Murray Humphreys
Encyclopedia
Llewelyn Morris Humphreys (1899 – November 23, 1965) (also known as The Camel, The Hump and Murray Humphreys), was a Chicago
mobster of Welsh
descent who was the chief political and labor racketeer in the Chicago Outfit
during Prohibition
. His family immigrated from the village of Llandinam
, in Powys, Wales.
His two most commonly known nicknames were "The Camel" and "The Hump." It has been suggested that the nickname, "The Camel," derived from his preference for wearing camel hair
coats; however, a more likely explanation is that "The Camel," evolved from his other nickname, "The Hump", derived from his surname. The names given to him by his friends, however, were more revealing: "Mr. Einstein," "The Brainy Hood" and "Mr. Moneybags."
A ruthless but clever man, Humphreys believed in killing only as a last resort. As Al Capone
put it, "Anybody can use a gun. 'The Hump' can shoot if he has to, but he likes to negotiate with cash when he can.” Humphreys also did everything in his power to see that he and other Outfit members attracted as little press attention as possible. While some made men
, such as Salvatore Giancana
(also known as "Sam" or "Mooney") and Filippo Sacco
(also known as "John Roselli" or "Handsome Johnny"), craved the limelight, most took Humphreys' cue and stayed behind the scenes. Humphreys spent most of his life in a nondescript bungalow in South Shore, Chicago
.
Humphreys placed great trust in the corruptibility of authority figures; a favorite maxim of his was: "The difference between guilt and innocence in any court is who gets to the judge first with the most." But perhaps the statement that best summed up Humphreys’ cruel philosophy of life was: "Any time you become weak, you might as well die."
During the next few years, Humphreys appears to have been involved in several jewel thefts, and burglaries and by age 16, he was serving a 60-day sentence for petty larceny in Chicago’s Bridewell Jail. The original charge had been one of felony burglary (which would have carried a much stiffer sentence) but Humphreys had convinced the prosecutor to change the charge. According to a later acquaintance of Humphreys, the young criminal's private ultimatum to the prosecutor went something like this: "You try to get me indicted for burglary and I will weep in front of the grand jury. They probably won't indict me because I am only 16 years old. But even if you get me to court, the do-gooders will say that because of my extreme youth I ought not to be sent to prison. However, if you reduce the charge to one of petty larceny, I will plead guilty. I will get a light sentence. You will get a conviction that looks good on your record. Everybody will be happy. What's more, you will receive a suitable gift before the case goes to court."
Humphreys then continued his life of crime, primarily one of jewel heists and burglaries. Murray left Chicago for his brother's home in Little Axe, Oklahoma
in 1921 after some difficulties. Taking a temporary job as a door-to-door salesman, Humphreys met an attractive young college student from Norman
, named Mary Brendle. Marriage followed a brief courtship, and after a suitable time had elapsed, Humphreys took his young bride back with him to Chicago. Briefly going legitimate, Humphreys got a job as a short-order cook at a restaurant on Halsted Street
, though Murray's "legitimacy" would be short-lived after he made the acquaintance of customer Fred Evans.
The college-educated Evans was a small-time Chicago gangster in search of a partner who could help him break into the lucrative field of bootleg liquor. Evans found his partner in Humphreys, and the problem of having no bootleg of their own was solved by the decision to hijack others’ bootleg. All went smoothly for several years until Murray hijacked some bootleg belonging to the Capone mob. When Humphreys was identified by the truck’s driver as the hijacker who had stuck a gun in his face, some Capone men picked Humphreys up and brought him before Capone. Exactly what conversation passed between the two is unknown, but apparently Capone was impressed enough by the smooth-talking young hood to give him a job with The Outfit. As an appreciative Capone was later to say of his chance discovery: "Nobody hustles like the Hump."
The 27-year-old Humphreys was put into the racketeering side of the business but also carried out some killings for the mob around this time.
From the late 1920s to the early 1930s, Humphreys, along with “Red” Barker, William “Three-Fingered Jack” White and William “Klondike” O’Donnell, was one of the mobsters who orchestrated the Outfit’s takeover of the Chicago labor unions. (Humphreys was later indicted for the December 1931 kidnapping of a union president, Robert G. Fitche, but escaped conviction.)
In 1933, with Capone behind bars for income tax evasion, the chief investigator for the State Attorney's office described Murray Humphreys as, “'public enemy No. 1' and 'the czar of business rackets in Chicago.'” Later that same year, Humphreys was indicted for income tax evasion himself. On the run for 18 months, he finally gave himself up near Whiting, Indiana
, and entered a plea of guilty. Sentenced by a Federal Judge to 18 months in Leavenworth Prison, Humphreys wound up serving only 13 months of his sentence.
Humphreys likely had a hand in arranging the 1933 fake kidnapping of John "Jake the Barber" Factor
, a British con artist wanted in England for stock swindling
. Factor, a Capone friend, was facing extradition proceedings when the Outfit staged a fake disappearance and framed Capone rival Roger "Terrible" Touhy
for allegedly kidnapping Factor. Touhy received a 99-year prison sentence but was released in 1959, only to be murdered several weeks later. Six months after Touhy's death, Humphreys supposedly bought several shares of an insurance company and eight months later redeemed the shares for $42,000. An Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) investigation soon determined that these shares had been originally owned by John Factor. The IRS claimed that the $42,000 was a payment from Factor to Humphreys for the fake 1933 kidnapping; they forced Humphreys to declare the money as income and pay taxes.
