Confessions of a Second Story Man Read online

  Confessions of a

  Second Story Man

  Confessions of a

  Second Story Man

  Junior Kripplebauer and the K&A Gang

  ALLEN M. HORNBLUM

  Published by Barricade Books Inc.

  2037 Lemoine Ave.

  Suite 362

  Fort Lee, NJ 07024

  www.barricadebooks.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Allen M. Hornblum

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

  Text design by Kate Nichols

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hornblum, Allen M.

  Confessions of a second story man: Junior Kripplebauer and the K&A Gang / Allen M. Hornblum.

  p.cm.

  Includes index.

  ISBN 59213-397-5

  Originally published: Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005

  1. Kripplebauer, Junior, 1936–. 2. Criminals–Pennsylvania–Philadelphia—Biography. 3. Organized crime—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—History. 4. Kensington (Philadelphia, Pa.)—Social conditions. I. Title.

  HV6248.K68H67 2006

  364.16'2-dc22

  [B]

  ISBN 13: 978-1-56980-499-5 (paperback)2006040676

  ISBN 10: 1-56980-499-0 (paperback)

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Printing

  To my father,

  Louis Hornblum,

  who earned a living

  the old-fashioned way,

  through long hours with little to show for it.

  Prologue

  We were doin’ some work up in New England. You know, Boston and up, fancy houses in top-shelf neighborhoods like Kennebunk and Bar Harbor, and we’re gettin’ our share of jewelry, coins, furs, and things. Well, we’re up in Maine somewhere, and we’re doin’ a big house in the woods. It’s dark as a cow’s ass and freezing cold, but one of the guys in the crew starts walking around the backyard. Only it’s not a normal backyard; it’s as big as a golf course. I tell him to get back in the house before somebody sees him and we all get arrested, but he yells back, “Hold your water. I just wanna check somethin’ out.”

  He’s gone a little while, and I go out to haul the dumb mutt inside. I see him walking around in the snow like Sasquatch or something. He’s examining these little wooden sheds. He sees me and yells out, “Hey, I wanna take one of these kitties back home with me. I think they’re raising mountain lions out here.”

  I figure the guy’s finally lost it, his brain has froze. But damn if he ain’t tellin’ the truth. The people who owned the place musta had some kind of business raisin’ cats. I mean good-sized, hairy cats. And those babies had some serious teeth. You know, like little cougars and panthers.

  Well, I tell him to forget about it. We ain’t working for the Barnum & Bailey Circus. The house has been picked clean. We’re leaving. But he gives me an argument. After a few minutes of arguing, I just wanna shut him up, so I tell him if he can get one in a suitcase he can take it. Don’t you know, that dumb jerk does just that—stuffs one of these cats in a suitcase and insists we take the damn animal with us. So here we are driving down the highway, the car’s filled with enough swag that we could all get 10 years in prison, and we got a big, pissed-off cat screaming its lungs out.

  After an hour of listening to clawin’ and screechin’ sounds, we convince Frank Buck that the kitty has gotta go. That crying and scratching was driving us all crazy. So we pull into a rest stop along the road and decide to drop the suitcase right in the middle of the parking lot. Just for kicks, though, we stick around and wait to see who’s gonna be stupid enough to walk off with this suitcase holding one angry pussy. Wouldn’t you know, a car filled with a bunch of niggers enters the lot, sees the suitcase sittin’ there, and they naturally think they got an easy score. They start doin’ a slow driveby. Just checking things out. Once, twice, and finally, on the third pass, they stop and quickly scoop up the package. But they don’t put it in the trunk; they throw it in the back seat and drive off like a bat outta hell.

