Harry Sawyer (mobster)
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (March 2022) |
Harry Sandlovich (1890 - June 1955) was a Jewish-American organized crime boss based in Saint Paul, Minnesota during Prohibition and the Great Depression.
Life[]
He was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Vilna Governorate-General, Lithuania, Russian Empire[1]
He is infamous for the 1928 car bombing murder of St. Paul Irish mob boss Danny Hogan, and for collusion with mobbed up St. Paul police chief Thomas Archibald Brown and the Barker-Karpis Gang in both the Hamm and Bremer kidnappings, and with the Chicago Outfit in the murder of Fred Goetz.
During his incarceration in Federal prison, the only one of Sawyer's relatives to remain in contact with him was his brother, Sam Sandlovich.[2]
Death[]
After being diagnosed with spinal cancer, Sawyer was finally paroled for medical reasons in February 1955. He died in a hospital in Chicago, Illinois in June 1955 and was buried in Westlawn Cemetery. According to Paul Maccabee, "Even in death, Sawyer remained an outcast from his family."[3]
In an interview with Paul Maccabee, Harry Sawyer's niece, Carole DeMoss, the daughter of his brother Sam Sandlovich, recalled, "My mother said that the Sandlovich family disowned Harry. First for running a saloon in St. Paul, and then when he became involved with the Barker-Karpis Gang, they severed all ties with him. I didn't even know I had an uncle Harry until he died."[4]
References[]
- ^ Paul Maccabee (1993), John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook's Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Pages 62-63.
- ^ Paul Maccabee (1993), John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook's Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Pages 284.
- ^ Paul Maccabee (1993), John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook's Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Pages 284-285.
- ^ Paul Maccabee (1993), John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook's Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Minnesota Historical Society Press. Pages 284.
Further reading[]
- Paul Maccabee (1993), John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crook's Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936, Minnesota Historical Society Press.
- Tim Mahoney (2013), Secret Partners: Big Tom Brown and the Barker Gang, Minnesota Historical Society Press.
- 1890 births
- 1955 deaths
- American bootleggers
- American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
- Depression-era gangsters
- Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
- Jewish American gangsters
- Organized crime in Minnesota