In 1947, Humphreys was assigned the difficult task of securing paroles for four important Outfit members, the most prominent being Felice "Paul Ricca" Deluca
. The four had been in jail three years already, but some new indictments were coming up that promised to not only destroy their chances for parole, but add on some serious time to their sentences. A deal was made with the U.S. Attorney General at the time, Tom C. Clark
. Clark had the power to quash the new indictments and push the paroles along, but he was reluctant to face the outcry that would surround him if the mobsters were freed. The Outfit promised him that “if he had the thick skin to do it, he'd get the next appointment to the Supreme Court.” Clark delivered, and on October 3, 1949, he received President Truman’s nomination to the Supreme Court, which had been brought about by the Mob’s “leverage” on Truman himself:
The Chicago Tribune
, outraged by Clark’s appointment, spoke of, “Clark's utter unfitness for any position of public responsibility and especially for a position on the Supreme Court.” And, the Tribune added: “We have been sure of Clark's unfitness ever since he played his considerable role in releasing the Capone gangsters after they served only the bare minimum of their terms.”
Other career highlights for Humphreys include his discovering, and utilizing the intricacies of the legal system's "Double Jeopardy
" rule and the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment
for the Mob’s benefit.
When Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik
died in 1956, Humphreys became the Outfit’s chief political fixer and financial manager, or, in the words of one Mafia historian, their “strategist, councilor, and master schemer.” Guzik’s death of a massive heart attack occurred at St. Hubert's Olde English Grill, which had long served as a secret contact spot for mob fixers and prominent Chicago judges. Knowing that Guzik’s body could not be found at the restaurant without compromising some of the Outfit’s most valuable judicial stooges, Humphreys had the body surreptitiously removed from the restaurant and taken home to Mrs. Guzik, who was curtly informed that her husband had officially died at home.
Giancana and his much valued “adviser” had rather dissimilar styles, illustrated by the following: both men were constantly tailed by Federal agents, but when Giancana grew impatient of a car tailing him, he put his foot to the gas and brought about a race between him and his pursuers. Humphreys, however, one day when he had had enough of being followed, got out of his car, sent his driver home, went up to the car that was following him and said: “You've been following me all day. There's no need for two cars. I'll ride with you.” (He did just that, and apparently even bought the officers lunch.)
Sam Giancana and Murray Humphreys both topped the FBI’s Top Hoodlum list, “Top Hoodlum” being a program put into operation in 1957 for the purpose of combating organized crime; the Mafia in particular. When Chicago FBI agents under the leadership of William F. Roemer finally discovered that a second-floor tailor shop on North Michigan Avenue
, in the heart of what is now "Magnificent Mile
," was a frequent meeting place for such Outfit notables as Humphreys, Tony Accardo
, Sam Giancana and Gus Alex
, the FBI painstakingly installed a hidden microphone in the shop after hours. “One microphone was worth a thousand agents,” said Roemer, fondly remembering the bug they christened, “Little Al.” ("Little Al" remained in place undetected for five years, and gave the FBI invaluable knowledge about the inner workings of the Mafia.)
Humphreys’ first wife Mary Clementine Brendle, known affectionately as “Clemi”, was an Oklahoman with part Cherokee ancestry. Together they had one child, a daughter named Llewella. The family’s Chicago home was on 7710 Bennett Ave. where a plaque hung over the fireplace reading, "Love thy crooked neighbor as you love thy crooked self." In the yard, Humphreys built his daughter an intentionally crooked playhouse.
Their other home was in Norman, Oklahoma. Clemi’s many relatives lived nearby and Humphreys soon endeared himself to his acquired nephews and nieces: "I was a small child, and he was always super nice to me,” recalled Ray Brendle nearly 60 years later. “He made our Christmases. He would play Santa Claus and come down from the second floor dressed as Santa and carrying presents for all us kids. We were all dirt poor, and he was the only one who had money.” Others in Norman were favorably impressed by Humphreys’ habit of handing out silver dollars to strangers who appeared needy. Another nephew once recalled how, "every holiday, uncle Lew would go downtown, fill the station wagon with turkeys and other food, and give it to the underprivileged Indian children." This seemingly philanthropic side of Humphreys was also noted by FBI agents, who discovered that Humphreys “was the one gangster who looked after just-released convicts who needed jobs, and who made certain that the Outfit gave pensions to widows and disabled associates.” An FBI agent trying to understand his growing regard for “The Camel”, guessed that: “it is probably a common pitfall for lawmen to develop affection for those of their adversaries who have more of the good human qualities than their other targets.”
In 1957, after a separation of three years from her husband, Mary Brendle Humphreys filed for divorce. The following year Humphreys married his mistress Jeanne Stacy, but soon re-established friendly relations with Clemi, frequently calling her by phone and making occasional visits to Oklahoma. In 1964, Humphreys took his ex-wife and their daughter on a two month tour of Europe; Britain, France, Greece and Switzerland being among the countries visited.
