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Wierd News Stories

by Brian Erwin
06/15/23
Not For Sale
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CLIPPED IN A BARBER'S CHAIR=====

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel: "We only kill each other.".

Mob boss Albert Anastasia died in a barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York on October 25, 1957. Anastasia had no idea that his number had come up, as he was a controlling member of Murder, Inc., a branch of the national crime syndicate that carried out assassinations.

Murder, Incorporated served as the enforcement division of the Syndicate, established by Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky. With an unprecedented number of killings from 1935 to 1940 in order to eliminate Competition and informants, these mobsters included Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, Louis Capone (not related to Al), Charles Workman, Emmanuel Weiss, and Marty “Bugsy” Goldstein. All of them were involved in multiple unlawful activities in New York.

Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, who was heavily involved in labor racketeering, and Albert Anastasia, who controlled the New York docks, were also members of Murder, Inc.

Anastasia and Buchalter were important figures within the Luciano-Lansky Syndicate. For their contracting of killings, they enlisted Workman and Weiss who frequented Midnight Rose's Candy Shop in Brooklyn, where they could be contacted at any hour of the day or night. The store was also an operational hub for Reles' loan sharking business. As dictated by the Commission, it was Buchalter's duty to recruit Abe Reles. Knowing that the Syndicate needed assassins that left no traces and were unfamiliar in the criminal realm, it was only Anastasia and Buchalter who came into contact with these killers back at Midnight Rose’s. In return for their services, The Syndicate allowed Reles and others free reign over East New York and Brownsville.

Until 1940, Murder, Inc. was believed to have carried out 400 to 500 murders, settling mob disputes from New York to Los Angeles. The murders had to be cleared by Lansky and Luciano. Anastasia or Buchalter then contacted the assassins with the decision.

In 1940, the powerful gang Murder, Inc. was sent into ruins when Reles and some of his associates were arrested on suspicion of homicide. To save himself, Reles agreed to a deal that gave him immunity in exchange for confessing the details of two hundred murders he had committed or been involved in. Consequently, his testimony caused Harry Strauss and Bugsy Goldstein to be put to death in the electric chair - among other condemnations. He additionally exposed Charles Workman and Emmanuel Weiss as those who assassinated Dutch Schultz in 1935, leading to Workman and Weiss's sentencing to life imprisonment.

The Syndicate had no problem putting away the men implicated by Reles, and so his days were numbered. In order to protect him, he was placed under 24-hour guard in a hotel room on the sixth floor of the Half Moon Hotel at Coney Island, yet November 12, 1941 saw his body on the ground below. How it had come to be there remained a mystery until Luciano and Lansky's later claim that Frank Costello paid the police officers observing Reles $100,000 to prove that he didn't stand a chance of escape.

During the 1950s, Anastasia became a victim of the mob's power struggles.

After taking over the Masseria crime family in 1931, Lucky Luciano appointed Vito Genovese as his underboss. While Luciano was in prison for tax evasion in 1936, he expected to take over, but Luciano passed him over and replaced him with Frank Costello. According to special prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Genovese fled to Italy for several years because he believed Genovese was in charge anyway.

Costello rose to power while Luciano was serving time and when he was deported in 1946. He earned his place as a popular boss due to his political ties and through intricate agreements with Luciano and Lansky, which allowed members of the cartel to gain autonomy as well as attain great wealth. Costello's friendship with Luciano, Lansky, and his henchman Albert Anastasia were what really kept him safeguarded; no one dared challenge them.

When Costello faced the Kefauver Hearings in March 1951, his ability to serve the mob was brought to an end. Estes Kefauver, a democrat from Tennessee and head of the Special Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, planned the hearings that took place in 14 US cities from May 1950. It's estimated that 20-30 million individuals watched live broadcasts of the proceedings, which centered around gambling and featured witnesses from a variety of backgrounds such as politicians, law enforcement officers, state governors, gamblers and mobsters.

Of the notorious mobsters targeted by the hearings, it was Frank Costello who endured the most challenging consequences. With deportation looming and surrounded by police, he was unable to take advantage of his Fifth Amendment right and was thus charged with contempt and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Following his testimony in court, he was arrested on tax evasion charges and sent back to prison in 1956 for 11 months, permanently damaging his reputation.

By dealing drugs and cultivating supporters within the family, including Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese had built up a substantial war chest to succeed Costello as head of the family. It was Genovese's belief that removing Costello and Anastasia as well as neutralizing Lansky and Luciano was essential for success.

