Owney Madden :: essays research papers

for so many years. It was wasting away, but the Don Corleone from the UK would do everything he could to establish a name for himself, through a life filled with luck and crime. Liverpool, England, the birth to British and American Rock sensation, The beatles, was also the birthplace of one of the world’s most notorious killer. It was in Liverpool, England, 1892, that Owney Madden was born. However, only in 1903, did he and his family emigrate to New York and settle in the slums of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen. At an early age, Owney joined the Gophers and despite his light build, he was renowned as a tough and crazy gangster. He was a crack shot with a pistol and he used his trademark weapon, a lead pipe concealed in a rolled-up newspaper, to great effect. He was nicknamed "Killer Madden" at the age of 17 because by that time he already had two murders under his belt. Many more would follow. Madden moved out of his family's tenement apartment and rented a house with Tanner Smith. Smith had been leader of a relatively unsuccessful street gang known as the Marginal Gang, but became a Gopher when the Marginal split up. Soon after they moved into the house, neighbors began to complain about the all-night parties that the two gangsters held. Members of the Gophers would often come over and spend the night drinking, gambling and brawling at Owney and Tanner's. When the landlord threatened to throw them out, Madden asked "Mister, did you ever hear of Owney Madden?" The man replied that he had heard of him and Madden said: "Well Mister, I am Owney Madden." Apparently, that was enough to intimidate the owner of the house, but the neighbors continued to suffer from their entertainment and one night, a number of policemen arrived to break up a party. When he spotted them Madden shouted through a window: "We'll shoot the gizzard out of any cop that tries to come in here." True to his word, when the sergeant knocked on the door, Madden aimed his pistol through the window and killed him. The police retreated, waited for reinforcements and then stormed the house, handing out severe beatings to the gangsters they found inside. They never discovered which of the men fired the shot from the window and Madden, still a minor, was released the next day on a $500 bond.