Investigative Reporting

St. Louis, Missouri

Paulie Leisure wanted to control St. Louis' underworld and he was prepared to kill anyone who stood in his way. In using car bombs to take out Tony Giordano protégé Sonny Spica and then Jimmy Michaels, the venerable head of the Syrian-Lebanese faction, he touched off a bloodbath known as the "Leisure War."

by Ronald J. Lawrence

Prologue

St. Louis' underworld was unique. It had three distinct, but cohesive, organized crime families. The most influential was the Mafia, controlled by the respected Anthony "Tony G" Giordano. The Syrian-Lebanese faction in south St. Louis was headed by James A. "Jimmy" Michaels Sr. Across the Mississippi River in Illinois, Art Berne ruled the third outfit. Like Giordano, Berne spoke with the authority of the Chicago Syndicate.

All three shared authority in many of the construction unions, the most important of which were Laborers' Union Locals 42, 53 and 110 in St. Louis. Not only were they a source of lucre for the mob, but whoever controlled them inherited considerable influence and power. For some time Giordano had been the overlord.

Paul John "Paulie" Leisure, a Syrian who was a suspected contract killer, headed a small dissident, but deadly, group of gangsters. He once had been close to Giordano and Michaels, but he had come to despise them. He coveted control of the St. Louis underworld and saw the Laborers' locals as an expedient to it. He already had a piece of the action, but he wanted it all. However, Giordano and Michaels stood in his way and someone had to die.

The car bomb that killed Philip J. Lucier – the president of the Continental Telephone Co. and the father of 11 children – was meant for an attorney whose clients had swindled a minor New Orleans Mafioso. The FBI misread and mishandled the case from the beginning. Subsequent federal investigations never produced a single indictment. Now, 30 yeas later, it seems certain no one will ever be charged in Lucier's tragic death.

 by Ronald J. Lawrence

"It never occurred to me to look closer. There was nothing suspicious."

- A witness

12:13 p. m. July 24, 1970 – Philip J. Lucier, president of Continental Telephone Corp., drove his black Cadillac into the parking lot of the Pierre Laclede Building, 7701 Forsyth Blvd., in the Clayton business district of suburban St. Louis. He and two telephone company vice-presidents, James Robb and James Napier, had decided on the spur of the moment to have lunch at the St. Louis Club. No one knew they were going there.

There were no empty spaces, but Lucier saw Theodore F. Schwartz, a respected attorney, back his black Lincoln Continental out of a parking stall. The two men knew each other and Schwartz waved to him. The lawyer, whose office was in the building, rarely left in his car for lunch, although this day he did.

The casual observer might not have noticed it, but, despite the difference in models, there was a similarity between Lucier's Cadillac and Schwartz' Lincoln. Not only were both black, each had a mobile telephone antenna and a four-digit license plate.

12:40 p. m. July 24, 1970 – A businessman drove slowly, looking for an empty space in the parking lot of the Pierre Laclede Building. Up ahead, he saw a man sitting behind the wheel of Lucier's black Cadillac. The door was open slightly and the man's foot dangled outside. It appeared as if he was working underneath the dashboard.

He recalled, "After a few minutes, I guessed the man was waiting for someone. Then, he looked back for a glance, pulled his foot inside, shut the door and sat there." The businessman found a space nearby. "I drove right behind the car, and then walked past it again to the building. It never occurred to me to look closer, there was nothing suspicious."

Jesse Stoneking

Before Jimmy Fratianno made ratting out mob bosses fashionable, Jesse Stoneking's testimony against St. Louis mob figures was the most damaging ever heard in a courtroom. It helped send more than 30 gangsters to prison. Stoneking was a respected and feared wise guy, a lieutenant to St. Louis Outfit boss Art Berne and an accomplished thief. When Stoneking was packed off to prison in 1981, Berne failed to take care of Stoneking's family as promised. That disloyalty quickly turned Stoneking into an FBI informant.

 by Ronald J. Lawrence

"I never thought anything about cracking a guy. So what? It was just something you had to do. I figured the guy deserved it."
- Jesse Stoneking

It was a little after 1 a.m. in 1988 when the swarthy, ruggedly handsome man stepped out onto the porch of his mother's house in north St. Louis County. The mid-summer day had been one of stifling humidity and heat. He could hear a distant rumbling of thunder and see a glimmer of lightning. Above him rain-laden clouds low on the horizon forebode an approaching storm. It was what much of Jesse Stoneking's life of 42 years had been about. One storm after another, endless crises, and of late, countless burdens that would break the wills of weaker men.

Stoneking's eyes surveyed the landscape in all directions, but they detected nothing alarming. He was in hostile territory and he only was being prudent and cautious as he had learned long ago to be. It was how one survived in his world. As he drove away, a red Buick with a white top eased out of the shadows half a block down the street behind him, its headlights off. He saw it immediately, but he was not alarmed. He increased his speed. So did the Buick. He slowed and so did it.

