Mad Dog Coll
Mad Dog Coll | |
---|---|
hitman, kidnapper, bootlegger | |
Known for | Hitman for Dutch Schultz and Prohibition-era gang leader |
Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, July 20, 1908 – February 8, 1932) was an
Early years
Coll was born in Gweedore, an Irish-speaking district, in County Donegal in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. He was related to the notorious Curran family, and his family emigrated to the U.S. the following year as steerage passengers on board the S/S Columbia, sailing from port of Derry to the port of New York, April 3 to 12, 1909. Coll was a distant relative of the former Northern Ireland Assemblywoman Bríd Rodgers.
At age 12, Coll was first sent to a reform school.[3] After being expelled from multiple Catholic reform schools, he joined The Gophers street gang. Run-ins with the law were almost inevitable. Vincent soon developed a reputation for being a wild child of the streets. At age 16, he was arrested for carrying a gun, and by the age of 23 he had been arrested a dozen times. In the late 1920s he started working as an armed guard for the illegal beer delivery trucks of Dutch Schultz's mob.[4]
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 age 19 Coll was charged with the murder of Anthony Borello, the owner of a speakeasy, and Mary Smith, a dance hall hostess. Coll allegedly murdered Borello because he refused to sell Schultz's bootleg alcohol. The charges were eventually dismissed, and many suspect this to have been due to Schultz's influence.[5] Schultz was not happy about Coll's actions. In 1929, without Schultz's permission, Coll robbed a dairy in the Bronx of $17,000.[5] He and his gang posed as armed guards to gain access to the cashier's room. Schultz later confronted Coll about the robbery, but rather than being apologetic, Coll demanded to be an equal partner; Schultz declined.
By January 1930, Coll had formed his own gang and was engaged in a shooting war with Schultz. One of the earliest victims was Peter Coll, Vincent's older brother, who was shot dead on May 30, 1931, while driving down a
On June 2, Coll and his gang broke into a garage owned by Schultz and destroyed 120 vending machines and 10 trucks. As the war continued, Vincent Coll and his gang killed approximately 20 of Schultz's men.[4] To finance his new gang, Coll kidnapped rival gangsters and held them for ransom. He knew that the victims would not report the kidnappings to police; 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 Coll's best-known victims was gambler George "Big Frenchy" DeMange, a close associate of Owney Madden, boss of the Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob. According to one account, Coll telephoned DeMange and asked to meet with him. When DeMange arrived at the meeting place, Coll kidnapped him at gunpoint. He released DeMange 18 hours later after receiving a ransom payment.[6]
Alleged child killing
On July 28, 1931, Coll allegedly participated in a kidnapping attempt that resulted in the shooting death of a child. Coll's target was bootlegger
dubbed Coll a "mad dog".On October 4, 1931, after an extensive manhunt, New York police arrested Coll at a hotel in the Bronx. He had dyed his hair black and grown a mustache and was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He surrendered peacefully.[5] During a police lineup, a defiant Coll said that he had been in Albany, New York, for the past several months and refused to answer any other questions without an attorney present.[3] On October 5, a grand jury in New York City indicted Coll for the Vengalli murder.[8]
The Coll trial began in December 1931. He retained famed defense lawyer
Immediately after the Vengalli verdict, a New York City police inspector told Coll that the police would arrest him whenever he was spotted in New York City. He was soon rejailed for carrying a gun.[12] When the inspector referred to Coll as a baby killer, Coll hotly replied, "I'm no baby killer".[11] Soon after his acquittal, Coll married Lottie Kreisberger, a fashion designer in New York.[13]
Failed hit
In September 1931, between the killing of young Vengalli and his acquittal for that death, Coll was hired by
According to the 1963 testimony of government witness Joseph Valachi, Maranzano had paid Coll $25,000 for all three murders in advance, but when Coll arrived at Maranzano's office that same day intending to kill Luciano, Genovese, and Costello, he found Lucchese and the four Jewish hitmen fleeing the scene. After learning from them that Maranzano was dead, Coll left the building.[19]
Gangland death
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 and Fiorio Basile and bystander Emily Tanzillo) were killed. Three others were wounded. Coll himself did not show up until 30 minutes after the shooting.[20]
A week after the Bronx shootings, at 12:30 am on February 8, Coll was using a phone booth at a drug store at Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan. He was reportedly talking to Madden, demanding $50,000 from the gangster under the threat of kidnapping his
A total of 15 bullets were removed from Coll's body at the morgue; more may have passed through him. Coll was buried next to his brother Peter at
Aftermath
Coll's killers were never identified. Dutch Schultz attorney
Dutch 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.[23] He was supposedly murdered on orders from Luciano and 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.[24]
In 1935 Owney Madden, still under police scrutiny for the Coll killing, moved to Arkansas, where he died in 1965.[25]
Portrayal
Film
Vincent Coll has been portrayed by the following actors in the following films:
- Richard Gardner in the 1960 film The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond.
