Welcome back to Line of Blood. I'm Jana Marcus.

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Last time I had discovered that the probate court had done a very detailed search for Uncle Frankie in 1953. That filled in a lot of information about Frankie that wasn't known. The last anyone had seen Frankie was 1947, when he signed some documents in regards to his mother's will.

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But because no one knew where he was, and there was no death certificate, the court assumed he was alive someplace. And then they put his inheritance in the city treasury to be picked up by him or his heirs at some time in the future.

It would be critical to learn if Frankie picked up his inheritance or not. I had called the New York City Treasury Department to get more information.

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I had also reconnected with my cousin Jared. He was cousin Leo's grandson. Together, we researched and theorized how it was that Leo had known so many details about the uncles.

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Many in the family thought that Leo's stories were just Bubbe Miseh, old grandmother's tales, but we felt differently. Leo's stories were actually threading together some of the facts we knew. And we determined that Leo had worked for Frankie in 1946. Leo had revealed to Jared that Frankie had been summoned to the Murder, Inc. headquarters on the last day anyone heard from him.

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Meanwhile, Maria-the-Psychic was adamant about returning to Abe's Lincoln Place headquarters. She insisted that a satchel and paperwork were buried somewhere at the Lincoln Place basement. They were probably Abe's list of authorities on the take or that ledger book.

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So after much organizing, the team was headed back to the scene of the crimes. This time, we were including the Murder, Inc. headquarters to our list. Cousin Jared and I were eager to see if Maria would pick up anything about Frankie.

 This is Episode 9: New York Noir Redux.

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It's August of 2015. The on the ground team for this second adventure consisted of Mark-the-Cop, Maria-the-Psychic, Cousin Jared, Eric-the-Researcher, and Emery, a videographer I hired to document the locations we had been to five months earlier.

Maria arrived at our Upper West Side Airbnb early in the morning. She knocked on Eric's bedroom door and slipped into the room to surprise him. I knew that Eric was excited to see her. I mean, it had been almost 20 years to the day that we had had a very different, paranormal experience with Maria in New Orleans. It had been a life changing experience for Eric. On that trip, he had learned that he was sensitive to spirit activity. And, although he didn't utilize or understand that part of himself, he did regularly pick up feelings about places. Maria had helped him through an emotional event with the spirit at La Petite Theatre. And that was recorded in Katherine Ramsland's book, “Ghost.”

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By 10 a. m., Emery had wired Maria with a microphone for the day's filming, and Mark was waiting in front of our building with the rented SUV humming. Mark was always the driver on these excursions, navigating the streets that he knew so well.

As we made our way to Brooklyn, Mark told stories and Maria excused herself and put on headphones, blasting heavy metal music to block out psychic interference. She was shielding herself for the first location.

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We planned to visit the same places that we had gone to on the March trip, so that Emery could capture them on video, as well as capture anything new that Maria might channel. Thanks to Cousin Jared's revelation about Midnight Rose's candy store in Brownsville, we would be visiting that historic site as well. Maria didn't want to be told anything about this location before we got there. She wanted to keep her visions pure. So we just called it the Mystery Spot.

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As we made our way toward Brooklyn, Maria suddenly removed her headphones and asked the group, “Are we going to another place where business is conducted? I'm feeling a lot of physical pain at this place.” And then she started to grunt and make painful noises. And then she said, “I'm also picking up a name. It sounds something like Rochellio. Rochellio.” She put her headphones back on saying she'd let us know if she got another hit.

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Our first stop was Eastern Parkway, the site of the old DuBrow's restaurant where Abe was last seen alive.

It was crowded and muggy on the parkway as we neared the DuBrow's location. Maria announced that she was starting to get a headache, which meant that Abe and Frankie were present. Mark parked the SUV and stayed near it, watching the street. Eric was on the lookout for Cousin Jared, who was meeting us there.

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Emery and I followed Maria to the front of what was once DeBrow's Cafeteria restaurant. Her visions of what happened never changed, but small details were added. When she finished recapping Abe's talk with Special Prosecutor Amen, in front of St. Matthew's Church, she sat down in the shade of a tree in front of the entrance.

