A Look Back At Raymond Chandler And "The Annotated Big Sleep'

As I noted, here before, I have been an admirer of Raymond Chandler since I was a teenager. I’ve read all of his crime novels, short stories, his commentary and several biographies of the late, great writer. 

Back in 2018, I reviewed The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler for the Washington Times.

You can read the review via the link below or the following text:

 

Paul Davis On Crime: The Annotated Big Sleep: A Look Back At The Late, Great Raymond Chandler And His Classic Crime Novel, 'The Big Sleep' 

 

THE ANNOTATED BIG SLEEP

By Raymond Chandler

Annotated and edited by Owen Hill, Pamela Jackson and Anthony Dean Rizzuto

Vintage Books, $25, 512 pages

 

“Raymond Chandler once wrote that ’some literary antiquarian of a rather special type may one day think it worthwhile to run through the files of the pulp detective magazines’ to watch as ’the popular mystery story shed its refined good manners and went native,’” the editors of “The Annotated Big Sleep” write in their introduction of the late, great Raymond Chandler’s classic crime novel.

 

“He might have said, as the genre of detective fiction kicked out the Britishism and became American. A chief agent of this transformation was Raymond Chandler himself. ’The Big Sleep’ was Chandler’s first novel, and it introduced the world to Philip Marlowe, the archetypal wisecracking, world-weary private detective who now occupies a permanent place in the American imagination.”

 

The editors note that in their annotated edition of “The Big Sleep” they trace the many veins of meaning into the intricate novel, which they call “a ripping good story.” The editors inform us that Raymond Chandler (July 23, 1888 March 26, 1959) did not think of himself as primarily a “mystery” writer, calling his novels and stories only “ostensibly” mysteries. But his work was confined within the limitations of genre fiction during his lifetime and many years after, even though he was lauded while he was alive by W.H. Auden, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood.

 

But today, as the editors point out, Chandler is taught in university courses and Le Monde voted “The Big Sleep” one of the “100 Books of the Century.” The novel was also made into two films, with Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe in the 1946 film, and Robert Mitchum portraying Philip Marlowe in the 1978 film. (Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, James Garner and many other actors have portrayed Philip Marlowe in films based on Raymond Chandler’s other novels).

 

Unlike his great predecessor, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler was not an ex-detective, and he didn’t associate with police officers, racketeers or grifters. He was born in Chicago, but he was raised in Nebraska, England and Ireland and he attended Dulwich College, where he studied languages and the classics.

 

He served in the Canadian infantry in World War I and he ended up in Los Angeles in 1913. After he was fired from his job as an oil executive due to his drinking and other offenses, he became a regular contributor to the pulp magazines at the age of 45. His first short story, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot,” was published in 1933. Raymond Chandler’s first novel, “The Big Sleep,” was published in 1939. The novel sold about 10,000 copies in two print runs for Knopf. The novel was not a best-seller, but it sold more than the average mystery novel.

 

“I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.” So begins the well-known and celebrated opening that introduces the reader to Philip Marlowe, the first-person narrator of “The Big Sleep.”

 

The big sleep is a metaphor for death and it is the first of many fine metaphors and similes that Raymond Chandler employs in his novel. “The Big Sleep” is a novel about organized crime, blackmail, gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, wealth, family secrets and murder. Philip Marlowe’s narration and running commentary on everyone he meets and everything he encounters is timeless. Marlowe is an incorruptible modern knight in a corrupt world.

 

As the editors note, the city of Los Angeles was in many ways Raymond Chandler’s other major character alongside Philip Marlowe. “Its character was set by its sudden expansion, and also by the greed and self-promotion that went with it,” the editors write. “It was a city of excess, escapism (Hollywood!), tawdriness, exhibitionism, and corruption.”

 

Along with the classic crime story, the editors of “The Annotated Big Sleep” sprinkle the book with the historical context of Raymond Chandler’s LA, and they offer extracts from his letters, an analysis of the novel’s characters and plot, and facts about the films made from the novel. The book also offers photos and maps. “The Big Sleep” remains a classic crime novel that is discovered by each new generation of crime aficionados (I first read it as a teen-age crime-fiction aficionado in the early 1960s) and the novel continues to inspire crime writers and film makers.

 

“The Annotated Big Sleep” not only delivers a great novel, it also provides a literary and historical treatise on the life, times and work of one of America’s greatest writers, Raymond Chandler.

 

• Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime, espionage and terrorism.

