Monday, June 27, 2011

THE CAPTAIN AMERICA GANG

  Naples, because of it's many stinkin' rich citizens, was always a target for burglars and jewel thieves. When most of the wealthy folks lived in Port Royal, it drew high-end thieves like flies to a dung pile. Or a politician's speech. When Alligator Alley opened, it made Naples even more attractive, being only a short drive from the cess pool of East Coast scum, in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
 One such group was the Captain America gang, named for the leader who looked like the Peter Fonda character in Easy Rider and rode a stars and stripes painted Harley chopper.
  The Capt and his gang were good, and once hit us fifteen times or so in one afternoon, all in Port Royal, and in all selecting the best jewelry. You could tell when you'd been hit by a pro. A good jewel thief would sort the costume jewelry from the real right on the spot, leaving the junk jewelry laying in a neat pile beside the jewel box or safe. Capt America was one such thief.
  After we got hammered, I got on the phone to Lauderdale to see what top-level thieves they had working, knowing we had no one in town who could pull off jobs this slick. The East coast and Naples shared the same thieves and they had an idea right away who it was.
 "Capt America," the detective said, "we found a dumped Caddy on this end of the alley this morning and wondered where he'd been."
 I asked him to explain.
 "The Capt always steals a car when he's going on a job. A Caddy or a Lincoln, something that won't look out of place in a rich neighborhood. He always works in the afternoon, and folks seeing just another Cadillac or such, think nothing of it. After the job they dump the car."
  It sounded like our gang. "And he only takes the good stuff, sorts it out on the spot. Never seen him make a mistake, taking paste jewelry for real."
 Yep, it was the Capt.
 "We're on him, the detective said and he'll slip up sooner or later." In about two months he did. And, facing some heavy time, he was negotiating. I went to Lauderdale to see if he had anything for us.
  The Capt sure did. He admitted the Port Royal jobs and even said he'd point them out. And did he ever. The Capt could tell you the order he did the burglaries in, and what he took---which was quickly disposed of to a fence.
  His memory wasn't just phenomenal for Naples, either. In all, he fessed up to over 1200 burglaries, on both coasts. All with the same detail on how they'd been done and what he'd stolen.
 I was astounded at the time, but later found out that this sharp memory is common in some criminals. Serial killers are the most noted. The actual time spent during the murder is a high point in their life--what they live for and what other die for. They remember every detail. The Boston Strangler remembered, while he was struggling with a victim, they knocked a pack of cigarettes off the radiator. It was a pack of Winstons, he said.
The investigators went back to the crime scene and found a pack of Winstons behind the radiator. 
  That good memory eventually cost Albert DeSalvo his life.
  

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