Gangster Roger Touhy Arrested in Uptown

View of the apartment house located at 5114 Kenmore Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, where Special Agents of the FBI arrested Roger "Terrible" Touhy, Basil "The Owl" Banghart, and Edward Darlak on December 29, 1942.

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Roger Touhy was an Irish-American mob boss and prohibition-era bootlegger from Chicago, Illinois. He is best remembered for having been framed for the 1933 faked kidnapping of gangster John "Jake the Barber" Factor, a brother of cosmetics manufacturer Max Factor, Sr.

The Factor kidnapping was a frame-up. Factor and Al Capone had arranged to fake the kidnapping and produce evidence implicating Touhy in order to eliminate him, so as to assume control over his organization. Despite unreliable testimony, a jury convicted Touhy and his associates; Touhy was sentenced to 99 years in prison and was incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center.

Roger Touhy's FBI mugshot

On October 9, 1942, Touhy and six other men escaped from Stateville. Eventually, they were discovered living in an Uptown Chicago boarding house. Touhy and three of those with him surrendered peacefully; the others were killed while trying to fight their way out. Touhy re-entered Stateville on December 31, 1942, and was sentenced to an additional 199 years in prison for the escape. A later court acknowledged the hoax, and Touhy was released from prison in 1959. Just three weeks later, Roger Touhy and his bodyguard were killed in a mob hit.