In 1957, Genovese shot Costello as he entered his apartment building on Central Park West, shortly after he had been released from prison on tax evasion charges. The bullet did not seriously damage the skull. Costello was familiar with the gunman, Vincent Gigante, who was identified by the doorman. Gigante was tried, but Costello and the doorman both claimed they had never seen him before, and the case was dismissed.

When it came to Anastasia, Genovese did much better. On the morning of October 25, 1957, he headed to Manhattan's Park Sheraton Hotel barbershop for a shaving and haircut. With his bodyguard parking the car in the underground garage and going off for a walk, Anastasia had gone into the barber chair blissfully unaware of what was about to transpire. Suddenly two men with scarves covering their faces walked in. One of them menacingly told barbershop owner Arthur Grasso to "keep his mouth shut if he didn't want his head blown off." The two quickly approached Anastasia's chair and shoved the barber away. Even when shot being fired around him, Anastasia still did not open his eyes. He then uncomprehendingly attempted to take on his assailants by trying to tackle their reflections in the mirror before eventually falling to the floor due life-ending wounds.

Albert Anastasia's murder remains officially unsolved, as do most gangland killings.

VANISHING GAS MAN =====

The house started getting colder a few weeks ago. I thought the boiler was malfunctioning. My boyfriend and I looked for gas men and found this cheap one. At first, I thought he was some criminal at that price, but my boyfriend convinced me otherwise. On the day he came, my boyfriend had to be somewhere else so his mum stayed with me in case he was a robber.

Although I was uncomfortable with a stranger in my house, we showed him to the boiler cupboard when he arrived and left him to it. I asked him every 15 minutes whether he wanted tea or if he knew what was wrong with it. I was skeptical that this man was a gasman and convinced he was going to rob me every time. He either declined tea or said something general like it needed to be fixed.

An hour later, I heard a knock on the door. I opened it thinking it was my boyfriend. Standing there was this man around 40. He told me he was the gas man. I told him to stop conning me since the gasman had already arrived. I told him I would have wasted his time if I already had one in. He showed me his badge.

I invited him in because he had the badge saying his name—the name of the guy I had hired. I was about to call the police when I noticed he wasn't in the cupboard. Panic set in because I thought he was upstairs robbing me. The new gasman said something chilling as I was about to call. I assumed he would say he wasn't a gasman, but he said, "He died last week." His face went ashen.

A ghost saw my boiler, it seems. My boyfriend's mother believes the same thing. We were not far from each other that day.

TESLA'S SECRET SPACE PROGRAM =====

Fear and mistrust weave their way through the tortuously tangled web of conspiracy theory. Exactly who is in charge, and how afraid should we be of losing our freedoms – such as they are – to the ambitions of a "deep state" that operates without public scrutiny and wishes to control every aspect of our lives?

Have they conquered outer space and colonized the moon and even Mars under our trusting noses? Do they possess advanced forms of technology that they keep secret?

In "Nikola Tesla Journey To Mars Update: Exposing the Existence of the Secret Space Program," certain possibilities are addressed openly and without fear of debunkers.

It is theorized that Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest scientists of all time, developed an antigravity form of propulsion that was used for Mars missions.

I conducted a Q and A with Tesla expert Tim R. Swartz, who shared an interesting statement from J. Allen Hynek. The astronomer and UFO chaser had been the lead investigator for the Air Force's Project Blue Book before its closure. At the time of his visit to Dayton, Ohio - home to Wright Patterson Air Force Base - Swartz was employed as a journalist for a local television station. It is rumored that this very base contains recovered alien corpses from the alleged Roswell Incident, and other UFO legends.

The new exhibit of Project Blue Book artifacts was being presented by Hynek at the base, while Swartz was covering it for his television station. In the course of packing up Swartz's camera equipment and preparing to leave, the two men discussed television technology, which led to a discussion of Tesla's role in television development.

Swartz discussed the Tesla/Mars project with Hynek. He was shocked at this news and Hynek only knew that there were some files held by the Air Force which mentioned Tesla's ambition to send a spacecraft to Mars. According to Hynek, these documents were reliable and indicated that there was a team of affluent individuals from the eastern side of the USA constructing an aircraft in the later part of the 19th century, which may explain what people reported seeing during the 'flying machine flap' starting in California in 1896.

Moreover, Tesla had said he had invented a Death Ray and had tried to sell it to the highest bidder when he died, as Hynek explained to Swartz. "That is one of the reasons why the United States government confiscated Tesla's notes after he died."

