All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E06.The.Murder.of.Sam.Giancana.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.H264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Tonight, the murder of
a notorious Mob kingpin.

Sam Giancana is the
very personification

of the Mafia in
America in the 1960s.

He's not only the head
of the Chicago Outfit,

he is America's
celebrity gangster.

He is known to hobnob with
a lot of Hollywood celebrities

like Frank Sinatra
and Marilyn Monroe.

When Sam Giancana's
murdered,

it's front-page news.

But 50 years later,

the identity of Sam
Giancana's killer

remains a mystery.

Solving Sam Giancana's murder

could open up a Pandora's Box.

With every Mob murder,

it's never one thing.

It's always a
combination of things.

Now we explore

the top theories surrounding
the assassination

of a Mob legend.

Everyone benefits from
Sam Giancana's murder.

Police think that
this is a Mob hit,

but maybe the CIA had
something to do with it.

Giancana was killed

before he can share
everything he knows.

There's someone who
doesn't want him to talk.

Why was Sam Giancana killed,
and who ordered his murder?

June 19th, 1975.

Shortly before midnight, police
respond to an emergency call

from a modest home in
Oak Park, Illinois.

At the scene,
they find

a dead body in a
pool of blood.

This man has been
shot seven times.

Once in the back of the
head, five times in the neck,

and once straight
through the mouth.

When police start to
investigate the scene,

they noticed $1,400
in his pocket.

And behind the body is a pan
of partially cooked sausages

that are still on the stove.

So they think, "Okay,

well, this wasn't a
robbery gone wrong."

They quickly
realize that this is

not just your average victim.

This is Sam Giancana,

one of the bosses of
the Chicago Outfit.

He's a
household name.

He's in the papers all the time.

He's on TV.

He's dating movie stars.

He's hanging out
with Frank Sinatra.

But all the while, people also
know that he's the mobster.

This is one of the biggest
Mob hits in American history,

and a lot of people
do seem to benefit

from Giancana's death.

He's connected to everything,

and maybe someone wants
to take out Giancana

because of what he knows.

The Chicago Outfit, the
federal government, the CIA.

There's so many people

that would've been
happy to see him gone.

And there really
aren't any obvious clues

as to who the killer was

or what the motive
was for the shooting.

So what we're left with

is a mystery that is
now over 50 years old.

But Giancana's
past as a Mob kingpin

provides a long list of
potential suspects and motives.

Sam Giancana's
born in 1908.

He grows up in the Little
Italy section of Chicago

known as "The Patch."

This is kind of a poor,
run-down area of the city,

and he doesn't have
a great childhood.

So Sam, at an early age,
turns to a life of crime.

The police believe
by his early 20s,

he may have killed
already three men.

Many folks simply
called him "Mooney,"

which is another
word for being crazy.

Giancana is someone
who's very willing

to play into this
idea that he's crazy.

This is really a
persona that he builds,

a way to seem tough.

Al Capone allegedly took a
liking to a young Sam Giancana,

and he was viewed as a rising
star in the Chicago Mafia.

A famous crime
associated with the

Chicago Outfit is the Saint
Valentine's Day Massacre.

Not only is it alleged that
Sam was there as a driver,

but also as a shooter.

In 1931,
Giancana's mentor, Al Capone,

is arrested for tax fraud
and sentenced to prison.

Giancana spends the next 20
years looking to replace him

as the head of the Chicago Mob.

Sam is rising
through the ranks,

and by 1957, he is the
head of the Chicago Mob.

They expand their empire
under Sam's control

outside of Chicago.

They start taking over
not only Las Vegas

but all the way down to Cuba.

Sam and the Outfit are raking
in millions of dollars a year.

Sam Giancana
is the epitome

of what it meant to be an
American crime lord, Mafia Don,

and he controlled a
national syndicate

that was second to none.

Everybody in America
knew who Sam Giancana was,

and he loved that,
and he ate it up.

But
in the late 1950s,

Giancana makes a
fateful decision.

He becomes directly involved
with the federal government.

Outside of traditional
organized crime,

he has a relationship
with the CIA.

