Partners In Crime

By Max Alexander (From Reader's Digest)

This new Bonnie and Clyde robbed $500,000 from a half-dozen banks, then lived the highlife on the lam.

Gifted
For winter recreation, it doesn't get much better than Mt. Bachelor, with its 3,365-foot vertical drop and 350 annual inches of snow. The Oregon ski resort has it all when you throw in some kick-off-your-shoes nightlife; the area's Upper Castle Keep Lounge warns, "Choose one of our other facilities if you can't handle too much fun!"

But too much fun wasn't a problem for good-looking Brent Wilson "Wil" Hicks and his athletic girlfriend, Alex Santini. The couple pulled into nearby Bend in December 1998, anticipating a fast-paced season of snowboarding and partying. An Internet stock trader, Hicks could work anywhere that had a high-speed connection for his laptop. After renting a two-month condo, paying $1,800 cash for ski passes and joining the local Gold's Gym, Hicks and Santini settled into a daily routine of a little work, and a lot of play.

At night in the Lounge, the couple made friends with Carey Black, a cocktail waitress, who didn't know that Hicks, whose real name was Craig Pritchert, was in fact a career criminal and a wanted man. At age 37, he'd already done time for bank robbery. Santini was Nova Guthrie, a 25-year-old college grad with no criminal record but a taste for high living. Over 16 months from 1997 to 1999, authorities now say, Craig, often with Nova's help, pulled off precision, armed "takedown" heists in banks from Oregon to Texas, netting as much as half a million dollars. The robberies earned them comparisons to Bonnie and Clyde, the bank-robbing lovers who eluded cops for four years before perishing in a rain of police bullets in 1934.

Shortly after arriving in Bend, Craig and Nova began checking out the Klamath First Federal Bank. It was the kind of bank Craig liked: in a small town without a lot of cops and across from a busy shopping center, where a getaway car could blend in quickly. Best of all, it was open until six on Fridays -- after dark during winter.

On a Friday in late February, Nova was behind the wheel of a silver Subaru that pulled into the parking lot of the Timbers Bar & Grill, just down the street from the bank. It was just before six, and as darkness settled in, authorities allege that Craig donned a latex mask-and-wig likeness of a bearded old man. He grabbed a walkie-talkie and a white canvas bag, zipped up his ski parka and headed for the bank. Nova stayed in the car with the other walkie-talkie and a police scanner. Her job was to listen for the words "211 in progress" -- cop code for a bank robbery -- then alert Craig.

But Craig didn't give the bank's three employees time to trip silent police alarms. He burst in wielding a semiautomatic handgun and ordered manager Bill Olsen to lock the door. "At first I thought it was a joke," says Olsen, "but he got my attention when he cocked the gun and threatened to blow my head off." This was not the Craig who charmed waitresses and swapped stock tips at the bar. "Every other word was an obscenity," Olsen recalls. "He knew how to terrorize."

Craig told the operations officer, Rhonda Dent, to draw the shade over the drive-up window and open the vault. As Dent filled a bank bag, Craig ordered Olsen and teller Laurie Morin to their knees, and bound their hands and ankles with plastic flex ties. When Dent couldn't cram any more bills into the bank bag, Craig whipped out another and demanded she fill that one too. Then he tied up Dent, grabbed both bags and bolted out a side door. It was over almost as soon as it began.

Back in their condo, Craig and Nova counted $120,000 in cash. It was a stunning haul, but their day's work wasn't done. Craig lit the wood stove and tossed in the mask, the remaining flex ties and his ski jacket. On Saturday, he got rid of the radios. On Sunday, in what seemed an amazingly generous gesture, the couple gave Carey Black, their friendly cocktail waitress, the title to their silver Subaru. Then they disappeared in a BMW.

Even before he met Nova, Craig had been eluding cops, and baffling those close to him, for years. Raised in a middle-class, Catholic family in Scottsdale, Arizona, Craig stood out from the crowd -- and not just because he was handsome and gregarious. He was a gifted outfielder and switch-hitter at Coronado High School; the team won the state baseball championship in his senior year. There he met his future wife, Laurie, a pretty blond cheerleader and the homecoming queen. "He said all the right things," recalls Laurie. "You felt like he knew so much."

After graduating, Craig played in a summer league with future batting champ Mark McGwire; at Arizona State University in 1982 (a year after he and Laurie married), he landed on a dream team with Barry Bonds and other soon-to-be major-leaguers. With Craig on track to be a high draft pick for the majors, he and Laurie settled down to raise a family, ultimately having three kids.

But Craig couldn't keep his eye on the ball, so to speak. Frustrated with sitting on the bench as Bonds and other heavyweights took the field, he dropped out of ASU after one year. He could have transferred to another Division I school or simply cooled his heels, waiting for Bonds to move on. "He had no patience," says Laurie.

Beneath Craig's charismatic exterior was a controlling, manipulative person who craved danger. Unbeknownst to his wife, he had been living a life of petty crime and deception for years. "He gets off on it," says Laurie. "I found out that in high school he was stealing tires off cars at fancy dealerships, and then selling them at a swap meet the next day."

Perfect Partner
Tire theft escalated to more daring crimes during the late '80s, when the couple separated, in part because of what Laurie says was Craig's repeated infidelity. He seemed to enjoy taunting her, at one point frolicking in the hot tub of her apartment complex with another woman. While she worked full-time as a bank teller to support her kids, her estranged husband was robbing banks to support his taste for the good life. Laurie once spotted him driving a silver Porsche Carrera.

The couple divorced in 1990, and later that year the FBI caught up with Craig in Honolulu, where he'd relocated with a girlfriend. Arrested and convicted of robbing a Las Vegas bank in April of that year, Craig served five years in Arizona's Black Canyon federal penitentiary. There he read The Wall Street Journal every day and dreamed of making a fast buck as a day trader when he got out.

After his 1996 release, during a visit with his kids, he told Laurie's second husband, John Pulzato, that robbery was like a drug -- and it was his drug of choice. "There is no better high," Craig said, describing how he would sit in his car before a heist and pump himself up, like an athlete getting ready for the big game.

Clearly, he hadn't put crime behind him, which became evident soon enough. On August 12, 1997, investigators say, Craig held up a Scottsdale Norwest Bank. That same day, Laurie was working as a teller at a Norwest branch in nearby Mesa. She believes his choice of banks was no coincidence.