A number of Tesla's confiscated notes and papers ended up at Wright-Patterson, where further research was being conducted.

According to Swartz, the wealthy men referred to above didn't just come up with the new technology out of thin air – or were they? A story has it that the men received messages from a spirit medium around the mid-19th century. This opens up the possibility of a supernatural, nonhuman source for the information, a force vested in getting mankind to Mars quickly and quietly.

It was then that they started receiving messages from spirits, and eventually communications claiming to be from Mars, which led to the development of early flying machines.

He later built an experimental lab in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in order to discover how to harness lightning to generate electricity. On his low-frequency radio receiver, Tesla began to hear strange, rhythmic radio signals. He later wrote that he was the first to hear the sound of one planet greeting another.

"The 'Martian Messages' created a firestorm of debate when the newspapers picked up the story," Swartz said. No one had ever heard regular signals from space, and Tesla concluded that they came from nearby planets, like Mars.

Eventually, Tesla was approached by a secret East Coast group, the Aero Club, which claimed to have received the same mysterious radio signals as Tesla.

“Tesla's mission was to help the Aero Club develop an aerial vehicle that could take them to space and Mars,” Swartz said. Tesla probably considered this group suicidal madmen. Tesla may have been caught up in the enthusiasm of making such a grand project a reality after seeing the success of their earlier airships.”

There is much more to the Tesla/Mars story to discover on your own. This information comes from the rare manuscript, which is reprinted in its entirety in "Nikola Tesla Journey To Mars Update.".

In a way not dissimilar to the sketching out of Tesla, the Vril Society, whose members comprised beautiful blonde women who were the physical face of the Aryan archetype, got advanced technological intel from an alien race living light years away in the Constellation of Taurus. This knowledge was vital in constructing a disk-shaped craft that could move around the globe with great speed and also break through Earth's highest atmospheric levels.

It is believed that some of the information gathered by the mysterious females during the early 20th century was eventually used by Hitler in order to maintain his dictatorial power and wage war. It is also possible that the Nazis used channeled information to fly to the moon and Mars on spacecraft completely unheard of in their time or ours, as in Tesla's case.

So far we have presented here the bare bones of two separate Secret Space Programs, that of Nikola Tesla and the Nazis, both programs shrouded in history and hidden from the world at large but nonetheless compellingly plausible. Nevertheless, what do we know about Secret Space Programs today?

We looked to Richard Dolan, highly regarded in the UFO field, for help. Among a throng of passionate adherents and borderline "contactees," Dolan has earned a name as an explorer and author driven largely by public and verified sources - or sources potentially authenticated through tangible means. His two renowned works on government concealment of the UFO phenomenon, “UFOs and the National Security State” Volumes One and Two, record a comprehensive account of the hidden, secret budget actions coming from the US military and intelligence concerning alien life.

Why should we believe in a secret space program, we asked Dolan?

There are a number of anomalous events witnessed by American and Soviet astronauts beginning in the mid-1960s, as well as the presence of DSP satellites, or Defense Support Program satellites.

Dolan explained that these are geosynchronous satellites in Earth orbit that have tracked 'fast-walkers' in space, which are objects similar to UFOs in space.

A number of bizarre “unknowns” were recorded by the DSP satellites from 1973 to 1991, Dolan said. In 1984, an object that approached very closely and departed ominously into deep space was recorded by one of the special satellites. The information came to us almost by accident. Dolan's friend who had worked in the aerospace industry for many years received a printout of some DSP "fast-walker" events mistakenly, but not illegally.

According to Dolan, his point is simple.

Dolan suggested that the strange events occurring in Earth's orbit are worthy of investigation. He reasoned that, in the same way covert surveillance is used to track UFO activity down on Earth, any unusual occurrences beyond the atmosphere would require a special and very secretive arm of the U.S. space program to keep tabs on them.

But what about some of the wilder claims, like our having traveled to the moon and Mars in secret? According to Dolan, he has spoken to credible sources who confirm that there is a secret program connected with the moon. Regarding Mars, he said he's never received anything that would allow him to say confidently one way or another, but he said he wouldn't be surprised to learn that we had been sent to Mars via recovered alien technology.

"Every conclusion in science is provisional and contingent on more information," he said.

The Nazis were also able to travel to the stars, according to Dolan.

"The Nazis were quite sophisticated in what we would now call 'flying saucer technology.'"

