Death Ride at Euclid Beach: And Other True Tales of Crime & Disaster from Cleveland’s Past: And More True Tales of Crime and Disaster from Cleveland's ... and Disaster Series by John Stark Bellamy II) - Softcover

Bellamy II, John Stark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 188622885X ISBN 13: 9781886228856

Verlag: Gray and Company, Publishers, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

“Has more than its fair share of violence, sex, debauchery and reversals of fortune . . . But what emerges between the lines are stories of human suffering, stories of class struggle, stories that speak as much to the criminal mind as to the crime itself.” — Sun Newspapers

More true tales of woe from Cleveland’s crime and disaster expert. The fifth book in John Stark Bellamy’s popular series delivers 26 accounts of Cleveland-area crimes and disasters from 1900 through 1950, including:

• The depression-era “Blue Book Murder,” in which a swank Shaker Heights society party was interrupted by low-class thugs with deadly intentions;
• Truculent barkeep Thomas Martin, whose idea of a good time was shooting the lunch buckets out of unsuspecting laborers’ hands as they came off their Whiskey Island shifts;
• A strange international photo hoax in which Lakewood lad John May Warren became “The boy with Hitler’s face”;
• Sleepwalking Harry Krause, who dreamt one night of battling a gigantic snake but awoke to the real nightmare: he had strangled his own beloved mother in her bed;
• The shocking murder of sweet 16-year-old Beverly Jarosz in her Garfield Heights bedroom—one of Cleveland’s most baffling murder mysteries ever;
• And 20 more local true stories of courage, fear, deception, treachery, tragedy, violence, and guilt.

Sometimes gruesome, often surprising, Bellamy’s tales are meticulously researched and delivered in a literate and entertaining style.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Stark Bellamy II was the history specialist for the Cuyahoga County Public Library. He comes by his taste for the sensational honestly: Bellamy grew up reading stories about Cleveland crimes and disasters written by his grand­father, Paul, editor of the Plain Dealer for 20 years, and his father, Peter, who wrote for the Cleveland News and the Plain Dealer. He is the author of five other collections of Cleveland crime and disaster stories.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

“He’s Got a Gun!”

The Tina LaMont Story (1956)

Heroes just happen; they are not born or made. Prolonged study of Cleveland murders and disasters has convinced me of at least that: there is simply no knowing who will become a hero. A building catches on fire. One man, to the horror of his friends and even himself, stomps over his own grandmother in his panic to flee; another risks his own life to save others, almost as if he had been rehearsing for such an act all of his life. There’s no predicting it: all you can be sure of is that heroes and heroines will arrive in the most improbable places, at the most unlikely times, and with the most unpredictable personalities. Consider, for example, the case of Tina LaMont.

We don’t know much about Tina LaMont. Yes, she was a dancer, and she danced at the kind of establishment that “decent” middle-class folk of the 1950s didn’t have much respect for. We know she was 32 years old, probably a little old for her line of work, and divorced. (That, too, meant something in the 1950s that it doesn’t mean now.) We know that her real name was Mrs. Dorothy Kochs, she lived at 1644 Ansel Road—not exactly a fancy address, then or now—and that she had a little girl, Jody, three years old. We also know she did a very brave thing for which she paid a terrible price.

About Richard Peter Storino, the villain of this story, we know much more. Twenty-nine years old in 1956, he had a shabby resume befitting the nasty little punk he was. He was born in 1927 in Watertown, New York. He and his two sisters had lost their father when he was five and their mother when he was 11. Richard started filling police blotters and reform school registers when he was 10, mostly on charges of auto theft and larceny, and offenses linked to or aggravated by his precocious and prodigious drinking problem. After stints in various reformatories and prisons, in 1951 he went to Elyria, where a relative lived. He worked there for almost five years as a machinist before coming to Cleveland on August 5, 1955. Living at the Hawley House Hotel at West 3rd and St. Clair Avenue, he worked for several months as a night manager at the Kamm’s Corner Royal Castle Restaurant, quitting just before Christmas. He then took a job at J. & J. Wholesale Jewelers in the Scofield Building.

