Besha Starkman (Tobin) (Perri), criminal; born 14 April 1889 in Poland; married (1) Harry Tobin on 15 December 1907, and they had two daughters, and (2) (in common law) Rocco Perri; died 15 August 1930 at Hamilton, Ontario, buried in Ohev Zedek Cemetery. Nickname: Ambitious City, Steeltown, The Hammer Motto: Together Aspire - Together Achieve Location in the province of Ontario, Canada Coordinates: Country  Province Canada  Ontario Incorporated June 9, 1846 [1] Mayor Fred Eisenberger City Council Hamilton City Council Representatives MPs and MPPs Area    - City 1,138. ...

Besha (Bessie) Starkman had Polish parents, Shimon (Sam) and Gello (Gloria) Starkman, who were among the thousands of destitute East European Jews who arrived in Toronto at the end of the nineteenth century. They were fleeing the pogroms of Russia and the poverty of the east and hoping for a new promised land. The family settled in "The Ward" (St. John's Ward), the overcrowded home of many poor immigrants to Toronto. The few Starkmans in the city directory for the period were either operators or clerks for the T. Eaton Co.'s department store and catalogue chain; hundreds of Toronto's Jews worked in the Eaton plant. It was amidst these depressing conditions that Starkman grew up. The Russian word pogrom (погром) refers to a massive violent attack on people with simultaneous destruction of their environment (homes, businesses, religious centers). ... Eaton may refer to the following: // Businesses Eatons, a department store chain in Canada Eaton Corporation, an industrial manufacturer based in Ohio Bess Eaton, a chain of coffee shops in New England Places Australia Eaton, Western Australia Canada Eatonia, Saskatchewan (formerly named Eaton) Eatonville, Ontario, a neighbourhood of the...

She later married Harry Tobin, a Russian who worked as a driver for a bakery and lived in a boarding-house at 2 Foster Place, off Elizabeth Street. On 15 December 1907, Starkman, aged eighteen, and Tobin, aged twenty-three, married. By 1911, the Tobins had moved to 63 Chestnut Street in the heart of the Ward and took in a boarder--Samuel Menkin. During this time period Starkman and Tobin had two daughters--Lilly and Gertrude.

For three months during 1912, the Tobins had a new boarder, Rocco Perri, aged twenty-four. One story said that Starkman encountered the rag-clad young man and she simply invited him home, since he needed a place to stay. Before long, the soft-spoken, good looking, dark-featured, suave Perri wooed and won over 'the auburn-haired, vivacious and intelligent Bessie Tobin.' Starkman abandoned her family, her Jewish faith, and her life in the Ward. The couple went to St. Catharines, Ontario with no money and no friends. Once there, Perri secured a job as a labourer on the Welland Canal enlargement project. Starkman and Perri were described as being 'very much in love, living together in a hovel, both dressed in rags.' Some of the Italians shunned them because Bessie was Jewish.' It was also said that Starkman left a few times, but returned to Perri. Nickname: The Garden City Motto: Industry and Liberality Location of St. ... Lock 3 of the Welland Canal, with the Garden City Skyway bridge in background. ...

After the outbreak of war in August 1914, the government cut off funding for the canal project, leaving Perri again unemployed. He found work in a bakery, then as a labourer, and finally came to Hamilton with Starkman in 1916 to work at a travelling salesman for the Superior Macaroni Co. The boom years did not increase the standard of living and wages remained stagnant as rents continued to climb. War inflation made prices rise, and there was labour unrest in Hamilton in the spring of 1916. Starkman and Perri wanted more for themselves.

In late 1916, the 'young, ambitious couple' saw an opportunity. The Ontario Temperance Act (OTA) was introduced in 1916 as a temporary wartime measure by Conservative Premier William Hearst (Ontario premier) (a tempernce advocate and pillar of the Methodist church). It made possession of liquor and beer outside one's home illegal. Although one could retain a 'cellar supply' for personal consumption, it was illegal to sell a drink. As a result, the government closed bars, taverns, clubs and liquor stores. With thirty-three taverns, sixteen liquor stores, and three private clubs closed in Hamilton, the Spectator estimated 'that selling liquor in Hamilton was a five million dollar business.' Bessie's brains and drive combined with Perri's connections, got them started. Ontario Temperance Act is a law passed in Ontario in 1916 to prohibit the sale of alcohol, a period known as Prohibition. ... The Honourable Sir William Hearst (February 15, 1864–September 29, 1941) was the Conservative premier of the Canadian province of Ontario from 1914 to 1919. ...

