A rumor about a $100,000 diamond ring led two Chicago thieves to the grave of Hollywood producer Mike Todd, Elizabeth Taylor’s late husband. In 1977, someone dug up Todd’s coffin and removed his remains. The ring was never found. Retired police detective Gary Jenkins tells how the investigation stalled until famous Hollywood private eye Anthony Pelicano took on the case. He located Todd’s remains, and a witness connected to the Chicago Outfit’s Hole in the Wall Gang later helped identify the grave robbers. It’s a strange story about a Hollywood legend, a costly rumor, and thieves willing to dig for a score. If you enjoy Murder Blueprint, follow the show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Transcript [0:03] Welcome, everyone. Lean in and listen to one of my strange and crazy stories. This one's about the grave robbing Chicago mobsters. This is kind of a short, fun story. I wanted to give you a break from the first four episodes filled with murder, torture, and kidnapping. I promise I'll get back to those subjects soon enough. I promise I'll get back to those subjects soon enough. Oh, and don't forget to like, subscribe, and review my new podcast on the Apple app or on your favorite app. Settle in and hear all about the grave robbing mobsters. I'm going to start talking about a Hollywood movie producer. He was born under the name of Avron Goldboggen, but he became known as Michael Todd. He grew up in the north central part of the United States and moved to Chicago, started out in the construction business, then got into the film industry when he was working on soundproofing stages when the pictures first changed from silent to talking films. [1:00] During the Depression, he would go bankrupt, but he came back in the construction business, and World War II came along. During World War II, he started getting into the movie business, and right after World War II, probably more like the early 50s, he developed a new big-screen film process in operation called Cinerama. I don't know if you remember Cinerama. I remember probably when I was in late grade school, they came out with these huge big screen productions that were Cinerama, [1:33] that were mainly westerns and had the big sky country as a background. He broke off from the company that developed Cinerama, which he had been involved with, and developed another widescreen film process that became known as Todd AO. And that was immensely popular. I think his first success with that was a film version of the popular musical Oklahoma. I'll try to sing Oklahoma for you, but it would not sound good. Just remember they spell out O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma, O-K. That's the extent of my singing, folks. His next big hit was Around the World in 80 Days, and I remember seeing that. I think maybe I was a freshman in high school or something. It was a huge, big production. It had a lot of fun. It was a comedy. And won an Academy Award for the Best Picture in 1957. [2:23] In the very next year, 1958, Michael Todd was at the very peak of his success. He'd won an Academy Award. He was going all around the country. He was getting all kinds of offers, and he was going from one part of the country to the other. I can't remember exactly where. It was a small private plane, and he was killed in an airplane crash. At this point in time, he was also married to the most popular and what some would say the most beautiful actress in Hollywood, Elizabeth Taylor, who was at the peak of her career in the 50s. They lived the Hollywood legend. They threw huge big parties. They lived on a lavish scale. He left a huge big estate after he died in this airplane crash. It was estimated $3 to $5 million. Now, that doesn't seem like so much. Now, in 1957, $3 to $5 million was probably more than $40 to $50 million. Half the estate went to Elizabeth Taylor, and they'd had a daughter together named Elizabeth Francis. I wonder know, whatever happened to Elizabeth Frances Todd, or maybe she used the name of Goldboggen. I don't know. I've never heard of the daughter. [3:26] The other half of this estate went to his son by a former marriage, Michael Todd Jr. During the years since his death and internment, they had a big funeral in Chicago, and he was buried in Chicago, but people started a rumor that Elizabeth Taylor. [3:43] As they closed the coffin down on him, put a big 10-carat diamond ring that was valued at $100,000 on her husband's finger. Authorities would later say that anybody who did even a little bit of research and read the newspaper articles about the accent would figure that there probably wasn't enough left of Michael Todd's body to put any kind of a ring on, but maybe, I guess you might assume she just throw it in the casket with him. I don't know. There would be a grand gesture when people had that kind of money, live that lifestyle, you never know what they'll do. After the crash, the reporters had questioned the manager of the Albuquerque, New