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As I turned to follow her, I noticed a big guy standing with Eric watching us. Six feet tall, buzzed hair and sunglasses, it was Cousin Jared. I hadn't seen him in 25 years. I stared at him for the longest moment. I couldn't believe it, he looked exactly like the photograph I had of young Uncle Frankie.

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I went to greet him and then introduced him to Maria. As Maria shook Jared's hand, she said, “I wasn't going to let myself get sidetracked today, but there is someone standing with you.”

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Now, I hadn't told Maria anything about Jared, other than he was a cousin, but she immediately picked up on his backstory.

Maria said, “You have information about this mystery location that we're going to today. I'm seeing Frankie and he's talking to you about this location. There's some kind of knowledge or stories that you have.”

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Jared stood motionless listening to Maria as she bowed her head and started rotating her fingers in circles. She continued, “I keep seeing a name that looks like Rochellio. And Frankie, well, he has a kinship with you. And there's a male figure with you who knows Frankie. I keep hearing something about a family business. And a lot of information is flying back and forth between you and Frankie and this male figure that's walking with you. It's like, it's like old home week here right now.”

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 “Who's standing with Jared?” I asked.

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 And she replied, “He's paternal,, a grandfather. I see him taking you by the hand and guiding you. You're walking with your grandfather, and this is a really important part of your life. You're supposed to carry on this story, but I gotta tell you, you look like your ancestor. Your mannerisms and your speech, they're just like Frankie. It's like he's come back to tell the story.”

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Maria gazed into Jared's eyes, “This is an honor. Let me stay connected with you and I'll probably get more information as the day goes on.”

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Jared was rather speechless. “Uh, yeah, uh, I'm interested in hearing.”

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Maria continued, “Well, I keep getting the name Rochellio. It's like two names in one. I'm getting like two people who are standing with Jared.”

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“Could it be Rachel?” Suggested Eric, knowing that was Grandma Rae's birth name.

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 “Yes, it's Rachel!” Maria acknowledged. “And then Leo. The L's are intertwined.”

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Well, Jared was shocked by the acknowledgement of Leo's name, and Maria started to actually tear up, saying, “There's such a special bond between Rachel and Leo. It's absolutely beautiful. Well, they're walking with you, Jared, and the temperature right here is very cold. You can feel it.”

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I reached my hand out to feel the air near Maria. It was cooler near her, a sign of spirit activity, than the hot summer air that was around the rest of us.

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Maria motioned quickly, “We gotta go now. We need to go to this place that's somehow connected with Jared.”

The team squeezed into the SUV and we made our way to the old headquarters of Murder Incorporated in Brownsville. Mark warned us this could be the most dangerous area we would visit and not to let our guard down. We were the only Caucasian people in this run down area and we had lots of camera equipment.

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The two story building that had once been Midnight Rose's candy store was now a market bodega. Now remember, we didn't tell Maria what this location was. But as soon as we got there, she was feeling sick and she did not want to get out of the car, afraid that she might pass out.

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We opened the hatchback so she could stay in the safety of the SUV's cargo area, yet still see the building, which was just 10 feet away.

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Maria looked fearful as she stared at the bodega. “I don't like this building. It's just riddled with bullet holes from the old days. The streets here are just paved with blood.”

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Jared stayed close to Maria, holding a recorder, while Emery and I circled around her with cameras.

Eric had disappeared from my view, walking around the outskirts of the building. Mark patrolled the corner, and then started chatting up the locals, who stopped to stare at Emery's filming, pointing and shouting, “Hey look! It's HBO!”

Maria continued channeling. “There's a lot of death and frenetic energy here, and I'm seeing Frankie, and I just don't understand why. Your people do not belong here.”

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Jared and I exchanged glances, knowing what we did about Frankie and the location.

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Maria continued, saying that she saw Frankie go into the building and up to a second level, where she said there was an office. Then, Frankie comes out of the building, and a swarthy man walks in. with a pockmarked face named something like Shapiro, followed him, gets into an altercation with Frankie and beats him up.

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Maria said she could feel all of Frankie's pain, and it was the same physical pain she felt for him at Lincoln Place. Maria went on to say that she thought Frankie was a real fighter. He didn't back down. She kept hearing the name Leo as well, and said that Leo witnessed a lot of stuff here he shouldn't have seen. And it seemed Leo was here. When Frankie was, and he shouldn't have been.

