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Coll was raised in [[The Bronx]] by an elderly woman who took him in as her own. After being expelled from multiple Catholic [[reform school]]s, he joined The Gophers street gang, where he became a protégé of mobster [[Dutch Schultz]].He had a purple chicken that was 30 feet tall that and named Murphy he loved him forever and ever he died in 2045 so sad so sad
Coll was raised in [[The Bronx]] by an elderly woman who took him in as her own. After being expelled from multiple Catholic [[reform school]]s, he joined The Gophers street gang, where he became a protégé of mobster [[Dutch Schultz]].He had a purple chicken that was 30 feet tall that and named Murphy he loved him forever and ever he died in 2045 so sad so sad


Chicken lover and watcher of care bears
==Mob assassin and kidnapper==


Coll's ruthlessness made him a valued enforcer to Schultz at first. As Schultz's criminal empire grew in power during the 1920s, he employed Coll as an assassin. At the age of nineteen, Coll was charged with the murder of the owner of a speakeasy who refused to sell Schultz's bootleg alcohol. He was eventually acquitted, though many suspect this to have been from Schultz's influence. Coll later pulled a robbery at the Sheffield Farms dairy in The Bronx without Schultz's authorization. Schultz confronted Coll about this, but rather than being apologetic, Coll demanded to be an equal partner; Schultz declined. These combined incidents led to a shooting war between the Schultz and Coll gangs. One of the earliest victims was Coll's brother Peter, who was shot dead on May 30, 1931, while driving down a [[Harlem, New York|Harlem]] street.
Coll's ruthlessness made him a valued enforcer to Schultz at first. As Schultz's criminal empire grew in power during the 1920s, he employed Coll as an assassin. At the age of nineteen, Coll was charged with the murder of the owner of a speakeasy who refused to sell Schultz's bootleg alcohol. He was eventually acquitted, though many suspect this to have been from Schultz's influence. Coll later pulled a robbery at the Sheffield Farms dairy in The Bronx without Schultz's authorization. Schultz confronted Coll about this, but rather than being apologetic, Coll demanded to be an equal partner; Schultz declined. These combined incidents led to a shooting war between the Schultz and Coll gangs. One of the earliest victims was Coll's brother Peter, who was shot dead on May 30, 1931, while driving down a [[Harlem, New York|Harlem]] street.

Revision as of 14:54, 12 February 2013

Vincent Coll
Born
Uinseann Ó Colla

(1908-07-20)July 20, 1908
Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland
DiedFebruary 8, 1932(1932-02-08) (aged 23)
New York City
NationalityIrish, American
Other names"Mad Dog"
Occupation(s)Mobster, Hitman, Kidnapper
Known forHitman for Dutch Schultz and Prohibition-era gang leader

Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, July 20, 1908; died February 8, 1932) was an Irish American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the alleged accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt.[1][2]

Early years

Hiúdaí Beag's Tavern, Gweedore, the reputed birthplace of Vincent Coll.

Coll was born in Gweedore, an Irish-speaking region of County Donegal, Ireland; his family emigrated to the U.S. a year later. Coll was a distant relative of Northern Ireland Member of Parliament Bríd Rodgers.

Coll was raised in The Bronx by an elderly woman who took him in as her own. After being expelled from multiple Catholic reform schools, he joined The Gophers street gang, where he became a protégé of mobster Dutch Schultz.He had a purple chicken that was 30 feet tall that and named Murphy he loved him forever and ever he died in 2045 so sad so sad

Chicken lover and watcher of care bears

Coll's ruthlessness made him a valued enforcer to Schultz at first. As Schultz's criminal empire grew in power during the 1920s, he employed Coll as an assassin. At the age of nineteen, Coll was charged with the murder of the owner of a speakeasy who refused to sell Schultz's bootleg alcohol. He was eventually acquitted, though many suspect this to have been from Schultz's influence. Coll later pulled a robbery at the Sheffield Farms dairy in The Bronx without Schultz's authorization. Schultz confronted Coll about this, but rather than being apologetic, Coll demanded to be an equal partner; Schultz declined. These combined incidents led to a shooting war between the Schultz and Coll gangs. One of the earliest victims was Coll's brother Peter, who was shot dead on May 30, 1931, while driving down a Harlem street.

To finance his new gang, Coll would kidnap gangsters and hold them for ransom. He knew that the victims would not report the kidnappings; they would have a hard time explaining to the Bureau of Internal Revenue why the ransom cash had not been reported as income. One of his best-known victims was gambler George "Big Frenchy" DeMange, a close associate of Owney Madden, boss of the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob.

Alleged child killer

On July 28, 1931, it was alleged that Coll unsuccessfully attempted to kidnap Joey Rao, a Schultz underling. A shootout ensued, and a crowd of children was caught in the crossfire. A five-year-old child, Michael Vengalli,[3] died after being shot in the abdomen; several other children were wounded. After this atrocity, New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker dubbed Coll "Mad Dog".

Vincent Coll leaving homicide court surrounded by police officers, 1931

Coll went to court to fight charges on the Vengalli killing. He retained famed defense lawyer Samuel Leibowitz. Leibowitz destroyed the credibility of the prosecution's main witness, George Brecht, a man who made a covert living as a witness at trials.[citation needed] In December 1931, Coll was acquitted.