That afternoon, local cops came close to nabbing their man during a spectacular getaway that included a diversionary car fire and a cat-and-mouse chase through a luxury shopping mall, with Craig buying -- and changing -- clothes several times. In the end, the cops found Craig's car, strewn with wads of cash and a bank money-tracking device -- but no Craig. A few weeks later, the bank robber walked into a restaurant in Farmington, New Mexico, and met Nova.

She was a dark-haired beauty from the tiny rural town of Boone, Colorado. Her steelworker dad and schoolteacher mom were strict Christian fundamentalists, and Nova showed little sign of straying from the flock. A member of the National Honor Society as well as the Christian Student Fellowship in high school, she went on to earn a premed degree from Morningside College in Iowa. "She was very intelligent," says her college roommate, Tina Laskie. Laskie says Nova attended church on campus, but also had a bit of a wild side. "She wasn't afraid to get dirty, and she didn't let anybody push her around."

But why did she throw it all away for a life of crime? Family members can offer little more than sighs of disbelief. Was it true love? Perhaps, but people who know Craig believe Nova was swept up by his forceful personality. "He could sell ice to Eskimos," says John Pulzato.

When she met Craig, Nova was helping her brother Gerald sell vacuum-cleaning supplies in New Mexico. Although Craig was 12 years older, she once said she saw something in him that matched something in her. For his part, Craig has said he had never met any woman like her.

Craig had a reputation as a ladies' man, but as far as cops knew, he had always kept his love life and his crime life separate. Yet Nova became Craig's perfect partner in love -- and crime.

Their spree began on Halloween 1997 when cops say Craig and Nova, along with an accomplice still at large, held up a Bank of the Southwest branch in Durango, Colorado -- cleaning the vault out of $60,000. They avoided big cities, hitting one-horse towns like Aztec, New Mexico. Nova would case a bank by going in for a money order, then studying the layout. And Craig figured out you could dunk stolen loot in a bucket of water (which Nova kept in the getaway car) to disable tracking devices. "I consider Craig one of the more intelligent bank robbers," says Tom Van Meter, a robbery detective with the Scottsdale Police Department.

But he was an even better fugitive. Using a host of fake names, bogus IDs and unstoppable charm, Craig and Nova managed to hide in plain sight -- from the slopes of Mt. Bachelor to the beaches of Belize. The money dwindled quickly, especially given Craig's appreciation for sharp clothes, watches and premium liquor. To fund their "permanent vacation," the pair continued the holdups. Thanks to several appearances on "America's Most Wanted," Craig and Nova sightings started flowing in, and FBI agents say they came close to them several times -- just not quite close enough.

Then the cops got a break. On March 8, 1999, about two weeks after the Bend heist, Nova turned herself in -- possibly following a fight with Craig. "I think I'm wanted," she told a Baptist minister, who drove her to an FBI office in Denver. During a four-hour interview with agents, she spilled the story of their life on the lam. Based on the information she gave them about Craig, all charges against her were eventually dropped, and she was allowed to leave.

Permanent Vacation
Enter Special Agent Mike Sanborn of the FBI's Fugitive Task Force in Phoenix, a burly ex-Marine with a nose for hard cases. Sanborn studied Nova's FBI interview, searching for clues. The couple often stayed in Super 8 Motels, so he sent photos of the pair to every Super 8 in the country. When Craig's oldest son played in the state high school baseball playoffs, the stadium was swarming with FBI agents and local cops. But Craig never showed. "It was my feeling they weren't in the country anymore," says Sanborn.

The special agent now believes that after Craig and Nova hooked up again, they fled to Belize. There they spent about eight months on the island of Ambergris Caye, a snorkeling and fishing paradise. With robbery money running low, Nova probably worked in a local restaurant, while Craig occupied himself day-trading. Eventually, agents say, Craig and Nova moved farther afield, spending time in London, Athens and Cyprus. After the September 11 attacks, Sanborn figures, the couple decided it would be too risky to re-enter the United States, given tighter security checks. But where in the world were they?

In July 2003, four years after Nova's disappearance, Sanborn got a tip that the pair was seen at a nightspot in Cape Town, South Africa. The tipster said Nova was working at the Bossa Nova Club under the name Andi Brown. Sanborn thought it was far-fetched at first, "but several things made sense," he recalls. Nova had worked as a waitress before, and often used aliases that were "four-letter names." So he e-mailed the FBI's legal attaché in Pretoria and asked about Cape Town.

"I got a one-sentence response," says Sanborn: "Cape Town is a fugitive haven." In less time than it takes to park at the airport, Sanborn "Googled" a website for the Bossa Nova that included hundreds of photos from theme parties, where costume-clad regulars and employees danced the night away. "I got to about picture 300, and there she was, plain as day."

The photo, labeled "Giorgos & Andi," shows an attractive, dark-haired woman, smiling cheek-to-cheek with club owner Giorgos Karipidis. But Sanborn had never met Nova in person, and he needed to be sure. "I sent the photo to the Denver agents who had interviewed her, and they said, 'Hey, nice picture of Nova. Where'd you get it?' "

Sanborn then assigned undercover agents from the FBI along with South African police to stake out the club. (South Africa has an extradition treaty with the United States.) Andi had an American accent, agents noticed, and a large sunburst tattoo on the small of her back -- just like Nova's. But Craig was nowhere to be seen. Then, Craig -- or "Dane," as he was known around the bar -- walked in. When he greeted "Andi" warmly, the jig was up. "The two of them hugged and kissed," says Sanborn, who was directing the stakeout via cell phone from Phoenix, 10,000 miles away.

Four nights later, South African police arrested Craig and Nova without incident as they were sitting down to a dinner of Chinese takeout in their $325-a-month sparsely furnished apartment in a mixed oceanside neighborhood. Cops found a pile of fake passports in the apartment, but no guns -- or wads of cash. "They were living near the poverty level," one of the arresting agents observed.

Bossa Nova owner Karipidis, who says he frequently loaned cash to Craig and Nova, had become close with them during their two-year stay. When he heard they'd been arrested, "I thought it was a joke," he recalls. He says Nova managed the club and had access to his bank codes and accounts. "They could have taken close to half a million dollars," he explains. "It seems obvious to me they came here to change." They left in handcuffs -- after a final embrace that Karipidis arranged through a friend in Immigration.