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Again, Maria was accurate. The second floor was the Murder, Inc. headquarters, and she was seeing basically what Jared had told me.

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Suddenly, Eric appeared from around the corner. His lips were quivering and his eyes red. He went over to Maria in the open hatchback of the car and said, “Oh my God!” He was panicked and whispered that he had experienced an overwhelming sense of pain associated with the building and had visions of people screaming, ‘No, no.’

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 You need to sit down right now, Maria directed Eric, and then she waved a smudge stick over him to clear the energy.

“There was some kind of massacre here,” said Maria. “There's just blood and bullets everywhere. There's something on the second floor that isn't right, and Frankie's beating, well, I don't know if he dragged himself to Lincoln Place, or was taken there, I just don't understand this all yet. I don't know why this area was such an appeal for murder, but God, it makes me sick.”

Jared and I exchanged glances, but didn't say anything about what we knew. But Maria asked us again, “Why is your family here? They shouldn't be at this location. There's a whole piece of this that's just missing.”

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She closed her eyes and concentrated. And then said, “I'm being told to tell you Goldstein and Fishtown. Frankie was in hiding at some point, and I'm seeing images of row houses with pointy roofs on a cobblestone street. It appears that there was some kind of business taking place there, but I see Frankie's beating in New York, and then his death in water.”

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 Well, I didn't know what Fishtown was.

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Eric pulled out his cell phone and immediately Googled it and then read aloud. “It's a neighborhood bordering on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. And look!” He thrust the phone toward me, showing me images of Fishtown, which had cobblestone streets and row houses.

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“Jesus,” I said, turning toward Maria. “I just recently learned that Goldstein was one of Frankie's aliases. And, Abe did have territory in Philly. God, you know, with the recent information I found in the court papers, it kind of makes sense that Frankie may have been in hiding in Philly for a while, and then maybe he came back to New York.”

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 Jared responded in amazement, “Damn, it would seem we have a new angle on this Frankie scenario.”

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 Mark and Emery joined us gathering around the hatchback, and I revealed where we were, and recounted the history of Murder, Inc. to Maria, and how the building had been their headquarters on the second floor.

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 Jared interjected, “Leo told me that Frankie received a call to show up here, and then was never heard from again. You know, Grandpa Leo always told me that if you got called to this place for any reason, you weren't coming home that night.”

 But then I asked the group, “The big question is, who was hanging out 1947?”

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 Maria responded, “It felt like they were lower level street scum, like they were trying to be something that they weren't.”

 She again described feeling the same physical sensations of her nose and lungs filling with fluid and the taste of dirty water in her mouth. She said, “I see Frankie in a cold, dark place where he actually died. It's like a green black water in a brick tunnel.”

 

“Okay, so Frankie may get called here,” said Eric. “But there's also that scenario of the cops beating him at Lincoln Place. Did this happen on the same day?”

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 Maria nodded. “I see injuries to Frankie here and something like hurry up before he expires so we get the information. You know honestly they could not have done more to him. With the amount of pain that Frankie felt, I don't know how he survived getting to Lincoln Place, but somehow he did. Something horrible happened here and there, and then I see him in that cold brick tunnel with water.”

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“It makes more sense,” suggested Mark, “that they called Frankie here and then someone actually delivered him to Lincoln Place. And I'll tell ya, the closest water to Lincoln Place would be the Gowanus Canal, which is another place where bodies were often dumped.”

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Well later, when I researched the Gowanus Canal, I discovered that there were brick lined tunnels at the head of the canal. They were multi-level tunnels in the Gowanus, and the water was a chemical laden green-black. It has been referred to as the only body of water in the world that is 90% guns. As well as being one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.

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So let's pull Frankie's story all together. The surrogate court papers expose a clear timeline. We know that he was released from Rikers Island in 1944. He attended his brother's wedding and was released from parole by June of 1945. Now it could be that he went to Fishtown in Philly to keep the family out of his line of fire when he got out of jail. And he may have had some numbers action going there too, since Abe did have territory in Philly. But when his mother dies in 1946, Frankie comes back to New York.

