#bigbill

(Publisher’s Note: The 12-part series, “The Children of Wheeling’s Mob Era,” will be re-published each evening over the next two weeks so those who missed some or all of the chapters will have another chance to read it. A collection of Steve Novotney’s mob stories over the years will be released in book form this summer.)EpilogueIt was hard to keep track of people, storytellers tell, because of all the folks sliding in and out of the stores, the restaurants, and the offices that were all over downtown Wheeling. They used the alleys, too, as something of a pedestrian expressway after all the delivery trucks cleared out by the mid-morning, and some fire escapes were used for sneakaways, too.The city steamed in the winters and sweltered in the summers, and it was a socially driven symphony that the bumper-to-bumper traffic played each day and night along Main and Market streets. Even though businesses like grocery stores, retail plazas, and gas stations opened in several Wheeling neighborhoods during the second half of the 20th Century, most of the activity connected to organized crime took place in downtown, near Centre Market, and at several spots in South Wheeling, Warwood, and Woodsdale.The culture allowed for an open and easy atmosphere for anyone looking for some kind of action because most bars had bookies, corners were crowded with acquaintances, and winks and drinks was a popular combination. “Big Bill” Lias was first to collect a cast of characters who successfully operated gambling rackets and prostitution rings thanks to the shade provided by the man’s legitimate businesses like Zeller’s Steakhouse and Billy’s Bar.Kolibash used this photo in his book - 'Justice Never Rests' - because he believes it reveals the relationship he had with the late Tom Burgoyne.Despite real facts that reveal Lias ordered bombings and beatings for those who dared to oppose or compete, “Big Bill” still is revered today for the turkeys and TVs he gave away during holiday seasons even though the goods came from highway trucks hijacked by his henchmen.Paul “No Legs” Hankish, however, is remembered as a relentlessly vicious street thug who enjoyed being feared by his associates, his customers, and by anyone who saw him anywhere, and in this series you’ve read about how he survived an assassination attempt in January 1964 before becoming the boss of those rackets and rings that fed like parasites off a working man’s economy.A pompous “catch us if you can” attitude, though, allowed for infiltration of what some believed was an untouchable network of organized crime, and there were spies with eyes and squealers, too, who offered the evidence federal authorities needed to dismantle what a pair of mob bosses had constructed over five decades in and around the city of Wheeling.These stories have been told by curious kids who took a look into Wheeling’s darkness, some only to see how the devils danced but were smart enough to stay a spectator while others were searching for paths of opportunity. A few, though, were forced to endure unexpected impacts and ended up frightened forever. These eyewitnesses have offered chapters of history never before revealed because their names never appeared in police reports or in newspaper accounts.There wasn't much left of the 1964, four-door Studebaker that was rigged with seven sticks of dynamite.And because no one ever asked them.They were too young then. Some have chosen silence since. A couple got away with committed crimes by ducking into the disguise mundane supplies. But they all shared tucked-away memories that were fresh in mind once spoken for the first time in decades, and they shared about the sharp edges of organized crime back when it was an accepted part of society in the Wheeling area.There could have been 10 more chapters, maybe even 20 or 30, in this series if others would have agreed to shed their fears and tell their tales about what their fathers did, why their mothers chose prostitution, or if surviving members of Hankish’s gambling enterprise would have explained the veins of operation instead of staying under the blankets of obscurity only passed time provides.Bill Kolibash, on the other hand, made a much different decision. The former U.S. Attorney (1982-1993) not only partnered with his daughter Shariane Taylor and professional crime writer Jon Land to compose the best-selling “Justice Never Rests” that was released on January 28th, but he contributed a great amount of insight for each chapter in “The Children of Wheeling’s Mob Era” series."Justice Never Rests" was released on January 28th and is available on Amazon and several other retail websites.He recalled his father and family members wagering on horse races on Wheeling Island when he was a kid growing up in north Benwood, and how gambling involved even pinball machines, and he was surprised by the differences between Lias and Hankish and how they conducted their respective criminal operations. He realized both kingpins used fear as enforcement, but he discovered Hankish spilled blood far more often and without a wince