There is, however, a need for further research into UFOs by those who think they are all a product of Nazi technology. The fact remains, however, that UFOs may be piloted by nonhuman entities of any political stripe, long before the Nazis came to power in the 1930s.

"It's either a very, very clandestine human intelligence that exists as a longstanding secret society – we need to find their manufacturing plant and where they are – or there are nonhumans here interacting with the planet." In my opinion, the second theory is more probable, but there is definitely a clandestine human power structure that exists. I don't dispute that.

Dolan answers these questions by explaining what he calls a "Breakaway Civilization," which is a technological society that exists right under our oblivious noses.

He declared that the concept of a "Breakaway Civilization" was real. His belief was that it originated after World War II, although it could have occurred earlier. According to his theory, this secret group has access to advanced technology and science which they withhold from the rest of us. As one scientific discovery leads to another, the group grows more advanced than the general population, with one breakthrough resulting in another. Ultimately, having their own distinct development they form a separate societal unit.

Specifically, Dolan compared the situation to our own "official" world history of 200 years ago, when Europe was compared to Central Africa in terms of technology.

Dolan remarked that there are two completely contrasting ways of looking at the world. He argued that it is not far-fetched to assume a confidential, scientific group could make remarkable advances but keep them hidden. He then presented the example of antigravity technology and speculated that while unlikely, such an invention could have transpired in the nineteenth century.

He confessed to sometimes thinking privately that such a group existed in ancient times. In the context of human society in their respective eras, some of history’s most puzzling mysteries, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza or Macchu Picchu, don’t make much sense architecturally.

In response to Dolan's question, "I wonder if this was a human construct at the time, and what civilization was it?" There is a possibility that a very small, elect group will be able to comprehend some great secret. They would want to keep this secret from the rest of the world for obvious reasons – power, and not wanting to share."

Was Nikola Tesla one of the hidden few who kept his scientific advances a closely guarded secret? Did he lead his clandestine group of wealthy patrons on a trip to Mars using antigravity technology that he barely understood himself? Did a civilization from another world telepathically implant space-faring technology into Tesla or the Vril group? Did extraterrestrial séances jumpstart our current space age through messages given to mediums?

The absence of public, irrefutable, absolute proof leaves us with no choice but to speculate, as Richard Dolan explains, as it seems a little “beyond” what our minds are capable of conjuring. But if the knowledge of this secret group eventually takes us to the stars, we will certainly find whatever guiding force – or breakaway civilization – has summoned us to join them.

THE STORY: A MURDER IN PARIS

The news was so momentous, like when President Kennedy died, that everyone remembers where they were when they heard it.

In the early hours of 31st August 1997, Princess Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver Henri Paul died in a car crash in Paris' Alma tunnel.

There was initial blame placed on the paparazzi for forcing Diana's car into a high-speed chase through the streets of Paris. A chase that ended in tragedy when the car crashed into a pillar in the Alma tunnel at approximately 110kph.

Paparazzi, despised by celebrities and the public alike, were easy scapegoats for the tragedy; the image that they pursued the Princess to her death stuck with the public almost immediately.

At her funeral, Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer summed up the public mood when he called her the 'most hunted person of the modern era'.

Over the years, however, it became evident that the paparazzi weren't responsible for Diana's death. In fact, they weren't even present when the car crashed.

The inquest into the accident began in 2007, following years of campaigning by the press and Dodi Fayed's father Mohamed Al Fayed, who had made several lurid allegations involving MI5 and the Royal Family.

Over six months and exceeding £12.5 million, the inquiry interviewed 250 witnesses and considered hundreds of documents.

As a result of her driver Henri Paul's drunken driving, Diana was unlawfully killed by the following vehicles, never identified.

Inquests revealed many troubling details that cast serious doubt on the crash being just a tragic accident.

Diana really was murdered, wasn't she?

In the official narrative of Diana's death, Diana, Dodi Fayed, Henri Paul, and Trevor Rees-Jones attempt to leave the Paris Ritz discreetly by using the back entrance in order to avoid the throng of paparazzi waiting outside.

On CCTV, Paul is seen repeatedly exiting the back door in the hours before their departure, and he speaks with paparazzi to inform them of their departure time.

As Diana and Dodi are led to their car, Paul signals the waiting photographers. The paparazzi themselves found this to be highly unusual. If the group were trying to avoid the waiting press, why did Paul signal them?