  Well, we follow ’em down the highway and wait for the show to start. We know as soon as they crack the suitcase open all hell is gonna break loose. Sure enough, they soon begin swervin’ all over the road. It gets worse. The car is hittin’ the median barrier and bouncin’ off across the two southbound lanes and onto the shoulder of the road. Well, we’re goin’ nuts. I thought I was gonna split a gut and wet my shorts. We then see doors opening, people are screaming, fur is flying, and the car goes right off the highway into a ravine and flips over on its side. We pull over laughing our asses off and see one pissed cat dart outta the car and scoot off into the woods. The niggers are laying on the snow all banged up, cursing each other out, and asking us for help. We can’t stop laughing, it’s almost painful, but I tell ’em we gotta go, but when we get to the next town we’ll send back a tow truck.

  I think we laughed all the way back to Philly. But I told the guys, “From now on let’s stick with mink, fox, and sable when we’re doin’ a piece of work on the road. We’ll grab the real pussy when we get back to some friendly joints in our own neighborhood.”

  —GEORGE “JUNIOR” SMITH

  Part I

  The Birth of a

  Second Story Man

  1. North Carolina: The Dixie MAC Machine

  THEY WEREN’T OFF THE HIGHWAY more than a few minutes before Junior Kripplebauer stopped at a convenience store newsstand and purchased a couple of mundane but indispensable tools of the trade—a newspaper and a map of the city. Junior was never one to let the grass grow under his feet; the sturdy, well-groomed, six-foot-three Philadelphian was known for being all business all the time. As he and his three associates quickly continued on their way and sought out a local motel along Route 1, Kripplebauer was already examining the Raleigh News and Observer’. Real Estate section. His eyes carefully swooped across each page, jettisoning irrelevant articles on “Good Buys” and columns by self-proclaimed property mavens, until he discovered what he was looking for—homes selling for a half-million dollars and above. He then turned to the Religion and Sports sections to check out synagogues and country clubs in the Raleigh area. By the time the four of them checked into rooms 212 and 214 of the Best Western Motel on the outskirts of the city, Kripplebauer already had a pretty good idea where they’d be spending their first evening in town: the nearby suburb of Cary, an exclusive Raleigh bedroom community that was said to have the highest per capita income in the state.

  All four were experienced professionals; each member of Kripplebauer’s crew knew his job and did it. While Junior and Bruce Agnew studied the map of metropolitan Raleigh, committed streets and highways to memory, and double-checked the local telephone directory for the location of Cary’s Jewish community centers and elite golf courses, Marilynne D’Ulisse and Tommy Seher took care of their assigned tasks. Marilynne, who was usually called Mickie, got directions for the closest Sears Roebuck department store. The sales clerk at Sears couldn’t help but notice the cute blonde in his checkout line. It wasn’t every day that a tall, shapely, blue-eyed babe in her twenties came into the hardware department to buy channel locks, pliers, crowbars, gloves, flashlights, chisels, and a sledgehammer. He would normally have offered to help the striking young woman carry the hefty assortment of tools to her car
, but her cool, austere manner told him she could handle the chore by herself. After Mickie returned to the motel and Seher outfitted Junior’s Lincoln Town Car with the scanners and walkie-talkies they had brought with them from Philadelphia, the four out-of-towners decided to take a ride. Although they had been to North Carolina many times before, it was their first time in Cary, and they were anxious to see the town whose affluence and natural beauty they had heard so much about.

  After a short time on a four-lane highway, they left Raleigh’s city limits behind and found themselves traveling on scenic country roads that meandered through some of Wake County’s most prosperous neighborhoods. Upscale, well-maintained homes and impressive estates surrounded by magnificent lawns were the order of the day. The opulence of the area reminded them of the pricey, beautifully manicured properties of Philadelphia’s lush Main Line. North Carolina always looked good to them. Each trip south had proven rewarding. Their expectations rose as they drove Cary’s pleasant country lanes.

