Original subtitles

[dark dramatic music] [gunshot]

- Tonight, notorious mobster Bugsy Siegel is gunned down

in his living room.

- One minute, he's reading the newspaper,

the next, he's taking two bullets to the face.

- Nine rounds from a military rifle

right through a plate glass window?

That's not a standard mob hit.

- Although Siegel's killing becomes front page news,

no arrest is ever made.

- Lots of guys had reasons to want Siegel dead.

Some women had their reasons, too.

- Now we'll explore the theories surrounding one

of the most infamous and unsolved mob murders.

- Bugsy Siegel basically takes over.

He muscles his way into the race wire.

He muscles his way into gambling.

- He's doing his own thing. He won't listen.

- In the organized crime world,

that type of defiance often warranted a death sentence.

- The LA DA believed that there were

at least 100 people who'd want Bugsy dead.

- Who killed Bugsy Siegel and why?

[dark dramatic music]

11:00 PM. June 20th, 1947.

The Beverly Hills police are summoned

to a mansion just south of Sunset Boulevard.

[sirens wailing]

There's been a murder.

- As the police officers approach the house,

they can see that the living room window has been shattered,

and through the window they can see a body strewn

on a bloodstained sofa.

- Officers observed that the victim

had been shot several times.

He was shot twice in the head.

One shot actually went through the bridge of his nose

and took his eye out.

- [Laurence] The victim is no stranger to police.

It's Bugsy Siegel, the notorious gangster dead at 41.

- Bugsy Siegel was born in 1906

in the Lower East Side of New York.

His parents had come

from Eastern Europe three years earlier.

- He has a pretty hardscrabble life as a child,

which is very common of Jewish immigrants

in this time period.

As a teenager, Siegel gets involved

with another immigrant named Moe Sedway,

and the two of them start extorting pushcart vendors.

- If vendors didn't pay up the first time,

you just get your stuff knocked over.

The second time, they would burn down your cart.

[flame bursting]

Benjamin Siegel was quickly labeled hair trigger,

short tempered, very violent, and ultimately,

as he grew and became a teenager, he was dubbed Bugsy.

Why? Because they said he was crazy as a bed bug.

- Siegel hates the nickname Bugsy.

He hates it when he's a youth.

He hates it for the rest of his life.

- There are a few different avenues for mobsters.

You can be more of the businessman

or you could be more of the violent, volatile character,

and that is really the role that Siegel plays.

- [Laurence] January 1920.

Prohibition brings Bugsy into partnership

with another childhood friend,

a mobster named Meyer Lansky.

- Lansky is intellectual.

He sees opportunities where others don't.

He sees opportunities in prohibition,

but he also recognizes the need to organize,

that Jewish gangsters should organize along the lines

of the Italians or the Irish.

And one of the first people he welcomes into the fold is

an old friend, Bugsy Siegel.

[dark pulsating music]

- [Laurence] During prohibition,

rival gangs led by Italian boss Lucky Luciano

and Jewish boss Meyer Lansky both grow rich and powerful,

but the often deadly competition

between the gangs is bad for business.

- In order to reduce the conflict

between these rival gangs,

Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky's Jewish mob team up,

and together, they create this national crime syndicate.

- They're going to enter into partnerships,

that they're going to divvy up operations

and divvy up territory,

the thinking being

that if they're not fighting one another,

they'll all be more successful.

- The National Crime Syndicate completely changes

the way organized crime operates

because it creates this set of rules,

and specifically for Siegel, it gives him opportunity

that he wouldn't have had in a smaller-time gang.

- [Laurence] Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky

launch a tough new operation within the Syndicate,

Murder, Incorporated.

[gunshot]

- If there was a problem that needed to be sorted out,

maybe the quickest solution is a hit.

The number of people hit

by Murder, Inc. depends upon the source.

It could be in the dozens. It could be in the hundreds.

- And Bugsy Siegel personally is attributed

to between anywhere from 10 to 30 murders.

[dark droning music]

- Siegel begins to amass a collection of enemies,

and this is something that Lucky Luciano recognizes,

so he sends him to California.

- Sometime between 1936 and 1937,

Bugsy Siegel moves to LA.

He basically takes over.

There are already organized crime groups

in Southern California,

and he pretty much treats them as nonentities.

- So Siegel came to Hollywood

and immediately fell in love with it.

He just became this super playboy.

- He really attracts a lot of the ladies.