It was likely their last kiss. Nova, now in custody near Denver, pleaded guilty in May to three robberies and will get a sentence of up to 20 years, but could serve much less. The following month, Craig, while being held in Arizona, also pleaded guilty to three counts of armed robbery, as well as a gun charge. He is looking at 20 to 22½ years behind bars.

Karipidis says Craig and Nova's crime-free life in South Africa should be considered by prosecutors or parole boards. "They're not the same people they were," he says. "And they never hurt anybody."

Laurie Pulzato, who no longer works as a bank teller after being robbed at gunpoint herself, disagrees. "The mental duress during robbery is extreme," she says. "What flashes through your mind is your kids, and you're just praying, Please don't kill me." She says Craig's real victims are their children, who've spent years being stigmatized in classrooms and on the same baseball diamonds where Craig once shone, because of their father's misdeeds.

It's not too much of a stretch to view Nova as yet another of Craig's victims. "He feels responsible for her," says Karipidis, who spoke to Craig in prison. "He feels he's the one who got her into trouble."

But Nova's mother says blaming Craig is too easy. "Had she served the Lord and not strayed from what she knew," says Delores Guthrie, "this would not have happened." Nova's brother Gerald puts it another way: "We all follow a path, don't we? He had a life to lead, and she had a choice to follow."

Married To The Mob: Mafia Wives And Mistresses

By Anthony Bruno (Source)

Behind Closed Doors
In an episode of the hit television series “The Sopranos” the fictional mob boss Tony Soprano scrambles to collect all the cash he has at home. He grabs a ladder and goes to his hiding place in the house, pulling thick packets of money from behind the ceiling panels. His long-suffering but ever-loyal wife, Carmela, holds a plastic garbage bag open as he drops his stash into it. At no point does she ever ask where all this money came from, nor does she seem surprised that it’s there. Like all good Mafia wives—the real ones included—Carmela “doesn’t wanna know nothin’.” A mob wife’s operating principle is simple: As long as her husband can bring in enough income to support his family and maintain a respectable lifestyle, the wife doesn’t care to know where it all came from. And if she’s smart, she won’t ask.

Most mafia wives exist in a unique state of denial. To the outside world, these women swear that their husbands are not thieves and killers. They’re businessmen and independent contractors harassed by law enforcement because they happen to be of Italian descent and are therefore unfairly tarred with the Mafia brush. But among themselves, Mafia wives exhibit a different kind of denial. Generally they all know what their husbands do for a living, even if they aren’t always privy to the specific scams. But even with each other, these women rarely acknowledge the obvious. They might socialize together, shop together, discuss their kids and share their personal problems, but they rarely discuss mob business.

Karen Hill, wife of Lucchese family associate Henry Hill, who was the subject of the best-selling book Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi, recalled her first encounter with other mob wives on a visit to their husbands in prison: “They knew the good prisons and the bad ones. They never talked about what their husbands had done to get sent to jail. That just wasn’t ever a part of the conversation. What they discussed was how the prosecutors and the cops lied. How people picked on their husbands. How their husbands had done something everybody was doing but had just had the bad luck to get caught.”

Like their husbands who must abide by the rules of omerta, the Mafia code of silence, in order to survive and prosper, Mafia wives follow their own code of silence. Large houses, luxury cars, expensive clothes, lavish restaurant meals and generous amounts of spending money ensure that their lips remain sealed. As long as the goodies keep coming, the wives don’t ask and they don’t tell.

Every member of law enforcement interviewed for this story declined to go on the record with their opinions and observations about the mates of Mafiosi, but they all agreed that Mafia wives are not as innocent of their husbands’ doings as they often claim. These officers’ intimate knowledge of life inside a wiseguy’s home mostly comes from telephone wiretaps. An investigation of a given mobster can generate hundreds of hours of secretly taped telephone conversations, and the officers and prosecutors who monitor these tapes learn a lot about domestic life inside a mobster’s family. However, only material pertinent to the charges brought against the accused can be used in a court of law and thus released to the public. Everything else is sealed. So when it comes to the details of Mafia wives, law enforcement knows but cannot say.

The Wives of "Trigger Mike"
According to an old Sicilian saying, wives should be kept at home, barefoot and pregnant. The updated version says that a wife should see only the kitchen and the bedroom ceiling. As misogynistic as these sentiments are, they are the underlying rules of many Mafia marriages. Ann Coppola, the second wife of New York capo Michael “Trigger Mike” Coppola, suffered much more than most. Her husband added “bloody” to the list of things a good mob wife should be.

Coppola, who was known for his violent temper, ran lucrative narcotics and numbers operations in Harlem in the 1940s and ‘50s. He married his second wife Ann Augustine in 1955 after the tragic passing of his first wife Doris. He told Ann that Doris died in childbirth, but it wasn’t long before Ann had reason to suspect that Doris’s death was more sinister than “Trigger Mike” had revealed.

When Ann became pregnant, Coppola told her emphatically that he didn’t want any more kids. He’d had two by Doris, and Ann’s daughter by a previous marriage was living with them as well. As reported by organized crime historian Allan May, Coppola told Ann not to worry. “Just leave everything to me,” he assured her.

One day after the children had gone off to school, a physician came to the house. Coppola greeted him at the door and showed him in, introducing him to Ann simply as “Dr. D.” The doctor spread a sheet over the kitchen table and performed an abortion on Ann while Coppola stood by and watched, grinning throughout the entire procedure. Afterward, he made sure that Ann knew that the abortion had cost him $1,000.

Three months later, Ann was pregnant again, and Dr. D returned. Once again Trigger Mike watched the whole thing, obviously enjoying it. Two more abortions followed. Ann came to realize that the only reason her husband had sex with her was to get her pregnant so that he could watch the abortions. Perhaps Doris, whose remains were cremated at Coppola’s insistence, had had one abortion too many.

Ann endured regular beatings from her husband, but he also lavished her with fine clothes and jewelry. “He gave me this vast amount of material things,” she said, recalling her marriage, “to prove to people how big and successful he was and to feed his ego until he himself believed that he was God Almighty.” He once blackened both her eyes by poking them simultaneously with his index and middle fingers Three Stooges-style.

After five years of unspeakable abuse, Ann finally walked out on him and filed for divorce. At about the same time, Coppola was indicted on four counts of tax evasion. He pleaded guilty on orders from the mob hierarchy, who feared what Ann would reveal if there was a trial and she was called to the stand. Coppola was sentenced to serve a year and a day.

