Frank Nitti Suicide Site Investigation

The Ghost Research Society along with Crawford County Illinois Ghost Society were the first two groups to investigate here.

Frank Nitti began his criminal career as a barber with a rather shady clientele. His customers would come to him to fence various items of stolen merchandise. It was while in this role that he came to the attention of John Torrio and Al Capone since he had a proven network of underworld characters able to peddle illegal booze. Nitti became a whiz at smuggling Canadian whiskey into Chicago and to the various distribution ports throughout the city.

By the mid-twenties, he was a high-ranking member of the Capone Mob. With the conviction of Al Capone in 1929, Nitti became the boss of the Chicago Mob. At least that is what the press and law enforcement agencies believed. So high profile was the coverage of the mob in those days, that Nitti was a natural choice for the press. Nitti probably believed it himself. In fact, it was Paul “The Waiter” Ricca who carried the flame of the Mob after Capone. Ricca was quite happy to let Nitti think he had control, but there were often times when Ricca would countermand a Nitti decision with a quick, “We’ll do it this way - and let’s say no more about it.”

On December 19, 1932, Nitti had a run in with the O’Banion/Moran crew, now run by Ted Newberry. Newberry had the Mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, on his payroll and used his influence to have police sent to one of Nitti’s hangouts at 221 N. LaSalle, to have him arrested.

A gunfight erupted and Nitti was badly wounded. He lingered at deaths door for a time but eventually recovered only to face trial for allegedly shooting Police Sergeant Lang during the gunfight engineered by Newberry. Mayor Cermak put Nitti on trial for the shooting of Lang but the jury at the trial became convinced that Lang had shot himself in order to look like a hero. The trial ended in a hung jury, Nitti walked and Lang got fired from the force.

During the trial Cermak was shot by a fanatic, Guiseppe Zangara, in Miami, Florida on February 15, 1933 when he went to congratulate President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. As the shots rang out, a nearby photographer joked, “Just like Chicago, eh mayor?” Cermak had been hit in the lung and later died of his wound. Before he died, he is reported to have said to the President, “I am glad it was me instead of you.”

Nitti got into trouble again in 1943 when he was indicted for extorting the major movie studios in Hollywood in what came to be called the Hollywood Extortion Case. Nitti masterminded a plot with several other mobsters where they gained control of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Then, the heat was turned on the Hollywood movie studios. If they didn’t pay up, their stage hands and other workers could be used against them to ruin them. Warner Brothers paid, RKO paid, MGM and Fox paid. Everyone was paying up and the whole set-up looked set to be a big money earner for the mob. That was until a Chicago news reporter began asking questions when he saw Willie Bioff, one of the mobs men in the union, at a big Hollywood party. The reporter was Westbrook Pegler, a nationally syndicated reporter. He recognized Bioff as a one-time pimp from Chicago and wondered why he was moving in such high society circles. When he found out what a big man Bioff had become, he began to look into it.

It was soon discovered that Bioff still owed Illinois State for a conviction for pandering. He was arrested and jailed for six months. After his release, he was indicted again along with the other mob man in IATSE, George E. Browne, for the extortion of the movie theaters. They had to appear before a Federal Grand Jury in New York and were questioned about their association with the Mob. Bioff and Browne were both found guilty but rather than do hard time, they decided to rat on their Mob controllers.

As a result, indictments were brought against Frank Nitti, Paul Ricca and others. They were called to stand trial later that year in New York. A meeting was called at Frank Nitti’s house in Riverside, Illinois after the arraignment and Nitti was attacked by the other indicted members of the case about his bad handling of the whole affair. Bioff and Browne should have never have been allowed to testify. He was told by Paul Ricca to be a ‘stand-up-guy’ and take the rap for all of them since Bioff and Browne were his guys and so his responsibility. Nitti disagreed with Ricca and argued back that they all shared the responsibility for the whole fiasco and then ordered them all to leave. Essentially, Nitti had now broken the Mafia code of honor by not taking the heat for his failures. Nitti had previously done 18 months in jail on an income tax evasion charge and did not want to spend another day in a 9 by 6 cell. He was acutely claustrophobic and the thought made him unstable including that of losing his control of the mob.

The day after the argument with Ricca, on March 19, 1943, Nitti went for a walk along the Illinois Central Railroad tracks near his home, 712 Selbourne Road in Riverside, across from the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, and blew his brains out with a pistol. The resulting trial in New York found all the defendants guilty and sentenced them all to ten years in prison. This was about nine months after he married the former secretary of Ed O’Hare,

According to eyewitness accounts, Nitti missed his temple with the first shot but then calmly tried again and succeeded. He was later laid to rest in suburban Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois within steps of his former boss, Al Capone. The inscription on his tombstone read, “There is no life except by death.” The location is marked today by an Olive Garden Restaurant, Toys ‘R Us and a huge shopping mall.

It is also very ironic that Nitti committed suicide just about a block and a half south of Cermak Road. So that Nitti/Cermak connection followed each of them to their deaths.

Address: Old Central Train Tracks, south of Cermak Road and just west of Harlem Avenue. Actual site is near the current Toy ‘R Us store in North Riverside, Illinois

Hauntings: Strong feelings can be encountered at the site where Nitti committed suicide. Others have seen a ghostly figure pacing the area when the tragedy took place many years ago. In September 1993, a local who works very close to the site reported seeing a shadowy figure walking somewhat westbound along the tracks. Towards, what we would assume to be his final destination, Mt. Carmel Cemetery!

Others have reported and photographed strange lights hovering near the area at night. Though the train tracks are no longer there and the area has changed so much since 1943, Nitti’s ghost has still apparently been seen wearing that period clothing he was dressed in at the time of his suicide.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Frank Nitti's Suicide Location on September 9, 2019 and the team members included: Dale Kaczmarek, with help from Jason Snider, Jason Dickerson, Courtney Bowen and Courtney Mendenhall from Crawford County Illinois Ghost Society

Equipment setup: Only hand-held equipment was deployed such as Phasma Box, digital recorders, camera and camcorders.

Experiments performed; Two EVP sessions were held at the approximate location where Nitti killed himself. The first session was an old school EVP without using any real-time devices. The second was used in conjunction with the Phasma Box.

Personal experiences:

Dale Kaczmarek: A couple of EVP sessions were conducted on the former Central Illinois Train Tracks, now removed, where gangster Frank Nitti committed suicide. Even though the train tracks are no longer there, the exact location is known from old newspaper articles.

I did not feel anything usual nor did members of Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunters Society.

Evidence collected;

Strange voice Nitti.MP4 – while conducting an old school EVP session on the site of the former railroad tracks, a question was asked, “Frank Nitti, if you’re out here, speak into this device and let us know that you’re here.” My digital recorder picked up the sound of a, “Strange voice.”

Conclusions: This was the very first time this location was investigated by any paranormal team! There were a number of random words that came through which were inconsistent with the questions asked at the time. There seemed to be a strange voice that was heard right after a request to talk into a digital recorder.

It was very windy that evening and there was a lot of wind contamination, so it was difficult to tell if additional EVPs were picked up or not. Nothing noteworthy was picked up using the Phasma Box.