After his second marriage Humphreys bought a home in Florida under the alias of, "Mr. Lewis Hart," supposedly a retired Texas oilman. Having at this time developed the heart condition that would eventually kill him, Humphreys seemed to have tried retiring himself from the mob, but he was too valuable a man for The Outfit to lose and so his “retirement” never really came into effect.
If there was one very touchy subject for Humphreys, it was his daughter Llewella. Once, when questioned about his then teenage daughter before a senate committee, Humphreys became noticeably angry and snarled back at the offending Senator: “Would you like to have people asking questions about your family?” F.B.I tapes record Humphreys remembering how Estes Kefauver once asked him outright "is your daughter nuts?" Humphreys said he had barely resisted the urge to have Kefauver "powdered". At a young age, Llewella Humphreys was the victim of severe mental troubles. While in school she had shown fine musical talent, giving her father the idea to send her to Europe where she could further her musical studies. But while in Rome Llewella met the Italian actor Rossano Brazzi
, and the two became lovers. When Llewella returned to American she gave birth to a son on July 14, 1955, whom she named George Llewellyn Brady. Humphreys sent Llewella and her baby to live in Oklahoma with Llewella’s mother; but, in 1958 Murray Humphreys had his increasingly ill and unstable daughter committed to a Topeka, Kansas, sanitarium, where she remained for the next three years.
In 1965, Chicago boss Sam Giancana was jailed by Federal Judge William J. Campbell for his refusal to answer questions regarding the syndicate’s activities. Campbell had blocked Giancana’s plan to, "Plead the Fifth," by announcing at the start of the hearing that Giancana would be granted automatic immunity for anything self-incriminating the gang-boss might reveal in his testimony. When Giancana refused to say anything, he was charged with, "Contempt of Court
," and sentenced to be jailed “for the duration of the grand jury or until he chooses to answer.” Three weeks after Giancana’s arrest Humphreys was issued a subpoena to appear before the same grand-jury. When Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) Agent William Roemer
came to Humphreys’ Marina Towers
apartment to deliver the subpoena
he was met at the door by Ernest Humphreys, who told Roemer that his brother had just left for parts unknown. When leaving the apartment, Roemer noticed a distinctly colored blue blazer hung on a chair.
Knowing that because of increasing blindness in one eye Humphreys always visited his family in Oklahoma by train, Roemer promptly checked the Polk Street railroad station and called ahead for agents to stop the Oklahoma bound train. Humphreys was met by federal agents in Norman, who escorted him back to Chicago. At this time Roemer began to assemble proof that Humphreys had been intentionally fleeing the subpoena. The railroad employee who had sold Humphreys his ticket remembered what Humphreys had been wearing and described the same blue blazer that Roemer had seen while speaking to Ernest Humphreys. Also, a porter recalled how while on the train Humphreys was reading a newspaper which he eventually threw aside. Picking up the paper, the porter had been surprised to see the late-reader’s face displayed on page one, accompanied by an article about his being sought by the grand jury for questioning. Humphreys’ subsequent testimony to the grand jury that he had not known about the subpoena when he left the state was thereby disproved, and three agents were sent to arrest Humphreys on the charge of perjury
.
Roemer, who had surprisingly evolved a liking for Humphreys in the course of his dealings with him, purposely did not include himself among the agents he sent to arrest the mobster. When the three selected agents knocked on the door of Humphreys’ apartment it was opened by Humphreys, with a 38-caliber revolver in his hand. One of the agents is quoted as saying: “Murray, for Christ’s sake, you know we’re FBI agents, put down the gun.” The agents overpowered the aging mobster without much difficulty and handcuffed him. There was a safe in the apartment, and the agents decided to invoke, "search and seizure
," "incidental to arrest," which was new to Humphreys’ knowledge of law. They asked Humphreys to hand over the key, which Humphreys refused to do. Another struggle ensued, which ended in the agents forcibly taking the key from Humphreys’ pants pocket and opening the safe. Its contents and Humphreys were taken downtown where Humphreys’ restaurateur friend, Morrie Norman, posted bail for him.
That night, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Ernest Humphreys found his dead brother lying fully clothed and face down on the floor of the same room where he and the agents had fought. Humphreys had apparently been vacuuming the room at the time of his death. The Cook County coroner Andrew Toman attributed cause of death to an acute coronary occlusion.
Humphreys’ Oklahoma family, composed of Clemi, Llewella, and George, took a plane to Chicago and attended a private service at the Donnellan Funeral Home, where Humphreys’ remains were cremated despite the wish he had expressed for his body to be donated for medical research. After the service Morrie Norman, having been a mutual friend to both Roemer and Humphreys, arranged a meeting between the family and Bill Roemer at his restaurant. "I told them all how much I respected their husband, father, and grandfather,” recalled Roemer, “and that I deeply regretted what had happened."
Sandy Smith, the Chicago Tribune’s top crime journalist, reported Humphreys’ death in an article entitled, “His Epitaph: No Gangster Was More Bold.” Another newspaper man, Mike Royko, had the following quip to offer: "[Humphreys] died of unnatural causes – a heart attack."
”, originated with Humphreys.
Named his dog, “Snorky,” after Al Capone
.
Described by Sam Giancana
as, "the nicest guy in the mob."
Reportedly inspired the character of Tom Hagen
in The Godfather
Murray Humphreys on gun-safety: "If you ever have to cock a gun in a man's face, kill him. If you walk away without killing him after doing that, he'll kill you the next day."
