Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll

 

Vincent was born July 20, 1908 in Ireland and grew up in Bronx, New York. His mother died when he was young, and his father deserted the family. Having spent most of his youth in institutions, Vincent got involved in criminal activities at an early age.

 

He graduated from petty crimes to becoming a top enforcer for Dutch Schultz by the late 1920s. After a disagreement with his boss, Vincent started his own gang and attempted to muscle in on Schultz’s operations. This started a major street war in 1931 leaving corpses splattered all over New York City.

 

After a botched drive-by shooting in July 1931 left a five-year-old child dead, Vincent Coll became the most wanted man in the nation. The front pages of major newspapers dubbed him as “Mad Dog Coll.”

 

After he was captured, his legendary attorney, Sam Leibowitz, got him off! But Coll managed to get himself killed weeks later as he was machine-gunned while inside a telephone booth.

 

Lottie Kreisberger Coll

 

When anyone talks about gun molls, names like Bonnie Parker or Virginia Hill are mentioned. But it is rare that someone would mention Lottie Coll. But they should! Not only was Lottie around before these other two celebrity gun molls, but she was calling a lot of the shots when Mad Dog Coll’s gang was involved in a heavy street war with the Dutch Schultz mob.

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Born as Charlotte Denninger in New York in 1899, Lottie married Samuel Kreisberg in 1917 and had a daughter the following year. Not long after, the couple got a divorce and the Sam taking custody of their daughter. In the meantime, Lottie was arrested for burglary and was making her way around town.

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After involvements with Adolph Romano and Sam Medal, Lottie connected with Vincent Coll, sometime around 1930. She was arrested with Coll in October 1931 and herself charged with violation of the Sullivan Act. When the detectives caught them in a hotel, Lottie, being the loyal gun moll, claimed the gun found in the room belonged to her. It was not until this time that Lottie entered the public eye, as a result of being the girlfriend of Mad Dog Coll.

 

Although she took the name of Lottie Coll, she was never officially married to Vincent. They applied for a New York City Marriage License in January 1932, but never completed the process. Still, the press referred to her as the wife of Mad Dog Coll!

 

In 1933, not long after Mad Dog’s death, Lottie was arrested for her participation in the accidental shooting of an innocent bystander in the Bronx. She served roughly 10 years at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

 

After she was paroled in 1943, Lottie disappeared and a bench warrant was issued for violation of parole. It was reported that she was never heard from since. But interesting hints have recently surfaced.

 

Peter Coll

 

Peter was born in 1907 in Ireland and was very close with his younger brother, Vincent. They were sent together to some of the same institutions, where Peter was looked after by his rougher and tougher younger brother.

 

The two brothers lived together with their aunt in The Bronx and were eventually taken in by their older sister, Florence, who was married to Joseph Reddan.

 

Peter was arrested twice in 1924, first for automobile theft, then for robbery. In April 1929, he was picked up for impersonating a police officer. On June 14, 1930 he was caught with unlawful possession of alcohol and ended up paying a small fine. His final arrest was on April 21, 1931 for illegal possession of a firearm.

 

While out of bail, he was shot on killed while driving home the morning of May 30, 1931. 

 

Frank Giordano

 

Frank Giordano was born in New York in 1900.  His parents were Italian immigrants and the family lived in the Bronx.  Frank’s background was surprising, as he was a performer.  He worked as a dancer and acrobat, performing under the name of Frank Jordan and appeared with various acts over the years of 1925 – 1926.  It is hard to establish why and when he got mixed up with the Dutch Schultz mob, but when Vincent Coll splintered off, Frank joined him in the revolt. 

 

Frank Giordano was identified as one of the participants in the July 28, 1931 drive-by shooting in East Harlem that resulted in the murder of five-year-old Michael Vengalli.

 

Following a nationwide manhunt for Mad Dog Coll and his gang, Frank was captured in October, 1931 at the Maison Apartments in Manhattan.  In addition to being charged with the East Harlem murder, evidence was found in his room linking him the murder of Joe Mullins, one of Schultz’s men, in the Bronx just two days earlier. 

 

Giordano, along with Tuffy Odierno, was convicted for the first degree murder of Mullins, and sentenced to the death penalty. 

 

Already sentenced to death, Frank was brought back into court to stand trial for the East Harlem murder! This was the first time someone already condemned to the death penalty was tried for another crime. What were they going to do, send him to the electric chair twice? 

 

After receiving a stay of execution, Giordano made one last-ditch effort to save his hide. On June 30, 1932, he admitted his participation in the East Harlem shooting, and volunteered that Vincent Coll was indeed one of the shooters. This information was irrelevant by then, since Coll was already dead. However, when his appeal for mercy was denied, he retracted the statement just before his execution on July 1, 1932. 

 

 

Dominick “Tuffy” Odierno

 

Dominick “Tuffy” Odierno was born in 1911, on of 5 children to Italian immigrants.  His father was a junk dealer and the family lived in the Bronx. Tuffy was a member of the Schultz mob and joined Coll when he jumped ship. 

 

Tuffy was arrested at the Cornish Arms Hotel in October 1932, along with Coll. He was charged as the triggerman in the murder of Joe Mullins in the Bronx, convicted and sentenced to the death penalty.

 

Dominick “Tuffy” Odierno was executed in the electric chair on July 1, 1932.

