New Orleans Deadly Party (1908)
In 1904, the historic Beauregard-Keyes House on Chartres Street sold to the Giacona family. The Giaconas were involved in the liquor trade, which caught the attention of the Sicilian Black Hand, New Orleans’ mafia branch. The Black Hand had ‘concerns’ that the Giaconas were encroaching in their territory and not paying their dues. Family patriarch Pietro Giacona invited four members of the Black Hand to their Chartres Street home. During dinner, Giacona and his son Corrado killed their three Black Hand dinner guests. Even though the crime seems to be pretty cut-and-dry, charges were dropped in 1910. The Giacona men fled, boarding up windows of the once-stately manor and ducking out on tax payments. They may have also abandoned the young Giacona daughters who heard the murders from their bedrooms. Growing up, the girls made a living seeing and selling baby clothes in the French Quarter.