According to the inquest, Paul had ties to arms dealers and intelligence agencies, including Britain's MI6. According to one uncorroborated report, he met his MI6 "handler" on the night of the crash.

After Paul's death, over £170,000 was found deposited across 15 different bank accounts, indicating he had unusually large amounts of cash in his possession.

It was leaked to the press hours after the crash that Henri Paul had been 'drunk as a pig' and that this had contributed to the crash.

He had only two alcoholic drinks that day, and several witnesses said he showed no signs of drunkenness, which was backed up by CCTV footage from the Paris Ritz.

He was also reported to have a drinking problem in the press - but it hasn't been confirmed.

At his autopsy, his liver was found to be normal and healthy, suggesting he was no more than a moderate social drinker. In fact, he was a recently qualified pilot, which includes alcohol abuse tests.

Henri Paul's blood contained more alcohol than the legal limit under French law after his autopsy. It was this event that sealed the story in the public's minds — Princess Diana and Dodi died in a car accident due to the drunkenness of their driver.

Henri Paul's blood samples were repeatedly questioned by the official inquest, undermining this picture.

Several problems were found; samples were missing, they had the wrong dates on them, they contained drugs Paul was not known to take, and his blood contained extremely high levels of carbon monoxide that no pathologist was able to explain.

As a result of the high readings, Paul would have felt noticeably and violently ill, which nobody who was with him that night saw.

Professor Peter Vanezis, a professor of forensic medicine, and Dr John Oliver, a toxicology expert, said they could not believe the levels found in the samples could be accurate.

According to Atholl Johnston, a professor of pharmacology, "The most likely explanation is that it isn't Henri Paul's blood. All the other blood samples have been examined".

The judge at the inquest appeared to doubt Paul's blood samples. "Too much emphasis is placed on the assumption that the blood being tested came from Henri Paul...the jury must determine whether there was a deliberate mix-up or whether the wrong samples got into the bottle."

Did Paul's samples intentionally be swapped to support the false notion he was drunk?

It is possible that one of the other bodies in the morgue that night was a suicide victim poisoned by carbon monoxide.

A minute or two after the crash, the chasing paparazzi caught up with the Mercedes, contrary to popular belief.

Diana's car, however, was buzzed around by other vehicles as it traveled toward the tunnel, according to multiple witnesses. A white Fiat Uno turbo matched the paint found on the crashed vehicle forensically, indicating a collision between it and high-powered motorcycles encircling the car.

There was no CCTV in the local area, and the vehicles have never been identified.

What role did these drivers play in the crash and why did they flee? Unlike the paparazzi who arrived after the crash and stayed at the scene taking pictures, these drivers left the tunnel immediately.

According to Francoise Levistre, a motorbike swerved in front of the Mercedes causing it to lose control.

While an assassination scenario in this fashion may seem far-fetched, ex-MI6 intelligence officer Richard Tomlinson told the official inquest that he'd seen plans to kill Slobodan Milosevic in exactly this manner by staging a car crash using a powerful strobe light to disorient the driver.

The crash may have been caused by a white Fiat Uno colliding with Diana's car inside the tunnel, according to forensic investigators.

There has been no official investigation into the car or its owner, but private investigators for Dodi Fayed's father claim that the car was traced to a millionaire photographer named James Andanson who had been tracking Diana throughout Europe in the days leading up to the crash.

During the investigation, investigators discovered that Andanson owned a white Fiat Uno with a broken tail light. Was Andanson's car in the tunnel that night?

The alleged MI6 informant had told his friend, crime writer Frederic Dard, he was in the tunnel and had photos of the crash.

Although most of the evidence against Andanson is circumstantial, his strange fate has convinced many of his involvement.

In 2000, he drove 400 miles to a remote piece of woodland, doused himself in 20 litres of gasoline, secured his seatbelt, then set fire to his car.

As the body was discovered, it was not much more than a charred crisp, with his arms peacefully crossed in the driver's seat. Imagining burning to death would be horrendous, and how anyone could remain still in such horrific agony would be even harder.

Andanson had somehow broken into the car from the outside, with the keys nowhere to be found. And when fireman Christophe Pelat examined the smoking shell of the car, he was sure there were two bullet holes in Andanson's skull.

It appears that Andanson shot himself in the head after setting himself on fire in a car that was locked from the outside. The official verdict was suicide.

It is so unlikely that it can be discounted realistically.

Diana wrote a handwritten note to her butler Paul Burrell in 1993 - "This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous - my husband is planning an accident in my car, with brake failure and serious head injuries.".

Then, in 1995, Diana's lawyer Lord Mishcon noted a conversation with her in which she predicted she would be killed in a car accident.

The note was so important to Miscon, he forwarded it to the Metropolitan Police after her death. The police did nothing with it and kept its existence secret until 2003.

Assassination by car crash has been criticized as unreliable by many critics of conspiracy theories surrounding Diana's death.

As Diana and Dodi's plans for that evening changed multiple times, how could the plotters know when and where to prepare their ambush?

While none of the occupants of the car wore seatbelts, the conspirators could neither control nor know this.

A professional hit seems unlikely with this and so many other variables outside of their control.

Undisputedly, a white Fiat Uno was involved in the accident. The Uno is a lightweight, small-engined city car, which would be no match for Diana's large, powerful Mercedes.

A state or intelligence service orchestrated assassination would choose a vehicle so unsuited to forcing a Mercedes off the road, wouldn't it?

Why was Diana murdered by the state, royal family, or intelligence services?

A number of claims surrounding the former princess that might have provided a motive have been refuted.

According to Mohammed Al Fayed, Diana was not pregnant with Dodi's child. Diana and Dodi had only known each other for a few weeks, and friends thought the relationship was not serious.

It seems unlikely that the heir to the throne will have a Muslim father-in-law or half-brother to justify a risky murder plot.

Besides her ability to court headlines, what other threat could Diana pose to the royal family now that she was no longer a princess?

Diana was allegedly murdered because of her anti-landmine campaigns, according to some conspiracy theories.

In December 1997, the Ottawa Treaty, banning landmines, was signed as a result of the murder of a prominent landmine campaigner.

MALBONE STREET DISASTER =====

The early 1900s was characterized by numerous labor strikes all over the nation. Workers were subject to miserable conditions as they endured long hours in hazardous factories. Labor unions often provided the only respite for employees, as big businesses pushed them beyond their limits. Unfortunately, some resulted in deadly outcomes - like when a strikebreaker lost control of a Brighton Beach train during rush hour in Brooklyn. The heartbreaking collision killed 93 people and injured many more.

Brighton Beach was originally known as the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad in the 1870s. In the early 1900s, the line, as well as streetcar and elevated lines throughout the area, were controlled by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit system, which linked Brooklyn to the seaside resorts.

At the end of 1918, the year the Great War concluded, strains had grown between Brooklyn Rapid Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Approximately twenty laborers were laid off due to their involvement in the union. In response, the union took their case before the National War Labor Board. This federal review panel had been founded to better labor-management relations for America's war effort during wartime. The board proposed that BRT take back their employees with retroactive pay but lacked authority to enforce it; BRT refused to even meet with the union’s representatives. So on Friday, November 1st at 5 a.m.,the workers began a strike against BRT.

The strike crippled the rail line, forcing supervisors and clerks who had only a minimal amount of hands-on training into empty locomotives. Edward Luciano, 23, was one of these strike-breakers; he worked under the alias of Billy Lewis to avoid the widespread anti-Italian prejudice at that time. Although Luciano had been a dispatcher for the BRT for two years prior to this event, he only got two hours of classroom instruction before being appointed as motorman. Afterwards, he spent another two days as an observer to gain practical experience in train operations. This brief preparation scarcely compared with the BRT's customary 60 hour on-the-job training plus 90 questions on their exam. Then rookies had to undertake 60 hours as apprentices on board trains, pass both physical and further certification tests before they could go on practice runs with empty trains in and around yards and terminals. Only then were they allowed to drive a train with passengers onboard.

In the early hours of November 1, Luciano began a long shift lasting eleven-and-a-half hours. When it ended at 4:30 p.m., he was offered a $20 bonus and a promise of a post-strike raise to pilot a rush-hour train from Kings Highway to Manhattan, and then back to Brooklyn via the Brighton Beach line to Coney Island. Though Luciano had never driven a train on the Brighton line, he readily accepted the job. He told the New York Times later, "A man has to earn a living."

William Brody, a BRT trainmaster, declared in the wake of the accident that Thomas Blewitt, the BRT chief in charge of authorizing motormen, had presented Luciano as being “fit for duty.” Strangely enough, he almost certainly would be up to company standards during the strike; numerous operators with comparable "certifications" had been driving trains on that line all day. Management made the decision to take a chance with Luciano. At the depot, they gave him a train comprising five cars. Every car boasted a steel underframe and wood body and roof; four of them were at least 30 years old.

