reaction was to turn the opportunity down. I knew from working on my first two volumes that writing a book such as this was a grueling, time-consuming process I wasn’t sure I wanted to repeat. But after a couple months of discussing the idea with my wife and friends, I decided to take the plunge and write the book that you now have in your hands.
To me, writing a non-fiction book is a scary proposition because every word is permanent. Unlike the web or a podcast, no changes can be made to a book once it has been printed. While I have thoroughly researched each story, there are sure to be errors. Hopefully they are limited to minor things such as a misspelling or an incorrect unit conversion.
Researching long-forgotten and obscure stories can be frustratingly difficult, and questions always come up along the way. Inconsistencies in the source material were common, requiring me to make a judgement call as to what was indeed the correct fact. At other times, I was left with questions that I was unable to answer, such as when exactly someone was released from prison, or what happened after the story disappeared from the headlines. You may find yourself asking similar questions. Should you have any further information on a story, please do not hesitate to reach out and let me know.
A few comments about conversions: The vast majority of measurements contained within this book are approximations. While 5,000 miles does equal 8,046.72 kilometers, this figure would be rounded to 8,000 kilometers for easier reading. In addition, currency values have been adjusted to 2018 values, the most recent dataset available at the time of this writing.
I do hope that you enjoy the stories I have chosen to include. If there is any common theme that runs throughout this book, it is that each story has something a bit quirky to it. Some will make you happy, some will make you sad, and some may even make you mad—yet they are all totally true.
Enjoy!
Steve Silverman
January 2020
1942
One of my favorite true crime stories of all time. It’s a case in which no one was talking but the green parrot.
Nestled between a dollar store and the Moon House Chinese-Japanese restaurant is an unassuming building located at 1806 Third Avenue in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Today, it’s just a drab, mustard-colored, five-story brick building with glass blocks at ground level that fill in what were once storefront windows. What few people know is that on Sunday, July 12, 1942, this building was the scene of an incredible murder story.
Back then, the lower floor of the building was home to the Green Parrot Bar & Grill. The restaurant was owned by a guy named Max Geller, and was named after its mascot—a large, foul-mouthed, green parrot. If you fed him a cracker, he would let loose a steady stream of expletives. That fateful Sunday in July, police received a report of a shooting at the bar. When they arrived, they found Geller lying on the floor at the base of his pet parrot’s perch. There was a bullet wound that went right through his voice box, making it impossible for police to question him on what had happened. Within moments of the police’s arrival, Geller fell into a coma.
This should have been an easy crime to solve. At the time of the shooting, there were more than twenty patrons in the bar. Police tried to interview each of the witnesses, but they were all reluctant to say anything. After all, this was Harlem—a part of the city notorious for crime, where no one spoke to the police. Detectives learned that, while there was one waiter on duty, Geller was alone behind the bar when a mysterious man entered the restaurant. And then… And then… Well, no one was sure. There were twenty witnesses and twenty different stories.
While those that sat in the dining room had good reason to claim not having seen anything, a number of people that were physically standing at the bar when the crime occurred still alleged that they had no clue what happened. A few of the eyewitnesses were certain the shooter walked in with his gun already drawn. Others said the gunman had pulled the weapon out of his pocket after approaching the bar. One person was sure it was a stickup and said they saw the gunman run behind the bar and empty the cash register of its contents.
1940 tax photograph of Geller’s Green Parrot Bar & Grill.
Investigators broadened their search and questioned people that lived and worked in the surrounding neighborhood. Although a few people did see a man running down the street with a gun in his hand, none provided anything more than a vague description of the desperado.
All through the witnesses’ questioning, that green parrot wouldn’t keep his trap shut. The agitated bird kept blurting out phrases like “It’s murder!” and “Robber! Robber!” in addition to several curse words.
This led Captain Mahoney, a detective with the city’s police department, to state, “What a case! A dying man who can’t talk, twenty witnesses who won’t, and a squawking parrot we can’t shut up.”
I know what you’re thinking. Maybe, just maybe, that squawking parrot was onto something. However, it was quickly revealed by regulars of the bar that the parrot’s best trick was screaming “It’s murder!” in a high-pitched voice and startling unfamiliar patrons from their seats.
Detectives also ruled out the robbery theory. A quick check of the cash register’s receipts showed that about thirteen dollars were missing, but the rest of the cash was still in the till. They deduced that Geller had probably paid out the missing cash for a delivery earlier in the day.
When Geller died three weeks later on August 2, the shooting became a murder. Assistant District Attorney Louis B. Pagnucco was assigned to the case and requested that all of the witnesses be brought into the police station for further questioning by the detectives.
Once again, the questioning led nowhere. That is, until Pagnucco stepped out of his office for a breath of fresh air. It was then that he noticed two female witnesses engaged in a conversation. One of the women appeared agitated, and the two were speaking in a foreign tongue (at least one foreign to those like myself who only speak English). And yet, it wasn’t foreign to Pagnucco. The DA was different from the average man in that he supposedly had the ability to fluently speak more than a dozen different languages. While the women were talking at a very low volume, he was able to deduce that they were speaking in Quebecois, a French dialect spoken only in Canada.
Pagnucco did the wise thing and didn’t let on that he understood everything they were saying. He just listened with an attentive ear, pretending to not have a clue. The gist of their conversation was that they should tell the detectives they had no knowledge of what had transpired that night. Pagnucco learned that both women had fibbed and told their husbands they were going to see a movie. They were fearful of the repercussions should their husbands discover they had been at a bar. In particular, he heard one tell the other, “They wouldn’t understand and you know what your husband will do to you if he finds out.” Pagnucco interpreted this to mean that she would get the beating of a lifetime, and decided to use this detail to his advantage.
The questioning of the first woman started routinely: her name, address, and a few general questions about the crime. As planned, she said that they hadn’t seen anything. That’s when Pagnucco cornered her. “By the way,” he questioned, “about your girlfriend: does