Randy Kraft

The reporter who coined the phrase "Freeway Killer," sets the record straight about why serial-killer Randy Kraft should not be confused with William Bonin.

by J. J. Maloney

There are those who call Randy Kraft the ''Freeway Killer'' and they are wrong. William Bonin, executed at San Quentin in 1996, was the Freeway Killer.

There are police agencies who say the media were wrong to name Bonin the Freeway Killer – that that 'title' belonged to Kraft, whose murder spree began before Bonin's. They too are wrong.

Dennis McDougal's 1991 book Angel of Darkness touts Kraft's murders as ''...the most heinous murder spree of the century.'' That is wrong. McDougal's book is compelling, shocking, detailed, well written and inaccurate.

You cannot discuss the murders Randy Kraft committed without also discussing the Freeway Killer case.

The story began in 1972 when bodies of young men – often Marines – began to be found in Southern California – specifically from the city of Long Beach, through Orange County and into San Diego County. There were several ''signatures'' to the killings: the victims were frequently burned on their left nipple with an automobile cigarette lighter, some of them had their left testicle cut out while they were alive, some had objects shoved into their rectums (in some cases something on the order of a tree branch, in other cases a single sock). The real link to these cases was the use of drugs, the most common being Valium, ingested with alcohol.

William Bonin

An examination of not only the notorious murders committed by William Bonin, but the role the media played in the case.  Written by J.J. Maloney who, as a reporter for the Orange County Register, first coined the term "Freeway Killer".

by J.J. Maloney

He didn't have a name so we called him the Freeway Killer.

He was a murky presence, cruising up and down the freeways of Orange County and neighboring counties, stalking the dimmed tinsel byways of Hollywood, picking up those sad youngsters who came there in search of a dream and found a nightmare instead.

The police would later find the nude bodies sprawled behind filling stations, or in dumpsters -- cast off the way a child discards a doll that has served its purpose.

The City Market Kansas City, Missouri

A first-hand investigative report of the Kansas City Mafia's attempt to take over a major Kansas City entertainment area in the mid-1970s -- an effort that included bombings, extortion, and a large number of murders.

by J.J. Maloney

Every city dreams of greatness. To achieve an identity it constructs symbols (the Eiffel Tower, the St. Louis Arch), or, like New Orleans, has an area, such as the French Quarter, that assumes an identity of its own.

Traditionally Kansas City has been known as a cowtown. It was famous for its stockyards, and the biggest annual event still is the American Royal, during which journalists shake cow patties from their shoes. Kansas Citians are sensitive about that image, feeling it gives them a "hick" reputation.

They point with pride to the Country Club Plaza or Westport, but neither has ever achieved a national reputation. They promote Kansas City as the birthplace of jazz, a claim other cities dispute. They go so far as to call Kansas City the home of great barbecue; local politicians devote great amounts of space to that subject. Such is the desperation for an identity.

Updated Dec. 19, 2007

Belton Missouri

The story of Jeffrey Gardner, a young man sentenced to prison for shooting an abusive husband who was threatening his wife with a knife. After the printing of this story, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, on March 2, 1999, overturned the conviction of Gardner -- who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the shooting.  Gardner was a boarder in the couple's home at the time of the shooting. On Dec. 7, 1999, the Missouri Supreme Court did overturn the appellate court opinion. Gardner is serving his sentence at the state penitentiary in Jefferson City, Mo. Click here to read the Missouri Supreme Court decision.

by J.J. Maloney

Carol Drummond could feel feel the noose tightening around her throat.

For more than five years the 38-year-old Belton resident had been stalked, threatened and vilified by the friends of Phillip Hancock, her late husband.

In August, 1991, Drummond called police after Hancock threatened her with a bayonet. In December, 1991, the 6-foot-2-inch Hancock hurled Drummond to the ground, breaking her collarbone because her dog had urinated on the floor. A judge ordered Hancock to stay away from Drummond.

Hancock then lived with a friend, Mark Lassince, until he made up with Drummond and moved back in with her, in January, 1992. Also living in the house were Jeffrey Wayne Gardner, an attractive, soft-spoken, 28-year-old boarder, and Jackie, the 8 year old daughter of Hancock and Drummond (she kept her own name after the marriage).

In the early afternoon of March 7, 1992, Hancock called the Belton police and talked with the dispatcher. Hancock wanted police to eject Gardner from his house. The dispatcher explained that, since Drummond was half-owner of the house, if she wanted Gardner to stay, there was nothing the police could do. Gardner asked if the police would come over and take Gardner's gun away from him. Hancock said he feared Gardner and Drummond would plant the gun on him, to get his probation revoked. The dispatcher said there was nothing the police could do about Gardner's gun, either. Hancock expressed bitterness, saying he was, "screwed, I don't have any rights."