While Coppola was in prison, Ann moved to Italy and took her own life one day in a hotel room, overdosing on Scotch-and-barbiturate cocktails. Among the many goodbye notes she left was a last request to be cremated and have her ashes dropped from an airplane over Trigger Mike’s house.

Ann Coppola’s marriage is an extreme example of the pitfalls of being married to the mob, but not all wiseguys are so heartless. Many gangsters have been known to treat their wives well and not just in terms of material possessions. Frequently mob wives are often charged with crimes along with their husbands, and many mobsters will agree to a plea bargain to get their wives off the hook. Reputed Bonanno family soldier John “Porky” Zancocchio was just such a goodfella when it came to his wife and family.

Zancocchio ran a major New York bookmaking operation, which, at its height, pulled down $280 million a year. Among his high-rolling clients was banished former baseball great Pete Rose. But in 1990 Zancocchio was hauled into court on federal tax evasions charges. The feds turned up the heat on Porky by charging his wife Lana with mail fraud. They also threatened to charge Porky’s mother, who had allowed her son and his capo to buy a pizzeria in her name, which they called Mama Rosa’s. Putting the women in legal jeopardy had the desired effect. Zancocchio pleaded guilty to failing to file an income tax return and was sentenced to one year in prison with a fine of $100,000.

It was a noble gesture on Porky’s part, but mobsters—and their wives—don’t always learn from their lessons. Eleven years later, in 2002, Zancocchio was again hit with tax fraud charges and so was Lana. The charges stretched from 1995 to 2000, and the combined weight of the alleged offenses made a plea bargain impossible. Both husband and wife ultimately pleaded guilty, although the charges against her were lighter. Porky faced up to 71 months in prison and fines up to $300,000. Lana could have been sentenced to 16 months, but her attorney was able to negotiate a deal where she could serve her sentence at home and continue to raise her children.

Henry Hill, the mob associate whose story was the inspiration for Martin Scorcese’s classic Mafia film, Goodfellas was blessed with a tremendously loyal wife. Hill, an associate in the Lucchese crime family, could never become a “made” member of the Mafia because he wasn’t 100% Italian, but that didn’t stop him from participating in some major crimes in the New York City area, including the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist in which more than $4 million in unmarked cash was stolen from a warehouse at Kennedy Airport.

As recounted in Pileggi’s Wiseguy, Henry’s wife Karen endured more hardships than the average American wife. When Henry was flush, life was sweet, but when his scams weren’t paying off, they had to scrounge like paupers. When Henry went away to prison, Karen was left alone to fend for herself and raise the kids. Worst of all, Henry’s cocaine dealing led to addiction, and Karen was sucked into that seductive whirl as well.

In Pileggi’s book, Karen Hill took the long view of her relationship with a mobster: “I suppose if I wrote down the pros and cons of the marriage, lots of people might think I was nuts to stay with him, but I guess we have our own needs, and they’re not added up in the columns. He and I were always excited by each other, even later, after the kids . . . I would listen to my friends talk about their marriages and I knew that for all my troubles, I still had a better deal than they did.”

The Goomatta
The inevitable bane of every mob wife’s life is her husband’s “goomatta.” Whether pronounced “goomah,” “goomar” or “goomatta,” the word is the Americanized corruption of the Italian word comare, which means “mistress” or “girlfriend.” According to the glossary in The Sopranos: A Family History, “No self-respecting wiseguy is without one.”

How a mob wife reacts when she learns of her husband’s goomatta is usually determined by the wife’s age. The younger wives tend to lash out and demand their husband’s fidelity, but in time these women learn that the goomatta is a fact of mob life. To keep the goodies—the house, the cars, the furs, the jewelry, etc.—the mob wife has to put up with the mistress. The flashy young girlfriend is a necessary accessory for a man of honor, like a Lexus or a Rolex. Having a woman on the side is a symbol of the man’s success and power. It says to the world that, not only is he potent enough to keep two women satisfied, he clearly rules the roost and doesn’t have to worry about retaliation from the woman he married.

This, at least from the man’s point of view, is the ideal. The reality, however, is sometimes quite different. Goomattas are not always pliable play things, and they aren’t always centerfold material. And it often seems that the higher in rank the mobster is, the more trouble his goomatta becomes.

Ralph Natale, former boss of Philadelphia’s Bruno-Scarfo Family, was a little too public with his goomatta, and as a result earned the resentment of many of his underlings. Natale came to power in the confusion that followed the government’s successful prosecution of his predecessor, the hard-nosed, Sicilian-born boss John Stanfa.

While serving a 16-year sentence for arson and drug convictions, Natale and his cellmate, Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, had carefully planned how they would take over the disorganized Philly mob. They agreed that Natale, the older of the two, would become the new boss. Natale, who was in his early 60s, was not a made member of the Mafia at the time, although Merlino, then 32, was. Natale’s induction ceremony took place in a hotel room near Philadelphia’s Veteran Stadium after he was paroled in 1994.

With the old boss Stanfa in prison and out of the picture, Natale and Merlino were free to realize their mob dreams. During Merlino’s 2001 trial in which the government took on the whole Philly mob for an unprecedented third time, witnesses claimed that Skinny Joey tolerated Natale because he felt that the older wiseguys wouldn’t obey him if he ever tried to take over as boss. Natale had been close to Angelo Bruno, the legendary “Docile Don” who had ruled the Philly mob for decades; Merlino needed an elder statesman to provide a figurehead while he, as underboss, ran things his way. In fact, the city of Philadelphia became Merlino’s territory because the conditions of Natale’s parole stipulated that he could not enter the city without prior approval from his parole officer. Natale was forced to run things from his home in Pennsauken, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philly.

Natale’s daughter Vanessa had a good friend who spent a lot of time at the Natale’s New Jersey home. Her name was Ruthann Seccio, a slender blonde who had seen some tough times on the streets of South Philadelphia. A former drug addict and gang member, Ruthann had turned her life around and was supporting herself as a waitress. Natale found the outspoken young woman irresistible despite the fact that she was 34 years younger and three inches taller than him.

Natale romanced Seccio shamelessly and set her up in a condominium in Voorhees, New Jersey, 10 miles from the home he shared with his wife Lucy. When Ruthann fell for him, she asked why he wouldn’t leave his wife. Natale told her that Lucy was very ill with both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, that her hearing was terrible, and that she had to wear a heart monitor all the time. After 42 years of marriage, he couldn’t just dump his wife, Natale told Ruthann. Ruthann later found out that Lucy Natale suffered from none of these afflictions.

