Al Capone | Death and Taxes

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It's February 14th, 1929 at the Chicago Coroner's Office.

Camped out in the waiting room is 18-year-old Walter Spurko.

After three years working as a copy boy for the City News Bureau, he's finally been made a reporter.

His first assignment is an unusual one, though.

He's been sent to the Coroner's Office to listen out for any newsworthy deaths in Chicago and get word to his editor ASAP.

It's just after 10:30 a.m.

when the phone rings and Walter snaps to attention.

Flipping his notepad to a fresh page, he holds his pencil at the ready while he eavesdrops on the Deputy Coroner's conversation.

He holds his breath as the Deputy confirms the details with the caller.

It sounds like some kind of massacre.

Once he has the details down, Walter rushes to the lobby where there's a payphone in the wall.

His heart pounds as he waits for the operator to connect the call.

And when his editor finally answers, Walter's words fall out in an excited jumble.

His boss tells him to slow down, so Walter takes a breath to steady himself and tries again.

This time he gives the message more clearly.

There are seven bodies currently lying in a pool of blood at 2122 North Clark.

But Walter's editor doesn't believe it.

He tells Walter that he's just been fooled by a deputy coroner's prank.

No cup reporter gets lucky enough to land news like this on one of his first days on the beat.

The line goes dead with a cold click, leaving Walter holding the receiver unsure what to do next.

But as he watches the frantic activity throughout the usually sleepy coroner's office, he can feel in his gut that this isn't some prank.

So he steals himself and picks up the phone again.

He's sure that this is a genuine story and one that's going to be big.

But even in his wildest dreams, Walter never could have imagined that it would lead to the downfall of Chicago's most notorious criminal, Al Capone.

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By the end of the roaring 20s, Chicago was still firmly in the grip of the mobsters.

Prohibition had enriched gangs willing to break the law, and many everyday citizens were happy for it to happen so long as they got a drink.

And while some of Chicago's police did make a genuine effort to stop the criminals, corruption was also rife.

This was a city where the streets hummed with illegal alcohol, prostitution and violence.

And at the top of the pile, paying off the authorities and running rings around the other gangs was Al Capone.

Since arriving in Chicago as a young man at the start of the 1920s, Capone had clawed his way up through the criminal underworld until he was known and feared as the city's most powerful mobster.

Over the years, Capone had tried to obscure his ruthless and violent nature by cultivating the gregarious public persona of a successful and generous businessman.

But in the aftermath of the 1929 St.

Valentine's Day Massacre, there was no hiding the truth about Capone.

The bloody executions shown a spotlight on organized crime in Chicago and around the country, turning up the pressure on the authorities to take action.

Their efforts to solve the shocking crime would see them cross state lines and utilize cutting edge technology, all in an effort to pin the deed on Al Capone.

But the gangster was smart.

Capone rarely got his hands dirty.

The violence might have been done at his command, but it wouldn't be easy for the cops to prove it.

He was confident that this investigation, like all the others before, would go nowhere.

But while Capone comforted himself with that thought, he was ignoring another adversary that was closing in on him.

An adversary that would prove more dogged and more dangerous than any mob land rival or honest cop.

An adversary that would finally bring Al Capone down.

The Federal Tax Department.

This is episode four in our four-part series on Al Capone.

Death and Taxes.

It's February 15th, 1929, some 24 hours after the St.

Valentine's Day Massacre.

News of the crime has spread rapidly around the city, and the energy at the Chicago Police Department's brand-new headquarters is electric.

The sun is bright on South State Street, but the reporters milling around the imposing building are dressed warmly against the biting wind.

There's a low buzz of chatter amongst the group as everyone traits details about what happened on North Clark Street.

It's just before lunch when Police Chief Bill Russell emerges from the station.

Immediately, hands fly into the air and the buzz becomes a roar of questions about the massacre.

Patient and calculating, Chief Russell clasps his hands behind his back and waits for the noise to die down.

When he finally speaks, it's in a slow, ringing voice.

He wants each journalist to hear his message, to print it in their papers.

This crime, he says, this bloody execution, has sounded the knell of Gangnam in Chicago.

