"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." - Chicago Gangster Ted Newberry. Rubbed out January 7, 1933

Friday, June 13, 2008

I scream, you scream...

On this day in 1923 Michael Nicolosi, the thirty-five year old manager of the Novelty Water Ice Company, was unloading a truck when two gunmen came up and pumped four shots into him. The streets were crowded with people and some of them fired off their guns in order to alert police to the shooting while the killers escaped. Nicolosi died after a few moments but managed to utter "These men made a mistake." Whether he meant it literally or figuratively is unknown.
The police believed that this was another in the series of shootings between rivals in the ice cream business. Others included Nicolosi's brother Carmello who the Times said was killed the previous year and a guy named Joseph Lagumina who was murdered in 1921. Interestingly, Nicholas lived only three doors down from where Lagumina had his ice cream company.

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