The Sun (New York), 16 April 1903, page 2: how Morello and Petto were arrested

Page 2 of the Sun, Thursday, 16 April 1903, carries a long story on the investigation of the body found in a barrel on 14 April. The Library of Congress OCR of the page repeats each line with misreadings, and the headline could not be read from it; no scan of the page is stored, because the Library’s image service was unavailable when the page was filed. The headline field above says so rather than guess.

As far as the OCR can be read, the story credits Secret Service Chief Flynn, Inspector McClusky and Detective Sergeant Petrosino of the Italian squad, and describes detectives seizing Morello and Petto at the corner of the Bowery and Delancey Street on the evening of 15 April and taking a revolver from each. It reports Petrosino’s view that the killing was the work of a gang of counterfeiters he had shadowed, and that he was not prepared to say it was a branch of the Mafia. It also reports that detectives went to Lupo’s flat at midnight and took him to Headquarters.

These are the paper’s statements. The Secret Service report of 15 April places the arrest at Delancey and Forsyth Streets, a block or two from the Sun’s corner (NARA 151173326, pages 103-111). The paper’s use of “Mafia” is not adopted here.