Abe Reles

On the day of his death he was to have testified against Anastasia, a high-ranking member of the Cosa Nostra, and the trial was based solely on Reles's testimony. Frank Costello reportedly raised $100,000 to bribe these guards to kill Reles. In 2005 evidence was reported that NYPD Detective Charles Burns, one of Reles's police bodyguards, was involved in the disappearance and probable murder of NYC anti-corruption judge Joseph Force Crater in 1930.

However, in 1951 a grand jury concluded Reles died accidentally during an attempted escape.

Reles was to implicate Anastasia in the murder of union longshoreman Pete Panto. However, unlike other members of Murder, Inc., Anastasia was a high-ranking member of the Cosa Nostra. The trial, based solely on Reles' testimony, was set for November 12, 1941. Until then, Reles was under constant guard by police detectives at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island.

In 1940, Reles was implicated in a number of killings. Realizing that he faced execution if convicted, Reles became a government witness. Reles implicated his boss Lepke Buchalter in the murder of Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen; Buchalter was eventually convicted and executed for this crime. Reles's information also implicated Louis Capone, Mendy Weiss, Harry Maione, Harry Strauss, Frank Abbandando, Irving ("Knadles" and "the Plug") Nitzberg, and even his own childhood friend "Buggsy" Goldstein. All except Nitzberg were eventually convicted and executed. Reles' next target was Albert Anastasia, who had been co-chief of operations of Murder, Inc.

Reles attended school through the eighth grade. After leaving school, he began hanging out at pool rooms and candy stores in and around Brownsville. He soon teamed up with two of his childhood friends, Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein and Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, who eventually rose to power with him in the group conventionally known as Murder, Inc. His first arrest came in 1921 for stealing $2 worth of gum from a vending machine, and he was sent to the Children's Village at Dobbs Ferry, New York, for four months.

During the Prohibition days of the 1920s, while still teenagers, Reles and Goldstein went to work for the Shapiro brothers, who ran the Brooklyn rackets. Soon Reles and Goldstein were committing petty crimes for the brothers. On one such occasion, Reles was caught and sentenced to two years in an upstate New York juvenile institution. The Shapiro brothers failed to help Reles, prompting Reles to plan revenge.

Abe Reles was born on May 10, 1906 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.