24. End of the Lord High Executioner
When Murder Incorporated hitman Abe Reles turned snitch, Albert Anastasia, AKA “The Lord High Executioner”, was seemingly toast. Reles was scheduled to offer evidence against Anastasia but fell to his death from a 6th floor window a few hours before doing so. Police claimed that Reles had been trying to lower himself out the window via an improvised rope made of tied bedsheets. However, he had shown no inclination to escape, and ever since snitching on the mob, had been deathly afraid to be out of police sight. With Reles dead, Anastasia escaped prosecution.
He enlisted in the US Army during WWII, rose to technical sergeant, and was honorably discharged in 1944. After the war, Anastasia founded what is today the Gambino crime family, but his greed and brutality alienated his subordinates. On October 25th, 1957, belated karma finally caught up with The Lord High Executioner, when he was shot to death in a barber’s chair while waiting for a shave.