LEPKE BUCHALTER served as boss of Murder Inc. in the 1930s. Lepke went from honor roll student at a prestigious Jewish school to petty criminal after losing his parents at a young age, landing in and out of juvie and prison throughout his teens and early 20s. By age 25, he graduated to more sophisticated crimes, violently seizing control of labor unions and using the threat of strikes to extort local businesses. His labor scheme evolved into a widespread protection racket, which spawned various other criminal operations. By the mid 1920s, he had emerged as a major figure in New York’s criminal underworld.

Around this time, authorities targeted organized crime by aggressively prosecuting gangland homicides, which in addition to thinning the ranks, came with lengthy sentences that could be leveraged into witness cooperation. The mob looked to somehow shore up this glaring vulnerability by protecting its members from murder charges, and Lepke stepped up with the solution.

With his extensive underworld connections, he organized and managed a network of contract killers that the mob effectively outsourced their executions to. These independent contractors, made up of various Brooklyn-based Italian and Jewish gangsters, had no direct connection to the Mafia, and thus could not implicate them if caught. Lepke’s organization eventually expanded to accepting hits for mobsters throughout the country and was responsible for several hundred contract killings throughout the 1930s. Later dubbed Murder Inc. by the press, the ruthless enforcement operation played an essential role in organized crime until the federal government targeted the group in the early 1940s, crippling the organization with widespread prosecution.

Brought down by antitrust charges in 1936 for his role in taking over the city’s rabbit fur trade, Lepke disappeared after making bail, setting off an international manhunt that lasted nearly three years. While serving time, Lepke was charged with ordering multiple mob killings and convicted of first degree murder. In 1944, Lepke Buchalter became the first and only mob boss to ever face capital punishment, executed via the electric chair at age 47.