Despite his decision to stay married, love bloomed with Ruthann. He gave her extravagant gifts—including a Cadillac and a long-haired Himalayan cat named Dusty—and took her to the best restaurants. Ruthann was so smitten she had a red rose tattooed on her left hip with the word “Ralph’s” engraved in blue underneath. But their bliss was cut short in 1998 when Natale’s parole officer caught him meeting with other mobsters at restaurants were he claimed to be selling fish, which supposedly was his legitimate job. Natale was sent back to prison for violating his parole, and he called Ruthann every day, often several times a day. He asked Joey Merlino to take care of Ruthann as well as his wife Lucy while he was away.

But what should have been a short stretch in prison turned far more serious when federal agents threatened to charge Natale with financing a methamphetamine ring. If convicted on another drug charge, Natale would spend the rest of his days behind bars. The feds made the boss an offer he apparently couldn’t refuse: testify against Merlino and the rest of the Philly mob and they’d put him in the Witness Protection Program where at least he’d have his freedom. With just five years under his belt as a man of honor, Natale decided to take their offer and rat on the mob. The government was delighted. Natale, they crowed, was the first sitting boss to turn state’s witness.

Ruthann, who in her heart would always be a street tough, was stunned when she read the headline of the Philadelphia Daily News on August 20, 2000. Her boyfriend was being called “King Rat.”

“I’d rather die than rat,” she told Daily News staff writer Kitty Caparella. “I believed in ‘death before dishonor’ long before I met Ralph.” Ruthann said she took repeated showers because she felt “dirty and violated.” Though unable to sleep, she said she sandwiched herself between mattresses to try to “keep the world out.”

Unlike Ralph’s wife, Ruthann didn’t suffer in silence, and she agreed to do interviews with several local reporters. Even though she had never been popular in Philly mob circles, she took the mob’s side against her old lover once it was revealed that he would be testifying against Merlino and four of his mob cohorts.

In April 2001, Natale took the stand for two straight weeks. He looked fit and well-rested as he recounted his criminal experiences with Merlino and the other defendants. Natale succeeded in keeping his composure for the most part, but at one point he angrily gave Merlino the finger while testifying that the younger Mafioso had reneged on a promise he had made to Natale. Merlino had discontinued the agreed-upon monthly payments to Natale’s wife Lucy ($3,500) and Ruthann ($1,000). This broken promise had apparently played a big part in Natale’s decision to turn state’s witness. Merlino and his co-defendants were ultimately convicted but not on the most serious charges brought against them.

Ruthann was offered a place in the Witness Protection Program, but she adamantly refused, and her decision was not applauded by the mobsters she had so staunchly defended. To them she was still Natale’s goomatta, and since Natale was King Rat, she was no more than the rat’s girlfriend.

Ruthann Seccio remains bitter. “I guess they don’t have a Mafia Women Support Group,” she told the Philadelphia Daily News. “That’s what I’ll start in the future for us misfits.”

"Big Paul's" Maid
From 1976 to 1985, Paul “Big Paul” Castellano was the capo di tutti capi, boss of all bosses, of New York’s Gambino crime family, then the most powerful of the city’s five families. But Castellano is remembered more for his death than for what he accomplished in life. He was gunned down in front of his favorite steakhouse in midtown Manhattan in the middle of rush hour. It was the boldest, most spectacular gangland slaying in modern mob history. Castellano’s execution was as much a statement as a power play orchestrated by John Gotti who muscled his way onto Castellano’s throne and became the next boss of all bosses.

Gotti’s main beef with Castellano was that the boss favored taking the family into legitimate businesses at the expense of the bread-and-butter rackets that are the cornerstones of mafia money-making. Specifically Gotti wanted freer reign to steal from the New York airports.

In their personal styles, the two men were worlds apart. Gotti relished the tough-guy role, quick to retaliate against anyone who stood in his way. Castellano, who was tall and gentlemanly, saw himself as a businessman, though he didn’t hesitate to use violence when he deemed it necessary. Gotti lived in a middle-class neighborhood in Queens. Castellano lived in a mansion nicknamed the White House in the exclusive Todt Hill section of Staten Island, far removed from the rough and tumble activities of his underlings. But what might have been the last straw for Gotti and his supporters was Castellano’s choice of goomatta, his Colombian maid, Gloria Olarte.

Olarte was a most unlikely candidate for a boss’s mistress. She wasn’t the kind of flashy beauty wiseguys prize. She was small and dark with coarse black hair, a shy immigrant hired by Castellano’s wife Nina to work as a domestic. But for reasons that Castellano took to the grave, at the age of 70 he became hopelessly smitten with the maid who spoke almost no English. They carried on in his home in the presence of his wife, and in so doing, Castellano crossed a line that likely contributed to his undoing.

When it comes to the women in their lives, Mafiosi hold a double standard. While a real man must have a goomatta, the mother of his children remains sacred. Affairs are conducted outside of the house, and wives should be spared the embarrassment of their husbands’ extracurricular activities as much as possible. By the Mafia rules of etiquette, Nina Castellano, though grandmotherly by this time, deserved her husband’s respect, and Castellano more than anyone should have known that. His inappropriate, lovesick behavior with Olarte was further proof to his enemies that he was out of touch and needed to be replaced.

Gloria Olarte started working at the Castellanos’ mansion in September 1979, and it wasn’t long before Big Paul started flirting with her. Because she knew so little English, Nina had bought a handheld electronic English-Spanish translator so that she could communicate with the maid and tell her what chores she wanted done. When Castellano got ahold of the device, he used it to send flattering little messages to Olarte in Spanish, complimenting her eyes, her smile.

Castellano’s infatuation with the maid soon turned into a full-fledged love affair. Big Paul and Gloria acted like teenagers with little concern for who was watching. Gloria became quite outspoken around her lover’s associates, which didn’t win her any points with them. Castellano took her on vacations and even bought her a hot sports car, a red Datsun 280Z, even though she didn’t know how to drive. Through all of this, Nina Castellano stood her ground. The White House was her home, and she wasn’t going to budge for a pipsqueak like Olarte. If her husband wanted to act like a fool, let him. This queen wasn’t about to give up her castle.

