Silas Jayne

popular name: Dutch Schultz

date_of_death: October 24, 1935

age: 34

cause_of_death: Mob hit - gunshot wounds

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Dutch Schultz was a New York based mobster who made his fortune bootlegging rum during Prohibition, followed by gambling, the numbers racket and the restaurant racket afterwards. Schultz was known for his extreme brutality and the accumulation of a frightening body count of those opposed to him including Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein and Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll. By 1935 he was in open conflict with US attorney Thomas Dewey. Schultz was arrested, then freed (to the utter surprise of everyone) when he bribed the venue of his trial, but as Dewey continued to pursue he started hemorrhaging money and power. Afterwards, Schultz called an emergency meeting of the Mafia Commission for permission to kill Dewey. Worried that there would be immense law enforcement pressure on the Commission if such a popular public official was murdered, the members refused. Schultz was furious, blaming the commission for "feeding him to the law", and vowed to kill Dewey himself. After Schultz stormed off, after six hours of deliberations the Commission ordered Louis Buchalter of Murder Inc. to eliminate "The Dutchman. A few days later, Schultz along with 3 of his henchmen were shot at The Palace Chophouse Restaurant (his headquarters at the time) by two hit men (Charles "The Bug" Workman and Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss) from Murder Inc. All 4 of the shooting victims died within a day of the ambush. He was laid to at Gate of Heaven Cemetery Hawthorne, New York.

popular name: Michael Coppola

date_of_death: October 1, 1966

age: 66

cause_of_death: Kidney disease

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola was a New York City mobster who became a caporegime of the 116th Street Crew, with the Genovese crime family. He entered the ranks of the New York mafiosi with a reputation as a morally depraved, sadistic and violent gunman during Prohibition. Coppola headed many Genovese family criminal operations from the late 1930s until the early 1960s. He is suspected of murdering his first wife, Doris Lehman, in 1943 because she overheard Coppola's plans to assassinate New York Republican Party political activist Joseph Scottoriggio. Doris Lehman was reportedly murdered by her Coppola a day after giving birth to prevent her from testifying against him (her scheduled testimony was postponed due to her pregnancy). Ann Coppola, Trigger Mike's second wife, filed for divorce, supposedly due to Coppola supplying drugs to her daughter, and later agreed to testify against Coppola in an income tax investigation. As a result, Coppola ordered several gunmen to kidnap and assault her. Found severely beaten on an isolated beach, Ann Coppola continued with the investigation. She later fled to Europe and overdosed on sleeping pills after sending a letter to the IRS detailing the criminal activities of the Luciano crime family.

popular name: Nicholas Femia

date_of_death: December 16, 1983

age: 44

cause_of_death: Gunshot - .357 magnum to the head

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Nicholas "Nicky" Femia was a low-level, but extremely violent, mobster and member of the Joe "the Animal" Barboza gang on Bennington Street in East Boston. After the Barboza gang diminished in 1967, he later became involved with the Winter Hill Gang of Somerville during the early 70s, which by then wielded power in areas like South Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Brookline, South End, Charlestown and Cambridge. All other parts of the Greater Boston area were controlled by the Patriarca Crime Family, the Mafia's New England Branch. Femia was suspected in several gangland killings during the violent feud of the mid 1960s between the Charlestown gang lead by the McLaughlin Brothers, and Winter Hill Gang lead by James "Buddy" McLean in Somerville. Barboza's East Boston gang backed McLean along with various members of The Bennett Gang in Roxbury, which included; Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi, his psychotic brother Jimmy the Bear, and Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme. Femia was heavily involved in armed robberies and extortion. He was a bulky guy with a vicious temper known to use a baseball bat or a sawed-off shotgun when making a point. Femia would come to an abrupt end quite befitting of a man of his violent personality. In December 1983, Femia was killed in a shootout with the occupants of an East Boston Autobody shop on Condor Street, in a shakedown attempt that went horribly wrong. Nicholas Femia shares his grave with his father in the Winthrop Cemetery on Cross Street, a small upscale beach community in Suffolk County, just outside of East Boston.