April 30, 1968
Timmons is the only one I have among the murdered whose body was not discovered but the circumstances of his disappearance leave no other conclusion than murder. He was a lifelong criminal.
The day that it was announced that Betty Grable and Jackie “the Kid” Coogan had filed for divorce on July 28, 1939, Timmons also found himself getting a little publicity. He was 18-years-old. He was a parolee from the Shirley School as were so many others included here. He had been arrested for stealing a car which he used to transport an office safe he had stolen from a nearby business. As he was driving along, the safe fell out of the trunk onto the street.
With his record, he was unable to get into the Army as WWII approached. It did not matter. He had his own plans to play soldier. On December 2, 1941, five days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Timmons was arrested and charged, with the possession of two .45 caliber Colt revolvers which had been stolen from Camp Edwards. He also stole Army uniforms. The police said Timmons and others were planning to dress as soldiers and rob an armored payroll truck.
In December 1951 at 30-years-old, Timmons arrested for his involvement in a $6,600 armed robbery of a payroll truck in Auburnndale, MA. On March 1, 1954, he was held on a vagrancy charge. At the time, he was supposedly a parolee from a New Jersey jail. In October 1952, his fingerprint was found on a cash box following a robbery of the White Construction Company of $24. In September 1959, he was held on charges of breaking and entering a safe of the Four Provinces night club.
We can assume he spent some time in prison for all of these charges. It was reported he receive a 7 – 10 years sentence for the 1959 robbery but he was back out after three years. No doubt he continued doing what he liked to do best – sticking up people and breaking into places. The police said he was a top notch breaking and entering man who worked all along the eastern seaboard. It was also reported he was a close friend with the missing Bennett brothers.
The last time that Carol Timmons saw her husband Tommy was on Wednesday, April 24, 1968. She put out some feelers and got back some bad news. The word on the street was that he had been a victim of a gangland murder. Not only was he missing but his 6-year-old Cadillac was gone with him. Carol did not report him missing until the Saturday following. The police who received the report checked with others who kept a tab on the gangs. They reported back that Timmons was on the gangster “hit parade,” that he had been done in, and that his body was in the trunk of his car.
Steve Flemmi in making a deal with the FBI to save himself from being sentenced to death said that Timmons had kidnapped Abe Sarkis, the big Boston mob associate. Larry Baione was upset at the kidnapping. He asked Salemme and a couple of others to settle it for him. They met Timmons at a bar at the corner of Hyde Park Avenue and River Street in Hyde Park, MA. At that bar, Salemme and some others beat him badly then took him to the Sharon home of Salemme, where Red Assad, mentioned earlier as being involved in a gunfight with James Barchard, with assistance from Steve Flemmi, Frank Salemme, and Larry Baione strangled him.
Abraham Sarkis (December 9, 1913 – June 1991) was a Boston mobster who, along with his partner Ilario “Larry Baione” Zannino were the most powerful and feared bookmakers in New England and New York. Their reign lasted over fifty years beginning in 1934. During their tenure, it was said they made millions for Raymond Patriarca, Sr., head of New England’s Patriarca crime family and underboss of the Gambino crime family. During the 1960s, a failed attempt on his life was reportedly ordered by Zannino
Abe Sarkis, still lives on as the great steak house Abe and Louie’s is named after him.