Doll at Center of “Kid Dropper” Slaying

Call it dumb, call it clever
Ah, but you can get odds forever
That the guy’s only doing it for some doll
some doll, some doll
The guy’s only doing it for some doll! (From “Guys and Dolls”, a Broadway musical)

Edna Churgin (alias Yotchki Churgin) had been the steady gal of Izzy Kaplan, brother of Jack Kaplan, alias “Kid Dropper”, head of the Dropper’s Cowboys (alias Dropper’s Rough Riders) gang. But then Midget Louis Schwartzman turned on the charm and lured Ms. Churgin away from Izzy. One night, Midget Louis “got his”; he was shot dead by an unknown gunman. The guy was only doing it for some doll.

The New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) later dubbed Edna Churgin an East Side “Helen of Troy” who had launched a thousand gang wars. Midget Louis had been ascertained to have belonged to the “Little Augie” gang. Louis Cohen, who brazenly shot dead Kid Dropper as he sat in a taxicab, in plain view of dozens of New York City police officers, at the time seemed to be enacting a crime of passion. “He killed my friend, Midget Louis!” shouted Cohen when he was immediately taken into custody. But it was since learned that Cohen belonged to the “Little Augie” gang. So was it truly just a crime of passion, or was it a gangland hit? Perhaps it was a little of both.

In the aftermath of the “Kid Dropper” assassination, “members of both gangs were found mysteriously slain from time to time.” Max Goldberg, lieutenant in the “Little Augies”, was lured to his death by another doll, name unknown. He had been phoned by the dame, whose sweet talk distracted him, thereby allowing an assassin to “get the drop” on him. Another unsolved killing was that of Morris Grossman. He had been arrested in connection with the murder of Meyer Albert of the “Little Augie” gang. Grossman was subsequently released for lack of evidence. Soon thereafter, he was found with his hands tied inside a burning automobile, with a half-dozen bullets in him.

(Source: “New Gang War On East Side; Eleven Killed”, by David Sentner, International News Service staff. Published in the New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania), May 5, 1926)