Midwest Vice

This book delves into four interconnected murders, each of them unsolved, in which the common denominator is the underground world of sex trafficking. Using police and FBI records never before made public, underworld links are made between numerous vice centers in the Midwest. What does a small mining town in upper Michigan have to do with organized crime in Peoria, Illinois? More than you might think!
Within these pages, meet corrupt night club owners, dancers who moonlight as callgirls, interstate burglary rings, Milwaukee Mafia members, bank robbers and more. All part of one giant web, they come together in a story that has remained largely untold—until now.

Gavin Schmitt is a local historian working in northeast Wisconsin. He has previously written on Milwaukee organized crime, the Menominee tribe, and various film topics, with some of his work appearing in Horrorhound magazine.

Gavin Schmitt
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 198
Bibliographic Info: 35 photos, notes, index
Copyright Date: 2024
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9088-9
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5120-0
Imprint:Exposit

Acknowledgments ix
Prologue: Jay Bass 1
Midwest Vice: Hurley, Wisconsin 5
The Peoria Underworld  41
Interlude: Malcolm O’Bannon 75
Interlude: Milwaukee Jazz  81
Izzy Pogrob and the Brass Rail  87
The O’Bannon Gang, Part Two: Robert Langenour 109
The Return of Willard Woodring  121
The Continuing Saga of Layton and Fordyce 141
Further Suspects 149
Addendum: Where Did They Go? 153
Chapter Notes 157
Index 171