He's allegedly taking
meetings with JFK

while he's president.

Giancana was trying to play
everything against the middle

and expected that
the White House

would take a kinder
approach to organized crime,

but it was the exact opposite.

He has been connected
to organized crime

essentially from his childhood,

and the Feds want to find
out exactly what he knows.

In 1965,
after years of trying,

federal agents believed
they finally found a way

to bring down Giancana.

They put him before a grand jury

investigating the Chicago
Mob's alleged racketeering

and narcotics operations.

They give him immunity
from prosecution.

They say, "If you talk, you're
not gonna get prosecuted.

You don't have to
plead the Fifth,

and you're gonna be okay."

They ask him questions,
he doesn't answer them,

and he winds up being
put in jail for a year

for contempt of court.

But the other
members of the Mafia

don't like this public
attention at all.

After Giancana is
released from prison,

he ends up going
into exile in Mexico.

In 1974, he gets deported
back to the United States,

and upon his arrival,
he's subpoenaed.

He's been called in to
testify for a US Senate inquiry

looking into the
CIA's activities,

specifically the
possibility that the Mob

worked with the CIA
to kill Fidel Castro.

That caused grave concern
from a lot of very powerful,

dangerous individuals.

On the
night of his murder,

Giancana throws a party
at his home in Oak Park.

All of the guests
leave by 10:30 p.m.

Living upstairs is Joseph
DiPersio, who's 82 years old.

He lives there with his wife,

and they're kind of like
the caretakers for Sam

and the property.

Around 11:00 p.m.
DiPersio calls down to Giancana

just to do a quick check, make
sure he's doing all right,

but there's no response.

So DiPersio heads
down to the unit.

He walks down into
the basement kitchen,

and Giancana's on the
ground, blood everywhere.

He immediately calls the police.

The police come and
question DiPersio.

He doesn't have
a lot of answers.

He doesn't even hear
the shots being fired.

Police start to
piece things together,

and one of the early
theories that emerges

has nothing to do
with Mob business.

It's all about
his personal life.

Oddly enough,
one of the clues

that leads investigators
down this path

is that pan of partially
cooked sausages.

He had just recently
had gallbladder surgery.

And the last thing you wanna do

after having a surgery like that

is eating very greasy,
very fatty food.

Whoever those sausages were
for, they're not for Giancana.

He was preparing this
meal for somebody

that he cared about and trusted
enough to turn his back to.

It shows you how much
he had let down his guard,

that somebody was there that
he felt comfortable with,

that he wasn't afraid of,

but the way that the
murder was carried out

suggested a lot of
anger and animosity.

Looking at the
overkill of this crime,

seven shots to the
head, one in the mouth,

this seems like
something personal,

not a professional hit.

In 1977,

FBI investigators learn of a
possible reason for such anger.

A source tells the Bureau that
Giancana was having an affair

with the wife of Chicago
mobster Tony Spilotro.

This would not have
been the first time

that he slept with
another mobster's wife.

Giancana is a
notorious womanizer,

and Nancy Spilotro
was considered

to be quite the knockout.

Tony Spilotro was
this little 5'3"

demonic crazy man that was
running around Chicago,

putting people's heads in vises

and popping people's
eyeballs out,

and getting a reputation
for extreme violence.

If all of this
sounds familiar,

it's because Joe Pesci's
character in Casino

is said to be based
off of Tony Spilotro.

He's really known for
his ruthless behavior.

And Tony Spilotro at one time

lived a couple blocks
from Sam Giancana.

He knew how to sneak
between the backyards

to get into his house.

If Giancana betrayed him
by sleeping with his wife,

you can imagine that this
would clearly send Spilotro

just flying into
a murderous rage.

While Tony Spilotro

may have had a strong motive,

some claim there's one
detail that doesn't add up.

Despite the initial
suspicions pointed at Spilotro,

a lot of people are
skeptical about that theory.

In 1975, at the time
that Giancana was murdered,

Spilotro was not a full-time
resident of Chicago.

He was living
full-time in Las Vegas.

And Sam Giancana
knows that

Tony is a violent
psychopath.

