BLOODY DAY: Frank Frontino was only 13 years old when he
witnessed the 1931 murder of gangster Al Ritchie as he sat in his
car parked on River Street in Bradford.

Ritchie’s death apparently brought an end to Bradford’s
Prohibition violence which has caused cross-state murders of
approximately 60 people during the 1920s.

Frank, retired Bradford City Fire Chief, stopped by recently
after seeing an account we’d carried about Ritchie’s murder.

The entire subject has been in the news in recent weeks with the
prospect of a movie, “Little Chicago,” to be filmed in Bradford and
Olean, N.Y., and highlight the gangster wars of the 1920s.

Frank tells us that he was sitting with Joe Pascarella on the
steps of the Venice Restaurant when Ritchie was shot. The
restaurant was a big brick building on the corner of River and
North streets, and owned by the Colella family.

Ritchie was in the driver’s seat of a parked coupe with Antonio
Maccio of 20 River St. in the passenger seat. (There was no rear
seat in those days, he said.)

“Jumbo” Degross was leaning on the car door, arms akimbo, when
the killer put the pistol under Jumbo’s armpit and shot. “They
claim the bullets went right through Ritchie and got him (Maccio),”
Frank tells us.

Both Maccio and Ritchie got out of the car on the passenger
side, said Frank. Maccio sat on the street, but not Ritchie.

“When he got shot, he got out of the car, came over to the
steps, sat down and asked my aunt for a glass of water,” said
Frank, explaining his aunt was Pat Colella.

“When she brought him the water, the glass filled up with
blood,” Frank recalls.

Eventually, the Still hearse – hearses were used as ambulances
in those days – picked up both Ritchie and Maccio and took them to
the hospital.

Ritchie died about two hours later and Maccio hung on for two
months until succumbing to his injuries, according to Era
archives.

Before he died, Ritchie identified his killer as Tony “Lorenzo”
Demaio of Weedville who supposedly had been hired for the ,1,000
hit.

In any case, Demaio was found guilty of second degree murder
after a jury deliberated for 25 hours.

“Privately, bootleggers and lawmen alike gave Demaio a gracious
pat on the back,” according to an Era account.