Silas Jayne:: Chicago's Suburban Gangster

by Bryan Alaspa

Overview

His name might not have the same notoriety that belonged to Al Capone or John Wayne Gacy, but Silas Jayne's life carved a similarly brutal arc through the Windy City's history. Even the mob was reluctant to compete with a man who burned his own horses alive for insurance money and ordered the assassination of his own brother in the same unhesitating fashion that he reportedly axed a flock of geese when he was six. Protected by bribery and intimidation, Jayne preyed on the innocence of the girls who took riding lessons in his stables and remained perversely untouched in the background of infamous Chicago crimes like the Schuessler-Peterson murders and the disappearance of candy heiress Helen Brach.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596299689
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	07/23/2010
Series:	True Crime
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Bryan W. Alaspa is a Chicago native and professional writer. He is the author of the nonfiction books Ghosts of St. Louis: The Lemp Mansion and Other Eerie Tales, Chicago Crime Stories: Rich Gone Wrong, Chicago Disasters and Forgotten Tales of Illinois. He is also the author of the fiction novels Ballad of the Blue Denim Gang, The Vanished Child, Dust, Rig, Gone, Sin-Eater: Part One and After the Snowfall. He also writes about baseball for one online publication and writes arts and entertainment articles for another. He still hopes to one day write the definitive book about Chicago.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction: A City Built on Blood 11

1 The Early Years: He Had Cold Eyes 15

2 The Murder of Three Young Boys 27

3 Bad Blood Between Brothers 51

4 The Candy Woman 77

5 The Aftermath 97

Bibliography 105

About the Author 111