He certainly wouldn't
have his back to him

cooking him sausage and peppers.

In 1965, Sam Giancana
spends a year in prison

for refusing to testify
against the Mafia.

However, once he's released,

he finds that he's not
welcome back in Chicago.

The leadership of
the Chicago Outfit

thought maybe it's
time that Sam move on

'cause he was more of a
liability than he was an asset.

He's exiled to Mexico,

and Sam is not
retired at this point.

Sam continues to be Sam,

and Sam is very good
at making money.

A lot of mobsters
think very small.

Sam Giancana was a
mobster who thought big.

The world was his oyster.

He starts getting involved
with Mexican casinos

and bringing in
money through them,

and ultimately throughout
Central and South America.

And then he extends to
other crimes like prostitution

and narcotics,
extortion, kidnapping,

everything else
you could think of.

According to the
book Double Cross,

which is written by members
of the Giancana family,

Giancana starts getting involved
in narcotics trafficking

with men from Colombia,

who will later go on to
become the Medellin Cartel,

which is led famously
by Pablo Escobar.

He's raking in
millions from narcotics,

and then he goes even further.

He extends his reach
to the Caribbean

and even the Middle East.

He opens up offshore
gambling boats.

He's making millions
and millions of dollars,

and he's not giving one
penny to the Chicago Outfit.

This does not sit well
with organized crime groups.

In Italian-American
organized crime,

even if you are an
individual earner,

that money still needs to go
back to your crime family.

"It doesn't matter if
you're doing it out of state.

It doesn't matter if you're
no longer our leader.

You belong to us until
the day you die."

He tells him, "I'm
not giving you anything.

I made money for you.

You sent me down here to Mexico.

I'm gonna continue to
make money for myself

and for my family."

The Mob was furious with
Sam for not cutting them in

on all the money he
was making in Mexico.

At the same time,
the Mexican government

wanted to become
friendly with Cuba

and was concerned
that this American

had been attached to a
plot to kill Fidel Castro.

The authorities came
to his place in Mexico,

and they literally
arrested him in his pajamas

and sent him back to Chicago.

Even
when Giancana returns

to the Chicago Outfit's
territory in 1974,

he refuses to pay tribute.

There were a lot of
people in Chicago

when he came home

that felt someone needs to
go sit with Sam Giancana

and tell him the rules
of the game again.

"He might have forgotten them,
and we gotta remind him."

There is physical evidence
that ties the Chicago Outfit

potentially to this crime.

In the initial investigation
into this murder,

it did not look like a Mob hit

because the shooter used
a .22-caliber pistol.

Just doesn't seem
like a Mob gun.

The Mob, up to that point,
used larger caliber weapons.

They're famous for
using a Tommy gun,

which shoots .45-caliber.

Al Capone himself carried
around a .45-caliber Colt 1911

that he called "Sweetheart."

However, in 1977, Time
magazine releases an article

which talks about how,
from 1975 to 1977,

the .22 seemed to be the
preferred weapon for Mob hits.

In August of 1975,

landscapers in a town called
River Forest, Illinois,

happened to find in the woods

a discarded .22-caliber pistol.

River Forest is pretty much
right next door to Oak Park,

where Sam Giancana lived and
was murdered two months prior.

And this particular
...22 has been modified

with a homemade silencer.

If we add a silencer
to a .22-caliber handgun,

we can get that shot down
to, like, 30 decibels,

which is about like the
sound of like a whisper.

And so this would explain why

DiPersio doesn't hear anything.

It's not because he's old,

it's not because
he's watching TV.

It's because of that silencer.

They did a ballistics
test on this weapon,

and it was the weapon
used to kill Sam Giancana.

The location
of the discarded gun

may point to one Mafia
triggerman in particular.

If you're gonna use that gun,

then you've gotta come in close.

So it's believed
that Sam was killed

by someone he knew really well.

And interestingly, the
gun is found on a road

that would lead you
from Sam's house

to one of his closest
allies, Dominic Blasi,

also known as "Butch."

