A Shot in the DarkQuestions linger in the death of mafiaassociate and former federal informantJesse Stoneking, who allegedlycommitted suicide in Surprise, Ariz. inJanuary 2003.

By C.D. Stelzer

The end came in the desert with a singlegunshot. Not a solidarity death, asimplied by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,but one well attended. A death witnessedand documented, leaving little room forspeculation. A simple suicide or so itwould seem.

On Sunday Jan. 19, 2003, at 9:45 p.m.Mountain Standard Time, a manidentified as Jesse Lee McBride shothimself with a .38-caliber revolver,while seated behind the wheel of a blue1995 Ford Crown Victoria on theoutskirts of Surprise, Ariz., according tolocal police reports. The victim diedapproximately an hour later at a nearbyhospital. Law enforcement authoritiesclosed the case, after a routineinvestigation. Though the Arizona pressignored the incident, the news media inSt. Louis later reported the true identityof the man as Jesse Eugene Stoneking, a56-year old mobster, who gained famehere as a federal informant in the 1980s.

During his long criminal career,Stoneking put together a resume that ranthe gamut from extortion to murder. Bythe late 1970s, he had become the toplieutenant of Eastside rackets boss ArtBerne, who took his orders directly fromthe Chicago Outfit.

But after being nabbed as the leader ofan interstate car theft ring in 1981,Stoneking rolled over and became a FBIinformant. His undercover work for thebureau ultimately led to federalindictments and a string of convictionsof St. Louis area organized crimefigures, including his boss. The mafiareportedly put a $100,000 bounty on hishead. Stoneking spent most of the nexttwo decades running from his past.

Despite Stoneking’s reputation and theFBI’s expressed interest in his death,municipal and county officials inArizona, who had jurisdiction over thecase, chose not to expand the inquiry.

Their suicide ruling is based primarilyon two eyewitness accounts, includingone by a Maricopa County deputy. Forthis reason among others, the Surprisepolice deemed Stoneking’s death anopen-and-shut case. But however certainthe cause of death may be, questionspersist. In death, as in life, the truthabout Jesse Stoneking remains elusive.

Accounts vary. Discrepancies abound.Conclusions contradict. In this case,even the name of the victim is listedwrong on the medical examiner’s report.As a result, public understanding of theunder-reported case has been limited bya combination of standard policeprocedures and the media’s failure toprovide accurate, independent, follow-upcoverage of breaking news.

The men who were not there

The Post-Dispatch story on Stoneking’sdeath ran on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2003, sixdays after his suicide. Relying on aSurprise police spokesman’s account ofthe incident, staff writer Paul Hampelreported that Stoneking had shot himselfin his car “in a desolate area on the edgeof town.” Among the sparse detailsincluded in the story was that the formermobster operated an automobilerepossession business and “lived alone”in Wickenburg, Ariz.

Hampel’s story sketched a solitarysuicide on a lonely stretch of road at aremote location in the desert. But mapsof the area show a different picture. Thecrime took place in sprawling MaricopaCounty, near the intersection of twowell-traveled roads, which borderedresidential developments and golfcourses on three sides.

Loop 303 and Bell Road, Surprise, Ariz.

More importantly, the police andmedical examiner’s reports on thesuicide show that Stoneking’s last actwasn’t carried out alone, but in thecompany of a longtime associate and alaw enforcement official. Moreover, thecar that Stoneking drove that night wasregistered in the name of his friend, aswas the weapon that he allegedly used tokill himself.

The official police version ofStoneking’s death raises questions aboutthe immediate actions taken by lawenforcement officers, the methods usedin the initial investigation andconclusions drawn afterwards.

The following account is based on thereports of the first officers who arrivedon the scene and a police interrogationof Stoneking’s friend.

At 9:05 p.m., the Maricopa CountySheriff’s Office dispatched Deputy J.Sprong to Loop 303 and Bell Roadbecause of a report that there were largerocks in the roadway.

Sprong reported that on his arrival hesaw a Ford Crown Victoria driven byStoneking on the side of the highwaywith its emergency flashers on. Thedeputy also reported that two othervehicles, a late model Toyota SUV and atow truck, were parked 300 yards furtherdown the road. The tow truck driveradvised the deputy that the SUV and thevehicle driven by Stoneking had flat tiresfrom hitting rocks on the highway. TheSUV driver gave the same story,according to the report, promptingSprong to double back and remove theroad hazards.