At 6:08 p.m., Luciano arrived at the Park Row terminal, the vaulted train shed located near the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge. After spending six minutes there, he embarked on his return journey to Brighton Beach. Charles Darling, a lawyer in one of the front cars, stated that after leaving Park Row Station, the locomotive jolted sporadically and barged around a bend at Sands Street station in Brooklyn. Afterwards it thundered onto the Fulton Street elevated line. Walter H. Simonson, a civil engineer present aboard, recollected how dense the car was, almost filled to capacity.

When Luciano reached Franklin Avenue at 6:29 p.m., the switch was incorrectly set, retaining the train on the Fulton Avenue line toward East New York instead of turning it southward toward Brighton Beach. After some delay, Luciano managed to back up the train and route it onto the Brighton Beach line at 6:38 p.m. Two minutes later, the train left Park Place Station.

Crown Heights is situated on a hilltop and the rail track gorgeously drops 70 feet in less than one mile, leading to a curved part of the track famously known as "Deadman's Curve". Being a tricky region, it requires an experienced motorman like Luciano to keep alert. But during this time he had recently battled with influenza, to which he had fortunately survived but required extensive resting. Also, he was doing an extended shift and was not provided enough training. As his conductor alerted for the next station (now Botanic Garden) stop, Luciano hurried through without stopping; giving Walter Simonson the feel that he was trying to make up for lost time. Considering all these points, it seems understandable why he didn't stop at Consumer's Park and eventually reached Prospect Park instead, on the other side of Flatbush Avenue.

Luciano found it straightforward to get the train up to speed, but halting it was a difficult job. To ensure passengers' safety in getting off and on, a motorman had to stop the train aligned with the station platform, and this could only be achieved with skill and experience. Air brakes were activated by controlling the pressure inside the train's main brake line-high pressure meant high speed; reducing the pressure caused the brake shoes to make contact with the wheels and slow down. The brakes took a while to kick in though, so a driver usually needed to apply them some distance before reaching their goal. For Luciano though, this all came as an unfamiliar challenge— he hadn't even ran a single train on any line prior that day!

At the base of the hill, the tracks bent sharply, leading to a small tunnel at Flatbush Avenue and Malbone Street. Luciano later said he was going 30 mph there—but according to a naval officer interviewed by the New York Times after the crash, it was more like 70 mph when the train left the track. Many of those who survived confessed that they had felt scared as he increased his speed trying to make up for time lost.

As Luciano faced the corner, he reported that the air brakes malfunctioned, intending to engage the emergency brakes and switch into reverse. However, an investigation by the New York Public Service Commission and the BRT discovered that had not been the case; there was no evidence of any effort being used on the emergency brakes nor was there any indication that the motors had been reversed. There remains an unsolved mystery surrounding his behavior in those final moments yet it is indisputable he was unprepared for what occurred.

The second and third cars were stripped of their left sides, sending a multitude of men, women and children flying into girders and concrete walls. Those inside the car were thrown onto broken seats amid splintered wood and metal beams piercing through the bottom. Virtually everyone standing on the platforms died instantly, with one man found impaled on a broken rod that had shattered and projected upwards from underneath the car.

It was still 6:42 p.m. when the train finally came to a halt.

The last two cars had not derailed, and the majority of their occupants were spared serious injury, although many were cut by shattered glass, or suffered bruising as a result of being thrown around. Those riding in the rear carriage were so closely packed that they could hardly sense the shock of the crash. When word spread about what had taken place in the forward carriages, several women panicked. The darkness inside the tunnel was unrelenting due to severed power lines; all people could make out was agonizing cries coming from within, yet help seemed completely out of reach -- rescue teams blocked by piles of splintered wood and mangled metal. There was no access to those injured or trapped inside.

It was reported by firefighters who were involved in the rescue that the second and third cars had collapsed on their sides, with the passengers piled together, some dead, some dying, some slightly injured, but all tightly engulfed by the wreckage, some dead and some dying. There were only slight signs of injury on the bodies found, and they were smothered to death.

Attorney Charles Darling watched as Edward Luciano emerged unscathed from the cab, and asked what had caused the disaster. The engineer replied he'd lost control of the locomotive, then walked up to Prospect Park station. A newsboy witnessed a man leaving the tunnel, presuming it was Luciano, who arrived home later that evening on a trolley.

