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

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Look out! There goes the Spider Man

John "Spider" Murtha, called "The toughest man in Brooklyn" by detectives, was gunned down by killers from Murder Inc. on this date in 1935. Born circa 1898 Murtha dubbed himself "Spider" while a featherweight boxer in his youth but it was his exploits outside of the ring that made the plug-ugly an infamous Brooklyn character. It was said that Murtha enjoyed being pointed out in taverns as a "Cop beater" and that he never carried a gun choosing instead to rely on a razor or any weapon he could improvise out of broken beer bottle or mug.

The boys from Murder Inc. caught up with Spider at 10:30 a.m. when he and his girlfriend, Marie Nestfield, were returning from an all night outing, they had just exited a hotel when the two gunmen quietly walked up behind them. As one of them pushed Marie aside the other one exclaimed, "Now we got you Spider!" and the two men fired a total of five shots into Murtha hitting him twice in the head and three times in the chest. "Spider" stumbled for a moment then collapsed dead next to an elevated subway pillar.







For more info on Spider and Murder Inc. check out Gangster City.

4 comments:

John DuMond said...

Another small time mom and pop operation shut down by a big conglomerate. Murder Inc. was the Amazon.com of mob hits.

Patrick Downey said...

Indeed. They were not big on competition.

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

POS killed my grandfather, Morris (Moe) Glickman...Hope he is eternally rotting in hell!!!!