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It seems that is the time that Leo was back from the war as well, and probably went to go work for him. Maybe they were even doing business between Philly and New York for the rackets.

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In 1947, Frankie signs the probate consent form, but things are starting to get heated and the cops seem to be pressing in on him, trying to find probably that ledger of names from the headquarters. Probably, because they were all under indictment at that time for their extortion of policy racketeers.

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Then family stories kick in that he met with Mudsy at the Ralph Avenue Deli and was possibly worried about something at the old headquarters. Shortly after that, he's summoned here to Midnight Rose's Candy Store, where he places his last call to his sister that he's coming over for dinner within the hour.

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Then Maria sees Frankie being beaten by a swarthy man named Shapiro. And then Shapiro delivers Frankie to the cops who are waiting for him at Lincoln Place. Those cops seem to be Police Commissioner Wallander, DA Edward Heffernan, and a cop named Jonesy. And they're trying to get Frankie to find this paperwork at the old headquarters. When they don't find it, they kill him and dump his body in a canal.

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Incredibly, it seemed Frankie's story was revealed. But before the weight of it could really sink in, Maria was getting a message that it was time to move on.

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“On to the next location, we gotta get going,” said Maria. And we all piled back into the car.

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 Although we only had partial evidence of Frankie's story, outside of Maria's visions, I didn't doubt her. Her visions did fill in the holes of what we knew. And listen, everything about Abe that she had told us was absolutely correct. So I felt that the Frankie scenario was probably true as well.

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 Our next stop was Van Sinderen Avenue.

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On our last trip to the location of Abe's death, the fencing had been padlocked and the road below the elevated track had been inaccessible. This time, we were delighted to find that the fence was open.

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“I'm walking this,” Maria said, and I went to join her. It was super noisy with the elevated train and voices of children playing over the gully. But Maria was deep in thought.

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About halfway down the road, she turned toward me and said, “Oh, there's someone standing right behind you, right there. It looks like The White Fedora Man.”

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Everything seemed to suddenly go deathly quiet as I met her gaze. The air was suddenly still, and a strange sound started to build. A howl of wind, coming out of nowhere. There was no other noise.

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“What the hell?!” Maria exclaimed. We heard it again. It reverberated like wind through a microphone. “This is off the hook! It's White Fedora Man! He's trying to communicate!”

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 Well, White Fedora Man supposedly showed Maria a chaotic scene under the train tracks when Abe was shot. All the cops were arguing and fighting, and Maria again saw Abe on the ground with five men around him before he was shot.

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 Eric and Mark approached us, curious as to why we looked so shaken. And Maria said, “The police officers are talking about erasing the rest of the family and something about relocation. I just heard White Fedora Man say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It seems as though he has regrets.”

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 Eric and I looked at each other with surprise. I mean, we had spent most of the previous week speculating about what Abe had requested to come in and testify that Amen had found too extreme. Eric and I thought it had to be about relocating the family, and now Maria was channeling it.

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“Time to leave. Can't stay. Time to leave. Can't stay.” Maria repeated it several times. “It could be the police talking that they have to go or it could be Abe knowing that it's his time to go.”

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Maria slowly rose and then stumbled backwards. “I'm trying to protect myself from this death experience, gosh, shit I can barely stand up.”

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She sniffed her fingers and said she could smell something that was like fire and chalk.“

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Oh, that's gunpowder and sulfur,” said Mark. “That's the smell of a fired gun.” Maria nodded in agreement as Mark and Eric helped her walk slowly back towards the car.

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 I was rather stunned. I mean, I had never heard anything like what I had just heard. And Jared, well, he was shaking his head saying, “This is crazy, Jana, but I am so honored to be part of this journey.”

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We took a break for the remainder of the afternoon to eat and relax and get out of the hot sun before the big trip to Lincoln Place that evening. We had chosen the evening hours for several reasons. The temperature would be cooler, most of the tenants would be out and about on a Saturday night and Maria felt that the spirits were more active during those hours.

There was a lot of anticipation around returning to Lincoln Place. Previously, we hadn't had a chance to really look through the basement at all.