No one should feel powerful enough to carry out such a thing and expect to get away with it.

That someone has even tried is a sign that their city has to change, now.

The time of the mobster is over.

The St.

Valentine's Day Massacre is the crime that changes everything for Al Capone.

Because although it happens in a city where keeping your mouth shut is a way of life for gangsters, the entire country is now invested in getting answers.

Almost immediately, people suspect that Capone orchestrated the hit to get rid of Bugs Moran, whose North Side gang had been a thorn in his side for years.

Obviously, Capone couldn't have pulled the trigger himself, given that he was over a thousand miles away in Miami at the time.

But everyone knows that Capone doesn't do his own dirty work.

He's got plenty of money he pays to spill blood for him.

Connecting the dots will be difficult, but with Americans screaming for justice, Chicago's investigators have to try.

After his bold proclamation on the steps of police headquarters, Chief Russell orders his men to get to work.

First up are the statements from several witnesses who saw men in police uniforms leaving the garage in a detective's car.

Few on the force believe that any of their colleagues are actually responsible for the massacre, but as one of the only leads on offer, they're obliged to follow it down the rabbit hole.

So over 250 detectives are asked to provide alibis for the morning of the crime.

Once that's out of the way, investigators look into the more plausible scenario, that a pair of experienced criminals dressed like cops is a ploy to subdue their targets.

It's at this point that the police are called to a garage in another part of town.

They don't find another massacre inside, but they do find the smoldering ruins of a black Cadillac, which they quickly established was the car used by the St.

Valentine's Day killers.

But the car's serial numbers don't produce any useful leads, and the trail goes dead.

Undeterred, detectives keep following wherever the investigation leads them, even when that's as far afield as Missouri.

They hear about a pair of St.

Louis gangsters with a history of wearing police uniforms as a way of controlling rival gang members before attacking them.

The duo of Frederick R.

Burke and James Ray immediately seem like strong suspects for the Chicago killings.

Once Burke and Ray's names are announced as people of interest, New York authorities make it known that they have the pair on their list of suspects in the 1928 murder of Frankie Yale.

Just like the massacre, most people assume that Capone masterminded the car chase hit on his one-time mentor.

Now, police across the country are on the lookout for the men they believe pulled the triggers in both crimes.

Meanwhile, a coroner's jury is impaneled in Chicago.

Its job is to determine the cause of death for the seven murdered men in the garage, but the jurors want to know about the weapons used in the massacre before making a ruling.

So in early March, the coroner enlists the help of Calvin Goddard, a lifelong gun fanatic who established New York's Ballistics Bureau.

Of course, in 1929, ballistics forensics is a nascent science, so experts like Goddard are still testing new theories and procedures.

When he's asked to help out with the St.

Valentine's case, he brings with him a relatively new invention, the comparison microscope, which allows him to inspect two specimens at once.

Using the microscope, Goddard examines the 45 caliber shell casings recovered from the bloody garage floor, and determines that they were all fired from a pair of Thompson submachine guns, 50 from one, 20 from the other.

He also concludes that the shotgun shells at the scene came from two separate pump action models.

That information alone is revolutionary.

To know exactly how many weapons were used in a crime of such magnitude is unheard of.

But Goddard's not done.

He starts testing weapons that investigators already have in their possession, hoping to find a match for the exact guns from the massacre.

First, several Tommy guns owned by the police force are ruled out, as are several dozen guns that have been confiscated from criminals since February 14th.

After that, the excitement over Goddard's discoveries ebbs away.

It's turned into yet another dead end.

By December, ten months have passed since the massacre, and police are no nearer to solving the crime.

It's then that an unrelated tragedy brings a new and unexpected opening in the case.

It's a Saturday evening in St.

Joseph, Michigan, about 60 miles east of Chicago.

Local policeman Charles Skelly is walking toward City Hall when he notices a pair of motorists arguing in the street.

Even from a distance, it's easy to see that it's a simple fender bender.

But at least one of the drivers has reacted badly to the incident, and Officer Skelly knows that if he doesn't intervene, things could get much worse.

