The question of who killed Sam Giancana, an assassination long considered one of Chicago’s biggest hits, has long gone unanswered — until now.
The answer behind his assassination is the Chicago Outfit’s last family secret, a secret NBC 5 Investigates now knows.
Our investigative team dug into the long-dormant case, speaking to those once inside the mob and those who have examined the murder from the outside. We’ve scoured law enforcement files, photos and lab reports, and we’ve interviewed police, prosecutors and mob figures to determine who committed the crime.
Here’s what to know about the case:
Who is Sam Giancana, aka ‘Momo’?
Giancana was a mob legend in Chicago, leading the Outfit from the late 1950s through the middle 1970s. His mob moniker was “Momo,” short for Mooney, aka crazy.
“Giancana was a very influential person in the Outfit,” said Douglas Depodesta, special-agent-in-charge of the FBI Chicago.
“He was dating one of the McGuire sisters,” DePodesta added. “He hung out with the Rat Pack. So of course there was a lot of attention at the time.”
Born in Chicago in 1908, Giancana, quickly earned the attention of the powerful, Al Capone-founded Chicago Outfit, an unshakable crime syndicate which he eventually joined in the late 1930s. Giancana’s rise to organized crime dominance, along with national notoriety, took hold in the late 1950s when he became the boss of the Outfit, which was followed by years of conspiracies linking Giancana and his associates to a number of high-profile crimes, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
After serving a year in prison for a contempt of court conviction, Giancana fled to Mexico in 1966, but was deported back to the U.S. just eight years later, returning to Chicago.
What happened to Momo?
Fifty years ago, in spring 1975, Momo was in his west suburban Oak Park home, living in a basement apartment.
He had just returned from gall bladder surgery in Houston, and a few friends were over to welcome him home.
Before 11 p.m. there was a visitor, someone Giancana apparently trusted enough to allow in through a basement stairwell.
The hoodlum started making a late-night snack. Giancana was standing over this frying pan, sizzling sausage and escarole with beans, when his houseguest fired one shot from this silencer-equipped 22-caliber pistol right into to the back of Giancana’s head. And then after the mobster collapsed, six more shots into his mouth, symbolizing the Outfit’s golden rule: Thou shall not talk.
“Whoever it was, was professional enough to know that they wanted to make sure he did not survive,” said reformed Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese, Jr.
Calabrese, Jr. has mob DNA in his blood. His dad Frank “the Breeze” Calabrese, Sr. was a Chicago crime boss and an Outfit hitman.
In 1975, with Giancana under subpoena to testify before the U.S Senate Intelligence Committee, some syndicate insiders may have been jittery about whether he was going to break his vow of omerta, or secrecy, and say too much about ties between the mob and the Central Intelligence Agency. Motive enough for murder.
“The world of the Chicago Outfit and organized crime is a dirty, nasty little world,” stated mobologist John Binder, who said there were numerous murder suspects in the mob hit 50 years ago, but never enough evidence to prosecute.
“There’s various claims about different people, credible claims to some extent, more or less about who might have killed Giancana,” said Binder, who authored a 2003 book on the mob, “The Chicago Outfit.”
“I think the most likely version of events is it was Butch Blasi,” said Binder. “He was there that night. There was a little party at Giancana’s house. Included were two Outfit guys: Blasi and Chuck English.”
Inside his Chicago home — and the crime scene
Police photos of Giancana’s actual abode — and what would become the crime scene — have never been shown publicly until now.
There are framed illustrations of circus clowns adorning his office wall and a stand-up ashtray on scene, the depository for his cigar butts. And there is a hardline house phone, where 67-year-old Giancana conducted crime syndicate business.
One photo shows how Chicago police detectives had the gangster’s bungalow under surveillance, confirmed by a police report we obtained. But NBC Chicago sources say what isn’t in the report is that when Giancana’s guests left, so did CPD intelligence officers — into the dead of night.
Possible suspects
Chuckie English was a Chicago Outfit rackets boss, who himself would be murdered a decade later. He was never charged and neither was Dominic “Butch” Blasi, Giancana’s longtime bodyguard and wheelman.
Across the country, at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas, where Giancana is a prominent face on the wall, Outfit expert Jeff Schumacher said Momo’s death confounded detectives from Day One.
“There are suspects. There are theories. But you know, at this point in time, it’s going to be pretty tough,” said Schumacher, vice president of museum exhibits and programs.
Who actually did it?
In Part Two of “Who Killed Momo,” we go inside the Giancana police files. NBC 5 Investigates revisited the evidence, traced the gun, looked into who showed up in the dead of night and uncovered the name of the man who did it.
Who pulled the trigger? And why will that man never be charged?
In the second segment of this exclusive report, the NBC 5 Investigates team will unmask the killer.
The segment is scheduled to air at 10 p.m. Thursday on NBC Chicago. Watch live on television or stream it in the player above.
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