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00:02Tonight, the murder of a notorious mob kingpin.
00:06Sam Jean Conner is the very personification of the mafia in America in the 1960s.
00:13He's not only the head of the Chicago outfit, he is America's celebrity gangster.
00:18He's known to hobnob with a lot of Hollywood celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe.
00:24When Sam Jean Conner's murdered, it's front page news.
00:27But 50 years later, the identity of Sam Jean Conner's killer remains a mystery.
00:34Solving Sam Jean Conner's murder could open up a Pandora's box.
00:38With every mob murder, it's never one thing.
00:41It's always a combination of things.
00:43Now, we explore the top theories surrounding the assassination of a mob legend.
00:50Everyone benefits from Sam Jean Conner's murder.
00:53Police think that this is a mob hit.
00:55But maybe the CIA had something to do with it.
00:59Jean Conner was killed before he can share everything he knows.
01:03There's someone who doesn't want him to talk.
01:07Why was Sam Jean Conner killed?
01:09And who ordered his murder?
01:27June 19th, 1975.
01:31Shortly before midnight, police respond to an emergency call from a modest home in Oak Park, Illinois.
01:38At the scene, they find a dead body in a pool of blood.
01:42This man has been shot seven times, once in the back of the head, five times in the neck, and
01:48once straight through the mouth.
01:50When police start to investigate the scene, they notice $1,400 in his pocket.
01:55And behind the body is a pan of partially cooked sausages that are still on the stove.
02:02So they think, okay, well, this wasn't a robbery gone wrong.
02:04They quickly realize that this is not just your average victim.
02:09This is Sam Giancana, one of the bosses of the Chicago outfit.
02:16He's a household name.
02:17He's in the papers all the time.
02:19He's on TV.
02:20He's dating movie stars.
02:22He's hanging out with Frank Sinatra.
02:25But all the while, people also know that he's a mobster.
02:30This is one of the biggest mob hits in American history.
02:35And a lot of people do seem to benefit from Giancana's death.
02:38He's connected to everything.
02:40And maybe someone wants to take out Giancana because of what he knows.
02:45The Chicago outfit, the federal government, the CIA.
02:49There's so many people that would have been happy to see him gone.
02:53And there really aren't any obvious clues as to who the killer was or what the motive was for the
02:59shooting.
03:00So what we're left with is a mystery that is now over 50 years old.
03:05But Giancana's past as a mob kingpin provides a long list of potential suspects and motives.
03:13Sam Giancana was born in 1908.
03:15He grows up in the Little Italy section of Chicago known as the Patch.
03:20This is kind of a poor, run-down area of the city.
03:24And he doesn't have a great childhood.
03:26So Sam at an early age turns to a life of crime.
03:29The police believe by his early 20s he may have killed already three men.
03:34Many folks simply called him Mooney, which is another word for being crazy.
03:39Giancana is someone who's very willing to play into this idea that he's crazy.
03:44This is really a persona that he built, a way to seem tough.
03:51Al Capone allegedly took a liking to a young Sam Giancana.
03:55And he was viewed as a rising star in the Chicago Mafia.
03:59A famous crime associated with the Chicago outfit is the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
04:04Not only is it alleged that Sam was there as a driver, but also as a shooter.
04:09In 1931, Giancana's mentor, Al Capone, is arrested for tax fraud and sentenced to prison.
04:17Giancana spends the next 20 years looking to replace him as the head of the Chicago Mob.
04:25Sam is rising through the ranks, and by 1957, he is the head of the Chicago Mob.
04:31They expand their empire under Sam's control outside of Chicago.
04:36They start taking over not only Las Vegas, but all the way down to Cuba.
04:40Sam and the outfit are raking in millions of dollars a year.
04:44Sam Giancana is the epitome of what it meant to be an American crime lord, mafia don, and he controlled
04:52a national syndicate that was second to none.
04:55Everybody in America knew who Sam Giancana was, and he loved that, and he ate it up.
04:59But in the late 1950s, Giancana makes a fateful decision.
05:04He becomes directly involved with the federal government.
05:09Outside of traditional organized crime, he has a relationship with the CIA.
05:15He's allegedly taking meetings with JFK while he's president.
05:20Giancana was trying to plague everything against the middle and expected that the White House would take a kinder approach
05:26to organized crime, but it was the exact opposite.
05:29He has been connected to organized crime essentially from his childhood, and the feds want to find out exactly what
05:36he knows.