of worry.The federal prosecutor explained how he pioneered the use of the RICO (racketeer influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act statute against mobsters in Hancock County and in the Morgantown/Fairmont areas before concentrating on Hankish and his group of gangsters like Jesse Anderson, Jimmy Griffin, Charles “Buddy” Jacovetty, Donnie Clark, “Big Joe” Mucheck, Theodore “Teddy” Tsoras, Charles G. “Chuckie” Joseph, Ronny Bris, and Donald “Moose” Musilli.Kolibash remembered his four-year investigation and how the late Tom Burgoyne and Dick Jones were the FBI agents who uncovered the evidence needed to levy 218 indictments against Hankish and 11 members of his criminal enterprise in 1989 and to send all but one – the kingpin’s wife, Patricia was acquitted – to federal prison in 1990. Hankish was sentenced to 33 years in federal custody but would live only six more before passing away from kidney failure in a Virginia prison facility.Paul Hankish was sentenced to 33 years in federal prison after agreeing to a plea deal that ultimately set his estranged wife free from all charges.Many older residents still insist Wheeling was a safer and more prosperous place to live when the Lias and Hankish gangs operated the brothels, the gambling, places like Ron’s Value Center and the Palace Disco, and the drug trafficking. They wonder, in fact, if organized crime had been left alone to govern the streets of the Friendly City, would it be more like it was then instead of what it is today. That’s unlikely, though, especially since West Virginia lawmakers have legalized video lottery gaming (1995), table games (2007) like Blackjack and Craps, and Sporting Betting (2018) after Kolibash destroyed Wheeling’s mob 35 years ago, and the legislators also approved “limited video lottery” poker machines for bars and restaurants in more than 1,500 locations in the state more than 20 years ago.That’s why some believe the criminal ventures once managed by Lias and Hankish are now operated by a “Mountain State Mob”.With a history dating back to before the death and destruction caused by the Revolutionary War, Wheeling is a city of souls left behind by the ghosts of massacre, industry, invention, progress, and by decline, and as all history does, fables fade once the tales about the city’s mob eras are no longer told.Hopefully, these chapters of once-unspoken history have added to the truth about the felons and their felonies that once were accepted ingredients of the city’s culture thanks to organized crime.THE ENDThe majority of these buildings are no longer standing in the city's downtown, but when the Mob ruled Wheeling, they were very busy with customers on a daily basis. (Photo archived by the Ohio County Public Library)The Series:https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-the-prologuehttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-betty-and-a-bombhttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-hamm-the-newspaperman-vs-wheelings-mob-bosseshttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-tales-of-a-tow-truck-driverhttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-eyes-on-ernies-esquirehttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-max-and-his-mob-barshttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-the-cocaine-courierhttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-tom-burgoyne-g-manhttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-a-truck-stops-convicted-kinghttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-a-daddy-his-daughterhttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-dickie-and-the-mahoff(Author’s Note: Each week I’ll be sharing a link to one of the chapters of my first “Wheeling Mob” series I wrote while serving as the founding editor-in-chief of Weelunk, a digital media site now owned and operated by Wheeling Heritage, a non-profit organization that promotes the history and heritage of the city of Wheeling.)https://weelunk.com/wheeling-mob-part-11/ Read the full article

(Publisher’s Note: The 12-part series, “The Children of Wheeling’s Mob Era,” will be re-published each evening over the next two weeks so those who missed some or all of the chapters will have another chance to read it. A collection of Steve Novotney’s mob stories over the years will be released in book form this summer.)3Tales of a Tow Truck DriverShoe stores, jewelry stores, clothing stores, appliance stores, restaurants, hotels, office buildings, doctor’s offices, five-and-dimes, theatres, and bars. Lots and lots of bars.Once, that was an accurate description of downtown Wheeling, a business district that evolved into and out of its role as the Ohio Valley’s mega metropolis where consumers could buy anything, eat anything, and wager on anything from college and pro football to horses and dogs and baseball and basketball.There was the Odyssey, the Chit Chat, the Elbow Room, The Office, Billy’s, the Brickhouse, Academy Billiards, the Club Tower, the Cork & Bottle, the Capitol Ballroom, the Sportsman, and the San Antone, and no one batted an eye at the Mob’s bookies, the backroom poker games, the spot sheets, or those little white envelopes passed along by bartenders with a patron’s change.