New book explores News Orleans’ Dixie Mafia links
In the 1980s, I began interviewing retired police officers and service workers who worked at businesses linked to reputed organized crime families. Over time, I found those most willing to share were retired burlesque dancers and bartenders from mob-connected clubs. That interview project became the Carnal Knowledge book series, and this week, we released the first in that series, Dirty Phenix: Birth of the Dixie Mafia.
Was New Orleans safer under mob control?
Comparing The New Orleans State-Item’s 1964 summary of unsolved crimes to today’s Metropolitan Crime Commission report, I wonder if New Orleans’ residents felt safer when organized gambling and prostitution were the city’s most significant concerns.
Did Covington hitman kill New Orleans hairstylist?
On August 11, 1980, Roy L. Cooper, 51, brother of Covington Mayor Ernest Cooper, shot and killed his daughter’s former boyfriend, Charles Olan Thrash, 52, a career criminal and reputed Dixie Mafia hitman.
When Thrash died, investigators lost their prime suspect in two notable murder cases. In May 1983, Mobile, Alabama District Attorney Chris Galanos closed the 1973 unsolved murder of newspaper editor Arch McKay, telling associates he felt convinced the late hitman killed him. “We don’t know who hired him killed or why,” he told reporters that same week, “But we’re certain we ...
Dixie Mafia con artists extorted Carlos Marcello
This report wraps up our 4-part series on the mysteries surrounding the murder of Jefferson Downs jockey James Sibille, and this chapter begins as the first, inside the 1975 racketeering trial of reputed mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello.