by Sam Giancana
9.
The Rundown
Dauber’s Death Race
William Dauber was in a race for his life. Less than a half hour after leaving the Will County Courthouse, where he had attended a pretrial motion hearing on the morning of July 2, 1980, Dauber, one of the city’s most-feared mafia enforcers, was being chased in his car down a rural stretch of highway by mob assassins sent to kill him. They were shooting at him from two sets of automobiles and closing in fast.
The irony was clear—the hunter had become the hunted. And he wasn’t alone. Sitting next to him in the front passenger’s seat of his light blue Lincoln was his dearly beloved wife, Charlotte. To think the group of bloodthirsty hit men would spare her life if the couple were caught was foolish. The man they called “Billy the Chopper,” or simply “Choppers,” knew the only way to save both his and his wife’s lives would be to outrun them.
He floored the accelerator, but he could not lose his pursuers. The hit men knew if they failed in their assigned mission, they too could become the targets of future mob hits. It was a vicious circle and both Dauber and the men chasing him knew it all too well. The death race continued for several more miles, neither vehicle giving an inch. Then the executioners made their move. Dauber’s fate hinged on his ability to triumph in the road battle he found himself entangled in. As the two cars behind him pulled alongside him with guns drawn, it was not looking good.
DAUBER was born and raised in Orland Park, Illinois, a South Side suburb of Chicago. He was a high school dropout who went to work as an Outfit debt collector before his eighteenth birthday. Hailing from German descent, he was fast to make a reputation for himself as a highly efficient strong arm; gamblers and juice loan clients would shudder with fear at the very thought of seeing him at their doorstep. By the time he had reached his early twenties, all the diligent work he had put in on the hardened streets of the Windy City paid off when he caught the eye of powerful South Side Outfit lieutenant James “Jimmy the Bomber” Catuara. Looking to fill the roles of driver, body guard, and personal one-man wrecking crew, he selected Dauber.
“Billy was one tough son of a bitch,” said former FBI agent Richard Stilling. “He was an undeniable force on the streets, and people cowered at the mere mention of his name. The guy was a true mobster, someone who would do anything for a buck and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty in the process.”
Dauber’s prominence within the mafia would come to a zenith throughout the 1970s, when Jimmy Catuara was assigned by The Outfit to lead an infiltration of the city’s car theft racket, specifically the chop shops used by thieves to dissemble vehicles they had stolen so they could sell off the individual parts. Being Catuara’s closest ally and most used strong arm, Dauber was tapped to act as the point man for the Chicago mob’s plan to muscle in on what would end up becoming one of the crime family’s most lucrative underworld trades ever.
Up until approximately 1971, independent car thieves in Chicago were allowed to operate in the city without paying tribute to the mafia. Dons Tony Accardo and Joey Aiuppa, realizing they had been missing out on extreme proft potential by virtually ignoring such a cash-friendly racket, sought to impose a street tax on any and all car thieves and chop shops doing business in the area. Because the majority of the city’s chop shops resided on the South Side, the job of getting everyone in the business in line behind the Outfit fell to Catuara, Dauber, and Angelo “Little Angie” Volpe as well as a group of fearless and deadly mob enforcers known as “The Wild Bunch.”
The Wild Bunch consisted of William “Butchie” Petrocelli, Jerome “Jerry the Witherhand” Scalise, Harold “Harry the Hook” Aleman, Anthony “Little Tony” Borselino, James “Jimmy the Ice Pick” Inendino, and Gerry Scarpelli. Almost all of these men were seasoned killers who willingly and sometimes eagerly engaged in acts of violence with the normalcy of a regular law-abiding citizen washing a load of laundry. Their activities and assignments were overseen by West Side caporegime Joe Ferriola—Aleman’s uncle.
Even though most of the area’s car thieves and chop shop operators were not in the mafia, they were far from criminal lightweights. The majority of them were hardened felons, men who didn’t take well to being told what to do. This was especially the case when what they were being told to do significantly sliced into their bottom line, as was the situation when The Outfit decided to move into the previously unregulated racket.
In response to the new edict, a portion of these men scoffed at the prospect of cutting the mob in for a piece of their business. Known as an organization that didn’t take well to insubordinates, those who refused to go along with The Outfit’s agenda were killed with little hesitation or thought.
“Percentage-wise, the stolen car and chop shop racket would end up being the Chicago mafia’s biggest money maker of the era, in terms of an overhead cost perspective,” said Stilling, who oversaw the bureau’s investigation into the mob’s takeover of the industry. “The chop shops were such a valuable commodity. They were mainly a South Side thing, and the guys who were assigned to bring them all under The Outfit’s flag were real hard-core gangsters. These guys were killers with not many equals. They were smart too, though, and really knew how to insulate themselves from us.”
THE first salvo in what the local press would dub “The Chop Shop Wars” was launched in late June of 1971, when Robert “Bobby the Racer” Pronger was murdered after refusing to yield to The Outfit’s demand to pay a street tax on his stolen car operation. Like many of the area’s car thieves, Pronger maintained a career as a race car driver on weekends and owned an auto parts supply and repair business in the suburb of Blue Island as his day job. Employing a stable of about a half dozen fellow professional racers who went out at night looking for vulnerable automobiles to hijack, Pronger’s business also served as an after-hours chop shop.
When he was first approached in the early days of April by Wild Bunch members Jerry Scalise and Gerry Scarpelli and told that the mob was going to begin requesting a monthly tribute starting immediately, he laughed in their face and told them to get lost. A few weeks later, Billy Dauber, flanked by Butchie Petrocelli, showed up at Pronger’s business and reinformed him of The Outfit’s new policy. After again not agreeing to pay the requested street tax, he was pushed to the ground by Dauber, kicked several times in the back by Petrocelli, and threatened with his life if he didn’t comply.
The month of May came and went and still no tribute came from Pronger. Reported missing on June 17, the championship race car driver was never seen again. He was allegedly tortured, doused with acid, and killed, his remains found in a garbage pit in northwest Indiana almost two weeks later on June 29.
Pronger’s murder was only the tip of the iceberg, the first of over two dozen homicides committed as a result of The Outfit’s foray into the stolen car business. Guido “The Weed” Fidanzi, a notorious South Side car thief, was killed in August 1972. Michael Regan and Roger Roach, two associates of Fidanzi’s operation, were both done away with in a hail of bullets as they entered a private residence a month later.
After a nearly three-year hiatus from the bloodshed, The Outfit murder spree resumed on June 16, 1975, when Harry Holzer, business partner of longtime chop shop operator Steve Ostrovosky and his girlfriend, Linda Turner, were shot to death in the garage of the duo’s headquarters, South Chicago Auto Parts. Donnel Crawford and James Small, both chop shop specialists, were killed in November and December of 1975, respectively. Ostrowsky, who was a close friend of Dauber’s, had been a top-rate earner for the mob for a good decade, but his reluctance to give up additional tribute to his bosses in The Outfit ended with his slaying on October 10, 1976.
Around 1977, Salvatore “Sammy the Mule” Annerino, one of Jimmy Catuara’s enforcers and the owner of an extremely profitable chop shop racket himself, got into a beef with Joey Lombardo and was gunned down behind the wheel of his car in July 1977. That same year, Pat Marusarz, Joe Theo, Earl Abercrombie, Timmy O’Brien, Norman Lang,
Richard Ferraro, and Jimmy Palaggi, all of whom worked for Annerino and Catuara, were done away with.
Some of these murders didn’t sit well with Cataura. He was also upset with having a portion of his responsibilities and percentage of his rackets shifted to South Suburb mob power, Albert “Caesar the Fox” Tocco while he was away serving a short stint in prison. Never one to hold his tongue, Jimmy the Bomber, the original leader of The Outfit’s chop shop takeover, opened his mouth to voice his complaints one too many times and found himself a victim of the blood-ravished purge as well. Cataura ended up being found in the trunk of his car in July 1978, his throat slit and two bullets in the back of his head.
The Chop Shop Wars lasted another five years; it wouldn’t be until approximately 1983 that the city’s entire car theft industry was completely controlled by the Chicago mafia. Over that period of time, more and more bodies continued to pile up: Don Lawson in July 1979, Edmiro De Jesus and Robert “Chick” Kurowski in May 1980, Charles Monday in July 1981, Harry Rosenbloom in November 1982, and Michael “Monk” Chorak in March 1983.