On his return, the SUV and the tow truck(identified as a flat-bed type in otherpolice reports) had departed. Sprongthen pulled behind the Ford to askwhether the driver needed assistance. Atthat point, the passenger, identified asMichael Laurella, got out of the car andwalked back to the police vehicle.

“I then heard a single gunshot frominside of the vehicle,” Sprong wrote.

Sprong says he then shined a flashlightthrough the back window and saw bloodcoming from the right side of thedriver’s head. As he ordered Laurella tocontinue walking towards him, Surprisepolice officer R. Peck arrived on thescene. Sprong also reported that a thirdlaw enforcement officer from theArizona Department of Public Safetyalso arrived at the scene about that time.The state officer, according to Sprong,watched Laurella as he and Peckapproached the Ford from oppositesides.

“I approached the vehicle on thepassenger side as the other Officer(Peck) was on the Driver’s side,”reported Sprong. “We noticed a blackrevolver pistol next to Jesse’s right legon the seat. His right hand was on top ofthe gun. I noticed that Jesse was stillbreathing but did not respond to mycommands. I then reached inside thevehicle and took the gun and secured itin my vehicle.”

Peck’s report of the incident is mostlythe same as Sprong’s with exception of arather subtle but possibly significantomission. He doesn’t mention the arrivalof the Public Safety officer at the scene.In Peck’s account, he searches Laurella,Sprong then directs the passenger tostand behind the police vehicle, as Peckpresumably returns to his squad car torequest another officer.

According to Peck:

“I checked Michael Laurella forweapons and Deputy Sprong then hadhim step to the rear of his patrol car. Ithen requested another officer fromdispatch. Deputy Sprong and I thenchecked on the driver with deputy

Sprong advancing on the passenger sideand myself on the driver side.”

The fact that Peck didn’t mention thearrival of the third officer in his reportcould be explained as a simple oversight.It is clear from Sprong’s version ofevents that he had requested additionalback up.

His account indicates that three lawenforcement officers from differentjurisdictions were on the scene onlymoments after the suicide occurred. Butoddly, in his report, Sprong doesn’tidentify either of the other officers byname. He does, however, repeatedlyrefer to the victim as “Jesse; ” and thewitness, Laurella, as “Michael,” whichin retrospect seems somewhat informalfor a police report.

Sgt. P.H. Riherd of the Surprise PoliceDepartment arrived next and advisedSprong that the shooting took placewithin the town’s jurisdiction. Sprongreported that he then turned the pistolover to her. Riherd also ordered Peck toclose the road to traffic and set upwarning flares. (Later, Peck was directedby another officer to drive Laurellahome.) In the interim, emergencymedical technicians arrived at the sceneand Stoneking was taken by helicopter toa hospital in Phoenix, where he died.

By the time J.C. Vance, the investigatingdetective, arrived on the scene, an hourafter the shooting, the body and theweapon had both been removed from thevehicle. Moreover, the first respondingofficers had been relieved of their dutiesby others, including Sgt. Riherd andofficer G. L. Welch.

Vance reported that he received a call at10:15 p.m. from Sgt. D. Cuker, who wasat the scene, asking him to respond to a“possible homicide or suicide.”

When Vance arrived, at 10:45, Welch’spatrol car was parked directly behind theFord Crown Victoria and the weaponthat Stoneking allegedly used to killhimself was on the trunk of the Ford.Laurella was seated in the back ofWelch’s patrol car.

Botched

From these official accounts, theinvestigation appears to have beencompromised from the outset. In thehour that it took the detective to arrive,the chain of custody on the weapon hadchanged two or three times. Two of thethree witnesses, both law enforcementofficers, had left the scene. And the bodyhad been removed.

There are other discrepancies.

When Vance interrogated Laurella at thescene, Stoneking’s friend told thedetective that two other vehicles hadpulled over to side of the road with flattires, not one as Sprong reported.According to Laurella’s account, theother cars were parked in front andbehind his car. Laurella indicated thatthe tow truck driver fixed both of thosevehicles' flat tires. Instead of also askingfor assistance, however, Laurella saysthat Stoneking said that he preferred theyfix their flat themselves.

