It was war, and a spy had infiltrated the Panthers’ ranks. William O’Neal, a petty thief from the West Side, had driven a stolen car across state lines, a federal offense, and was offered a deal: Become an FBI informant and the case would go away. “I was beginning to feel clean again, just by helping the FBI,” he afterward told the Tribune. Ordered to infiltrate the Panthers, he quickly rose from handyman to security chief, and in November, he was given an assignment... Read More
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Booty calls: Meet the Pirateheads
“I’m the dive-team leader,” Ringo says. “The company rents a house in Tequesta. We keep our boats there. We’ve got a 26-foot Hydra-Sport, which is what we call our anchor boat, or chase boat, and we’ve got a 46-foot vessel, The Iron Maiden. And then, we’ve got the Virgalona, which was Mel Fisher‘s boat.” ... Read More
‘I Truly Don’t Know Why He Didn’t Kill Me’ — Nancy Tyler
When a shaken and distraught Nancy Tyler finally escaped from the South Windsor house where her ex-husband had held her hostage for 13 hours Tuesday, she bore a visible mark of the terror she endured. In addition to numerous small marks, there was an impression from the barrel of a handgun that had been pressed hard into her face. After allegedly being kidnapped by Richard Shenkman at 9 a.m. in Hartford and taken to 96 Tumblebrook Drive, the home they once shared, she had spent much of the... Read More
Legendary Mime Marcel Marceau Dies at 84
Marcel Marceau, the great French mime who for seven decades mastered silence and brought new life to an ancient art form, has died. He was 84. Marceau died Saturday in Paris, French news media reported, citing his former assistant Emmanuel Vacca. The cause of death was not disclosed. On Sunday, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon praised Marceau as “the master,” saying he had the rare gift of “being able to communicate with each and every one beyond the barriers of... Read More
Former Floridian returns to beach hotel of his boyhood
MIAMI BEACH — The familiar buff-colored, turbaned statues still supported the portico. The familiar blue neon sign glowed on the roof, in the same flowing script: Casablanca. Home again. As a boy in the late 1950s, when Collins Avenue’s oceanfront hotels were the height of subtropical sophistication, this one was my hangout. Now I had returned. My family once lived in an apartment in Miami Beach, but we spent our free time at the Casablanca, a curved, modern-style, seven-story... Read More