My Crime Fiction: 'Passyunk Avenue'

The story below is another chapter in my work in progress crime novel about Cosa Nostra from South Philly to Sicily.  

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine. 

Passyunk Avenue

By Paul Davis

I first saw Robert Zucco at a police press conference in the mid-1990s. As one who grew up in South Philadelphia, his South Philly swagger was apparent to me. He had a self-confidence and insouciance that reminded me of the entertainer Dean Martin, and that made him stand out from the other stiff and formal police officials at the meeting. 

Zucco (pronounced like ZOO‑koh, with the stress on the first syllable “ZOO”) wore a well-cut expensive suit, silk tie, and Italian black leather loafer shoes. His swept back dark hair was freshly barber-cut and he was clean-shaven. 

But if there had been any doubt of his origin, that was removed when he spoke to the man seated beside me in a mocking voice.

“What, you again? You’re at every meeting. Don’t you have a job?”

The elderly man next me laughed and shook his head.

“Good to see ya,” the man in the aisle said and walked towards the stage.

I asked the man seated next me who the man walking away was.

“That’s Chief Inspector Robert Zucco, the commanding officer of South Division.”

As a crime reporter and columnist for the local paper, I had heard the name, but I had never seen him or met him.

The man next to me explained that Zucco, prior to becoming a chief inspector, was the chief of detectives and before that he was the inspector in charge of a special investigative/intelligence unit that was tasked with looking after South Philly organized crime.

I made a mental note to request an interview in the near future with Robert Zucco.

And I went on to interview him several times over the years, and I had lunch with him on many occasions and drank in local bars with him. I even visited his home and met his beautiful wife and son.

Zucco was loquacious, irrelevant, and funny. and he was “good copy” for a writer. He was the subject of many of my newspaper columns. 

He was a few years older than me, but I discovered that we lived two blocks from each other in the early 1960s. Unlike me, Zucco had not been a South Philly corner boy hoodlum. Instead of hanging on a corner getting high and getting into trouble, he was a serious athlete. He excelled in baseball and football. He was also a good student and graduated from St. John’s Catholic High School and in 1967 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After serving in combat in Vietnam, he came home, married his high School sweetheart, and joined the Philadelphia Police Department.  

Robert Zucco retired some years ago, but we kept in touch. I recently received a phone call from him. He was reading my series of columns about former Cosa Nostra capos Nunzio Stillitano and Salvatore Stillitano, and he wanted to give me his take on the father-son criminals.

 

Back in the early 1970s, Zucco was a young detective assigned to South Detectives. He used to stop in frequently at Angelo’s Italian Deli on Passyunk Avenue.   

Back in the 1970s, Passyunk Avenue (pronounced Pash-yunk, which was a Lenape Indian word meaning “a place in the lowland”) was a main shopping and eating corridor in South Philly’s predominantly Italian American neighborhood. There were decades old Italian restaurants, clothing stores, jewelers, bars and specialty shops.    

Angelo Grassi, a longtime shop owner on Passyunk Avenue, was a short and stocky man in his early 50s at the time. He made great sandwiches and even greater coffee. Zucco would pop in the deli at lunch time and get a cup of coffee and sometimes an Italian hoagie or meatball sandwich.

Angelo had a couple of small tables in the back, where he hung out with his friends. Zucco would eat his sandwich and drink his coffee back there and talk with Grassi and his small group of friends. He got to know Grassi well, even discovering that the deli owner and operator was a degenerate gambler.

Zucco would often warn Grassi that his gambling would lead to ruin, but Grassi would wave him off, stating that gambling would make him rich.

One day while checking in at South Detectives, Sergeant Bob Ham called the young detective over to his desk.

“You know Angelo Grassi, the deli guy on Passyunk Avenue, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“He got the crap beat out of him and he’s in the Methodist Hospital with broken bones. Two young guys with baseball bats pounded him.”

“Robbery?”

“No. It looks like something personal. Want to take it?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Zucco drove to the Methodist Hospital on Broad Street and walked up to Grassi’s room. Outside of his room, he flashed his detective’s shield and questioned a nurse. She told him that Grassi was admitted to the Emergency Room the previous evening with a broken arm, broken leg and several broken ribs.

Zucco thanked her and entered Grassi’s room.

“How are you, you old crook?”

“Not to good, Robert. Two guys really laid into me.”

“Do you know who they are? Do you know why they gave you a beating?”

“No, I never seen them before and I don’t know why they beat the shit out of me.”

