Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In our last episode, Profit
Speaker 1: and Loss, we looked at the brutal and disturbing murder
Speaker 1: of the Evangelista family in Detroit in nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: With so many separate elements to this extraordinary story, I
Speaker 1: must confess that in the chaos of it all, as
Speaker 1: was pointed out to me by one listener last week,
Speaker 1: I actually forgot to wrap up one of the more
Speaker 1: mysterious aspects of the crime. I mentioned early on in
Speaker 1: the story that when police found Benny Evangelista's head, it
Speaker 1: was surrounded by three pictures of a child lying dead
Speaker 1: in a coffin that, as far as we can tell
Speaker 1: from the reports, appear to have been deliberately placed there. Sadly, however,
Speaker 1: and possibly why I so carelessly neglected to elaborate on this,
Speaker 1: the significance of these photos was never actually established. It's
Speaker 1: been speculated that the child was either another of the
Speaker 1: Evangelist's children who died, or it was someone related to
Speaker 1: the killer. Who'd possibly once been a patient of Benny's
Speaker 1: but had died despite Benny's self proclaimed powers of healing.
Speaker 1: If it was the latter, determining the child's identity would
Speaker 1: have gone some way to revealing the identity of the
Speaker 1: culprit and possibly their motive, but sadly, nothing to that
Speaker 1: effect seems to have been established. One possible reason for
Speaker 1: this was because so few people in the local community
Speaker 1: were willing to come forward with information to help the investigation.
Speaker 1: Some have suggested this was largely due to fear of
Speaker 1: reprisal from the culprit, or more pertinently, fear of reprisal
Speaker 1: from the supposed organized crime group known as Lumano Neera
Speaker 1: or the Black Hand, who some suspected were ultimately responsible
Speaker 1: for the murders. But who were the Black Hand and
Speaker 1: were they even real at all? On the afternoon of Wednesday,
Speaker 1: May thirteenth, nineteen fourteen, at the intersection of Bleaker Street
Speaker 1: and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, a deeply troubled Maria Longo
Speaker 1: was pacing the streets outside her home. Her six year
Speaker 1: old son, Francesco, who attended the local public school at
Speaker 1: Grove and Hudson less than ten minutes walk away, who
Speaker 1: yet to return home despite school ending hours ago. Maria's husband, Frank,
Speaker 1: who ran the family's bakery located on the ground floor
Speaker 1: of their home on Bleaker Street, did his best to
Speaker 1: calm her down, believing the boy was probably just playing
Speaker 1: with friends in the street and would return unscathed any moment.
Speaker 1: But as evening began to descend, with none of his
Speaker 1: usual companions having seen him since lunch, the boy had
Speaker 1: yet to appear. Unable to wait any longer, Maria was
Speaker 1: about to call the police when a letter arrived at
Speaker 1: the bakery addressed to Frank, sent special delivery from Brooklyn
Speaker 1: earlier that afternoon. It read, dear friend, beware not to
Speaker 1: seek your son Francesco. He will be found in good
Speaker 1: hands and we want the sum of five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Beware not to have anything to do with the police,
Speaker 1: because it will be worse for you and your son
Speaker 1: if this comes to the attention of the police. You
Speaker 1: will receive the body of your son by parcel post.
Speaker 1: Wait and keep your eyes open, Signed the Black Hand.
Speaker 1: Maria's worst fears had been realized, and she had good
Speaker 1: reason to be worried. As many as five children had
Speaker 1: been kidnapped and killed under similar circumstances in the last
Speaker 1: few years. In fact, only two years ago, Maria's brother
Speaker 1: Felippo di Fiore, had been a victim of the exact
Speaker 1: same crime, when his four year old son, Giuseppe, was
Speaker 1: abducted and held for ransom. Despite a commitment from the
Speaker 1: police to help locate the boy, Felippo was too scared
Speaker 1: to wait and wasted little time in paying the money.