By the time deputy Sprong returned tothe scene after clearing the rocks fromthe road, both of the other vehicles andthe tow truck had departed, Laurellasaid. During the meantime, nothing in

the police reports show that Laurella orStoneking made any effort to fix theirown flat tire in the intervening 30 or 40minutes. They also declined to requestassistance from the tow truck driver,according to Laurella’s account.

Instead, they remained seated inside thecar. When Sprong pulled up behind themand activated his overhead emergencylights, Laurella said that Stoneking askedhim to hold his glasses and thenrequested that he get out and tell thedeputy that help was on the way.Laurella said he was ten or 12 feetbehind the car and had just begun tospeak to the deputy when he heard thesingle gunshot come from inside theCrown Victoria.

Laurella says he was then ordered to puthis hands on the hood of the patrol carby the deputy. As stated in the otheraccounts, officer Peck arrived at thescene immediately after the gunshot wasfired. But according to detective Vance’sreport, Laurella didn’t mention theunidentified state cop, who deputySprong says guarded Laurella while heand officer Peck checked on Stoneking.

According to detective Vance’s report:“Laurella further indicated that at thistime a Surprise police officer arrived onscene and he was secured in the back ofthe deputy’s patrol car, while the policeapproached his vehicle.” Laurella addedthat “he remained seated in the deputy’spatrol car while other police and medicalpersonnel arrived on scene and treatedhis friend, Jesse.”

Again, the differences in the accounts ofthe three witnesses could be an innocentoversight in the police reporting. It's alsopossible that Laurella, under duress, may

have not have recalled the arrival of thethird police officer.

Less explainable, though, is howLaurella ended up in possession ofStoneking’s wallet. According to thedetective’s report: “Laurella alsoindicated that he had McBride’s(Stoneking’s) wallet in his pocket as itwas given to him by an officer.”

If Laurella is to be believed, a policeofficer at a possible homicide sceneremoved personal effects from a victim,or, at least, from the inside of the vehiclewhere the shooting took place, and thenhanded them over to a potential suspect.

An evidence technician, who arrivedlater, took photographs, but by then thecrime scene had been disturbed morethan once by police and the emergencymedical crew. Swab tests of Laurella’shands showed no signs of gunpowder.But contrary to the Post-Dispatch, story,the medical examiner’s report doesn’tindicate that similar tests wereperformed on Stoneking’s hands eventhough they had been bagged at thecrime scene expressly for that purpose.Soot was found in the head wound,according to the medical examiner, butno powder tattooing was identified,which is often present when a gunshot isfired at close range.

In addition, no autopsy was performed,according to the medical examiner'sreport.

The story that wasn't there

Aside from the Post-Dispatch story thatappeared nearly a week after his death,there has only been one reference toStoneking that appeared in the

newspaper since then, a nostalgiccolumn by staffer Pat Gauen that ran inthe Illinois zoned edition. A search ofLexis-Nexis database doesn’t show theJan. 25, 2003 news story was evenpublished.

During his interrogation at the scene,Laurella said he and Stoneking livedtogether in a mobile home inWickenburg. The Post-Dispatchreported that Stoneking lived alone.Laurella owned the Crown Vic thatStoneking was driving, according to thepolice reports. The Post-Dispatchreported that it was Stoneking’s car.Laurella and deputy Sprong were presentat the time of Laurella’s death. The Post-Dispatch implied that Stoneking diedalone. The .38-caliber revolver thatended Stoneking’s life belonged toLaurella. The Post-Dispatch didn’t evenmention Laurella’s name.

At least one working journalist in St.Louis knew better. On Jan. 22, veteranTV newsman John Auble of KTVI-Channel 2 in St. Louis called detectiveVance and said he believed that suicidevictim Jesse McBride was actually JesseStoneking, a federal informant. Vancecontacted the U.S. Marshal’s office forconfirmation. The next day the detectivereported that he picked up the bulletfrom the medical examiner’s officealong with photographs of the autopsy --the autopsy the medical examiner’sreport indicates was never conducted. Healso wrote that he retrieved a set of latentprints from the corpse and sent all theevidence to the state crime lab foranalysis.

