Margaret Mary Collins
Margaret Mary Collins' was Chicago Gangland's so-called Kiss of Death girl. Seven out of eight hoods that she was involved with were all killed by gunfire. Collin’s wasn’t very pretty, she had a bad complexion, a foul mouth, and she drank too much. But she had a pouty-girl attitude that applied to a certain type of man. One of those men was Johnny Sheehy.
On the night of December 8, 1923, Margaret Mary Collins, then 20, and Johnny Sheehy, a North Side bootlegger went out with a group of friends to celebrate Margaret’s birthday at the Rendezvous Club, on Diversey Parkway and Broadway.
The place was packed with over 600 patrons to see the opening of the club’s new Japanese room, which had cost the owners the equivalent of a million and a half dollars to redecorate.
Sheehy’s record included stealing a minister’s car, stealing more than $10,000 worth of car tires and was the chief suspect in the notorious Marston pearls theft. Two robberies, a burglary, and three larceny indictments were stricken from Sheehy’s records by a state's attorney for no understandable reason.
Sheehy and company arrived at midnight. After being seated for a few moments, Sheehy walked up to the bar where the waiter, 50-year-old Henry Bing was working and said
“I want a bowl of cracked ice. I'm tired of waiting”
Bing replied, “If you’ll just have a seat I'll see that a waiter gets the ice for you."
“I want that ice right now and I'm going to get it," Sheehy yelled over the din of the crowd.
The waiter made some remark in reply and Sheehy struck him in the Jaw. Bing bolted from behind the service bar to the street, where he summoned Detective Sergeant John O’Malley, working private duty for the club, at the corner. Bing said “A man inside Just punched me on the jaw and I think he's got a gun"
Inside the club, the café steward, 62-year-old Leopold Guth picked up a large bottle as a weapon and Sheehy shot him under the chin, killing him.
At this moment O'Malley, in plain clothes and with his revolver in his hand, entered the place. As soon as Sheehy said, "Beat it and be damned quick about it, or I’ll kill you."
O'Malley backed out on the street and got Sergeant William O’Malley, also of the Detective Bureau.
Just at this moment, Bing was reentering the café and - Sheehy dropped him with a bullet, killing him. William O’Malley entered behind him and was shot in the arm.
John O'Malley entered from the rear door, and dropped Sheehy with two bullets, one in the left arm and one in the left side, killing him.
A waiter rushed to the orchestra leader. Charles Straight, as a dance was ending and told him to play a loud fast tune “We'll have a panic here it you stop playing now"
Margaret Collins, a knockout blonde flapper. Margaret happened to mention that back in her native New York, that her boyfriend at the time was also a gangster and was also shot dead in café, and so began her legend of being the ominous “Kiss of Death Girl.”
Dean O’Banion and his screwball wife Viola, liked Margaret and took an interest in her well-being after the shooting. The O’Banions introduced Margaret to gangster Johnny Phillips, an O’Banion regular.
On August 27, 1924, Phillips was shot three times in the head and killed while at the Northern Lights" a cabaret at the southwest corner of Devon Avenue and Broadway.
Shortly after 2 AM Phillips and four others swaggered into the Northern Lights, already drunk. They took a table, drank more, and grew loud and at some point, one of the slapped an entertainer named Dorothy Kessner. A waiter rushed forward and said “You fellows can't get away with that in here”
Phillips shouted “Can't we? Call some coppers and let's see what they have to say."
The police were called, and officers Frank Sobel, Dan Hogan, and Pat O'Connell arrived. The cops walked in and started to question the five gangsters when they suddenly rose as one and drew guns.
Officers Hogan and O'Connell threw up their hands. But Officer Sobel backed away and darted out of the cabaret. He ran across the street, got a companion another policeman who was seated in the patrol wagon and started back to the Northern Lights. Just as they entered the door, Phillips, branding two pistols, and the hood, along with their police captives, their hands still in the air, were leaving. Phillips rushed at Sobel who drew his weapon and shot Phillips' dead. His companions fled.
Margaret was the star of the funeral for the press.
Once again, the O’Banions played matchmaker and introduced Margret to another Northside hoodlum named
David “Jew Bates” Jerus.
One night in late October 1924, Jerus, Margaret, O’Banion, Louis Alterie, and “Dago Mike” Carozzo, and Carozzo’s second wife Julianna were having dinner at the Friar’s Inn at 343 South Wabash Avenue. Later that year Alterie robbed Miss Katherine Armstrong of $35,000 in jewels shortly after she left the Inn.
