"Terrible" Tommy O'Connor (1883–after 1923-died 1951{?) was a gangster who escaped from the Chicago courthouse in 1923, only three days before he was to have been executed for the murder of a policeman.
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Tommy O'Connor first came to prominence when he was arrested in Chicago after a shootout in which Chicago Police Detective Patrick J O'Neil was gunned down March 13, 1921. Charged with Paddy's murder, O'Connor was convicted at trial and sentenced to hang. Three days before the scheduled execution, he and his cellmate overpowered the guard, took his rifle, and escaped from the courthouse. The two men were last seen dodging through the traffic and made their escape. O'Connor's fate is unknown after that, but reported sightings of him continued into the thirties. Because there was no Cook County Sheriff's Department, O'Connor was able to make his way through miles of empty countryside and disappear completely.
O'Connor was last seen in the 1930s, and then he seemed to vanish forever. A court order in the 1950s forced the city of Chicago to retain O'Connor's gallows and keep him on the death list until his fate was made known. The gallows were dismantled in 1977, but apparently O'Connor still remains scheduled to hang.
The gangster played by George Bancroft in the silent film Underworld was modelled on O'Connor.[1]