James Belcastro

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James "Mad Bomber" Belcastro (1895-August 23, 1945) was a Black Hand extortionist and later chief bomber of the Chicago Outfit during Prohibition.

Known as "King of the Bombers", Belcastro was highly skilled at bomb construction and use of terrorist bombing using timed bombs to extort money from Chicago's Little Italy during the 1910s. During the purge of Black Hand gangs following the arrival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone, Belcastro was hired by Capone in the early 1920s soon becoming a prominent member of what would later be known as the Chicago Outfit. During the mid to late 1920s, Belcastro would be suspected of over 100 deaths while bombing saloons which refused to buy alcohol from Capone.

During the 1927 Chicago primary elections, Belcastro bombed voting booths throughout the city, primarily in wards opposing then Mayor William Hale Thompson, killing at least 15 people during what would later be known as "The Pineapple Primary". One such opponent, lawyer Octavius Granady, was killed by Belcastro following a high speed car chase on April 10, 1927. Arrested in October 1927 by the State Attorney for Granady's murder, Belcastro was later acquitted after key witnesses recanted their statements. He would later be among those listed on the "public enemies list issued by the Chicago Crime Commission during the end of the decade.

An attempt on his life was made when he was shot five times in the head and body during a shootout on January 11, 1931 however he eventually recovered from his wounds.

A suspect in the 1931 murder of Roger Touhy bootlegger Matt Kolb, Belcastro would rise through the ranks of the Chicago crime syndicate eventually becoming one of its top enforcers before his death several years later from heart disease on August 23, 1945 (although other accounts mistakenly claim his date of death on October 13, 1933).

He would later be portrayed by Peter Mamakos as Bomber Belcastro in the 1959 television movie The Scarface Mob as well as on The Untouchables TV series.

[edit] Further reading

Flowers, R. Barrie and H. Loraine Flowers. Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers and Victims of the Twentieth Century. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2001. ISBN 978-0-7864-2075-9
Kobler, John. Capone: The Life and Times of Al Capone. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-306-81285-9
Johnson, Curt and R. Craig Sautter. The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0-306-80821-0
Schoenberg, Robert J. Mr. Capone. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 978-0-688-12838-8

[edit] References

Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-313-30653-2
Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8160-5694-1