Approaching the cars, Skelly holds his hands up in a placating gesture and interrupts the argument.

Calmly, he instructs both drivers to head for the nearby police station so they can sort things out in a more orderly fashion.

Then he steps up onto the runner board of one of the cars to give the driver directions along the way.

But Skelly is barely grabbed onto the door frame when the man behind the wheel pulls out a pistol.

Before the 25-year-old cop can react, the driver fires once into Skelly's chest, then twice more as he stumbles back from the car, hitting him in the side and the back.

As Skelly tries to stay on his feet, his attacker speeds off.

After just a few seconds, he loses control and the car comes to a thudding halt.

Abandoning the vehicle, the gunman commandeers another and quickly disappears into the night.

Shocked bystanders call for help and Officer Skelly is rushed to the hospital, where he dies a few hours later.

In the aftermath of the murder, investigators go over the killer's abandoned car.

They find paperwork that suggests the man's name is Frederick Dane and track down his address.

Inside Dane's home, they discover a trove of weapons, including two Thompson submachine guns.

Detectives also find laundry, monogrammed with the initials FRB, that reminds at least one sharp officer of the suspect list from the St.

Valentine's Day Massacre, a list headlined by one Fred R.

Burke.

It's quickly determined that cop killer Frederick Dane and Fred R.

Burke are one in the same.

After that, the machine guns from Burke's house are sent to the scientist Calvin Goddard for testing, and he confirms that they're definitely the weapons used in the massacre.

Further testing shows that one of them even matches the bullets fired during the assassination of Frankie Yale in New York City.

Suddenly, after months of nothing, it seems like the investigation into the St.

Valentine's Day Massacre has flared to life.

But just as quickly, the fire goes out again.

Burke's nowhere to be found.

And without him, there's no way to prove his involvement in the murders.

The guns used in the massacre may have been found in Burke's house, but that doesn't establish that he had them back in February, or that he was one of the men in the garage who did the shooting.

It's possible the guns have changed hands since then.

Burke is certainly guilty of killing Officer Skelly, but tying him to the garage on North Clark Street will prove much trickier.

And that's largely where the investigation into the St.

Valentine's Day massacre ends.

Burke will eventually be arrested and convicted for murdering Charles Skelly, but he's never charged over his alleged involvement in the massacre, and neither is Al Capone.

It's generally assumed that he ordered the hit from his home in Miami, but once again, he's been too clever.

He's left too few clues.

If the authorities are going to get their man, they'll have to find some other way.

So while the Chicago detectives try in vain to solve the mystery of who killed Bugs Moran's men, the federal government continues its own quiet vendetta.

But the men involved aren't wielding badges and guns, and they aren't furthering the fields of ballistics analysis.

No.

They're meticulously going over bank records and ledgers in an effort to prove that Al Capone's been committing that most unforgivable of crimes, tax evasion.

In particular, one agent from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, today known as the Internal Revenue Service, is determined to get results.

As a former accountant, Frank J.

Wilson has a prodigious talent for numbers, and those who work with him know that he's a relentless investigator.

As a boy, he had dreams of being a police officer, but his poor eyesight put an end to that dream.

Now he seizes the chance to play detective.

In March of 1930, 42-year-old Wilson is deployed to Chicago with instructions to find proof that the country's most famous mobster has broken the law.

And while he might not cut much of an intimidating figure, Frank J.

Wilson is the fiercest enemy Al Capone will ever face.

Thank It's late summer 1930 in a cramped room in Chicago's post office building.

Frank J.

Wilson of the Bureau of Internal Revenue has been working around the clock here for months.

He and his colleagues have been tasked with finding something incriminating that will put Al Capone behind bars for good.

Those who work with Wilson would describe him as thorough to the point of obsession.

He's got no problem sitting at a desk, carefully reading through paperwork for up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

Others might find that kind of thing mind-numbing, but Wilson likes the thrill of the chase.

Around him, every surface is piled high with stacks of paper and folders, records seized in various raids on Capone's businesses over the years.

Until now, there's been nothing to tie the city's top don to any crimes.

In fact, the only crime he's ever faced in court has been a weapons charge in Philadelphia.