05:36In 1965, after years of trying, federal agents believe they finally found a way to bring down Giancana.
05:45They put him before a grand jury investigating the Chicago Mob's alleged racketeering and narcotics operations.
05:53They give him immunity from prosecution.
05:55They say, if you talk, you're not going to get prosecuted.
05:58You don't have to plead the Fifth, and you're going to be okay.
06:02They ask him questions.
06:04He doesn't answer them, and he wants it being put in jail for a year for contempt of court.
06:09But the other members of the Mafia don't like this public attention at all.
06:13After Giancana is released from prison, he ends up going into exile in Mexico in 1974.
06:19He gets deported back to the United States, and upon his arrival, he's subpoenaed.
06:25He's been called in to testify for a U.S. Senate inquiry, looking into the CIA's activities, specifically the possibility
06:35that the mob worked with the CIA to kill Fidel Castro.
06:41That caused great concern from a lot of very powerful, dangerous individuals.
06:48On the night of his murder, Giancana throws a party at his home in Oak Park.
06:53All of the guests leave by 10.30 p.m.
06:56Living upstairs is Joseph DiPersio, who's 82 years old.
07:00He lives there with his wife, and they're kind of like the caretakers for Sam and the property.
07:09Around 11 p.m., DiPersio calls down to Giancana, just to do a quick check, make sure he's doing all
07:13right.
07:14But there's no response.
07:15So DiPersio heads down to the unit.
07:18He walks down into the basement kitchen, and Giancana's on the ground, blood everywhere.
07:25He immediately calls the police.
07:27The police come and question DiPersio.
07:30He doesn't have a lot of answers.
07:31He doesn't even hear the shots being fired.
07:34Police start to piece things together, and one of the early theories that emerges has nothing to do with mob
07:40business.
07:41It's all about his personal life.
07:45Oddly enough, one of the clues that leads investigators down this path is that pan of partially cooked sausages.
07:52He had just recently had gallbladder surgery, and the last thing you want to do after having a surgery like
07:56that is eating very greasy, very fatty food.
07:59Whoever those sausages were for, they're not for Giancana.
08:03He was preparing this meal for somebody that he cared about and trusted enough to turn his back to.
08:10It shows you how much he had let down his guard, that somebody was there that he felt comfortable with,
08:15that he wasn't afraid of.
08:17But the way that the murder was carried out suggested a lot of anger and animosity.
08:24Looking at the overkill of this crime, seven shots to the head, one in a mouth, just seems like something
08:31personal, not a professional hit.
08:38In 1977, FBI investigators learn of a possible reason for such anger.
08:44A source tells the Bureau that Giancana was having an affair with the wife of Chicago mobster Tony Spolatro.
08:51This would not have been the first time that he slept with another mobster's wife.
08:56Giancana is a notorious womanizer.
08:58And Nancy Spolatro was considered to be quite the knockout.
09:01Tony Spolatro was this little 5'3", demonic, crazy man that was running around Chicago,
09:09putting people's heads in vices and popping people's eyeballs out and getting a reputation for extreme violence.
09:17If all of this sounds familiar, it's because Joe Pesci's character in Casino is said to be based off of
09:23Tony Spolatro.
09:24He's really known for his ruthless behavior.
09:28And Tony Spolatro, at one time, lived a couple blocks from Sam Giancana.
09:33He knew how to sneak between the backyards to get into his house.
09:36If Giancana betrayed him by sleeping with his wife, you can imagine that this would clearly send Spolatro just flying
09:44into a murderous rage.
09:46While Tony Spolatro may have had a strong motive, some claim there's one detail that doesn't add up.
09:53Despite the initial suspicions pointed at Spolatro, a lot of people are skeptical about that theory.
09:59In 1975, at the time that Giancana was murdered, Spolatro was not a full-time resident of Chicago.
10:06He was living full-time in Las Vegas.
10:08And Sam Giancana knows that Tony is a violent psychopath.
10:13He certainly wouldn't have his back to him cooking him sausage and peppers.
10:18In 1965, Sam Giancana spends a year in prison for refusing to testify against the mafia.
10:26However, once he's released, he finds that he's not welcome back in Chicago.
10:32The leadership of the Chicago outfit thought, maybe it's time that Sam move on, because he was more of a
10:38liability than he was an asset.
10:41He is exiled to Mexico, and Sam is not retired at this point.
