable criminal characters. Scott Burnstein has brought them all together in one unforgettable book.

The Detroit True Crime Chronicles: 

Tales of Murder and Mayhem in the Motor City

40 YEARS AGO JULY 31 1975 JIMMY HOFFA DISAPPEARED

Photo of Jimmy Hoffa taken just six days before his disappearance. Tony Spina, Detroit Free Press

The disappearance of Teamster Union legend Jimmy Hoffa has never stopped being under scrutiny..So many versions of what might have happened. Today the Detroit Free Press ran a really comprehensive...I thought I would share this with my readers.

By John Wisely, Detroit Free Press

The main suspects:

■ Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone, a Detroit Mafia captain with whom Hoffa was scheduled to meet the day he disappeared.

■ Vito (Billy Jack) Giacalone, Anthony’s brother and also a Mafia captain.

■ Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano, a New Jersey mobster and Teamster official with whom Hoffa thought he was meeting.

■ Salvatore (Sally Bugs) Briguglio, a Provenzano henchman suspected by investigators of being the trigger man in Hoffa”s killing.

■ Gabriel Briguglio, Salvatore’s brother.

 Machus Red Fox

Hoffa’s family told investigators that Hoffa had scheduled a 2 p.m. meeting July 30, 1975, with Anthony Giacalone and Provenzano at the Machus Red Fox restaurant on Telegraph Road just south of Maple Road in Bloomfield Township, in a building that now houses Andiamo Italia West.

Time line of the Hoffa investigation

“The only thing we know for certain are the notes that he left of who he was meeting, when he was meeting them,” Crancer said. “He left it in writing. He left the time and the initials of the people. 

Then if he went and kept that meeting, which I’m sure he did, then those had to be the people responsible. That’s the only thing I can say. They made the appointment.”

 Read Full Story Here

40 years later, Jimmy Hoffa mystery endures

GIACOMO "BLACK JACK" TOCCO DEAD AT 87: LONGEST SERVING MOB BOSS

Jack William Tocco (1927 – July 14, 2014) died at home Monday July 14. Black Jack was a Sicilian-American businessman from Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, and alleged boss of the national organized crime organization known as The Detroit Partnership, based in Detroit, Michigan.

 
“He knew all the secrets and where the bodies were buried, including Hoffa’s,” said Dan Moldea, author of “The Hoffa Wars.” “Jack Tocco had to check off on this murder. It happened in his jurisdiction.”

 Jack and wife Toni Tocco

He is survived by his wife Toni; children, Vito (Kim), Dr. Angelo (Cheryl), Dr. Rosalie (Dr. Brian) Bradley, Jack (Teresa), Nino (Michele), Vinnie (Conrad) Klooster, Toni (Ralph) Dallier and the late Maria (Jon) Miller. Proud papa of 17 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.

Tocco and his wife Toni raised a large family in Grosse Pointe Park, spending the better part of their life together there. He attended the University of Detroit, where he earned a business degree, and he owned Melrose Linen Supply, Hazel Park Raceway and other enterprises, including extensive real estate holdings.

All the while, he presided over organized crime in the Detroit area, taking up the reins almost 40 years ago and following in the footsteps of his father, William "Black Bill" Tocco, who created the Detroit Mafia in the 1930s.

Courtesy of AP Images/Richard Sheinwald

Visitation is at the Sterling Heights Chapel of Bagnasco & Calcaterra Funeral Home 13650 E. Fifteen Mile Road 2-9 p.m. Thursday. At 10 a.m. funeral will be held Friday at St. Clare of Montefalco Catholic Church 1401 Whittier Road, Grosse Pointe Park. In lieu of flowers donations to St. Louis Center 16195 W Old US Highway 12, Chelsea, MI 48118.

 Detroit Mafia Wedding

Front row from Left to Right, unidentified child, Lena Tocco, Antonio Zerilli, Black Bill Tocco, Rosalia Zerilli, Rose Tocco-Zerilli 'mother of the bride,' Josephine Zerilli and another unidentified child.