Ignorant of his past, the manager at the Hawley House thought that the small-statured, quiet Richard was a desirable tenant. His older sister Shirley, who tried to look out for him, hoped that Richard might finally be reforming his wayward life. Indeed, in the second week of January 1956, she said to him, “Aren’t you glad that you’ve straightened out?” “Yes,” he replied, “but it cost me a lot to change.” Richard Storino had not straightened out, nor had he changed. At about 8:30 on the evening of January 18, 1956, Richard walked into the Scott Drug Store at 2030 West 25th Street. Showing his .38-caliber gun to the cashier there, he departed with $26. A little over four hours later, at about 1 a.m., he entered the Tastyburger Shop at 1806 East 9th Street. Pulling out his revolver again, Richard demanded money from night manager Lester Babington and left with $30.

Some thugs would have quit right there. It was a chilly January night, and Richard had reason to believe that the cops might be looking for whoever had pulled two heists that night. But he only had $56 to show for two armed robberies, so it must have seemed perfectly logical that he pull one more job before calling it a night.

Richard sidled into the Gay 90s bar at 1:45 a.m., just before closing time. Sitting quietly on a barstool, he nursed his Scotch and soda as he waited for most of the customers and staff to leave. Gradually they trickled out, and by 2:30 a.m. Richard was satisfied with the crowd. The only ones left besides him were co-owners Aaron “Goldie” Goldstein and Hy Wolfson, porter Benjamin Jones, and dancer Tina LaMont. Goldstein was sitting at the bar, while Wolfson counted up the day’s receipts. Tina was downstairs changing out of her work clothes, and Jones was standing near the door.

Goldstein hardly noticed as Storino slipped off his barstool and walked beside him. He didn’t even hear Storino the first time he said, “Look at this.” But he did hear him when he said, “You’d better look at this,” and he definitely saw the .38-caliber revolver that Storino suddenly pulled out of a waist holster. Sitting down beside Goldstein, Storino said, “Don’t make a move, this is loaded. If you move I’ll blow your brains out. I want you to stay here until the other man leaves, and then you get me all the money.”

By this time, Wolfson was aware that something was going on. He saw Goldstein stiffen and then he saw the gun. Walking slowly by porter Jones, he whispered, “Get the police. That guy’s got a gun on Goldie.” Jones noiselessly slipped out the front door, just about the time Tina LaMont reappeared in the bar and sat down on a stool. Goldstein called to her to go home, but Storino said, “Never mind that. Tell her to come over here.” She walked around the bar and sat beside him.

Meanwhile, Jones had run down to East 9th Street and Walnut Avenue, where he flagged down a police car with Lieutenant Norman Bayless, 43, and Sergeant Melvin Stahley, 47, sitting in it. Bayless was no stranger to such situations. The previous May he had killed a robber attempting to hold up the Mechalovitz Co., a tobacco wholesaling firm at 640 Broadway. He had just recovered from wounds suffered in that shootout, and both he and Stahley knew what to expect as they entered the Gay Nineties front door with their guns drawn.

It happened so fast. Storino, Goldstein, and Tina were right in front of the police officers, sitting sideways at the bar as they came in. As the officers approached the group, 12 feet away, Goldstein shouted, “He’s got a gun!” Spinning sideways, Storino fired at the officers. That is, he tried to fire—because Tina LaMont grabbed at his hand and gun as he brought them up. The gun fired—but the bullet was deflected into the ceiling 10 feet above. And Storino didn’t get another chance. Before he could get control of his gun, Stahley fired three times and Bayless twice. Four of the slugs hit Storino in his neck, chest, abdomen, and right thigh, killing him almost instantly. The fifth drilled Tina LaMont, burrowing into her back and lodging next to her spine. In the struggle to prevent Storino from shooting, she had been pulled right into the line of fire.

Even as Storino crumpled to the floor, Stahley grabbed the fallen dancer, saying, “Are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Tina said. “But my legs, I can’t move my legs!” Stahley called an ambulance and did his best to comfort her until it arrived. In critical condition, Tina was rushed to St. Vincent Charity Hospital, where doctors labored feverishly through that night to save her life. Thanks to their skill and multiple blood transfusions they were able to so. But her condition was still so precarious that they could not operate to remove the police bullet next to her spine.

In the meantime, Clevelanders awoke on January 19 to find that they had a new and unexpected heroine in their midst. Clevelanders have never responded as warmly to a noble soul as they did to Tina LaMont. How was it, they asked themselves, that this humble little lady (really a stripper, for God’s sake!) had possessed the courage to risk her life for two policemen that she didn’t even know? Bayless and Stahley initiated the paeans, telling reporters over and over how they owed their...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Gray and Company, Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 188622885X
• ISBN 13: 9781886228856
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 260
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar