Town House gambling saloon, Reno, Nevada

1944-1945

The trial of Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, free on $10,000 bail, began in April 1945, six months after he’d fatally shot James Lannigan in the Bank Club in Reno, Nevada.

District Attorney Melvin E. Jepson, in his opening statement, asserted the state would prove the defendant had committed premeditated and deliberate murder.

Blackman’s attorney, Harlan L. Heward, offered that his client admitted to shooting Lannigan but the act had been in self-defense; that because his client, a man with a solid reputation, was disabled, he’d had to carry a gun to protect himself; and that his injuries had indicated Lannigan likely had used brass knuckles or a similar weapon when he’d struck Blackman.  

Livelihood As Gangster

During the trial, various witnesses revealed snippets of Lannigan’s past. His real name was John Nicholson, but he went by Lannigan because an aunt and uncle with that name partially had raised him. The monikers under which he’d served time were John C. Nicholson, John Cline and James Moran. As a youth, Lannigan, along with fellow gang members, had held up speakeasies routinely and by age 20, had been believed to have committed murder.

In 1928, he’d begun a five-year-to-life sentence at San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery. There, he’d been put in solitary confinement or otherwise punished 16 times for various infractions, including knife cutting an inmate in the face, striking another convict in the head with a length of pipe, stabbing yet another prisoner with a shiv, stealing from the tin shop and insubordination, among others. At one point, he’d been in solitary for 362 days in a row.

In 1932 he’d been transferred to Folsom State Prison as an “incorrigible” inmate (Nevada State Journal, April 11, 1945). There, he’d served eight years, until 1940, when he’d been paroled.

After Lannigan had relocated to Reno in the summer of 1944, several times local police officers had told him to leave town, as they’d considered him an “undesirable,” “dangerous and aggressive” person whose employment was being “a gangster,” (Reno Evening Gazette, November 29, 1944). Instead, he’d stayed.

Soon after, in August, Lannigan had been arrested for armed robbery of $14,000 at the Ta-Neva-Ho casino at Lake Tahoe, along with his accomplice and friend from San Quentin, Marvin Paul Michaels. Whereas Lannigan had been released due to lack of evidence, Michaels was to stand trial, which was about to begin any day. This allegedly was the court case for which Lannigan wanted money from Blackman, for the defense of Michaels, who was facing repeat offender charges.

No Choir Boy

As for Blackman, he’d been arrested several years earlier in Texas for attempting to pass counterfeit money, a mistake, he claimed, because he’d been handed a bill that he’d then tried to use to buy cigarettes. Further, the case had been dismissed. He also admitted to having been fined $10 for gambling and having forfeited $25 in bail once when he’d been arrested for dealing a game of 21.

More To The Story?

In court, Jepson contended there had to be a reason why Lannigan had chosen Blackman specifically to extort. He vowed to unearth and reveal what it was, but he never did.

“One of the puzzling matters in the trial is why Lannigan allegedly persisted in trying to obtain money from Blackman despite the fact he had been advised to let him alone by men who had known him [Lannigan] for years,” reported the Nevada State Journal (April 15, 1945).

Last Ditch Efforts

Six days into the trial, the prosecution called a surprise witness, Lannigan’s widow, Barbara Nicholson, who appeared dressed in a Women’s Army Corps uniform. She contradicted Blackman’s testimony by saying she’d met him before, at her apartment where Blackman had visited once to look at some clothes; that she, her husband and the defendant had a friendly conversation and drink together at the Town House one time previously; and that Hilliard, upon her request, had taken a $100 bill, not a weapon, out of Lannigan’s pocket in the hospital.

A verbal volley, in the form of closing arguments, ensued between the prosecution and defense.

After deliberating for 4.5 hours, the jury found Blackman not guilty.

Sources

Bank Club in Reno, Nevada, 1930s

1944-1945

A thug’s confrontation of a casino owner on October 30, 1944 radically altered both of their lives.

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, co-proprietor of the Town House gambling saloon* in Reno, left his business for the night at about 2:30 a.m. and went into the Bank Club** to see his good friend, Walter Parman, the manager.