During Perri's rise, Starkman was by his side. Her role in the gang that Perri headed went beyond support for Perri, and she defied the limits placed on women. In face, 'Bessie was more than just a mistress to Perri, self-proclaimd 'King of the Bootleggers.' She was Perri's Queen, his second in command, the financial brains of the gang. Perri had ignored the major rule that a woman had no place in the mob. Starkman had been his right hand from the beginning.' Many considered Starkman the boss of the 'Perri mob.' She handled money, bookkeeping, and day-to-day business. She also commanded begrudging respect from gang members. Yet Starkman 'never forgot that Rocco was the boss.'

Around 1919, 'Bessie Perri came into her own and proved herself to be the financial brains of the Perri operation.' All of the money and the two Perri homes (one in Hamilton at 166 Bay Street South and the other in St. Catharines) were in Starkman's name. She had many bank accounts in the Hamilton branches of the Imperial Bank, the Bank of Commerce, the Bank of Montreal, and the Royal Bank; four accounts in Toronto; and more in Buffalo. The accounts were placed under various names, eiher (Mrs) Bessie Perri or (Miss) Bessie Starkman. In 1927, during the 'royal commission on customs investigation, testimony by several bank employees suggested that Starkman had $869,000 in seven Hamilton accounts alone, with one acount balance running as high as $400,000. Officially Perri owned nothing and earnd nothing, and so he paid no taxes. However, the Perris were not seriously penalized. Starkman herself said that Perri often donated large sums of money to Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant charities. Bank of Montreal TSX: BMO NYSE: BMO is Canadas fourth largest bank[1], and is classified as a Domestic Chartered Bank (Schedule I). ... The terms Royal Bank, Banque Royale, Banco Real can connote several different things, RBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland RBC, the Royal Bank of Canada Royal Bank Plaza, headquarters of RBC in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ...

Starkman would place orders with the three distillers (Gooderham & Worts, Corby's and Seagram's) and with at last three breweries (Kuntz, Grant's Spring and Taylor & Bate) while Perri made his several rounds in Toronto. Starkman acompanied Perri on several of the Toronto trips in order to visit her daughters. Since Harry Tobin treated her 'as if she were dead,' she would wait outside the girl's school on McCaul Street to visit with them. Once the girls were teenagers, Starkman paid for their private schooling. She admitted to 'a friend that her moments with her daughters made up for all the trouble she had with her legal husband.' By the mid-1920s, both daughters visited their mother often in Hamilton. Perri and Starkman were now reaching the level of life they had long sought. They were said to have been 'grossing well over a million dollars a year--about 2.4 million dollars a month in today's currency (December 2006)--and they had established a business system they were able to follow until Starkman's death. Starkman wantd to share the wealth with her daughters. So, when Gertrude married, Starkman 'helped the young couple get a start in life--and she doted on her first grandcild, Gertrude's son, Stanley Maidenberg.'

Other matters Starkman handled included dealings with Sarah Olive Routledge. In an investigation following Routledge's death in 1922, it was discovered that Starkman had registered three vehicles on the same day for herself and two other gang members. An incident involving a gang member asking for money promised to him by Perri was handled by Starkman; she refused to give him the money and threw him out of her house. Perhaps it was her financial ruthlessness that led to her violent end.

Starkman and Perri were out from one o'clock in the afternoon of 13 August 1930, an returned home from visiting friends about 11:15 in the evening. After Perri drove the Marmon coupe into the garage from the Bold Street entrance, Starkman and Perri remained in the car finishing a conversation. Then Starkman got out of the car first and headed for the garage light switch so that Perri could close the garage door. Before Starkman could reach for the switch, shots rang out. One hit her in the neck, the other in her side, and another struck a tin pan in the garage. Perri moved towards his wife, heard a second shot, and ran out of the garage into the street, where David Robbins, out walking is dog, heard him yelling, 'My girl has been shot!' By the time Robbins had returned to the Perri house with Perri, the gunmen were gone. Reports implied that there had been three men--two who had shot Starkman and one who had driven the getaway car. Police established that the killers had hidden in a space about two feet wide and another car parked in the garage. Starkman was probably hit at point-blank range, at about nine feet. The murder waepons, two twelve gauge, double-barrelled rifles, found near the garage, had been wiped clean of fingerprints. The police had virtually no concrete evidence about the identity of the murderers.

