Albert Anastasia Escapes, Becomes Executioner
In March 1921, 19-year-old longshoreman Albert Anastasia shot and killed coworker George Turino on the Brooklyn waterfront, and a New York court sentenced him to death. A year later he won a retrial on a legal technicality, and when four key prosecution witnesses had conveniently disappeared, the state released him, allowing him to drift deeper into organized crime and align with powerful bosses like Joe Masseria and Lucky Luciano.
By the late 1930s, Luciano put Anastasia in charge of Murder, Inc., the National Crime Syndicate's enforcement arm, which is estimated to have carried out thousands of contract killings. His role in directing and participating in these murders earned him fearsome nicknames like the Mad Hatter and the Lord High Executioner and cemented his reputation as one of the most ruthless mobsters in American history.