10:46Sam continues to be Sam, and Sam is very good at making money.
10:50A lot of mobsters think very small.
10:53Sam Giancana was a mobster who thought big.
10:56The world was his oyster.
10:59He starts getting involved with Mexican casinos and bringing in money through them, and ultimately, throughout Central and South America.
11:07And then he extends to other crimes like prostitution, narcotics, extortion, kidnapping, everything else you could think of.
11:15According to the book Double Cross, which is written by members of the Giancana family,
11:19Giancana starts getting involved in narcotics trafficking with men from Colombia, who will later go on to become the Medellin
11:26cartel, which is led famously by Pablo Escobar.
11:30He's raking in millions from narcotics, and then he goes even further.
11:35He extends his reach to the Caribbean and even the Middle East.
11:39He opens up offshore gambling boats.
11:41He's making millions and millions of dollars, and he's not giving one penny to the Chicago outfit.
11:47This does not sit well with organized crime groups.
11:52In Italian-American organized crime, even if you are an individual earner, that money still needs to go back to
12:00your crime family.
12:01It doesn't matter if you're doing it out of state.
12:03It doesn't matter if you're no longer our leader.
12:06You belong to us until the day you die.
12:09He tells them, I'm not giving you anything.
12:12I made money for you.
12:13You sent me down here to Mexico.
12:15I'm going to continue to make money for myself and for my family.
12:17The mob was furious with Sam for not cutting them in on all the money he was making in Mexico.
12:25At the same time, the Mexican government wanted to become friendly with Cuba and was concerned that this American had
12:34been attached to a plot to kill Fidel Castro.
12:37The authorities came to his place in Mexico, and they literally arrested him in his pajamas and sent him back
12:46to Chicago.
12:48Even when Giancana returns to the Chicago Outfits territory in 1974, he refuses to pay tribute.
12:55There were a lot of people in Chicago when he came home that felt someone needs to go sit with
13:00Sam Giancana and tell him the rules of the game again.
13:03He might have forgotten them.
13:04We got to remind him.
13:06There is physical evidence that ties the Chicago Outfit potentially to this crime.
13:13In the initial investigation into this murder, it did not look like a mob hit because the shooter used a
13:20.22 caliber pistol.
13:23It just doesn't seem like a mob gun.
13:25The mob, up to that point, used larger caliber weapons.
13:29They're famous for using a Tommy gun, which shoots .45 caliber.
13:32Al Capone himself carried around a .45 caliber Colt 1911 that he called Sweetheart.
13:39However, in 1977, Time Magazine releases an article which talks about how, from 1975 to 1977, the .22 seemed to
13:49be the preferred weapon for mob hits.
13:53In August of 1975, landscapers in a town called River Forest, Illinois, happened to find in the woods a discarded
14:01.22 caliber pistol.
14:03River Forest is pretty much right next door to Oak Park, where Sam Giancana lived and was murdered two months
14:09prior.
14:09And this particular .22 has been modified with a homemade silencer.
14:15If we add a silencer to a .22 caliber handgun, we can get that shot down to, like, 30 decibels,
14:22which is about, like, the sound of a whisper.
14:25And so this would explain why the Perseo doesn't hear anything.
14:29It's not because he's old.
14:30It's not because he's watching TV.
14:32It's because of that silencer.
14:34They did a ballistics test on this weapon, and it was the weapon used to kill Sam Giancana.
14:41The location of the discarded gun may point to one Mafia trigger man in particular.
14:53If you're going to use that gun, then you've got to come in close.
14:56So it's believed that Sam was killed by someone he knew really well.
15:00And interestingly, the gun is found on a road that would lead you from Sam's house to one of his
15:08closest allies, Dominic Blasey, also known as Butch.
15:14Blasey did live in River Forest and was probably Sam Giancana's most trusted soldier and confidant, a guy that he
15:23trusted with his life.
15:25Blasey is somebody that has literally been by Giancana's side for decades.
15:29He actually was one of the pallbearers at Sam Giancana's funeral.
15:34It was the common perception by both the press and local law enforcement that Butch was the one who killed
15:42Giancana.
15:45When police question him, he swears that he was there earlier in the evening, but that when he left, his
15:51friend was still alive.
15:53He always denied it and was pretty adamant in his denials until he died in the early 90s.
15:58But they always tap your best friend to kill you in that world.
16:02And Blasey was Giancana's best friend.
