Elena Semander

popular name: Angelo Bruno

date_of_death: March 21, 1980

age: 69

cause_of_death: Shotgun blast to the head

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Known as the “Docile Don,” his time at the top of Philadelphia’s criminal hierarchy was marked by a relative lack of violence, and like Bufalino, he kept a low profile. His organization ran gambling and loan sharking enterprises, and owned stakes in multiple legitimate businesses including an extermination company in New Jersey, an aluminum products company in Florida and a share in the Plaza Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Bruno was a powerful figure, and was reportedly a member of the mob’s all-powerful national commission. But he was considered something of an old-fashioned don and riled his underlings by refusing to allow them to be directly involved in drug trafficking and the considerable profits that accompanied it. This old-fashioned approach worked—the FBI didn’t make the Philadelphia mafia a priority during Bruno’s reign. But it also may have cost the crime lord his life. “He wasn't making any new members,” one investigator told the New York Times in 1982. “They say he was 'the gentle don.' That's bull. But he was conservative. He was cautious. He was old, and he didn't want to go to jail. These young guys were getting restless because they weren't making any money.” He prohibited his family’s involvement in narcotics trafficking and focused on traditional Costa Nostra operations like bookmaking and loan sharking. Some family members were discontent with this decision and suspected Bruno of profiting from the narcotics business secretly. This will ultimately lead to his murder. Upon his death, he was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA.

popular name: Meyer Lansky

date_of_death: January 15, 1983

age: 80

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Meyer Lansky was one of the most important figures in the development of organized crime in New York, nationwide and worldwide in the 20th century. Known as "The Mob's Accountant" Lansky’s work spanned the pre-Prohibition days of the New York City rackets, where he had an early partnership with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, to the consolidation of the New York Mob under Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, and on to the development of Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba, as “open cities” for the Mob. He controlled casinos in the Bahamas and in London, as well as, reportedly, a Swiss-based bank through which he laundered profits. The authorities described him as a genius of finance who applied his Midas touch to bootlegging in the Prohibition era, to gambling in Cuba, the Bahamas and the United States and to loan-sharking, stock manipulation and underworld penetration of legitimate businesses throughout the United States. Upon his death, he was laid to rest at Mount Nebo Miami Memorial Gardens in West Miami, Florida.

popular name: Frank Lonardo

date_of_death: October 19, 1929

age: 42

cause_of_death: Gunshot wounds from a mob hit

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: One of four brothers that made up the Lonardo crime family, Frank was gunned down during a card game in the back of a downtown Cleveland barbershop years after the murder of his brothers Big Joe and John Lonardo. While the crime was never solved, it was generally understood that his murder was part of a plot to eliminate all the Lonardo brothers connected with the bootlegging racket and that Frank Alessi was involved in the planning of the execution.