But the depths of Castellano’s feelings for Gloria surprised even the FBI. On St. Patrick’s Day 1983, after two years of planning, FBI agents got by Castellano’s elaborate electronic security system as well as his Doberman pinschers and successfully planted a listening device in a lamp on the boss’s kitchen table. They knew from prior surveillance that Castellano often conducted business from his home, and he was most comfortable in the kitchen. In the three months that the bug operated, agents listened in on conferences between Castellano and his mob associates. The agents, by default, also heard personal conversations between Big Paul and Gloria. What the agents learned one day left them speechless.

Castellano had left the White House one day to travel to Tampa, Florida. The reason for his visit, according to his lawyer, was elective surgery. But further investigation by the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in Tampa revealed the true nature of this surgery. Big Paul had received a penile implant, a device that when unfolded would give him a mechanical erection. The implant telescoped inside of him like a manual car antenna.

This bit of information raised more than a few eyebrows within law enforcement. Castellano had never been known as a ladies’ man, but now in the autumn of his years, he was getting himself fixed, presumably to satisfy his new love. Knowing this, the agents listening in on the conversations in Castellano’s kitchen started paying more attention to the exchanges between Big Paul and Gloria.

Eventually Nina Castellano moved out of the house, having finally had enough of the lovebirds’ shenanigans. Gloria, whose English was improving, was triumphant. In her mind, she was now the lady of the house. But Gloria’s victory was short-lived. Within a year Paul Castellano’s lifeless body would be sprawled on a Manhattan sidewalk next to the open front passenger door of his black Lincoln Continental, blood seeping from multiple gunshot wounds to the head. It’s uncertain whether John Gotti knew or even cared about Paul Castellano’s penile implant. What Gotti thought of Big Paul’s affair with his maid is not public knowledge. To this day, Gotti, who is imprisoned for life in Marion, Illinois, abides by the Mafia code of silence, omerta.

Perhaps former FBI Special Agent Joseph O’Brien, co-author of Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather—The FBI and Paul Castellano, best characterized Gloria Olarte’s position within the Gambino family. O’Brien, who was one of the agents who planted the bug in Castellano’s house, called her “the Yoko Ono of the Mob.”

“The bandleader thinks he’s found the love of his life,” O’Brien’s says in his book, “the other guys think he’s lost his mind. He thinks she’s exotic, they think she’s wildly inappropriate. He thinks he’s been set free, they think he’s making a total ass of himself.”

Child Killing

Alcolu is a small town off Route 521 in Clarendon County, South Carolina, about 50 miles east of Columbia. The first African-American woman to play tennis at Wimbledon, Althea Gibson, was born here. So was Peggy Parish, famous author of children’s books. Five governors of South Carolina were also born and raised here (http//www.clarendoncounty.com). Forest products are a major output of the region, along with tobacco, cotton and corn. Cucumbers are grown in abundance in Clarendon County. It is primarily an agricultural area that features only one small city: Manning, whose population in 1944 was less than 3,000. Essentially, the county was, and still is, a quiet farming community whose routine was rarely, if ever, interrupted by such a climatic event as child murder.

On the sunny afternoon of March 24, 1944, Betty June Binnicker, age 11, and her friend , Mary Emma Thames, age 8, had just left their homes to pick flowers. They were alternately walking and riding Betty’s bicycle along the railroad tracks that ran through Alcolu. The girls often played in this area on the opposite side of the town. By any measure, it was a beautiful spring day: the trees just beginning to bud, the first flowers of the season blooming among the tall grass along the tracks. As they ran and skipped their way through the grass, they saw a young black man along the same path. He also lived in this small lumber-producing town and both girls knew him. Everyone knew everyone else in Alcolu, it was that kind of place. However, within minutes, both girls lay dead on the ground, their skulls brutally bashed in by a huge railroad spike. Their bodies were dragged through the grass and dumped into a small ravine. Immediately after the murders, the killer hid the bloody weapon in the bushes and began the leisurely walk home. He seemed unconcerned and it is doubtful that he truly understood the repercussions of what he had done.

The killer of these children was a child himself. His name was George Junius Stinney Jr., 14 years old, the illiterate son of a local mill worker. And incredibly, in less than 90 days, George would meet death himself, tears streaming down his face, strapped to the electric chair inside the bleak walls of the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia. But the public would barely notice his death. For in June 1944, the country had its eyes fixed firmly upon the beaches of Normandy, where a million American sons were locked in the desperate battles of D-Day while the fate of a world hung in the balance. These were hard times in America. The daily newspapers were filled with graphic stories of killing and destruction on a scale that can scarcely be imagined today. No one had time or compassion for a black teenage killer of little white girls. Nevertheless, history would be made at the Central Correctional Institution on June 16, 1944. For on that day, George Junius Stinney Jr., age 14 and 7 months, would become the youngest person to be legally executed in the United States during the 20th century.

The history of juvenile execution in America reads like a novel with no plot: it seems to have no sense of purpose or destination. Since the early 17th century, 356 juvenile offenders have been executed in the United States (Grossfield, p. 4). USA Today reports: “the first known execution of a juvenile on these shores was in 1642: Thomas Graungery, 16, of Plymouth Colony, Mass. was hanged for bestiality” (Edmonds, p. 11). Some executions become appalling to us when we consider the age of some of these defendants. Contrary to what is generally believed, however, capital punishment in colonial America was a controversial issue. Although it was common to hang offenders in England for crimes like burglary, robbery and theft-related offences, this was rare in America (Friedman, p. 42). Lawrence Friedman writes in Crime and Punishment in American History: “All things considered, the colonies used the death penalty pretty sparingly” (p. 42).

And it must be said that any interpretation of past executions from the 18th and 19th century has to be viewed within the time frame they occurred. For it seems unrealistic to apply today’s standards, values and beliefs to a society that existed hundreds of years ago which can have no valid comparison to today’s world from a social and legal perspective. During colonial times the age of the defendants was often not considered in certain crimes. For example, in the State of New York, two young girls identified only as “Bett” age 12, a slave belonging to Phillip van Rensselear and “Dean”, age 14, a slave belonging to a Volkert Douw were executed on March 14, 1794. They were accused and convicted of starting a fire that burned down a large portion of the City of Albany on November 17, 1793 (Reynolds, pg. 384). It is difficult to identify the youngest person legally executed in American history, but it surely may be a Cherokee Indian who was hanged for murder in 1885. He was ten years old (Grossfield, p. 4). In modern times, there have been relatively few juvenile executions although 70 juvenile offenders presently sit on death row in America. In 1988 a ruling in the Supreme Court “prohibits the death penalty for juvenile offenders whose crimes were committed before they were 16” (Grossfield, p. 5). Prior to 1988, though it was not frequent, execution of children younger than 16 was permitted.