In 2010, Newsok.com in Oklahoma City published a story about the couple who bought the Humphrey's retreat in Norman, Oklahoma. On the property is the mausoleum containing the
remains of Humphreys and his daughter and first wife.
LINK:http://ndepth.newsok.com/murray-humphreys
"Humphreys was a highly skilled talent scout. According to scholars of such matters, he was the crime syndicate's leading recruiter of young blood, if you'll pardon the expression." - Mike Royko
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
mobster of Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
descent who was the chief political and labor racketeer in the Chicago Outfit
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Chicago Syndicate or Chicago Mob and sometimes shortened to simply the Outfit, is a crime syndicate based in Chicago, Illinois, USA...
during Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
. His family immigrated from the village of Llandinam
Llandinam
Llandinam is village in Powys, central Wales, between Newtown and Llanidloes, located on the A470.Llandinam was the family home of David Davies who was responsible for much of the development of the South Wales Valleys and the export of coal in the 19th century...
, in Powys, Wales.
His two most commonly known nicknames were "The Camel" and "The Hump." It has been suggested that the nickname, "The Camel," derived from his preference for wearing camel hair
Camel hair
Camel hair is, variously, the hair of a camel; a type of cloth made from camel hair; or a substitute for authentic camel hair; and is classified as a specialty hair fibre. When woven into haircloth, using the outer protective fur called guard hair, camel hair is coarse and inflexible...
coats; however, a more likely explanation is that "The Camel," evolved from his other nickname, "The Hump", derived from his surname. The names given to him by his friends, however, were more revealing: "Mr. Einstein," "The Brainy Hood" and "Mr. Moneybags."
A ruthless but clever man, Humphreys believed in killing only as a last resort. As Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
put it, "Anybody can use a gun. 'The Hump' can shoot if he has to, but he likes to negotiate with cash when he can.” Humphreys also did everything in his power to see that he and other Outfit members attracted as little press attention as possible. While some made men
Made man
A made man, also known as a Mafioso , made guy, man of honor, or uomo d'onore , is someone who has been officially inducted into the Sicilian or American Mafia . They may also be referred to by some as a goodfella or wiseguy...
, such as Salvatore Giancana
Sam Giancana
Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...
(also known as "Sam" or "Mooney") and Filippo Sacco
John Roselli
John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli , sometimes spelled John Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped them control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. Roselli was also involved with the Central Intelligence Agency plot to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s...
(also known as "John Roselli" or "Handsome Johnny"), craved the limelight, most took Humphreys' cue and stayed behind the scenes. Humphreys spent most of his life in a nondescript bungalow in South Shore, Chicago
South Shore, Chicago
South Shore is one of 77 well-defined community areas of the City of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. A predominately black neighborhood located along Chicago's southern lakefront, it is a relatively stable and gentrifying neighborhood...
.
Humphreys placed great trust in the corruptibility of authority figures; a favorite maxim of his was: "The difference between guilt and innocence in any court is who gets to the judge first with the most." But perhaps the statement that best summed up Humphreys’ cruel philosophy of life was: "Any time you become weak, you might as well die."
Early life
Llewelyn Morris Humphreys was the third of five children. Due to the family's impoverished condition, he dropped out of elementary school at age seven and got a job selling newspapers. However, young "Curly" Humphreys (so nicknamed because of his dark curly hair) soon tried his hand at petty theft and became involved with the world of Chicago street gangs. By the time he had turned 13 years old, Humphreys was in the custody of a Chicago judge by the name of Jack Murray, who apparently attempted to interest the young hoodlum in a law career. While not inspiring Curly to follow in his footsteps, Judge Murray's judicial lessons proved of great value to Humphreys later on. It was at this time that Llewelyn Humphreys changed his name to Murray Humphreys.During the next few years, Humphreys appears to have been involved in several jewel thefts, and burglaries and by age 16, he was serving a 60-day sentence for petty larceny in Chicago’s Bridewell Jail. The original charge had been one of felony burglary (which would have carried a much stiffer sentence) but Humphreys had convinced the prosecutor to change the charge. According to a later acquaintance of Humphreys, the young criminal's private ultimatum to the prosecutor went something like this: "You try to get me indicted for burglary and I will weep in front of the grand jury. They probably won't indict me because I am only 16 years old. But even if you get me to court, the do-gooders will say that because of my extreme youth I ought not to be sent to prison. However, if you reduce the charge to one of petty larceny, I will plead guilty. I will get a light sentence. You will get a conviction that looks good on your record. Everybody will be happy. What's more, you will receive a suitable gift before the case goes to court."
Humphreys then continued his life of crime, primarily one of jewel heists and burglaries. Murray left Chicago for his brother's home in Little Axe, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
in 1921 after some difficulties. Taking a temporary job as a door-to-door salesman, Humphreys met an attractive young college student from Norman
Norman, Oklahoma
Norman is a city in Cleveland County, Oklahoma, United States, and is located south of downtown Oklahoma City. It is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, Norman was to have 110,925 full-time residents, making it the third-largest city in Oklahoma and the...