“It wasn’t a robbery, so what was it? Did it have anything to do with your gambling?

"Robert, I thank you for the visit and your concern, but please let it go. I ain’t gonna say nothing.”

Zucco left the hospital and called an informant of his who was an associate with the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family. He called the informant "Jerry.”

He arranged a meeting with Jerry in Northeast Philadelphia, away from the eyes of the South Philly mobsters. Jerry parked his car next to Zucco’s in a mall parking lot and got out and stepped into Zucco’s front passenger seat. 

Zucco asked Jerry if he knew anything about the Grassi beating.

“Oh, yeah. Angelo Grassi went overboard on his sports betting and Joe Fabbri, a mob associate and bookmaker, allowed him to keep betting on credit. I heard Fabbri wanted to take over Grassi’s deli.

“He sent two young thugs to give the poor slob a solid beating. Fabbri told Grassi that unless he signed over the deli, on the next visit the guys would be packing guns.”

“Who were the young guys?

“One was Frankie Santoro, a dumb kid, but the other one was “Salvie Shotgun.”

“Who is he?

“You don’t know? He’s Nick the Broker’s 18-year-old son.”

Zucco knew who Nick the Broker was. Nuncio Stillitano was a capo (captain) of the Wildwood, New Jersey crew under Philadelphia’s Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

Although he ran the Wildwood crew at the seaside resort, he was often in South Philadelphia as he was a major boxing promoter, and he could often be found at local gyms, bars and restaurants on Passyunk Avenue conducting boxing and illegal gambling business.

The following day at South Detectives’ 24^th and Wolf Street station, Zucco walked up to Detective George Mathis’ desk.

Zucco shook hands with the 6’4, 250-pound former college football player and Black detective and explained thar he was going to confront a couple of local hoodlums. He asked Mathis to come along.

“This is I-talian business. Why do you want me?”

“I want you to scare the shit out of them.”

Mathis laughed.

“I just want you to back me up while I talk to these young hoods.”

“OK.”

Zucco and Mathis drove to Passyunk Avenue and parked in front of a pizza place that Jerry said Salvatore “Salvie Shotgun” and his friends hung out.

Zucco walked in the place with Mathis behind him. Even without flashing their badges, the young hoodlums sitting at the tables knew they were cops.

“Salvatore Stillitano,” Zucco called out. “Outside. I want to talk to you.”

Stillitano, a tall and muscular 18-year-old with curly dark hair, stood up slowly and walked over to Zucco.

“I’m Salvie. What do ya want?”

“Outside. Now.”

Stillitano turned towards his hoodlum friends and grinned. He then walked out the door. He stopped grinning outside and Mathis leaned against Zucco’s unmarked police vehicle.

“I hear you’re a baseball player, good with a bat,” Zucco said.

“Yeah,” Stillitano answered surly. “I can play ball.”

“I hear you can swing a bat when you’re not playing ball.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do. And if anything happens further to Angelo Grassi, a personal friend of mine, I’m going to show you how to really swing a bat.”

Zucco’s threat did not register with the bold, young hoodlum. After Zucco’s visit. Stilitano drove to the Methodist Hospital, walked up to Grassi’s room and gripped the deli owner by the neck.

"You rat motherfucker. Did you send that cop fucker to me? I’ll kill you if you say another fucking word.”

Stillitano then punched Grassi in the left eye. Grassi passed out and Stillitano walked out of the hospital room. When Zucco heard that Stillitano had again attacked Grassi after the detective’s threat, he considered gathering Mathis and a few other detectives and show Stilitano and his friends that he meant what he said.

But after a few minutes, he calmed down and called Jerry. He asked his informant where Nick Stillitano would be that night. Jerry told him.

Later that evening, Zucco walked into a small Italian restaurant on Passyunk Avenue and saw Nick Stillitano and two men sitting at a back table. He walked briskly over and one of the men rose and attempted to bar Zucco from speaking to Stillitano.

“Do you want to spend the night in jail?”

“Fred, sit down. You too detective,” Nick Stillitano said.

Zucco looked into Stillitano’s slightly protruding black eyes. He saw that Stillitano was a handsome man. conservatively dressed, and outwardly calm and polite.

“I heard of you, Detective Zucco,” Stillitano said. “You’re a good guy from the neighborhood. You’re a cop, but a good guy anyway, I hear. You don’t frame no one, and you don’ get carried away. What can I do for you?”

Zucco explained the situation regarding Grassi, Fabbri, his son Salvatore.