He's known for his philandering,

but one woman in particular really attracts his attention.

- And that is Virginia Hill.

They have a tumultuous, tempestuous relationship.

They are violent with one another.

Hill is able to give it back to Siegel

in a way that few others can.

- [Laurence] By 1947, there are reports that Bugsy

and Virginia's relationship has become

even more volatile than usual.

- Sources say that on June 19th of 1947

that they have a very public fight in Las Vegas,

and she takes a plane to Europe and he takes a plane to LA.

[eerie droning music]

- His good friend Allen Smiley

suggested they go out to dinner.

So they went to dinner with Virginia Hill's brother, Chick,

and Virginia's secretary, Jerri Mason.

Hill and Mason were engaged to be married.

- The four of them finish dinner.

They come back to the house.

Chick and Jerry head upstairs to bed,

and Smiley and Siegel stay in the living room.

They're reading the newspaper.

- [Laurence] Bugsy is unaware of the danger lurking

just outside his bay window.

- Just before 11:00 PM, the shooter fires nine rounds.

[rapid gunshots]

Two hit him in the head, the other two to the chest.

He pretty much died instantly.

- Neighbors hear shots fired.

They see a car speeding off

toward Sunset Boulevard to the north.

They don't see who's in the car.

No one sees the license plate.

- The murder weapon is never recovered,

but forensics quickly determines

that it was an M1 carby,

which was a standard issue semi-automatic rifle issued

to soldiers during World War II.

- The LA DA believed that there were at least 100 people

who'd want Bugsy dead,

but the Beverly Hills police Department believed

that the person that killed Bugsy Siegel was someone

within his inner circle, a known associate.

- [Laurence] For many experts, the key to Bugsy's murder

lies in the desert south of Las Vegas.

It's here, in the 1940s,

he builds what will become the Flamingo Casino.

- And this is, of course, being bankrolled by the Syndicate,

who begin to raise questions about

just what Siegel is doing in the Nevada desert.

- They believe that he is making a lot more

on the take than he says he is.

- And if there is one thing that you do not do in the mob,

it is steal from the mob.

[eerie dramatic music]

- By the early 1940s, the state of Nevada is the only state

in the union that has legal gambling.

And so the Syndicate is like,

"How do we get in on the ground floor?"

Mobsters aren't the only people turning to Las Vegas

and looking at casinos as a really great investment.

Billy Wilkerson is the publisher of the Hollywood Reporter.

He's also a developer.

He purchases land,

and he begins work on the Flamingo.

This is his dream.

- Post-war cost of material is so high that

within about a month and a half,

he's already run out of money.

- So the story is that Wilkerson looks to Siegel,

and at first, Siegel and Wilkerson do work side by side.

Siegel then scares him so far off the project

that he leaves Las Vegas and pretty much doesn't come back.

- Siegel may be great at murdering people,

but what he is not great at is managing them.

- There are plumbing problems.

There's problems with delays in the construction.

- The budget for the Flamingo balloons

from 1.2 million to 6 million,

and the Syndicate has to float him a million plus dollars

to get this project completed.

- They're wondering is he skimming some of the money

that they're giving him that's to be used

on the Flamingo Hotel and Casino for his own personal gain?

- Shortly before Christmas 1946,

Lucky Luciano convenes a meeting

of Syndicate bosses in Havana, Cuba.

- Lucky Luciano says, "We think Bugsy is stealing from us,

and it's time for him to be taken out."

But Meyer Lansky, who is one of the crime bosses,

he pleads for his old friend's life, and he says,

"Let's at least wait until the Flamingo Hotel is open

before we decide what to do."

[thunder rumbles]

- [Laurence] December 26th, 1946.

The Flamingo's much- anticipated opening

does not go according to plan.

- There is a rainstorm that prevents many

of Siegel's high-rolling friends

from Los Angeles from driving out.

- The hotel rooms are not ready,

and those who come to gamble take their winnings

and go either to the El Rancho Vegas

or to the Hotel Last Frontier.

- He loses $300,000 in the first few weeks

of operations at the Flamingo.

[dark tense music

- [Laurence] The opening of the Flamingo is a disaster,

but despite all of the setbacks, Bugsy doesn't give up.

- In March of 1947, they reopen, and by May,

they are already turning a profit,

which is a huge deal in casinos.

- [Laurence] But Siegel won't have long

to enjoy the Flamingo's newfound success.

