Was New Orleans safer under mob control?
On January 28, 1964, The New Orleans States-Item reported:
“Early this morning, two unidentified men shot and maimed two others in the parking lot behind the Old Southport gambling club. Deputies said a pair of young gunmen opened fire without warning.
“The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as 36-year-old James W. Bordelon of 338 Deckbar Avenue and 29-year-old Frank Palmisano of 7917 Panola Street.
“Jefferson sheriff’s deputies said they were looking for two young men driving a compact car who entered the lot as Palmisano and Bordelon approached Palmisano’s convertible.
“The gunmen jumped out on either side of their car and opened fire on the two men. As Palmisano opened his car door, one of his attackers shot him in the groin.
“As Bordelon approached the car about fifteen feet from Palmisano, another gunman shot him through the cheek and in the right upper abdomen.
“Deputies said the shooting occurred about 3:15 in the morning, shortly after the two victims had gotten out of an automobile owned by Bordelon’s father-in-law, 70-year-old James Wall of 605 Deckbar Avenue in Jefferson.
“The club is on Old River Road, just yards across the Orleans Parish line. The parking lot, found at the rear of the old Southport Club, typically attracts arriving patrons who find the gambling establishment’s main lot full.
“Unidentified bar patrons took Bordelon and Palmisano to Ochsner Foundation Hospital. Doctors at Ochsner believe the bullet which struck Bordelon in the left cheek lodged in his brain.
“One of the three men who accompanied Palmisano’s wife to the hospital told a reporter Palmisano worked near the parking lot. None of the three men would identify themselves to the journalists, and the New Orleans Police Department has no record of either of the victims.
“Sheriff’s deputies investigating the case said they did not know whether either of the two victims had any connection with the gambling establishment owned by reputed mob kingpin Carlos Marcello.”
Mild by today’s standards, this shooting made front-page news in 1964, allegedly the heyday of the La Cosa Nostra in New Orleans. Then, stories of this nature made news because of the scarcity of shootings in the street.
Seven days later, during a slower news week, The Item had no updates on this shooting. Instead, the newspaper recapped all unsolved murders under investigation by the sheriff’s office and NOPD over twelve years.
On April 16, 1956, a tall, dark man in a brown suit stepped into the Mercy Hospital room of 64-year-old bank clerk Frank L. Bourg and beat him to death with a bedpan. Investigators revealed two competing theories. Either someone wanted Bourg to help them rob the bank, and he refused, or the attack was a case of mistaken identity. The hospital treated another Frank, Sheriff Frank J. Clancy, in an adjoining room. The murder of Frank Bourg is still unsolved today.
One week after the Bourg murder, on February 27, 1956, someone stabbed 65-year-old real estate broker Harry Spiro multiple times as he worked late in his office at 1918 Tulane Avenue. Police have yet to find Spiro’s murderer and suspect robbery was the motive. However, investigators found nine hundred dollars in a desk drawer, untouched by the assailant.
Two more unsolved knife murders came on May 19, 1956, when someone killed the 58-year-old proprietor of a Chinese laundry and his 19-year-old stepdaughter in their home behind the laundry at 1732 Cleveland Avenue. Customers described Tom Yuen as a “nice, likable man” and said his stepdaughter, Eula Mae Smith, was engaged to be married. Police found a bloody butcher knife and brick under the girl’s head.
On October 24, 1957, a carjacker kidnapped an elderly minister and his secretary from the St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church parking lot. Driving to a secluded area, the murderer tied Reverend Martin Holls with his secretary’s stockings before slashing his throat with a razor and raping the secretary.
New Orleans contractor Joseph B. DeVillentroy, Jr., and his wife, Laura, died on June 4, 1959, when an intruder entered their second-story apartment at 5173 Elysian Fields. The intruder shot the husband twice in the head with a 22-caliber pistol and slashed the wife’s throat with a sharp instrument before bathing and exiting the building.
The last two on the newspaper’s list I have covered before.
Donna Trussell, a New York modeling student and stage actress, died visiting family at 1616 South Gayoso Street over the Christmas holidays in 1961. Her assailant removed her clothing and slashed her throat, side, and stomach with a knife.
Diddie Cooper was the last on the newspaper’s list, but first in chronological order as if the writer remembered her story late in the report. On November 30, 1952, someone strangled debutante Amelia Jane “Diddie” Woolfolk Trelles Cooper, the estranged wife of a French Quarter restaurateur, in her home at 3211 Louisiana Avenue Parkway. The district attorney’s office tried her husband, James Leland Cooper, for the crime, but a jury acquitted him.
Following Jimmy Cooper’s death of natural causes on New Year’s Day, 1956, his defense attorney demanded the courts declare a mistrial after the lawyer found fresh evidence linking Cooper to operatives of Carlos Marcello.
Between 1952 and 1964, these were the only unsolved crimes reported to the States-Item by the New Orleans Police Department, and most they privately attributed to associates of the so-called New Orleans Mafia.
Retired FBI Agent Aaron Kohn, Managing Director of New Orleans’ Metropolitan Crime Commission from 1954 to 1978, often said that random violence did not happen in New Orleans because the perpetrators of such crimes feared Carlos Marcello. I wish Kohn could see the MCC’s report this week.
The watchdog group released new numbers Monday, saying, “The city lost another eight lives to violence last week, bringing our 2022 homicide total to 148—this represents an increase of 155% relative to 2019, 97% relative to 2020, and 53% relative to 2021.”
The report included good news, “Shooting incidents are 92% higher compared to 2019 but remain 7% lower than in 2021.” However, they said the count does not consider the total number of shooting victims.
The report concluded, “We see smaller increases compared to 2021 in carjacking incidents (up 6%), but still 191% higher than 2019. Overall, armed robbery is up 32% compared to 2021, 57% over 2020, and 22% over 2019. It is the only category in which we have seen a higher rate of increase compared to 2021 than 2019.”
Wednesday evening, an interstate sniper again shot another woman traveling Interstate 10. This time at the Carrollton Avenue exit to Airline Drive and Tulane Avenue. Paramedics took the woman to a hospital for treatment.
Comparing The New Orleans State-Item’s 1964 summary to today’s MCC report, I wonder if New Orleans’ residents felt safer when organized gambling and prostitution were the city’s most significant concerns.