Confessions of a Second Story Man

by Allen M. Hornblum

  McCarthy’s Pool Hall, the Cambria Gym, the Bubble Club, the Purple Derby, and the Randolph Social Club are also now part of history and the fading memories of septuagenarians. Once Irish/Polish, the community is now mostly black and Puerto Rican, with a broad sprinkling of other Latin American subgroups. The percussive beat of Manny Oquendo & the Libre All-Stars is far more likely to be heard on Kensington’s gritty streets than anything from the Clancy Brothers or Bobby Vinton. And while there are still many honest, hard-working families living there, syringes and crack vials are all too commonly found on the sidewalks. There are days when violent crime and arson appear to have the beleaguered community in a stranglehold.

  Not that the Kensington of old was always a model of traditional family values and respect for the law. Though the majority of residents during the third quarter of the twentieth century shared those ideals and tried to instill in their children a strong work ethic and a sense of fair play, there were a good number who didn’t. And it was one group of men in particular who gave the neighborhood a completely different reputation—a reputation that was spread far and wide.

  IT DOESN’T TAKE A BRAIN SURGEON to recognize Junior Kripplebauer, Jimmy Dolan, Chickie Goodroe, and the other members of Philly’s old K&A Gang as natural-born rule-breakers: social miscreants who for all their charm, panache, and boundless nerve just couldn’t conform to the dictates of society. Part rebel, part mischief maker, the Kensington second story man found an occupational niche that allowed him to thrive economically, flout convention, and satisfy his passion for excitement and a good time. Failures in the classroom, temperamentally unsuited for assembly-line factory work, and unsuccessful in traditional nine-to-five blue collar jobs, gang members gravitated to a profession that offered the right mix of challenge, reward, and exhilaration. Drawn to other people’s money and possessions as moths are to a bright light, they relished the intellectual challenge of entering a locked home, thwarting a state-of-the-art security system, and circumventing the best efforts of well-funded but clueless law enforcement agencies. Without question, they loved the life.

  Though they repeatedly squandered the spoils of their far-flung exploits, drowned themselves in whiskey and women, and presented the dysfunctional mirror image of a smooth-running, hierarchical criminal organization, the K&A Gang knew how to do residential and commercial burglaries as well as, if not better than, any other assemblage of social misfits and scoundrels in American history. Contracted by organized-crime elements in other American cities to do jobs the Mob couldn’t or wouldn’t attempt, they wowed “made men” in New York City with their knack for opening heavily secured safes and impressed Boston bank robbers with their ability to enter private residences undetected and, most surprisingly, unarmed.

  It goes without saying that if Richard Nixon had been as smart as the mobbed-up elements in the Big Apple and Beantown and used the K&A Gang instead of his appropriately named “plumbers” for the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices in June 1971, no one would ever have heard of “Watergate” and he wouldn’t have been forced to relinquish the presidency. E. Howard Hunt, E. Gordon Liddy, and the other three bunglers involved in the DNC break-in may have been Nixon loyalists willing to commit any crime for their commander-in-chief, but when it came to the art of burglary they were rank amateurs compared with Hughie Breslin, Jimmy Laverty, John L. McManus, and the rest of the K&A crowd.

  Boisterous, reckless, and argumentative, K&A burglars could destroy a Kensington drinking establishment in a matter of minutes and leave all in attendance shaken and scared to death, but they were also capable of sublime artistry when picking the collective pockets of well-heeled towns and cities across the country. Their flamboyant lifestyles, legendary accomplishments, and widely covered run-ins with the law elevated them to mythic status: home-grown, neighborhood heroes for many cramped, row house denizens who saw them as contemporary Robin Hoods, beer-guzzling, ruddy-faced, happy-go-lucky, artful outlaws following in the footsteps of such illustrious American misfits as Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, and John Dillinger.

  Like their better-known predecessors, they were done in by a confluence of factors they neither controlled nor understood. They were devoted to an in-the-moment lifestyle that traded many tomorrows for a little action today, but their zest for the big score was blown off course by the turbulent and unpredictable winds of time.

