Ohio

The last Public Enemy No. 1 of the Depression era, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis reportedly compiled a record of fifty-four aliases, fifteen bank robberies, fourteen murders, three jailbreaks and two kidnappings.

His criminal career came to an end when J. Edgar Hoover and his famed G-Men apprehended the man they wanted more than any other in New Orleans. From there, Karpis found himself confined on Alcatraz Island, where he spent nearly twenty-six years - more than any inmate in the prison's history. Historian Julie Thompson tells the true story of Karpis's life and career, a riveting tale taking readers from rural Kansas and Ohio to the bustling streets of the Big Easy and into the bleak innards of "the Rock."

They are the dirty little secrets of Cleveland's past, mob guys so good--or so bad--that you rarely hear their stories. Men such as Micky McBride turned newsboys into sluggers, gave bookies a run for suckers' losing bets and created the Cleveland Browns when football was still a sport the players knew how to win. There was the Jewish Navy, taking laundry trucks to Canada and bringing back barges filled with booze. Then there were the rug joints--the Harvard Club, the Beverly Hills Club, the Mounds Club--where Moe Dalitz mastered the art of taking your money and helped build Las Vegas, the best "man trap" in America. Join author Ted Schwarz as he tracks wanted killers through the Statler Hotel and navigates the secret history of the Cleveland mob.

In the early 1900s, a criminal society known as the Black Hand became feared across the United States as it extorted hardworking immigrants. In 1908, Agostino Iannarino received a series of threatening letters, and when he refused to pay, a bomb exploded at the entrance of his Columbus home. His family fled to Sicily, only to continue receiving threats. The following year, U.S. Post Office inspectors learned that a Black Hand gang called the Society of the Banana was headquartered in Marion, Ohio, and authorities attempted to put an end to the violent outrages occurring across the Midwest. Revealing twenty-four extortion letters written by members of the Society of the Banana, author Shane W. Croston details factual and fatal accounts of the Black Hand.

In Historic Columbus Crimes, the father-daughter team of David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker looks back at sixteen tales of murder, mystery and mayhem culled from city history. Take the rock star slain by a troubled fan or the drag queen slashed to death by a would-be ninja. Then there's the writer who died acting out the plot of his next book, the minister's wife incinerated in the parsonage furnace and a couple of serial killers who outdid the Son of Sam. Not to mention a gunfight at Broad and High, grave-robbing medical students, the bloodiest day in FBI history and other fascinating stories of crime and tragedy. They're all here, and they're all true!

The Prohibition era often conjures up images of Tommy guns and speakeasies, but prohibition in Columbus added up to more than a crime stat sheet. It continued to dramatically shape the city far beyond its conclusion in 1933. The story begins with the temperance agitators who fought for decades for the elimination of alcohol. It is also the story of the families who made the alcohol, along with the neighborhood they built and then rebuilt in the Noble Experiment's aftermath. Alex Tebben relates how both temperance groups and the brewers adapted to the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment and the permanent mark it made on the city's heritage.

Ohio's capital city once teemed with crime bosses, rampant corruption and unpunished perversion. The Bad Lands of Columbus was a nationally recognized slum controlled by Smoky Hobbs. Columbus native Dr. Samuel B. Hartman, the world's most successful snake oil salesman, was almost single-handedly responsible for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Local gambler Pat Murnan had an unlikely love affair with Grace Backenstoe, the madam of the most popular brothel in town. The two were a symbol of the area's salaciousness. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker explore the heyday of Columbus's most notorious fiends, corrupt politicians and con men.

Organized crime was born in the back of a fruit store in Marion. Before America saw headlines about the Capone Mob, the Purple Gang and Murder Inc., the specter of the Black Hand terrorized nearly every major city.

Fears that the Mafia had reached our shores and infiltrated every Italian immigrant community kept police alert and citizens on edge. It was only a matter of time before these professed Robin Hoods formed a band. And when they did, the eyes of the world turned to Ohio, particularly when the local Black Hand outfit known as the Society of the Banana went on trial. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unfold this first and nearly forgotten chapter on crime syndicate history.

Wicked Akron, Ohio takes the reader on a journey through the seedy underbelly of the city's history.

Akron is known as "the rubber capital of the world'? and home to Goodyear. But look beneath those tires and you will find dirt…a lot of dirt! Explore Akron's darkest days, when citizens burned city hall to the ground and members of the Ku Klux Klan called the shots from the schoolhouse to the courthouse. Meet a grave robber who became a political leader, a mobster who ordered police murders and a beloved bootlegger turned bail bondsman. Say hello to Frank Hurn, a flashy, frenetic, fast-talking con man who was looking for suckers to invest in the Vulcans, an NFL team he promised to bring to Akron. From city saloon to suburban hideout, this is an alternative history lesson of the sometimes dicey coexistence of the well-heeled and the workers, men and women who lived big lives during Akron's fledgling days as a canal port, its pre-Depression heyday and zenith as a Midwestern industrial success story.

Author Kymberli Hagelberg, an award-winning journalist and native Northeast Ohioan, takes the reader on a morbidly-entertaining tour of the shadowy corners of Akron's history. With stories including mobsters and body snatchers, con men and Klansmen, plagues and fires, there is truly something for fans of local history and true crime stories.