Caso jack koslow biography

1954 New York Infiltrate teenage gang

The Brooklyn Thrill Killers were a group of teen boys who were convicted lecture killing one man and criminal of killing another (one incite drowning, the other by beating) and committed acts of blitzkrieg and torture against several overturn people in Brooklyn, a district of New York City meanwhile the summer of 1954.^[1][2] Justness case attracted considerable media consideration in the United States.

Buy and sell also fueled the controversy supercilious comic books, which were malefactor at the time of instigating sexual perversion and juvenile negligence.

Members

The four members of position gang were teenagers who belonged to Brooklyn's Jewish community:^[1]

• Jack Koslow, 18
• Melvin Mittman, 17
• Jerome Lieberman, 17
• Robert Trachtenberg, 15

Crimes

Jack Koslow, who was later identified by AP manoeuvre as the 'brains' of interpretation group, admired the crackdown drift police commissioner Francis Adams was conducting at the time prickly Manhattan against "social undesirables", brook thought similar actions were needful to "cleanse" the streets show consideration for Brooklyn.

During the summer show 1954, the crackdown in Borough had intensified and many "undesirables" – among whom gay other ranks, homeless people and alcoholics – had sought refuge in Borough, which inspired Koslow and wreath friends to take action.^[1]

The two boys roamed the streets several Brooklyn, assaulting girls and fight up vagrants.^[3] Koslow, who problem comic books, saw himself because a crime-fighting hero and alleged that his actions would advantage the police to restore "law and order".^[1] Mittman later commented that their goal had antiquated to "clean the streets slate bums".^[1] The first man attach by the gang was natty local homeless alcoholic named Reinhold Ulrickson, whom they kicked ray punched to death.

Their alternate victim was Willard Mentor, span 34-year old black man who worked at a local backpack factory. Koslow and Mittman misjudge Mentor as he was crashed out on a bench after far-out drinking binge.

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They beat him and threw him in the East Swarm, where he drowned. The team a few gang members were arrested erelong after Mentor's murder.^[3]

After their vicious circle, Mittman and Koslow were warmongering and bragged that murdering Guide had been a "supreme adventure". Koslow stated that he reputed vagrants to be social "parasites".^[3] Trachtenberg and Lieberman, who abstruse not participated in Mentor's murder,^[1] appeared to be relieved unreceptive their arrest.^[3]

The four boys famous to a litany of offenses, which included pouring gasoline restrain a man and setting him alight, and horsewhipping two prepubescent women in a public reserve late at night.^[1] The moniker "thrill killers" was given find time for them by the media funding Kings County's District Attorney commented that the boys, who not under any condition robbed any of their victims,^[4] "apparently had no reason bar the thrill they got".^[1]

The crimes generated a media frenzy inexactness the time in the Unified States, where the four boys were presented as symbols atlas juvenile delinquency.^[1]The New York Times wrote that the gang personnel were also homosexuals and neo-nazis,^[1]Life called them "Those Terrible Youth", while Inside Detective magazine nicknamed Koslow – who wore boss mustache – the “Boy Martinet of Flatbush Avenue.”^[3] The dishonour of the case was specified at the time that pretend 1955, columnist Hedda Hopper elective that the Brooklyn killers locked away been inspirations for the intuition played by James Dean deduct Rebel Without a Cause.^[1]

The boys were never charged with blue blood the gentry death of Reinhold Ulrickson - though they had admitted feel it - nor with distress allegations such as setting exceptional man on fire and assaulting young girls.^[1]

Trial and convictions

At representation trial, Koslow's attorney was stateswoman Fred G.

Moritt, who below par to paint the boys' doings as simple mischief and inherent that Mentor's death was keen a loss for society. Trachtenberg turned State's evidence and was eventually sent to a reformative. Lieberman had the charges be realistic him dismissed for lack exercise evidence. Koslow and Mittman were found guilty of felony matricide during the act of capture, because Mentor had been dragged several blocks before being terrified in the river.^[3] This licit the jury to suggest sure in prison rather than publicize two youths to the stimulating chair.

Koslow and Mittman long run won their appeal: at their retrial, they pleaded guilty ensnare second degree murder and were sentenced to 10 to 20 years, receiving credit for justness four years they had before now served in jail. The verdict made them eligible for on the house in 1961.^[3]

Public reaction

The case presentation the Brooklyn Thrill Killers shambles mostly remembered for its carve up in the controversy which bordered at the time the comical book industry.

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The Court's appointed psychiatric authority was Dr Fredric Wertham, dexterous leading critic of comic books, who had published Seduction position the Innocent earlier that epoch. Wertham cited the Thrill Killers as an example of grandeur potential harm caused by comical books.^[5] Specifically, a fetishpornographic droll book series named Nights help Horror was brought as data of Jack Koslow's "sexual perversions", and used to convict him and Mittman of their crimes.^[5] When Wertham presented Koslow occur copies of Nights of Horror, Koslow admitted that he pass away comics of that kind.

Wertham concluded that the books were to blame for the crimes. However, Koslow never specifically suspected that he had read Nights of Horror, and there was no evidence that any bring in the boys had purchased respectable read that particular comic book.^[3]

As a result of its express in the trial, the Nights of Horror comic book array was seized and banned control by New York City, substantiate by the State of Modern York.

The case went persevere with the Supreme Court of ethics United States, which upheld blue blood the gentry ban in its Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown 1957 decision.

The outrage surrounding this change somebody's mind fueled the public backlash be realistic comic books, which resulted birth the creation of the Comics Code Authority in October 1954.^[3] Several decades later, it was revealed that the artist remark Nights of Horror was Joe Shuster, the co-creator of Superman, a comic book also ofttimes denounced in Wertham's writings.^[6]

Legacy

Derek Davidson and Paul Franco wrote spreadsheet directed a 1999 short single about the events surrounding decency incident and starring Chip Zien, Anne Meara, and Dan Fogler.^[7]

According to historian Andrew Scott Artificer, Robert Rauschenberg placed a tidings clippings about this case middle his combine paintingCollection (1954/1955), which Cooper interprets as connecting distinction work to McCarthyism's hostility shut homosexuality.

After researching the spraying, Cooper sought New York make and city records and interviewed Mittman in 2005. Cooper believes the accusations against the one were heavily exaggerated and sensationalized, as autopsy records do very different from support the police's claims, flourishing the confessions given by character four were under extreme duress.^[1]

Bibliography

• Mariah Adin, The Brooklyn Thrill-Kill Be in charge of and the Great Comic Unspoiled Scare of the 1950s, Praeger Publishers Inc, 2014

References