Thomas "Terrible Tommy" O'Connor was a gangster who escaped from the Chicago, Illinois, courthouse in 1923, only four days before he was to have been executed at the Historical Gallows for the murder of a policeman.
Life
O'Connor was born in Ballykenny outside the village of Strand in County Limerick, Ireland around 1880 and emigrated to the United States as a boy. He first came to public notice when he was arrested after a shootout in which Chicago Police Detective Patrick J. O'Neil was gunned down March 13, 1921. This came as a result of investigators coming to arrest him as a prime suspect in a previous case. O'Connor fled and was later arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota. After being sent back to Cook County, Illinois, O'Connor was charged and convicted of O'Neil's murder and sentenced to hang by judge Kickham Scanlan. Four days before the scheduled execution, he and four other prisoners overpowered the guard, took his rifle, and escaped from the courthouse. All but two of the men were last seen dodging through traffic and made their escape.
After the escape
O'Connor was last seen in 1921 during his escape. Because there was no Cook County Sheriff's Department during that time, he was able to make his way through miles of empty countryside and disappear completely. He then seemed to vanish forever with a fate unknown. Reported sightings continued into the thirties. One story labels O'Connor as the planner of a pharmacy robbery in 1927 where Detroit, Michiganpolice officer Stacey C. Mizner was shot and killed. It is unknown how O'Connor died, though there is a tombstone at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois. His year of death is listed as 1951. A court order in the 1950s forced the city of Chicago to retain O'Connor's gallows sentencing and keep him on the death list until his fate was made known. The gallows were dismantled in 1977, but apparently O'Connor still remains scheduled to hang. The gangster played by George Bancroft in the silent filmUnderworld, directed by Josef von Sternberg was modelled on O'Connor. Playwright and screenwriter Ben Hecht loosely based character Earl Williams in the Broadway comedy The Front Page on O'Connor as well.