Nick Stillitano did not initially respond and appeared calm, but his protruding eyes seemed to grow darker.

“I’ll look into this and call you.”

Stillitano rose and extended his hand. Zucco got up and shook the mobster’s hand.

The following day, Zucco received a call from someone named Harry. He took the written message from another detective at South Detectives and wondered who this Harry was. He called the number and asked for Harry.

Nick Stillitano took the phone.

“Detective, I looked into the issue we discussed. I had a word with the book guy, who will lay off the deli guy. He worked out a payment plan, so no one will bother him anymore. I hope you won’t pursue my son.”

“No, I won’t.’

“Good.”

Zucco was happy and visited Grassi in the hospital and told him that he had straightened out the situation. Anglo Grassi was thankful.

Zucco then called Jerry to get his take on the situation.

“Yeah, Nick the Broker chewed out Fabbri for involving his son and he chewed out his son for being stupid.”

“Nick said that Grassi was given a payment plan.”

“Nah, that's bullshit” Jerry replied. “Not that he needed the money, but Nick pulled rank on Fabbri, wiped out Grassi’s debt and made himself Grassi’s partner in the deli business.”

© 2026 Paul Davis  

Note: You can read earlier posted chapters via the links below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Rigano Murders'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'From South Philly To Sicily'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvie Shotgun'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Nick The Broker'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Upton "Uppercut" Clarke'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Face'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Three Soldiers' 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Jadroll'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Up And Coming'

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Tony Ball-Peen'      

My Philly Daily On Crime Column: The Murder Of A Philadelphia Police Officer

 Philly Daily ran my On Crime column today.

You can read the column via the below link or the following text:

 Paul Davis: The murder of a Philadelphia Police Officer – Philly Daily

On the Philadelphia Police Department’s Facebook page, the department stated it is mourning the loss of Officer Shane Seiber, a 40-year-old, 10-year veteran who was fatally shot while responding to a call in West Philadelphia early Saturday morning, October 10, 2026.

“Officer Seiber was assigned to the department’s 19th District. Shortly before 1 a.m., Seiber and his partner responded to the 100 block of North 52nd Street for a report of a man armed with a firearm on the porch of a residence. According to Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, the officers came under heavy gunfire as they approached the property.

“Officer Seiber was struck three times. His partner, a 33-year-old officer and father of five, was shot 12 times.

“As additional officers rushed to the scene, the gunman reportedly continued firing at responding personnel. Fellow officers immediately worked to evacuate their critically wounded colleagues, carrying them into patrol vehicles and rushing them to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Despite emergency medical intervention, Officer Seiber succumbed to his injuries.”

According to the Facebook post, his partner survived and was subsequently reported in stable condition, although Commissioner Bethel cautioned that he was still “not out of the woods.”

A suspect was later taken into custody after SWAT officers located him hiding in a tree.

“Officer Seiber leaves behind his wife, a 7-year-old son, and a 3-year-old daughter. He served the people of Philadelphia for a decade, answering calls for help and confronting the dangers that come with protecting the community. His death is a devastating loss for his family, fellow officers, and the entire Philadelphia Police Department.”

The Officer Down Memorial Page has recognized Officer Seiber’s line-of-duty death, listing his end of watch as October 10, 2026.

“As we remember Officer Seiber, we also recognize the extraordinary courage of the officers who rushed into danger to rescue their wounded colleagues.

Rest in peace, Officer Shane Seiber. Thank you for your service and sacrifice. Our deepest condolences go out to his wife, children, family, friends, and brothers and sisters in blue.”

According to the police and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, a suspect, Eric Lewis, is facing a list of charges in connection with Seiber’s killing, including murder, homicide of a law enforcement officer and multiple weapons offenses. 

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel spoke to reporters the morning after the shooting. 

“He fought valiantly, but he lost his life today,” Bethel said at a morning news conference. “His wife was able to be by his side before he passed, as well as his family.”

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said Seiber “paid the ultimate price while sacrificing his own life to protect and serve our city.” 

The mayor announced that she will seek legislation that expands Pennsylvania’s involuntary commitment laws to cover substance use disorders and other mental or behavioral health conditions and would work with state officials.

The other officer, a 33-year-old father of five children, was shot 12 times and was in critical condition. After going into surgery, Bethel said he is now in stable condition but is “not out of the woods yet.”

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner outlined a series of charges against Lewis, including attempted murder, attempted homicide of a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault and firearms offenses.

