Possible Detroit Mob Murders from 1942 and 1943

[Adam]

I found these late last year but I don't think I ever posted anything about them. But this is for people interested in possible Detroit mob murders. Not sure if they're technically Detroit mob related or if it's leftover Purple Gang stuff, or not organized crime related at all. But here it is:

I came across a guy named John Dulapa who pops up a bunch of times as a thief/robber in the 40s and 50s and an article from 1951 mentioned that he was questioned in the past about the murder of two Detroit mobsters in Mt. Clemens in 1943 but they didn't give the names or date. I was ready to call bullshit on that because I figured I would know if there were a double homicide of mobsters in Mt Clemens in 1943, but it turns out to be true. Leo Grombolski and Stephen Goldyga were found there stuffed in the back of a car bludgeoned with what they think was an axe on January 5th 1943. They were Hamtramck guys. Looks like Goldyga was a minor numbers guy and Grombolski had been arrested in July for robbing a Toledo brewery and had been released the week before on bond. The cops gave a bunch of different possible reasons as to why they were killed. One said they were trying to muscle in on policy operators. Another said that he didn't think it was policy related. But the Free Press also gave another explanation. As weird as it sounds, in the 1940s the Free Press had essentially a gossip columnist named Anthony Weitzel who would write about what people were saying on the street about certain current events(like crimes). He said that Grombolski was hired for the Toledo robbery and approached an unnamed "notorious ex Toledo gang chieftain" for money he was owed for when he was in jail and the bond his family had to post to get him out. He claims that Grombolski cornered the mobster in a nightclub in Detroit and demanded his money and that he was told to meet in Mt Clemens that night to collect. And that's where they were murdered. Not sure if it's true, but there was an article that predicted Pete Licavoli would be brought in for questioning. No record of it actually happening but a prosecutor mentioned that he had heard Mrs Grombolski was afraid to talk because she was afraid of Pete Licavoli.

So there's that. But it also lead to this. These murders were referenced as being similar to the axe slaying of Rex Richards on March 9th 1942 in Grosse Pointe Woods. He was found on a street and had been strangled and bashed and slashed with an axe or hatchet. He was a longtime gambler and had worked at the Club Ten Forty. And I kid you not, he was standing next to Harry Millman and talking to him while waiting for Millman's car when it blew up and killed the valet at the club there in 1937. Millman gets gunned down in Detroit later on that year in a second attempt. The Richards murder is another murder(in Grosse Pointe Woods of all places) that never gets mentioned again after 1943. And this Weitzel guy claims that the word on the street was that Richards was paying protection to the normal syndicate, but that he was also being shaken down by "Purples". Cops also thought it might be linked to problems in the policy business at the time. And I"m still not sure why these are never mentioned later on. No one is ever arrested for them.

The part I find most fascinating is that all three are never mentioned again. As far as the Free Press is concerned there are no mob hits in Detroit between Joe Tocco's in 1938 and Edmund Sarkesian's in 1944. And those two get referenced relatively frequently in the following decades as mob hits. So I just wonder what's so special about these three. Very bizarre reporting. But I wasn't sure if anyone had ever heard of these. I hadn't until last year and I've researched Detroit mob murders for a very long time.