“I went to the bars and one of the coolest ones was the Tin Pan Alley,” said Don Atkinson, a former Wheeling council member (2008-2016) who was an employee of Ace Garage for more than 40 years. “That place had three floors with a different kind of music on each of the floors. There was country, jazz, and I think disco was on the top floor. The place was always jam-packed.Bill Kolibash was first hired by the federal government in Wheeling in 1973, and 10 years later he was appointed as the U.S. Attorney by then-President Ronald Reagan. Kolibash was the "quarterback" of the team that convicted Hankish on a plethora of RICO charges.“You went down the alley from Market (Street) to go in, and the place was cool as hell. I remember Bill Lias’ big round booth being there because it was his restaurant (Zeller’s) before it was the bar and the owner (Jim Coyne) thought it was cool to have it there,” he recalled. “Man, it was loud and it was crazy, but it looked like just another regular business. But if you knew, you knew there was more to do than dance and drink. You knew what else you could do there.”For decades, according to former U.S. Attorney Bill Kolibash, drug trafficking was one illegal activity Wheeling’s mobsters avoided until quaaludes and marijuana arrived in the 1970s and then cocaine came into play during the 1980s. The federal prosecutor, whose book “Justice Never Rests” will be released in late January, included drug dealing as one of a plethora of indictments against gangster Paul “No Legs” Hankish in the October 1990 trial.“It was slick as hell the way they did the cocaine (sales),” Atkinson remembered. “Coke was huge around in the 80’s but I was always scared of the stuff. But you’d see the buys take place and it wasn’t just there. It was everywhere.“I’m not sure how the customer signaled that they wanted to buy the coke, but what the bartender would do is get the guy’s drink and when she gave him the drink and his change, there would be a little white envelope with the bills,” he described. “The guy would just put it all in his pocket and walk away from the bar and that was it. So, they tried to be cool about it, but every single person in that bar knew what was going on just like they knew those girls in the alley were hookers and the guy at the end of the bar was the bookie.“And no one cared either.”Local residents and visitors to downtown Wheeling frequented the alleys far more than they do today. (Photo by Tammy Kruse)Those Little CrocodilesHis mom was in the mob. Kinda-sorta.Kay Atkinson operated a tavern in the town of Triadelphia, a small settlement just outside Wheeling’s city limits that was comprised mostly of coal miners who once worked Valley Camp’s pillared tunnels beneath the eastern portions of Ohio County. He doesn’t remember the name of the bar, but Don does recall it was near where Bleifus Tire operates today. He remembers the tales she told, too.“I was young. Single digits, pretty much, she would tell us about ‘Big Bill’ and what was happening to him. She said there was a lot of gambling, backroom card games, and things like that,” Atkinson recalled. “My mom wasn’t hiding anything; she wasn’t whispering or anything. I’d hear about ‘this guy with the mob’ and ‘that guy with the mob.’“We heard about the car blowing up, too. Hankish’s Studebaker. And the word was Lias didn’t like Hankish much so he tried to get rid of him. I know he never got arrested for it, but most people still think he got away with it,” he said. “I remember hearing about the mob all the time when I was growing up. Everybody knew about it. It was Wheeling.The majority of these buildings no longer stand in the city's downtown area, but when the Mob ruled Wheeling, they were very busy with customers on a daily basis. (Photo archived by the Ohio County Public Library)“It’s just what was happening in Wheeling back then. And no one cared.”He doesn’t remember his mother complaining. For that matter, he doesn’t recall anyone complaining about the Wheeling Mob.“A lot of people just didn’t talk about anything those guys were doing. But it was accepted. It was just a way of life in this town. People went to work, worked hard, and did their business. Some people avoided everything that was connected to the Mob, and some people didn’t avoid them,” Atkinson said. “If you wanted to make a bet or get whatever, you knew where to go. Hell, we were in Ron’s Value Center all the time when I got older, and we knew the place was filled with stolen stereos and necklaces and stuff like that.“We all wore those IZOD shirts like the people at the country club, too. Our shirts didn’t have the tags because I guess that’s how the Mob hid it, but who cared? We had all the colors at Ace Garage because Ronnie Bris would always stop down because the Jacovettys owned the business and Vinnie’s uncle was involved with Lias,” he said. “Sometimes Bris would stop at the garage with a bunch of steaks he got from somewhere and we’d buy some as long as they were frozen.