Wondery Presents: Frozen Head

Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins and Outfit historians Camillus Robinson and Paul Whitcombe discuss Sam Carlisi, The Chicago Outfit, and the time when the government after Sam Carlisi and his crew. They operated in Western Cook and DuPage Counties throughout the 1980s. Sam Carlisi was called “Wings” and some people believe it was in his youth he was known for his unrivaled ability to elude the authorities. Others claim it was because he flew around the country to connect with other mob families and was a traveling emissary for the Outfit. James “Litte Jimmy” Marcello worked for Sam Carlisi as his chauffeur, emissary, and all-around right-hand man. Carlisi’s third in command was Anthony Zizzo. On the street, guys knew “Little Tony” Zizzo as that boss of Frank Bonavolante, the head of the crew’s gambling operations, and Anthony “Big Tony” or “Tony the Hatch” Chiaramonti, who managed the crew’s juice loan racket. Support the Podcast Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwireClick here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes, click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Transcript Sam Carlisi Well welcome all you are Wiretappers out there we are back here in studio gangland wired. And if you’re on YouTube, you can see I have a couple of 00:07 guests that have been on here regularly and semi regularly. Cam Robinson and Paul Whitcomb from Chicago. We’re going to Chicago today, folks. So welcome cam and Paul, I really appreciate you guys coming on help and tell his story. Thanks for having us. Glad to be here. 00:26 As you know, now cams got a book out there somewhere and I’m supposed to get an interview with Frank Calabrese a Jr’s wife who is who he wrote the book with a story of being married to the Mob, shall we say in Chicago? how’s that coming along? Okay, so final edits I’ve seen the cover and we’ve turned everything in should be going to print here very soon. All the all the edits it’s written and done and they just everything is set to pop so they’re good to go. What was the final title? 01:02 Final title we went with was Chicago swan song a mob wife story. Okay. All right. Guys, this one Yeah. latest ones for that guys. And I’m gonna have an interview with him and Lisa Swan here probably about the time that comes out. So we’ll we’ll be you’ll be hearing from us on Facebook and and on the podcast here. We want to see that book get read by a lot of people don’t wait cam. Absolutely. Yeah. The more the merrier or more the merrier. 01:32 You want readers I understand being an author or podcasts or whatever you want people to to digest your work. I just want to know people are digesting my work. You know, there’s there is the money angle to it. But I think it’d be really valuable information, a real different insight into Chicago outfit. We’ve never had that before. Yeah, it is that validation is sort of seeing what what goes on is I think Paul said it best what comes home with a monster comes home for dinner. So you know, it was it was Paul’s wording in in the interview the we did the initial interview and I really think that that says it I mean, this is this is what what the family is going through, I think we sort of getting windows with Carmela soprano, or Karen Hill and we’ll be good fellows. But we really take a deep dive and it’s it’s quite a story. Yeah, or even Gerard and Karen and Deborah Gravano you know, they get caught up in that ecstasy thing down in Phoenix and and all of them caught a case behind it. So I mean, you know, the family that does crime together goes to jail together. 02:39