Bonus – The Murder of Sol Landie

Sol Landie and Nick Civella In January of 1970, four days before the KC Chiefs met the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV, KC bettors were laying thousands on a Chief’s victory. An FBI agent climbed a pole directly across the street from the Northview Social Club, aka The Trap, and hooked up a couple of wires. About 20 blocks away at the local FBI headquarters, Agents gathered their coffee mugs, ashtrays, and snacks and put on earphones and settled in for a long boring day. It was not but a few minutes when agents heard a bookie named Frank Tousa scolding his sub-agents and directing their activities. They heard the big bettors like Sol Landie calling. Tousa expressed concern about how much money was going down on the Chiefs. A day before the January 11 Super Bowl, they heard Tousa call Nick Civella and report they had $47,360.00 in bets on the Chiefs that he needed to lay off to another bookie. He needed to keep his book balanced. How sports gambling works The mob does not like to bet, they want an equal amount of bets on both sides of a contest. They earn their money by taking a 10% vig or lug from the losing bettors. When Tousa called Nick Civella he got him to talk about this problem and giving directions on what to do. Nick Civella was caught by his own words. The US Attorney charged Nick with running a gambling enterprise and in October 1970, Agent Bill Ouseley and his partner Lee Flosi arrested him. The Court set a $5,000 bond. The Investigation and Sol Landie Over the next few months, agents subpoenaed bettors to a grand jury. One large sports bettor was a scrapyard operator named Sol Landie. He freely admitted that he had placed the bets in question and he became an important witness because he had called in from Kansas solidifying an interstate gambling case. The Kansas City Strike Force During this same time, the US Attorney designated Kansas City as the Midwest Office for Organized Crime and Racketeering which became known as the Strike Force. They designated several of their best Associate US Attorneys as members of the Strike Force. Each federal agency, FBI, DEA, ATF, Treasury assigned certain agents to work with the Strike Force. A brilliant attorney named Michale DeFeo was designated the lead attorney and 3 other attorneys were assigned along with small support staff. They took over the Civella gambling investigation s their first case. The plan to murder Sol Landie A Mob underling named Johnny Frankovigilia, aka Johnny Franks, learned that the government witness list included the wealthy scrapyard owner Sol Landie. While it will never be known for sure, all indicators make me believe that Johnny Franks wanted to prove his worth to Nick Civella and he decided to eliminate Sol Landie. In November 1970, less than a month after Nick Civella was released on bond. Johnny Franks called an African-American associate named Thomas Jefferson Lee to his gas station at 10th and Hardesty on the northeast side of Kansas City. He offered him money to “take care of ” Sol Landie. Lee said he would see what he could do and left. Shortly after than Lee approached 4 young African American guys. Lee recruited 25-year-old Ronnie Willaims and is cousin Marquis Williams who in turn offered 17-year-old Lee Johnson and Earl Howard $1,000 each to murder a white man who owned a scrap yard’s house. He instructed them to make this murder look like a robbery because the victim was a witness against “somebody big.” The night they killed Sol Landie Lee gave Ronnie Williams gave them the address of Landie’s scrapyard and a description of his Buick Riveria along with 3 marijuana joints. They drove to the scrapyard and found the car. Willimas found out Landie lived in the 74 hundred block of Washington Street and they made a few runs until they found the Buick at a house. Later that night, because e Willimas told them Johnn Franks wanted this done before the weekend was do...