For whatever the reason, Margaret slapped Julianna Carozzo across the face. When her husband tried to slap Margaret, the Northsiders restrained him. Punches were thrown and the police were called. In November, O’Banion was murdered in his flower shop Jerus dropped Margaret. Jerus had made a lot of enemies in Chicago and with O’Banions protection gone, he fled to Covington, Kentucky, and went into bootlegging. By 1930 he was, more or less, the boss of the underworld in that city. In the mid-1930, he and his crime partner Lawrence Coates. They kidnapped their rival gangster Charles J. Stubbs. They tossed him into the trunk of their car and drove off but forgot to search him for a weapon. When Jerus stopped and opened the trunk, he was shot dead and both Coates and Stubbs were badly wounded.
After Jerus left town Margaret was seeing Irving “Sonny” Schlig, a very successful jewel thief. In January 1925, robbed $200,000 in diamonds from the Parkway Hotel. Right afterward, Schlig dropped Margaret for another flapper,
Paula Livingstone.
Then, on August 28, 1925, Schlig and bootlegger
Harry Berman was found dead, shot in the head, at the Chicago- Stickney line, in a ditch at 82d Street and Cicero Avenue.
Berman, who was also a jewel thief, and Schlig were in the business of refitting airplanes to use in the bootleg booze business.
A year later, in 1926, the police arrested a 26-year-old gangster named Eugene “Red” McLaughlin for the murders. His girlfriend was none other than Margaret Collins.
McLaughlin was arrested when Police Captain George O’Connor drove by McLaughlin at 31st Street and South Parkway. McLaughlin was strangling a jewelry salesman named Walter Zeeman who had $75,000 worth of jewels in his car.
O’Connor stopped and asked what was going on and McLaughlin replied, “It’s all right, this guy's got a fit and I'm keeping' him quiet."
O’Connor arrested him on the spot.
On June 8, 1930, Red McLaughlin’s body, wrapped in chains and 75-pounds of weight, was found in the
Chicago Sanitary Canal at Summit.
So Margaret Collins moved along to a fellow Sam Katz, an old-time Mob extortionist.
On July 16, 1932, Katz, Harold Partner, and Frank Rogers
decided to kidnap a gambler named Morris Schachter. They had previously kidnaped Schachter’s brother, a St. Louis gambler known as Brass McDonald. The brothers paid off but the three extortionists came back and demanded more money from the Schachter’s. So Morris Schachter complained to the police and a trap was set. A police squad was waiting in a room adjacent to Schachter's office. When Katz and the others showed up and demanded another payment, he handed them a $100 bill to them. Katz said "That isn’t enough, and you know it. Now, you go out and get some real money and hurry back or your life won't be worth anything."
Schachter left the room and the police stepped in and announced, "We're police officers; stick tip your hands." Katz drew his gun and was killed immediately. The same thing happened to Harold Partner and Frank Rogers.
After that Margaret Collins left Chicago for Cincinnati. In June 1931, she was arrested for stealing dresses from a downtown store. That cost her 60 days in the workhouse and a $400 fine. She returned to Chicago and took up with a man named Sol “Bulldog” Feldman.
In November 1932, Feldman was shot in the head while breaking into Leschin’s Fur Shop at 318 South Michigan Avenue. He survived but in 1933, while awaiting his hearing on a burglary charge, he collapsed in a courtroom vestibule. The bullet wound to the back of his head had not healed correctly because it had been reopened and became infected.
The reason it became infected was that three days earlier, Feldman and Margaret had gone to Feldman’s sister’s wedding. Margaret took to dancing with some other guys and Feldman smashed on the head with a beer bottle.
A group of men beat him to the floor, breaking a few of his ribs, closing one of his eyes, and, apparently, reopening the wound in his head.
On February 7, 1935, Milwaukee police arrested Collins, using the name Fay Sullivan, and two female companions for stealing fur coats.
Nine months later, in November of 1935, Rose Choromokis identified Margaret as the boyfriend of Thomas De Santo accusing her and De Santo of trying to set her up for a robbery.
Police arrested them on August 24, 1940, along with Margaret’s sister, Anne Martin, during a raid on a known dope ring house. Margaret was acquitted because she had managed to convince a judge that the $4,000 in heroin found in the home belonged to the previous owner, who was dead.
After that, Margaret disappeared from the newspaper reports and vanished forever.
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