He noticed Edward “Swede” Olsen and three ex-convicts — James Lannigan, Joe Devine (aka Joe Frisco) and George “Pretty Boy” Hilliard — sitting at the bar.

As Blackman, 32, was passing them, Lannigan, 39, said to him, “Come here. I want to see you.” When Blackman replied he was busy and kept moving, his summoner grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him toward him.

“Am I coming across or not?” Lannigan queried, in other words asking whether Blackman was going to give him the money he wanted. “Are you trying to high hat me?”

“No,” Blackman asserted.

“I’ll kill you,” Lannigan said, among other threats.  He reached into one pocket, then another, and slugged Blackman in the face while saying, “You’re gonna come over.”

A stunned and reeling Blackman pulled his .38-caliber Colt revolver and shot at Lannigan five times. Two of the bullets hit him in the stomach; the other three went into the bar counter.

When the gunfire began, most of the casino patrons hit the floor and stayed there until it was safe to move.

Olsen and Hilliard took the gun from Blackman, who was bleeding profusely from his nose. In the meantime, Lannigan ran out the door and dropped, face down, just outside the club. In the ambulance Lannigan “called out vile epithets several times,” according to police (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1945).

The Dire Consequences

In the Washoe General Hospital emergency room, when the night nurse supervisor was preparing Lannigan for a blood transfusion, Hilliard appeared and approached her patient, getting in her way. She asked him to leave but he only did so after taking something out of the injured’s pocket.

About a half-hour later, Lannigan succumbed to internal hemorrhaging. The death shot had been the second one, which had entered the body just below the twelfth rib, had traversed upward through the chest, puncturing the liver, abdomen, heart and lungs, and had lodged under his left armpit.

Two police officers arrived on the scene at the Bank Club. Blackman asked them to take him away before Lannigan’s fellow thugs killed him. On the ride to the police station, Blackman, whose nose then was flattened with a jagged cut on it, asked if Lannigan was dead. Upon hearing the answer, “No, not yet,” Blackman said, “I hope he dies, or he’ll get me.” Later, Blackman would say he didn’t remember that conversation.

Soon after, Blackman was dazed and groggy from “a blow of sufficient force to cause a ‘pretty severe’ brain concussion, a doctor said. Although under arrest on the investigation of murder, he also was transported to Washoe General, where he underwent surgery on his nose, which had been fractured into many parts (Reno Evening Gazette, April 13, 1945). Subsequently, Blackman reacted negatively to the sulfa in the nose drops used to treat him and, consequently, remained an inpatient for two weeks.

Following his arrest, he sold his interest in the Town House.

A Repeat Offender

For several months, Lannigan had been attempting to shake down Blackman for money — for “protection” and to fund the impending court case of a fellow gangster (Nevada State Journal, October 1, 1944).

Blackman first had met Lannigan at the Ta-Neva-Ho at Lake Tahoe, where the former managed the gambling games, in 1937. That was when Lannigan had started pressing him for cash. Blackman said that “Lannigan seemed to hound him whenever they met” (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1945).

While living in Los Angeles, Lannigan had asked Blackman for money to cover bond and an attorney, and even did so in person at Blackman’s business, the Town House, the last time having been two or three weeks before the shooting.

Each time, Lannigan reportedly had made such comments as, “I’ll rub you out,” “If you don’t come across, I’ll take a crack at you,” “I’ve done stretches in San Quentin and Folsom and didn’t like it, but wouldn’t mind doing more to get you” and “If you holler to the police, you’ll be like a cake of ice.” Blackman, however, had always refused.

In fear for his life, he’d applied for a gun permit, to no avail (nobody had successfully gotten one in 1944) and he’d carried a firearm anyway, especially when he’d transported money from the Town House to the bank. Also, confidant Parman had followed Blackman, who’d had a bum leg since a fall during childhood which had caused the military to deem him unfit for service, home each night in his car to ensure his safety.

Having killed Lannigan, Blackman faced a trial and a potential prison sentence.

(We’ll publish Part II on Friday.)

———————————-

* The Town House was located at 39 W. First Street.

**The Bank Club was at 239 N. Center Street.

Sources

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by Vincent Laforêt, Fred and Maurine Wilson, Al Moe