, named Mary Brendle. Marriage followed a brief courtship, and after a suitable time had elapsed, Humphreys took his young bride back with him to Chicago. Briefly going legitimate, Humphreys got a job as a short-order cook at a restaurant on Halsted Street
Halsted Street
Halsted Street is a major north-south street in the American city of Chicago, Illinois.-Location:In Chicago's grid system, Halsted street marks 800 West, one mile west of State Street, from Grace Street in Lakeview south to the city limits at the Little Calumet River in West Pullman...
, though Murray's "legitimacy" would be short-lived after he made the acquaintance of customer Fred Evans.
The college-educated Evans was a small-time Chicago gangster in search of a partner who could help him break into the lucrative field of bootleg liquor. Evans found his partner in Humphreys, and the problem of having no bootleg of their own was solved by the decision to hijack others’ bootleg. All went smoothly for several years until Murray hijacked some bootleg belonging to the Capone mob. When Humphreys was identified by the truck’s driver as the hijacker who had stuck a gun in his face, some Capone men picked Humphreys up and brought him before Capone. Exactly what conversation passed between the two is unknown, but apparently Capone was impressed enough by the smooth-talking young hood to give him a job with The Outfit. As an appreciative Capone was later to say of his chance discovery: "Nobody hustles like the Hump."
Mob career
"He was skinny and dapper and handsome in a sinister sort of way, a representative of the new breed of racketeer, part thug and part businessman. And he enjoyed Capone's favor."
Capone: The Man and the Era, by Laurence Bergreen
The 27-year-old Humphreys was put into the racketeering side of the business but also carried out some killings for the mob around this time.
From the late 1920s to the early 1930s, Humphreys, along with “Red” Barker, William “Three-Fingered Jack” White and William “Klondike” O’Donnell, was one of the mobsters who orchestrated the Outfit’s takeover of the Chicago labor unions. (Humphreys was later indicted for the December 1931 kidnapping of a union president, Robert G. Fitche, but escaped conviction.)
In 1933, with Capone behind bars for income tax evasion, the chief investigator for the State Attorney's office described Murray Humphreys as, “'public enemy No. 1' and 'the czar of business rackets in Chicago.'” Later that same year, Humphreys was indicted for income tax evasion himself. On the run for 18 months, he finally gave himself up near Whiting, Indiana
Whiting, Indiana
Whiting is a city located in the Chicago Metropolitan Area in Lake County, Indiana, which was founded in 1889. The city is located on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. It is roughly 16 miles from the Chicago Loop and just short of two miles from Chicago's South Side. Whiting is home to Whiting...
, and entered a plea of guilty. Sentenced by a Federal Judge to 18 months in Leavenworth Prison, Humphreys wound up serving only 13 months of his sentence.
Humphreys likely had a hand in arranging the 1933 fake kidnapping of John "Jake the Barber" Factor
John Factor
John Factor , born Iakov Faktorowicz and popularly known by the nickname "Jake the Barber", was a Prohibition-era gangster and con artist affiliated with the Chicago Outfit who later became a prominent businessman and Las Vegas casino proprietor...
, a British con artist wanted in England for stock swindling
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
. Factor, a Capone friend, was facing extradition proceedings when the Outfit staged a fake disappearance and framed Capone rival Roger "Terrible" Touhy
Roger Touhy
Roger Touhy was an Irish-American mob boss and prohibition-era bootlegger from Chicago, Illinois. He is best remembered for having been framed for the 1933 faked kidnapping of gangster John "Jake the Barber" Factor, a brother of cosmetics manufacturer Max Factor, Sr...
for allegedly kidnapping Factor. Touhy received a 99-year prison sentence but was released in 1959, only to be murdered several weeks later. Six months after Touhy's death, Humphreys supposedly bought several shares of an insurance company and eight months later redeemed the shares for $42,000. An Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
(IRS) investigation soon determined that these shares had been originally owned by John Factor. The IRS claimed that the $42,000 was a payment from Factor to Humphreys for the fake 1933 kidnapping; they forced Humphreys to declare the money as income and pay taxes.
In 1947, Humphreys was assigned the difficult task of securing paroles for four important Outfit members, the most prominent being Felice "Paul Ricca" Deluca
Paul Ricca
Paul Ricca, also known as "The Waiter" , was a Chicago mobster who served as the nominal or de facto leader of the Chicago Outfit for forty years.-Early life:...
. The four had been in jail three years already, but some new indictments were coming up that promised to not only destroy their chances for parole, but add on some serious time to their sentences. A deal was made with the U.S. Attorney General at the time, Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
. Clark had the power to quash the new indictments and push the paroles along, but he was reluctant to face the outcry that would surround him if the mobsters were freed. The Outfit promised him that “if he had the thick skin to do it, he'd get the next appointment to the Supreme Court.” Clark delivered, and on October 3, 1949, he received President Truman’s nomination to the Supreme Court, which had been brought about by the Mob’s “leverage” on Truman himself:
After considering the problem, Humphreys hit upon the solution: He would tap a 68-year-old Missouri attorney named Paul Dillon, a litigator he had employed in 1939 … Humphreys' kinship with the Missouri-based Dillon was a natural result of his role as the Outfit's political liaison to that state. And in the shadowy world of underworld-upperworld collusions, this linkage gave Curly Humphreys leverage over the most powerful politician in the United States …Dillon was the St. Louis, Missouri, version of Chicago's Sid KorshakSidney KorshakSidney R. Korshak was a labor lawyer and "fixer" for businessmen in the upper echelons of power and the Chicago Outfit in the United States. His reputation as the Chicago mob's man in Los Angeles made him one of Hollywood's most fabled and influential fixers...