“Listen, some people avoided all that stuff like the plague, and they had their reasons. Because my mom ran that bar for ‘Big Bill’, I knew what was going on inside that place and all the others. It was just normal life in this town.”Not too many photos of the Palace Disco/Pirates Cove exist, but those who recall the businesses say there were a lot of lights on the corner of 23rd and Main streets.To Tow or Not to TowHe was a peacemaker, an enforcer, a bar owner, a sharp dresser, and Jesse Anderson intimidated when intimidation was needed. Anderson was one of the most trusted men in Hankish’s mob, and that’s why he ran errands, delivered packages, communicated messages, and collected overdue debts for the Boss.Anderson was a tall, muscular black man who loved to dress in bright suits, matching hats, and shiny shoes, and he always waved from his fancy cars, too. Atkinson described Jesse as a flashy and friendly man who could be all about business when necessary, and that’s why Anderson’s named appeared frequently in the federal RICO indictments published by The Intelligencer on October 3, 1989.Anderson, who owned the Playmate Lounge on Lind Street in East Wheeling, was murdered a few years later in Meigs County, Ohio.“Once me and Jesse knew each other, we always got along,” said the long-time tow truck driver. “And I became friends with some of the other guys who worked for Hankish, too, and I remember Jesse well because he was one of Paul’s right-hand guys. I'll never forget, I had a car broke down in downtown Wheeling one day around lunchtime, and the car was in a parking place and I couldn't get it out.“Jesse (Anderson) stopped and got out of his yellow Cadillac in this bright yellow suit, and he started helping me push the car out of the way … and I’m thinking about who he is the whole time and that I shouldn’t make him mad,” Atkinson said. “I didn’t have a problem with any of those guys, and I didn’t want them to have a probem with me either. But Jesse was cool with me.“Ya know, except for all the bad stuff he did, he was a pretty nice guy.”Just a couple of streets south of Ron’s Value Center were two mob-owned properties: a bar called the “Palace Disco” that later became known as the “Pirates Cove,” and the other was only known by the feds as 2244 Water Street because it was one of the largest and longest running brothels in the city.People parked everywhere and anywhere, and that kept Atkinson busy during his night shifts.“It was all up to the police back then, and they knew who not to have towed. Back then, someone in my position didn’t ask anyways. I mean, I knew who had what car, so I knew what was going on and I didn’t think twice about it. People used to park all over the place so we cleared who we cleared and didn’t get in any trouble.“There were bars all over Wheeling and people used to park wherever they fit because of how crowded it was most weekends. There were biker bars, pool halls, the disco places, and there was a lot of live music in downtown, and people went out. People had a lot of fun around here back in those days.”The Imperial Display company along Main Street offered a little bit of everything in their "Christmas store," including the most popular decorations for inside and outside the home. (Photo archived by James Thornton)Fun and GamesGeorge’s Bar in Fulton used to serve the neighborhood boys mashed potatoes with brown or chicken gravy for lunch for just 25 cents. If a kid didn’t have the quarter, George would add a little more just because.The boys would sit at the same bar with the few men who went to George’s for the open-face lunch specials, and Atkinson recalls the chalkboards used for the big games and the point spreads. George’s was down the street from hi shouse, but it wasn’t the only bar in the neighborhood. “We’d go there and up the street to the Swing Club when we were running around, and both bars ran numbers. They both had the pinball machines with men trying to get the highest score, and there were the other poker machines and stuff like that. Whatever was popular at the time, I guess,” he explained. “I was always told there was only one way to run a bar in Wheeling, and that was with Hankish in your pocket.“No one blinked,” Atkinson said with eyes wide. “As soon as me and my friends were 18 years old, we went out to all the bars and I don’t remember someone approaching me about making a bet or anything like that. It was definitely kind of an unspoken thing, I guess, but if you wanted to bet, you could ask at the bar,” he remembered. “That’s what guys did.”Hankish wasn’t a bar hopper once he became Boss after Lias was dead and buried in Greenwood Cemetery, but he had men like Anderson, a man named Jimmy Griffin, and people Atkinson referred to as “bag men” who would “pickup and deliver.”For many years in downtown Wheeling, local residents and visitors alike could count on this wonderful lighted display by Stone & Thomas.