Blasi, he did
live in River Forest

and was probably Sam
Giancana's most trusted soldier

and confidant, a guy that
he trusted with his life.

Blasi is somebody
that has literally been

by Giancana's side for decades.

He actually was one
of the pallbearers

at Sam Giancana's funeral.

It was the common
perception by both the press

and local law enforcement

that Butch was the one
who killed Giancana.

When police question
him,

he swears that he was there
earlier in the evening,

but that when he left, his
friend was still alive.

He always denied it and was
pretty adamant in his denials

until he died in the early '90s.

But they always tap
your best friend

to kill you in that world.

And Blasi was
Giancana's best friend.

Whether Blasi was the
actual gunman or not,

the question now becomes:
what was the reason behind it?

What is the motive?

One of the best motives we've
got comes in the early 2000s

during testimony
by Nick Calabrese,

who was a longtime hitman
for the Chicago Outfit.

He claims that the

Chicago Outfit's main
issue with Giancana

was not paying them their cut.

The problem with this, though,

is: why was this
hit so personal?

Why was there this
level of overkill?

He's shot in the
back of the head,

that would've killed him,

but then he's shot five
more times in the neck

and the one shot in his mouth.

A lot of researchers insist

that what happened to
Giancana was a Mob hit.

But the nature of it
wasn't over money.

The coroner's
report on the 1975 murder

of Sam Giancana indicates
he was first shot

in the back of the head.

Then the shooter
delivered six more bullets

into his face and neck.

It's a signature of the Mafia

that when they are
gonna kill somebody

who they believe is
snitching to the government,

to deliberately put a
series of bullet shots

around his mouth.

That last shot,
that coup de grace,

is basically saying, "Hey,
keep your mouth shut,"

and it's a warning to
others to also do the same.

The Giancana family
has been relatively vocal

that Giancana's murder

really had nothing
to do with the money.

It had to do with the fact
that he was being subpoenaed

in front of the
Church Committee.

The Church Committee
is the Senate committee

led by Idaho
Senator Frank Church

that is tasked with
investigating the CIA,

specifically whether
there was any collusion

between the CIA and the Mafia.

Within months

of returning to
Chicago from Mexico,

Giancana is told he's
expected to appear under oath

before the Church Committee.

Giancana is somebody
that has a track record

of not ratting anybody out.

In the '60s, he's jailed
for a year for contempt

because he doesn't say anything.

But by 1975, Giancana
has been painted into a corner.

He's tried to plead the Fifth,
but there's no way to know

whether the Senate will
let him get away with that.

Does he wanna risk being
thrown in jail for another year?

This is a 67-year-old man.

It might be Giancana
doesn't wanna risk

having to go to prison again

because he doesn't have
that much life left.

So it's very possible
that he's going to try

a whole nother tactic in
front of the Church Committee,

and that might be
telling the truth.

Giancana's death
happens just five days

before he's set to appear.

All of this ties into the
idea of the code of Omerta.

Omerta is the oath of
silence that you take

when you become a
member of the Mafia.

To break Omerta is to basically
sign your own death warrant.

The Mob is afraid
of what's coming next,

that he may actually
say something.

I mean, he's an
old-school gangster.

He might have kept
his mouth shut,

but seems like an easy
answer just to take him out.

As a longtime
member of the Chicago Outfit,

Giancana's fate rested
in the hands of one man.

Tony Accardo.

Even when Sam
Giancana was boss,

there was still a
boss above the boss,

and that boss was Tony Accardo.

Nobody in America held
the amount of power,

the amount of influence
that Accardo held

in that time period.

Tony Accardo
witnessed Al Capone,

this larger-than-life figure

who winds up drawing a great
deal of attention to himself.

And Tony Accardo realizes that
he should keep your head low.

He wanted to be the boss
without holding the title.

So he created all of these
acting bosses and street bosses

and day-to-day bosses that
would run the family for him.

Despite Sam Giancana
the boss of the Outfit

in 1957, Accardo is actually
the real guy calling the shots,

and Giancana is just sort
of the face of the Outfit.

Accardo spared
Giancana's life in 1966

by exiling him to Mexico.