16:05Whether Blasey was the actual gunman or not, the question now becomes, what was the reason behind it?
16:10What is the motive?
16:11One of the best motives we've got comes in the early 2000s during testimony by Nick Calabrese, who was a
16:19long-time hitman for the Chicago outfit.
16:22He claims that the Chicago outfit's main issue with Giancana was not paying them their cut.
16:29The problem with this, though, is why was this hit so personal?
16:34Why was there this level of overkill?
16:37He shot in the back of the head.
16:38That would have killed him.
16:40But then he shot five more times in the neck and the one shot in his mouth.
16:45A lot of researchers insist that what happened to Giancana was a mob hit.
16:51But the nature of it wasn't over money.
16:57The coroner's report on the 1975 murder of Sam Giancana indicates he was first shot in the back of the
17:05head.
17:06Then the shooter delivered six more bullets into his face and neck.
17:10It's a signature of the mafia that when they are going to kill somebody who they believe is snitching to
17:16the government
17:17to deliberately put a series of bullet shots around his mouth.
17:21Well, that last shot, that coup de grace, is basically saying, hey, keep your mouth shut.
17:26And it's a warning to others to also do the same.
17:28The Giancana family has been relatively vocal that Giancana's murder really had nothing to do with the money.
17:35It had to do with the fact that he was being subpoenaed in front of the church committee.
17:39The church committee is the Senate committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church that is tasked with investigating the CIA.
17:47Specifically, whether there was any collusion between the CIA and the mafia.
17:53Within months of returning to Chicago from Mexico, Giancana is told he's expected to appear under oath before the church
18:01committee.
18:03Giancana is somebody that has a track record of not ratting anybody out.
18:07In the 60s, he's jailed for a year for contempt because he doesn't say anything.
18:13But by 1975, Giancana has been painted into a corner.
18:18He's tried to plead the fifth, but there's no way to know whether the Senate will let him get away
18:23with that.
18:24Does he want to risk being thrown in jail for another year?
18:28This is a 67-year-old man.
18:31It might be Giancana doesn't want to risk having to go to prison again because he doesn't have that much
18:37life left.
18:38So it's very possible that he's going to try a whole nother tactic in front of the church committee.
18:44And that might be telling the truth.
18:47Giancana's death happens just five days before he's set to appear.
18:52All of this ties into the idea of the code of Omerta.
18:56Omerta is the oath of silence that you take when you become a member of the mafia.
19:00To break Omerta is to basically sign your own death warrant.
19:09The mob is afraid of what's coming next, that he may actually say something.
19:13I mean, he's an old-school gangster.
19:15He might have kept his mouth shut, but it seems like an easy answer just to take him out.
19:19As a longtime member of the Chicago outfit, Giancana's fate rested in the hands of one man, Tony Accardo.
19:27Even when Sam Giancana was boss, there was still a boss above the boss, and that boss was Tony Accardo.
19:35Nobody in America held the amount of power, the amount of influence that Accardo held in that time period.
19:43Tony Accardo witnessed Al Capone, this larger-than-life figure, who winds up drawing a great deal of attention to
19:51himself.
19:52And Tony Accardo realizes that you should keep your head low.
19:56He wanted to be the boss without holding the title.
20:00So he created all these acting bosses and street bosses and day-to-day bosses that would run the family
20:06for him.
20:07Despite Sam Giancana being made the boss of the outfit in 1957, Accardo is actually the real guy calling the
20:14shots,
20:14and Giancana is just sort of the face of the outfit.
20:18Accardo spared Giancana's life in 1966 by exiling him to Mexico.
20:24When Giancana returns in 1974 and is immediately subpoenaed,
20:30the real head of the Chicago outfit may have been less forgiving.
20:34When the FBI gets involved in the investigation of Sam Giancana's death,
20:39they immediately look to Tony Accardo, and they identify him as a potential suspect.
20:45Accardo was very unhappy with the idea that Giancana was now back in Chicago,
20:50and whoever killed Sam Giancana had to get the okay of Accardo.
20:55But it turns out that he may have had a lot more to do with it than just orchestrating the
21:01affair.
21:02In the early 2000s, the FBI learns that Chicago outfit hitman Nick Calabrese and his nephew, Frank Calabrese Jr.,
21:12are both willing to turn state's evidence.
21:14They spilled the beans on a lot of unsolved murders.