“They were always brown paper bags, so they looked like lunches, I guess. And Jimmy was quiet. He wasn’t loud like Jesse. You just knew to keep your head down when you saw Jimmy because we heard he took care of things when Paul needed it done,” he described. “Hankish was out there. He was always out there, always around. I think he liked to be seen. He was the guy Lias couldn’t kill and everyone knew that. He knew that. “My wife (Gail) even cut the man’s hair. When she was done, she’d have to go out to the car to wake up Jimmy so Jimmy could get Paul back in the car. I mean, Hankish didn’t hide from anyone, that’s for sure. It was the ‘Crazy 80’s,” Atkinson said. “Some said people came here from out of town for the ‘Wheeling Feeling,’ and I was never sure exactly what the ‘Feeling’ was because there was so much of everything. Whatever it was, it sure had people like (FBI agent) Tom Burgoyne looking for something all of the time.”Burgoyne was a Massachusetts native who was assigned to Wheeling in 1967, and once the Federal Bureau of Investigation was granted jurisdiction over cocaine sales, he was able to build a thick file on Hankish and his organization. Twenty years later, Burgoyne was a member of Kolibash’s criminal task force that surveilled all the moves made by Wheeling’s mob boss.“You knew something was going on. You heard the feds were on them,” Atkinson said. “People were talking about the investigation getting pretty serious, and I had known Tom Burgoyne for a while by the time the trial took place. When I was a kid working at a Texaco gas station, he used to come there and he used a credit card with ‘FBI’ on it. He was cool as hell.“But just like Hankish didn’t hide, neither did Burgoyne. He was right out there in the open all the time,” he said. “Me and Tom became pretty good friends, and I think most people in Wheeling knew Tom more for what he did in the community and less as an FBI agent who helped bring down Hankish and his mob.“Wheeling was a lot of fun until then.”Gail and Donnie live in Wheeling and they love spoiling their two grandchildren.The Series:https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-the-prologuehttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-betty-and-a-bombhttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-hamm-the-newspaperman-vs-wheelings-mob-bosseshttps://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-tales-of-a-tow-truck-driver/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-eyes-on-ernies-esquire/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-max-and-his-mob-bars/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-the-cocaine-courier/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-tom-burgoyne-g-man/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-a-truck-stops-convicted-king/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-a-daddy-his-daughter/https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-dickie-and-the-mahoff/(Author’s Note: Each week I’ll be sharing a link to one of the chapters of my first “Wheeling Mob” series I wrote while serving as the founding editor-in-chief of Weelunk, a digital media site now owned and operated by Wheeling Heritage, a non-profit organization that promotes the history and heritage of the city of Wheeling.)https://weelunk.com/the-wheeling-mob-part-3 Read the full article

(Publisher’s Note: This is the first chapter of a new series of short historical stories that focus on the history of organized crime in Wheeling. A number of eyewitnesses have offered their memories, and interviews were conducted with them and with federal and local officials, including former FBI agent Tom Burgoyne before his passing on January 26, 2023.)1Betty and a BombIt was frigid that Friday morning on January 17, 1964. Snow was on the ground from the night before, and it was as quiet outside as winter could be 60 years ago along Richland Avenue in Warwood.Until it wasn’t.Wheeling police officers and firefighters responded to a home near the corner of Fourth and Richland after reports of an explosion were called in by the neighbors. A 1964 four-door Studebaker was detonated at about 10:30 a.m. and windows were shattered, debris was scattered, the working-class neighborhood was understandably stunned, and a 32-year-old man named Paul Hankish screamed for help after most of his legs were blown away by the dynamite blast.According to the police report, a man named Harold Bauers rushed to the scene where the car’s carcass continued to belch smoke and flames to find Hankish covered in blood but still conscious and lucid.Bauers told police he heard Hankish say, “That f*cking Bill Lias,” before he ran to call for help.Later the same day, according to the officers who interviewed him at the old Wheeling Hospital in North Wheeling, Hankish insisted, “F*ck that fat pig.” That’s where he would stop, though. Every time.The bombing took place along Richland Avenue on the north end of the Warwood area in Wheeling. (Image: Google Earth)Wheeling firefighters found Hankish still seated in his vehicle conscious, lucid, and screaming. “Get me out of here! Get me out of here before I burn to death! Hurry! I’m on fire here!”A shy 12-year-old Italian girl lived with her parents just a few homes up the street in a first-floor apartment. She remembers that morning. She heard it, she felt it, and 60 years later, it’s her preference to offer her memories without using her real name.Why? Well, because those seven sticks of dynamite frightened “Betty” for life.