When Al Capone fled New York City for Chicago, he'd been offered a lifeline by his friend and mentor John Torio, who had carved a place for himself in New York, only to give it up for his uncle in the windy city.

But Torio knew the Chicago would be the proverbial greener pasture for him,

since he was going there at the request of perhaps the most important criminal in the city during the

early 1900s. James Big Jim Colissimo ruled the Chicago underworld longer than any man in the city's history.

The money he raked in from the many enterprises he controlled was conservatively estimated

at $50,000 a month for about eight years, an enormous take at the time, worth almost $1.8 million today, although it would be relatively

small compared to the money made by the bootleggers and racketeers of the 1920s.

Colisemo was a great spender. He built a fine home for his father and an even grander home for himself,

though with an assortment of both expensive and gaudy furniture. He supported a horde of

relatives, some of whom worked in his various brabbles and saloons. He maintained a large

staff of servants and his two uniformed chauffeurs drove his lavish automobiles.

He was rarely seen behind the wheel of any of them. He was a big man, hence the nickname,

and kept his massive girth clad in linen and silk suits. He had a fixation on diamonds. He wore a diamond ring on every finger. Diamond

studs on his shirt front. A huge diamond horseshoe pinned to his vest. Diamond cuff links and

belts and suspenders fitted with diamonds. He bought the stones from thieves and needy gamblers

and a hord of them like other men collect books and paintings.

He often carried loose stones in a small bag in his pocket, and when he was bored, he would pour them from hand to hand or lay them out on a black cloth to see them glisten in the light.

Colisemo was a strange character and a man who helped usher in Chicago's organized crime era, although he'd never actually live to see it.

Welcome to American Hauntings, the podcast dedicated to the history, hauntings, legends, lore, and the dark side of America.

And welcome to our brand new season, Murder City.

American Hauntings is written and performed by Troy Taylor, that's me, and is produced and co-hosted by Cody Beck.

And this season, we're taking you to Chicago in the Roaring 20s, an era of gangsters, jazz, flappers, bootleg booze, corrupt cops, and the ghosts those violent days left behind.

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