  Law enforcement agencies around the country gradually adapted, learned the K&A game plan, and implemented surveillance techniques and response procedures that eventually caught up with their elusive quarry. Home alarm systems grew more sophisticated, as red lights on the front door—the siren call for every K&A burglar—were removed and replaced by a befuddling array of heat, light, and movement sensors. And the age of plastic allowed credit card carriers to dispense with the practice of keeping large sums of cash in bedroom drawers and safes. In short, times had changed.

  Probably most important of all, however, was the influence of drugs. As Jimmy Dolan says, “It wasn’t the cops or better alarms or anything else that killed the K&A Gang. It was drugs. Meth was the fuckin’ poison that ruined everything.”

  Standup guys, guys who had a reputation for honesty and integrity, who never cheated a partner or cooperated with authorities, were now suspect, willing to give up a partner to stay out of jail, willing to send a buddy to prison to get their next fix.

  That was particularly true after the federal government instituted new drug sentencing guidelines in the early 1980s. What had once been a three-to-five-year stint in a state prison became a 20-to-40-year bit in a federal institution. Not everyone could handle such a lengthy jolt. As one Kensington burglar/meth cooker said, “Rats increased tenfold because of the new penalties. There weren’t many rats before the federal guidelines, but afterwards it was like Monte Hall— let’s make a deal.”

  “It was like tumbleweed,” says Chick Goodroe of the growing list of informants. “Tough guys rolled, and underlings started to say, ‘Hey, if they can do, it so can I.’ In the old days being a standup guy was everything, but that was when sentences for burglary were 11 to 23 months. Five to ten years was considered a big bit. With meth it was now 20 to 40 years. Some guys caught a life bit. It was awesome.”

  Steve LaCheen, who began his legal practice defending K&A burglars in the early 1960s and developed strong personal relationships with many of them, saw it all. “The drugs corrupted them,” he says. “It was like a virus. They were like pigs at the trough.”

  Not everyone, however, made the conversion from burglary to drugs. Some, in fact, didn’t live long enough even to witness the transition, much less take part in it, while others turned their back on the lucrative but stigmatizing enterprise. Still others got out of the game completely. They went legit.

  Willie Sears, arguably the inventor of production work, was gunned down in his Cadillac while stopped at an Atlantic City intersection in the early morning hours of February 21, 1964. A Kensington tough guy who revolutionized second story work, he watched his pupils like a hawk while occasionally skimming the best items from a score for himself. It is generally believed that his sudden and violent demise was due either to a friendlier-than-called-for relationship with the local police or to cheating one of his partners once too often.

  Effie Burke, a Sears disciple who injected a bit of pride and professionalism into the guild and became something of a role model for many of his students, suffered a severe heart attack in the early 1970s while working a job in north Jersey. Effie was always nervous during break-ins despite his many years in the business, and the coronary left him unsure whether he could still handle the physical and psychological stresses of this most demanding of criminal occupations. Unwilling to deal drugs and unable to handle the rigors of residential break-ins any more, Burke became “reclusive” and “ended up tapped out,” according to a former colleague. He died in 1980.

  Roy Stocker, 80, was released from Graterford State Prison in 2004 after serving
14 years of a 20-to-40-year sentence, only to find that the feds wanted an equally long part of him. When he was convicted of running a $52 million methamphetamine ring in 1990, the judge hit him with the maximum term allowed by law after accusing Stocker of ruling his organization with “fear and force” and referring to the “victims of his drug trade” as “uncountable.”

  Carl Jackson, convicted in 1987 as a “producer and pusher” of methamphetamine, was sentenced to life in prison under the federal drug kingpin statute. Now 68, he has just completed his sixteenth year in a federal penitentiary. It was said by a journalist “that Jackson’s profits rolled in so quickly that he did not know what to do with all the money.”