, with one notable exception: Dillon's gangster associates in Kansas City, Missouri, had sponsored the ascendancy of the 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
. Humphreys knew that by playing the Kansas City card he was subtly threatening to open a Pandora's boxPandora's boxPandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology, taken from the myth of Pandora's creation around line 60 of Hesiod's Works and Days. The "box" was actually a large jar given to Pandora , which contained all the evils of the world. When Pandora opened the jar, all its contents except for one item...
that Washington would be forced to address.
The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America, by Gus RussoGus RussoGus G. Russo was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a Mafia and John F. Kennedy assassination researcher who was part of a team of researchers that worked on the 1993 Frontline Lee Harvey Oswald documentary, "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?," for PBS...
.
The Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, outraged by Clark’s appointment, spoke of, “Clark's utter unfitness for any position of public responsibility and especially for a position on the Supreme Court.” And, the Tribune added: “We have been sure of Clark's unfitness ever since he played his considerable role in releasing the Capone gangsters after they served only the bare minimum of their terms.”
Other career highlights for Humphreys include his discovering, and utilizing the intricacies of the legal system's "Double Jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
" rule and the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
for the Mob’s benefit.
When Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik
Jake Guzik
Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik was the financial and legal advisor, and later political “greaser”, for the Chicago Outfit.-Early life:...
died in 1956, Humphreys became the Outfit’s chief political fixer and financial manager, or, in the words of one Mafia historian, their “strategist, councilor, and master schemer.” Guzik’s death of a massive heart attack occurred at St. Hubert's Olde English Grill, which had long served as a secret contact spot for mob fixers and prominent Chicago judges. Knowing that Guzik’s body could not be found at the restaurant without compromising some of the Outfit’s most valuable judicial stooges, Humphreys had the body surreptitiously removed from the restaurant and taken home to Mrs. Guzik, who was curtly informed that her husband had officially died at home.
"By the time the late fifties rolled around, it was pretty well understood that Murray Humphreys had dined with presidents and kings all over the world, from the Philippines to Iran. But his real claim to fame was the fact that he'd single-handedly put some of the nation's richest labor unions in Chicago's pocket - a move that was worth billions to the Outfit, particularly in the gambling industry. With a resume like that, you could understand why Sam Giancana made Murray Humphreys one of his top financial advisers. But it wasn't just his brains that attracted Mr. G.; Humphreys had class, too. He could fit into the country club set as well as politicians and executives. He was also about as cold-blooded as a guy could get, which was a real interesting combination for a guy in his position. It made him even more dangerous."
Double Deal, by Michael Corbitt and Chuck Giancana.
Giancana and his much valued “adviser” had rather dissimilar styles, illustrated by the following: both men were constantly tailed by Federal agents, but when Giancana grew impatient of a car tailing him, he put his foot to the gas and brought about a race between him and his pursuers. Humphreys, however, one day when he had had enough of being followed, got out of his car, sent his driver home, went up to the car that was following him and said: “You've been following me all day. There's no need for two cars. I'll ride with you.” (He did just that, and apparently even bought the officers lunch.)
Sam Giancana and Murray Humphreys both topped the FBI’s Top Hoodlum list, “Top Hoodlum” being a program put into operation in 1957 for the purpose of combating organized crime; the Mafia in particular. When Chicago FBI agents under the leadership of William F. Roemer finally discovered that a second-floor tailor shop on North Michigan Avenue
Michigan Avenue (Chicago)
Michigan Avenue is a major north-south street in Chicago which runs at 100 east south of the Chicago River and at 132 East north of the river from 12628 south to 950 north in the Chicago street address system...
, in the heart of what is now "Magnificent Mile
Magnificent Mile
The Magnificent Mile, sometimes referred to as The Mag Mile, is a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, that runs along a portion of Michigan Avenue extending from the Chicago River to Oak Street in the Near North Side community area. The district is located adjacent to downtown; it is also one block...
," was a frequent meeting place for such Outfit notables as Humphreys, Tony Accardo
Tony Accardo
Antonino Joseph Accardo , also known as "Joe Batters" or "Big Tuna", rose from small-time hoodlum to the position of day-to-day boss of the Chicago Outfit in 1947, to ultimately become the final Outfit authority in 1972, until his death...
, Sam Giancana and Gus Alex
Gus Alex
Gus Alex was a Greek-American mobster and high ranking member of the Chicago Outfit, who succeeded Jake Guzik as the Syndicate's main political "fixer".-Early life:...
, the FBI painstakingly installed a hidden microphone in the shop after hours. “One microphone was worth a thousand agents,” said Roemer, fondly remembering the bug they christened, “Little Al.” ("Little Al" remained in place undetected for five years, and gave the FBI invaluable knowledge about the inner workings of the Mafia.)
From listening to the bugged conversations, the agents developed a fondness for the Hump, who was often heard to say, “Good morning, gentlemen, and anyone listening. This is the 9 o'clock meeting of the Chicago underworld.” Unlike Giancana, whose every other word was profane, Humphreys never swore. In addition to having “perhaps the most brilliant mob mind in Chicago,” as William Brashler has put it, he was also a marvelous raconteur.
