Joseph Hillop
Anthony Joseph “Joe” Hillop was convicted of taking part in the armed robbery of the Abe Fuhrman & Son jewelry store at 444 Broadway in April of 1930. Two of the robbers were given long prison sentences, while Joe Bielec was given only three months in prison. Joseph Hillop received an eighteen-month sentence for his part in the affair.
This apparently did not sit well with other members of the underworld. Joe Bielec was taken for a ride in March of 1931. He was beaten, shot and strangled, and his body dumped in Oaklyn Manor. Joseph Hillop was released from prison in early 1932. Four months after his release, he too was taken for a ride, beaten, shot and strangled in the same manner as Joe Bielec, and dumped near the White Horse Pike in Ancora, New Jersey. Neither murder was ever solved.
In 1947, $92,800 was discovered in a North Philadelphia rowhouse. Joe Hillop’s widow attempted to claim the money, stating that her husband had hidden it. Her claim was denied.
Youthful Camden Bandits Bind Girl and Loot Jewelry Cases
Trenton Evening Times —
Easy Escape Made by Robbers
CAMDEN, N.J., April 14. — (Associated Press) — Three youthful robbers today bound a 17-year-old stenographer with rope, stripped two show cases in the jewelry store of Abe Fuhrman and escaped with watches and diamonds valued at $2,500.
Beulah Eckard, the stenographer, slipped out of her bonds a short time after the robbery and notified police. Fuhrman arrived at the store an hour later, and police expressed the opinion that the robbers planned their entrance at a time when Miss Eckard was alone.
The stenographer told police that a short time after she opened the store a man came in to look at watches. As she exhibited the stock, two other men entered, carrying suit cases. The two men pointed guns and forced her into a rear room, where she was tied, she said. The men then closed the store door and put the jewelry of the two cases into their suit cases. They walked out of the store door, she said, and she lost sight of them. The Fuhrman store is at 444 Broadway, three blocks from City Hall.
In Gang Killing
Camden Courier-Post —
Joe Hillop, Philadelphia crook, was taken for a “ride” yesterday by gangland. His body was found near Ancora at 5 a.m. by three boys. Mrs. Hillop unwittingly gave police a clue in the slaying when questioned last night by Prosecutor Clifford A. Baldwin.
Mobster Slain by Enemies of Phila. Gang on Camden 'Ride'
Camden Courier-Post —
Joseph Hillop Is Beaten, Strangled and Shot Near Ancora
QUARREL ON ROBBERY BELIEVED TO BE CAUSE
Is Second Victim of Vengeance Police Think; Widow Gives Clue
Joseph Hillop, cheap Philadelphia crook, was taken on a “one-way ride” early yesterday and his body dumped in a sparsely settled section of Camden county.
He had been beaten, strangled and shot four times. Identification was made through fingerprints and later verified by the dead gangster’s widow and mother, both of whom were prostrated with grief.
The body of the red-headed blue-eyed mobster—who once was accused of ratting on his companions in a Camden jewelry robbery—was found beside the old White Horse pike, about a half mile from where it joins the new pike at Ancora. Three youths, starting a fishing trip, made the discovery at 5 a.m. yesterday. Police said the man had been dead for several hours.
Strangled and Shot
Hillop had been strangled, slugged and shot, much in the same manner as his former “buddy in crime,” Joe Bielec, whose mutilated body was found on the shore of Peter’s creek, Oaklyn Manor, March 7, 1931.
A “clue” to the latest police theory of the crime was furnished, unwittingly, late yesterday by Hillop’s widow, Mrs. Anna Hillop, with whom he lived on Wallace street, near Eleventh, in Philadelphia. Although denying any knowledge of the reason behind the killing of her husband, or who committed the crime, Mrs. Hillop suddenly shouted at Prosecutor Clifford A. Baldwin and County Detective Chief Lawrence T. Doran:
If I knew anything about a robbery, don’t you think I would cut myself in? Do you think I’d let ‘em get away with it without giving me a piece?
Then, suddenly, as though she remembered she was telling something the police wanted to know, she began to talk on a new line of conversation.
Her remarks, police believe, were made because her husband had been engaged recently in forcing other crooks to divide loot with him on robberies he knew they had committed, with which he had no connection.
Prosecutor Baldwin first believed Hillop’s death had been the result of a mob war following a jewelry store robbery more than two years ago.
At that time three bandits held up and robbed the jewelry store of Abe Fuhrman & Son, 444 Broadway, escaping with $3,000 in jewelry. A short time later Hillop, Bielec, Frank Rock, Tommy Riely, Alfred Ripka, John Reilly were arrested in connection with the holdup. Rock, Bielec and Rielly each were sentenced to serve 10 to 30 years in the Eastern Penitentiary, following a conviction for the Camden job, while Hillop got 18 months for their part in the crime. Ripka and Frank “beat the rap” and were freed.
Because of the light sentences dealt Hillop and Bielec, their friends in the underworld seemed to bear an underworld grudge, and Bielec was double-crossed by Rock and Reilly. Then a short time after Bielec had been given his sentence he was put on the spot and his body found at Oaklyn.
Hillop has recently been out of jail for about four months, and during that time he married Mrs. Hillop, widow of a former motorcycle patrolman, John Kelly.
Although police refused to admit it, they were on the lookout for Ripka, brother of the notorious Frankie and Howard Ripka, and Louie Frank regarding their whereabouts on Tuesday night and early yesterday morning.
“This murder of a brother of Ripka might be connected with the Fuhrman robbery,” Prosecutor Baldwin said, “but at this time I don’t think that is the right track.”
Three county detectives looked for a day or more following the discovery of the body a few feet off the road. They notified state police at Hammonton and the body was removed to the Winslow Township Homeopathic Hospital morgue after being examined by Coroner Arthur H. Holl.
