John Duffy (mobster)

John Duffy (d. February 1924) was a Philadelphia mobster and gunman for the North Side Mob.

A gun for hire out of Philadelphia, Duffy arrived in Chicago during the early 1920s. Finding work with the North Side Mob, Duffy participated in several jobs for Dion O'Banion becoming known as a "hanger-on" to the gang in some respects.

In mid-February 1924, after eight days of marriage to a Maybelle Exley, Duffy murdered his bride following a violent drunken argument by smothering her with a pillow while she slept (although other sources claim he shot her twice in the head). When he awoke the following morning, Duffy panicked and called a friend asking for a car and money to escape the city. He was soon contacted by O'Banion who agreed to help Duffy and arranged to meet Duffy at the Four Duces, incidentally a South Wabash club run by the Johnny Torrio-Al Capone organization.

Several eye witnesses claimed to have last seen Duffy being picked up in a Studebaker at the club by O'Banion and an unidentified man at around 8:00 pm. His body was later found in a snowbank outside of Chicago, shot three times in the head from a 38. caliber revolver. Although a witness claimed to have seen Duffy's body being dumped by O'Banion and two other men, he later retracted his statement to police.

When police suspected O'Banion's involvement, the gang leader stated to reporters "The police don't have to look for me, I'll go and look for them. I'll be at the state's attorney's office at 2:30 PM Monday afternoon...I can tell the state's attorney anything he want's to know about me. Whatever happened to Duffy is out of my line. I don't mix with that kind of riffraff."

As Duffy had been last seen at the Four Duces, owned by rivals the Torrio-Capone organization, suspicion logically focused on club manager Al Capone as the main suspect. As one of the headquarters of the criminal organization, the subsequent investigation brought unwanted attention from law enforcement officials as the club was the source of illegal gambling, prostitution and bootlegging.

Although police officials were unable to amass enough evidence to charge O'Bannion with Duffy's murder, police reports theorize that Duffy was driven by O'Bannion and two accomplices to a remote woodland area. Stopping on Nottingham Road, the two men got out to relieve themselves on the side of the road when O'Bannion stood behind Duffy and shot him in the back of the head, then twice more before dumping his body. It is believed that O'Bannion, who anticipated a highly publicized murder investigation of his wife's death, decided to take Duffy for "a one way ride" by way of implicating Torrio and Capone.

References

• English, T.J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-059002-5