J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, by Curt Gentry
Family and private life
Murray Humphreys:Humphreys’ first wife Mary Clementine Brendle, known affectionately as “Clemi”, was an Oklahoman with part Cherokee ancestry. Together they had one child, a daughter named Llewella. The family’s Chicago home was on 7710 Bennett Ave. where a plaque hung over the fireplace reading, "Love thy crooked neighbor as you love thy crooked self." In the yard, Humphreys built his daughter an intentionally crooked playhouse.
Their other home was in Norman, Oklahoma. Clemi’s many relatives lived nearby and Humphreys soon endeared himself to his acquired nephews and nieces: "I was a small child, and he was always super nice to me,” recalled Ray Brendle nearly 60 years later. “He made our Christmases. He would play Santa Claus and come down from the second floor dressed as Santa and carrying presents for all us kids. We were all dirt poor, and he was the only one who had money.” Others in Norman were favorably impressed by Humphreys’ habit of handing out silver dollars to strangers who appeared needy. Another nephew once recalled how, "every holiday, uncle Lew would go downtown, fill the station wagon with turkeys and other food, and give it to the underprivileged Indian children." This seemingly philanthropic side of Humphreys was also noted by FBI agents, who discovered that Humphreys “was the one gangster who looked after just-released convicts who needed jobs, and who made certain that the Outfit gave pensions to widows and disabled associates.” An FBI agent trying to understand his growing regard for “The Camel”, guessed that: “it is probably a common pitfall for lawmen to develop affection for those of their adversaries who have more of the good human qualities than their other targets.”
In 1957, after a separation of three years from her husband, Mary Brendle Humphreys filed for divorce. The following year Humphreys married his mistress Jeanne Stacy, but soon re-established friendly relations with Clemi, frequently calling her by phone and making occasional visits to Oklahoma. In 1964, Humphreys took his ex-wife and their daughter on a two month tour of Europe; Britain, France, Greece and Switzerland being among the countries visited.
After his second marriage Humphreys bought a home in Florida under the alias of, "Mr. Lewis Hart," supposedly a retired Texas oilman. Having at this time developed the heart condition that would eventually kill him, Humphreys seemed to have tried retiring himself from the mob, but he was too valuable a man for The Outfit to lose and so his “retirement” never really came into effect.
If there was one very touchy subject for Humphreys, it was his daughter Llewella. Once, when questioned about his then teenage daughter before a senate committee, Humphreys became noticeably angry and snarled back at the offending Senator: “Would you like to have people asking questions about your family?” F.B.I tapes record Humphreys remembering how Estes Kefauver once asked him outright "is your daughter nuts?" Humphreys said he had barely resisted the urge to have Kefauver "powdered". At a young age, Llewella Humphreys was the victim of severe mental troubles. While in school she had shown fine musical talent, giving her father the idea to send her to Europe where she could further her musical studies. But while in Rome Llewella met the Italian actor Rossano Brazzi
Rossano Brazzi
-Biography:Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria Brazzi. He attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four...
, and the two became lovers. When Llewella returned to American she gave birth to a son on July 14, 1955, whom she named George Llewellyn Brady. Humphreys sent Llewella and her baby to live in Oklahoma with Llewella’s mother; but, in 1958 Murray Humphreys had his increasingly ill and unstable daughter committed to a Topeka, Kansas, sanitarium, where she remained for the next three years.
Arrest and death
"I'm so tired," he'd say. "I want out so bad, but I made my decision and I have to live with it."
Llewella Humphreys
In 1965, Chicago boss Sam Giancana was jailed by Federal Judge William J. Campbell for his refusal to answer questions regarding the syndicate’s activities. Campbell had blocked Giancana’s plan to, "Plead the Fifth," by announcing at the start of the hearing that Giancana would be granted automatic immunity for anything self-incriminating the gang-boss might reveal in his testimony. When Giancana refused to say anything, he was charged with, "Contempt of Court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
," and sentenced to be jailed “for the duration of the grand jury or until he chooses to answer.” Three weeks after Giancana’s arrest Humphreys was issued a subpoena to appear before the same grand-jury. When Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) Agent William Roemer
William F. Roemer, Jr.
William F. Roemer, Jr. was an FBI agent for 30 years. He is known for his battle against organized crime and being the most highly decorated agent in FBI history. After retirement he became a private attorney for businesses being muscled by the mob...
came to Humphreys’ Marina Towers
Marina City
Marina City is a mixed-use residential/commercial building complex occupying an entire city block on State Street in Chicago, Illinois. It lies on the north bank of the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, directly across from the Loop district...
apartment to deliver the subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
he was met at the door by Ernest Humphreys, who told Roemer that his brother had just left for parts unknown. When leaving the apartment, Roemer noticed a distinctly colored blue blazer hung on a chair.
