| Alphonse Capone was born in 1899 in Brooklyn, and | | | | sent corpses to a Chicagoland hospital and caused a |
| completed his schooling through sixth grade. Then he | | | | public outcry which forced the Federal government |
| joined the street gang led by Johnny Torrio, of which | | | | to take steps to shut Capone down. This is when |
| Lucky Luciano was also a member. As a teenager he | | | | Eliot Ness came to Chicago with his squad of |
| worked as a bouncer in Torrio's Brooklyn brothel and | | | | Untouchables. |
| saloon, where he was slashed in the face by an irate | | | | Eventually Capone was sentenced to eleven years in |
| customer, leaving him with the large scar which gave | | | | the Federal Prison at Atlanta. In 1934 he was |
| him the nickname "Scarface". In 1920 Johnny Torrio | | | | transferred to Alcatraz, the high-security prison in San |
| moved to Chicago to go to work for his uncle Big Jim | | | | Francisco Bay, notorious for its holes (tiny cells in |
| Collisimo, and Torrio brought Capone along. With the | | | | which prisoners were beaten). Prisoners were |
| advent of Prohibition illegal alcohol became the big | | | | forbidden to speak, whistle, or sing except during |
| new mobster industry. In the struggle for control of | | | | three minutes twice a day at morning and afternoon |
| this profitable business Torrio and Capone murdered | | | | recreation periods. Entering Alcatraz with his usually |
| Jim Collisimo, and eventually also murdered all of the | | | | arrogance, Capone was put in the hole for extended |
| rest of the opposition standing in the way of their | | | | periods three times - twice for breaking silence, and |
| liquor monopoly. In 1924 their murder of Dion | | | | once for trying to bribe one of the guards for |
| O'Banion, the head of Chicago's North Side Irish mob, | | | | information about the outside. Also, other prisoners |
| led to an all out war which nearly resulted in Torrio's | | | | made attempts on his life, including a stabbing which |
| death. Torrio decided to return east, so he turned his | | | | sent him to the hospital. |
| business interests over to Al Capone. | | | | The beatings and scares, as well as the advancing |
| Capone now was 26 years of age, and he controlled | | | | syphilis which he had contracted in his youth, |
| an empire of crime worth over thirty million dollars. | | | | eventually snapped Al Capone's mind. He would |
| His chief rackets were illegal liquor, prostitution, and | | | | crouch in the corner of the cell and babble in baby |
| gambling. He had over a hundred employees, with a | | | | talk to himself. He would compulsively make up his |
| weekly payroll of $300,000. He had a flair for publicity | | | | bunk bed over and over. When he was released |
| and became a Chicago celebrity, cheered by an | | | | from prison in 1939 he retired from public view and, |
| admiring public when he attended ball games or | | | | eschewing Chicagoland assisted living, he moved to a |
| concerts. However, he still had enemies. In 1926 | | | | mansion located in Miami Beach. The following eight |
| survivors of the O'Banion gang sent a machine-gun | | | | years his mind wavered between lucid and psychotic. |
| squad to Capone's headquarters in the Lexington | | | | He died in 1947 of a brain hemorrhage, and his body |
| Hotel and fired over a thousand rounds; yet Scarface | | | | was brought back to Chicago, and is today interred in |
| managed to escape intact. The infamous 1929 St. | | | | Mt. Carmel Cemetery. |
| Valentine's Day massacre of rival Bugs Moran's gang | | | | |