Nick DeJohn Part 3—The Trial That Fell Apart: The Strange End of the Nick DeJohn Murder Case

The jury's out, sequestered up at the Fairmont like kings in exile, and Frisco holds its breath after four weeks of front page testimony. Part Three opens with the strange coda nobody asked for — a state Attorney General's daughter kidnapped for an hour and a half, grilled about her father's trip to Chicago, then let go with a mobster's name dropped on the way out. The cops call it a prank. Nobody believes that, and nobody does anything about it either. Then Inspector Frank Ahern takes the stand and finally gives the State what it's been missing all trial: Leonard Calamia's own confession, a hand-drawn map of a barroom, and the names of every man who waited for Nick De John in that basement.

But this case doesn't want to be won clean. Alibis collapse on the stand — Catherine Calamia can't keep her dates straight, Sebastiano Nani can't explain a hotel register with his own signature on it, and a mysterious in-law who was supposedly dead three weeks before the murder somehow lets a witness into a basement anyway. The jury tours the murder scene, La Rocca offers the judge a drink. Thirty hours of deliberation takes the jury to seven-five for acquittal — with the jury still reading back transcripts when the District Attorney asks for the judge  to dismiss both the jury and the case. 

And that's it. No verdict, no reckoning — just three gangsters walking out the city jail smiling, two more still in the wind, and a District Attorney's decision nobody in the room, on either side, seems willing to explain. Nine dead men traced back to the Chicago Cheese Syndicate mob moving into town, and Frisco never gets its answer for a single one of them. 

Some cases close. This one just swirled like mist out into the cool Frisco night and disappeared.

Transcript

Welcome to Frisco: The Secret History. I’m your host, Knox Bronson. I have a great episode for you today, Part Three and the finale of the Nick DeJohn murder story. I covered Nick’s 1947 garroting in a North Beach apartment building in Episode 30, the investigation and the surprise witness at the trial in episode 32. You should listen to those episodes if you haven’t already. Today I’m going to discuss the end of trial, the final twists and turns in this very odd case, and the outcome of which I am at a loss to explain. 

Before we get going, I want say thank you to Walter Hass at Graffeo Coffee Roasters at 735 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. I should mention that Graffeo Coffee is just up the street on Columbus Avenue from La Rocca’s Corner, a location central to this story.

Graffeo was founded in 1935 and has been selling coffee beans to the public and the best restaurants around to town ever since. I have been drinking Graffeo Coffee since I lived around the corner on Mason Street back in the Seventies. I used a moka stovetop espresso pot back then and a French press today. Either way, it’s the richest and smoothest coffee I have ever tasted. 

Graffeo offers a dark roast, light roast, and a Swiss-water decaf bean. If you can’t get to North Beach, you can go to Graffeo.com, that is g r a f f e o dot com and order there. They sell whole beans, or will grind to your request. I love starting my day with a huge mug of dark roast. I have been recommending and gifting Graffeo beans to my friends forever and I am really happy to say that Graffeo Coffee is a founding sponsor for the Frisco: The Secret History podcast. I am so happy to be associated with such an historic and iconic San Francisco brand.  Graffeo beans are, as it says on the package, “Simply the finest coffee in the world.” It’s true. Give Graffeo a try. You will thank me.

[intermezzo]

We left off in Episode 32 with the strange and senseless hour-and-a-half kidnapping of Katherine Riordan, daughter of ex-San Francisco Police Chief Michael Riordan and currently currently a State of California Assistant Attorney General. At the time of the kidnapping, he was out of town, in Chicago. She was a secretary at the Law Offices of William Ferriter and James Purcell. Ferriter was representing Sebastiano Nani and Michael Abati and Purcell was representing Leonard Calamia in the Nick DeJohn murder trial. 

Katherine had driven her sister home from a dinner party in their father’s car, dropped her off and was returning to the party when when three men hopped into the car when she came to a stop at an intersection. They held her captive for an hour-and-a-half, grilling her about her father’s trip to Chicago and her employers.

She had no useful information and they finally let her go. As they exited her car, one of them said, “What do you think Lima will think about this?”

She made her way to her boss's home, that of Attorney Jim Purcell.

Meanwhile, back at the dinner party, her date for the evening, twenty-three-year-old Kenneth Thompson, had no idea any of this was happening. When Katherine didn't come back, he went looking for her — called Park Emergency Hospital, called the police station, and finally learned around midnight that she'd turned up at Jim Purcell's house. He drove over and brought her home, where her family doctor treated her for shock and some light bruising on her head. 