“The fallout from the takeover was pretty messy,” said Stilling. “There was blood and guts all over the place. Anybody who even thought of disobeying orders was hit and hit hard. The entire operation showed just how brutal The Outfit can get when they want to or feel like they need to. If they want something done, it’s going to get done, and people are probably going to end up dead as a result. It’s hard for regular, everyday civilians to understand that, but that’s the name of the game and the business these people are in.”
AFTER close to a decade of terror that came down upon the South Side’s chop shop operators, courtesy of Billy Dauber and his death squad, the law finally caught up to The Chopper. In November 1979, Dauber was indicted on gun and drug charges after he was caught attempting to make a large-scale narcotics deal with an undercover cop. Getting busted dabbling in the drug trade is to break one of the mafia’s most cardinal rules, and Dauber knew he was going to have to answer for his behavior. With Jimmy Cataura, his biggest protector, long gone, he saw few options for himself and began cooperating with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in building a case against his cohorts in The Outfit. It was long rumored that Billy had been a Top Echelon informant for the FBI, but it was simply a theory, something that was never confirmed. His work with the ATF, on the other hand, was a different story altogether and one that led to his eventual demise.
Albert Tocco was worried that Dauber’s drug bust might make him cooperate with authorities, so he assigned James “Jimmy the Duke” Basile, a veteran mob foot soldier, to keep twenty-four-hour surveillance on Dauber’s activities to get a better gauge of his intentions. Sticking to his target like glue for a period of several weeks, Basile witnessed Dauber conduct various clandestine meetings with people he suspected were members of law enforcement. Once Tocco learned of Basile’s findings, Dauber’s fate was sealed. Dauber’s duties as point man on the chop shop racket were reassigned to John “Johnny Hot Dogs” Manzella, and after Tocco consulted with Joe Ferriola, it was decided that Dauber would be killed. Clearing their plan of action with Tony Accardo and Joey Aiuppa, Tocco and Ferriola issued the murder contract and gave it to The Wild Bunch to be carried out as soon as possible.
For whatever reason, The Wild Bunch put the killing on hold for a few months. This did not sit well with their superiors in The Outfit. After witnessing an unscathed Dauber walking around town as if it were business as usual, Ferriola and Tocco turned their ire at the would-be assassins. Calling several members of the hit squad to a meeting, Albert Tocco reamed them out and told them that Frank Calabrese, a well-versed hit man from the Chinatown crew, was coming onboard to help them complete their task.
Jimmy Basile was again assigned to follow Dauber around and get a feel for his daily schedule and habits so the killers could plan their assault. Meeting with Calabrese, Butchie Petrocelli, and Gerry Scarpelli for biweekly briefings on the status of his work at local diners, Basile made it clear that The Chopper’s lack of a consistent routine would make the plotting of his execution difficult. Then, in an incredible stroke of good luck for the hit team and, in turn, bad luck for Dauber, a member of The Wild Bunch stumbled on the perfect setup. While attending a meeting at his attorney’s office, an attorney he coincidentally shared with Dauber, he happened to glance at the secretary’s appointment book and noticed that Dauber was scheduled to be in court at the Will County Courthouse on the morning of July 2 for a motion hearing on a gun charge. With the knowledge of his definite whereabouts secured, Dauber’s murder contract was a full go, and his time left on this earth limited.
WHEN July 2 came around, Calabrese and The Wild Bunch were ready. They staked out the courthouse in two separate cars, waiting for Dauber to emerge from his hearing in front of the judge. Scarpelli, Petrocelli, and Ronnie Jarrett, Frankie Breeze’s right-hand man, sat idling in a cream-colored van in a parking lot adjacent to the courthouse steps. Parked next to a meter down the street, Calabrese himself sat in a Mustang car nicknamed “Little Casey.” Communicating via walkie-talkies they had purchased the previous day, the two cars of assassins patiently bided their time until they caught sight of their intended victim.