On Jan. 27, two days after the Post-Dispatch story ran, FBI agent FrankBrostrom of the St. Louis field office

spoke with detective Vance by phone,advising him that he believed McBridewas actually Stoneking. Brostromrequested that the Surprise police sendhim the crime scene photographs and acopy of the police report.

Vance’s police report is dated Jan. 27,2003. It bears no indication of the resultsof the state crime lab results on theevidence. A later supplemental reportfiled by detective Sgt. Y. Ybarraindicates that he had received themedical examiner’s final report on April17, 2003, nearly three month’s afterStoneking’s death. The report concludesthat Jesse McBride died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Officially, Stoneking has never beendeclared dead. For the record, onlyMcBride pulled the trigger. In death,Jesse Stoneking had finally managed toescape his enemies on both sides of thelaw, including himself.

“They’re going to hit me someday.”

More than a decade before his death inthe Arizona desert, Jesse Stonekingprophesized that he would die not by hisown hand but as a result of a vengefulexecution carried out by the Mafia.

"I know they’re going to hit mesomeday," Stoneking told former St.Louis Post-Dispatch reporter RonaldLawrence in 1987. Lawrence hadreported on Stoneking’s career as afederal informant and over the years abond developed between the two men.

The trust that the newspapermanengendered prompted Stoneking todivulge aspects of his life that he had

never revealed to anyone else. In 1987,Lawrence interviewed Stoneking over atwo-day period at a motel in CentralIllinois, which the now-retired reporterpublished as a magazine article twoyears later.

After his usefulness as a federalinformant in St. Louis had beenexpended, Stoneking briefly entered thefederal witness protection program, buthe chaffed under its constraints. He leftthe program and began his life on therun, often hiding out in small towns inrural Southern Illinois and Kentucky,using the pseudonym Jesse McBride.Stoneking also spent stretches of time inArizona, where he operated anautomobile repossession business.

During the intervening years, Lawrencemet sporadically with Stoneking andbegan writing a biography of him. Theysometimes had lunch at the Our Lady ofthe Snows Shrine near Belleville, Ill.Later, they met clandestinely at a housein Chester, Ill. At that particularmeeting, about a year-and-a-half beforehis death, Stoneking expressedapprehension about plans to return toArizona. Lawrence last saw Stoneking in2001, when he visited him in Arizona.Stoneking’s fears had not subsided.

"He was paranoid," says Lawrence."Really paranoid at times. ... His coverwas blown."

There is little doubt that the police knewwho he was.

In the small town of Wickenburg, wherehe resided, Stoneking’s past was nosecret. After his death, Surprise PoliceDepartment spokesman Scott Bailey, aWickenburg native, told the St. Louis

Post-Dispatch, "We’d see him drivingaround town and say, `There goes theMafia guy.’"

The Road to Perdition

Jesse Stoneking wasn’t born a hardenedcriminal, but by adolescence he alreadyhad begun developing anti-socialtendencies. At 14, the former choirboywas expelled from Catholic elementaryschool in St. Louis for bringing a pelletgun to class. Soon a juvenile judgeplaced him on probation for a string ofburglaries, which netted $20 in coins.After his parents’ bitter divorce,Stoneking lashed out by stealing a carand going on a joyride, earning him athree-year hitch in reform school, avirtual criminal training ground.

In 1964, his prior juvenile recordresulted in a stiff sentence, this time forthe minor offense of under-age drinking.A St. Louis County judge ordered him toserve two months in jail and meted out atwo-year probation. By this early stagein his life, the dye had been cast.

The rebellious youth, who had taken afew wrong turns, was now on theirreversible path of a career criminal.Stoneking adopted his grandfather, aone-time bank robber, as his role model.His commanding size and domineeringattitude served his purposes well,eventually attracting the attention of ArtBerne, the Eastside rackets boss, whorecruited him into the Outfit. Within afew years, he had become Berne’snumber one enforcer.

Berne had inherited his criminal empirefrom the late Frank "Buster" Wortman.From the 1940s until his death in 1968,Wortman had reigned over prostitution,

gambling and labor racketeering,including control over Pipefitters Local562 in St. Louis. Wortman’sorganization, which Berne took over,answered, in turn, to the Chicago Outfit,which by the late-1970s was controlledby Jackie Cerone and Joey Aiuppa.

