August 20, 1964
A couple of days short of a month later after the bodies of Bisesi and Colicci were discovered, the bodies of Harold Hannon age 54 and his buddy 27-year-old Wilfred Delaney were found floating in Boston Harbor. They had met in prison and became fast friends. When they were released, they went into the crime business together.
The theories behind their murders are all over the place. Some have them killed in an apartment in Dorchester, others in South Boston, and others in Roxbury or Somerville. Wimpy Bennett is supposed to have set it up; Buddy McLean is supposed to have done it, and on and on. Vile acts to the bodies may have occurred yet others deny such things. Like most gangster stories, they take on a life of their own and become fodder for all types of lurid rumors. What often seems to be missing is anything close to the truth. Not only is the location of the murders and the identity of the perpetrators all over the lot but there seem to be many reasons offered for their demise.
For instance, Barboza and Martorano claim that Hannon murdered Tommy Sullivan. Allegedly, Sullivan beat up Punchy McLaughlin during a bar room brawl and shortly after that Hannon, who was aligned with the McLaughlins, went to South Boston and gunned Sullivan down. The problem with this version of events is Sullivan was not murdered until a year after the fight with Punchy so the idea of an immediate revenge is without merit. Second, and a little more difficult to overcome, Hannon was in prison at the time of Sullivan’s murder. In pretending knowledge of how the murder took place, the gangsters simply echo others’ stories.
What do we really know? Both were in Walpole State Prison together. Both were murdered around the same time and dumped into Boston Harbor.
What else?
Wilfred Delaney, sometimes referred to as William Delaney in newspapers, was indicted at 20-years-old for assault with intent to murder for throwing Edward Fisher off a railroad trestle bridge and onto the tracks below. Fisher lied next to the tracks for 24-hours before he was found. Delaney’s record introduced at his trial showed past convictions for various assaults and batteries, breaking and entering, larceny and malicious destruction of property. In October 1957, he was sentenced to serve five to seven years at Walpole State Prison.
At that time Hannon was in Walpole serving a 9–15-year sentence for armed robbery. Police stated that Delaney and Hannon met in prison at Walpole. Prison makes sense as the meeting spot given the age difference of 27 years especially since Delaney was 20 years old when incarcerated at Walpole.
Tommy Sullivan was murdered on December 22, 1957 within three months of Delaney arriving at Walpole. Hardly could Delaney and Hannon have built up a trusting relationship given their age difference over that short time in prison. This demonstrates that Hannon was still in prison when Tommy Sullivan was murdered. He could not have been the one who shot him.
At some point after Delaney and Hannon were released from prison they joined up. We know from the autopsies that Delaney was alive when he was thrown in the harbor. Hannon was dead. Delaney was not beaten; Hannon was savagely beaten. Delaney died by drowning; Hanlon died by asphyxiation.
The target was Hannon who was obviously the leader. The Lowell Sun noted Hannon’s police record dated back to 1924, when, at 14, he was seized for breaking and entering. He also had been arrested for larceny, burglary, and narcotics violations. He had been sentenced to prison for terms of up to 15 years. In 1936, he was charged with being part of a Dedham holdup. He was a hardened criminal.
There is a good clue to Hannon’s murder. You may remember that Philip Goldstein was murdered in 1959 by the Chinese knot. The medical examiner said Hannon had thermal underwater knotted around his neck and a stocking shoved down his throat. His hands were tied behind his back and his mouth and eyes were taped shut. A wire was rigged around his throat and legs in a “Chinese strangle knot,” – the ancient device by which the prisoner can strangle himself if he moves his legs or lower body. The Chinese strangle knot method of execution had been used by the North End Mafia. The Somerville group of McLean and company, who many suggest did the murder, never used it.
Hannon had called his daughter at noon on Wednesday. He was found early Thursday morning. It seems clear he and Delaney were grabbed by others as they were travelling along in a car. Hannon’s car was found on Wednesday night off the side of the road in the Franklin Park area. Fresh dent marks scarred the front and rear right fenders indicating he was forced off the road. Those who have suggested they were in an apartment or voluntarily went to an apartment cannot account for this obvious hijacking.
One report states the Hannon and Delaney were in the Harbor from 4 in the afternoon on Thursday. The medical examiner said they were in the water less than 24 hours which we know from the other evidence. No one cuts off a car in the daytime and then dumps two bodies in the harbor during daylight. The cut off had to happen on Wednesday night; the culprits had to have seized them at that point. They knocked out Delaney. They saved Hannon for a little torture to send a message.
Who would have been interested in doing that? It clearly would have been the North End Mafia because it was their method of punishment. Why? Hannon was known to have robbed a bookie who was under the protection of the North End of over $40,000. He was also suspected of ripping off vending machines also under its protection. The word was around town was that he had done it. When he was found, the word on the street would then become, “look what happens when someone steals from someone under our protection.”
It is not clear that the right message made it out on the street. Once the bodies were found the North End kept its mouth shut. All the other wise guys – from the Bennetts to the McLeans – told stories about how they did the murders. The problem in believing them aside from the evidence pointing to the North End is none had a motive to do it.
Some offer as a motive that they were McLaughlins. Hannon was a close friend of George McLaughlin. He was said to have been George’s driver on occasion. But at this time, Hannon was doing his own thing holding up bookmakers with Delaney. They presented no threat to anyone in the McLauglin/Somerville dispute. If people were interested in murdering McLaughlins at that time, they had better targets in Punchy, the Hughes brothers, and O’Toole.
The Bennett gang in Roxbury was said to be involved because they sought to find out from Hannon where the money from the bookie robbery was being kept. They would not find that out by murdering him. But the Bennett involvement story collapses because it does not account for Hannon’s car being forced off the road.
These erroneous rumors spread. At some point, the story got back to the McLaughlins that the Bennett gang had finished off Hannon. As discussed above, this story started the gang war between the Roxbury group and the McLaughlins when they tried to take their revenge on Jimmy Flemmi. Why Jimmy? He was known for brutalizing his murder victims so the injuries to Hannon would have been interpreted as clearly one of Jimmy’s hallmarks. Gaga would tell the story, the word on the street is they were murdered by the Bennett Gang.