Political Hits - Murder of Benjamin F Lewis on Feb 13, 1963
Peter Fokes
In fact, the next political murder, in 1963, is remarkable in that it did
not provoke reformist exertions. That the victim was an African American
is perhaps not beside the point. Benjamin F. Lewis, alderman and
committeeman of the West Side's 24th Ward, was discovered, on the night he
had won a primary election, murdered under the desk in his ward office. He
had been handcuffed and shot. A cigarette had burned down to his ring
finger.
There were no suspects, arrests or even much public uproar, but as with
similar cases, plenty of grist for conspiracy theorists. Lewis was among
the first blacks to move into Douglas Park, once a Jewish neighborhood
that had hosted two Cook County Demo-cratic chairmen. Further, Lewis
opposed both Mayor Richard J. Daley and black U.S. Rep. William Dawson.
Dawson's control of the black numbers
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http://www.lib.niu.edu/2000/ii000922.html
I assume this is an unsolved murder. Cold case, so to speak.
More on the murder here:
From TIME, March 8, 1963
"Return of the Rub-Out"
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He was the boss of the teeming 24th Ward, on Chicago's West Side. He was
the ward's first Negro alderman. He wore $200 suits, and his friends
called him "Duke." He held real estate valued at more than $100,000. He
had just leased a shiny new political headquarters, with autographed
photos of people like John F. Kennedy on the wall. That was how it was
with Benjamin F. Lewis, 53. Everything was going his way. Last week he was
re-elected as alderman by a pretty decisive margin—12,189 to 888. It
almost seemed as though Ben Lewis had not an enemy in the world. But he
did.
Last week, the night after his landslide victory, a couple of women in an
apartment near Lewis' new headquarters thought they heard gunshots. But
they were watching a TV show called Naked City, a cops-'n'-robbers
thriller about New York—and what were a few gunshots more or less? The
ladies did nothing. Next morning a janitor went into Lewis' office. On his
new carpet lay Ben Lewis, his wrists bound in handcuffs, a dead cigarette
in his fingers, and three bullet holes in the back of his skull.
....
Reward. Why should anyone want to kill such a kindly fellow? At week's
end, Chicago had no idea. Mayor Richard Daley offered a $10,000 reward for
the capture of Lewis' murderer. Police Superintendent Orlando Wilson,
former dean of the School of Criminology at the University of California,
vowed "to apprehend and bring before the bar of justice the culprit who
committed this dastardly crime. I'm surprised that a killing of this sort
would be effected against him."
Meanwhile, Lewis' death would go down as the 977th unsolved Chicago
rub-out since 1919.
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896574,00.html
The murder of Lewis is mentioned in HSCA section dealing with Associates
of Jack Ruby, Leonard Patrick.
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On February 18, 1963, Chicago Alderman Benjamin F. Lewis was found shot to
death. In April 1964 an informant advised that Patrick and Yaras
controlled the ward in which Lewis was slain. (1959) It was also reported
that Lewis was slain because he was not cooperating with the criminal
element in Chicago. (1960)
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See
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/jfk9/hscv9d.htm
Ruby tried to contact Patrick in 1963, apparently to discuss the AGVA
matter. It is uncertain whether he succeeded. Patrick denied getting a
call from Ruby, and said perhaps his partner talked to him. "Dduring an
FBI interview of Jack Patrick on December 9, 1963, he said that though he
and Ruby had resided in the same neighborhood in Chicago, he could not
recall Ruby."
Regards,
Peter Fokes,
Toronto