Krasner stated that his prosecutors have identified 11 additional victims, which included the two officers who were shot and nine others who were fired upon. He outlined nine additional counts of attempted murder and attempted homicide of a law enforcement officer involving those nine people.

According to the Philadelphia Police, Lewis had two handguns and a shotgun in his possession. One of the handguns belonged to one of the officers who had been shot.

Ralph Cipriano, an investigative journalist and a frequent critic of District Attorney Krasner, wrote in his Big Trial Substack page that both the police and the DA were responsible for Lewis, a repeated offender, still being on the street. 

“On three occasions, Larry Krasner’s DAO failed to stop Eric Lewis before he allegedly killed a cop,” Cipriano wrote. 

“But the DAO is not the only guilty party in this tragedy. The police also screwed up big time. Let’s start with the DAO’s failure to prosecute Lewis for previous crimes.

“The story begins on Aug. 22, 2020, when police arrested Lewis on a charge of intentional possession of a controlled substance. But when the case went to court on Dec. 10, 2020, the charge was voluntarily withdrawn by prosecutors. On Sept. 30, 2020, Lewis was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of children, terroristic threats, reckless endangerment, firearms not to be carried without a license, and carrying firearms in public.

“When the case went to court, however, on July 21, 2022, according to the court docket, a witness who turned out to be the complainant was “unavailable due to illness.”

“When a key witness is ill, a prosecutor has the option of taking a deposition from the witness at home or at the hospital. But the D.A.’s office under Larry Krasner apparently failed to do anything to preserve the complainant’s testimony. On Nov. 16, 2022, according to the court docket, all five charges against Lewis were nolle prossed, or voluntarily dropped, because the complainant is deceased.

“In a press release issued today, Krasner claimed that the DAO was blameless for not being able to successfully prosecute Lewis for that 2020 incident. Defendant Eric Lewis was also charged with assault and gun offenses in another matter,” Krasner wrote. “The case was successfully held over for trial by our office but never went to trial due to the death (by natural causes) of the key victim/witness.”

In the fall of 2020, Lewis was arrested a third time, this time for murder. The arrest stemmed from an alleged road rage incident on Aug. 31, 2019, where Lewis was accused of shooting 32-year-old Christopher Williams to death.

When the case went to trial in 2023, however, it was marred by the misconduct of a homicide detective, and another officer who was a witness in the case.

At the end of a bench trial, Common Pleas Court Judge Scott O’Keefe ruled that prosecutors hadn’t proved their case, and he found Lewis not guilty.

In a Youtube video, Krasner said the prior homicide case against Lewis was “deeply flawed,” and that the conduct of one former officer, Nyeem Crawley, was “arguably criminal.”

To me, the murder of a police officer is one of the most heinous crimes committed today. Anyone who is bold enough and bent enough to murder a police officer is a total outlaw. Considering that a police officer is armed and backed up by thousands of fellow armed officers who will pursue the cop killer with every resource, the cop killer is stupid fearless, and he will kill anyone, anywhere and anytime. 

Thankfully, Lewis was caught, hiding in a tree, so let’s hope he receives a just punishment. 

Paul Davis’s On Crime column appears here each week. He is also a contributor to Broad + Liberty and Counterterrorism magazine. He can be reached via pauldavisoncrime.com.

My South Philly Review Crime Beat Column: FBI Warns Of Networks Targeting Children

The South Philly Review ran my Crime Beat column today.

You can read the column via the above page or the text below:

Over the years that I’ve covered the crime beat, I’ve seen violent crimes from vicious assaults to murder, but crimes involving children can still shock and disturb me.

I’d like to pass on the FBI’s Philadelphia Division’s’ warning about violent online networks that are targeting children.   

“With the back-to-school season underway, FBI Philadelphia is warning parents, guardians, and caregivers about the sharp increase in the activity of nihilistic violent extremists (NVEs), “764” and other violent online networks targeting and exploiting children and other vulnerable populations across the country, including our region,” the FBI’s Philadelphia Division stated in an advisory on September 23rd. “These online networks methodically target and exploit underage and vulnerable individuals, and it is imperative that the public learn about this threat and recognize warning signs exhibited by victims. Members of these violent online networks target vulnerable, often underage populations across the United States and around the globe through a method or tactic known as sadistic online exploitation. This is defined as targeting vulnerable populations including children to engage in self-harm, produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM), engage in acts of animal cruelty, sexually exploit siblings, and in some case encourage victims to attempt suicide.”