When police first questioned Thompson, he told them he'd been with Katherine the whole night, until three in the morning — a story that didn't hold up, and got him hauled down to the Hall of Justice for a second round of questioning. That's when he admitted the truth: he, Purcell, and Katherine had agreed to keep quiet about the whole thing until her father got back into town.

Her father returned to San Francisco the next day. After talking to his daughter and the police, he said, "I certainly believe my daughter's story. This whole thing is incomprehensible to me. I have talked with Captain English, who has made an independent investigation of this whole situation, and can't find any rational motive for what happened.  I've been a police officer for thirty years, and certainly know the police or the district attorney's office would never condone such tactics. Neither the defense nor the prosecution could have had any possible motive in this."

The whole thing is incomprehensible."

This is true: in hindsight, it makes no sense at all. 

The fact is that it happened and here is what I find truly incomprehensible: the police, the prosecution, the defense attorneys all agreed to write off Katherine Riordan's hour-and-a-half kidnapping ordeal as nothing more than a prank by persons unknown for motives unknown and promptly forgot about it.

It had absolutely no effect on the ongoing trial, but it foreshadowed in a most peculiar way this story's startling denouement.

Her kidnapping took place on the weekend before the prosecution presented its final evidence in the murder trial, wherein Inspector Frank Ahern testified that Leonard Calamia had confessed to taking Nick DeJohn to LaRocca’s Corner the night of his murder and was trying to rat out the rest of the gang, claiming, "I couldn't have done it myself. I needed help. I needed help!"

[intermezzo]

San Francisco Homicide Inspector Frank J. Ahearn sat in the witness box with a military bearing as he described  Leonard Calamia as a squealer who tried to tried to rat out his fellow defendants in the murder trial of Nick DeJohn.

As the Examiner reported on February 18, 1949:

[typewriter]

The weakling Calamia, an exdope peddler, was a kind of menial and hanger on in the gang of racketeers which, the State claims, garroted ex-Chicagoan De John because he was muscling in. It was Calamia's role in the murder, the State asserts, to deliver De John into the hands of the others. 

Inspector Ahern said that when Calamia was first questioned in the case he denied having seen De John on the murder day and denied that the slain man's son, John De John, lived in the Calamia home.

It was Calamia, said Ahern, who led police to the North Beach basement where De John was garroted. And it was Calamia he went on, who furnished police with the names of the four men who had disappeared into that basement with De John on the night of May 7, 1947.

Initially, after his arrest, Calamia had denied everything. He denied seeing Nick DeJohn on the day DeJohn was murdered. He denied that Nick’s son John lived as a guest in his home. 

Confronted by proof that he lied, Calamia changed his story repeatedly and little by little began to break, said Ahern. 

Finally, said the inspector, on the night of May 22, 1947, Calamia sent word from city prison that he wanted to see Ahern. Ahern took him to the office of Chief Prosecutor Thomas Lynch. 

There, said Ahern, Calamia admitted that he had spent almost all of the fatal day with De John and had led him by a pretext that night to La Rocca's Corner, a Columbus Avenue bar. 

Q.-Did he tell you who else was there? 

A.--He did. 

Q.-Who? 

A.--Tony Lima was there. And Sebastiani Nani, also known as Bastiano and Benny Nani. Mike Abati was there. Frank Scappatura was in there. Also a man Calami knew as Sam; he did not recall the last name. Also another Leonard whose name he did not know. Also a man they called the shoemaker, and a Pasquale Siracusa he knew as Patsy. 

Q.-Did he indicate where these persons were in the bar? 

A.-Yes sir. Mr. Calamia at that time asked for a piece of paper and drew a diagram. 

Lynch produced a crude diagram of the interior of the bar showing the positions of all of the defendants and De John in the bar. It was admitted to evidence and shown to the jury over the violent objections of the defense. 

The diagram showed Alphonse and Leo La Rocca, brothers and proprietors of the place, behind the bar. This pair and their father, Vincenzo "Papa" La Rocca, have from the beginning of the case done nothing but shrug their shoulders at police questions, said Chief of Inspectors.

[end typewriter]

Judge Devine ruled that Calamia’s confession admissible — but only against Calamia. He instructed the jury, quite carefully, that Calamia's admissions — including his two maps placing Nani and Abati near the murder scene — could not be considered as evidence against them; that they were evidence only against Calamia

   Nonetheless, defense Attorney Ferriter said, somewhat bitterly, "No jury can unring a bell or unscramble eggs” about the judge’s admonitions.

[intermezzo]

The headline on the Examiner's front page for February 20 read: De John Trial Delayed — Nani Supported By Wife.

