Franchising crime
Most Outfit murders remain unsolved
NWI Times
May 27, 1991
http://www.nwitimes.com/uncategorized/franchising-crime-most-outfit-murders-remain/article_fb0d564e-ffaf-58fd-ba6d-9ec20ab99235.html
Of the 33 murders credited to the Chicago crime Outfit in the past decade, only three were in Northwest Indiana.
Several others happened in nearby southern Cook County and two others in adjacent Will County.
All but one remain officially unsolved.
The March 2, 1983, shooting of Michael "Monk" Chorak, 35, of Lansing inside his M&J Auto Wrecking was charged to Joseph Rodish, a former employee of Chorak who had been living above a Serbian tavern on Chicago's Southeast Side since his Jan. 26 escape from the farm at Stateville Prison in Joliet.
Chorak's body was found behind the counter at M&J at 130th Street and the Calumet Expressway on the western fringe of Chicago's Hegewisch neighborhood by Officer Randy Zawis of the South Chicago District, who had been assigned to check out the building after Chorak's wife said her husband was missing.
Rodish was arrested several days later by Chicago and Calumet City police as he left a tavern on State Street in Calumet City. He was convicted in December 1983 of the murder and sentenced to life in prison.
He was said to have believed Chorak ordered him killed for alleged cooperation with authorities. Rodish escaped from prison, where he was serving time for auto theft and bribery, and followed Chorak for a month before killing him.
The previous owner of M&J, William "Billy" Dauber, a suspected mob hit man, was gunned down July 2, 1980, along with his wife, Charlotte, as they traveled along a remote road in Will County on their way home from a court date.
Two vans filled with gunmen attacked Dauber's Oldsmobile, riddling it and its passengers with bullets.
"It looked like something out of Bonnie and Clyde," one investigator said.
No one was ever charged with the Dauber murders, but local and federal authorities have several suspects. At least one, Calumet Region drug figure John Greichunos, is dead of an apparent suicide. Another is in a federal witness protection program.
Chorak's death came less than two months after the murder of Robert "Pitsy" Subatich, 44, of Calumet City, a reputed "chop shop" operator who had also once owned the Mugs and Pits Tavern on Chicago's East Side.
Subatich, who was believed ready to be indicted, was found shot to death in the trunk of his car Jan. 11, 1983, at O'Hare International Airport. No one has been charged.
Perhaps the most stellar of mob executions in this area was the murder of Anthony Spilotro, the head of Outfit operations in Las Vegas, who was found buried in a cornfield in Newton County, along with his brother, Michael, a minor mob figure.
Anthony Spilotro, once a hit man for the notorious Chicago gangster Sam "Mad Sam" DeStefano - who was slain in the driveway of his home - had been indicted and was reportedly too flashy and high-profile for the new head of the Outfit, Joseph Ferriola.
Although no one was ever charged with the murders, an FBI memo from a conversation with Betty Tocco, wife of former Chicago Heights mob boss Albert Tocco, shed some light on what may have happened.
The memo said Albert Tocco left his home June 14, 1986, to meet with organized crime figures she named as Dominick "Tootsie" Palermo, Albert "Chickie" Roviaro and Albert "Nicky" Guzzino.
All but Palermo dug a deep grave inside the Willow Slough preserve in Newton County, the memo said, and threw in the alive but unconscious Spilotro brothers.
Palermo and Guzzino were indicted in December 1990 for gambling conspiracy but never for the Spilotro killings. Roviaro, who owns a Hammond beverage distributorship, has never been charged with anything, and Tocco is in prison on an unrelated conviction.
The latest local killing occurred Aug. 14, 1988, at 2547 Springhill Drive, Schererville, when 65-year-old John Pronger went to his front door to answer a pounding. Someone outside shot through the door, hitting Pronger in the wrist.
As the door gave way, Pronger fell back and was shot once in the chest.
Investigators have three theories about the Pronger killing: a mob hit, a former associate or an angry wife.
The mob hit theory says Pronger owed the mob $30,000 in appeal bond money on an auto theft arrest and conviction and was having problems coming up with the cash.
The former associate theory says that an associate owed Pronger money in connection with a narcotics deal, and the wife theory said his wife, a much younger woman, had a boyfriend on the side and decided to get rid of Pronger without getting rid of the house, cars and bank accounts.
None of the theories have ever advanced beyond the investigation stage.
Pronger, who was out on an appeal bond for stealing a truck in Chicago in 1985, was also allegedly a cocaine supplier for local dealers. Chicago police said a substantial amount of cocaine was found in the stolen 1979 Ford pickup when they stopped it in Calumet Park, Ill., in October 1985.
His brother, Robert "Mr. Big" Pronger, a major player in Calumet Region chop shop operations in the 1960s and early 1970s, was reported missing in 1971.
A decomposed body, believed to be Robert Pronger's, was found in a wooded area in Griffith the following year.
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