Crook CountyMeet Kenny “The Kid”, a Chicago mafia soldier and hitman for nearly 25 years. After hearing a brutal firsthand account of a mafia hit, we learn how and why Kenny was recruited as 17 year old kid, explore the history of the legendary Chicago Outfit, and reveal a devastating truth that reverberates to this very day.
Crook County is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free, But if you want to hear the whole season right now, it's available ad free on tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
You're listening to Crook County. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter, including graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Chicago, Chicago Igniting.
This is a nineteen seventies era Board of Tourism advertisement for the City of Chicago.
Chicago Fine.
It's overflowing with sunlit city scapes and joyful, smiling faces of young people, families and tourists, all locked in a state of perpetual eight millimeter textured happiness and wonder of this city of broad shoulders, this great city by the lake. Look north now, so that glittering shopper is Paradise, proudly dubbed the Magnificent Mile. It really does look like a wonderful place to live, a place with endless possibilities. Or anybody, no matter who you are or where you came from, can get a fair shot at the Brass Ring.
There'll be something you've just got to see for yourself.
But only a few miles from the bright lights of Michigan Avenue, there's a different stretch of road, a dark corner of the windy city you won't see in any board of tourism commercial. It's a place where the cops are just as crooked as the criminals, where drugs and prostitution run rampant, and where a young mafia hip many call that kid is parked outside of a dark, dilapidated apartment building, waiting for just the right moment to make his next move.
It's about nine pm at night.
I'm in an apartment complex in a neighborhood that I really don't know very well, and I'm listening to my song, the song that I always play before I do something sketchy like this, And that's sympathy for the devil deesus all needs introduce myself. I'm a mad say well, it.
Just does something to me.
I don't know what it does.
It's just part of my routine. I sit in my car and I do what I always do. I breathe, I make myself aware. I heighten my senses, my sight, my smell, my hearing. I don't know how I do it, but I do it. As I'm listening to the music, I feel my senses start to kick in. As they kick in, the moment arises. The moment always hits me. I don't know how it hits me, but I know when I'm ready for the moment. Out of my car, walk up to the apartment complex, ring the buzzer. This asshole comes to the buzzer, announces his name. I said, this is Ken, I'm coming up for the coke. It says, fine, come on up. Buzzer hits. I walk up the stairs. I reach my right hand behind my belt on my back, knock on the door with my left hand. As the door opens up, I pull my arm out with my twenty two and I put it right in his forehead. Back it up, I tell him. He backs it up. His eyes were as big as saucers. I want to say his name, dude, but I can't.
Will you? Will you added his name out of here?
Skick back it up to the bathroom. He didn't move fast enough, and I wanted him to know I meant the fucking business here.
So I beat him.
I had him twice right cheek, left cheek, backed off, put the gun back up to his forehead, backed him up into the bathroom.
Got to the bathroom. Get on your knees.
He would have gotten his these fast enough, so I dropped him with my left foot.
I got him right behind his right knee.
That dropped him to his knees, pushed him down towards the toilet, grabbed the cuffs that were in my left rear pocket and cuffed him right behind the base of the toilet.
There he sat.
I can't remember exactly what I said to him, but I was dead serious what I said, but I really can't remember. Anyway, I waited like I was asked to do. Knock at the door comes and three of my boys come in. Showed them to the bathroom. I backed out because it wasn't my head. It was just my setup. It wasn't my head. Went back into the living room, sat and waited. Heard some commotion, a muffled gunshot. I know that's the end of the story. The boys walk out. Where's the dope? Can ransacked his bedroom, found the dope, got about three or four honces of what was called.
At the time, it was pink cocaine.
What the hell they call it back then, Peruvian, So I don't know anyway, it was coke, all right, because that's what everybody was.
Doing back then. Uncomfortable.
Brought him to the living room, started tearing up the carpet inside the living room, wrapped them up in there, and left them until tomorrow. What normally happens is or what was already set up, was not by me, but it was already set up to have a carpeting company come in the next day, put in a new carpet, take him out, put in a new carpeting, lay it, and then me leave. Spent the night waited for the carpeting people. In the morning, they arrived about nine o'clock. They took him out, wrapped up in the carpet, brought up a whole new carpeting and padding, laid that down. I left the door unlocked, and I left.
It was the end of him.
That's it. Story's over.
Holy shit, I'm your host, Kyle Tequila.
Welcome to Crook County.
Yeah, Crook County. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. It's a den of thieves.
Dead was a fucking crazy bastard.
We don't know who he is.
Really, people are dying?
Is he doing this every night?
What about retribution from? Could it be the mob? Could it be police? What's the worry there?
I've done criminal defense now for almost thirty seven years.
It takes one guy out.
There who's in his late to say, who's that fucking.
Asshole Kyle who thinks he can just get on.
A goddamn microphone on a podcast and start pubblifying this shit?
Like I started having flashbacks about his legs being broken when he went out to check them out, and I was like, holy shit. He changed his address to hours now these fucking people. Can they find him at our address?