It featured an interview with Sebastiani Nani’s dark-eyed Sicilian wife, Teresa which had been arranged by Nani’s attorney, William Ferriter.

"My husband Sebastiani," she began nervously, "is a good family man, a good father. I know he is innocent of the charge against him in the De John murder."

"He was good to our children," she continued, hesitantly. "Each night I pray he will be freed." The children — Agnes, 15; Peter, 14, and Emily, 12 — nodded in agreement.

And then Mrs. Nani burst into tears, and could say no more.

On the mantel, prominently displayed, sat a new six-volume set of murder mysteries by S. S. Van Dine — creator of Philo Vance, the most fashionable and popular detective in America at the time. 

Philo Vance, the fictional dandy of great erudition and culture, detested stupidity more than he detested bad taste and often quoted the French statesman Fouché: C'est plus qu'un crime; c'est une faute. It is more than a crime — it is a mistake.

[intermezzo]

I want to take a break from the trial for a moment. While it was front page news at the Examiner, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle told a different story. Remember that the newspapers of the day were cable television, Google, YouTube and Facebook and all other social media combined. There was no television and radio was a completely different animal back then.

On March 2nd, the banner headline at top of the Chronicle’s front read “The Greatest Story Every Told,” with an introduction by the author, Fulton Oursler, about how he had come to write the series that was premiering in the paper this very day. Right under that story, on the left side of the eight-column page was the headline:

CHAPTER ONE: The Man Who Waited 

A Carpenter, Joseph Of Nazareth, Speaks About the Girl, Mary 

The story read: 

[tw]

PEOPLE IN NAZARETH said that Joseph was like his great ancestor, the favorite son of Jacob. It was true that the carpenter with his small golden beard, so different from his black-haired neighbors, was a dreamy, quiet-spoken man, looking more like a scholar than a craftsman, With his great knotty hands Joseph could build a house or a fence, fashion a chair or a bench, hang a door, mend wheel, build a new plow or yoke. But Joseph with his prematurely bald head was called visionary because he refrained from gambling with travelers of passing caravans; he avoided tavern women, and found his pleasure in good talk with a few neighbors. Among Nazarenes these were queer habits, for generally they were a rowdy lot.

[end tw]

What followed was a kind of fairy tale about Joseph before he met Mary, although two paragraphs caught my eye:

[tw]

The danger was real. Roman spies were everywhere. One learned not to speak ideas aloud. In the last century there had been a series of hapless rebellions in the land. Some of the best of the young men of the province. healthy and strong ones, enthusiastic ones, had perished in those feeble and foredoomed revolts--thousands of patriots dying for Israel during the 100 years the Romans had held Israel. 

Ah, Samuel could tell Joseph, conditions were getting much worse. Rich and powerful men of their own nation were collaborating with the invaders, fattening their fortunes by betraying their own people. How long must they endure slavery with treason thrown in? Did Joseph realize that in every village young men were once more plotting to throw the Romans out and make the people free? Why would Joseph not join?

[end tw]

I’ll tell you this, since I’ve been doing the serious research for this podcast, going back to the early and mid twentieth century, I’ve one constant story: the rich screwing the poor. Over and over and over again.

On a related note, too the right of that story was a huge headline, “Pyramid Clubbers

Plan a Legal Fight; Meeting Broken Up

The story was about pyramid clubs that were all the rage and getting raided by the police and how they were demanding a trial by jury and were planning on hiring Jake “The Master” Ehrlich to defend them.

The story read:

[tw]

Pyramid clubbers came out fighting yesterday. 

By the hundreds, they formed themselves into a defense com- mittee of the whole, retained counsel, and prepared to battle through every court in the land in defense of what they consider their inalienable right to run a dollar into 2000. Last night, however, they ran into trouble In Broadmoor, an unincor- porated area near Colma. The development's Police Chief James Thomas broke up 8 meeting of some 300 clubbers in the Com- munity Center there.

[end tw]

I will be doing a full episode about that in the future. Same principal, those schemes, the few screw the many. Like the AI bubble, or Bitcoin, or all of Elon Musk’s shell games.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. 

I do prefer 1949 to 2026 sometimes.

Elsewhere on the Chronicle front page were stories about Communism, General McArthur, a trial in Budapest, a filibuster in the US Senate waged by southerners, and Joe Louis resigning as the world heavyweight boxing champion, a title he had held for twelve years, so that Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott could hold a match to decide the new champion.

A lot going on, as there always is on planet Earth.

[intermezzo]

On March 1st, the defense began calling witnessed to the stand. The first one called was Leonard Calamia’s wife, Catherine, who testified that her husband had been home by ten p.m. on the night in question. The murder time had been placed at 10:30 p.m. by the prosecution in earlier testimony.