When Giancana returns in 1974
and is immediately subpoenaed,

the real head of
the Chicago Outfit

may have been less forgiving.

When the FBI gets involved

in the investigation of
Sam Giancana's death,

they immediately
looked to Tony Accardo,

and they identify him
as a potential suspect.

Accardo was very
unhappy with the idea

that Giancana was
now back in Chicago,

and whoever killed Sam Giancana

had to get the okay of Accardo.

But it turns out
that he may have had

a lot more to do with it than
just orchestrating the affair.

In the early 2000s,

the FBI learns that Chicago
Outfit hitman Nick Calabrese

and his nephew
Frank Calabrese, Jr.

are both willing to
turn state's evidence.

They spilled the beans on
a lot of unsolved murders,

and that turned into the biggest

Mob prosecution in
Chicago history.

Operation Family Secrets.

Nick Calabrese goes to the FBI

and tells them
one of the biggest

juiciest secrets of all time.

According to him, Tony Accardo

felt strong enough
about Giancana

that he wanted to do
his own housecleaning.

It's an extraordinary claim.

Tony Accardo hadn't
just authorized

the hit on Sam Giancana.

He had carried out

the hit on Sam Giancana.

If Accardo went out of his
way to commit this hit himself,

this is big.

Mob bosses do not
commit their own hits.

It is likely that
Accardo believed

that Giancana was about to
blow everything wide open.

Yeah, he was old.

He might have looked
like your grandfather,

but he could still
pull a trigger.

This theory makes sense.

Accardo is another person

who Giancana probably
would've trusted,

would have likely allowed

willingly into his
home late at night.

Alongside Giancana,

the Church Committee
also subpoenaed

two other famous
Mafia associates.

Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa
and mobster Johnny Roselli.

Jimmy Hoffa was
friendly with Giancana

and Roselli, and he
was supposed to testify

at the Church
Committee

about six weeks after
Giancana was murdered.

Jimmy Hoffa ended
up disappearing

and never being found.

Johnny Roselli does testify,
and he just drops a bomb.

He says that the Mob was
actually working with the CIA.

Until this point,
this is all rumors.

This is the first time that
we're actually confirming

that there is a connection
between the CIA and the Mob.

After testifying, Johnny
Roselli goes missing.

He's eventually found

dismembered, death
by asphyxiation,

in a 55-gallon oil drum
floating in the bay,

not far from Miami.

Sam Giancana, Jimmy
Hoffa, and Roselli.

All three of them murdered
either before they testified

or after they testified.

This seems to suggest that

the Mafia was willing
to silence anybody

who was willing to
cooperate with Congress.

So the message was clear.

You don't break the
code of silence.

The murder of mobster
Sam Giancana in June 1975

comes at a time of
intense scrutiny

on government
corruption in America.

President Richard
Nixon has resigned

in the Watergate scandal,

and illegal activity by
American spy agencies

is being exposed by the media.

Some believe that
Sam Giancana's murder

wasn't just about
protecting Mob secrets.

Is it possible he was
killed to protect the CIA?

After the Watergate scandal,

one of the things
that came to light

was the improper use
of CIA surveillance

and things of that nature.

And so the Church
Committee was set up

to oversee what was
going on with the CIA.

Today, the Church
Committee is considered

to be one of the biggest
oversight investigations

in all of US history because
they uncover a series of plots,

including the plot
to kill Fidel Castro

by the CIA and the Mob.

These alleged ties between
the CIA and the Mafia

lead to the Church Committee

calling people
like Johnny Roselli

and Sam Giancana to testify.

In June of 1975, the
CIA is in big trouble.

They know exactly
what they've done,

and they know that it's
about to all come out.

So not only we have the Mob

not wanting Sam
Giancana to talk,

but we also have the CIA
not wanting him to expose

that relationship between that.

There are a
number of people,

including Giancana's oldest
daughter, Antoinette Giancana,

who have claimed that the
CIA was somehow involved

in the murder of Sam Giancana.