- The casino turning a profit was the first good news

that Siegel really got.

I think there was a false sense of security there.

Meyer Lansky protected Siegel,

but there were members in the Syndicate

who wanted Siegel dead.

- Within minutes of Siegel's murder,

a number of Syndicate henchmen,

including Siegel's old compatriot Moe Sedway,

march onto the casino floor

and announce that the Flamingo is under new management.

[dark tense music]

- [Laurence] When Bugsy Siegel first moves

to California in the late 1930s,

he sets his sights on one

of the West Coast mob's most lucrative rackets.

- [Commentator] And here comes Rosemont!

It's gonna be a photograph finish!

- Horse racing is big business in the thirties.

This is the era of Seabiscuit.

The Santa Anita race track is a huge deal.

It's really like a cultural touchstone at this period.

- [Commentator] What a triumph for Seabiscuit.

[camera shutter clicks]

- In the days before you had the internet,

you could legally bet at the tracks.

Now if you couldn't be there

and you were doing off-track betting,

you would have to go through a bookie.

- Gambling bookmakers need to share information about races

before they happen,

but that's illegal.

You can't use Western Union

to send information about a horse race

or any kind of sporting event until after it's over.

Now this, of course, it doesn't work

if you wanna run a gambling operation.

- So what they're looking for is that information

before the race happens.

The illegal wire service provides that,

and bookies are paying anywhere

from 100 to $250 a week for that information.

- There are two competing race wire services at this point.

Continental, which is owned by James Ragen

and is organized crime but not a part of the Syndicate.

- The second, Transamerica, is run by Al Capone

with the support of the Syndicate.

The Syndicate wants to take over all wire services,

so they set their eyes on Continental.

[dark dramatic music]

- So Bugsy's part is that if he's able

to take over the illegal wire service

in the southwest United States, then he gets to run it,

and he gets to keep a part of the profits.

And he does just that.

By the early 1940s, Bugsy, through various means of charm,

intimidation, and outright violence,

he wipes out Continental Wire Service.

- Transamerica now controls

the entire wire service operation,

and Continental fold up.

- [Laurence] Bugsy might be the big man in LA for now,

but his Hollywood lifestyle

is making his East Coast backers uneasy.

- As Siegel rises in power on the West Coast,

he also rises in prominence.

He becomes something of a minor celebrity.

- He loved the celebrity life.

Hollywood crowds absolutely loved him.

Frank Sinatra, he told friends

that this guy has this charisma that's so appealing.

He's so good looking and he's so tough.

- He is a public figure in the way

that mob bosses are not supposed to be.

You are not supposed to draw attention to yourself

or anything that you're doing.

This begins to rub his bosses back east the wrong way.

[ominous music]

By '46, Bugsy's wire racket is incredibly lucrative.

By some accounts, he's making as much as 25 grand a month

on his Las Vegas operation alone.

Siegel is consistently failing

to report profits from his various rackets on time.

First of all, it's just disrespectful,

but where's all the money going?

Some begin to perceive him as being

too big for his britches,

that he's acting less like a loyal lieutenant

and more like a boss himself.

And one person who is especially upset about this,

story goes, is none other

than the actual boss, Lucky Luciano.

- In the mob, time and time again,

if you don't follow their definition

of the straight and narrow, you're out.

- So they decide to take this

whole West Coast wire operation away from Bugsy,

and that's when Bugsy loses it.

- Siegel is expectedly furious.

He'll tell anyone who will listen that it's his racket,

he'll run it how he wants.

They gotta keep their hands off of the profits.

It is yet another open display

of not only arrogance, but defiance.

And in the organized crime world,

that type of defiance often warranted a death sentence.

- [Laurence] According to one source,

the New York mob may have asked the Chicago Outfit

for help with their Bugsy problem.

It's likely the Chicago Outfit had

some inside information on Bugsy's movements

that would help them to pull off the hit.

- There are theories that the Syndicate reaches out

to the Chicago Outfit and says,

"Look, this is a problem for all of us,

and if you wanna have more control over the race wire,

you need to help us take care of this problem."

I think the Outfit did stand to gain a lot

if they got Siegel out of the way.

- When Bugsy is killed, the horse racing wire issue is one

of the first ideas floated for why he is murdered.

- There are some reports of Siegel

and some of his associates having arguments

at the Flamingo about this very subject.