But the feds know that Capone's breaking the law.

He's made no secret of his spending habits over the years, throwing cash around on bespoke tailoring, flashy jewels, a custom armored car and a mansion in Miami.

And in all the time he's been at the top of Chicago's food chain, he's never paid a single dollar in taxes.

Criminals might think they don't need to pay taxes on their ill-gotten money, but they're dead wrong.

So Wilson's specific and slightly unusual task is this.

Prove that Al Capone has an income, whether from legitimate businesses or nefarious means.

With that, the authorities can show that he owes money to the government and press charges.

However, that's easier said than done.

Because while it's clear Capone has money, he's done an excellent job of hiding it.

Not only does it seem impossible to find a bank account in his name, he's also protected by several degrees of separation.

His employees act as middlemen, signing checks and sending money orders in their own names, so there's no paper trail leading to Capone's front door.

Amongst the mountains of documents Wilson and his team have to go through are around a million checks.

Of those, only two have been endorsed by Capone himself, and the amounts for each are small enough that they're not useful evidence of income.

Despite this seemingly impenetrable layer of protection, Wilson isn't one to give up.

That's why he's still at the office well after midnight, reading through a set of seized documents, hopeful he'll find something they've missed.

But eventually, around 1 a.m.

Wilson decides to call it.

He pushes his spectacles off his face and rubs his weary eyes.

Then he stands and gathers the papers into their folder.

Shuffling carefully through the crowded office, he reaches out to put the folder back into its filing cabinet.

But in his sleep-deprived state, he accidentally knocks the drawer shut.

It locks automatically, and Wilson doesn't have the key.

Now, Wilson isn't the type to leave important documents lying around, so he makes his way into the storage closet next door.

There's an unlocked filing cabinet in there, but it's full.

Rooting around the drawers, trying to make room for the bulging folder in his hand, Wilson comes across a package tucked away at the back of the cabinet.

Tied up in brown paper and parcel string, it looks like it hasn't been touched in years.

Wilson's curiosity overpowers the exhaustion that seeped through to his bones.

He takes the package back to his desk, cuts the string, and pulls away the dusty paper.

Inside are three books with red corners on the front covers, accounting ledgers.

Wilson opens the first book and reads the heading on one of the pages.

Birdcage, 21, craps, Pharaoh, roulette, horse bats.

Beneath that are columns full of figures.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that the book is a record from a gambling operation.

And after skimming through the other two books from the package, Wilson estimates that this casino, wherever it was, had profits of around half a million dollars for the two or so years the ledgers cover, 1924 to 1926.

Today, that number would be over 8.5 million, so it's nothing to sneeze at.

Upon closer inspection, Wilson notices that one of the books even includes lists of payouts next to various names.

Ralph, Pete, Frank, Lou, Mops and even a notation for money sent to town, which he figures could indicate bribes and kickbacks to police and politicians.

On one page is a memo, Frank paid $17,500 for Al.

It's a jumble of information, and although Wilson has his suspicions about who each of the names and initials represent, the only surefire way to know will be to ask the bookkeeper of the establishment in question.

Over the days that follow, Wilson looks into the history of the Ledgers.

He discovers that they were seized four years earlier in a 1926 raid on the Hawthorne Smoke Shop in Cicero, out of which Capone's outfit did some of its business.

At the time, the raid seemed insignificant.

The authorities didn't come away with the conclusive evidence that they'd hoped for, and Capone himself wasn't arrested.

But now that Wilson's taken the time to decipher the contents of the Ledgers, their provenance is incredibly important.

Because even though they might not know all of Capone's secrets, the Bureau of Internal Revenue knows plenty about the outfit, including the name of the head cashier at the Hawthorne Smoke Shop.

The guy's name is Fred Reese.

Wilson tracks him down at a hotel in St.

Louis.

But like all good mobsters, Reese isn't talking.

That's a problem for Wilson, who's so close to unlocking this whole thing, he can practically taste it.

So using his authority as a federal agent, Wilson has Reese brought to a jail cell in Danville, Illinois.