So we're in the
midst of the Cold War,

and both the Eisenhower
and Kennedy administrations

are very concerned about this
charismatic revolutionary,

Fidel Castro, who aligns
closely with the Soviet Union.

Before Fidel Castro took
control of the Cuban government

in the 1950s, Mafia figures
own most of the major casinos

and hotels in Havana.

Mobsters are essentially
kicked out of Cuba

during the revolution,

and Fidel Castro becomes
a common enemy for the CIA

and the Mafia.

The CIA felt like the
best people to kill Castro

were the most dangerous killers

that they could
find on the streets.

This was an unholy alliance.

Conducted
in total secrecy,

this partnership becomes
known as Operation Mongoose.

We'll never know for
sure what Giancana would

or would not have said
during his testimony,

but due to Roselli's testimony,

we do get a very clear picture

of the collaboration
between the CIA and the Mob.

Roselli tells an
extraordinary story

that has the nation on
the edge of their seats.

He was recruited by the CIA

in a plot to assassinate
Fidel Castro.

And the two key players in
this are Roselli and Giancana.

Sam Giancana
feels that the CIA

and the Mob are two
sides of the same coin.

They both want the same thing,

and they're both
not above murder.

Johnny Roselli
and Sam Giancana

ran a casino in Havana
known as "Sans Souci,"

and so they claimed that they
still had contacts in Cuba

that could get close
enough to Fidel Castro.

During Johnny
Roselli's testimony,

he says that the CIA was
willing to pay these mobsters

$150,000, which is $1.6
million in today's money.

Giancana and Roselli
actually hire someone

to put poison pills in
Fidel Castro's food.

The assassin winds
up backing out.

When the poisoning fails,
then Roselli and Giancana think,

"All right, well, let's
bring in some armed commandos

to assassinate him."

But that didn't work either.

The CIA documents
are declassified

several decades later,

and you just walk
through the documents,

you go, "Oh, Roselli was right.

Roselli was right."

The assassination
attempts on Castro fail.

But we do see other collusion
between Sam and the CIA.

At this time, he's
dating Phyllis McGuire,

who's a musician, a
national celebrity.

He believes that Phyllis
McGuire is cheating on him

with comedian Dan Rowan.

The CIA bugged the
bedroom of Dan Rowan

to appease Sam Giancana.

Now you have not only the
CIA working with gangsters,

you have the CIA help
a gangster deal with

an emotional problem
with his girlfriend.

So what we're looking at in 1975

is that this direct
testimony of Giancana

might simply blow the
top off this story.

Essentially,
Giancana has the power

to completely take down the CIA.

The CIA might wanna
take out Giancana

before he can take out them.

The media and the
public really quickly

start to draw a
connection between the CIA

and Giancana's murder.

If all of this information

was being presented
to the committee,

who else could it
possibly have been?

Case in point, the
Time magazine article,

which talked about how
the .22-caliber pistol

was becoming the preferred
weapon of choice for Mob hits,

also points out
that the .22-caliber

has been the pistol
of choice for the CIA

for years and years.

It reached the point
where Frank Church

felt the need to come
out and make a statement

that these theories that
are being bandied about

couldn't be further
from the truth.

They do uncover
several other assassinations

orchestrated by the CIA,

but when it comes to the
death of Sam Giancana,

Senator Church says it's
probably Mob-related.

Despite these denials,
it makes sense.

I mean, it would be
certainly something

you'd want to investigate.

In 1975,

Sam Giancana is subpoenaed
by the Church Committee

to testify about the
CIA's involvement

with organized crime to kill
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

But the committee is also tasked

with investigating the possible
connection between the CIA

and one of the most
consequential events

in US history,

the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy.

It's something that is

one of the darkest days
in American history,

and we still don't know

60 years later what
exactly happened.

In 1964,

President Lyndon B. Johnson
creates the Warren Commission

to investigate the assassination
of John F. Kennedy,

and they conclude
that Lee Harvey Oswald

is a lone actor in
the assassination.

No one else is involved.

An awful lot of people

were bothered by the
Warren Commission

not looking at other scenarios,

and argued that there were
more plausible theories

than the lone gunman.