 

Pasquale “Patsy” Del Greco

 

Patsy was born in 1903, the son of Italian immigrants. One of __ children. Growing up in the Bronx, he took up with the street toughs and worked for the Schultz mob during the prohibition years. Del Greco was one of the loyalists who followed Vincent Coll when he broke away from Schultz and was a key lieutenant in the Coll gang. 

 

During the October 1932 roundup of the Coll gang, Patsy was captured along with Mike Basile at the Hotel Ladonia in Manhattan. 

 

He was killed on February 1, 1932, when gunmen burst into a Bronx apartment and fatally shot him. He is buried at St. Raymond’s Cemetery. 

 

Edward Popke AKA Fats McCarthy

 

Wanted for participating in the July 28, 1931 East Harlem shooting. 

 

When detectives raided the Cornish Arms October 4, 1931, Fats escaped by climbing out a window. 

 

October 19, 1931, Fats was hiding out with Enrico Battaglia in a rooming house at 154 W. 78th Street, Manhattan.  Battaglia was wanted for a 1928 murder and spotted by an NYPD detective.  After cops raiding their room, a shootout followed where Battaglia was shot, but Fats shot and kills a policeman, Guido Passagno. 

 

July 11, 1932, Fats was shot during a gun battle with police who raided a cottage off Dorlyn Rd. in Colonie that afternoon. NYPD Harold F. Moore shot Fats.  Captured in the raid were Mike Basile, Fats’s wife, Jean, and George Kelly.

 

Michael Basile

 

Mike was born in the Bronx in March 1908, the tenth child born to the Basile family. He was arrested in the October 1931 roundup of the Coll gang, but released shortly thereafter.

 

On July 11, 1932, while was hiding out with Fats McCarthy and George Kelly up in Albany, Mike was involved in a shootout with police, resulting in his arrest. Charged with attempted murder in the first degree, he was found guilty and sentenced on January 4, 1933 to a 17 to 30 year term at Clinton Prison.

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Louis Basile

 

Louis was Mike’s older brother, born in the Bronx in 1902. He served a short stretch in Sing Sing Prison when he was sentenced on March 8, 1922 for the crime of grand larceny in the second degree. Louis was also present at 1216 Commonwealth Avenue, in the Bronx on February 1, 1932, when gunmen shot the place up. He escaped with some injuries.

 

Louis Bifano

 

Louis was born January 30, 1907 in New York City. His listed occupation was that of a chauffeur. Louis’s brother, Dominick was a member of the Legs Diamond gang, and it is speculated that the two brothers were instrumental in brokering an alliance between the Coll and Diamond organizations. Louis was arrested during the July 1931 raid on White’s Farm up in Cairo, New York. He received a 2 to 4-year sentence.

 

Louis died April 1974 while living in Bronx, New York.

 

Frank Facchiano

 

Frank was born October 7, 1897 and grew up in the Bronx. He got married in 1920, had two children, and worked as a railway conductor before falling in with Coll’s gang. 

 

Frank was with the gang that was arrested in the October 1931 raid of the cottage in Averill Park, New York.  He was tried along with Joe Reddan and William King on July 20, 1932 at the Rensselaer County Court in Troy.

 

Frank moved his family down to Florida, where he worked as an attendant at a service station.

 

He died March 31, 2000, living until the age of 102!

 

Arthur Palumbo

 

On July 16, 1932, Palumbo, along with two others broke out of Westchester County Penitentiary, stole a car and was recaptured in Alpine, New Jersey.  On April 5, 1933, he was sentenced to 15 years in Sing Sing.  In later years, Palumbo is reported to have become a member of the Genovese Crime Family.

 

Vincent “Jimmie” DeLucia

 

DeLucia owned a speakeasy in Upper Manhattan called the Mad Dot Boat Club. Vincent Coll muscled his way in as a partner until the club was shut down in May 1931.

 

DeLucia relocated to Upstate New York around the Albany area. He ended up running a soda shop with his wife, Agnes, in Watervliet, New York. Some sources believe that DeLucia helped put Vincent Coll and Legs Diamond together.

 

According to the published account of how the Coll gang was taken down in October 1931, DeLucia was the first captured. He was in New York City and assigned to get rid of the automobile used in recent attacks on Dutch Schultz’s warehouses. After he was taken in, it was reported that detectives found a note in his pocket, indicating where members of the gang were staying. However, it is more likely that he cracked under the pressure of the interrogation and willingly told all, since he was never charged with a crime.

 

DeLucia relocated to the West Coast shortly thereafter.

 

Roy Herbert Sloane – born in Washington, DC.

 

His mother, Anna Bogenholm Sloane was an author and lecturer.  Founder of Arts and Crafts Institute in Washington. 

 

Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and Columbia University. 

 

On July 1926, Sloane was caught behind the wheel of a stolen car. 

 

On March 1927, Roy Herbert Sloane was sentenced to serve 10 years in Sing Sing for car theft.  While serving time, he got caught in possession of brass knuckles and added another 7 years to his sentence.  While in prison, Sloane studied law.  In March 1929, when two other convicts admitted to the car thefts, Sloane was acquitted on that charge, but the possession of brass knuckles still held. 

 

November 12, 1929, Sloane was put in solitary confinement, for being a ringleader in a planned prison break. 

 

Defending himself, Sloane successfully presented his case that this charge was only a misdemeanor, where his sentence was based on a felony charge.  He won the case and was released in December 1930. 

 

In February, 1931 Sloane was arrested for attempting to steal several thousands of dollars worth of diamonds from Karos and Stein at 562 Fifth Avenue, and released on $20,000 bail. 

 

Shot and killed May 12, 1931.