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Maria was now feeling very confident where this missing paperwork was located, somewhere around the ancient dumbwaiter in the basement. Eric and I had packed protective gear, headlamps, and more for the team to rummage through the dank recesses of that toxic basement. If there was something to find, we were determined to find it.

By 7:30 that night, Mark and I were investigating the backyard of Lincoln Place, looking for the key that the basement tenant had hidden for us.

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Maria was hyperventilating in front of the building, not yet ready to go inside. Mark warned us that we would need to leave immediately if anyone questioned us. We didn't want to get arrested for breaking and entering, because the tenant wasn't home to vouch for us. We needed to keep a low profile, and everyone agreed. To keep noise to a bare minimum.

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Stealthily, we entered the basement from the narrow alleyway one by one. Wearing long rubber gloves and holding flashlights, we moved through the inner door and down the hallway, passing a small alcove to our left, which housed a security camera system monitoring the building. This system had not been there five months earlier.

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 “These cameras are active and working,” whispered Mark. “We've got to stay quiet.” We all nodded in agreement.

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We entered the large, cluttered storage area of the main basement. Mark and Jared and I started moving boxes and broken objects, clearing a path to the front of the dumbwaiter.

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Maria was getting hit immediately with psychic energy and appeared to be in a state of paralyzing bewilderment. She nervously entered the small storage area across from the laundry room. This is where she had seen Frankie's beating.

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“Holy shit,” she hollered, then claimed that the door swung back at her and something was trying to keep her out.

“Okay, I'm coming in.” She opened the door again and stood frozen in the archway.

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“Damn, there's a huge shadow figure in here.” Maria carefully ventured in, followed by Emery and Eric with cameras. “There's a shadow man standing right there. He's big and he looks like he's about to lose his shit. He is so mad we're here.”

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Maria took two large rusted vintage keys from her bag. She often used these to contact spirits during a seance. Maria yelped in pain several times and bent over holding her side.

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“The shadow man is punching me in the ribs.” She dropped to her knees. “There's another man here also. He has a huge head. I think it's Heffernan.”

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Maria started panting with pain, announcing that her ears were ringing. And then she suddenly started calling out directions about where to look for the hidden documentation.

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“Look behind the dumbwaiter! It's behind the dumbwaiter!”

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 I went down the hallway to the larger room and reported to Mark and Jared where Maria said to look.

It seemed that the dumbwaiter's shaft was sealed with nails. The guys started searching the room's junk for something to pry open the shaft. I mean, we had been prepared for everything but opening the dumbwaiter. We didn't realize it was actually nailed shut.

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 In the smaller room, Maria was bent over in a crouched position, dry heaving.

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“I'm getting kicked in the ribs over and over again. And Frankie is saying, ‘I don't have it anymore to give. I don't have it.’ And, then I'm told it's a money grip. It's, it's something like a money…There's another space behind the dumbwaiter. I don't know if it's a room or a space, but there's something behind it.”

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 Meanwhile, Mark and Jared were trying to open the dumbwaiter's front cover with a makeshift screwdriver, but they really needed a better tool. Eric joined Mark and Jared searching the wall length ledge for any crevices adjacent to the dumbwaiter. I kept moving between the two rooms, delivering Maria's instructions. She kept saying that we needed to find this folded letter.

This went on for 15 or more minutes. There were rotting beams of wood above the dumbwaiter that were falling apart. And we could hear the tenants of the first floor above walking back and forth, and their muffled voices. That must have meant that they could hear us, too.

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While Maria was sobbing in pain that her ribs felt like they were splitting in two. Feeling Frankie's beating, she said it felt absolutely inhumane. Maria could barely stand, and I helped her move to the security camera room where she melted onto the floor.

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 She turned and she looked at me and said, “Someone's coming, Jana. A living person is coming.” I went and I bolted the main entrance to the basement shut from the inside.

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Back at the dumbwaiter, the guys were getting nervous about being discovered and pointed to the ceiling where the conversation in the above apartment was getting louder.

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Jared shined his flashlight through the ceiling area above the dumbwaiter. He had found papers, but they were just garbage. I warned them that Maria thought someone might be coming.

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 Suddenly, Maria started to scream down the hallway, “Something's wrong!”