And one of them has to
do in part with the idea

that Sam Giancana was involved.

By bringing Giancana
to Washington in 1975,

these investigators
were hoping to find out

whatever Giancana may
know about Castro,

but while they're at it,

they could also ask him
about the JFK assassination.

It's really not a
crazy conspiracy theory,

the way that sometimes
it's made out to be.

'Cause we know there
were quite a few people

that had connections to Giancana

that were within the radius
of that assassination.

Imagine if Giancana testified

and said, "Hey, not only did
the CIA use me for Castro,

but they also used
me to kill JFK."

Now, whether it
is the government

or the Mafia that killed him,

either way, Sam dies
because he knows too much.

Most everyone is in agreement
that Lee Harvey Oswald

is the one who
shot the president.

But did he really act alone?

There is a lot
of strong evidence

that maybe the Mafia
is also involved.

You sound crazy connecting
all the dots there,

but it makes sense.

Lee Harvey Oswald grows
up in New Orleans.

His uncle is a bookie who
works for Carlos Marcello,

who is in charge of
the Mob in New Orleans,

and a friend of Sam Giancana.

Lee Harvey Oswald,
when he is a teenager,

is mentored by this
person, David Ferrie,

who is also a
private investigator

that works with Carlos Marcello.

After the
assassination of Kennedy,

Oswald was murdered
by Jack Ruby,

who was a well-known Mafia
associate of Giancana's.

In 1975,

after Johnny Roselli testifies
before the Church Committee,

his lawyer floated that Johnny

would not only be willing
to talk about Castro,

but he also knew something
about the JFK assassination.

And it was at that point

that Roselli winds up being
murdered just like Giancana.

The really interesting twist
here is that Sam Giancana

and the Mob helped get
President Kennedy elected.

It's pretty much
acknowledged historically

that Sam Giancana helped
the Kennedy campaign

both in West Virginia and
to some degree in Illinois.

With the election there,

Giancana was telling
other mobsters,

"I'm supporting Kennedy

because I think
he'll go easy on us."

Sam Giancana does
all this work behind the scenes

to get John F. Kennedy
elected president,

expecting that his life
is gonna get easier,

and it does not.

The Mob became
very angry and bitter

at the fact that
almost immediately

when Kennedy got into office,

he came after the
Mafia with an assault

that had never been
bigger or more widespread.

A year later, in 1961,

JFK's younger brother
Bobby Kennedy,

who was serving as Attorney
General, goes after Jimmy Hoffa,

who's the head of the Teamsters,

which has connections
to the Mob.

RFK also goes after New Orleans
mobster Carlos Marcello,

who gets deported to Guatemala.

So Giancana allegedly vows
to take revenge on JFK.

Giancana was known
as a very violent guy,

one of the most violent
people that the Chicago Mob

had ever known, that you don't
fool around with Sam Giancana

or you're gonna find
a bullet in your head.

In 1992,
Sam Giancana's brother

and his godson publish
Double Cross.

The book claims to
reveal the Mob boss's

most shocking secrets,
including what he allegedly said

about the Kennedy assassination.

In his book Double Cross,

Chuck Giancana says one
day Sam said to him,

"Look, we," meaning "we,"
the Mob, and the CIA,

"took care of Kennedy together."

He states that Sam
told him

that Lee Harvey Oswald
was a CIA plant,

and that it was Giancana

that ordered the murder
of John F. Kennedy.

So to break it down
in its most simple form,

Oswald was the patsy,

and then Ruby was the
guy sent to take him out.

And that's the
typical Mob protocol.

You assign somebody
to do the job,

and then you assign somebody
to get rid of the guy

that did the job.

There's no way
for Chuck Giancana

to corroborate his story,

and there's no way
that we will ever know

what Sam Giancana might
have testified to in 1975.

But if that is what Sam
Giancana was going to say,

that is an explosive issue.

If Sam Giancana really
had something to do

with the assassination of JFK
in collusion with the CIA,

that is information that
the CIA does not want out,

and it is good reason
to kill Sam Giancana.