  Bill “Billy Blew” McClurg is now in his eighties and requires dialysis treatments several times a week. An owner of several bars, McClurg has done well financially. His share of a quarter-million-dollar score at the home of a wealthy plumber many years ago was used to launch a successful loan-sharking operation. He, more than most of his neighborhood compatriots, planned for the future.

  Marty Bell, one of the most agile of second story men, was shot by an off-duty police officer during an altercation on December 12, 1976. Bell, who was widely known for his “quickness and climbing ability” and, in fact, fitted the stereotype of the athletic cat burglar, was paralyzed below the waist by the gunshot and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

  George “Junior” Smith died of a heart attack in Pennsylvania’s Graterford State Prison in 2001 after serving nearly two decades behind bars. By that time he looked more like Rip Van Winkle than the handsome second story man he was when he started his criminal career. Junior, with a white beard stretching down to his chest, became a devotee of Eastern and Buddhist philosophies in order to escape the confines of his tiny prison cell and a sentence that offered no hope of parole eligibility until the year 2024.

  Don “the Dude” Abrams got out of production work in the 1970s when alarms started to go high-tech. He spent many years as an employee of Progress Lighting. Though he began his burglary career with Willie Sears in the early 1950s and claims to have done thousands of homes over the years, including those of Sammy Davis, Jr., and Eddie Fisher, he can be found today walking along Kensington and Allegheny Avenues. Unlike most of the other members of the K&A Gang, Abrams remained in the neighborhood his entire life.

  Johnny Boggs eventually met Father Peck, a priest with a mission and a persuasive personality, who gradually convinced Boggs that he still had time to straighten out his life, save his marriage, and become a contributing member of society. A leg breaker for the roofers when he wasn’t breaking into houses, Boggs decided to “shy away from crime” in the mid-1970s, stay clear of drugs, and clean up his act. Today, he is an accomplished handyman who repairs houses for a living.

  Donnie Johnstone did several prison bits during the 1970s and 1980s for burglary and receiving stolen goods. Although he had a hand in the meth business, he was never arrested for any drug-related crimes and left prison for good in 1991. Today, Johnstone tends bar and frequents quite a few others as a patron.

  Michael Lee Andrews, a renowned driver who could steer a crew of burglars from one end of the country to another without relief or a map, was found murdered in the trunk of his car after a drug deal gone bad.

  Mitchell Prinski, who did second story work with Junior Kripplebauer and Chick Goodroe, among others, was nailed with a 30-year prison sentence in the 1990s for his role in a methamphetamine ring. He is currently at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary and will be eligible for parole in 2017.

  Eddie Loney relocated to South Florida and made a considerable living in the drug and telemarketing businesses. He is currently a fugitive from justice and being sought for his role in a multimillion-dollar time-share scam. It is thought that he may be in hiding somewhere in Ireland.

  John Berkery, considered one of “Philadelphia’s most clever and fascinating criminals,” by police and crime reporters was another of the many K&A burglars who gravitated to drugs. Berkery was convicted of “distributing 24 pounds of methamphetamine and possession of more than 200 gallons of P-2-P, the contraband chemical used to make the drug in 1987.” This came after he had been a federal fugitive for over five years, much of which he may have spent in Ireland. Commenting on Berkery’s cunning and lengthy career, former federal prosecutor Louis R. Pichini said, “If Berkery’s last name had ended in a vowel, he would have been the head of the local Mafia.” Berkery is now back on the street and said to be considering going to law school.

  Jackie Johnson was released from federal prison in the early nineties after serving six years of a 10-year sentence for his participation in a methampheta-mine ring. Notification that his parole period had finally expired in 2003—the first time he had been off parole since he was nine years old, he claims—inspired a celebration by K&A oldtimers. Known as a “standup guy” all his life, Johnson can still keep a secret, tell a good story, and serve a stiff drink. He currently tends bar at a Tacony shot-and-beer joint.

