Folded lined sheet with four crosses drawn in red and brown pencil above a shaded grey coffin, and three lines of handwritten Italian ending 'questa tomba'. — Open the full imageJPG, 995 × 1500 px, 0.1 MB

Threatening letter with drawn crosses and a coffin, exhibit in United States v. Salvatore Lo Bue (file page 30)

A folded sheet from the Lo Bue case file with four crosses drawn in red and brown pencil above a shaded coffin, and three lines of handwritten Italian ending 'questa tomba' (this tomb).

Date: 1915
Kind: case-file
Source: National Archives Catalog
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
NAID: 355459444
Rights: A record of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, held by the National Archives at Chicago in Record Group 21. A United States government work, public domain in the United States under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The National Archives catalog lists access and use as unrestricted.

This is file page 30 of the case file NAID 355459444. A folded sheet of lined paper carries four crosses drawn in red and brown pencil above a shaded, coffin-shaped box drawn in grey pencil. Three lines of handwritten Italian below end with the words “questa tomba.” As this archive reads them, approximately, they say the writers have decided to wait until Sunday and that the recipient will be put inside this tomb; the court’s translation, which is in the file, was not read.

The addressee is not named on the visible part of the sheet. The letter is an exhibit in a criminal prosecution; the catalog note does not state the outcome. The image is the National Archives’ scan, stored here as a reduced copy.

itemThe United States vs. Salvatore Lo Bue: threatening-letter case, Chicago, 1915 (case file)National Archives case file from the federal court at Chicago: the catalog note says Lo Bue was accused of mailing letters demanding $1,000 from Frank D'Amico on pain of death to a family member and the destruction of his house; the file holds letters with drawings of an attack and of a tomb.

itemThreatening letter with pencil drawings, exhibit in United States v. Salvatore Lo Bue (file page 23)A handwritten Italian letter on lined paper, beginning 'Caro Mr Franch', with pencil drawings of one figure attacking another and of a cross over a tomb, and brown stains that the catalog says may be human blood.

itemIndictment, United States v. Salvatore Lo Bue, first page (Northern District of Illinois, 1915)Typed first page of the federal indictment charging that Salvatore Lo Bue devised a scheme to defraud Frank D'Amico by threatening to kill him and his family and destroy his home unless he paid one thousand dollars.