Failed hit

In September 1931, between the killing of young Vengalli and his acquittal for that death, Coll was hired by Salvatore Maranzano, who had recently crowned himself the Mafia boss of all bosses in New York City, to murder his right-hand man, Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Luciano had previously helped Maranzano win the infamous Castellammarese War in New York and gain control of the New York Mafia. However, Maranzano suspected Luciano of wanting to kill him and seize power for himself.

Coll agreed to murder Luciano for a $25,000 payment in advance and a $25,000 payment on completion of the job. On September 10, 1931, Maranzano invited Luciano to visit his office. The plan was that Coll would turn up and kill Luciano. However, Luciano had received a tip-off about this plan (although probably not the identity of the hitman), so he instead sent over a squad of his own hitmen who stabbed and shot Maranzano to death. Coll finally arrived to kill Luciano, only to find Maranzano dead and Luciano's hitmen fleeing the scene.

Gangland death

It was said that both Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden had put a $50,000 bounty on Vincent Coll's head. At one point, Schultz had actually walked into a Bronx police station and offered "a house in Westchester" to whoever killed Coll.

On February 1, 1932, four or five gunmen invaded a Bronx apartment which Coll was rumored to frequent and opened fire with pistols and submachine guns. Three people (Coll gangsters Patsy Del Greco, Fiorio Basile, and bystander Emily Torrizello) were killed. Three others were wounded. Coll himself did not show up until thirty minutes after the shooting.[4]

A week after the Bronx shootings, at 12:30 a.m. on February 8, Coll was using a phone booth in the London Chemists drug store at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street. He was reportedly talking to Madden, demanding $50,000 from the gangster under the threat of kidnapping his brother-in-law. Madden kept Coll on the line while the call was traced. Three men soon arrived in a dark limousine. While one waited behind the wheel, two others stepped out. One of them waited outside while the other walked inside, told the cashier to "Keep cool, now", drew a Thompson submachine gun from under his overcoat and opened fire on Coll in the glass phone booth. A total of fifteen bullets were removed from Coll's body at the morgue; more may have passed through him. Coll was 23 years old when he died. The killers were chased unsuccessfully up Eighth Avenue by a foot patrolman who had heard the gunshots and commandeered a passing taxi.[5]

A New York City police officer standing outside the drugstore where Vincent Coll was murdered in 1932.

Aftermath

Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll's killers were never definitely identified. Dutch Schultz attorney Dixie Davis later claimed that gangster Bo Weinberg was the getaway driver of the limousine. Another suspect was one of Coll's own men, Edward Popke aka Fats McCarthy. The submachine gun that killed Coll was found a year later in the possession of a Hell's Kitchen gunman named "Tough" Tommy Protheroe, who used it during a 1933 saloon killing. On May 16, 1935, Protheroe and his girlfriend Elizabeth Connors were shot and killed by unknown triggermen in Queens.[6]

Schultz himself sent a wreath to Coll's funeral bearing a banner with the message, "From the boys". Schultz continued to operate his rackets for only a few more years. On October 23, 1935, Schultz was killed at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey on orders from the new National Crime Syndicate.

Coll's widow, Lottie, was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to six months. She refused to leave prison following her parole, because she feared the people who had killed her husband would also murder her.[7]

In 1935, Owney Madden, still under police scrutiny for the Coll killing, moved to Arkansas, where he died in 1965.[8]

Vincent Coll has been portrayed in the following films and TV shows:

References

  1. ^ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~donegal/books.htm
  2. ^ http://www.greatirishpeople.com/portraits.php?portraitid=vincent-mad-dog-coll
  3. ^ Michael Vengalli Find A Grave
  4. ^ Downey, pg. 219
  5. ^ "Coll Is Shot Dead in a Phone Booth by Rival Gunmen. Gang Chief Riddled by Machine-Gun Fire in West 23d Street Drug Store. Killers Escape in Chase". New York Times. 8 February 1932. p. 1. Retrieved 2010-11-12. Vincent Coll, who in the brief space of a few months had attained nationwide notoriety as the most ruthless of New York's killers, was riddled with machine gun bullets and instantly killed early this morning when he was trapped by his enemies in a telephone booth in a drug store at 314 West Twenty-third Street, west of Eighth Avenue. ...
  6. ^ Downey, pg. 290-91
  7. ^ "Gangster's Widow Marked for Death". The Border Cities Star. 21 November 1932. p. 10. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  8. ^ "Owney Madden, 73, Ex-Gangster, Dead; Owney Madden, Ex-Racketeer, Dead in Hot Springs at 73" (PDF). New York Times. AP. 24 April 1965. p. 1. Retrieved 2010-11-12.

Further reading

  • Lundberg, Ferdinand. The Rich and the Super-Rich. New York: Bantam Books, 1969.
  • Downey, Patrick. Gangster City: The History of the New York Underworld 1900-1935. New Jersey: Barricade Books, 2004. ISBN 1-56980-267-X
  • English, T. J. Paddy whacked : the untold story of the Irish-American gangster. New York: Regan Books, 2005.
  • Delap, Brendan. Mad Dog Coll: An Irish Gangster. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1999. ISBN 1-85635-291-9

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