Unfortunately for Reese, the facilities at Danville aren't what you'd call pristine, but that's exactly what Wilson wants.

A little birdie has told him that Reese is terrified of bugs and anything even remotely dirty.

So when Wilson closes the door on his cell, his tight-lipped guest is practically shaking.

Wilson tells Reese he'll be moved to more comfortable accommodations, perhaps even a nice hotel, just as soon as he's ready to give Wilson the information he wants.

After just 48 hours in the filthy cell, Reese tells Wilson he's ready to talk.

While all of this is going on, Capone and his network have heard rumblings that the federal government is coming after their books.

Capone's brother Ralph has been serving a three-year sentence at Leavenworth for tax evasion since the previous June, and no one wants to suffer the same fate.

So they unleash the dogs.

That November, a Chicago attorney travels to Washington, DC to speak with the commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

He's got an offer to make.

If the commissioner drops all gang-related investigations, Chicago's racketeers will pay 3.5 million directly to the Bureau, which should more than cover any outstanding tax debts the city's gangsters have racked up.

Today, that sum would be around 60 million.

A lot of money to turn down.

But that's what the commissioner does.

Twice.

Because only days after declining the first offer, the commissioner says no to Capone's personal tax attorney, who calls to make the same offer.

It's a move from the gangsters that smacks of desperation.

And now that they smell blood in the water, the feds aren't going to settle for any kind of bait.

So while Capone and Co.

sweat it out, Wilson and his colleagues press on with their investigation.

Fred Rees is just the first domino to fall.

In February of 1931, Wilson tracks down Leslie Shumway, the bookkeeper who actually wrote the incriminating ledgers.

By the following month, a federal grand jury has been convened to investigate tax evasion charges against Capone, and Shumway is one of the keystone witnesses.

Of course, grand jury proceedings are usually kept secret, so Capone has no idea that the pieces are lining up against him.

Besides, like the rest of the country, he's got plenty on his mind just now.

With the Great Depression raging, soup kitchens have been springing up in cities from coast to coast, including Chicago.

At 935 South State Street, a shopfront throws open its doors and hangs a sign advertising free soup, coffee and donuts for unemployed men.

Exactly when the soup kitchen opens is a fact lost to history, but various newspapers report that the smiling women behind the countertops served 5,000 hungry Chicago locals on Thanksgiving Day of 1930 alone.

And although Capone himself has never confirmed that he's funding the charitable endeavor, it's a persistent rumor throughout the city, and one that's in keeping with what many locals know about the big fella.

Capone's generosity is legendary in Chicago.

As far as anyone knows, he doesn't make large contributions to specific causes, but his heartstrings are easily pulled, and people in the community know that he's usually good for a handout if you come to him with the right request.

Now, the soup kitchen goes some way to rehabilitating many people's idea of Capone in the aftermath of the St.

Valentine's Day massacre.

Sure, he might be a violent criminal, but he's a lovable one.

But all the charity in the world can't protect Capone from the seemingly unstoppable force that is the federal government.

On March 13, 1931, the grand jury investigating Capone returns an indictment for tax evasion, but Chicago's US.

Attorney George Johnson keeps the indictment secret from the press.

He's hoping to surprise Capone with the charges once the prosecutors have all their ducks in a row.

Somehow though, Capone's network gets word of the indictment, and he sets his team to work making the charges go away.

About a month later, Johnson's working in his office when he gets a visit from one of Capone's personal lawyers.

The man suggests that if the government will offer a reasonable deal, Capone might just plead guilty.

But Johnson doesn't bite.

There are several more grand juries still looking into Capone's finances, and the US attorney is confident there will be more charges to file before long.

That patience pays off.

On June 5th, a separate grand jury indicts Capone on 22 further felony counts of attempting to evade and defeat tax laws between 1925 and 1929.

The government believes Capone owes over $200,000 in unpaid taxes on income of just over $1 million.

Today, that income figure would be in excess of $18 million.

And those amounts are just what the prosecutors expect they can prove in court.

The totality of Capone's income for those years was likely much higher.

