Witchcraft, Life Insurance and the Business of Murder

Ferdinando Alfonsi of 2515 East Ann Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died October 27, 1938, at National Stomach Hospital, his life reduced to a piece of paper in the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Bureau of Vital Statistic's office. The death certificate captured a snapshot of a thirty-eight-year-old, white, married, male of Italian parentage and origin, who made his living as a construction worker. By all accounts, this is an ordinary death certificate of an ordinary death, with all the official signs, stamps, and registration numbers that came along with death in the twentieth century. Except, in the middle of the right-hand column, under principle cause of death, stamped in smeared, bold letters read "INQUEST PENDING." 1 This is no ordinary death certificate. This is the death certificate of a murdered man, a man whose murder led to the discovery of an expansive insurance murder ring operating in 1930s Philadelphia.

F erdinando Alfonsi of 2515 East Ann Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died October 27, 1938, at National Stomach Hospital, his life reduced to a piece of paper in the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Bureau of Vital Statistic's office. The death certificate captured a snapshot of a thirty-eight-year-old, white, married, male of Italian parentage and origin, who made his living as a construction worker. By all accounts, this is an ordinary death certificate of an ordinary death, with all the official signs, stamps, and registration numbers that came along with death in the twentieth century. Except, in the middle of the right-hand column, under principle cause of death, stamped in smeared, bold letters read "INQUEST PENDING." 1 This is no ordinary death certificate. This is the death certificate of a murdered man, a man whose murder led to the discovery of an expansive insurance murder ring operating in 1930s Philadelphia. 1. Philadelphia, PA., Death Certificate no. 112635 (1938), Ferdinando Alfonsi; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA.
Alfonsi's murder set off a complex investigation that revealed the existence of an expansive murder network operating in Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware. The murder insurance ring either targeted vulnerable Italian immigrants, insuring their lives and then killing them to collect the insurance, or preyed upon dissatisfied spouses whose partners were worth more dead than alive. If victims did not have insurance or had too little insurance, extra life insurance would be purchased without the victim's knowledge. Drowning, hit-and-runs, and poison by arsenic were the ring's stock and trade, and clients usually paid $300 plus 10% of all insurance money over $1,000. 2 The premise of the conspiracy was insurance fraud, run and organized under a sophisticated business model. However, at the heart of the conspiracy was the Italian belief in witchcraft, the "evil eye," and magic potions. With immigrant communities facing mounting poverty, the insurance murder 2. Lawrence E. Davies Though Alfonsi was the ring's last known victim, he epitomized the ring's ideal victim and the economic pressures behind the ring's activities. Originally from Senigallia, Italy, Alfonsi was twenty-three, and a single laborer when he came to the U.S. on board the "Conte Rosso." 5 Like most Italian immigrants in Philadelphia before the Depression, Alfonsi probably relied on political patronage jobs from the Republican political machine. According to historian Stefano Lucani, immigrants' working class neighborhoods were strongholds for the Republican party as "destitute ethnics could more easily be lured into bartering their votes for the jobs and the other political favors and personal services through which Republican chieftains rewarded their loyal supporters." 6 By promising their votes to the Republican machine, Italian Americans were able to find employment in municipal 5. New York, New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957(1923 patronage jobs, such as street cleaning projects and the city's Department of Public Works.
When the Depression hit, the economic situation for immigrants like Alfonsi in Philadelphia deteriorated. South Philadelphia, the city's largest Italian neighborhood, had the highest unemployment rate in town. Additionally, in his uncompromising quest to alleviate Philadelphia's indebtedness, Mayor J. Hampton Moore ruled out special appropriations to allow direct assistance from the municipal administration. 7 Furthermore, Moore delayed the impact of the New Deal in Philadelphia politics by refusing to contribute funds to direct relief and preventing Philadelphia from qualifying for federal relief programs. Moore also delayed ratifying appropriations for the Civil Works Administration until only two months before its scheduled termination. 8 Even once the new mayor started cooperating with the Works Progress Administration in 1936, "the Republican city council had become more and more reluctant to appropriate funds for the city's share of the costs of WPA projects which, in councilmen's opinion, were to benefit the Democratic party." 9 Due to Italian Americans' Republican loyalties and demand far outstripping the supply of WPA jobs, there was a thin chance of Italian Americans receiving WPA jobs and, thus, 7. Lucani, "Machine Politics and the Consolidations of the Roosevelt Majority," 39. 8. Ibid., 40. 9. Ibid., 47. finding employment during the Depression.