Chicago crime boss Joey Aiuppa

Stoneking earned and kept Berne’sloyalty by doing his bidding. On Oct. 22,1978, for instance, mob associateDonald Ellington was found dead in aremote area of Jefferson County, Mo.with two .38-caliber bullets in his head.Police arrested Stoneking as a suspect inthe killing, but he was never charged.Rumors were that the dead man hadincurred the mob boss’ wrath, in part,due to the mistreatment of Berne’smistress, a prostitute. Stonekingallegedly carried out the vendetta onBerne’s orders.

Stoneking’s prowess in the Outfit grewthe next year, when he killed two men ina shootout at the Kracker Box tavernoutside Collinsville, Ill. In September1980, a jury convicted Stoneking of themurders, but St. Clair County JudgeStephen Kernan set aside theconvictions, after the defense claimednew witnesses had come forward. In aplea bargain, Stoneking later pleadedguilty to one count of involuntarymanslaughter and received probation.

Then-prosecuting attorney JohnBaracevic prosecution said he agreed tothe deal because the prosecution lackedwitnesses.

Killing two men in St. Clair County in1979 had netted Stoneking a lightersentence than he received in St. LouisCounty for under-age drinking 15 yearsearlier.

It appeared that Stoneking’s mobconnections were taking care of him.During these years, the mob providedhim a series of well-paying, no-showjobs with the operating engineers,pipefitters and laborers unions. But whenthe feds busted him in 1981, his fortunesquickly changed.

A federal grand jury in Benton, Ill.indicted Stoneking for operating a multi-state car theft ring. Stoneking pleadedguilty and received a three-year federalsentence.

Eastside boss Art Berne

Stoneking’s federal bust occurred in thewake of Anthony Giordano’s death. Fordecades, St. Louis’ Mafia boss, with thebacking of the Chicago Outfit, hadmanaged to cobble together an allianceof competing organized crime factions.After his death, a power struggleimmediately developed, beginning with

the September 1980 car bombing ofSouthside Syrian gangster JimmyMichaels.

The loose alliance had come unraveled,allowing the FBI to make inroads intothe previously impregnable innersanctum of the mob’s hierarchy. AgingMafia underboss John Vitale, who hadascended to the Mafia’s top postfollowing Giordano death, became anFBI informant and falsely implicatedStoneking in the Michaels bombing.

Roll Over Test

His fingering left Stoneking feelingdoubly betrayed. Berne had let him takethe fall in the car theft bust and also notretaliated against Vitale’s accusations.Stoneking decided to roll over. In returnfor his early prison release, he, too,agreed to become an FBI informant.

Between October 1982 and August1984, Stoneking secretly taped morethan 130 conversations with Berne anddozens of other mobsters, includingMatthew Trupiano, who had beeninstalled as the St. Louis Mafia bossfollowing Vitale’s death.

As a result of Stoneking’s undercoverwork, Berne and Trupiano were indictedon federal charges in connection with ascheme to coerce protection paymentsfrom Eastside massage parlor kingpinDennis W. Sonnenschein. At the time,Sonnenschein was a business partner ofNando Bartolotta, who had beeninducted into the St. Louis Mafia withTrupiano. (Stoneking’s testimony wouldalso help send Bartolotta to prison onunrelated charges.) As recently as lastyear, Sonnenschein, the brothel operator,received a one-year prison sentence for

not cooperating with a federal grand juryinquiry into the interstate promotion ofprostitution by Eastside massage parlorsthat solicited business in the St. LouisRiverfront Times between 1994 and2000.

Berne pleaded guilty to the extortionscheme and received a six yearssentence. Trupiano, on the other hand,went to trial and was acquitted of thesame charges.

St. Louis Mafia leader Matt Trupiano

Evidence and testimony introduced atthe 1986 trial provided details of mobplans that otherwise may have neverbeen publicly revealed.

For starters, FBI agent Terry L.Bohnemeier testified that Stonekingcontinued to receive $1,600 a month forhis work as a federal informant. Inreturn, Stoneking supplied the bureauwith tapes of talks in which Berne andTrupiano discussed extorting moneyfrom Eastside topless club owners.

