Have They Finally Found ‘Bugsy’ Siegel’s Killer?
Image by wikimedia
We all know that famous scene in “The Godfather,” the one where the camera cuts back and forth between Michael Corleone attending a baptism and the slaughter of the Corleone family’s enemies. One of the most iconic shots (no pun intended) during the sequence is the scene in which Moe Greene, the Jewish gangster in charge of a number of Las Vegas casinos, is shot through the eye during a massage.
Greene, like a number of characters in “The Godfather,” was based on a real life mobster – Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Like the fictional Greene, Siegel, along with fellow Jewish mobsters Meyer Lansky and Moe Sedway, was one of the primary figures behind the creation of Las Vegas as a gambling oasis. Also like the fictional Greene, Siegel was murdered with a shot in the eye (and 8 other shots). Siegel’s murder is one of the most notorious open murder cases in the country, but an article by Amy Wallace in Los Angeles Magazine may have cracked the case.
Wallace’s article focuses on the story of Bee Kittle, wife of Moe Sedway, Siegel’s business partner and childhood friend. To hear Kittle tell it, the murder had little to do with monetary concerns. Unlike most mob murders, this one wasn’t business. I don’t want to spoil the story, which is long and convoluted with a number of characters and moving parts, but according to Kittle, the murder was committed by her lover “Moose” Pandza (one of the most fascinating parts of the article is the strange love triangle of Pandza, Sedway, and Kittle). You’ll have to read the full piece to find out all the sordid details.
Like “The Godfather,” the story of Kittle, Sedway, Siegel, and Pandza, is a compelling mob drama all its own. That Kittle’s testimony is cast into doubt at the end of the article is immaterial. It’s a fun story despite its holes and dubious source – as mob historian John Buntin says in towards the end of the piece, “The past really is past. And sometimes the truth is impossible to uncover. That’s why history is an act of re-creation. It involves imagination in a big way.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