At around 10:30 in the morning, Dauber, alongside his wife and attorney, appeared outside the courthouse, their judicial proceeding just completed. Together with ATF agent Dennis Laughrey, Dauber’s handler during his cooperation with the government thus far, the foursome walked down the street to a doughnut shop to eat breakfast, having no idea their every move was being watched. After finishing their meal, the Daubers’ said good-bye to Laughrey and the lawyer, turning down an offer by the hard-nosed ATF agent to follow them home to make certain they hadn’t been tailed. The decision to decline Laughrey’s escort would be the wrong one and the couple would pay dearly.
Pulling away from downtown Joliet, where the Will County Courthouse is located, the Daubers began driving east bound on Manhattan-Monee Road. Under normal circumstances, Charlotte Dauber would be spared the same fate as her husband. But she had been on The Outfit’s bad side for quite some time and the thought of killing her only sweetened the pot for the crazed-executioners. Known for aiding Billy in his street rackets and running her mouth constantly and to anyone who would listen about how she thought his services and performance were undervalued by the local mafia, Charlotte wasn’t your typical gangster’s girl. She liked to get her feet wet and her hands dirty. And it was that attitude and behavior that found her included in her husband’s murder contract.
Cruising undisturbed on Manhattan-Monee for a few miles, the road quickly became a barren, two-lane highway. Billy lit up a cigarette and rolled down his window. He took a drag of the tobacco and for a brief period of time enjoyed the quaint silence and fresh air blowing into his car. The silence was short lived.
Without much warning, the two automobiles carrying The Outfit hit squad came speeding up behind them. All of a sudden, one of the assassins fired a gun several times in their direction, trying to strike the Daubers’ tire and halt their progress. It didn’t take long for Billy to realize what was happening. The marker on his life was being cashed in.
Racing bumper to bumper for close to ten miles, neither vehicle would yield. When the oncoming traffic disappeared, the Mustang driven by Frank Calabrese passed the Daubers’ Lincoln, getting in front of it in order to try to slow it down. The hit team’s van, being driven by Jarrett, then pulled alongside the Lincoln, and Butchie Petrocelli, riding shotgun, fired at Billy with a semiautomatic pistol. Gerry Scarpelli opened the van’s sliding door and took aim with a sawed-off shotgun, putting several rounds into the Lincoln backseat door panel. Undeterred, Dauber kept driving at as high of a speed as possible, doing everything he could to elude the shooters. Despite a valiant effort to save his and his wife’s lives, the Chopper’s luck was about to run out. Maneuvering the Mustang to the other side of the Lincoln, Frankie Calabrese swung in front, forcing
the car holding Billy and Charlotte Dauber into an apple tree at the side of the road and eventually into a ditch.
Getting out of the van, Scarpelli walked over to the bullet-pierced automobile and dispensed shotgun blasts into both husband and wife, killing the Daubers instantly. Both work cars—the van and the Mustang—were driven into a set of bushes several miles down the road, doused with lighter fluid, and set ablaze. The weapons used in the hit were wiped clean of any fingerprints, dismantled, and thrown into the Cal-Sag Canal, a body of water that rests directly off Route 83. Although the brutal double homicide investigation garnered heavy media attention and several good leads, the prospect of solving the case was cold for twenty-five years.
BILLY and Charlotte Dauber’s murderers didn’t end up that much better than their victims. Falling out of favor with The Outfit hierarchy for stealing money that he was supposed to deliver to an imprisoned Harry Aleman, Butchie Petrocelli was killed six months after the Daubers. Called to a meeting at the Chinatown-based headquarters of South Side capo Angelo La Pietra on December 30, 1980, for what he thought was an assignment of another murder target for his Wild Bunch, Petrocelli was led to an adjacent office under the ruse that he was about to receive the specifics of the contract. However, as soon as he walked in the door, he was jumped by Frank and Nick Calabrese, Jimmy La Pietra, and Frank Santucci. With Gerry Scarpelli, Jimmy Basile, John Monteleone, and Frank Furio, standing lookout on the street, Nick Calabrese, La Pietra, and Santucci held Petrocelli down, while Frank Calabrese strangled him with a piece of electrical cord. To make certain the job was finished, Frankie Breeze cut his throat.