According to the tapes, Trupianointended to have Bartolotta, his soldier,pressure Sonnenschein into payingprotection money out of profits that thetwo partners made from the Golden Girlstopless club. Berne, on the other hand,wanted to bomb PT’s, a competingtopless club in Centreville, as a means ofconvincing the owners to pay up.

During a car trip to Chicago, Berneexpressed concerns about the risks ofextorting money from "pimps" such asSonnenschein: "You watch, these pimpswill spread it around who the Mafia is,"Berne warned Stoneking. "The G(government) will be there." While hecontinued to voice his suspensions aboutthe reliability of pimps, his toplieutenant sat next to him in the frontseat wearing a wire.

In August 1984, Stoneking left St. Louisin the dead of night. He entered thewitness protection program in Boston,but bolted after only a couple of weeks.Meanwhile, the Mafia had placed a$100,000 price tag on his head.

For the next two decades, while hisestranged wife and children disappearedinto the witness protection program, heremained at large hop-scotching acrossthe country, living in small towns inthree different states. Stonekingremarried and made efforts to settledown, but glances in his rearview mirroralways kept him moving.

His last glance came in January 2003 onthe outskirts of Surprise, Ariz., when asquad car rolled up behind him as he saton the shoulder of a highway behind thewheel of a friend’s disabled Ford CrownVictoria. With the emergency lightsflashing in the desert night, he put a .38-

caliber revolver to his temple and pulledthe trigger.

At least that’s the official version.

Reporter Lawrence, Stoneking’sconfidant, tends to believe it. "I waspretty close to him," says Lawrence,adding that Stoneking had turnedreflective in his later years, often readingand quoting from the Bible. "He hadchanged. He didn’t like what he haddid."

The Last Joyride

If Jesse Stoneking had ended his lifealone, pulling the trigger in the lonelydesert night, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch implied, perhaps thesubsequent investigation by Arizonapolice would have been more thorough.

Chicago mobster Jackie Cerone

As a federal informer in the 1980s,Stoneking, after all, had beenresponsible for sending more than ascore of St. Louis organized crimefigures to prison. Legend has it that theMafia placed a $100,000 bounty on hishead. In the intervening years, hemanaged to escape at least oneassassination attempt and suspected thatothers had plotted against him sincethen.

With the passage of time, his name fadedfrom the headlines, but Stonekingremained haunted by his past, movingfrom state to state, living under hisassumed name.

Nothing contained in the police reportsindicates why Stoneking and Laurellahad traveled from the mobile home theyshared in Wickenburg, Ariz. to Surprise,a distance of more than 40 miles.

The police reports show that the CrownVictoria was registered to Laurella, andthe suicide weapon also belonged tohim.

At the crime scene, Laurella told theinvestigating detective that Stonekinghad not exhibited any outward signs ofdepression in the last several days. Headded that Stoneking had taken the gunfrom his dresser drawer without hisknowledge. Authorities impounded thecar, but Laurella was not held for furtherquestioning and was driven home by aSurprise police officer.

As with many suicides, the cause, aswell as the circumstances of the death,remain puzzling, and, in this case, piecesof the puzzle seem to be missing.

According to the official record, twomen in their 50s, both with checkeredpasts, decide to go on a joyride in thedesert on a winter’s night for noapparent reason. After having a flat tire,one of them blows his brains out, as if oncue, exactly at the moment when a lawenforcement officer arrives on the scene.

St. Louis sources, with knowledge ofStoneking’s criminal career, don’tnecessarily question the suicide ruling.For years, Stoneking displayed paranoid

tendencies, fits of fantasy and wild moodswings, they say. He claimed to havecolon cancer. He struggled through twobroken marriages, while grappling tocome to terms with the heinous deeds ofhis earlier life. Those close to his storyalso say, however, that it is a life he maynot have altogether given up.

In the mid-1980s, Stoneking, of his ownvolition, withdrew from the federalwitness protection program, after only acouple weeks. But he, nonetheless, cameback to the Midwest with a differentname – Jesse Lee McBride and thecredentials to prove it. In later years,Stoneking, using his new identity, ran aWickenburg automobile repossessionfirm, a marginally legitimate businessthat suited his past experience as a carthief.