Fingerprints were taken by state police and copies taken to Philadelphia by State Trooper Osborne. Detective Chief Doran began his investigation as soon as the body was identified.
Detectives Jules Derowski and Harry Ireton were sent to Philadelphia to bring Hillop’s mother, Mrs. Lena Hillop, 716 Oriana street, Philadelphia, to the prosecutor’s office for questioning.
Wants to See Body
Mrs. Hillop showed no knowledge of her son’s recent habits or friends. He left her home more than three months ago, telling her at the time he was going to New York to find work.
While Mrs. Hillop was being questioned, police received a call from the hospital, being informed that a woman was there who identified herself as his wife. Derowski and State Trooper Osborne were sent to Philadelphia to question the woman who proved to be Hillop’s widow, although at first telling the police her name was Anna Kelly.
She was accompanied by Norman Hillop, 716 Race street, a drug store clerk. Police released the woman, saying there was nothing to hold her. When Hillop’s body was found it was nattily dressed in a brown pin stripe suit, wearing a brown hat, black silk socks and tan leather shoes.
His cream-colored fedora was found 200 feet from the body, some half a mile from where the old pike rejoins the new pike at Ancora. It later developed from the label he had bought it around the corner from his home.
Joe’s nose was broken, his ear bashed in, head cut and swollen from blows of a blunt instrument. His pockets had been stripped except for a 5-cent piece, half a pack of cigarettes and two handkerchiefs, whose initials, “L” and “C,” proved as useless a clue to his identity as the monogram “P” on the pearl-studded buckle of his tan leather belt.
But the fingerprints can’t be counterfeited, so it was only eight hours or so after the police were called in that the body was identified by means of them.
Gangster's Widow Gets Hillop's Body
Camden Courier-Post —
Two Undertakers Seek Possession of Remains, But Doran Decides
The remains of Joseph Hillop, 25, slain gangster whose mutilated body was found on a little-used road near Ancora early Wednesday, was turned over to his widow yesterday for burial.
When two undertakers sought possession of the body yesterday hospital authorities called Chief of County Detectives Lawrence T. Doran.
He learned that one undertaker was sent for the body by the widow, Mrs. Anna Hillop, while the second one was claiming the body for the dead gangster’s mother, Mrs. Lena Hillop. Both live in Philadelphia. Doran ordered the widow’s undertaker be given possession.
Mrs. Hillop, the widow, was questioned further Thursday night by Prosecutor Baldwin, it was revealed by the latter yesterday. She continues to express the belief her husband was the victim of “mistaken identity,” the prosecutor said.
Since her marriage to Hillop last April, the widow told the prosecutor, she and her husband were stopped on two occasions on the street by men who asked him when he was released from jail.
“Clyde, when did you get out of jail?” the strangers asked Hillop, according to his widow.
“Buddy, you got me wrong, my name’s not Clyde,” Mrs. Hillop said her husband told the men.
Claim To $92,800 Find Relinquished
Greensboro Daily News —
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 7. — (AP) — Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Lieberman today withdrew their claims to $92,800 he said he found in a cardboard box in the cellar of their home last March 10.
The Liebermans agreed to halt their legal battle under the “finders keepers” law after the state assured them they would be paid the usual 25 per cent informers’ fee if the commonwealth gets the $92,800 under Escheat proceedings. Lieberman told police he did not know how the money got in his home.
The widow of a slain ex-convict, Mrs. Anna Frances King Hillop, whose husband was tortured and shot to death in New Jersey nearly 16 years ago — two months after their marriage, said in Common Pleas Court that the $92,800 belonged to her husband’s estate.
Her attorney, F. Raymond Heuges, said he would prove that the money was not found by Lieberman in the cellar of his home but rather in a trap door in the ceiling of a second floor bedroom where it had been hidden by Hillop in conspiracy with Lieberman.
Acid Hurled In Face of Claimant Of $92,800 Cache
Trenton Evening Times —
PHILADELPHIA. — (AP) — Police today were seeking two men they said threw acid in the face of a 42-year-old widow who is one of the claimants for a $92,800 cache found in a south Philadelphia cellar.
Mrs. Anna Theresa Hillop told police two men accosted her in the basement of a North Philadelphia apartment house. She could give no reason for the attack, police said.
The $92,800 was found on March 15, 1947, by Benjamin Lieberman, a milk company bookkeeper, in the basement of his home.
Mrs. Hillop based her claim on the assertion that the money was hidden in the cellar by her husband, Anthony J. Hillop, three days before he was found shot to death on June 8, 1932.
The courts have ruled the money should revert to the commonwealth.
Dairies Bankruptcy Trustee Gets $92,000 Found In Cellar
Trenton Evening Times —
PHILADELPHIA — (AP) — The $92,000 “treasure trove” that Benjamin Lieberman found in his cellar four years ago has been awarded to the trustee in bankruptcy for Victor Dairies, Inc., where Lieberman was a bookkeeper.
A decision handed down by Judge Eugene V. Alessandroni in Common Pleas court yesterday denied a petition of the Commonwealth to escheat the money.
And it denied the claim of the widow of Anthony Joseph Hillop, who had said her husband placed a carton containing $110,000 in a trap door in the ceiling of the Lieberman house the day before he died in 1932.
The $92,000 found by Lieberman was dusty and worn but it was in a comparatively clean carton.
Lieberman and his wife dropped all claims but pressed for 25 percent in informer’s fee to which they would have been entitled had the State won its claim.
The jurist said: “This money was not intentionally placed in the cellar of Lieberman’s home by persons unknown. It is not without a lawful or rightful owner, but it can be directly placed to hidden assets systematically withdrawn and secreted from the bankrupt estate.”