Genna, Angelo (1898-1925)

Born Marsala, Sicily, Feb. 3, 1898.

Killed Chicago, IL, May 26, 1925.

Angelo Genna was born Feb. 3, 1898, in Marsala, Sicily, to Antonino and Mary Sancore Genna. He and his brothers entered the U.S. through New York around 1910. Angelo arrived in New York harbor on Aug. 5, 1914, aboard the S.S. Venezia. He was on his way to meet his brother Pietro, of 870 Blue Island Avenue in Chicago.

The Gennas became a close knit Marsala-based Mafia and bootlegging gang. They were closely allied with the more Americanized Spingola family of Chicago. Their gang feuded with the budding underworld organization of Alphonse Capone through the early 1920s.

The conflict was a bloody one. Angelo Genna was tried and acquitted for one murder, accused but not prosecuted in another murder. Beginning in November of 1923, he served a sentence of one year and one day in Leavenworth Prison for intimidating a witness.

Genna married Lucille Spingola, sister of his ally and business partner Peter Spingola on Jan. 10, 1925. The wedding was lavish, with three thousand guests and a two-thousand-pound wedding cake.

On May 26, 1925, Genna was shot numerous times as he drove his automobile. With serious wounds to his head and neck, he crashed the car into a lamp post at Hudson and Ogden Avenues. He was conscious as he arrived at the Evangelical Deaconess Hospital. Police urged him to tell who shot him. Genna merely shrugged. He died shortly afterward, as his brother Sam, wife and brother-in-law arrived at his bedside.

Genna was buried May 29, 1925, in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Chicago.

More of the Gennas lost their lives in the days ahead, and the remaining brothers fled Chicago. Their departure allowed the Aiello clan - originally from Bagheria, Sicily - to dominate the Sicilian underworld of the region.

Related links:

•  Crime boss listing - Mafiahistory.us.
•  Genna's Cook County IL death certificate
•  Writers of Wrongs: Chicago's Genna is laid to rest.

Anselmi, Albert (1883-1929)

Born Marsala, Sicily, July 15, 1883.

Killed Cicero, IL, May 7, 1929.

Anselmi was a bootlegger and enforcer in the Genna Brothers Mafia Family in Chicago who later became an important figure in the Al Capone Outfit. He was widely suspected of involvement in the 1924 murder of North Side gang boss Dean O'Banion.

In the mid-1920s, Anselmi and his perpetual companion John Scalisi appeared to pull away from the Genna Mafia and join an independent Sicilian underworld organization led by Samuzzo Amatuna and Orazio Tropea. Mike Genna was killed in a shootout with police June 13, 1925, while in the company of Anselmi and Scalisi. The two men subsequently became allies of Al Capone.

Between 1925 and 1927, Anselmi and Scalisi battled cop-killing charges arising from the shooting deaths of two Chicago detectives. After three trials, in which the defendants argued that they used deadly force against the police officers only in self-defense, the two men were freed.

Some believe that Capone used Anselmi, Scalisi and others to execute the St. Valentine's Day massacre of Bugs Moran's men. Scalisi was indicted for participating in the massacre, but he was never tried.

Just three months after that bloody event, Anselmi, Scalisi and Joseph Guinta were found dead in Indiana. The accepted legend is that Capone discovered the the three Sicilian men, all known as Capone supporters, were plotting against him. Capone reportedly held a lavish dinner in their honor at Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, IL, and personally beat them to death with a baseball bat.

The bodies of the three men - badly beaten and shot - were found within an automobile on May 8, 1929.

See also:

•  Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone by John Kobler.