Philadelphia's Arsenic Ring

[CHIOSSO]

Slay for Pay
OLADYBUG
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All about Philadelphia's Poison Ring, by David Lohr

1939 - A coroner’s inquest discloses first inklings of a massive arsenic insurance scam, to become known as the Philadelphia Poison Ring, a murder-for-hire gang responsible for 70 deaths.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/g...ing/index.html

this is another link about the gang
A tale of “witchcraft” and murder for your Halloween amusement.
When U.S. Secret Service Agent Stanley Phillips infiltrated the Petrillo gang of Philadelphia as part of an investigation into counterfeit currency, he had no idea that his probe would uncover one of the largest slay-for-pay operations in United States history.

markgribben.com Slay for Pay

Meyer knew about Petrillo's money-making scams and told Landvoight that Petrillo had offered him $500 in legal tender and $2,500 in counterfeit bills, if Meyer could organize a hit on Ferdinando Alfonsi. He then handed him an 18-inch piece of pipe. "You do it in his house," Petrillo said. "Hit him with the pipe. Then carry him up the steps and throw him down. It'll look like an accident."

[CHIOSSO]

History of Philly Crime | Philly | 01/30/2009

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/art/...index=10#photo
photo 9
Detective Anthony Franchetti exhuming the body of poison victim Pietro Stea at Mt. Moriah Cemetery. The arsenic gang was linked to a series of murders in the 1930s in which victims were poisoned or drowned and their life insurance collected. More than 100 people died in the scheme. Twenty-four people were indicted, two of whom went ot the electric chair. Twelve got life sentences.

History of Philly Crime | Philly | 01/30/2009

photo 10

Five defendants in the arsenic gang murders: (right to left) Christina Gerrone, Anna Arena, Rose Davis, Joseph Swartz and Gaetano Ciccanti. Man at extreme left is unidentified. The arsenic gang was linked to a series of murders in the 1930s in which victims were poisoned or drowned and their life insurance collected. More than 100 people died in the scheme. Twenty-four people were indicted, two of whom went ot the electric chair. Twelve got life sentences.

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/art/...index=10#photo
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[Oladybug]

Rats, the links you provided in the last post both say the page is no longer available.

Thanks anyway!

[CHIOSSO]

they should work for you now oladybug.

[CHIOSSO]

i think they should work for you now

[jhud]

I'm just wondering why folks find this so interesting. Paul Petrillo was my wife's grandfather. Pauls' son, is my father-in-law. I can't begin to explain to you or anyone how hard this entire situation was for them growing up. My father-in-law was 15 at the time and lived in a close-nit italian neighborhood. Imagine if this were you and everywhere you looked your father's name was in the paper. Keeping this going like this is just an awful reminder for the family that remains.

[jet3to]

my in-laws were also involved with the insurance/murder scam.They sold a ton of insurance legitimately to Italian immigrants.Then they got greedy and suggested to abused woman to poison your old man and collect on the life insurance.Wife's cousin got the lion share of the insurance busness,that kept growing till today.He inhereted the families insurance business.He is a hard worker but he walked into a successful insurance business,nice guy,on the up,he is still a millionaire,after a divorce

[Colin P. Varga]

I'm just wondering why folks find this so interesting. Paul Petrillo was my wife's grandfather. Pauls' son, is my father-in-law. I can't begin to explain to you or anyone how hard this entire situation was for them growing up. My father-in-law was 15 at the time and lived in a close-nit italian neighborhood. Imagine if this were you and everywhere you looked your father's name was in the paper. Keeping this going like this is just an awful reminder for the family that remains.

Murder is in the first book of the Bible. If you believe in the story of Cain & Able we are all descended from a murdered. If you only believe in the Bible in a metaphorical sense it addresses our society's fascination with murder.

I'm not faulting the Bible. Either it is addressing the one of the most vial sins.

[CHIOSSO]

Arsenic and the Avenue

--by Lorraine Gennaro

Insurance fraud, poison and murder. None is readily associated with East Passyunk Avenue. However, the annals of history tell the area's sinister saga of greed and murder involving Sicilian immigrants and a Russian Jew.

In his book Poison Widows, George Cooper (husband of famed teens' author Judy Blume) chronicles South Philly's infamous murder ring that operated in and around East Passyunk Avenue.

Ringleader Paul Petrillo had emigrated from Naples to Philadelphia in 1910. He married shortly after his arrival in the States and, before long, opened a tailor shop called Paul Petrillo: Custom Tailor to the Classy Dressers on East Passyunk Avenue.

The shop fell on hard times during the Depression and Petrillo turned to other means to support his family. He got into the life-insurance racket and sold cheap policies with weekly premiums of 50 cents or $1.

The insurance company he worked with did not require a medical examination, so Petrillo would sell policies to sickly, middle-aged men. Without the policyholder's knowledge, the agent often would list himself as a relative of the insured, thus becoming the sole beneficiary.

But in order to collect, the insured had to die.

Luckily for Petrillo, but quite unfortunately for his soon-to-be victims, he met a Russian Jewish immigrant by the name of Morris Bolber. Known around town as Louie the Rabbi, Bolber was schooled in the Kabbalah (the mystical Hebrew teachings) and was a self-proclaimed sorcerer who knew how to make potions and use healing spirits.

Bolber even claimed he could cure cancer with a magic butter knife given to him by a Chinese witch.

Fascinated by magic, Petrillo made fast friends with Bolber.

Petrillo discovered that his friend's love potion, while useless as an aphrodisiac, was a quite effective and seemingly untraceable poison, which he then used as a means to the ends of his insurance customers' lives.

Dozens of "poison widows" -- some willing accomplices and others just foolish dupes -- sent their husbands to excruciatingly painful deaths.

In the end, it was Petrillo's cousin Herman who blew the whistle on the ringleader and his accomplices when he told investigators that dozens of victims had been polished off with arsenic.

But Herman himself was no upstanding citizen. Shortly after immigrating to Philadelphia from Sicily in the late 1880s, he turned to arson and insurance fraud before graduating to counterfeiting and eventually murder.

The only way investigators could prove Herman Petrillo's allegations against his cousin was to exhume all the victims.

In the end, Bolber pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison. His buddy wasn't so lucky: Paul Petrillo got the electric chair, along with his cousin Herman.

When the final curtain fell on this macabre production, 13 additional men and women either were convicted of or pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

--by Lorraine Gennaro


The place where you live - Oct 7, 2004 - South Philly Review