◆ SpookStack

. hee a €)..= ‘ = aks. toon Y.. . . a ; . * : . . Ae. Clegg ......---- Ls # 293383 - urton Turkus concedes; now, that Lepke. baffled him. He says he came to know, as one by one he sent members offMurder Inc. to the death house, that they were alike in at least one respect. Hé Says, “They all had killers’ eyes."’ He noticed this in Abe (‘‘Kid Twisc'') Reles, the informer who ad- mitted casually on the witness stand that he had destroyed 11 men with gun, ‘knife and fire. He saw it in Allie Tannenbaum, the second informer, who had admitted personal part in six murders; in Seymour (‘‘Blue Jaw’") Magoon, iwho took part in as many before he became a state witness against the mob. ‘The look was in ‘‘Happy"’ Maione's eyes, in “Dashet"’ Abbengando’ s, in Mendy Weiss’s, in Louis Capone’s, even in Sholem Bernstein's, and Bernstein ‘is only a ‘‘stoolie,’’ a self-labeled “‘rat,"’ or gang squealer. Killer eyes, Prosecutor Turkus came to know, are something you can -dramatize for a jury. You point them out to jurors and pretty soon they see it. It is the unmistakable mark of the beast. Mr. Turkus proceeded happily on this theory and gloated inwardly as each new batch of Murder Inc. defendants came up for trial. He says, ‘‘I got the feeling that the theory was perfect, and it held up in every case—until I turned, one morning in the trial room, and looked i into Lepke’ s eyes.” The prosecutor was actually startled by what he saw. ‘‘It jarred me,"’ he confi f | = “Lepke—who was born Louis"Buchalter—has warm, soft brown eyes. They : MA “2--'-—"" are inordinately large. ‘‘Like a deers, ot a fawn’s,”” Mr. Turkus tells yout (| FE ‘with something like awe. ‘“They never hardened."' The gazelle eyes made no = sense to the prosecutor. They dispelled a theory, for Lepke was the boss ajagsy killer. As head of Murder Inc., or the Combination as its own members called / Wy, 7 ‘it, he had ordered the death of anywhere from 60 to 80 men. By all standards his eyes should have been like Jack Diamond’s, Vincent Coll’s, “‘Lucky’’ Luciano’s, Al Capone's. Psychiatrists who have examined Lepke since Mr. [~.} . Turkus sent him to the Sing Sing Prison death house have merely affirmed: i that Lepke is different from all these. They found no mental twist, nothing psychotic in his make-up. He seemed é | always affable under examination, his mind crystal clear. They were a little foe ‘puzzled, as Mr. Turkus had been, by Lepke’ s curious blandness, his seeming’ iV - humility. “‘The man is actually diffident,’’ one psychiatrist noted in bewil-” derment. If there were any deviations from normal in Lepke, they were not apparent and exhaustive interviews, fitted with the cleverest oral bait, failed waweraeme re { 5 to bring them to the surface. There was one possible flaw, not too pro- — . nounced. Lepke seemed shy and embarrassed when the probers asked about o ‘his sex life. He was uneasy through this phase of examination. Incidentally, ‘he has no children except an adopted son, offspring of his wife’s first marriage. i If Sing Sing Prison’s head keeper walks Lepke from his cell in'the harshly + AV lighted west wing death house to prepare him for the electric chair, Prose- Ay jcutor Turkus will have achieved what no other American prosecutor can. Dir i claim—the death penalty for top man in a murder mob. Jack (‘‘Legs’’) Dia- rekeD lif ‘mond, Arthur (‘‘Dutch Schultz’) Flegenheimer, Vannie Higgins, Vincent ,j;: 6 ‘Coll, ‘“Babyface’’ Nelson, Frankie Uale, John Dillinger and a dozen other ‘mob bosses died with their boots on. Al Capone, ‘‘Waxey’’ Gordon and fe O- VE) Cu ald , Lucky Luciano went to prison, but only on comparatively piddling charges. '¢ GU- Lepke, though, has been brought to book as a boss murder man should be {for murder. This seems strange, in a way. The litttc maa With “he dceze’s ST APR 20 1944 _eyes outclassed all che others in sheer criminal genius. ‘The others were com- 4 ‘parative dolts when it came to mob organization. They rose to power by force. He combined brains with force. Yer with all these chings, they frus- | wratedathe law and he did not. oar on FER a ‘ TR memes =A 3 Lepke, ‘specialized in union rackets 4 o 4 iit le controlled more industries and had a firmer gtip on more labor * | 1A ations than any other racketeer of our time. Federal and manicipal _Ainvestigators figure he manipulated, all’ told, some 250 criminal ventures Seck /¢ 2. ~ ancously, kept an eye on at least 300 straw bosses, a corps of account= — ‘nd bookkeepers and on a staff of irresponsible triggermen, strongarms trial saboteurs. He disliked reckless shootings, stabbings and othe ad CTT et wae Avernaae me CN oe me Mishnaer -f Ltn el..