On this day, Aug. 13, in 1930, Bessie Starkman, the only Jewish female underboss of a Prohibition era crime family, was gunned down in Ontario near the American border.
Starkman’s husband, Rocco Perri, was the first of Canada’s great bootleggers and the country’s first major mob figure. Starkman was his underboss and the financial brains of the gang, and some considered Perri to be the frontman, while Starkman ruled with an iron fist.
The couple specialized in exporting liquor into the United States, gambling, extortion and prostitution.
Starkman was killed by shotgun blasts as she and Perri were leaving their garage near Niagara Falls. At the time of her death, she was wearing $10,000 worth of jewelry — and authorities said none of it was stolen goods.
Starkman’s funeral was one of the largest mob funerals in Canada’s history.
— Scott McCabe