She remember that she and DeJohn’s son, John, who lived with them, and her husband were having coffee and donuts at home at the time of the murder. She said of her husband, “He always comes home by 10.”

Young DeJohn had testified to the Grand Jury that Calamia did not get home until after midnight that night and that the coffee and donuts night had been May 9, the night his father’s body was found out in the Marina.

On cross-examination, District Attorney Lynch had be able to rattle Catherine Calamia, discrediting much of her testimony to the chagrin of the defense.

Lynch asked, “"Isn't it a fact that it was May 9 you had coffee and doughnuts?" 

A-"No it was May 7." 

Q-"Were you there when Calamia told Johnny about his father's death?" 

A-"Yes." 

Q-"When was that?" 

A-"May 7." 

Q-"May 7?" 

A-"I mean May 8. No, I mean May 9." 

Q-"Wasn't it a fact that it was May 9 that Johnny was listening to a news broadcast and asked "Is that my father they are talking about?' and Calamia turned off the radio?" 

A-"'Yes." 

Q-Prior to the time you heard it on the radio, hadn't Celamia men- tioned to you that De John had been killed?" 

A-"No." 

Q-"Didn't Calamia turn off the radio?" 

A-"No, the baby turned it off. She played with the radio." 

Q- "Did Calamia say anything to you that night about the death of De John?" 

A-"No." 

Q-"When did you know about it?" 

A-"The next day when Mrs. De John came to town"

Leonard Calamia was never called to testify in his own defense.

On the stand, defendant Mike Abati gave out a succession of "no" answers to nearly all questions. 

Had he seen the basement apartment? 

No. 

Had he ever been in the basement apartment? 

No. 

Had he ever known Defendant Nani? 

No. 

Also, said Abati, he had never seen Anita Rocchia Venza before she had appeared in court. Y

ou will remember had testified that she overheard the murder plot by Scappatura, Lima, Abati and Nani the day before the murder and was run out of town.

On the stand, later, Vincenzo (Papa) LaRocca denied this. He says Mrs. Venza had never stepped foot in his basement apartment.

Abati admitted a financial connection between the Sunland Sales Company and the LaRoccas, admitting that they had received a loan of $18,000, about $735,000 today, from Papa LaRocca, which had been repaid.

Abati said on May 6 and May 7 of 1947 he was working as a bartender at the Tropical Grill at Drumm and Oregon streets--from 8 in the morning to 9 at night. 

Co-defendant Sebastiano Nani said he was at home taking care of his sick wife. He said he didn't know Nick de John, he didn't know Tony Lima, and he didn't know Frank Scappatura. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Agnes, coraborated her father’s claim of being at home on the fateful night.

On May 10, the day after DeJohn’s body was found, Nani went to Los Angeles to buy a load of bananas, he said. He said that he didn't stay in a hotel, had driven his own car, and had travelled with Ciro Gallo, a Sunnyvale fish peddler. 

How did it happen then, Lynch wanted to know, that Ciro Gallo and a Sebastiano "Nani" were registered at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles 49 minutes after midnight on May 10? He produced the hotel’s register as proof.  Nani acknowledged his9 signature and simply couldn't remember, he said.

I cannot determine the fate of the bananas.

At the end of the day’s testimony, the jury, at the request of the prosecution and the consent of the defense, toured LaRocca’s Corner and the apartment building at Lombard and Taylor where Nick DeJohn had been murdered. The defendants were not included in the field trip.

With Judge Devine acting as tour guide, they inspected the dingy basement apartment where the garroting had taken place along with the second story apartment where surprise witness Eleanor Pierce had seen so much activity the night of the murder.

When the judge and the jury entered LaRocca’s Corner, Leo LaRocca was behind the bar. He said, “Have a drink, judge?”

The Judge declined.

The next day, March 2, after four weeks of testimony, both the defense and the prosecution rested their cases. Final arguments followed and the jury began deliberating the case on Monday, March seventh.

The jury deliberated all day on the seventh. 

The first jury ballot on Monday was six not guilty, four for conviction, two jurors passed on voting.

At 4:10 p.m. the jury sent out a request to have two transcripts read back — Inspector Ahern's testimony concerning Calamia, and Catherine Calamia's testimony about when her husband came home on the night of May 7.

  After that, the jury broke for dinner at 6:15 p.m., returning at 8:30 p.m, when Catherine Calamia’s testimony was read back. That took an hour-and-a-half and then deliberations resumed.