I'll give a shit about kat. He did what he did and if he's got to pay, he's got to pay.
It destroyed our life, It destroyed our parriage, It destroyed my kids, It really destroyed everything. Just why I think I'm getting out of his ship, I'm right fucking backing it. It's a double It's following me wherever the fuck I go. I can't shake this doun of a bitch. He won't fucking leave me alone.
Episode one. Give me your fucking money.
I'm not gonna put my voice on nothing. Are you Yeah, you're gone. I'm gonna tell the story. Uh huh.
All right, I'm interviewing Kenny the Kid for the first time. He's a big.
Man in his mid sixties with a full head of jet black hair combed and styled with only a few strands of gray, wearing a clean white T shirt and reading glasses with thick black frames. He's handsome in a rundown sort of way. He kind of reminds me of a down on his luck Clark Kent, you know, Superman, but fat, oh man, I'm not good at this.
Man.
Just whenever you feel like it, just start talking.
But what am I? Okay.
He's not used to having a microphone in his face and seems to be having a little trouble getting comfortable with me.
I'm very confused on this, Kyle, and I'm just gonna talk. Okay, I'm just gonna talk. I really don't, it's just it's I really kind of don't understand what.
It goes on like this for a while, but eventually he starts talking.
This is.
A story, well story, it's not not a story, it's it's this is this is my story. Basically the experiences I've had, most of them not by choice. That just ended up like I never thought I would end it up. I mean, I'm I'm surprised I'm sitting here, you know, I I technically I shouldn't be sitting here. You know, Historically people don't don't make it, They just simply don't make it. But I think I was low level enough, and I didn't want to make it a career, you know, I want. I didn't want. I didn't do the things that the other people did, trying to move up in the outfit, you know, trying to get their own crews, trying to make more money. I did fly under the radar, and I really didn't want to know what the hell was going on where I became a trusted member. You know, we're not going to worry about Kenny. You know, Kenny does his job. He keeps his fucking mouth shut, He doesn't steal any money, he doesn't do fucking drugs while he's working. He's not running hors on the side, our horizon.
The side.
He does what he's supposed to do when he goes home.
Kenny spent over twenty years working deep inside the legendary Chicago Mafia, also known as the South Side Gang or simply the Outfit, which rose to power in the nineteen twenties during Prohibition under Johnny Torio and Al Capone. They were powerful, ruthless, and violent, with tentacles spreading all the way to Florida and California, a vast criminal empire spanning nearly one hundred years, making its fortune off bootleg liquor, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption, labor racketeering, loan sharking, and murder for hire. Since the days of Capone, the outfit has been led by a who's who of powerful bosses like Frank the Enforcer, Nitti, Paul the Waiter, Rika, Anthony Big Tuna Accardo, and Salvator Momo Giancano. When Kenny was there in the seventies, eighties and early nineties, the bosses were Joseph Joey doves A Uga, Sam Black, Sam Carlisi and John No Nos Defranso. It was a period of great prosperity and they were stronger than ever.
Cook County and the Chicago area. Okay, Chicago was actually in Cook County, and we wore in the unincorporated areas, because the unincorporated areas are you know, we owned you know, we owned the judges.
We owned the fucking cops. You know, we owned them. You know, so we can work freely, all right?
And what did you do?
I was a low level I ran whorehouses and I did them and I did hits.
You know.
It was just a low level guy and my crew.
You know, the money that we made in our crew worked its way up the ladder to the big bosses. You know, you're in the fucking trenches, man, This is low level, in the streets, in the dirt, in your face, the backbone, and the fucking outfit.
That's where the money came from. It came from us, and we pushed it up, all right.
We're not the fucking captain sitting back while his troops are in the fucking trenches fighting it out, fucking hand to hand, knife to knife, all right. We are the guys in the fucking trenches, hand to hand, knife to knife, all right. That's where we are. That's how that's all far down the ladder. We were all right, fucking clipping people and running fucking whoores.
He takes a long pause and seems to be deep in some old memory.
I just don't want to glorify this because there's nothing. There's no glory here.
I mean, I try to forget these stories, and I've been trying to forget these stories.
For years and years and years.
You know, MY goal wasn't to run hornhouses and fucking kill you know people.
You know, I was doing what I had to do to have a normal life and raise a normal family. Okay, that's all I was doing.
I was I didn't have education, I didn't have the opportunity for an education. I didn't go to college. I barely got out of fucking high school.
You know. I just survival mode.
That's all, just really as simple, and I survived.
Look.
I don't know much about the mafia.
I mean, I guess I know as much as anybody who's seen a movie or TV show about it. But sitting here with him, listening to him talk, watching him remember these terrible things, I feel confused. I just don't see what you would expect to see from someone who's had a life like this, you know, a hardened criminal with bodies under his belt, some kind of monster. Instead, I see a tired, sad man, genuinely hurt that this was his life. I have to know how does someone like that get wrapped up in all this?