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Mark and I went to her side. “It feels like something's coming out of my ribs!” She lifted the side of her t shirt, revealing red splotches across her ribcage. They were actually hot to the touch.

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She started sobbing, and Mark helped her rise to her feet. And then we moved into the main room, where Maria sat down on the floor, Holding her ribs. Just repeating, “It's a money key. It's a money…folded letter. Folded letter. Crevice of the dumbwaiter.”

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“Well, I'd love to get the dumbwaiter open,” said Mark. “But we can't get more than four or five screws out of this thing. We need a tool. And you know what? We need to go very soon.”

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Mark disappeared down the hallway to check the security cameras and then returned. “Someone is ringing the tenant's bell, obviously to see what's going on down here. We can't do this much longer.”

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Maria raised herself slowly to a standing position, bracing her body against the wall. “That's it,” she said. “I can't do this anymore. My body just cannot take this excruciating pain.”

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Jared and I looked at each other with frustration.

“Oh, let me just take one more look,” I insisted, and I stepped on a stack of dry cement bags to heighten my view through the broken ceiling beams above the dumbwaiter.

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Suddenly, we heard footsteps coming down the outside steps to the main basement entrance. Keys were rattling. All six of us froze. Eric reached for the hallway light and flicked it off. We were all standing in the dark, listening to the main door jiggle. I had bolted it so I knew no one was coming in. When the person was unsuccessful, we heard their footsteps climbing the outside stairs to the street.

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“We need to get the hell out of here,” declared Mark, switching the lights back on. Eric unbolted the entryway door as the rest of us quickly gathered our belongings.

 

But just then, we heard footsteps descending to the basement again.

Eric ran to my side and flicked the lights off again. We were all standing in the dark, holding our breath. This time, the door was not bolted. A million versions of what I might say when that door opened were racing through my mind. The next thing we heard was a key inserted into the door.

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I nudged Eric to flick the lights back on. I mean, I had no excuse for standing in the darkness with five other people and a bunch of cameras.

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It was the longest turn of a handle that I can ever remember as the door slowly opened. On the other side, a Rastafarian man was carrying a basket of laundry. He turned to us and said, “Hey!”

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We were all still as statues and pale as ghosts. We must have looked ridiculous.

 “Uh, hey,” I responded back. The man quickly turned into the laundry room.

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Our group exchanged glances and then bolted out the door, up the steps, through the black gate, and we ran down the street to our SUV. Once there, we burst into laughter just like teenagers. This was an exciting adventure in Brooklyn that a bunch of 50-year-olds would never forget.

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Maria crawled into the backseat of the car and lay down. The rest of us stood at the corner of St. John's under the yellow glow of a street lamp, smoking cigarettes and excitedly rehashing what had just happened. And, where that leather clutch and paperwork could possibly be.

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Jared and I were so disappointed. I mean, we were so close to actually locating the documentation that we hated to leave.

I suggested we go back in 15 minutes, but Mark shook his head at me.

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“Uh, Jana, you're lucky they didn't call the cops and have us arrested.” Then we all just burst into laughter again at how crazy this all was.

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“Well, I'll come back tomorrow if I have to,” said Jared.

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“Uh, you know, you better check that with the tenant first,” said Mark. I wouldn't take the chance to come back here on your own. You know, it's one thing to be in there, but it's a whole other to be in there with a crowbar, breaking something open.”

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Thank you for listening. Join me, Jana Marcus, next time as we come to the conclusion of Line of Blood.

If you've enjoyed this episode, we would love for you to leave us a review. And tell your friends. You can join me in this investigation episode by episode by checking out all the historical files on our website.

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 And, you can help me find new clues as well. I'm sure there may be even more information available today. Did your grandparents live in Brooklyn in the 40s? Maybe they remember something.

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As a special add on, you can see actual video footage of the team during our investigations in Brooklyn, which is much more detailed than what you've heard here.

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You can find out how at www.lineofblood-podcast.com. And for even more details, check out that book version of Line of Blood, which is available at all online booksellers.

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Special thanks go out to Suki Wessling, Eric Sassaman, Valerie Marcus Ramshur, and Amy Scott. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.