Within a few hours of the Alcolu murders on March 24, 1944, the families of the missing girls were already frantic. It was very unusual for the girls not to return home on time. Since they were always playing in the woods and were familiar with the local countryside, it was unlikely they were lost. The local lumber mill, Alderman Lumber Company, organized a search party that consisted of their employees and almost everyone who lived in Alcolu. The operation was under the direction of B.G. Alderman, owner of the lumber company, and included both blacks and whites. Although they searched throughout the night, they could not find the missing girls. Then, at about 7:30 in the morning of the next day, some of the men found small footprints in the soft ground. They followed the trail and soon discovered a pair of scissors. It was already known that Betty June had taken these same scissors from her home to cut flowers. Within minutes, the search party came upon a water filled ditch, surrounded by thick, thorn covered bushes. The bushes showed signs of being crushed. In the ditch, the faint outline of a child’s bicycle could be seen under the water. “There’s the girls!” one of the searchers screamed. Scott Lowden, a member of the search party, jumped into the muddy hole and the bodies of the missing girls were finally found. Betty June had severe head wounds in the back of the skull. Mary Emma had five separate skull fractures. The cause of death in both cases was later determined to be severe trauma to the head. The girls had been viciously beaten with a heavy, blunt object.

After a few hours of investigation, the local sheriff deputies located and arrested George Stinney Jr. who neighbors had seen in the area where the girls were found. He was brought to the local sheriff’s office where police interrogated him. Since 1944 was long before the Warren Court era, there were no Miranda Warnings, even to a juvenile. The interrogation continued without a parent being present or attorney representation. Clarendon County Sheriff's Deputy H. S. Newman and a representative did the questioning from the Governor’s Office, Officer S.J. Pratt ( The State, March 26, 1944). In less than one hour, Stinney confessed to the crime.

Deputy H.S. Newman later described the event for the court: “I was notified that the bodies had been found. I went down to where the bodies were at. I found Mary Emma she was rite at the edge of the ditch with four or five wounds on her head, on the other side of the ditch the Binnicker girl, were laying there with 4 or 5 wounds in her head, the bicycle which the little girls had were side of the little Binnicker girl. By information I received I arrested a boy by the name of George Stinney, he then made a confession and told me where a piece of iron about 15 inches long were, he said he put it in a ditch about 6 feet from the bicycle which was lying in the ditch” (from Deputy Newman’s written statement, March 26, 1944). Later that same day, Stinney voluntarily led police to the crime scene, a short distance outside of the town, where the murder weapon, a large railroad spike, at least 14 inches long, was recovered.

Immediately, there was grief and outrage in Alcolu. Never before had such a horrendous crime occurred in Clarendon County. Mill workers were especially angered since both girls had relatives who worked at the mill. Passions became further inflamed when details of the crime, supplied by Stinney, became public. The young defendant told police that he killed Mary Ellen because he wanted to have sex with Betty June, the older girl. Angry townspeople and mill workers gathered together in Alcolu and they quickly formed into a mob. On the night of March 26, 1944, a mob of angry whites headed for the Clarendon County jail to administer mob justice. Although, lynching was actually rare in the 1940s, the bitter memories of Southern vigilantism from the 1920s and 30s are a sad part of America’s history. But sheriff’s deputies wisely escorted Stinney out of the county jail to the City of Columbia in adjoining Sumter County where he was held in a more secure facility for his own safety.

On April 24, 1944, just one month after his arrest, Stinney went on trial for his life. The trial would take place at the county seat in the City of Manning. Since angry residents already ran the Stinney family out of town, George had virtually no one on his side. The county court appointed a local attorney to assist in his defense. He was a 30-year-old aspiring politician named Charles Plowden. His goal in the case was simple: to provide a bare bones defense that would fulfill his responsibilities as a defense attorney and, at the same time, not anger the local residents. Since Stinney already confessed to the police and his guilt was firmly established, there was a general feeling that a trial was only a formal requirement.


By the time the trial began on April 24 at the Clarendon County Courthouse, the case was well known throughout the region, though outside the county, it was not widely reported. Outside South Carolina, it was virtually unknown. At the courthouse, it was standing room only, for well over 1,500 people had come to witness the spectacle. The stairways and hallways were filled to capacity. At 10 AM that morning, jury selection began. The State, published in Columbia, reported that “the state rejected four and the defense eight jurors before the jury was impounded at 12:30” (Rowe, p. 1). Even more ominous, however, was the jury composite. The panel consisted of 12 white men: no blacks and no women. Of course, racial make-up of a jury does not guarantee nor prevent justice. The only standard, in 1944 as well as now, is that a juror must be able to maintain a degree of fairness and objectivity that displays no bias to either side.
Given the publicity of the murders and the nature of the crime, the defense would certainly have been better served by a change of venue. Defense Attorney Charles Plowden, however, made no such motion. After a brief lunch, testimony began. “The trial began at 2:30 PM after eight minor cases had been disposed of in the morning” (The Daily Item, April 25, 1944).

Prosecutor Frank McLeod introduced Stinney’s statements of March 25 into evidence. In his initial statement to Deputy Sheriff Newman, Stinney explained that he was near his own home outside Alcolu when the oldest girl came along and asked him where she could pick some flowers. As he attempted to show the girls where the flowers grew, he said, the younger girl accidentally fell into a ditch. As he tried to help Mary Emma, both girls suddenly attacked him. Stinney admitted to hitting the girls with the railroad spike but claimed he did so in self-defense.

In the second statement, also given to Deputy Newman and Officer Pratt, Stinney gave a different version of the event. He told police he was indeed at his own home when he first saw the girls go by. He stated that he then followed the girls into the woods. Stinney said that he was interested in the older one, Betty June. In order to have Betty June to himself, he killed Mary Emma first by hitting her with the railroad spike. Betty June then attempted to run away and Stinney chased and caught her. When she continued to resist his sexual advances, he battered her with the same railroad spike. The State reported that Judge P. Stoll, who was from Kingstree, just 15 miles from Alcolu, halted the testimony to give women in the courtroom a chance to leave prior to “morbid details” (Rowe, p.1).