In June 1937, the situation for immigrants, including Italian Americans, became dire with the passage of the Federal Deficiency Appropriations Bill. The bill cut WPA funds and included an alien rider that disqualified immigrants who had not taken out first papers from WPA jobs and gave suspected aliens sixty days to prove citizenship. After the grace period, the bill dismissed all aliens without first papers. Then, "less than a month later even aliens holding first papers lost their jobs." 10 On March 10 th of that same year, Alfonsi became a naturalized U.S. citizen. 11 Whether Alfonsi became a U.S. citizen in response to the Federal Deficiency Appropriations Bill in order to qualify for a WPA job is unknown. Nevertheless, limited options existed for Italian Americans to secure gainful employment during the Great Depression in Philadelphia, leading members and clients of the murder insurance ring to commodify the lives of their fellow immigrants in order to survive during economically hard times.
After the arrest of Petrillo and Stella, the police rounded up others who used the "murder-for-profit" ring as a source of income during those economically desperate times.  At its basic level, the insurance murder ring was an extensive case of insurance fraud. Life insurance was not a completely new concept, nor murder for insurance. In sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, the popularity of speculative insurance led to secretly acquired policies where payment was contingent on an event occurring in a person's life. Events ranged from loss of virginity to when and how a person died. 16 Obviously, this created a moral hazard, and thus there were casualties and faked deaths. When Americans set up their life insurance system in the 1810s and 1820s, they wanted to avoid the facilitation of crime, but that proved to be impossible. By March, with over seventy speculated victims, investigators realized the magnitude with which the insurance murder ring took the association of insurance and crime. On March 22 nd , Herman Petrillo erupted into curses and swung at a foreman as a jury found him guilty of the murder of Ferdinand Alfonsi by poison and sentenced him to death by electric chair. With Petrillo's conviction, Judge Harry S. McDevitt promised "relentless prosecution of 'this group of assassins' he said committed numerous murders in a 'mad quest for money.'" 17 Investigators knew "this group of assassins" organized and ran their conspiracy like a business. Investigators found that the arsenic ring "'merchandised in death' on a commercial basis, with a staff of contact men to drum up business." 18 In fact, the police believed that "at least seventy-five persons were associated with the 'poison syndicate' either as directors, 'branch managers,' 'agents' or 'customers. ' on each other, revealing to the police the inner workings of the syndicate with its network of agents, branches, and clients. For most members, protecting this economic scheme was not worth jail time or, worse, the electric chair.
Additionally, the ring had suppliers and contacts for everything from poison and other lethal weapons to the vital insurance policies that made the ring profitable. For example, investigators arrested Gaetano Cicnato, an insurance agent, as an accessory after several statements by ring members and other insurance agents accused Cicnato of paving the way for the ring to easily obtain insurance policies on intended victims. 20 Additionally, in May, police set a watch on the man they believed to be the ring's banker and suspected he held as much as $100,000 in insurance spoils. 21 The ring also had contacts with doctors and pharmacists to supply them with poison. For instance, in the Jennie Peno murder, a physician connected with the ring gave Jennie poison under the guise of medicine. 22 The multiple suppliers and contact men made the murder for insurance operation an efficient and effective economic enterprise.
Furthermore, when investigators arrested Millie Giacobbe, a proprietor of a small dry goods store, they gained confirmation of the existence of a "matrimonial agency" run as a side business by the ring. The matrimonial agency lined up husbands for "arsenic widows" to ensure a steady supply of victims and insurance payouts. After being questioned as an "arsenic widow" for her participation in the matrimonial agency, Giacobbe attempted suicide with a revolver in the bedroom of her South Philadelphia home. 23 The most infamous of the arsenic widows was ringleader Morris Bolber's secretary, Rose Carina. When police finally seized her on May 18th in New York City for the murder of one of her five or more husbands, she came to court wearing all black and thickrimmed glasses. As the New York Times observed, "To spectators, [Carina] bore little resemblance to a woman classed in the public imagination as a 'roseof-death' bride of the alleged murder ring." 24 As a separate, but interconnected, business, the matrimonial agency gave Italian immigrant women a means of economic subsistence and kept the ring's economic activities going by ensuring a ready supply of victims.
