The Sodom and Gomorrah of the Midwest Rising from the hills of the Ozarks in south central Missouri, Saint Robert, a hamlet of 1,500 residents, had the appearance of a prototypical small town in rural America. But looks can be deceiving. With the Army s sprawling training center at Fort Leonard Wood nearby, Saint Robert was home to hundreds of prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, gamblers, corrupt politicians, organized crime and hit men. And it liked it that way. Murder For Hire .
Lawyers don t always confine their differences to the courtroom.
Murder by Mistake . The car bomb that killed Philip J. Lucier the president of the Continental Telephone Co. and the father of 11 children was meant for an attorney whose clients had swindled a minor New Orleans Mafioso. The FBI misread and mishandled the case from the beginning. Subsequent federal investigations never produced a single indictment. Before Jimmy Fratianno made ratting out mob bosses fashionable, Jesse Stoneking s testimony against St. Louis mob figures was the most damaging ever heard in a courtroom.