Speaker 1: His son was immediately returned unharmed. Not one to be
Speaker 1: messed with, Maria's husband, Frank stormed to Filippo's house and
Speaker 1: scolded him for paying Giuseppe's ransom, believing that had now
Speaker 1: made their family an easy target. Frank, who couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: pay the ransom, then marched Felippo to nearby McDougall Street
Speaker 1: police station and demanded he tell them everything he knew
Speaker 1: about the people who abducted Giuseppe in the hope it
Speaker 1: might help them find frances. Here's something you don't know
Speaker 1: about me. I often have trouble sleeping. Though I might
Speaker 1: get to sleep easily enough, within a few hours, I
Speaker 1: could be wide awake as my mind races through everything
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Speaker 1: even just to some embarrassing thing I said years ago
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Speaker 1: used of your pregnant or nursing Consult with a physician
Speaker 1: before use. If you have a serious medical condition, or
Speaker 1: use prescription medications at the station. Maria and Frank were
Speaker 1: fortunate to be met by Lieutenant Rocco Cavoni, who'd worked
Speaker 1: at Giuseppe's ransom case two years before and had been
Speaker 1: left disappointed not to have found the culprits. Though he
Speaker 1: couldn't be sure it was the same people, there was
Speaker 1: good reason to suspect it was. He was also well
Speaker 1: versed in the workings of the apparent Black Hand group
Speaker 1: who'd been terrorizing the Italian immigrant community for years with
Speaker 1: their sinister letters. Though mainly focused on extortion, child abduction
Speaker 1: for ransom, had become somewhat of a growing trend in
Speaker 1: recent months. Lieutenant Cavonie, the first Italians in New York
Speaker 1: to become a member of the New York Police Department,
Speaker 1: had once been a colleague of Joseph Petrocino, the former
Speaker 1: head of the NYPD's Italian Squad. The squad had been
Speaker 1: set up to deal with a rise in organized crime
Speaker 1: among the Italian communities that had emerged in a number
Speaker 1: of major US cities over the last few years. With
Speaker 1: as many as three million Italians moving to America since
Speaker 1: the turn of the century, with the majority coming from
Speaker 1: the south of Italy, it was becoming apparent that some
Speaker 1: of the South's leading crime organizations, specifically the Sicilian Matthia
Speaker 1: and the Camorra from the region of Campania, had also
Speaker 1: come too. The Black Hand, however, was something new, with
Speaker 1: the Italian Squad formed in nineteen oh eight. Joseph Petrocino,
Speaker 1: who in eighteen eighty eight became the first Italian Speaker
Speaker 1: to join the NYPD and had since establist himself as
Speaker 1: an uncompromising enforcer of the law, was promptly appointed as
Speaker 1: its head the following year, while on an intelligence gathering
Speaker 1: trip to Palermo in Sicily, Petrosino was assassinated. The next day,
Speaker 1: an anonymous letter was sent to the Italian Squad headquarters
Speaker 1: stating that the New York Black Hand had arranged the murder.
Speaker 1: By nineteen fourteen, this enigmatic group appeared to have established
Speaker 1: itself as a serious challenger to the better known crime families.
Speaker 1: Apart from the occasional arrest, however, little progress had been
Speaker 1: made in getting to the heart of the organization. With
Speaker 1: the abduction of Francesco Longo, Lieutenant Cavoni was determined to
Speaker 1: get his men. After initial investigations, the police soon turned
Speaker 1: their attention to local green Francesco Macaluso, who, along with
Speaker 1: the network of twenty or so individuals, appeared to be
Speaker 1: at the center of the case. Finally, after forty nine
Speaker 1: days of stakeouts and close police surveillance, Cavoni orchestrated a
Speaker 1: pretend deal in exchange for the young boy. When Francesco
Speaker 1: Longo was finally returned to his family, the NYPD swept in,
Speaker 1: arresting everyone they believed to be involved in the crime,
Speaker 1: although some were able to escape prosecution. The grocer Macaluso
Speaker 1: was convicted and sent down for twenty five years, with
Speaker 1: the individual who'd kept the boy prisoner all that time
Speaker 1: receiving fifty years. And Yet, despite the clear criminal intentions
Speaker 1: of those claiming to be representatives of the Black Hand,
Speaker 1: as it turned out, none of the individuals involved actually
Speaker 1: belonged to any such organization. The men had merely used
Speaker 1: the name as a tactic to instill fear in their victims. Incredibly,
Speaker 1: despite hundreds of seemingly Black Hand related crimes and extortion
Speaker 1: demands occurring each year, it is thought this might be
Speaker 1: all it ever was. Though, a loose criminal organization known
Speaker 1: as the Society of the Black Hand is said to
Speaker 1: have existed in Spain in the late nineteenth century. Its
Speaker 1: association with the Italian immigrant community in America is thought
Speaker 1: to have been simply invented by an overzealous journalist back
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh eight, writing about the murder of an
Speaker 1: Italian man in New York's The Herald newspaper. The journalist
Speaker 1: appears to have plucked the apparent involvement of a black
Speaker 1: Hand organization out of thin air, using the name of
Speaker 1: the Spanish group as inspiration. From that moment, however, the
Speaker 1: phrase and all its sinister connotations, was gleefully lapped up
Speaker 1: by the press looking for a quick way to sensationalize
Speaker 1: stories relating to the new arrivals from Italy. Amazingly, it
Speaker 1: seems that precisely due to the hysteria drummed up around
Speaker 1: the notion of this secretive band of criminals, a number
Speaker 1: of opportunistic individuals quickly began to take advantage, with only
Speaker 1: a pen, some paper and the name being required to
Speaker 1: strike immediate fear into their victims, and before long, suddenly
Speaker 1: the Black Hand was seemingly everywhere. In the year after
Speaker 1: the Herald article alone, there were said to have been
Speaker 1: as many as four hundred and twenty four reported cases
Speaker 1: involving the Black Hand throughout the major cities where Italian
Speaker 1: immigrants had settled, from New York all the way to
Speaker 1: San Francisco. It had become such a powerful tool even
Speaker 1: established mafia leaders such as Giuseppe Morello in New York
Speaker 1: had taken to using it in their extortion enterprises. In
Speaker 1: the end, however, due to a zero tolerance policy adopted
Speaker 1: by local police forces on any one claiming association with
Speaker 1: the group, with no reason to remain loyal to it
Speaker 1: since it never truly existed in the first place, the
Speaker 1: Black Hand soon evaporated back into the air from where
Speaker 1: it had once come. If you enjoy Unexplained and would
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Speaker 1: The book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never
Speaker 1: before been covered on the show, is now available to
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Speaker 1: the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
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