"Love Potions and Groundup Dead Man's Bones" However, it was not the cold, business-like way in which the ring operated that caught the public's imagination. At the heart of the insurance murder ring was the incorporation of Old World Italian beliefs in the "evil eye" and witchcraft into the system of insurance fraud. Historian Owen Davies claims, "While the idea that witches could cast a spell through sight was widespread in different cultures…the evil eye as a concept is best understood as a distinct tradition found in Mediterranean cultures." 25 Known as Malocchio in Italian, a 1940s New York City folklore survey on the belief in the evil eye found it still thriving among the Italian and Jewish populations. 26 Thus, invoking Old World beliefs of witchcraft and the "evil eye" gave the ringleaders, Herman and Paul Petrillo, Corina Favato, and Morris Bolber, power over their extensive network of crime due to Italian immigrants' penchant to hold on to their Old World beliefs. The ringleaders' success in persuading spouses to kill their husbands or wives stemmed from their reputations as powerful witches or as possessing the "evil eye." Each of the ringleaders' powers of supernatural persuasion came out during the investigation, in often-dramatic fashion. At the arraignment of the bespectacled tailor, Paul Petrillo, witnesses testified that for a number of years Petrillo took witchcraft lessons at fifty cents a lesson from an African American "seeress." Fifty cents seemed a small price to pay to be able to talk to spirits and "Old Nick himself." 27 Referred to as "a dealer in magic powders," 28 a "professor of witchcraft," 29 and a "witch doctor" in the press and by witnesses, Petrillo's reputation as a witch was well known among the Italian community.
Petrillo's co-director in the South Philadelphia branch, Carina Favato, also had a reputation as a witch. After confessing to her involvement in the conspiracy, the diminutive and grey-haired Susie di Martino, widow of one of the victims, turned state's witness and testified against Favato, who "nursed" her late husband, Giuseppe di Martino, during his last illness. As a result, on April 21 st , Favato "a middle-aged housewife who subscrib[ed] to a belief in witchcraft," shocked the court at her own murder trial by calmly pleading guilty to the murder of her commonlaw husband, Charles Ingrao, her stepson, Philip Ingrao, and Giuseppe di Martino. 30 Additionally, arsenic widow Josphine Romaldo told reporters she "sought supernatural help to win her husband's affections back" from Favato, who offered her a charm that "would bring [her]  Favato's confession split the case wide open. However, there was still a ringleader free, whose reputation was infamous and whose eventual confession led to the arrests and prosecution of numerous ring members. Even after Herman Petrillo received the death penalty and Favato's dramatic courtroom confession, investigators only knew Morris Bolber as "the rabbi," a veteran "witch doctor," who dealt in "love potions and ground-up dead man's bones." 32 It was not until April 27 th that police knew Bolber to be the "veteran witch doctor and compounder of charms." 33 When Bolber turned himself in to police, he pled guilty to the murder of arsenic victim Romain Manduik, but he maintained that he was really innocent and had turned state evidence "for the benefit of the people of Philadelphia." 34 Bolber tried to frame himself as a "faith healer" instead of a "witch doctor" to police. Self-described as "a sort of psychiatrist," Bolber used his relationship with the Sherman family as a testament to being a healer instead of a murderer. Police arrested Dora Sherman, a sixty-two-year-old widow and mother of three who ran a chicken store in West Philadelphia, for the death of her late husband, Abraham, an antique dealer, who died July together. On one occasion he questioned Herman Petrillo, Morris Bolber, and David Brandt. Brandt, a typewriter salesman and former veterinary student, was not a ringleader but still a prominent agent in the conspiracy. During the questioning, the three displayed fright over the others' evil eye, frequently interrupting questioning with, "Don't you look at me that way; don't you give me the eye." 37 The animosity and fright shown by the ring members towards the use of the evil eye was not just a charade for clients. Those within the ring truly believed they possessed the "evil eye" or feared those who did possess it. This belief was crucial in the effectiveness of the ring's economic activities.
The public got to witness this belief in action during Paul Petrillo's trial. The prosecution put Bolber on the stand to testify against his co-conspirator, but it turned into a standoff between Bolber, the "faith healer," and Petrillo, the "witch doctor." Reportedly, Bolber and Petrillo were partners in witchcraft, but now, instead of using the evil eye to threaten clients into cooperation, they directed the evil eye at each other. Bolber "electrified the courtroom crowd with a detailed account of six slayings," linking Petrillo to three of them. Then he "threw the room into an uproar with an attempt to 'put the evil eye' on the defendant [Petrillo]." 37. Ibid. desperation of conspiracy members created by the economic stagnation of the Depression shaped the conditions for the ring to take root. The story of the insurance murder ring demonstrates the immigrant's ability to exploit institutions, such as life insurance, and root them in the traditional customs they were most familiar with. By translating Old World beliefs into an American system, the insurance murder ring was able to survive the economic crisis and preserve their Old World values as well.