Due to its position and the character of the crash, it took nearly 20 minutes for police officers and fire fighters to be made aware. What rescuers saw when they reached the scene in the tunnel was a tangled mess with no space between debris. According to the New York Times, some of that debris had already punctured passengers in their cars. Those fortunate enough to do so walked out of the tunnel on their own, while those who could not required assistance. The bodies of those killed were put in burlap cradles and taken above ground by the rescuers, where they were lined up before being taken to a morgue.

News of the accident circulated around Brooklyn, but without information about the exact time or location. Those expecting a loved one during rush hour were overcome with fear. People began to arrive in droves, mostly to get information on those close to them, though there were also morbid onlookers. Six precincts dispatched officers to keep the situation under control as ambulances from nearby hospitals and medical personnel arrived at the scene. The bodies of those who had perished were removed from the tunnel.

As darkness fell on the city, conditions in the tunnel grew even blacker. Automobiles were commandeered and their headlights pointed at the wreckage. The Brooklyn Gas Company and the Brooklyn Edison Company sent gangs of men with searchlights to illuminate the site. In the tunnel, surgeons worked by lantern light with priests administering last rites beside them.

Tens of thousands thronged the police stations and morgue trying to locate missing relatives. Phone networks in Brooklyn were overwhelmed by frantic calls from people trying to track down family members who used the BRT line. The crash site stopped all Brighton Beach train services, so passengers had to walk miles to catch overcrowded streetcars .Commuters arrived late, often with their families having gone in search of news and not reuniting until much later.

On the morning of November 2, Edward Luciano was apprehended at his Brooklyn residence on 33rd Street. Subsequently, he was brought to Snyder Street police station for questioning by the district attorney, police commissioner and Mayor John Hylan. Confronted with such eminent interrogators, the young man became overwhelmed and divulged a story that was ultimately found to be mostly inaccurate. Mayor Hylan, who had formerly been employed on the railroad, revealed to reporters his conclusion that Luciano had displayed criminal negligence. He declared to the press that Luciano "acknowledged he hadn't operated a train along the Brighton Beach line before" and "confessed when going around that curve [he] was driving at thirty miles-an-hour."

Ironically, the mayor had been fired from his position as a locomotive engineer for taking a curve too fast and nearly hitting a supervisor on the tracks. He protested his dismissal, but to no avail. The experience left him bitter against the owners and operators of private rail systems.

A sign on the curve warned motormen not to exceed six miles per hour, but Luciano shrugged and didn't respond. In response to a question about why he had taken a job for which he was unfit, he said, “A man has to earn a living.” He told the men that he had no intention of fleeing. After the accident, he said he forgot everything until he was at home.

When asked how he got out of the wreck, or what he did, he said he vaguely remembered getting on a trolley car, but could not remember which one it was. When detectives arrived at Luciano's house, he appeared to be on the verge of collapse and pale as death. The brakes had not failed, the emergency brakes had never been applied, and the motors were never reversed, according to his answers to questions about the accident.

"Three weeks ago, my husband had an attack of influenza, the next Friday, our baby died... now this terrible accident," his wife wept. But the general public had little sympathy for Luciano, or for his supervisors.

Luciano and five member of the BRT were accused of manslaughter after a mishap, leading to their lawyers getting a change of venue from Brooklyn to Nassau County. Much to the surprise of prosecutors, Luciano's claim that he applied the brakes was never used as evidence, resulting in all trials being concluded with hung juries, acquittals and dismissals. Consequently, no one was ever convicted for their contribution to the disaster.

The argument over the tragedy endured for months, peaking when Public Service Commissioner Travis Whitney assigned culpability to Mayor Hylan. He accused the mayor of abandoning the accord that would mandate solely steel cars on the line, claiming it was his fault that decrepit wooden cars – which didn't fare as well in the crash – still operated on the track. Despite these accusations, people viewed them as merely political rhetoric and eventually, media attention subsided.

At the end of 1918, roughly a month after the accident occurred, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit line entered receivership. This meant that any claims against it were left unmet for more than three years. Eventually, the organization disbursed a grand total of $1.6 million to those affected by the calamity. George W. Holmes' widow was granted the highest amount, $40,000, as her husband had been the only railway employee to succumb during this tragedy. In 1923, BRT was reorganized and redesignated as Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation. Unluckily, this new entity suffered a similar fate and was dissolved on November 1st 1941 - which happened to be twenty-three years to the day since the accident took place.

Acquitted in 1919, Luciano entered the real estate business and faded from history. It is unclear what happened to him after that.