Since he
first became the head

of the Chicago Mob,

Sam Giancana has kept the
Chicago Police Department

in his pocket,

but as he prepares to go on
the witness stand in 1975,

this once-close relationship
may have sealed his fate.

Since Giancana's
set to testify

in front of a Senate committee,

federal prosecutors
have a vested interest

in keeping him alive.

In fact, on the night
of Giancana's murder,

there are two officers
that are stationed

directly outside of his house.

At about 10:30 on the night
of the shooting, they left.

The skeptics would argue

what they did was
leave him unprotected.

It's really extraordinary

that, within about an hour
or so after the cops leave,

they're called back
by the housekeeper

saying that Sam Giancana
has been murdered.

And then asked
to investigate it,

the Chicago PD put it off to
the local police department,

who don't have the experience

or the resources to find
out who killed Sam Giancana.

So this brings up
a lot of questions.

Why were they not there?

Why won't they investigate it?

There's people who
believe that Chicago police

deliberately leave
the case unsolved

because they have
something to hide.

It's very possible
when you consider

the history of the
Chicago Police Department

that they played some role

in the conspiracy to
get rid of Giancana.

The Chicago Police Department

is probably one of the
most notoriously corrupt

organizations in the
history of law enforcement.

Chicago police and their
connection to the Mob

goes back all the way to the
gangland days of the 1920s

and the 1930s, when Al
Capone was in charge

and was able to pay off
officers and to pay off judges

to make sure that they
looked the other way

when crimes were
being committed.

Now, it would be
ludicrous to argue

that every Chicago
policeman was corrupt.

But by the time of
the Giancana murder,

reporters noted, there'd only
been two gangland murderers

that had been solved.

Sam Giancana himself
bragged to his associates

that he had many policemen
in his back pocket.

An amazing character
named Richard Cain

is the perfect example
of this intermingling

between law enforcement
and the Mafia in Chicago.

Richard Cain was a Chicago cop

who was a great
police investigator,

and so they say, "Wow,
he's a terrific cop.

But actually, secretly,
he was on the payroll

of Sam Giancana and
always had been.

His police training came
in really handy for the Mob

because he would put mobsters
through lie detector tests,

not to try and get
them on a crime,

but to see if they were
talking about the Outfit.

Cain winds up going to jail.

And what does he do
when he gets out?

He goes straight to work
for Sam Giancana again,

and he's Sam Giancana's
driver for a couple years.

And then he shot in
the face with a shotgun

inside of a sandwich shop.

But it wasn't just cops
who were corrupt in Chicago.

Other parts of the justice
system were on the take.

During the
investigation,

there's a judge who is
actively stonewalling

the progress of the police.

He refuses to allow police to
investigate Giancana's desk.

When the police finally
opened the desk drawers,

they find the guest list

at one of the weddings
of Giancana's daughters.

And this judge was
on the guest list.

So what we're looking at is

a law enforcement
system in Chicago

that is consistently
been corrupt

when they had to deal
with organized crime.

Now, historians
have researched this,

and there's really
no hard evidence

tying the Chicago
Police Department

with the death of Sam Giancana.

It is possible, though,
that Chicago police feared

that Giancana would
eventually spill the beans

about activities between
police and the Mob.

And since he's no longer
the main power broker,

there's no reason
to be nice anymore.

And if that were the case,

Giancana may have ended up
paying the ultimate price.

It's still considered
an open homicide.

We don't know who killed him,
but there were a lot of people

who wanted Sam Giancana dead.

This is a man who has
infiltrated American business,

the CIA.

It's hard to imagine a mobster

more enmeshed with the
United States government.

You can't help but wonder
if we could just figure out

who killed Sam Giancana and why

it might help us solve
some even larger mysteries.

It's the thread
that you could pull,

and the next thing you know,

the whole ball of
the yarn is gone.

50 years later, the unsolved
murder of Sam Giancana

still raises as many questions
as there are suspects.

It remains one of
the most elusive

and intriguing murders in the
annals of organized crime,

particularly for the
secrets it may hold

about a truly tumultuous
period in our history.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
History's Greatest Mysteries.