Gangsters Who Vanished And Were Never Found

An Irish-American guy from small-town Rhode Island doesn't sound like your stereotypical gangster. But Prohibition had a way of turning even regular people into criminals. According to the New England Historical Society, Danny Walsh was making $5 a day when alcohol was outlawed in America. He decided this rum-running racket would be a better way

An Irish-American guy from small-town Rhode Island doesn't sound like your stereotypical gangster. But Prohibition had a way of turning even regular people into criminals. According to the New England Historical Society, Danny Walsh was making $5 a day when alcohol was outlawed in America. He decided this rum-running racket would be a better way to get rich, especially since there was little chance of getting in trouble for it in a state that was against Prohibition and never approved the 18th Amendment.

Walsh became one of the biggest bootleggers in the US. He only had one small brush with the law over unpaid taxes, however, his new job required he get close to organized crime bosses, including "King" Charles Solomon and associates of Al Capone. This put him in danger, especially as the liquor business became more violent.

In 1933, Walsh had a dinner with friends, later dubbed his "death supper." Then he vanished. Walsh's brother received a ransom note demanding $40,000. The money was handed over to an anonymous guy in Boston who "[slipped] his hand through a hotel room door." Despite the kidnappers' promise, Walsh wasn't returned, dead or alive.

Court TV's Crime Library reports an inquiry held after Walsh's disappearance failed to figure out what happened. One rumor was that he'd been buried on his own farm, another said his body was "stuffed into a barrel of cement," and dumped in the ocean. For decades, any suspicious corpse was compared to Walsh's dental records, but they never matched.

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