Once they get to trial, it will be up to Johnson and his team to take the evidence and witnesses supplied by investigators like the unstoppable Frank Wilson and turn them into a conviction.

If they can do that, they will be heroes.

Men who did what none before them could accomplish.

End Al Capone's reign over the city of Chicago.

It's the afternoon of June 16th, 1931, in a Chicago courtroom.

Wearing a banana yellow suit, 32-year-old Al Capone is finally facing justice.

After years of dancing circles around the law, Capone's been charged with tax evasion, and everyone in the country is waiting to see whether he'll be able to beat the rap.

Inside the courtroom, though, there's a simpler question to be answered first.

How will Capone plead?

When the charges are read out, Capone answers, his voice low, gruff, barely more than a whisper, guilty.

Immediately, frantic whispers ripple through the gallery.

No one thought the country's most famous mobster would go down without a fight.

No one except for a few lawyers.

In the lead up to the trial, US.

Attorney George Johnson had become nervous.

He was confident that Capone had broken the law, but he was worried about convincing a jury.

After all the hard work Johnson's team and other federal investigators had put into the case, the possibility that Capone might walk was stomach-churning.

So when Capone's lawyers reached out in yet another attempt to make a deal, Johnson was ready to listen.

After some back and forth, they agreed that Capone would plead guilty in exchange for a two-and-a-half-year jail term.

Now with the plea entered, Judge James Wilkerson sets the sentencing for June 30th.

That's plenty of time for Chicago to work itself into a frenzy over the case.

For the next two weeks, all the city can talk about is Capone's deal, and word soon gets around that the jail term is only going to be a couple of years.

Whether the precise details of Capone's deal have leaked or if it's just solid guesswork, Judge Wilkerson isn't happy.

In his opinion, all of the public chatter about the deal has undermined his authority, and that just won't fly.

When the sentencing hearing finally rolls around, he reminds everyone that a plea deal is simply a recommendation to the court, and that a judge can impose whatever sentence they deem appropriate.

At the defense table, Capone and his lawyers blanch.

They never expected this.

For a few tense moments, it looks like the gangster could be going away for a long, long time.

But then US.

Attorney Johnson speaks up from the opposite desk.

He asks that Capone be allowed to withdraw his plea.

Since the deal isn't being honored, the judge agrees to the request and sets a trial date for that October.

So after all of that, Chicago is going to get its trial of the century.

But if Capone has anything to say about it, the scales of justice will be tipped in his favor.

A list of ten people from Capone's jury pool is leaked to the gangster, and his men get to those potential jurors before the big day.

They bribe and threaten as many of them as they can to secure plenty of not guilty votes.

Luckily, the government hears about the sabotage just in time.

On October 6th, the first day of the trial, Judge Wilkerson announces that he swapped jury pools with another trial, which means that there's a group of uncorrupted people ready to serve as Capone's peers.

It's a crushing blow to Capone, who chose his legal team for their skills at cutting deals, not their courtroom prowess.

No one on his side thought the case would go to trial, certainly not a fair one, and they're woefully unprepared to answer the charges.

All they really have to do is prove that Capone has never earned money, and therefore hasn't been skipping out on taxes.

But with a client who spends as lavishly as Capone does, there's little they can do to counter the prosecution, which has assembled 75 compelling witnesses.

After less than two weeks, both sides rest and all eyes turn to the jury.

They come back with a verdict in just eight hours.

They find Capone guilty on five of the 23 charges, one from each of the years in question, but declare him not guilty on the other almost identical charges.

It's a puzzling result, but it's still a guilty verdict.

So on October 24, 1931, Capone is sentenced to a total of 10 years in federal prison, followed by a year in county jail.

He's also fined $50,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs.

All told, that would be just over $1 million today, not that Capone's concerned about his money.

He barely has time to say a word before he's remanded at the county lockup to away transfer to a federal facility.

Outside the courthouse, photographers snap dozens of pictures of the fallen gangster, eager to get as many shots as they can before they lose access to him for a decade.

Then they watch as he's bundled into a car and driven out of the city.

For the next few months, Capone carries on life as normally as he can manage.