Second row from Left to Right, Rose and Sam Serra, Joseph Tocco, Stephanie Tocco, Serafina Zerilli, Joe Zerilli, and an unidentified young lady.

Third Row from Left to Right, Jack Tocco, Zina Morocco, Josephine, and Massi Zito, Paul Moceri, Sam Tocco, Russell and Grace Cutino and Caesar Laura.

ABOUT THE DETROIT MAFIA

The Motor City is home to a small but tightly knit Mafia family that's still thriving. Gaspare Milazzo established the Detroit family in 1921. He was retired in a shower of bullets in a hostile takeover by a rival named Gaetano Gianolla in 1930. Gianolla remained in charge until 1944. Joe Vitale took over and had a twenty-year run as boss. He was followed by Joseph Zerilli and later by Jack Tocco.

Tocco often picketed city hall with the audacious charge that the persecution of the Mafia was based on anti-Italian prejudice. The hierarchy of the Detroit Mafia was ravaged by a series of indictments and convictions in the late 1990s. Despite the efforts of law enforcement, the family remains active.. READ MORE ON RK

 

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THE PURPLE GANG: GRACELAND BALLROOM

Graceland Ballroom 1933

The Graceland Ball room in Lupton Michigan was a favorite place for the Purple Gang. The building was built in the late 1920's until it burnt down in the early 1980s. Floyd Pastula was the owner at the time that it burnt.

The Graceland Ballroom Lupton, Michigan

When you walked in the building there were bullet holes all through the timbers, and they had mannequins dressed in the corner as the purple gang.

Although the Graceland building burned in the early 1980s, many Ogemaw County, Michigan residents will recall its striking rustic design.

The original owner, Mike Gelfand, aka One-arm-Mike, a former member of Detroit's infamous Purple Gang, and many stories came from this connection, a few of them true.

Mike purchased the property for one dollar from his sister who had inherited it from an uncle's estate. No one knows where the money to build the ballroom came from - speculation is the Purple Gang. Graceland burned from a fire.

GRACELAND BALLROOM
THE PURPLE GANG
DETROIT, LUPTON,
MICHIGAN NEWSPAPER

A mix of prohibition and an economic boom from the automotive industry in Detroit during the 1920s caused the uprising of the notorious Purple Gang.

In Detroit the 1920s were a time of excess. Although prohibition was in affect, Detroit's gangsters imported alcohol from near-by Windsor. Proceeds from this industry went to various developments, but none were more impressive than the building of the South Branch Ranch and the Graceland Ballroom.

Not far from the south branch of Au Sable river in northern Michigan, the gang built one of the largest ranches in Michigan history. The various barns surrounding the primary residence resembled modern day airplane hangars. They included an indoor horse riding area, dance parlor, interlinking tunnels, and hidden rooms.

Info I found in a forum....

Kenyons Hideout: I grew up next to the Graceland Ballroom, Home of the Purple Gang, I knew Floyd Pastula very well. He owned Graceland at the time. I know that Al Capone was there on many occasions, recalled by Floyd himself... Both Al Capone and The Purple Gang used to frequent a place called Kenyon's on Sage Lake where there is still a old mob house that was owned by the Purple Gang!

It recently sold a few years ago... This is a 784 acre lake riddled with Tunnels too... Kenyon's still exists, but the Graceland burned down years ago, shortly after Floyd Died as well...

Ed Rychcik: I am Floyd Pastula's nephew. I had all the amusement games,pinball, pool tables, hockey table, and different games in it when it burned down. I was there early the next morning. The fires were still simmering. I recovered about $600 in quarters. All the quarters are fused and many are melted together.

Graceland is mentioned in Kenyon's Hideout video

Read More on RK
Kenyon's Hideout and The Purple Gang