I got recruited into the mob when I was seventeen years old, and completely unbeknownst to me, it was the last thing on my mind. And there's my parents got divorced. You know, I'm not going to go into the fucking wall was me? You know, I had a rough childhood bullshit, but I got tossed out my parents got divorced. I wasn't happy about it. I got tossed out of my house at gunpoint by my mother.
Go figure.
So I mean that'll give you an idea of a kind of family. You know, I grew up the God rest their souls.
Okay, all right.
I love my mother dearly and I love my father dearly who's dead. But you know, they just did the best they could with what they had and the culture that they grew up in. Okay, So I get tossed out sixteen years old. I'm living in a backseat of my fucking sixty eight Camaro for about three or four months.
I need money, all right.
I know this fucking clown, it's dealing dope, dealing fucking Mexican dirt weed, because back then it was I don't know, the shit they got now is insane, but it was just straight Mexican dirt weeed back then. And he was I think you think he had placcidos and quelus so placidos, quailu cash.
And Mexican fucking dirt weeed.
So and I knew we hung out at the fucking kmart, so you know, I watched him for a while, kind of figured out his pattern, you know, And I don't know why.
That, it just made sense to me to just kind of sit back scope.
Him for a while so when I hit him, it would be the best time or the best situation what anyway, came up on him and rob this fucking ass.
I had a fucking pencil and.
Came up kind of from the side I was came because kind of walked on bottom on an angles. I was on the left side and came close enough where I didn't seem to be where it wasn't threatening, but close enough where I could pivot and put the pencil in his back. He had a jacket out, so I used the rubber you know, you know, the eraser part, and believe it or not, if you stick that thing in there hard enough, you know, just you know, have somebody to do that to you when you're not expecting it, and you know, being told that I need your cash and I need you dope, and I need it right now, all right, And I got a fucking knife stuck in your back, reach into your pockets with your left hand and hand me back that shit. So I get the dope, I get the money, push him forward, tell him not to fucking turn around, and we're on our way.
He goes off in a sprint.
I go off, do a round and come back to my car. Never really saw him except for two days later when I did see him, But I saw him with someone else and two other guys off in the background. So these two come up on me. I'm sitting down and I'm going I'm thinking to myself, ah fuck, here we go here, and I'm completely unprepared, completely came up on me, and the bigger guy goes, the older guy goes, is that him?
And the kid goes, Yeah, that's him. That's the guy that robbed me. Uncle. He ran a fucking crew.
He's a mob dude.
All right.
You know we're talking. Send to get here, alfit get all right, So he tells me, He goes, are you looking for a job? Oh, yeah, I'm looking for a job. I'm fucking starting her. That's how I got into the fucking outfit. That's what I got.
He was impressed.
A rough childhood, a tumultuous marriage, a mother pulling a gun on her own son, homelessness, desperation, all leading to one fateful moment, a bad decision that would define a young kid's entire life and the life of his future family.
Yeah, of course he had a family.
Yeah, I had a wife and I had two children, and I wanted to keep them as far away from it as possible. I wanted them to have every advantage in the world that I didn't have, so they had every opportunity to have a good life, you know, raise their own families.
I wanted to be a good provider.
I loved my family. I still do. You know very much.
How much did your family know about your time in the mafia?
I mean, nobody, nobody knew anything. I didn't want anybody to know. I was I was kind of embarrassed. My wife, you know, she was purposely bliss you know, money was coming in and she had you know, she was secure and she was raised her kids, and you know, we had a nice suburban life. You know, so like all the wives of people that were involved in the outfit or you know, blind by choice.
Okay, how do you keep an entire life life of crime away from your friends, away from your family? How does your wife not know or your kids? It seems impossible, But I know it's true. I know because I was there, because Kenny is my father, and I had no idea about any of this until now.
These dark days last him. But I'm lost in a way.
Crook County is a true crime podcast about my father, Kenny the Kid Tequila's rise through the ranks of one of the most notorious organized crime syndicates in the country, the Chicago Outfit. We'll exploring great depth my father's life of crime and it's profound and lasting impact on my family to this very day.
I don't know he was in the mob until maybe twenty years after you guys were born.
It's crazy to have someone that was so strong in my life and so we fucking pod dream in the face over drugs because he was destroying our fucking family.
You could see why he could be an enforcer.
I'm blind, rage, out of control, violent person. You were sitting on a bombshell and you probably didn't realize that.
Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are produced, written and hosted by Me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Main title song is called Aloha by the band Starry Eyes. End credit song is called Crush, also by the band Starry Eyes.
Sound mix by Cooper Skinner.
Special thanks to my wife Nicole for not leaving me after she found out about all this shit, and a big thank you to my extended family for sharing their painful memories with me, which no doubt we're never meant to see the light of day, not to mention broadcast the entire world. I hope we can all find some healing through this journey together. Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support, and of course to my fearless attorney, Wendy Bench, who's an absolute badass and a total rockstar. To stay updated on all things Crook County, follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast, or leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com.
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Not trusted, Fello, Doc Blue, and Endless Dave one.
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