1931 NY Times newspaper w CAPTURE of NY KILLER "Hit Man" VINCENT "Mad Dog" COLL

Description: 1931 NY Times newspaper with the CAPTURE of NY gangster "Hit Man" / Killer VINCENT "Mad Dog" COLL - inv # 9Z-405 SEE PHOTO----- COMPLETE, ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER, the NY Times dated Oct 5, 1931. This newspaper contains a prominent front page 2 column headline and long LOCAL coverage of the CAPTURE of VINCENT "Mad Dog" COLL, a noted New York gangster / killer / "hit man". There is also an inside page photo of Coll and his gang in the police station after the capture. Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, July 20, 1908 – February 7, 1932) was an Irish American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the alleged accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt. Before prohibition Irish gangs dominated the Bronx and Manhattan, but during the prohibition era the mobs were increasingly Italian and Jewish and controlled by the likes of Dutch Schultz, Charles Luciano, Bugsy Siegel and Louis Lepke. Schultz, the son of a barkeeper, built up an empire of speakeasies, clandestine alcohol stills and breweries during the early years of prohibition. In a tough business, with rival gangs constantly trying to carve out their own territory, Schultz needed ruthless, violent young men with a talent for intimidation and killing. Vincent Coll had all of that in spades and started out as an enforcer for Schultz, when he was still in his mid-teens. By now Vincent and his older brother Peter were beginning to make names for themselves in the Bronx. Vincent was the good-looking one, fresh-faced (some newspaper reports would later call him "baby-faced" or endow him with "matinee-idol" looks), with blond, curly hair, a fondness for sharp suits and an enigmatic, menacing air. He spent small fortunes on his clothes, which were stashed with various girlfriends across Manhattan and the Bronx. He favored tailored suits, silk shirts, double-breasted Chesterfield overcoats and his signature hat, a pearl-grey fedora, always worn at a rakish angle. Coll's ruthlessness made him a valued enforcer to Schultz at first. As Schultz's criminal empire grew in power during the 1920s, he employed Coll as an assassin. At age 19 Coll was charged with the murder of Anthony Borello, the owner of a speakeasy, and Mary Smith, a dance hall hostess. Coll allegedly murdered Borello because he refused to sell Schultz's bootleg alcohol. The charges were eventually dismissed, though many suspect this to have been from Schultz's influence. Schultz was not happy about Coll's actions. In 1929, without Schultz's permission, Coll robbed a dairy in the Bronx of $17,000. He and his gang posed as armed guards to gain access to the cashier's room. Schultz later confronted Coll about the robbery, but rather than being apologetic, Coll demanded to be an equal partner; Schultz declined. By January 1930 Coll had formed his own gang and was engaged in a shooting war with Schultz. One of the earliest victims was Peter Coll, shot dead on May 30, 1931, while driving down a Harlem street. Vincent Coll, the Mad Mick, went into a rage of grief and vengeance. Over the next three weeks he gunned down four of Schultz’s men. In all, around 20 men were killed in the bloodletting; the exact figure is hard to pin down as New York was also in the midst of the vicious Castellammarese War at the same time. It was mayhem on the streets of Manhattan and the police often had difficulty in deciding which corpse belonged to which war. On June 2, Coll and his gang broke into a garage owned by Schultz and destroyed 120 vending machines and 10 trucks. As the war continued, Vincent Coll and his gang killed approximately 20 of Schultz's men. To finance his new gang, Coll kidnapped rival gangsters and held them for ransom. He knew that the victims would not report the kidnappings to police; they would have a hard time explaining to the Bureau of Internal Revenue why the ransom cash had not been reported as income. One of Coll's best-known victims was gambler George "Big Frenchy" DeMange, a close associate of Owney Madden, boss of the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob. According to one account, Coll telephoned DeMange and asked to meet with him. When DeMange arrived at the meeting place, Coll kidnapped him at gunpoint. He released DeMange 18 hours later after receiving a ransom payment. On July 28, 1931, Coll allegedly participated in a kidnapping attempt that resulted in the shooting death of a child. Coll's target was bootlegger Joseph Rao, a Schultz underling who was lounging in front of a social club. Several children were playing outside an apartment house. A large touring car pulled up to the curb, and several men pointed shotguns and submachine