Timothy D. "Big Tim" Murphy (1885 – June 26, 1928) was a

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

mobster A gangster (informally gangsta) is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level ...

and

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

racketeer Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. The term "racket ...

who controlled several major railroad, laundry and dye workers' unions during the 1910s and early 1920s.

Life

Born in 1885, Murphy rose to prominence at the beginning of the 20th century in the

bookmaking A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Harry Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795, although similar a ...

racket with then-partner Mont Tennes. In the 1910s, he established an

Irish American Irish Americans () are Irish ethnics who live within in the United States, whether immigrants from Ireland or Americans with full or partial Irish ancestry. Irish immigration to the United States From the 17th century to the mid-19th c ...

gang which became one of Chicago's most powerful early organized crime organizations. Murphy's gang was one of the few respected by

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...

and the

Italian American Italian Americans () are Americans who have full or partial Italians, Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeastern United States, Northeast and industrial Midwestern United States, Midwestern ...

-led

Chicago Outfit The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or the Organization, is an Italian Americans, Italian American American Mafia, Mafia crime family based in Chicago, I ...

.Curt Johnson and R. Craig Sautter, ''The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone,'' paperback ed., Da Capo Press, 1998. A longtime rival of Maurice "Mossy" Enright, Murphy was suspected in his February 1920 gangland killing. Murphy was released due to lack of evidence.Jay Robert Nash, ''World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime,'' Da Capo Press, 1993. Murphy was involved in a wide array of crimes and arrested and/or indicted numerous times. In February 1921, Murphy was charged with involvement in organizing the theft of $400,000 () from a Pullman mail train at Chicago's Union Station in August 1920. Although he was released on a $30,000 bond, Murphy was eventually convicted and sentenced by Judge

Kenesaw Mountain Landis Kenesaw Mountain Landis (; November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944) was an American jurist who served as a United States federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and the first Commissioner of Baseball, commissioner of baseball from 1920 until his death. ...

to seven years imprisonment. On May 6, 1922, Murphy,

Cornelius Shea Cornelius P. Shea (September 7, 1872 – January 12, 1929) was an American trade union, labor leader and organized crime figure. He was the founding president of the Teamsters, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, holding the position from ...

, and six other labor leaders were arrested and charged with the murder of a Chicago police officer. On May 24, the state asked for

nolle prosequi , abbreviated or , is legal Latin meaning "to be unwilling to pursue".Nolle prosequi
. refe ...

and the court agreed to withdraw the indictments. A new indictment was returned against Murphy and the others in August, but this second indictment was withdrawn by the state as well.

Death

Murphy was shot and killed as he answered the front door of his home on the night of June 26, 1928. His murder was never solved, but he may have been shot by former associates of Enright's. Others suggest he was killed by Murray "The Camel" Humphreys, a former

hitman Contract killing (also known as murder-for-hire) is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or people. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of compensation, moneta ...

and later a lieutenant for the

. Murphy's widow, Margaret, later married mobster John "Dingbat" O'Berta, a Murphy protégé.Fred D. Pasley, ''Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-Made Man,'' Garden City Publishing Co., 2004.

Life

Death

See also

References

Further reading