  Kripplebauer and company agreed that they had made the right decision. It was mid-December 1975 and a good portion of the nation was in the grip of a deep freeze, but none of them wanted to stop working. New England and the Midwest were out of the question; every state from Minnesota to New Jersey was socked in under several inches of snow and ice. It was just too damn cold to work, and the snow made tracking someone a child’s game. No, they needed to head south. Newspaper reports disclosed the only place within a 10-hour drive of Philly that had escaped the Arctic blast mauling much of the nation: the tidewater and piedmont areas of North Carolina. As they slowly traveled from one comfortable tree-lined street to another in the wealthy Cary subdivision called MacGregor Downs and eyeballed the regal homes of the city’s professional and corporate elite—particularly those displaying mezuzahs on their front doors—they recognized the carefully landscaped Raleigh suburb as their kind of town: fat and swollen with cash.

  After a short respite back at their motel, it was time for the group to go to work. With darkness falling, the men donned white shirts, conservative striped ties, and expensive Botony 500 suit jackets. Mickie was appropriately attired in a stylish white blouse and chic navy jacket and skirt. As always, she placed a black wig over her Linda Evans–blond locks and bangs. After a light meal and a few beers at a local restaurant, they were back on US 1 and headed for Cary. By eight o’clock they were in the target area and methodically driving through the plush neighborhood looking for likely marks. A large, handsome, unoccupied home was their goal, and it wouldn’t take long to find one. Unwitting homeowners could always be counted on for assistance.

  “The red lights of the home alarm systems were like a light beacon,” says Kripplebauer. “Something like a lighthouse for distressed sailors at sea. It told us all we needed to know: there was nobody at home, and there were things of value in the house.”

  The group drove around for a while, checking out homes and alarm systems from a distance, and then focused their attention on a beautiful three-story house that must have been worth a good three to four hundred thousand dollars. Junior hopped out of the car, walked up the drive to the front door, and rang the doorbell. There was no response. After waiting an appropriate amount of time, he began to knock on the door, authoritatively enough for anybody at home to hear him, but not so vigorously as to disturb any of the neighbors. There was no response. He knocked again. An air of expectation built in the car as Tommy, Bruce, and Mickie watched Junior circle to the rear of the house to check further for signs of inhabitants. When they next saw him at the front door, he was trying to insert a series of keys into the alarm system. In less than a minute the crimson light went dark. The state-of-the-art alarm system had been disarmed, and the imposing structure with the small Hebrew scroll on the doorframe was theirs for the taking.

  Tommy was carrying an enormous screwdriver called a “brute.” He and Bruce quickly joined Junior, and all three went to the rear of the house. Mickie got behind the big Lincoln’s wheel, turned on the walkie-talkie and police scanner, and slowly circled through the neighborhood. After taking the back door, the three men went to work. Tommy Seher, in his mid-thirties and a smaller version of Terry Bradshaw, stationed himself in the expansive living room between the front door and the window. It was his job to watch for anything unusual, especially the owner’s unexpected return or the appearance of suspicious police officers.

  Junior and Bruce, the designated searchers, raced through the house, initially to make sure no one was home and secondarily to find additional “outs” in case of an emergency. Only then could they concentrate on their real reason for being there: stealing all the swag they could get their hands on.

  Bold and opportunistic, the 40-year-old Kripplebauer was a master criminal who had successfully burgled hundreds of homes and businesses from coast to coast. Raised in Pennsylvania’s gritty and unforgiving anthracite coal region, he had moved to Philadelphia in his early twenties and soon after became a practitioner of “production work.” For the next 30 years, scores of upscale communities stretching from Bar Harbor to Boca Raton would be left stunned and bewildered in his wake. North Carolina was a favorite stop; Junior compared the state to a huge “MAC machine” where “easy money” was always to be had. “I always stopped there on the way to Miami,” he says of his periodic visits. “The state was like a drive-through bank. But at this bank you just made withdrawals.”

