David Hennessey
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
David C. Hennessey (??-1890) was the police chief of New Orleans in the late 19th century.
While investigating the barrel murder of an Italian immigrant, he discovered the existence of a secret society operating in New Orleans, the Mafia. After collecting enough evidence to go public, shortly before he could come forward, he was assassinated on October 15, 1890, execution-style. This killing became the first widely publicized Mafia incident in the United States, and resulted in hundreds of arrests and a major trial in 1891 in New Orleans in which nineteen people were indicted.
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External links
- A timeline of Mafia activity (http://www.onewal.com/maf-chr.html)
- FBI page on history of Mafia activity in United States (http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/orgcrime/lcn/lcn.htm)
- Information about the 1891 New Orleans Mafia trial (http://www.uno.edu/~dneubaue/studentpapers/edwards/trial.html)
