Shotgun Man is an alleged assassin and serial killer active in

Chicago, Illinois 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 ...

in the 1910s, to whom murders by Black Hand extortionists were attributed. Most notably, Shotgun Man killed 15 Italian immigrants from January 1, 1910, to March 26, 1911, at " Death Corner," a notoriously violent Italian immigrant neighborhood at the intersection of Oak Street and Milton Avenue (now Cleveland Avenue) in what was then Chicago's Little Sicily. The area was notorious for violence committed by Italian immigrants and Italian-Americans, both independently and as a result of Italian

gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Wiktionary:territory#Noun, territory in a ...

s, the

Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...

, and Black Hand feuding and vendettas. In March 1911, the so-called Shotgun Man reportedly murdered four people within 72 hours.

Background

Although the killings were witnessed by dozens of bystanders, the Chicago police were never able to identify the murderer. However, he was said to be well known throughout the Italian community and, with the political influence of the Black Hand, residents may have been hesitant to turn in the assassin. Although the fate of Shotgun Man is unknown, he seems to have disappeared from Little Italy shortly before

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

, as extortion operations of the Black Hand had faded away by the end of the decade.

References

20th-century American murderers American Mafia American mass murderers Mafia hitmen Criminals from Chicago Unidentified American serial killers Unsolved mass murders in the United States Year of birth unknown {{crime-stub

Background

See also

References