(Originally published by the Daily News on January 26, 1947.)
MIAMI BEACH, JAN. 25 – Scarface Al Capone, 48, gangland leader who feared a mobsters’ death, died tonight amid the luxury of his private villa with his family gathered around.
“I don’t want to die, shot in the street,” he once said.
When death came at 7:25 P.M. of pneumonia and heart failure, complications of an apoplectic stroke, he was in his own bed with expert medical care at hand — and behind high protective walls that have long guarded him from possible revenge.
Death came unexpectedly of heart failure, said Dr. Kenneth S. Phillips, who has treated the prohibition-era gang leader since he emerged from prison Nov. 16, 1939.
7 1/2 Years at Alcatraz.
The gangster, who took over in Chicago and built an empire of lawlessness, had become a weak individual since he served seven and a half years in Alcatraz and other federal prisons on income tax evasion charges.
He was stricken with apoplexy last Tuesday at 4 A.M. The last rites of the Catholic Church were administered two hours after his stroke.
Dozens of persons, none identified, were admitted to the Capone estate on subtropical Palm Island, an artificial spot of land dredged up from Biscayne Bay.
More callers than the villa has ever had before were admitted. A block-long line of sleek, black limousines were parked outside while their occupants went in.
As word spread that the notorious gangster had at last died — and not with his boots on — tourists and curious also flocked to the island. A virtual promenade of rubberneckers strolled by or stood around, chatting, some laughing.
Rallies After Stroke.
A hearse pulled through the gates and soon afterward bore the body of Capone to a funeral home at Miami Beach.
This was the last of a long series of one-way rides with which his name could be connected.
The stroke on Tuesday swept Capone close to death — but he stopped just short of its portal.
More than 16 hours later the one-time gang overlord rallied unexpectedly and came out of his coma so quickly that he attempted to talk with his wife and son, Alfred.
He was out of danger for a time, then pneumonia developed and with this complication his heart weakened.
The one group that will mourn the scarfaced gangster gathered once more to await the end. They included his wife and son, his aged mother, Theresa; his father, Ermio; a sister, Mrs. Mafalda Mariotote, and two brothers, Ralph and Matthew.
Seldom Left Estate.
It was a federal prison rather than death that ended Capone’s career as Public Enemy No. 1. When released he came to his villa on Palm Island and since then, except for brief trips, has lived under the Florida sun.
His villa is a 25-room structure on a lot 100 feet wide and 300 feet deep. It was built in 1922 and cost $15,000. Improvements and additions costs $37,800.
Federal prison records say Capone was born in Naples, Italy, Jan. 17, 1899. He left the poverty-stricken home of immigrant parents to gravitate into gangdom on the streets of New York.
Began as Bodyguard.
Capone went to Chicago as a bodyguard for Big Jim Colosimo, a former street sweeper whom liquor and politics had elevated to control of a South Side district. When Colosimo was killed in his garish cafe, Johnny Torrio took over and made Capone his lieutenant.
Their power in vice and crime extended into the suburbs of Cicero, Burnham and Stickney. They wrote gangland laws with the hoodlum typewriter — the portable machine gun. Their take zoomed to an estimated $100,000 a week.
Naturally, the rich swag of Torrio’s tenure created rivals. When Torrio was shot on his doorstep, he quit and retired to Long Island. Capone, then 26, became boss.
When he succeeded Torrio in 1925 he was known as Scarface Al Brown, having once signed the name Brown to a business license application. The appellation Scarface came from a jagged mark on the left of his forehead.
Bulky, paunchy, Capone applied well the lessons he learned from Torrio and introduced new methods of his own. Torrio had organized lawlessness, Capone syndicated it.
He pushed into new fields — gambling, greyhound racing, politics, and even into the bitter feud for supremacy in the Unione Sicilana.
Capone was kingpin, but he was constantly in danger. He rode in a steel-reinforced auto with bulletproof windows, surrounded constantly by bodyguard.
His hang handled an estimated $100,000,000, and some 250-odd gangster death victims from 1925 to 1930 were called either “Capone allies” or “Capone enemies.”
The 230-pound gang chief crushed virtually all who rebelled against him, but he met more than a match in the income-tax sleuths and a federal judge who would not countenance a proposed trade of an easy sentence for a plea of guilty.
Consequently, he went to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on May 5, 1932, where he faced an 11-year stretch. He was fined $50,000.
Feed at Lewisburg.
One Aug. 22, 1934, he was transferred to Alcatraz Island Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, where he remained until Jan. 7, 1939. Then he was transferred to Terminal Island Prison at Los Angeles to finish out his sentence. With time off for good behavior, he served seven years, six months and two weeks.
He was secretly taken to Lewisburg, Pa., Federal prison and there released to his family on Nov. 16, 1939. His lawyer had paid his fine.
From then until his death, Capone was not a well man. He was taken temporarily to a Baltimore hospital for treatment of paresis.
In March, 1940, he was brought to his villa on Palm Island.
Published via News wire services.