- Joseph Gallison in the 1961 film Portrait of a Mobster.
- John Davis Chandler in the 1961 film Mad Dog Coll.
- Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized version of Coll in The Cotton Club.
- Nicholas Sadler in the 1991 film Mobsters.
- Christopher Bradley in the 1992 film Mad Dog Coll and reprised in the 1992 film Hit the Dutchman.
Television
Vincent Coll has been portrayed in the following TV shows:
- Clu Gulager in a 1959 episode Vincent 'Mad Dog' Coll of The Untouchables television series.
- Robert Brown in the 1961 two-part episode The Mad Dog Coll Story in the television series The Lawless Years.
- David Wilson in the 1981 TV series The Gangster Chronicles.
Music
Vincent Coll has been portrayed in the following songs:
- Mad Dog Coll by Mad Dog Mcrea on their 2015 album Almost Home.[26]
References
- ^ "Books Relating to County Donegal, Ireland". Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. November 20, 2008. Archived from the original on July 7, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2014.
- ^ "Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll – MAFIA GANGSTER – Great Donegal People". Greatirishpeople.com. February 8, 1932. Archived from the original on February 3, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2014.
- ^ a b "Young thugs put on swagger in line-up" (PDF). New York Times. October 6, 1931. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
- ^ a b "Schultz product of dry law era" (PDF). New York Times. January 22, 1933. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Coll seized with his gang" (PDF). New York Times. October 5, 1931. Retrieved May 24, 2013.
- ^ "Dry era 'big shot' dies safely in bed" (PDF). New York Times. September 20, 1939. Retrieved May 26, 2013.
- ^ "Child slain, 4 shot as gangsters fire on beer war rival" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ "Coll and 4 indicted for baby's murder" (PDF). New York Times. October 6, 1931. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ "Coll to offer alibi in killing of child" (PDF). New York Times. December 17, 1931. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ "Sole Coll accuser admits lie on stand" (PDF). New York Times. December 25, 1931. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ a b "Police aim to drive Coll from the city" (PDF). New York Times. January 13, 1932. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ "Coll Is Acquitted". The Daily Republican. Monongahela, Pennsylvania. December 30, 1931. p. 8 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ "Mrs. Coll pleads guilty in killing" (PDF). New York Times. February 27, 1934. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4299-0798-9. Retrieved June 22, 2008.
- ISBN 0-375-70547-3.
- ^ "Lucky Luciano: Criminal Mastermind," Time, Dec. 7, 1998
- ^ "Genovese family saga". Crime Library.
- ^ "The Genovese Family," Crime Library, Crime Library Archived December 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Perlmutter, Emanuel (October 3, 1963). "Informer tells more" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2013.
- ^ Downey, pg. 219
- New York Times. February 8, 1932. p. 1. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
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. ...
- ^ Downey, pg. 290-91
- ^ "Dutch Schultz dies of wounds without naming slayers" (PDF). New York Times. October 25, 1935. Retrieved May 29, 2013.
- ^ "Gangster's Widow Marked for Death". The Border Cities Star. November 21, 1932. p. 10. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
- New York Times. AP. April 24, 1965. p. 1. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
- ^ "Almost Home by Mad Dog Mcrea on Apple Music". iTunes. March 15, 2015. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
Further reading
- Lundberg, Ferdinand. The Rich and the Super Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today. New York: Bantam Books, 1969. ISBN 0818404868
- 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. ISBN 0060590033
- Delap, Brendan. Mad Dog Coll: An Irish Gangster. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1999. ISBN 1-85635-291-9
External links
- "Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob: The Westies". Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - Local Boy Makes Bad 'Mad Dog Coll – An Irish Gangster' by Breandán Delap
- Coll gang line-up Gangster City
- Mad Dog Coll at Find a Grave