At 11:40 p.m. the jury recessed and was sequestered at the Fairmont Hotel on top of Nob Hill. 

They returned to court in the morning.

At noon on  Tuesday, another ballot: eight to four for acquittal.

At that point the jury requested Venza's testimony be read back, particularly the passage about the mysterious figure she called "Papa LaRocca's father-in-law" who admitted her to the basement the day before DeJohn was killed.

The defense had proved at trial that La Rocca's actual father-in-law had been dead for three weeks on the date in question; the prosecution contended the figure was an in-law named Salvatore Taormina — who never appeared at trial.

On the third ballot, it was seven to five for acquittal. The jury had been out for thirty hours at this point.

At 5:30 that day, San Francisco DA Pat Brown walked into the judges chambers and, to the surprise of everyone, asked the judge to dismiss the jury, claiming he did not trust his star witness, Anita Venza, wife of a crab fisherman, petty criminal, described in the newspaper as a dumpy little woman with an unsavory past.

The judge dismissed the jury at 6:10 p.m.

A police official who would not be named said: "Never in 20 years of experience have I seen a jury discharged while it was waiting for transcript to be read. 

"This case stinks from the District Attorney's end from the beginning. "It is customary to ask police to sit in on all cases of this kind when about to discharge a jury. The police were not asked to sit in and the door was literally slammed in their faces as they stood outside." 

The District Attorney was not available for comment, and Assistant DA Lynch refused comment when questioned by the press.

As they left the trial chambers, some jurors shared their thoughts:

Juror Miriam Ford, an accountant who favored acquittal, said, “I couldn't accept Mrs. Venza's testimony and the State didn't have anything else to offer except Mrs. Pierce. I believed Mrs. Pierce, but there were too many loose ends. Mrs. Venza was so agile in telling her lies that I couldn't tell when she was telling the truth."

Juror Leona Cantrell, who favored conviction): "It's my personal opinion that every juror in there thought they were guilty but some felt that legal proof of guilt was lacking and some were a bit afraid to vote guilty. I don't know why."

 Juror William Veveiros, who favored acquittal, said, "Nobody was afraid to vote guilty. We just weren't convinced of their guilt.” 

He added that after re-reading Venza's testimony, three more jurors were persuaded  to favor acquittal after the last formal ballot.

Chief of Detectives James English said, “I’m convinced of the guilt of the three and have an honest difference of opinion as to future policy on the case."

 "Mrs. Venza may have been mistaken on some facts but she was not lying. All I can see is that she may have been mistaken as to time and place on secondary matters."

 Assistant DA Lynch  said that, on reading Venza's testimony back to the jury, “all the little embroideries began popping out." However, I'm still convinced we had the right people."

Calamia, Nani, and Abati were released. They exited the city jail smiling. Tony Lima and Frank Scappatura were still missing. Free of the murder conspiracy charges, they were still being sought on Federal charges for flight from prosecution. They would one day return to Frisco where they belonged. Tony did a little time for the federal beef and then resumed his roll as boss of Little Italy. 

Frank Scappatura, unbelievably, died in his car, of a heart attack while driving past LaRocca’s Corner one sunny afternoon. 

Nick DeJohn was the fourth man murdered in San Francisco who had been involved with Chicago’s Sunland Sales Cheese and Oil Company, known as the Cheese Syndicate mob, before heading out west. There were five other former Cheese Syndicate associates already in graves back in Chicago. That makes nine dead men.

A federal narcotics officer said at the time, “"That's the way the Mafia kills. These people never stop murdering while an enemy lives."

 I keep wondering where was Bones Remmer in all of this. Nick DeJohn and the rest were North Beach with Chicago connections. Bones’ turf was the Tenderloin and he was  the liaison to Las Vegas and Lucky Luciano for boss Tony Lima. 

I wonder what it was like for John DeJohn when he figured out that the man in whose house he was living had been part of the conspiracy to kill his father. In 1959, he was co-managing a welterweight boxer named Carmen Basilio in New York City, so he was still in the family business.

The San Francisco Police had hoped that the conviction of Nick DeJohn’s murderers would send a message back east that San Francisco would not tolerate a mobster invasion.

Like Freddie Francisco said, a new kind of gangster to town. 

Instead they walked. 

Seventy-five years later, it seems like DA Pat Brown threw the match on purpose, but I can find nothing to corroborate that or suggest any kind of ulterior motive, payoff, or clandestine connection. Nothing.

It’s as mysterious and as nonsensical as the kidnapping of Katherine Riordan.

If I had a co-writer for this podcast, he or she might just say, “Relax, Knox, it’s just Frisco.”