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Abe "Kid Twist" Reles ( 1906 – 12 November , 1941 ) was an American mobster who was probably the most feared hitman in the stable of Murder, Inc. , the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate . Abraham Reles, the son of Jewish - Austria n Immigrants , was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn , in New York City. Growing up in poverty, it wasn't long before he embraced a life of crime. Stories of successful Jewish gangsters inspired him on his path toward wealth, fame, and ultimately destruction. Physically, Reles was short, but had long arms that ended in hands with short, stubby fingers. His small size, however, did not at all detract from his ruthless violence. When carrying out hits, his weapon of choice was an ice pick (which he would spear through his victim's ear right into the brain). Reles became so adept at using the ice pick that many of his murder victims were thought to have died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Reles reportedly got the nickname "Kid Twist" after an earlier vicious New York killer Max "Kid Twist" Zwerbach . Another theory behind the moniker is that it was the name of his favorite candy. During the Prohibition days of the 1920s , while they still a teenager, Reles and friend Martin Goldstein went to work for the Shapiro brothers, who ran the Brooklyn rackets. Soon, the duo were committing petty crimes for the brothers. On one such occasion, Reles was caught, tried, and sentenced to two years in an upstate New York juvenile institution. The failure of the Shapiro brothers to come to the aid of their employee would prove fatal later on. After his release, Reles resumed his friendship with Goldstein, and together with George Defeo they entered the slot-machine business, the province of the Shapiro racket. Through Defeo's connection with , East New York , and Ocean Hill neighborhoods, while Reles gained the backing he needed to keep both his business and himself alive. The slot-machine business thrived, and soon Reles and Goldstein were on the Shapiros' hit list. One night, the two men received a phone call from a "friend" saying that the Shapiros had left their East New York headquarters. Hopping into their car with Defeo, they headed to East New York , but it all turned out to be a ruse. Once they reached the building, they were greeted by gunfire. Reles and Goldstein were hurt; Defeo escaped unscathed. To add insult to injury, Meyer Shapiro abducted Reles' girlfriend (who was walking down the street) and dragged her to an open field, where he beat and raped her repeatedly. To avenge the rape, Relese enlisted the help of fellow Murder, Inc. killers Frank Abbandando and Harry Maione , who also wanted to kill the Shapiro brothers in order to get a piece of their action. After several futile attempts by each side to eradicate the other, the Murder, Inc. group finally caught up with Irving Shapiro. Reles dragged him from the hallway of his home out into the street, where he beat, kicked, and then shot him numerous times. Two months later, Reles met Meyer Shapiro and was so intent on exacting revenge that he shot him in the face rather than the more surefire method of a shot to the heart. Another three years elapsed before the last Shapiro brother, William, was abducted off the street and taken to a gang hideout. He was nearly beaten to death, then stuffed in a sack and driven out to the Canarsie section of Brooklyn , where he was buried. Before the gang could finish their work, however, a man spotted them and they fled the scene. The man began to dig up what the hoods were burying and found the sack. William's body was exhumed and taken for an autopsy. There, the coroner made a bone-chilling discovery: William Shapiro had sand in his lungs. The Reles gang had buried him alive. In 1940 , Reles was arrested on the orders of Kings County District Attorney William O'Dwyer and implicated in a number of killings. Realizing that he faced execution in the Electric Chair at Sing Sing , Reles decided to become an informant. The information Reles disclosed to the D.A. on 16 May of that year about the murder of Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen was enough to send his boss, Louis Buchalter , to his fate in the Sing Sing death house. Slowly but surely, Murder, Inc. began to unravel as O'Dwyer, using Reles' testimony, prosecuted Harry Strauss , Emanuel Weiss , Harry Maione , Frank Abbandando , and even Reles' childhood friend Martin Goldstein , and sent them all to sit upon "Old Sparky" in Ossining, New York . Naturally, the Syndicate higher-ups were not at all pleased with Reles' decision to become an informant. Following these convictions, O'Dwyer planned a trial for Albert Anastasia , who had been co-chief of operations of Murder, Inc. along with Louis Buchalter , in order to help his campaign to become mayor of New York City . The trial, based solely on the testimony of the D.A.'s star witness, Abe Reles, was set for 12 November , 1941 . However, in the wee hours of that morning, Reles, guarded by six police detectives, mysteriously plummeted to his death from the window of Room 623 of the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island . It is not known whether the Defenestrated Reles was thrown or pushed out the window, or if he was merely trying to escape. It is believed that Frank Costello paid the detectives guarding Reles to ensure that he would never testify. Reles was buried in Old Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Glendale section of Queens, New York . Because of his mob status as a "stool pigeon" and the circumstances surrounding his death, he gained another moniker after his passing. In addition to "Kid Twist," Reles became known as "the canary who sang, but couldn't fly." |
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