Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter

Salvatore (Sam) Giancana headed the Chicago Outfit during the late 1950s and 1960s.

Nicknamed “Mooney” or “Momo” for his temper, the Chicago native rose from a juvenile delinquent to the crime syndicate’s upper echelon. As an adolescent, Giancana belonged to a Taylor Street gang that took its name from the story “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.” Thinking themselves even better, they dubbed their gang “The 42.”

The Tribune reported Giancana was questioned by police in three slayings while he was in his teens. He also drove the getaway car for Tony Accardo — who he eventually succeeded as Outfit head — and served time for “burglary and moonshining.” In 1939, he pleaded guilty to violating Internal Revenue Service laws.

Giancana traveled extensively and spent lavishly on friends and family, including his three daughters with wife Angeline. He once poured upward of $250,000 into the restoration of the gaudy, but financially ailing, Villa Venice nightclub in Northbrook — with its canals plied by gondolas — to host performances by Frank Sinatra and pals Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. in 1962.

Federal officials, however, kept a close watch on Giancana. In the final months of the Oak Park-based hoodlum’s life, it seemed he fell out of favor with his underworld associates.

July 19, 1974

Sam “Momo” Giancana leaves a courtroom in the Federal Building after appearing before Judge Campbell before being locked up in jail on June 1, 1965. (William Yates/Chicago Tribune)

Giancana returned to Chicago just as suddenly as he had departed for Mexico eight years earlier. (Giancana was jailed June 1, 1965, for contempt of court when he refused to testify about his crime syndicate ties before a federal grand jury despite being granted immunity from prosecution. He was discharged from Cook County Jail one year later, after charges against him were dropped. That’s when Giancana fled to Mexico.)

He was rousted out of bed in his Mexico City apartment by immigration officials and put on a flight to San Antonio, where he was handed a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury to discuss organized crime in his return to Illinois.

“The $500 silk suits he customarily wears, the raky beret he sported while in self-enforced exile, the hairpiece he affected to conceal his balding head — all these were missing,” the Tribune reported. “When he stepped off an American Airlines jet at O’Hare International Airport at 2:20 p.m., he wore wash pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and bedroom slippers. His only luggage was a shopping bag containing only his bathrobe. He had no wallet, no identification and — far worse, as far as he is concerned — no passport.”

July 23, 1974

Sam “Momo” Giancana was in the Federal Building for questioning by a grand jury about his activities since he left the country years ago in a self-imposed Mexican exile July 23, 1974. (Frank Berger/Chicago Today)

As he entered the Federal Building, reporters asked the dapper Giancana what he would tell the grand jury.

“Only my name and address,” he said.

Dressed in an expensive double-knit gray suit, a light blue shirt and gray silk tie, Giancana appeared for half an hour before the grand jury. No details were released about what was said.

Dec. 17, 1974

Sam Giancana is cornered by television cameras and newsmen in the Dirksen Building elevator on July 23, 1974, in Chicago. Giancana was to appear before a federal grand jury. (James O’Leary/Chicago Tribune)

After he invoked the Fifth Amendment, Giancana was granted immunity from prosecution and assured by a judge he wouldn’t be asked any questions about matters prior to January 1972. The questions and answers of the session were not disclosed.

Giancana testified again in early 1975 and was scheduled to appear again once more.

March 9, 1975

Sam “Momo” Giancana, circa 1963. Editor’s note: This historic print shows a newsprint crop notation on the left. (Police Department)

Two former aides to Robert F. Kennedy said agents of the Central Intelligence Agency had contracted with the Mafia with business interests in Cuba — including Giancana — in an aborted plot to assassinate leader Fidel Castro before the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.

June 19, 1975

The gun used to kill crime syndicate chieftain Sam “Momo” Giancana was altered for the murder by an expert, gunsmiths said in 1975. The High-Standard .22 caliber Dura-Matic automatic pistol was found Aug. 19, 1975, by River Forest employees as they mowed grass in the wooded area across the street from 135 N. Thatcher Ave. in River Forest. Gunsmiths point out the pistol had been skillfully shortened and threaded for a silencer, shown above, and then 42 holes drilled in its barrel to make the silencer more effective. (William Yates/Chicago Tribune)

Just hours after he returned from Houston, where he had undergone gallbladder surgery, Giancana entertained friends and family at his Oak Park home at 1147 Wenonah Ave. Police conducted surveillance as revelers entered and exited the home.

Someone shot Giancana five times as he prepared a meal in his basement kitchen. His body was discovered by his live-in caretaker and the caretaker’s wife.

The assassination of a Chicago mob kingpin 50 years ago remains unsolved

“A frying pan containing sausage and spinach was on the stove,” Tribune reporter Weldon Whisler wrote. “The gas was turned off by police when they arrived shortly after midnight, but the food had not burned, indicating that Giancana was shot not long before.”

No shots were heard. When the police asked if the basement door was locked, the caretaker replied that it was never locked.

Nothing was missing from Giancana’s elegantly furnished home. His wallet was found near his body, and a money clip holding more than $1,458 was in his pocket, the Tribune reported.

July 22, 1975

The Oak Park police incident report for the shooting death of Sam Giancana on June 19, 1975. (Oak Park Police Department)

Giancana was interred in the family’s mausoleum at Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery in Hillside. The gun used to shoot him — a .22 caliber automatic pistol with a silencer — was recovered at a River Forest park in August 1975.

An inquest into Giancana’s murder was conducted, but none of the gangland chieftain’s friends or family showed up for it. A jury of six elderly men gave the verdict of murder.

Items from Giancana’s home — including personal papers and photos of him with celebrities and even Pope Pius XII, were taken as evidence. Investigators had hoped these items, as well as a safe, would give him clues to the identity of his killer. Instead, they revealed Giancana loved the Telly Savalas-character, “Kojak.”

Giancana’s death remains unsolved.

Jan. 22, 2025

A bus tour stops outside the former home of gangster Sam Giancana at 1147 S. Wenonah Ave., in Oak Park on April 17, 2011. Giancana was killed in the basement of the home. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune)

Giancana’s former home on Wenonah Avenue in Oak Park was sold for $900,000.

The house had five bathrooms, hardwood floors, Pella windows, designer light fixtures, a first-floor primary bedroom suite and a living room with rounded windows, a wood-burning fireplace and a marble mantel. Other features included newly installed hardwood floors upstairs and a lower level with 8-foot ceilings, maple hardwood floors and a workout studio that doubled as a second bedroom. The home had a rebuilt rear porch and stairs, a tear-off tile roof, new copper gutters and downspouts and a Kichler outdoor lighting system.

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