In retrospect, it seems apropos thatStoneking’s last images of life camefrom behind the wheel of a big sedan,watching a flatbed tow truck come andgo, and, finally, seeing the glare of thesquad car’s flashing lights in therearview mirror.

The possibility exists that, at the time ofhis death, Stoneking was still workingboth sides of the law. As veteran St.Louis reporter John Auble says, “itwould have been hard to get out of thatkind of work.”

Blow Out

Laurella and Stoneking left their trailerin Wickenburg at about 7:30 p.m.ostensibly to visit a friend who livednearby. From there, Stoneking droveLaurella’s car southeast for the betterpart on an hour through MaricopaCounty on U.S. 60, reaching the

outskirts of Surprise sometime after 9:00p.m. At that point, he hit a rock on Loop303 just north of Bell Road and had ablow out.

It is unclear when Laurella, the lastperson to see Stoneking alive, first cameto know him. Both men were divorced,and their ex-wives and families lived inWickenburg. Until a year or two earlier,Laurella’s family owned and operated amotel, cafe and gas station in the smalltown.

But the two men’s interests extendedbeyond Wickenburg’s confines. Laurellaand Stoneking not only shared thetrailer, they had also resided at the sameaddress in Chester, Ill. the previous year.

Blurred Lines

Since fleeing St. Louis in 1985,Stoneking had lived under the assumedidentity of Jesse McBride. McBride’sSocial Security number was issuedbetween 1984 and 1985 in Hawaii. Butthere is no proof that Stoneking, in theguise of McBride, had ever lived in suchan exotic locale. Instead, it appears thatStoneking, aka, McBride, lived briefly inSouth Portland, Maine, which is perhapswhere he did his brief stint in the federalwitness protection program and acquiredhis new name.

A source with knowledge of Stoneking’swhereabouts during this period placeshim at another New England location --Boston. At the time, the Boston fieldoffice of the FBI was notoriouslycorrupt. Congressional hearings in 2002revealed that Boston FBI agents,including the late H. Paul Rico, hadengaged in criminal activities withBoston organized crime informants for

decades, including murders in five statesfrom Massachusetts to California.

FBI Agent H. Paul Rico

Regardless of whether Stoneking hadeven an indirect knowledge of thesenefarious activities, the twistedrelationship of federal law enforcementand organized crime in Boston, whichcontinued through the 1990s, is a clearindication that lines had been blurred.Stoneking had cast himself into a worldfraught with ambiguities and shadedwith deceit.

After returning to the Midwest,Stoneking lived his secret life inPaducah, Ky., Collinsville, Brookportand Chester, Ill. In the mid-1990s, helived briefly in Black Canyon, Ariz. andmore recently Phoenix and Wickenburg,where his second wife and childrenresided.

Somehow he managed to provide forhimself and his family. Whether hecontinued to bolster his income throughcrime or working as a federal informant

remains uncertain. There are signs thathe had changed. He operated an apparentlegitimate business. He took solace inreading and quoting the Bible. He stayedout of jail. Still, on the night that he died,Stoneking had decided to carry a gun.

At the time of his suicide, he had alreadyoutlived the two most prominentmobsters whom he had betrayed. BothSt. Louis Mafia chief Matthew Trupianoand Eastside rackets boss Art Bernewere dead. A third Mafioso, NandoBartolotta, had been sent back to prisonfor bank robbery.

Despite the changing of the guard, theEastside sex trade, which Trupiano andBerne had sought to extort, still thrives.More recently, massage parlor kingpinDennis W. Sonnenschein, one of theirextortion targets and Bartolotta’s formerpartner, pleaded guilty in East St. Louisto an obstruction of justice charge forwithholding knowledge of the Eastsideprostitution rackets from a federal grandjury. Sonnenschein is now serving a one-year sentence and was ordered to pay$1.25 million in fines and restitution.

The grand jury investigation centered onthe solicitations of prostitution acrossstate lines through ads placed in the St.Louis Riverfront Times from 1994 to2000. In 1998, New Times Inc. (nowVillage Voice Media) purchased theRFT.