According to the FBI, these criminals often emerge from decentralized online networks and subcultures that glorify violence, mass killers, and self-harm.

“However, not all participants in these violent online networks are motivated by NVE. These subjects may be engaging in criminal activity for sexual gratification, social status, a sense of belonging, or for a mix of other reasons. These networks exist on publicly available online platforms, such as social media sites, gaming platforms, and mobile applications commonly used by young people. These violent actors target vulnerable populations to include children as well as those who struggle with a variety of mental health issues, such as depression, eating disorders, or suicidal ideation.”

The FBI notes that these criminals often groom their victims by first establishing a trusting or romantic relationship before eventually manipulating and coercing them into engaging in escalating harmful behavior designed to shame and isolate them.

“Many threat actors target underage females, but anyone—juveniles, adults, males, and females—can be targeted. Victims are typically between the ages of 10 and 17 years old, but the FBI has seen some victims as young as nine years old.”

The FBI urges communities to exercise increased vigilance when posting personal photos, videos, or personal identifying information, or direct messaging online.

“Although seemingly innocuous when posted or shared, the images and videos can provide malicious actors an abundant supply of content to exploit and manipulate or alter for criminal activity. Victims are vulnerable to embarrassment, harassment, extortion, or continued long-term re-victimization.

The FBI recommends that family, friends, and caregivers consider the following potential indicators and warning signs:

• Sudden behavior changes such as becoming withdrawn, moody, or irritable.
• Sudden changes in appearance, especially neglect of appearance.
• Changes in eating or sleeping habits.
• Dropping out of activities and becoming more isolated and withdrawn.
• A new online “friend” or network prospective victims seem infatuated with and/or scared of.
• Receipt of anonymous gifts, such as items delivered to your home, currency, gaming currency or other virtual items.
• Scars, often in patterns.
• Fresh cuts, scratches, bruises, bite marks, burns, or other wounds.
• Carvings, such as words or symbols, on the skin.
• Wearing long sleeves or pants in hot weather.
• Writing in blood or what appears to be blood.
• Threatening to die by suicide and openly talking about death, not being wanted or needed, or not being around.
• Idealization of mass shooting or mass casualty events.
• Family pets or other animals being harmed or dying under suspicious circumstances.
• Family pets uncharacteristically avoid or are fearful of your child or you.
• Law enforcement being called to the home under false pretenses (known as swatted or doxxed) by an unknown person.

The FBI Philadelphia recommends that anyone identifying criminal action and perpetrators contact the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Paul Davis’s Crime Beat column appears here each week. He can be reached via pauldavisoncrime.com. 

My Crime Fiction: 'The Seventh Street Shooting'

Below is my crime fiction short story The Seventh Street Shooting. 

The story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine.

The Seventh Street Shooting

By Paul Davis

After a late evening dinner with my wife, I headed upstairs and took a shower.

I shaved under my neatly trimmed short beard and brushed my teeth. I applied a roll-on deodorant under my arms and splashed a bit of aftershave on my neck. I walked into my bedroom and began to dress. I slipped on a pair of dark gray slacks, a black leather belt, black socks, black Italian leather loafer shoes and a powder blue dress shirt, sans tie.

I placed my reading glasses in my shirt's pocket, and I placed my gold wedding band on my finger, and I slipped on my Rolex Submariner watch with the black leather band on my left wrist. I placed a gold chain over my head, and it fell to my chest under my shirt. The gold chain held the original U.S. Navy dog tag that was issued to me way back in February of 1970 when I entered Navy Boot Camp. The gold chain also held a small, finely carved and detailed Scuba diver.

My beautiful wife, who bought me the Rolex Submariner watch just prior to our wedding, also bought me the gold Scuba diver to commemorate her first Scuba diving experience with me in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I placed my key ring with my house and car keys and my other Navy dog tag into my left pants pocket, and my cellphone and a pocketknife with a short but sharp blade into my right pants pocket. I slipped a clip-on holster with my .38 hammerless Ruger revolver to my belt on my left side. If need be, I could cross-draw the gun with my right hand.

I put on my black sports jacket and placed my slim, black leather long notebook/wallet into my jacket’s left breast pocket. I placed my mini-tape recorder into my jacket’s right breast pocket.

I was showered, shaved, well-dressed, and armed. I was on my way to meet a murderer.

 

I was meeting Robert “Bobby Buddha” Regalbuto at a neighborhood bar in South Philly. Regalbuto read my crime column in the local paper and emailed me using the email address I listed below the newspaper column. He wrote that he remembered me from school and the old neighborhood, and he wanted to offer me a story for my column.