Mexico funeral home. The crash was down in New Mexico. That guy claimed at the time that his body had been burned 100% and could only be identified by dental charts. They reported they made no attempt to embalm the body. The family had said that to their knowledge, there was no valuables in the grave. [4:35] He was buried in the Jewish Waldheim Cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Forest Park. So this is 1958. Fast forward about 19 years later 1977 June, there's a lady visiting a grave in the. [4:53] Jewish Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park and she notices a recently opened grave of some fresh digging that was not dug in anticipation of putting a casket in it, and it was under the headstone that said Afron Goldboggen, but it also had the name Michael Todd on it. It was Michael Todd's grave. Responding coppers quickly learned that this was the famous movie director, Michael Todd, and third husband of Elizabeth Taylor. They described this grave at the time, for you guys that live in Chicago, if you happen to be in this area or driving by, it was on 100 feet south of Roosevelt Road, just west of Des Plaines Avenue. The cops found that the casket had been opened and the remains of Mr. Todd were missing. They believed that it happened sometime after 5 o'clock on Friday afternoon and Sunday morning when the cemetery reopened. I guess the cemetery, being a Jewish cemetery, was totally closed on Saturday. Interesting little sidelight. They noted the casket was buried about four and a half feet deep. [5:58] And it was in the Congregation Beth Aaron section of the cemetery. Okay. They took the coffin out and placed it reasonably close to the grave site, but it was hidden by some large branches. They smised open the top. There was a glass case in the top. They smised all that open. Crime scene technicians could not find any fingerprints. They did find some digging tools in the area. [6:21] Of interest, as you do these investigations, were any other graves disturbed? Was this some kind of anti-Jewish thing or something? But they had no other complaints about disturbed graves in the cemetery. [6:31] Cops got in touch with Elizabeth Taylor and learned that she had not received any threats or any demands. She didn't have any idea. Now, in an unusual coincidence, she had just visited the grave the Friday before they discovered it had been disturbed. She said that was the first time she'd been there in years. She happened to be coming through Chicago and she had a stopover with some time to kill at O'Hare Airport. At the time, she was married to Navy Secretary of the time, John Warner, who will go on to be the U.S. Senator from Virginia. I think he maybe even eventually was a governor, [7:05] but she was not the First Lady of Virginia. A couple weeks after this happened, the famous Hollywood private eye, Anthony Pelicano, got involved, and he claimed that he got information from an informant where the body could be found because they weren't finding any remains. He flew to Chicago. He directed the cemetery workers to a plastic body bag with some human remains inside of it, hidden under some other branches and leaves in an out-of-the-way section of this Jewish Waldheim cemetery. When they opened the bag, they couldn't really see any human characteristics to what was inside of there. They did say there was a heavy canvas web belt, like an airplane seatbelt, inside the bag. Authorities took it into a hospital or probably to the morgue and they determined that these remains were Michael Todd's remains. [7:56] Pelicano told the police that his informant had suggested to him that the thieves had removed the body because they believed that he was buried with this $100,000 10-carat ring. And once again, Ms. Taylor and the rest of the family assured the police that Mr. Todd had not been buried with any jewelry. This is 1977. Three years later, in an unrelated situation, authorities stumble [8:20] onto a guy who will end up solving this crime. And that's where we get into the hole-in-the-wall gang now. In 1980, after being caught with a load of stolen furs, FBI agents had turned a Chicago outfit thief named Sal Romano, and before they actually surfaced him as a witness, he was involved in the hole-in-the-wall gang, and they put him back into the gang to report on what they were doing, and this was about the time they were getting ready to do the Bertha score. We've talked about this several times before, and if you remember, Frank Culatta was the street boss of this gang. And Tony Spilatro liked Romano and really forced Culatta to take him on according to Culatta. During this time, another Chicago outfit thief named Peter Basile, and I believe that's Basile, B-A-I-S-L-E, Peter vouts for Sal Romano because they had stolen together before. So we're getting closer to the 4th of July weekend, 1981. [9:15] Sal Romano is going to have to come out of the closet, so to speak. He set up Subscr