21:19And that turned into the biggest mob prosecution in Chicago history, Operation Family Secrets.
21:24Nick Calabrese goes to the FBI and tells them one of the biggest, juiciest secrets of all time.
21:32According to him, Tony Accardo felt strong enough about Giancana that he wanted to do his own house cleaning.
21:40It's an extraordinary claim.
21:43Tony Accardo hadn't just authorized the hit on Sam Giancana.
21:47He had carried out the hit on Sam Giancana.
21:53If Accardo went out of his way to commit this hit himself, this is big.
22:00Mob bosses do not commit their own hits.
22:04It is likely that Accardo believed that Giancana was about to blow everything wide open.
22:11Yeah, he was old.
22:13He might have looked like your grandfather, but he could still pull a trigger.
22:16This theory makes sense.
22:19Accardo is another person who Giancana probably would have trusted,
22:23would have likely allowed willingly into his home late at night.
22:28Alongside Giancana, the church committee also subpoenaed two other famous mafia associates,
22:35Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa and mobster Johnny Roselli.
22:40Jimmy Hoffa was friendly with Giancana and Roselli,
22:42and he was supposed to testify at the church committee about six weeks after Giancana was murdered.
22:48Jimmy Hoffa ended up disappearing and never being found.
22:52Johnny Roselli does testify, and he just drops a bomb.
22:56He says that the mob was actually working with the CIA.
23:01Until this point, this is all rumors.
23:03This is the first time that we're actually confirming that there is a connection between the CIA and the mob.
23:11After testifying, Johnny Roselli goes missing.
23:13He's eventually found, dismembered, death by asphyxiation,
23:17in a 55-gallon oil drum floating in the bay not far from Miami.
23:21Sam Giancana, Jimmy Hoffa, and Roselli, all three of them murdered either before they testified or after they testified.
23:31This seems to suggest that the mafia was willing to silence anybody who was willing to cooperate with Congress.
23:37So the message was clear.
23:39You don't break the code of silence.
23:43The murder of mobster Sam Giancana in June 1975 comes at a time of intense scrutiny on government corruption in
23:52America.
23:53President Richard Nixon has resigned in the Watergate scandal,
23:57and illegal activity by American spy agencies is being exposed by the media.
24:03Some believe that Sam Giancana's murder wasn't just about protecting mob secrets.
24:09Is it possible he was killed to protect the CIA?
24:14After the Watergate scandal, one of the things that came to light was the improper use of CIA surveillance and
24:21things of that nature.
24:23And so the church committee was set up to oversee what was going on with the CIA.
24:29Today, the church committee is considered to be one of the biggest oversight investigations in all of U.S. history
24:36because they uncover a series of plots, including the plot to kill Fidel Castro by the CIA and the mob.
24:46These alleged ties between the CIA and the mafia lead to the church committee calling people like Johnny Roselli and
24:53Sam Giancana to testify.
24:55In June of 1975, the CIA is in big trouble.
25:00They know exactly what they've done, and they know that it's about to all come out.
25:06So, not only do we have the mob not wanting Sam Giancana to talk,
25:09but we also have the CIA not wanting him to expose that relationship between them.
25:14There are a number of people, including Giancana's oldest daughter, Antoinette Giancana,
25:19who have claimed that the CIA was somehow involved in the murder of Sam Giancana.
25:31So, we're in the midst of the Cold War, and both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations are very concerned about
25:38this charismatic revolutionary Fidel Castro,
25:41who aligns closely with the Soviet Union.
25:44Before Fidel Castro takes control of the Cuban government in the 1950s,
25:49mafia figures own most of the major casinos and hotels in Havana.
25:54Mobsters are essentially kicked out of Cuba during the revolution,
25:58and Fidel Castro becomes a common enemy for the CIA and the mafia.
26:03The CIA felt like the best people to kill Castro were the most dangerous killers that they could find on
26:11the streets.
26:12This was an unholy alliance.
26:15Conducted in total secrecy, this partnership becomes known as Operation Mongoose.
26:21We'll never know for sure what Giancana would or would not have said during his testimony,
26:26but due to Roselli's testimony, we do get a very clear picture of the collaboration between the CIA and the
26:34mob.
26:34Roselli tells an extraordinary story that has the nation on the edge of their seats.
26:41He was recruited by the CIA in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro,
26:47and the two key players in this are Roselli and Giancana.
