The next blow came when two of the
syndicate's best gunners, Nicholas Maggio, and his partner in crime, Anthony
Persico, were targeted in a retaliation killing for the murder of Bill Rooney.
John Rooney, the business agent for the billposters' union and brother to Bill Rooney,
ambushed and killed the two men on a back stretch of road deep inside Touhy's
territory.
The syndicate was taking a pounding. Their
ranks were already thinned from assaults by the federal government, not to
mention the beating they were taking at the hands of the Touhy organization. To
bolster their numbers the outfit's leaders recruited members of the 42s, a gang
of crazy kids from an Italian neighborhood called the Patch. This same gang
would produce the syndicate's next ruling body in the form of Sam Giancana,
Marshal Ciafano, Teets Battaglia and others.
Reinforced with the 42s, the syndicate
tracked down a top Touhy enforcer named Frank Schaeffler, once a contender for
the world's light heavy-weight crown. They shot him as he entered an all-night
speakeasy called The Advance.
The Touhy forces struck back by killing a
major syndicate pimp named Nicky Renelli and in a separate incident gunning
down Elmer Russel, a bouncer at a syndicate bar called the Alaskan Forum Road
House.
The next mob hood to die was Maurice
Barrett. He was shot through the head and arm, then dropped at the front door
of a neighborhood hospital where he bled to death.