Perri later said that he believed the motive had been robbery. However, though Starkman was wearing $10,000 worth of diamonds, none of the jewellery was taken. The Spectator reported the day after the murder that it 'was thought by some to be but one of the lengthy chain of violent deaths resulting from warfare in the colony of illicit liquor handlers, which had been waged throughout the Niagara peninsula during the last several years.' It was believed also that Perri knew more than he admitted. Diamonds () is one of the four suits found in playing cards. ...

Starkman's funeral took place two days after the death and was the most flamboyant Hamilton had ever seen. The Herald described Starkman's body at the funeral as 'regally robed in death as she had reigned in life a consort of self-styled 'King of the Bootleggers.' Mrs Bessie Perri, gangland's latest victim in the greater Hamilton district.' The $3,000 casket was described by the funeral directors, Brown Brothers, as 'bronzed silver steel, full couch length, of state design with silver extension handles.' In their opinion, 'it was one of the finest and costliest made, similar in design to the one Rudolph Valentino was buried in and much like those 'obtained for many New York gangsters.' Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor. ...

A Jewish service was held at 2 p.m. at the Perri home. Starkman's two married daughters were among the chief mourners. No Jewish congregation in Hamilton would undertake the buriel service because Starkman had abandoned her faith seventeen years earlier and run away with a man of another faith. To have permission for buriel in the cemetery, a 'consideration of $1,000 was necessary.' Rabbi Freund, who was visiting from North Carolina agreed to lead the service. Care was not taken to follow the Jewish custom that 'the grave be lined soley with four boards,' instead, Starkman's casket was lowered in a pine box which was subsequently lidded. The Spectator further noted that another indication of the lack of desire to treat the buriel with true sincerity was in the location of the grave on the fringe of the sacred plot of ground.' This article is the current U.S. Collaboration of the Week. ...

Huge crowds were drawn to the funeral. By a little aternoon there was the beginning of a crowd on Bay Street. Soon the street was completely blocked by people, and nearby cars caused problems as well. Several interuptions disturbed the service as the crowds became loud and restless. En route to the buriel site, the funeral cortege, including fifteen cars with floral tributes, was preceded by hundreds of cars full of onlookers. The buriel itself was brief; the crowd was becoming uncontrollable and there was much yelling of orders to stand back. Finally, however. Starkman's body lay buried in the Ohev Zedek Cemetery, which means, ironically, 'Lovers of Justice.'

The full extent of police investigation into the murder was not clarified until later. Several theories were developed to explain the killing. The most popular theory was that Starkman's failure to pay for a shipment of narcatic drugs delivered by a Rochester mob led to her death. Sergeant Frank Zaneth, assigned as a full-time undercover agent on the Perri drug mob case in 1929, later compiled information he had acquired in a memo dated 25 March 1931. Zaneth discussed an interview with a source who stated that Starkman had purchased a large quantity of drugs from a Rochester gang in New York shortly before her death. Upon delivery, Starkman refused to pay as had been arranged. As a result, three men came to see her and Perri, demanding payment. Starkman refused to pay while Perri tried to convince her otherwise, and Starkman ordered the three men out of her house. The following night she was murdered. The informant also stated that Perri was not involved in Starkman's murder but knew who was responsible. However, for fear of retalliation Perri could say nothing. Other theories were also advanced: Starkman had difficulties with a Chicago mob: or had crossed several members of Perri's gang who wished to eliminate her so that Perri would have total control of the gang. The weakest theory suggested that Perri had arranged the murder, perhaps for financial gain from her will or because his pride and reputation as a mob leader were threatened because 'Bessie broke mob rules,' but the evidence does not support this theory. The results of the investigations were inconclusive.

References

• Dictionary of Hamilton Biography (Vol. III, 1925-1939); Thomas Melville Bailey (W.L. Griffin Ltd.)-1992; Pg. 196-198
• "King of the Mob: Rocco Perri and the women who ran his rackets" by James Dubro & Robin F. Rowland (Toronto)-1987
• Rocco Perri Scrapbook (Hamilton Herald Newspaper articles) 12 April 1927, 14, 16, 18 August 1930
• Hamilton Public Library clippings, Hamilton, Famous and Fascinating, Thomas Melville Bailey and Charles Ambrose Carter.,