26:51Sam Giancana feels that the CIA and the mob are two sides of the same coin.
26:55They both want the same thing, and they're both not above murder.
27:00Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana ran a casino in Havana known as San Suu's Sea,
27:07and so they claimed that they still had contacts in Cuba that could get close enough to Fidel Castro.
27:17During Johnny Roselli's testimony, he says that the CIA was willing to pay these mobsters $150,000,
27:24which is $1.6 million in today's money.
27:28Giancana and Roselli actually hire someone to put poison pills in Fidel Castro's food.
27:35The assassin winds up backing out.
27:37When the poisoning fails, then Roselli and Giancana think,
27:43all right, well, let's bring in some armed commandos to assassinate him.
27:47But that didn't work either.
27:49The CIA documents are declassified several decades later,
27:52and you just walk through the documents to go,
27:55oh, Roselli was right, Roselli was right, Roselli was right.
27:58The assassination attempts on Castro fail,
28:01but we do see other collusion between Sam and the CIA.
28:07At this time, he's dating Phyllis McGuire, who's a musician, a national celebrity.
28:13He believes that Phyllis McGuire is cheating on him with comedian Dan Rowan.
28:17The CIA bugged the bedroom of Dan Rowan to appease Sam Giancana.
28:23Now, you have not only the CIA working with gangsters,
28:27you have the CIA help a gangster deal with an emotional problem with his girlfriend.
28:33So what we're looking at in 1975 is that this direct testimony of Giancana
28:39might simply blow the top off this story.
28:42Essentially, Giancana has the power to completely take down the CIA.
28:48The CIA might want to take out Giancana before he can take out them.
28:53The media and the public really quickly start to draw a connection between the CIA and Giancana's murder.
28:59If all of this information was being presented to the committee,
29:03who else could it possibly have been?
29:05Case in point, the Time magazine article,
29:08which talked about how the .22 caliber pistol was becoming the preferred weapon of choice for mob hits,
29:14also points out that the .22 caliber has been the pistol of choice for the CIA for years and years.
29:21It reached the point where Frank Church felt the need to come out and make a statement
29:25that these theories that are being bandied about couldn't be further from the truth.
29:29They do uncover several other assassinations orchestrated by the CIA.
29:34But when it comes to the death of Sam Giancana, Senator Church says it's probably mob-related.
29:41Despite these denials, it makes sense.
29:43I mean, it would be certainly something you'd want to investigate.
29:49In 1975, Sam Giancana is subpoenaed by the Church Committee to testify
29:54about the CIA's involvement with organized crime to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
30:01But the committee is also tasked with investigating the possible connection
30:06between the CIA and one of the most consequential events in U.S. history,
30:11the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
30:15It's something that is one of the darkest days in American history,
30:18and we still don't know, 60 years later, what exactly happened.
30:22In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson creates the Warren Commission
30:27to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy,
30:31and they conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald is a lone actor in the assassination.
30:36No one else is involved.
30:39An awful lot of people were bothered by the Warren Commission
30:43not looking at other scenarios
30:45and argued that there were more plausible theories than the lone gunman.
30:50And one of them has to do in part with the idea that Sam Giancana was involved.
30:56By bringing Giancana to Washington in 1975,
31:00these investigators were hoping to find out
31:03whatever Giancana may know about Castro.
31:06But while they're at it,
31:07they could also ask him about the JFK assassination.
31:10It's really not a crazy conspiracy theory,
31:13the way that sometimes it's made out to be,
31:15because we know there were quite a few people
31:17that had connections to Giancana
31:19that were within the radius of that assassination.
31:22Imagine if Giancana testified and said,
31:25hey, not only did the CIA use me for Castro,
31:29but they also used me to kill JFK.
31:31Now, whether it is the government or the mafia that killed him,
31:36either way, Sam dies because he knows too much.
31:44Most everyone is in agreement that Lee Harvey Oswald
31:48is the one who shot the president.
31:51But did he really act alone?
31:54There is a lot of strong evidence
31:56that maybe the mafia is also involved.
31:59You sound crazy connecting all the dots there,
32:02but it makes sense.
32:03Lee Harvey Oswald grows up in New Orleans.
32:06His uncle is a bookie who works for Carlos Marcello,
32:10who is in charge of the mob in New Orleans,
32:12and a friend of Sam Giancana.