“There was a side lot next to the house where my family lived then, and then there was a house and another lot. Next to that was where the Hankish house was, so there were three lots between our apartment and where the explosion took place,” she explained. “It was Paul and his first wife, Pat, and they had their daughter (Rose) and the little boy (Christopher Paul), and they needed babysitters because Mrs. Hankish worked. One of my friends was one of the babysitters and I’d go to their house sometimes.“My friend invited us up when she got bored with their two kids, and we would play with them outside on those afternoons,” Betty recalled. “The kids were very nice children, especially the daughter. I remember her as a very sweet little girl.”Paul “No Legs” Hankish had a long criminal record at the time he was brought to trial in October 1990.Known Offender“Hankish was bad from the beginning. That’s why he went to prison as many times as he did. But he did the time, got out, and went right back to using an impressive criminal mind.”U.S. Attorney William KolibashHankish already had served several jail sentences by the time he and his family moved to Richland Avenue in the early 1960s, and he had been released from the West Virginia Penitentiary in September 1963. He worked legitimately in the jewelry and automobile businesses, but, according to newspaper reports, Hankish quickly returned to hustling hard around the Wheeling area once he was a free man.During his colorful career, Hankish fenced stolen goods from trailer hijack jobs, owned poker machines and ran game boards in bars, and operated as many as 24 full-blown brothels in Center and South Wheeling. In the early 1960s, Hankish was recruiting new crew members, too, some of whom had previously worked similar rackets for Lias.They made their daily rounds, collected cash, paid visits to “past due” situations, and addressed liars and cheaters with mob muscle."Big Bill" Lias owned Wheeling Downs, restaurants and bars, but he also was boss of the gambling rackets, the booze business, and prostitution rings for several decades in the 20th Century. (Archives by James Thornton)“I can remember one day when we decided to go up to the Hankish house to visit our friend and the parents were there. They were both very cordial to us,” Betty recalled. “But I remember a couple of Mr. Hankish’s men came in the house, too. They were dressed very nice in their suits, and no one said anything, but we took the children outside to play.“I looked back at the gentlemen when we were leaving and I saw them take off their suit jackets, and both of them were wearing holsters with pistols. The holsters were brown. The guns were black. I think the handles on the guns were brown. It was something straight out of “The Untouchable,” I tell you. I was old enough to know the difference between what I saw on TV and what I saw in real life, and that scared me.”Betty ran home. Betty told her parents about the guys with the guns. Betty was never allowed to visit the Hankish children ever again.“‘No, no, no. That’s it.’ That’s what my mom said to me, so, that took care of that,” she recalled. “I never went close to the Hankish house again. Never. I don’t even think anyone really knew what Paul Hankish did for a living, but I think the neighbors suspected something.“I believe everyone suspected something, but everyone was too afraid to say a word. That’s how it was back then. If it didn’t concern you, you left it alone for your own good.”There wasn't much left of the 1964, four-door Studebaker that was rigged with seven sticks of dynamite. (WPD File)BOOM!“Paul Hankish was a young thug; that’s what he was before the bombing, and that’s why someone tried to kill him. He was moving around doing a lot of things, and someone didn’t like it.”Former FBI Agent Tom BurgoyneThe hood of Hankish’s Studebaker ended up on the roof of the house across Warwood’s Richland Avenue, and the majority of his legs were “mangled” and ripped from his torso and discovered under the driver’s side seat. He was “cut up with a quite a number of lacerations on his face,” according to then Fire Chief William McFadden.McFadden also told Wheeling newspaper journalist Al Molnar, “I don’t think he will make it.”Somehow, though, the gangster didn’t bleed to death. Somehow, Paul Hankish survived. The headline in the Wheeling News-Register the day of the explosion read, “Hankish Critically Injured in Assassination Attempt”.Molnar described the attack as “gangland-style,” and he reported that wife Pat told authorities she “knew of no trouble he was having with anyone.” Molnar included in the article that Hankish had been “associated with underworld activities since the mid-1950s.”Young Betty knew that to be true, but she wasn’t allowed outside to see for herself.