Sonnenschein’s bust related to the FreeSpirit massage parlor in Brooklyn, Ill.,which closed in 2000. But the brotheloperator also held other businessinterests. His now-ex-wife LindaSonnenschein, for example, was listed in2002 as the registered agent of PlatinumInc. of Brooklyn, where the Platinum

Club, a topless bar is located. PlatinumInc., in turn, owns and operates Boxers‘n’ Briefs, a gay dance club inCentreville, Ill., according to the cityliquor license. Entertainment IllinoisInc. of Scottsdale, Ariz. owns theproperty where Boxers is located.

PT’s strip joint in Brooklyn, Ill.

Though Stoneking’s federal informantstatus seemingly ended with the federalsentencing of Berne, his former boss, in1986, there are hints that it continued.

FBI reports on interviews conducted inJune 1991, obtained through Freedom ofInformation Act, provide details on theSt. Louis mob, including Berne andTrupiano’s activities. Though the nameof the FBI informant who gave theinformation has been redacted, it is clearthat the person had close ties to Berne inparticular. Stoneking, of course, wasBerne’s top lieutenant.

FBI Agent Frank Bostrom

U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton

The reports outline the hierarchy of St.Louis organized crime and spell out itscontrol of certain labor unions, includingPipefitters Local 562 of which Bernewas a member. Stoneking was alsoassociated with the pipefitters and otherunions during his criminal career.According to the FBI informant, controlof Local 562 rested in the hands of theChicago Outfit. The informant alsostated that Berne had told him that RalloConstruction Co. handled financial andproperty transactions for the ChicagoOutfit in St. Louis.

In 1991, Stoneking’s name surfacedagain, during an investigation of then-St.Louis Teamster boss Bobby Sansone. Afederal monitor overseeing the corruptunion had charged Sansone with notousting Mafia member Nino Parrinofrom his position with Local 682. St.Louis political leaders, including then-Mayor Vincent C. Shoemehl Jr. the lateSt. Louis County Executive George“Buzz Westfall and former U.S. Sen.Thomas Eagleton weighed in onSansone’s behalf, but he was,nevertheless, removed from office. Thesource of Parrino’s ties to Mafia hadbeen a secretly recorded conversationtaped by Stoneking.

Five years after skipping town,Stoneking was still making waves.

In 2000, career criminal Richard Beck,who was seeking to cut a deal on aparole violation, asked to be interviewedby the FBI. Agent Frank Brostrom of theSt. Louis field office conducted theinterview at the Franklin County jail inUnion, Mo., where Beck was being held.

Like Stoneking, the FBI initiallysuspected Beck may have been involvedin St. Louis’ gang war in the early1980s. In many ways, Beck fit theprofile better than Stoneking. He was anotorious bank extortionist and bomber.During his rambling recollections of hissordid career, Beck dropped the namesof many criminal associates, includingSt. Louis mobsters John Vitale,Trupiano, Berne and Bartolotta. He toldBrostrom that Trupiano and Bartolottahad been inducted into the Mafia duringthe same ceremony, which occurred at aSt. Charles, Mo. pizzeria.

Beck’s efforts to belatedly cooperatewith the FBI failed, and he will likelyspend the rest of his life in federalprison. Last year, in a letter to anhistorical researcher, Beck wrote that“Stoneking was a pathological liar, whoframed several guys to drum up somebusiness for the FBI.” Beck referred toStoneking as a “real slimeball,” andclaimed that he had witnessed him beathis wife. “This guy is dead and where hebelongs,” Beck added.

Among those who disagree is retired St.Louis Post-Dispatch reporter RonaldLawrence, who maintains he, too, knewStoneking well. Lawrence says he testedStoneking’s veracity many times by

asking him questions to which healready knew the answer. In each case,he says, Stoneking told the truth.

The real truth about Stoneking is still anopen question, one that probably willnever be answered. But there is littledoubt that Jesse Lee McBride and JesseEugene Stoneking were one and thesame person. Eight days after hissuicide, FBI agent Brostrom, the sameagent who interviewed Beck nearly threeyears earlier, called up a detective for theSurprise Police Department and told himas much. He then requested the latentprints, crime scene photos and policereports.