32:15Lee Harvey Oswald, when he's a teenager,
32:17is mentored by this person, David Ferry,
32:19who is also a private investigator
32:22that works with Carlos Marcello.
32:26After the assassination of Kennedy,
32:28Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby,
32:31who was a well-known mafia associate of Giancana's.
32:34In 1975, after Johnny Roselli testifies before the church committee,
32:41his lawyer floated that Johnny would not only be willing to talk about Castro,
32:46but he also knew something about the JFK assassination.
32:50And it was at that point that Roselli winds up being murdered,
32:54just like Giancana.
32:55The really interesting twist here is that Sam Giancana and the mob
33:01helped get President Kennedy elected.
33:05It's pretty much acknowledged historically
33:09that Sam Giancana helped the Kennedy campaign,
33:14both in West Virginia and to some degree in Illinois,
33:17with the election there.
33:19Giancana was telling other mobsters,
33:22I'm supporting Kennedy because I think he'll go easy on us.
33:27Sam Giancana does all this work behind the scenes
33:29to get John F. Kennedy elected president,
33:32expecting that his life is going to get easier,
33:34and it does not.
33:36The mob became very angry and bitter
33:40at the fact that almost immediately,
33:42when Kennedy got into office,
33:44he came after the mafia with an assault
33:47that had never been bigger or more widespread.
33:50A year later, in 1961,
33:53JFK's younger brother, Bobby Kennedy,
33:54who's serving as attorney general,
33:56goes after Jimmy Hoffa, who's the head of the Teamsters,
33:58which has connections to the mob.
34:00RFK also goes after New Orleans mobster Carlos Marcello,
34:03who gets deported to Guatemala.
34:05So Giancana allegedly vows to take revenge on JFK.
34:10Giancana was known as a very violent guy,
34:14one of the most violent people
34:15that the Chicago mob had ever known,
34:18that you don't fool around with Sam Giancana,
34:21or you're going to find a bullet in your head.
34:24In 1992, Sam Giancana's brother
34:27and his godson publish Double Cross.
34:30The book claims to reveal the mob boss's
34:33most shocking secrets,
34:34including what he allegedly said
34:37about the Kennedy assassination.
34:39In his book, Double Cross,
34:41Chuck Giancana says,
34:43one day, Sam said to him,
34:46look, we, meaning we, the mob,
34:50and the CIA took care of Kennedy together.
34:55He states that Sam told them
34:57that Lee Harvey Oswald was a CIA plant,
35:00and that it was Giancana that ordered the murder
35:03of John F. Kennedy.
35:05So, to break it down in its most simple form,
35:08Oswald was the patsy,
35:09and then Ruby was the guy sent to take him out.
35:11And that's a typical mob protocol.
35:14You assign somebody to do the job,
35:16and then you assign somebody
35:16to get rid of the guy that did the job.
35:19There's no way for Chuck Giancana
35:21to corroborate his story.
35:23And there's no way that we will ever know
35:25what Sam Giancana might have testified to in 1975,
35:28but if that is what Sam Giancana was going to say,
35:32that is an explosive issue.
35:36If Sam Giancana really had something to do
35:39with the assassination of JFK
35:41in collusion with the CIA,
35:44that is information that the CIA does not want out,
35:46and it is good reason to kill Sam Giancana.
35:53Since he first became the head of the Chicago mob,
35:56Sam Giancana has kept the Chicago Police Department
36:00in his pocket.
36:01But as he prepares to go on the witness stand in 1975,
36:06this once close relationship may have sealed his fate.
36:12Since Giancana's set to testify in front of a Senate committee,
36:16federal prosecutors have a vested interest
36:18in keeping him alive.
36:20In fact, on the night of Giancana's murder,
36:23there are two officers that are stationed
36:25directly outside of his house.
36:27At about 10.30, on the night of the shooting,
36:30they left.
36:33The skeptics would argue
36:34what they did
36:36was leave him
36:38unprotected.
36:39It's really extraordinary
36:41that within about an hour or so,
36:43after the cops leave,
36:45they're called back
36:46by the housekeeper
36:48saying that Sam Giancana's been murdered.
36:51And then, when asked to investigate it,
36:53the Chicago PD
36:54put it off to the local police department
36:57who don't have the experience
36:58or the resources to find out
37:00who killed Sam Giancana.
37:02So, this brings up a lot of questions.
37:04Why were they not there?
37:05Why won't they investigate it?