He's already been running the outfit remotely from Miami, and doing the same from behind the bars of a cell isn't much harder.

He's allowed to receive visitors and phone calls at all hours and sends countless telegrams to his various businesses.

When authorities try to crack down on his access, Capone uses his connections among local politicians to bypass the hurdles and carry on as usual.

While he languishes in prison though, the world moves on.

In February 1933, prohibition is repealed.

The laws that made Capone and others like him so wealthy are gone.

Americans can legally drink again.

The federal crackdown on organized crime continues, however, and the authorities soon have a new deterrent.

On August 18, 1934, Capone is dragged from a cell in the middle of the night and escorted onto a waiting train.

Over the next three days, the 35-year-old makes the slow journey across the country to San Francisco.

Capone's been accorded an unwelcome honor.

He's one of the first inmates of a new maximum security federal facility.

Perched on a rocky island a mile off the coast, Alcatraz is a prison designed to crush spirits.

But Capone does his best to keep his head above water.

He takes up music, becoming a proficient player of the tenor banjo and the mandola.

In truth, he's lucky to have the chance to learn new skills while he can.

In February of 1938, he starts to exhibit noticeable signs of cognitive decline.

He was diagnosed with syphilis back in 1932.

Exactly when he contracted the venereal disease is unclear, but it seems likely that Capone ignored the early physical symptoms and missed the short window to administer a cure.

Now, after living with the illness in his body for over a decade, it's spread to his brain.

Neurocyphilis is set in.

The condition takes a terrible toll on Capone.

Once he was capable of running an empire worth millions.

Now, he seems confused by everyday occurrences and routines.

He spends the rest of his time at Alcatraz, receiving treatment in the hospital, before he's eventually transferred to another facility on California's Terminal Island.

By this stage, Capone's speech is slurred and he seems bewildered and depressed most of the time.

And that's how he serves out the remainder of his sentence in the quiet confusion of his growing dementia.

However, it's possible that somewhere in the fog of his mind, Capone still harbors his old sense of vengeful justice.

Ed O'Hare was once a business partner of Capone's.

But when the federal agents came calling, O'Hare handed over crucial information that helped them build their case against the gangster.

He was also the one who tipped off the authorities about the fixed jury pool at Capone's trial.

On November 8, 1939, O'Hare is shot and killed in his car in an assassination that bears striking similarities to the murder of Frankie Yale.

And just like Yale's case, O'Hare's goes unsolved.

Just over a week later, Capone is released from prison.

After his nine years behind bars, he heads straight to Baltimore's Union Memorial Hospital for more specialized treatment.

As a sign of his gratitude for the care he receives, Capone gifts the hospital with a pair of weeping cherry trees.

Their flowers symbolize rebirth, and one of them still stands on the hospital grounds today, blooming pastel pink every spring.

But there will be no rebirth for Capone.

He lives out his days at his Florida mansion, never even trying to reclaim his former glory.

The dementia steadily reduces the scope of his activities until they consist of mostly fishing and cards and the occasional dinner out with his wife.

This quiet existence draws to a close on January 25, 1947, a week after Capone's 48th birthday.

It's a surprisingly peaceful end for a man who ordered and inspired so much violence during his lifetime.

Capone was a thug, but he was also a thinker, a man of loud suits and even louder boasts.

He was a celebrity in his own time and something more like a legend today.

The fact that he slipped away so quietly feels out of step with the rest of the story of this most American of criminals.

But then again, Capone always was determined to break the mold.

So maybe seen in that light, it's the perfect ending after all.

From Airship, this is episode 4 in our series on Al Capone.

In the next episode, I'll be speaking with a special guest about Capone's downfall and the forces that brought him to justice.

If you'd like to learn more about Al Capone, we recommend Mr.

Capone, the real and complete story of Al Capone by Robert J.

Schoenberg.

And Get Capone, the secret plot that captured America's most wanted gangster by Jonathan Ige.

This episode contains reenactments and dramatized details.

And while in most cases we can't know exactly what was said, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited and produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio Editing by Mohamed Shazid.

Sound Design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing Producer Emily Berg.

Executive Producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham for Airship.