  For a half-dozen years or more, the state of North Carolina had witnessed a plague of burglaries at many of its most celebrated residences. Kripplebauer and a number of other friends from back home had pillaged the Tar Heel State as if it were their personal safe-deposit box. Dozens of Winston-Salem’s, Greensboro’s, and Raleigh’s most fashionable private residences had been hit over the years, including the homes of a former governor and such corporate powerhouses as Zachary T. Reynolds (R. J. Reynolds Tobacco) and Fred Proctor (Proctor & Gamble). Now the inviting but unfamiliar environs of another Carolina suburb presented nothing to be concerned about. It was just another ripe piece of fruit to be picked.

  The home was big—Junior figured about 15 rooms. He told Bruce he was going to find the master bedroom; Bruce could take the rest. Junior proceeded quickly but cautiously; the lavish home was modern, well constructed, and supplied with all the latest conveniences. Fearing he’d step on rugs wired for pressure-sensitive silent alarms, Junior moved around by climbing on the furniture whenever he could. He looked like a large cat on the prowl, stalking its prey and ready to strike. There wasn’t a hint of nervousness or the slightest sign of apprehension; Kripplebauer was in his element.

  “Once I got in a house,” says Kripplebauer, “I acted as if the place was mine. All I thought about was whether the place was loaded or not. Am I gonna make a big cash score was my only concern. It was always about the money. I often felt so comfortable I would tell Bruce, ‘I like this place so much I’m gonna have you change the locks and I’ll move in.’”

  It didn’t take Junior long to discover a small safe in the closet. It was a flimsy “junk box” that could be opened easily, but he’d still need a few tools. He called down to Tommy that he had found a safe and told him to have Mickie bring the tools over. After getting Tommy’s call on the walkie-talkie, Mickie drove back to the house.

  Calm and composed behind the wheel, Mickie—who was Junior’s wife as well as his trusted partner in all such business endeavors—was the picture of serenity. She had to be; she couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself or her confederates. Though in her early thirties and the prototype for the wholesome, All-American girl-next-door, Mickie D’Ulisse was an experienced thief whose exploits and nerve rivaled that of most men in the game.

  “Hell, she pulled more jobs than me, Bruce, and Tommy combined,” Kripplebauer liked to brag to new partners dubious about his wife’s involvement in second story work. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for Junior to be having a beer and watching a ballgame on TV at his Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home and spot Mic
kie out of the corner of his eye putting on jeans, her wig, and a black nylon jacket, and grabbing a brute from the closet. “Hey, Mick, where you going?” he’d ask. “Oh, I’m just going for a little ride,” Mickie always replied. “Well, watch yourself,” Junior would advise. “I saw some state police in the area earlier this evening.”

  Invariably, Mickie would come home with some interesting swag—a full-length mink, a collection of fine silverware, or just a big roll of cash. For Mickie, checking out the neighborhood, perusing dignified Princeton and Moorestown homes for red alarm lights, and pulling a job or two was always more interesting than sitting at home and watching football or re-runs on the tube. In fact, she and her girlfriend Maxine cleaned out dozens of houses over the years when they were short of cash or just looking for something to do. Junior, who was no slouch himself in this department, had a hard time keeping up with her. He’d just wish her well and say, “Bring a stack of fifties back.”

  As soon as she pulled up to the house in Cary, Tommy went out to meet her and brought the tools inside. As he handed them to Junior, Tommy told him Mickie had already picked out several other inviting targets in the neighborhood. Junior wasn’t surprised; Mickie was a workaholic. Besides, Junior had not only taught her the nuances of production work; he’d shown her how to hit a “home run” by looking for consecutive homes displaying red alarm lights. In other words, why do one house when you could knock off several in a row?

  Mickie continued to circle through the neighborhood while listening to the scanner for any nearby police activity and keeping an eye out for her favorite nocturnal light show—tiny red alarm lights in the darkness. In a matter of seconds, Junior had punch-dialed the safe and opened the door. Sitting before him was a collection of cash, bank certificates, several watches, and a good bit of gold and silver jewelry. He grabbed a couple of pillowcases and began dumping the contents of the safe inside.