37:06There's people who believe
37:08that Chicago police
37:09deliberately leave the case unsolved
37:11because they have something to hide.
37:18It's very possible
37:19when you consider
37:21the history of the Chicago Police Department
37:23that they played some role
37:25in the conspiracy
37:26to get rid of Giancana.
37:27The Chicago Police Department
37:29is probably one of the most
37:31notoriously corrupt organizations
37:33in the history of law enforcement.
37:35Chicago Police
37:36and their connection to the mob
37:38goes back all the way
37:39to the gangland days
37:40of the 1920s and the 1930s
37:42when Al Capone was in charge
37:45and was able to pay off officers
37:47and to pay off judges
37:48to make sure that they looked the other way
37:50when crimes were being committed.
37:52Now, it would be ludicrous
37:53to argue that every Chicago policeman
37:55was corrupt.
37:56But by the time
37:58of the Giancana murder,
37:59reporters noted
38:00there had only been two
38:01gangland murders
38:02that had been solved.
38:04Sam Giancana himself
38:06bragged to his associates
38:08that he had many policemen
38:10in his back pocket.
38:13An amazing character
38:14named Richard Cain
38:15is the perfect example
38:17of this intermingling
38:19between law enforcement
38:21and the mafia in Chicago.
38:22Richard Cain was a Chicago cop
38:26who was a great police investigator.
38:28And so they say,
38:29wow, he's a terrific cop.
38:31But actually, secretly,
38:33he was on the payroll
38:34of Sam Giancana
38:36and always had been.
38:38His police training
38:40came in really handy
38:42for the mob
38:42because he would put mobsters
38:45through lie detector tests
38:47not to try and get them
38:48on a crime,
38:49but to see
38:50if they were talking
38:52about the outfit.
38:54Cain winds up going to jail
38:55and what does he do
38:56when he gets out?
38:57He goes straight
38:58to work for Sam Giancana again.
39:00And he's Sam Giancana's driver
39:02for a couple years.
39:03And then he's shot in the face
39:04with a shotgun
39:05inside of a sandwich shop.
39:07But it wasn't just cops
39:08who were corrupt in Chicago.
39:11Other parts of the justice system
39:12were on the take.
39:13During the investigation,
39:15there's a judge
39:16who is actively stonewalling
39:17the progress of the police.
39:19He refuses to allow police
39:21to investigate Giancana's desk.
39:24When the police
39:25finally open the desk drawers,
39:26they find the guest list
39:28at one of the weddings
39:30of Giancana's daughters.
39:32And this judge
39:33was on the guest list.
39:34So what we're looking at
39:36is a law enforcement system
39:38in Chicago
39:38that is consistently been corrupt
39:42when they had to deal
39:43with organized crime.
39:45Now, historians
39:46have researched this
39:47and there's really
39:48no hard evidence
39:49tying the Chicago Police Department
39:50with the death
39:51of Sam Giancana.
39:53It is possible, though,
39:54that Chicago police feared
39:56that Giancana
39:57would eventually spill the beans
39:59about activities
40:00between police and the mob.
40:02And since he's no longer
40:03the main power broker,
40:04there's no reason
40:05to be nice anymore.
40:06And if that were the case,
40:08Giancana may have ended up
40:09paying the ultimate price.
40:11It's still considered
40:13an open homicide.
40:14We don't know who killed him,
40:17but there were a lot of people
40:19who wanted Sam Giancana dead.
40:23This is a man
40:24who has infiltrated
40:25American business,
40:27the CIA.
40:28It's hard to imagine
40:30a mobster more enmeshed
40:31with the United States government.
40:33You can't help but wonder
40:34if we could just figure out
40:36who killed Sam Giancana
40:38and why,
40:39it might help us solve
40:40some even larger mysteries.
40:43It's a thread
40:43that you could pull
40:44and the next thing you know,
40:45the whole ball of yarn
40:46is gone.
40:50Fifty years later,
40:52the unsolved murder
40:53of Sam Giancana
40:54still raises
40:55as many questions
40:56as there are suspects.
40:58It remains
40:59one of the most elusive
41:01and intriguing murders
41:02in the annals
41:03of organized crime,
41:05particularly for
41:06the secrets it may hold
41:08about a truly tumultuous period
41:10in our history.
41:12I'm Lawrence Fishburne.
41:14Thank you for watching
41:16History's Greatest Mysteries.
41:20History's Greatest Mysteries.
41:22You
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