Two deadly murders were committed in and around Boston using military grade assault weapons, and both of them happened in the middle of a raging debate around gun control in this country. You might assume I am talking about an incident that happened after the school shootings in Parkland Florida in 2018 or Columbine in 1999, but I’m not. The first crime took place in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham in 1934, when three gangsters used a stolen Tommy gun to rob the Needham savings bank and murder two policemen. Sadly, this deadly crime took place just months before the 1934 federal firearms act made it illegal for civilians to own machine guns. The second crime we’ll discuss took place a generation later, in 1989, in the middle of a heated national debate that resulted in George HW Bush’s 1989 limited assault weapons ban, and the stronger 1994 ban that was allowed to expire in 2004. In what has to be the only recorded example of someone going postal in the sky, a disgruntled postal worker killed his ex wife, stole a plane, and spent hours shooting up downtown Boston with an AK-47.
Tag: Crime
Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, with Jan Brogan (episode 236)
In the book Combat Zone, Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, journalist Jan Brogan turns her impressive research and reporting skills on the case of Andy Puopolo, a 21 year old Harvard football player who was killed in a fight in the Combat Zone in 1976. The case would pit the most privileged group at the most privileged school in the world against three poor Black men on the margins of society, while in the background Boston tore itself apart on racial lines.
The book plumbs the depths of white, working class Boston’s racial resentments during the busing era, a criminal justice system that stacked the deck against Black defendants, and a police department that was compromised at its core by organized crime. It highlights the street violence that helped cement Boston’s reputation as the most racist city in the country, as well as the two trials that came to diametrically opposite verdicts in the same city, just a couple of years apart. It also puts the reader in the mind of the younger brother of the victim, left behind to deal with his feelings of grief and guilt, while wrestling with the possibility of revenge.
Spring Gun in the Grape Vines (episode 235)
This week we’ll explore the strange case of a 1907 shooting in Jamaica Plain. There was a gun, a gunshot, and a gunshot victim… a child, in fact. But there was no shooter, or at least no human shooter. If this was today, we might be talking about a terrifying robot machine gun, but 1907 was a little early for that. Instead, we’re talking about a deadly trap laid by a homeowner to protect his grape arbor. For setting this deadly trap, the homeowner would face criminal trial for assault, but pay only a trivial fine. As bizarre as the case sounds, it was part of a trend that was sweeping the nation at the time, with many spring gun cases arising in the Boston area, until the matter was finally settled in a state supreme court case that every first year law student still studies today.
Continue reading Spring Gun in the Grape Vines (episode 235)
The Mysterious Murder (Maybe) of Starr Faithful (episode 223)
When Starr Faithfull’s body washed up on a Long Island beach 90 years ago, the case became a national obsession. At the center of the story was a beautiful young flapper, with a diary full of covert sexual conquests, a sordid history with a prominent politician, and a drug and booze fueled nightlife in the speakeasies of two major cities. Was her death a suicide, driven by her dark past? A tragic accident after one too many? Or was it something darker, a murder for hire on behalf of a former Boston mayor… or his underworld adversaries?
Continue reading The Mysterious Murder (Maybe) of Starr Faithful (episode 223)
A Shooting at the State House (episode 209)
From our viewpoint in modern Massachusetts, with stringent gun licensing and background check laws, it’s hard to imagine how a young man with an extensive criminal record who had been involuntarily committed to multiple mental health institutions could walk into a store and walk back out with a shiny new handgun. And from a post-9/11 point of view, with security at the forefront of every public space, it’s hard to imagine how an uninvited visitor could walk right into the governor’s State House office and open fire. But on December 5, 1907, that’s exactly what happened, when a disturbed man with a gun and a grudge decided to pay a visit to our seat of government.
Continue reading A Shooting at the State House (episode 209)
The Gamblers’ Riot (episode 189)
For almost 400 years now, Boston has never needed much prompting to start a riot. There have been anti-Catholic riots, anti-immigrant riots, anti-Catholic immigrant riots, anti-draft riots, pro-draft riots, anti-slavery riots, pro-slavery riots, bread riots, busing riots, and police riots. In the 20th century, sports began to be a driving factor behind riots in Boston. Long before Victoria Snelgrove was killed by a police pepperball after the 2004 World Series, before the fires and overturned cars after the 2001 Super Bowl, there was the Gamblers’ Riot. 103 years ago this week, gamblers at Fenway Park got mad at the umpires, at Babe Ruth, and at the Chicago White Sox and stormed the field. Listen now to learn what happened next!
Also… Hey, we won an award! Continue reading The Gamblers’ Riot (episode 189)
Dissection Denied (episode 188)
Levi Ames was a notorious thief who plagued the Boston area in the years just before the Revolutionary War began. He stole everything from shirts to silver plate, crisscrossing New England, until he finally got caught right here in Boston. Tune in to learn about his criminal background, his supposed jailhouse religious conversion, and the desperate race between some of the most prominent Bostonians to steal his body after his execution.
Unequal Justice in Boston (episode 182)
This week we’re revisiting two classic episodes to highlight injustice in how the death penalty has been applied in our city’s history. First, we’re going to visit early Boston, in a time when execution by hanging was a shockingly common sentence for everything from murder and piracy to witchcraft and Quakerdom. During this period, hanging was the usual, and execution by fire was decidedly unusual. This punishment was reserved only for members of one race and one sex, and in Boston’s history, only two enslaved African American women were burned at the stake. After that, we’ll fast forward to the mid-19th century, when it seemed like the death penalty would soon be abolished. After 13 years without an execution in Boston, a black sailor was convicted of first degree murder. Despite the fact that white men convicted in similar circumstances were sentenced to life in prison, he was condemned to death. And despite tens of thousands of signatures on petitions for clemency, he was hanged at Leverett Street Jail in May of 1849.
The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders (episode 170)
86 years ago today, on February 2, 1934, the first murders were committed in Massachusetts using a fully automatic weapon. Sadly, the victims were the first police officers to be killed in the line of duty in the sleepy Boston suburb of Needham. At the center of the case were a stolen Tommy gun, a pair of brothers, and a ragtag assortment of followers. Before it was all over, the Millen-Faber gang would be tied to at least five murders, a long string of robberies, and an attempted jailbreak. Three of the crew would be sentenced to death, and the shocking spectacle of military grade weapons being used on the streets of a quiet Boston suburb would stoke the already raging debate about gun control and the 1934 federal firearms act.
Continue reading The Millen Gang Machine Gun Murders (episode 170)
Trunk Tragedy in the City of Shoes (episode 169)
In February 1879, Jennie Clarke’s body was found jammed into a leather trunk on the bank of the Saugus river on her 20th birthday. Every detail of the case reveals yet another tragedy in the life of Jennie Clarke, who died after attempting to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and it reveals the unexpectedly permissive approach of Massachusetts law to abortion in the mid-1800s.
Continue reading Trunk Tragedy in the City of Shoes (episode 169)