I remembered Regalbuto as well. I recall that he was a violent and half-crazed hoodlum who became a drug addict and was sent to prison for murder in the 1970s.

As I stood at the bar and sipped a vodka on the rocks, I watched the front door. Mark Terranova, my good friend and a retired Philadelphia police detective, sipped his beer at the other end of the bar. Like me, he was armed. I had mentioned to Mark that I was meeting Regalbuto in a bar, and he insisted on backing me up from a short distance. 

When Regalbuto walked in the bar I recognized him immediately, although he was older, grayer and much thinner than the last time I saw him. He walked up to me and shook my hand. He said that I had changed, but he recognized me from my photo that accompanied my column.   

Regalbuto was a member of the Dalton Street and Oregon Avenue street corner gang back in the late 1960s. The teenage gang, known as the “D&O,” was a notorious and troublesome group, well known to the police and other street corner gangs in South Philadelphia.

I knew Regalbuto as we both attended Thomas Junior High School together in the mid-1960s, although he was more than two years older than me. We had several friends in common as I was good friends with several D&O gang members.

Regalbuto thanked me for meeting me and suggested we take an empty table at the back of the bar. He ordered a Ginger Ale from the bartender, explaining to me that he no longer drank, took drugs or smoked. We sat at the table and Regalbuto began to tell me his story.

Regalbuto said he moved away from South Philadelphia some years ago after he was released from prison. He had served 10 years for shooting and killing a man in a quarrel while both of them were high on heroin. He was guilty of second-degree murder, he acknowledged, and he served his time. He told me that he rekindled his Catholic religion while in prison. And although many years had passed, he now felt compelled to confess to the police about another murder he committed back in 1968.

Regalbuto spoke of the Seventh Street shooting that saw two men murdered and several others wounded.

 

I recall vividly the 1968 murders on Seventh Street in South Philly. I was there.

I’ve seen more than my share of violence. Growing up in South Philly in the 1960s, I saw a young soldier fresh from basic training shoot and murder his romantic rival in a hallway in the South Philadelphia High School. I also witnessed a drive-by shooting that murdered two young men on a corner on Broad Street.

And later, as a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I’ve been on the scene almost immediately after several murders. I recall drinking in a bar when we heard a car crash. We rushed out of the bar and saw a car that had crashed into a home on Oregon Avenue. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, two bullets in his head, the latest victim in an internecine mob war in South Philly. And later, while out for a morning walk, I heard police and ambulance sirens close by, so I hurried over to a scene where a notorious mob guy had just been shot to death on his doorstep.

A few years later, while out on a ride-along with a Philadelphia police sergeant, he was called to the apartment of a waitress who had been shot and killed. The young woman had been shot through her mouth, we learned, while playing a sex game with her boyfriend.

But the Seventh Street shootings were the first murders I ever witnessed.  

 

I was 15 years old going on 16 in 1968. I was a half-a-hoodlum hanging on the corner of 13^th Street and Oregon Avenue, three block west of the D&O gang’s hangout at George’s Luncheonette. We were friendly with the D&O teenagers as we all went to school together and we freely mixed at the teenage dances.

Two of the wildest D&O hoodlums liked to come to 13^th and Oregan and hang out in our luncheonette, JP’s. Joseph “Crazy Joe” Villotti was “scary crazy,” as one of the 13^th and Oregon Avenue teenagers described him.

Villotti was tall, lean and muscular with a rough face and dark brown hair. He had a raspy voice and an insane laugh. He reminded me of a thinner version of the actor Marlon Brando in the film On the Waterfront.

The teenagers at both the D&O corner and 13^th and Oregan feared being the focus of Villotti’s attention. Villotti was sadistic and a bully with a warped sense of humor. He would shake down the focus of his attention, taking their money or car, and he would also force the teenager to accompany him on some crazy errand.

Thankfully, he never picked on me as he was afraid of my older brother Eddie. My brother, who stopped hanging with us on 13^th and Oregon Avenue and graduated to hanging out with our “old heads,” the previous generation who were then in their mid-20s and went clubbing throughout the city. Eddie, a genuine tough guy, was no bully and he often defended those who were bullied.

Although Villotti was “bat shit” crazy, he was sane enough to know that he could not beat my brother, and a loss to Eddie would hurt his fearsome reputation.

When Villotti visited JP’s, he was often accompanied by another wild man, a big and heavy teenager named Robert Regalbuto, known as “Bobby Buddha.”