guns towards Rao and started shooting. Rao threw himself to the sidewalk, however, four young children were wounded in the attack. One of them, five-year-old Michael Vengalli, later died at Beth David Hospital. After the Vengalli killing, New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker dubbed Coll a "Mad Dog". On October 4, 1931, after an extensive manhunt, New York police arrested Coll at a hotel in the Bronx. He had dyed his hair black, grown a mustache and was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He surrendered peacefully. During a police lineup, a defiant Coll said that he had been in Albany, New York, for the past several months and refused to answer any other questions without an attorney present. On October 5, a grand jury in New York city indicted Coll in the Vengalli murder. The Coll trial began in December 1931. He retained famed defense lawyer Samuel Leibowitz. Coll claimed that he was miles away from the shooting scene and was being framed by his enemies. He added that he would love to tear the throat out of the person who killed Vengalli. The prosecution case soon fell apart. Their sole witness to the shooting, George Brecht, admitted on the witness stand to having a criminal and mental health record, and to making similar testimony in a previous murder case in St Louis, Missouri. At the end of December, the judge issued a directed verdict of innocence for Coll. Immediately after the Vengalli verdict, a New York City police inspector told Coll that the police would arrest him whenever he was spotted in New York City. He was soon re-jailed for carrying a gun. When the inspector referred to Coll as a baby killer, Coll hotly replied, "I'm no baby killer". Soon after his acquittal, Coll married Lottie Kreisberger, a fashion designer in New York. In September 1931, between the killing of young Vengalli and his acquittal for that death, Coll was hired by Salvatore Maranzano, who had recently crowned himself the Mafia boss of all bosses in New York City, to murder his right-hand man, Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Luciano had previously helped Maranzano win the infamous Castellammarese War in New York and gain control of the New York Mafia. However, Maranzano suspected Luciano of wanting to kill him and seize power for himself. Coll agreed to murder Luciano for a $25,000 payment in advance and a $25,000 payment on completion of the job. On September 10, 1931, Maranzano invited Luciano to visit his office. The plan was that Coll would turn up and kill Luciano. However, Luciano had received a tip-off about this plan (although probably not the identity of the hitman), so he instead sent over a squad of his own hitmen who stabbed and shot Maranzano to death. According to the 1963 testimony of government witness Joseph Valachi, Coll arrived at the office to kill Luciano, only to meet Luciano's hitmen fleeing the scene. After learning from them that Maranzano was dead, Coll immediately left the building, $25,000 richer. It was said that both Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden had put a $50,000 bounty on Vincent Coll's head. At one point, Schultz had actually walked into a Bronx police station and offered "a house in Westchester" to whoever killed Coll. On February 1, 1932, four or five gunmen invaded a Bronx apartment which Coll was rumored to frequent and opened fire with pistols and submachine guns. Three people (Coll gangsters Patsy Del Greco and Fiorio Basile, and bystander Emily Torrizello) were killed. Three others were wounded. Coll himself did not show up until 30 minutes after the shooting. A week after the Bronx shootings, at 12:30 A.M. on February 8, Coll was using a phone booth at a drug store at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan. He was reportedly talking to Madden, demanding $50,000 from the gangster under the threat of kidnapping his brother-in-law. Madden kept Coll on the line while it was traced. Three men in a dark limousine soon arrived at the drug store. While one waited in the car, two others stepped out. One man waited outside while the other walked inside the store. The gunman told the cashier to "Keep cool, now", drew a Thompson submachine gun from under his overcoat and opened fire on Coll in the glass phone booth. Coll died instantly. The killers took off in their car. They were chased unsuccessfully up Eighth Avenue by a foot patrolman who had heard the gunshots and commandeered a passing taxi However, the car got away. Very good condition. This listing includes the complete entire original newspaper, NOT just a clipping or a page of it. 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Price: 25 USD

Location: Oxford, Maryland

End Time: 2024-11-28T19:43:25.000Z

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