“I was in my parents’ apartment, and it was still in the morning after the school buses because I didn’t go to school that Friday,” she recounted. “I heard the bomb go off. I felt it. It shook the whole house. It rocked the whole neighborhood. We didn’t lose any windows, but the houses across the street did. I remember feeling that explosion for sure.“We lived in the apartment on the first level of the house, and the owners of the house lived upstairs. They were good friends with my parents and they were great to me, too. I know my mother and the lady from upstairs went outside and at first you could get pretty close but then the policemen were keeping people pretty far away from the car,” Betty said. “There were detectives in the neighborhoods for days looking for who knows what.”This advertisement was discovered while conducting research on Wheeling's original mobster. Obviously, 'Big Bill's' legend has spread to the West.Infamous Status“That bombing case will never have an ending, but that never mattered anyway. Hankish became a folk hero because he survived that bombing. He became a superhero.”FBI Agent Tom BurgoyneThe charred Studebaker had been towed away by the time Betty was allowed to go back outside, and she doesn’t remember burn marks on the street. The neighborhood kids never found anything close to a car part the authorities might have missed, and Betty doesn’t remember an odor either.The neighborhood kids compared notes about what they heard and saw, and they wondered why, too. Why would someone’s automobile explode just because they tried to start the engine?“I think we all just couldn’t believe how a man survives that explosion based on what we heard and felt,” she said. “It was from head to toe, it shook me and I definitely wasn’t allowed near the Hankish house after that, and trust me, we didn’t even get close. We just wanted to stay away from it all. Our parents told us to leave it alone, and we did.”“I know the FBI people showed up the next day and they were walking around trying to talk with as many people as possible. From what I remember, no one said they saw a thing. No one seemed to know how that dynamite got under that Studebaker. Or no one was saying anything anyway.”Five days after the blast, the newspaper’s Al Molnar reported Hankish was in “good spirits,” but was no longer supplying law enforcement with any information that could help solve the case. Journalist Roger Wood from The Intelligencer then reported two days later that Hankish had not offered names to the police, according to attorney Robert Yahn, and that the gangster is not sure who would try to kill him.The former Wheeling Hospital was located in North Wheeling where a house development rests today. The hospital was about a mile away from the location of the bombing on January 17, 1964. Paul Hankish was hospitalized here after he survived the assassination attempt, and he was cared for by the late Dr. George Kellas.Hankish changed his tune.“I’m sure people got to him and told not to make the waves with Lias because of what he had coming to him after surviving the bombing,” explained William Kolibash, the U.S. Attorney who finally sent finally Hankish to federal prison in 1990. “I can tell you it was my experience with the guy that he loved when people thought he was invincible because of the bombing, and because he was able to get away with so much.“Hankish may have gone to prison a few times during his lifetime, but he didn’t spend nearly as much time behind bars as he could have. But he was smart. He got away with much more than he got caught doing,” he said. “Until the end, of course.”Betty doesn’t remember when Hankish returned to his Richland Avenue house later in the springtime of 1964, and she doesn’t believe she and her friends ever chatted about the bombing or about those holstered guns. They did recognize the line that was established by their parents once playing outside was an everyday activity.“That part of Richland Avenue was forever cut off for me and my friends. That’s how the parents handled it, and my family lived there for a lot more years,” she said. “I did see Mrs. Hankish going in and out of the house sometimes, but I never saw him and I never did see the little boy and little girl again. The Hankishes moved from there before my family did, but no one paid attention to that either.“It was like we all just forgot about them for our own good because we were too scared to talk about any of it,” Betty added. “But Mr. Hankish was in the news a lot through the years like he was some big celebrity in town. And I guess he was that, too.”https://ledenews.com/the-children-of-wheelings-mob-era-the-prologue/(Author's Note: Each week I'll be sharing a link to one of the chapters of my first "Wheeling Mob" series I wrote while serving as the founding editor-in-chief of Weelunk, a digital media site now owned and operated by Wheeling Heritage, a non-profit organization that promotes the history and heritage of the city of Wheeling.)https://weelunk.com/wheeling-mob-part-1-5949/ Read the full article