- [Laurence] On June 26th, 1947, less than a week

after his murder, Bugsy Siegel is laid to rest

in a $5,000 silver-plated casket.

- Typically, when someone who was a prominent figure

in the mafia or the Syndicate passed away,

you had this lavish funeral with hundreds of guests,

and that wasn't the case with Ben's funeral.

[somber music]

- This man who had so much notoriety

and so many people knew about him

attracted almost no attention for his funeral.

- Reportedly, there were six guests.

There's no Virginia Hill.

Meyer Lansky doesn't fly out.

None of his associates are there.

They say that his funeral took about five minutes.

Meyer Lansky and any of his other compatriots know

that once you cross the mob, everyone has to cut you off.

[tense music]

- As he's being laid to rest, gossip is already fomenting

about who killed Siegel and why.

- There's a lot of people who think maybe this wasn't

an inside job,

that maybe it's all the enemies he made in LA

rather than the tension that he had with the Syndicate.

- His ego knew no bounds,

and he started to muscle in on other people's territory.

[intense dramatic music]

- Jack Dragna is once described

in a state crime commission report

as the Al Capone of Los Angeles.

- He was involved in Los Angeles for four decades,

kind of helped establish that mafia organization there.

He made the bulk of his money during prohibition.

- He runs an illegal wire service,

transmits information about horse races, betting purposes.

He runs a number of casinos 12 miles off shore,

making it perfectly legal, and he enjoys a degree

of autonomy from his bosses on the East Coast.

- He was a native of Corleone, Sicily,

and was often back and forth between Italy and America.

- He is very much a honor-bound mafioso,

and Siegel doesn't respect that at all.

- So when Bugsy arrives in Los Angeles,

there are really big changes in the works.

- Siegel sends people

to essentially tear apart Dragna's offices,

and so, this is a direct affront.

- Worst thing that you can do

to a mobster is humiliate him publicly,

but that is exactly what Siegel has done,

but Dragna is the type of guy who understands

that, in the mob world, what goes around comes around.

Power ebbs and flows.

- Dragna doesn't do anything initially

because he understood that Lucky Luciano had

to give the okay for all of this to happen,

so I think he was just biding his time

and waiting until the right moment to take Bugsy out.

- In the days after Bugsy's murder,

there's a lot of gossip amongst gangsters

and the police that Jack Dragna is the one

that ordered the hit.

Dragna is essentially able to regain control

of all of the Southern California rackets.

And so, for Luciano, if someone else is willing

to take out Siegel and he doesn't have to be the one

to order that hit,

I think it weighs a little less on your conscience.

- [Laurence] The Dragna theory gets a boost in 1987

when his former chauffeur and bodyguard,

Eddie "The Catman" Cannizzaro,

confesses that he shot Bugsy on his boss's order.

- And according to Eddie Cannizzaro,

Jack Dragna got word from Meyer Lansky,

"Hey, we'd like this to happen in your territory,"

and he gave the assignment to Eddie Cannizzaro.

- In his confession, Cannizzaro says, quote,

"I moved up on the lawn

and could see clearly through the bay window.

I nestled the barrel on a branch and took my time

before I squeezed off the shots in rapid fire.

I was picked because I knew Siegel

and wouldn't make a mistake."

It was no secret to the police who Cannizzaro was,

so the fact that he was a known associate

of Dragna lends some plausibility to this theory.

[suspenseful music]

- But there is this strain of mobsters who,

at the end of their life, they like to claim certain deaths.

- Why would Cannizzaro lie?

Well, to elevate himself in the annals of mob history.

- And there are inconsistencies with his story.

For instance, he says that when he left,

he drove southbound towards Wilshire.

Witnesses said, "No, no, no.

"We saw the car drive off northbound towards Sunset."

- We also know that Cannizzaro is, in some sense,

is a bit of a strange guy.

He's called The Catman for a reason,

that at this time he's living with his mother

in a house with 30 cats.

- Whether Jack Dragna hired Cannizzaro

to take Bugsy Siegel out can't be ruled out.

He was certainly somebody who knew that world,

understood that world, and would act on behalf

of his boss, Jack Dragna,

who had, after all, been humiliated

and probably, at some point, in front of Catman.

- Bugsy Siegel

was one of America's first celebrity mobsters.

He may have been vicious and ruthless

when it came to business,

but his good looks and charismatic personality

also made him a Hollywood legend.