He was given the nickname by a teenager who one day saw Regalbuto’s huge bare belly over baggy swim trunks at the Bellmawr Lake, a man-made lake surrounded by sandy beaches that was a popular South Jersey resort for South Philly teenagers back in the 1960s.

Having earlier seen a photo in school of the statue of Buddha with a huge stomach, the teenager began to call Regalbuto “Bobby Buddha,” and the nickname stuck.

When Villotti and Regalbuto walked into JP’s, many of the guys stiffened. As I was protected by my brother’s reputation, I found the two bruisers to be amusing, although I felt bad for the guys they bullied and abused.

 

One warm evening, as we stood on the corner outside of JP’s, Villotti pulled up in a car with Regalbuto and other D&O hoodlums. Two other cars loaded with D&O gang members pulled up behind Villotti’s car.    

Villotti urged us to get into a car and follow them to Seventh and Edwin Streets, where they were going to “fuck up some black guys.” Villotti explained that the black guys had “jumped” a white guy and put him in the hospital.  

One of the D&O guys opened up his car trunk and handed out baseball bats and pipes to our guys. Michael “Mikey Head” Tabone took a bat, as did Anthony “Big Man” Manfredi. Harry “Bud the Dud” Keitel took a five-inch pipe. I didn’t take a weapon as I was the youngest kid there, and I had no intention of fighting. As an aspiring crime writer, I got into the car and drove to Seventh Street as I wanted to watch the fight.

When the four cars screeched to a halt on Seventh Street, we piled out of the cars, bats and pipes in hand. Several black guys came out of the candy store. In the lead was a big and tough-looking guy. I also saw several black guys come out of a bar from across the street as well as other boys and men from row homes on Edwin Street.

The big, tough looking guy asked Villotti, “What the fuck, Joe?”

Obviously, the hoodlum knew Villotti. Villotti responded by pulling out a .45 automatic and shooting the man in the chest. Regalbuto pulled out a .38 revolver and shot another black guy.

Pandemonium ensued. The white and black guys clashed on the street, swinging fists, bats and other weapons. Tabone, not the bravest of guys, left his car running on the corner and took off running up Edwin Street. Not too brave myself at the time, I followed Tabone. About halfway up Edwin Street, a large elderly black woman stood in her doorway, called me a “white motherfucker,” and threw a large, cast-iron frying skillet at me.

The skillet hit me on the right side of my forehead. I fell to my knees and prayed – “Dear God, please don’t let me pass out.”

Thankfully, I didn’t pass out, and I was able to get up and run for two more blocks. Then I walked several more blocks back to 13^th and Oregon Avenue.

Tabone beat me home. He was telling the other teenagers on the corner about the street fight and how gunshots rang out. He also spoke of beating up a couple of black guys, which was of course a lie.

I too lied, explaining the huge lump on my forehead. I told the guys that I was hit by a baseball bat.

 

“The neighborhood, the newspapers and the TV all said this was a racial thing,” Regalbuto explained as we sat in the bar. “Yeah, race relations were not good back then, but the shooting had nothing to do with race. Me and Joe made a drug deal with Martin King, known as “The King,” a black heroin dealer who hung out at a candy store at Seventh and Edwin Streets.

“We bought heroin on credit from King as we were steady customers of his. We were supposed to sell the dope and then pay King. But Joe and me were stone cold heroin addicts then, and we shot up more dope than we sold.”

Regalbuto said that Joe had the crazy idea of instead of paying King what we owed him, we should just kill him.

“Joe also had the idea of making the murder of King look like a race war between the Italians and the blacks.”          

Regalbuto said Villotti murdered King and he murdered King’s number two, a hoodlum named Billy Jones.

“Villotti was a cold-hearted psychopath,” Regalbuto said. “He often spoke of the murders with great relish and showed no regret. I’m different.”

Villotti died of AIDS some years prior in prison, while Regalbuto said he renewed his faith in Jesus Christ while serving his sentence. He confessed his murder to a priest and now he planned to turn himself into the police the following morning.

There was no statute of limitations on first degree murder.

 

I wrote about the Seventh Street shooting in my next newspaper column. I included my own involvement.

This was the first time, publicly or privately, that I admitted to being beaned with a cast-iron skillet by an elderly woman and not hit in the head with a baseball bat by a gang member.  

© 2025 Paul Davis 

Note: You can read my other crime fiction short stories via the link below:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Crime Fiction Stories