Scott Lowden, who found the dead girls, was called to the stand. He testified as to the condition of the bodies when they were found. He described a broken bicycle, which lay over the girls. The bodies were entangled with each other and lay submerged in the water where Stinney had dumped them. Betty June’s sister testified that it was she who gave the scissors to the girls to cut flowers.

The prosecution then called Dr. R. F. Baker to testify. It was Dr. Baker and Dr. A. C. Bozard of the Tuomey Hospital in Sumter who performed the post mortem examination of the dead girls. The autopsy reports were read into testimony: “We examined the body of eleven year old white girl. There was evidence of at least seven blows on the head of the child that seemed to have been made by a blunt instrument with a small round head about the size of a hammer. Some of these have only cracked the skull while two have punched definite holes in the skull” (Dr. Bozard’s autopsy report). Although Dr. Baker was unable to positively state that a rape or sexual assault had occurred, he did say that it was possible (Rowe, p. 1). Stinney, dressed in blue Junes, maintained a calm demeanor throughout the afternoon; “He remained calm and apparently little concerned” (Rowe, p. 1).

The presentation of the case, led by McLeod, moved quickly. Too fast, some say. Plowden and his assistant, attorney J.W. Wireman of Manning, presented no witnesses or evidence for the defense of Stinney. Instead, Plowden attempted to portray Stinney as a child who was too young, by law, to be held responsible for his crimes. In retaliation, the prosecution introduced Stinney’s birth certificate, which indicated he was born on October 21, 1929. Under South Carolina law in 1944, an adult was anyone over the age of 14. George Stinney was 14 years and five months old. That was the end of the case. It had begun at 2:30 in the afternoon and was over by 5:30 PM. “The jury retired at five minutes before five to deliberate. Ten minutes later it returned with its verdict: guilty, with no recommendation for mercy” (Brock, sec. D). The entire court proceeding from opening statements to sentencing had taken less than 3 hours. George Stinney “only when asked to arise and be sentenced, did he appear nervous and slightly excited” (Rowe, p.1). Judge Stoll sentenced him to die in the electric chair at Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina on June 16, 1944. Stinney was quickly escorted out of court. He had less than two months to live.

The weeks passed as Stinney languished in prison. Some local organizations, like the N.A.A.C.P., churches and unions appealed to Governor Olin D. Johnston to stop the execution. The Daily Item reported on June 13, 1944 “The A.M.E. Church protested to Governor Olin D. Johnston in a telegram the imminent execution June 16 of a 14 year old Negro boy convicted of the murder of a young white girl”. A few days before the scheduled date, the Associated Press published a story on the Stinney case. The Governor’s office received hundreds of pleas to intervene in the name of mercy and fairness. Many cited Stinney’s age as an extraordinary factor that deserved consideration. One message received by the Governor’s Office read: “Child execution is only for Hitler” (Brock, p. D2). Others, however, had their own reasons for Stinney to die: “Sure glad to hear of your decision regarding the nigger Stinney” (Bruck, p. D2). Governor Johnston was unmoved by public sentiment and decided not to intervene. The Daily Item wrote: “The Governor said Friday he had studied the case and found no reason to intervene making this statement after the C.I.O., Tobacco Worker’s Union, the National Maritime Union and the White and Negro Ministerial Unions at Charleston asked him to commute the sentence to life imprisonment (June 13, 1944).

On the morning of June 16, 1944, a year in which 120 other convicts were executed in America’s prisons (U.S. Department of Justice), George Junius Stinney Jr. began his last walk on this earth at 7:30 AM. He carried a bible under one arm as he was escorted to the electric chair by prison guards. Stinney was of slight build. The teen-ager weighed just over 90 lbs and stood 5 feet, 1 inch tall. Since the electric chair was designed and constructed for adults, the attendants had a difficult time strapping him firmly into the seat. The mask that fitted upon the face also did not fit properly. Witnesses to the execution included Betty June’s father and brother Raymond. “Stinney refused to make any statement when given the opportunity by prison officials” (Daily Item, June 17, 1944). It was reported that the force of the electricity caused the mask to slip away from Stinney’s head, exposing his face to the gallery. Witnesses, it was said, would never forget the horror etched on Stinney’s childlike face in those final moments. He was pronounced dead less than four minutes later.

Although legitimate questions linger concerning the quality of Stinney’s defense team, no appeal was ever made. Politics may have played a strong role in that decision. In 1944, Plowden was scheduled to run for public office on the state level. There was speculation that he did not want to disrupt the community by appearing to be too enthusiastic about defending a killer who many felt deserved to die for his offense. Years later, in an interview, Plowden commented on the case: “There was nothing to appeal on” and added the Stinney family had no funds to continue the case (Bruck, sec. D).

Initially, it may appear that Stinney’s trial and execution were the product of a racist justice system, but it isn’t that final. Perhaps a case could be made as to the objectivity and fairness of the judicial process. The judge, prosecutor, defense attorney and jury all had friends, relatives and co-workers who lived in Alcolu. The Alderman Lumber Company employed hundreds of workers in the area who participated in the search. The crime and its lurid details were highly publicized and the racial nature of the case certainly influenced some of the community as well. However, nothing illegal was done during the investigation and prosecution of the case. All the procedures utilized by the police, courts, prosecution and prison system conform to the existing standards and legal requirements of the time and place. The court was well aware of Stinney’s age but the laws of the time allowed for a capital prosecution of a 14-year-old defendant.

The day after Stinney’s execution, June 16, 1944, a small, three-inch article appeared in The State newspaper, which contained the following line “Stinney, 14 years and five months old, was the youngest person ever to die in the chair”.

Incredibly, the crime for which he was executed had occurred just 81 days before, a time span that seems unthinkable to us today. In modern times, it is common for many years to pass before a convicted killer faces an execution. Stinney was buried in an unknown location and immediately forgotten by everyone except his family. In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the case, Stinney’s sister, Catherine Robinson was interviewed. She stated that her brother wrote to her parents while he was on Death Row in Columbia, South Carolina. George told them he was innocent (The State, June 17, 1994).

However, Vermelle Tucker, Betty June’s sister, had this to say in the same article: “All my dad said was ‘Thank God he won’t do it to anybody else’” (The State, June 17, 1994). Indeed, he never would. But George Junius Stinney Jr., on June 16, 1944, became a tragic and unwilling fragment of American history as the youngest person legally executed in America during the 20th century.

Author: Mark Gado