Knowing that because of increasing blindness in one eye Humphreys always visited his family in Oklahoma by train, Roemer promptly checked the Polk Street railroad station and called ahead for agents to stop the Oklahoma bound train. Humphreys was met by federal agents in Norman, who escorted him back to Chicago. At this time Roemer began to assemble proof that Humphreys had been intentionally fleeing the subpoena. The railroad employee who had sold Humphreys his ticket remembered what Humphreys had been wearing and described the same blue blazer that Roemer had seen while speaking to Ernest Humphreys. Also, a porter recalled how while on the train Humphreys was reading a newspaper which he eventually threw aside. Picking up the paper, the porter had been surprised to see the late-reader’s face displayed on page one, accompanied by an article about his being sought by the grand jury for questioning. Humphreys’ subsequent testimony to the grand jury that he had not known about the subpoena when he left the state was thereby disproved, and three agents were sent to arrest Humphreys on the charge of perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
.
Roemer, who had surprisingly evolved a liking for Humphreys in the course of his dealings with him, purposely did not include himself among the agents he sent to arrest the mobster. When the three selected agents knocked on the door of Humphreys’ apartment it was opened by Humphreys, with a 38-caliber revolver in his hand. One of the agents is quoted as saying: “Murray, for Christ’s sake, you know we’re FBI agents, put down the gun.” The agents overpowered the aging mobster without much difficulty and handcuffed him. There was a safe in the apartment, and the agents decided to invoke, "search and seizure
Search and seizure
Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime.Some countries have...
," "incidental to arrest," which was new to Humphreys’ knowledge of law. They asked Humphreys to hand over the key, which Humphreys refused to do. Another struggle ensued, which ended in the agents forcibly taking the key from Humphreys’ pants pocket and opening the safe. Its contents and Humphreys were taken downtown where Humphreys’ restaurateur friend, Morrie Norman, posted bail for him.
That night, at approximately 8:30 p.m., Ernest Humphreys found his dead brother lying fully clothed and face down on the floor of the same room where he and the agents had fought. Humphreys had apparently been vacuuming the room at the time of his death. The Cook County coroner Andrew Toman attributed cause of death to an acute coronary occlusion.
Humphreys’ Oklahoma family, composed of Clemi, Llewella, and George, took a plane to Chicago and attended a private service at the Donnellan Funeral Home, where Humphreys’ remains were cremated despite the wish he had expressed for his body to be donated for medical research. After the service Morrie Norman, having been a mutual friend to both Roemer and Humphreys, arranged a meeting between the family and Bill Roemer at his restaurant. "I told them all how much I respected their husband, father, and grandfather,” recalled Roemer, “and that I deeply regretted what had happened."
"I had clearly developed an affinity for Hump – more so by far than for anyone else in the mob. The man had killed in the Capone days on the way up. He had committed my cardinal sin, corruption, many times over. But there was a style about the way he conducted himself. His word was his bond … Without question, I preferred working against a despised adversary such as a Giancana rather than a respected adversary such as a Humphreys. Each was a challenge – the difference being that I enjoyed the fruit of my success so much more against Giancana than I did against 'The Camel' … in Chicago there would be plenty more mobsters to choose as targets. But none like Hump."
Roemer: Man Against the Mob, by William F. Roemer Jr.
Sandy Smith, the Chicago Tribune’s top crime journalist, reported Humphreys’ death in an article entitled, “His Epitaph: No Gangster Was More Bold.” Another newspaper man, Mike Royko, had the following quip to offer: "[Humphreys] died of unnatural causes – a heart attack."
Quote
- “When Courtney was state’s attorney and all of us guys got indicted and Nitti was hollerin’ like hell, we broke through and we got the assistant state’s attorney and we got the witness and let me tell you I had the jury, too, just in case. That’s the way we got to revert to these days.”
Miscellany
Chicago tradition has it that the political advice, "Vote early and vote oftenVote early and vote often
Vote early and vote often is a generally tongue-in-cheek phrase used in relation to elections and the voting process. Though rarely considered a serious suggestion, the phrase theoretically encourages corrupt electoral activity, but is used mostly to suggest the occurrence of such corruption.The...
”, originated with Humphreys.
Named his dog, “Snorky,” after Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
.
Described by Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana
Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...
as, "the nicest guy in the mob."
Reportedly inspired the character of Tom Hagen
Tom Hagen
Thomas "Tom" Feargal Hagen is a fictional character in the Godfather books and films. He was portrayed by Robert Duvall in the films. He is the informally adopted son of Don Vito Corleone and serves as the family lawyer and consigliere . Mild-mannered and soft-spoken, he often serves as a voice of...
in The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
Murray Humphreys on gun-safety: "If you ever have to cock a gun in a man's face, kill him. If you walk away without killing him after doing that, he'll kill you the next day."
In 2010, Newsok.com in Oklahoma City published a story about the couple who bought the Humphrey's retreat in Norman, Oklahoma. On the property is the mausoleum containing the
remains of Humphreys and his daughter and first wife.
LINK:http://ndepth.newsok.com/murray-humphreys
"Humphreys was a highly skilled talent scout. According to scholars of such matters, he was the crime syndicate's leading recruiter of young blood, if you'll pardon the expression." - Mike Royko
Further reading
- Giancana, Chuck and Corbitt, Michael, Double Cross: The Explosive, Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America. New York: Warner Books, 1992. ISBN 0-446-51624-4
- Hersh, Seymour M., The Dark Side of Camelot. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997. ISBN 0-316-35955-6
- Russo, Gus, The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America.
- Roemer, William F., Jr., Roemer: Man Against the Mob.