Perhaps all that adulation and celebrity had gone

to Bugsy's head, leading him to bet

that he was too important and big

to bow down to his Syndicate bosses.

Whatever his reasoning, Siegel acts like he's untouchable

and he does so at his own peril.

- By 1947, Siegel knows there are lots

of people out to get him.

He's making a ton of money in both California and Las Vegas,

but he's also widely perceived to be skimming profits.

He's also defiant in the face of his bosses

when they tried to take away the wire racket,

but it could also be the case

that there was a threat literally right

by his side the whole time.

[dark dramatic music]

In 1937, the Syndicate

sends Siegel some help,

a former boxer turned mob enforcer named Mickey Cohen,

who is notoriously violent both with his fists

as well as his guns,

and Cohen is maybe one of the few people

who could stand up to Siegel

because he knew he could back it up.

- [Laurence] Bugsy makes Mickey Cohen

his personal bodyguard, and before long,

Cohen's a trusted associate.

- Cohen was very loyal.

In fact, Cohen is the kind of guy

who really does fit the mold

of what organized crime wants in a soldier.

He was willing to take the rap for Bugsy.

He spent time in jail and in prison taking the fall,

many believe, for things

that Siegel's actually responsible for.

- [Laurence] With Mickey Cohen as his strong right arm,

Bugsy is the major underworld player on the West Coast,

but are his bosses back east

considering a change of management?

- One of the key questions at the heart

of the Siegel mystery is the degree

to which he was or was not expendable, right?

How far could he push it as a valuable lieutenant

before people would crack down on it?

- The mob have really lost trust

in his ability to turn a profit.

[tense music]

- An FBI agent came to Ben before he was murdered and said,

"I have intel saying that people back east want to kill you.

You know, I just want you to know."

- Reportedly, Siegel's final days

in Las Vegas are not pretty.

He's suspicious.

He's lashing out at longtime associates,

accusing them of planning against him.

One story has it on June 20th, 1947,

just hours before Siegel is killed,

he's asking Cohen for some equipment.

- Cohen later says,

"It sounds like Bugsy knew he was gonna be taken down,

and he wasn't going down without a fight."

- Saying this to Mickey Cohen

and trusting him as a valued lieutenant

wasn't really the best thing to do.

- I think a man like Cohen looks at Siegel and thinks,

"You know, maybe I'll get my opportunity.

Maybe I'll get this racket, maybe I'll get this cut."

But Siegel doesn't really have that in mind.

He wants to control everything on the West Coast.

So would Cohen have gotten fed up about that?

- It's quite possible that, at some point,

Mickey Cohen had got tired of resting in the shadow

and being his fall guy.

[intense dramatic music]

- Cohen is Siegel's right hand man in LA,

which means he knows his comings and goings.

He knows this mansion.

This is exactly the type of person

and the type of inside knowledge that you need

if you're trying to take down a person

who is already fearful, is already suspicious,

and already knows how the mob operates.

- Hours after Siegel's murder,

Cohen reportedly drives to the Roosevelt Hotel,

where he believes the killers are staying,

marches into the lobby,

fires several rounds into the ceiling,

and demands that the killers present themselves.

And after 10 minutes when they don't,

police are on their way, and he drives out.

[sirens wailing]

It is a very theatrical display of grief

for his deceased friend.

Boss?

- Bystanders suggest that Cohen puts on this dramatic show

because he's trying to cover up the fact

that he's responsible for Bugsy's death.

- Mickey Cohen really benefits from the death of his boss.

Bugsy Siegel's death leads him to gain control

of the majority of the rackets in LA,

and Cohen becomes known as pretty much the boss of LA.

This is an opportunity that I don't think

most people would've anticipated for Cohen.

I think it's possible that this was quid pro quo.

I think it's also possible that the Syndicate

wanted someone a little easier to control,

maybe not as smart or as charismatic.

- Cohen never admits any involvement in Siegel's murder.

The closest we maybe come is an interview he gave

between prison stints in 1957 to Mike Wallace.

- Whether one of those deserved men was Siegel is something

that Cohen took to his grave.

[intense dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Bugsy Siegel was many things,

a pathological killer with a hair-trigger temper,

a risk-taking high stakes gambler,

a handsome, charming social climber,

and a notorious womanizer.

- Siegel is someone people get attracted to

because he doesn't look like a gangster.

He looks like a Hollywood star.

- In the late twenties,

Bugsy Siegel marries his childhood sweetheart,

a woman named Esta.