  Chick Goodroe was a federal fugitive for 10 years before serving five years at Lewisburg, Danbury, and Allenwood penitentiaries. Released in 1992, Chick has worked as a marble and granite countertop salesman for the last eight years and has gradually become accustomed to “getting up at six a.m. and doing a full day’s work.” He now spends his days assisting homeowners in upscale residences he would formerly have burgled.

  Reflecting on the irony, Goodroe says, “I’m working homes in Princeton, New Jersey. They’re $3 to $10 million homes and I’m thinking about my life. I never expected to be this old. I never saved any money. I never thought it would end. Back in the day, if you were sitting with 10 people for dinner and you picked up the check for $2,000, it wasn’t a big deal. You’d work the next day and make it up. None of us were rocket scientists, but we knew how to make money.”

  Though his lifestyle has changed dramatically, he now claims to be enjoying “the American dream” for the first time. “I have a job, two mortgages, two car payments, health insurance, and a young girlfriend,” Goodroe says proudly. Yes, he sometimes tires of the drudgery and long hours, but he’s finally bought into the program. Old habits die slowly, however, and flashbacks to an earlier time periodically peek through the mist of conformity. “Every time I approach a house and see a mezuzah or a red light on a door,” says Chick of his sales appointments at some of America’s most fashionable homes, “I get a rush.”

  Jimmy Dolan made and lost several fortunes as a thief but “made up my mind it was over when the burglary business dried up in the late 1970s.” As he says a bit sadly of the changes that occurred at the time, “there was no one to work with any more.” Dolan isn’t reluctant to admit that he “should have stayed in school” and made something of himself, but he’s “really not ashamed” of his years as a K&A Gang member. “Oh, sure, I’ve got a ton of regrets,” he says, “but there’s no turning the clock back.” And even if he could, working as a Kensington second story man isn’t one of them. “I met some interesting people, guys who became good friends. They were the only standup guys I ever knew. The people whose homes we hit weren’t getting hurt. Nobody got robbed [at the point of a gun]. And the insurance companies were usually paying off anyway.”

  “There were some bad gangs out there,” says Dolan of the many crews that either did things they shouldn’t have or flipped on their partners when the pressure was applied. “I caught a break; I never worried about getting ratted on. Thank God, they were all standup guys. In the early days all the burglars were standup, but as time passed a lot of them rolled. In the end it was a flip of the coin.”

  Dolan kept his hand in a few business ventures—both legal and illegal—over the years, including a couple of successful Northeast Philadelphia nightclubs that fronted lively backroom poker games. He is a natural raconteur whose humorous stories of brazen gangsters and big scores captivate young and old alike—his current Tacony-based card games are attended as much for his wit and wis
dom as for the chance to make a few bucks at the poker table.

  The prototypical gangster with a heart of gold, Dolan never forgets those still doing time. He occasionally visits, writes often, and is usually the first one to rip off a few twenties from a pocket billfold to ensure that a friend “still buried” in America’s vast network of federal and state prisons has some money on the commissary books.

  AS FOR LOUIS JAMES KRIPPLEBAUER, Jr., it didn’t turn out exactly as he or anyone else would have expected. As luck would have it, the arc of his full and varied criminal life came to a sudden stop on July 18, 1999, on a typically sunny Florida morning. Junior and his girlfriend Sherry had just completed a vigorous lovemaking session and now lay in bed discussing what each of them had scheduled for the day. Junior finally got out of bed, showered, dressed, and was prepared to start making his rounds when Sherry asked, “Feel like stopping at the store?” She was hungry.

  Junior said sure and drove his Maserati convertible a short distance down Oakland Park Boulevard to the local Cuban deli. While the proprietor made the two hoagies he had ordered, Junior quickly polished off a sweet tasting Yoo-hoo and a pack of crackers. After paying for the sandwiches, he retraced his route back home. He had a terrible need to urinate.

  “I had to take a piss,” recalls Junior of the event that would change his life forever. “I pulled into the driveway of our apartment and hit the remote to open the garage door. Nothing happened. I hit it again. Nothing. And then again. Nothing was working. I thought the battery was dead, but kept on hitting the remote.”