Elena Semander

popular name: Mike Genna

date_of_death: June 13, 1925

age: 30

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Mike "The Devil" Genna was an enforcer in the Genna Crime Family. The Gennas were Sicilian brothers who ran the Taylor Street section of Chicago (better known as Little Sicily) making and distributing a very low end of type of booze during Prohibition. Just 19 days after his younger brother Angelo is gunned down, Mike Genna, after a shoot out with the North Side Gang, is killed at 59th Street and Western Avenue by police after he and his fellow gangsters (Anselmi and Scalise) shoot and kill two police officers.

popular name: Paul McGonagle

date_of_death: November 30, 1974

age: 35

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Paulie McGonagle was a Boston mobster and head of the Mullen Gang, a South Boston street gang involved in burglary, auto theft, and armed robbery. During the war against Donald Killeen and his brothers, McGonagle successfully led the Mullens in a string of shootings which finally ended with Killeen's murder in 1972. After a truce was arranged with Whitey Bulger and the remnants of the Killeen organization, McGonagle remained angry about Bulger's accidental murder of his fraternal twin brother, Donald McGonagle. Bulgar killed Paulie and consolidated and took command of the Mullen, Killeen and Winter Hill gangs.

popular name: H. H. Holmes

date_of_death: May 7, 1896

age: 34

cause_of_death: Execution by hanging

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: The country’s first serial killer was a smooth-talking doctor who ran a murder hotel in Chicago. The tale of H. H. Holmes and his Murder Castle is perhaps one of the most fascinating cases in American criminal history. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, he was a bright young doctor who had graduated from high school at sixteen and always had a penchant for anything to do with death. While enrolled in the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, he worked under Professor William James Herdman in the university’s anatomy lab. The pair were said to have aided body snatching to supply bodies as medical cadavers, which Mudgett then burned or disfigured with acid, then planted to it look as if they had been killed in an accident. Mudgett began taking out insurance policies on these people—before he stole, disfigured, and planted them—and would later collect the insurance money once the bodies were discovered. After graduation, Mudgett started a new job working at a Philadelphia drugstore. When a child died after taking medicine purchased from the drugstore Mudgett was employed at, the young doctor denied any involvement and immediately left the city. Before he moved to Chicago, he changed his name to avoid any connection to his previous scams. Herman Webster Mudgett, M.D., donned the name Henry Howard Holmes. In 1893, the bustling city of Chicago won the honor of hosting the World’s Columbian Exposition. While the World’s Fair brought millions of visitors from all over the world, nearby, a clever killer hid in plain sight, capitalizing off of the slaughter of naive tourists. For the next two years Holmes either killed or is suspected of killing around two dozen people using his murder mansion residences to facility cruel and diabolical murder of men, women, and even children. He was finally caught and convicted of murder in 1894 and executed in 1985. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety, or depression. Despite this, he asked for his coffin to be contained in concrete and buried ten feet deep, because he was concerned grave robbers would steal his body and use it for dissection. Despite popular belief, Holmes's neck did not break; he instead strangled to death slowly, twitching for over fifteen minutes before being pronounced dead. He was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.