He had affairs throughout

the duration of his marriage.

She actually divorces him

on the grounds of his unfaithfulness.

- [Laurence] But some say it's the way Bugsy treated

another woman that may have led to his murder.

[calm pulsating music]

- Where everyone looks between 1942 and 1947

with Ben Siegel, one almost always sees Virginia Hill.

- Hill was not a conventional beauty by Hollywood standards,

but she was still an impressive, attractive woman.

She had red hair, she was vivacious,

she had a big personality,

and she also had her own criminal backstory.

- Virginia Hill is born in Alabama.

She moves as a teenager to Chicago around 1933

when Chicago is host to the World's Fair.

The only thing we know for certain is

that she starts working as a waitress

at the San Carlo Italian Village

in the Italian section of the World's Fair.

And who's hanging out there? Capone's Chicago Outfit.

So she starts serving and

then working for mobsters

within Capone's outfit.

- She would transport illicit materials,

which would range from anything, from just letters to cash

to narcotics around the country.

You have to show up on time, you have to deliver as promised

and you need to keep your mouth shut.

She is reportedly very good at this.

- [Laurence] According to the National Museum

of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement,

Virginia Hill rises higher than any other woman

in the national underworld.

- Bugsy Siegel falls for Virginia Hill.

There's no doubt in my mind that he really does love her

and is really attracted to her.

He lavishes her with furs.

He rents this gorgeous house for her in Beverly Hills.

This is not just any old affair.

- I think they legitimately loved each other,

but just because you love someone

doesn't mean it's a healthy relationship.

- They're said to have had very violent fights.

They are flinging insults and furniture at each other.

- We know that Hill often gave as much as she took,

but she's taking it from a man who's twice her size.

Maybe after years of this abuse, she's had enough.

[dramatic music]

- Bernie Sindler is an associate of Meyer Lansky's

who later writes a memoir,

and in it, he talks about a meeting that he had

with Virginia Hill in 1946.

He's in Las Vegas. He's at the Flamingo.

- He claims that she was having something

of an argument with a gentleman.

When he approached, she introduced the gentleman

as another brother.

This one is a marine stationed nearby at Camp Pendleton.

Hill is telling her brother about

yet another violent confrontation.

This one's so violent that it left Hill with bruises.

And she says to her brother

that she's now fearing for her life.

She thinks that Siegel is going to kill her.

- And Sindler recalled that her brother said something like,

"I oughta kill that son of a bitch."

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] On June 20th, 1947,

six months after Bernie Sindler sees Hill

and her alleged Marine brother at the Flamingo,

her other brother, Chick, is upstairs

in the Beverly Hills mansion she shared with Bugsy

when the shots ring out.

[wind blowing]

- Why were the curtains open if it was late at night?

Somebody must have opened them.

- Sindler drew what he thought

was the appropriate conclusion.

Chick had opened a curtain before he went upstairs

so that his brother would have a clean shot at Ben Siegel.

- Hill's brother, being a Marine,

would be very familiar with an M1 Carbine.

He'd be probably proficient with it.

- [Laurence] Sindler also claims the M.O.

in Bugsy's murder is inconsistent with a mob hit.

- A typical mob hit is when you go up to a guy

with a handgun up to his head and you shoot him

because you're not gonna miss.

- [Laurence] The fact that Virginia Hill suddenly flew off

to Paris the day before Bugsy's murder

also raises questions.

- The timing of the travel

gives Hill a perfect alibi.

They had a fight, so she needed some time away, so she left,

nowhere near the Beverly Hills mansion

when Siegel was killed.

- When Virginia Hill is questioned,

she says that she can't imagine

that Bugsy Siegel is involved in all this criminal activity.

And she says, "Well, I'm not his mistress.

If anything, his mistress is the Flamingo Hotel."

- Hill is a old school mobster in her own right.

She's not gonna squeal. It's just not in her nature.

- 19 years later in 1966, Virginia Hill tragically dies

of an overdose of sleeping pills,

allegedly committing suicide,

and she takes all of her secrets to the grave.

- But she wasn't the only woman who might have had a reason

to want Bugsy killed and the means to make it happen.

- [Laurence] 2014, 71-year-old Robbie Sedway,

the second son of Bugsy Siegel associate Moe Sedway is dying

of throat cancer when he reveals a long held family secret

to Los Angeles Magazine writer Amy Wallace,

a secret that Sedway believes solves the mystery

of Bugsy's killing once and for all.

