Dean O'Banion

AKA:

Dion

Birth Name:

Charles Dean O'Banion

Birth Date:

July 8, 1892

Birth Place:

Maroa, Illinois

Death Date:

November 10, 1924

Place of Death:

Schofield's Flowers, 738 N. State Street, Chicago, Illinois

Age:

Cause of Death:

Homicide - gunshot wounds

Cemetery Name:

Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Crime and their Victims

Associates:

As the leader of the North Side Gang in the early 1920s, Dean O'Banion was a feared Chicago mobster who was the main rival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone during the bloody and violent Chicago bootlegging wars of the 1920s. He was gunned down in his flower shop allegedly by John Torrio's gang members (with the help of Genna Brothers) including Frankie Yale, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi (which is still in dispute to this day). The O’Banion killing would spark a brutal five-year gang war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminated in the killing of seven North Side gang members in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929.

Fun Fact

The confusion over the actual hitmen that murdered O’Banion in his flower shop can be traced back to the actual eyewitness to the killing – O’Banion’s personal porter William Crutchfield. In order to stay alive, Crutchfield’s description of the killers given to police and reporters was quite different than the description he gave the North Side Gang. The Northsiders then kept Crutchfield hidden while they plotted their revenge. Some mob historians look to Angelo Genna and Salvatore Ammatuna as the actual killers in the flower shop. There is some merit to this version given that Genna and Ammatuna were hunted and gunned down in retaliation by the Northsiders the next year following the O’Banion murder. Ammatuna was shot exactly on the one-year anniversary of Dean O’Banion death.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery

1400 S. Wolf Road

Hillside, Illinois, 60162

USA

North America

Map:

Grave Location:

Section L, Block 1, Lot S 7

Grave Location Description

Across from Section R on the road in the center of the cemetery.

Grave Location GPS

41.8665205, -87.9079619

Photos:

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Videos Featuring Dean O'Banion:

The Schofield Flower Shop murder of Dean O'Banion

Dean O'Banion: The North Side Gang Boss (1892-1924)

Irish Mobster - Deanie O'Banion

Brutal Murder of Dion O'Banion Touches Off Chicago Gang War