Showing results by author "Michael Benson" in All Categories

In this blistering street-level account, "Mafia survivor" Frank DiMatteo teams up with true-crime master Michael Benson to take down one of the most notorious figures in the American La Cosa Nostra. This is the real inside story of Carmine "The Snake" Persico, from his crime-filled childhood on the streets of Brooklyn to the long-term jail sentences that didn't stop him from controlling his criminal empire, with the help of his brother - the equally kill-crazy Alphonse "Allie Boy" Persico.

Joey "Crazy Joe" Gallo and his President Street mob waged a deadly Mafia civil war with the Colombo crime family, and in particular, Carmine "the Snake" Persico. And on that fateful night of April 7, 1972, in a Little Italy restaurant, Gallo was assassinated...by Carmine "Sonny" DiBiasi. This is the true story of who really whacked "Crazy Joe" Gallo on that fateful night of April 7, 1972.

Packed with jaw-dropping stories of public violence and personal vengeance, vivid insights into the Mafia's way of life, and shocking portraits of America's most wanted crime families, Red Hook is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the history of organized crime in America.

This is the life and times of an underworld legend. Packed with shocking details and firsthand insights, Carlo Gambino: Boss of Bosses is the definitive account of this real-life Godfather, written by someone who grew up in that world and met Gambino personally.

Umberto "Albert" Anastasia was born in Italy at the turn of the century. Five decades later, he would be gunned down in a barber shop in New York City. What happened in the years in between is one of the most brutal and fascinating stories in the history of American organized crime. This in-depth account of the man who became one of the most powerful and homicidal crime bosses of the 20th century from Mafia insider Frank Dimatteo is the first full-length book to chronicle Anastasia's bloody rise from immigrant to founder of the notorious killer's club Murder, Inc.

The son of Sicilian immigrants, Camillo Carmine Galante was raised in Manhattan's Little Italy and by all accounts born bad. By fifteen he was terrorizing the streets of New York's Lower East Side, scoring high marks for the "errands" he was running for his La Cosa Nostra elders. When he turned twenty, Galante was already one of the mob's top enforcers­-a sadistic thrill killer and clinically diagnosed psychopath with big dreams.

The epic true story of the first Godfather who built an olive oil industry and ruled the New York underworld with a cold-blooded drive that made him a legend . . . Ruthless Giuseppe "Joe" Profaci was hardwired to run an empire. Within a few years after emigrating to America at the age of...

That's what attorney Kevin C. Bryant, 45, told his two young sons in the spring of 2003. At the time, blond, pretty, 26-year-old Tabatha Bryant was alive and well in an upscale suburb of Rochester, New York. But that was about to change - because Bryant knew his wife was cheating, and he intended to end the affair by ending her life. On June 14, 2003, he called 9-1-1 to report Tabatha slain by an unknown intruder who'd shot her in the eye with a .22 and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck and upper body.

Escape from Dannemora examines the strange case of Joyce Mitchell, the long-time prison employee who had a sexual relationship with at least one of the killers, and who smuggled them tools and aided in the escape, while they cooked up a plan to kill her husband. In the end, Benson looks closely at conditions at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, a crumbling Gothic pile now under investigation for charges of drug trafficking and brutality. 

World War II began at Hollywood and Vine. From the moment Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, there was no American city he wanted to rule more than Los Angeles. Control the moviemaking capital of the world and Hitler could control the message that came out of it: As clear as black and white...

In this podcast, the three of us will each individually present a dinosaur, in a segment called “Creature Feature.” In between each creature feature, we will have a mini-segment. At the end, after the creature features, we will take the 3 dinosaurs presented and discuss which one will win in a 1v1v1 fight to the death.

Welcome to Top Notch Nonsense. A Genre Film Review Podcast. Top Notch Nonsense is a genre film podcast hosted by married couple Michael and Maranda — dedicated to the strange, the screwed-up, the obscure, and the gloriously unhinged corners of cinema history. Every episode, we pair two films connected by a shared theme, narrative, or filmmaker — then proceed to analyze, moralize, judge, and lovingly shit-talk them in equal measure. We've covered John Waters, Giallo, erotic thrillers, holiday horror, exploitation cinema, B-movies, and a lot of things that probably shouldn't exist but do. ...

Father McClain boldly bears God’s strength. When a monstrous tsunami threatens to annihilate England, the devout priest is divinely blessed with abilities to deliver them from certain death. But now charged with slaying a fiendish villain, his seven-year search for the beast yields no clues…until he learns of a recently rescued missing actress and her mysterious pregnancy. Convinced the unborn child may be Satan’s scion, McClain is thrown for a loop when he forms a deep bond with the expectant mother.

The year is 1951, and Emily Nelson, a recent graduate of teaching school, has found a dream job in her home town. She has been hired to teach a single six-year-old girl. The girl's father has one steadfast and cruel directive that Emily cannot understand - until she breaks it. Luna is an eerie story that takes you deep inside a mysterious family secret, examining the horror of that secret as well as the innocent little girl at its center.

In the 1970s, Joe DeLamielleure led a Buffalo Bills offensive line affectionately called the Electric Company, because they turned the power up. A starter from the first game of his rookie season in 1973, DeLamielleure led the way to the first 2,000-yard season in NFL history.