- Robbie says his mother told him who killed Bugsy.

It's a love story, he tells Wallace,

and it's a story with his mother, Bee, at the center.

- All of this was revealed in a memoir,

and Robbie had not published his mother's memoir

because he thought it was too hot.

There might be some problems

if he made that information known.

- On his deathbed, he has a change of heart

and sees it as his responsibility

to reveal the answer

to one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century.

[intense dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Moe Sedway was one of Bugsy Siegel's oldest

and closest friends from their juvenile delinquent days

in the street gangs of Brooklyn, New York.

Early in the prohibition era,

Bugsy brings Moe into the Jewish mob,

formed by Meyer Lansky.

- Whereas Siegel is violent and confrontational,

Moe is more of the numbers guy.

He's quiet and more intellectual.

- [Laurence] In 1936, 41-year-old Moe Sedway

marries 17-year-old Beatrice "Bee" Kittle.

Bugsy is the best man at their wedding,

but by the 1940s the relationship

between the two old friends is starting to fracture.

- [Commentator] And here comes Rosemont!

It's gonna be a photograph finish!

- I think Sedway sees himself as subordinate to Bugsy

in a way that he doesn't believe that he should be.

There's a lot of tension between them.

Sedway's really in charge of a lot

of the Las Vegas race wire operations,

and Siegel sees himself as the king of this operation.

He does not think that anyone should have any control

over what is his cash cow.

- [Laurence] In her 2014 article in Los Angeles Magazine,

Amy Wallace details the events

in Bee Sedway's unpublished book.

- Bee writes that Siegel becomes aware

that Moe is not only keeping his own set

of financial records, he's communicating directly

with Meyer Lansky about the financial condition

of the Flamingo.

Bugsy is so enraged that he decides to have Moe killed.

[tense music]

In the manuscript, Bee says that Siegel convenes a meeting

of all of his associates in Las Vegas

where he makes clear what he wants to happen to Moe Sedway.

- He's said, "I want Moe out. I want him dead.

I wanna feed him

to the Flamingo Hotel garbage disposal."

- Moe, he heard about this, called Beatrice,

and being the good wife, she came rushing to Las Vegas,

and they had a conversation out in the desert.

He said, "I don't wanna talk in town.

We need to talk out where no one can hear us."

And she and Moe hatched an idea

that they needed to eliminate Ben.

They contacted Meyer Lansky and got his endorsement

to do this even though this was his best friend.

[dark eerie music]

- Robbie Sedway, Moe's son,

says that he asked his mom Bee one night when he was young

if she knew who killed Bugsy Siegel.

His mother's response?

"Moose, and don't tell anybody I told you that."

- Moose Pandza, six feet three, maybe 230, 240 pounds,

a construction worker and a truck driver.

- Moe and Bee have kind of an unconventional relationship

because Moe is significantly older than her,

and she is having an open affair

with this truck driver Moose.

And weirdly, Moe even becomes friends with Moose.

He treats him as a trusted confidant in a lot of ways.

- Robbie Sedway claims that his father

and mother asked Moose to kill Bugsy

before Bugsy killed Moe.

- Moose has a reputation as an avid hunter,

and so the story is that he gets access to this rifle,

that he shoots Bugsy, and because he's so comfortable

with firearms that he leaves the scene,

[car buzzes past]

he breaks down his weapon,

and he tosses parts into the Pacific Ocean.

- Bugsy's death allows Moe Sedway to flourish.

He and another associate take over the Flamingo,

and they make it far more profitable

than it ever was under Bugsy.

- Robbie Sedway also said that his mom told him,

"Listen, Bugsy's murder had nothing to do with money.

It was because he betrayed his friend. Be clear."

- Bugsy's death can be seen as poetic justice,

a violent death for a man who rose to fame

and fortune through violent means.

- Siegel made so many enemies that we are unlikely

to ever know for certain who killed him and why.

- Bugsy Siegel's life will always be defined

by two contrasting images, the glitz and glamour

of the Vegas nightlife he helped to create

and his bullet-riddled body on a blood-soaked couch

in Beverly Hills.

Regardless of why Bugsy's life was cut short

and at whose orders,

he remains one of the most iconic mobsters

in American history, and his unsolved murder

one of the mob's most enduring mysteries.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching "History's Greatest Mysteries."

[dark dramatic music]