Fanfics Fact Resources ::SPOILERS::

Thanks Boxman :smile39:

This is awesome boxman! Thank you so much. I'm going to sticky it so everyone can easily find it and use it as a reference. Thanks again!

I've got it too, DF:
www.ppdonline.org/ ;D

If anyone ever wanna do a fanfic set in Norway, you know where to find me. (tho it won't be a realistic one, 'cause nothing ever happens here...)

Wow! That's some great stuff Boxman! Thanks a lot!

Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone. You've probably picked up from my posts that I'm more of an analytical rather than creative writer, so I was a bit afraid of appearing presumptuous by starting this message thread. I'm relieved now that y'all have found these links and info useful. Thanks again, and don't hesitate to post or PM me with questions if any info are unclear.

Great! Still, there is more TK!
BTW, I was busy today with laundry and got a late start from sleeping in. I'll take care of your favor tommorrow.

www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14034542.htm

Posted on Tue, Mar. 07, 2006
Tale of the notorious Philadelphia K&A burglars
The gang looted homes of the rich. Writing the story had peril.
By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer

Allen Hornblum looks pretty relaxed for a guy who sleeps with a gun next to his pillow.

And who's being sued for libel. By a gangster. Alleged gangster, that is.

Maybe he's pleased because his new book is selling so well.

Confessions of a Second Story Man: Junior Kripplebauer and the K&A Gang is the street-level tale of a bunch of high school dropouts from Kensington who made an art of robbing wealthy suburban homes during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. At their peak, Hornblum writes, the thieves committed thousands of burglaries a year, from Bar Harbor to Boca Raton.

Not that they called it stealing. The men of K&A - it stands for Kensington and Allegheny, the neighborhood's main intersection - called it "production work." And to them it was as much a career choice as a job in a shipyard or a factory. It was certainly more lucrative.

"They wanted the money, they wanted the babes, they wanted the Budweiser - but they didn't want to work a 9-to-5 job," says Hornblum, who teaches urban studies at Temple University.

Since the release of the book in February, Hornblum, who served on the Pennsylvania Crime Commission and the board of the Philadelphia Prison System, has been hearing from retired burglars far and wide, some now in their 70s and 80s, who are tickled that their story is being told.

And he's heard from one man who isn't happy at all.

That would be legendary Philadelphia crime figure John Berkery, whose exploits fill six envelopes of clippings in The Inquirer's morgue.

Confessions describes Berkery as a talented production worker, a key player in the city's methamphetamine business, and "the main nexus between the Northeast Irish mobsters and the Mafia."

Two weeks ago, Berkery sued Hornblum for libel, seeking more than $500,000 in damages.

"The whole book's a lie," said Berkery, now almost 72, when reached by phone this week.

Berkery insists he was never a member of the K&A gang and had no connections to the Philadelphia underworld. He says he was never arrested, let alone convicted, for a residential burglary.

Well, except once, he concedes, in the famous 1959 case known as the Pottsville Heist.

In the Brink's job of its day, K&A thieves hit the home of John B. Rich, a Pennsylvania coal baron, netting the then-astronomical sum of $478,000.

Berkery's conviction was expunged - after he had served several years of a 5-to-12-year sentence.

Hornblum says he is surprised that Berkery filed suit, given the voluminous documentation of his criminal past, which include Crime Commission reports identifying him as an associate of the Philly mob.

And he's hardly the book's lead character.

That would be Louis Kripplebauer Jr.

---

Kripplebauer approached his work with true entrepreneurial spirit. He and his crew targeted only the finest neighborhoods, full of big, good-looking houses. Then they would cruise the streets looking for something even more specific: the twinkling lights of a home-security system. To the burglars, Kripplebauer told Hornblum in interviews for the book, those blinking bulbs were "like a lighthouse for distressed sailors at sea."

The presence of an alarm system told the crooks two important things: One, there was nobody home. Two, the house contained something worth stealing.

The thieves relied on stealth, experience, and state-of-the-art burglary tools to get them inside, and high-tech communications equipment to keep them from getting caught.

"As a group," Hornblum writes, "they were unquestionably America's preeminent second story men, though the term may be a misnomer, since they had the keys to everyone's front door and usually didn't have to do any climbing. They could walk right in."

They traveled to rob, usually to someplace warm, where tire tracks and footprints wouldn't be left in snow and mud. North Carolina was a favorite target; Kripplebauer saw the state as one big ATM machine.

For years, he and his associates picked off homes in Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Raleigh, so proficient at thievery that the locals gave them a nickname: the Hallmark Gang, because they stole only the best stuff - jewels and silver bearing high-quality hallmarks.

As a result, the cops hunted for sophisticated, urbane cat burglars, not the "two-fisted, beer-guzzling ear- and nose-biting hoodlums" that the K&A guys really were, Hornblum writes. In fact the gang's sole sophistication lay in disabling alarms and cracking safes. From the Woolworth family estate in Maine, they stole a priceless collection of 70 paintings; from the du Pont compound in Miami, $2 million in rare coins.

"It was a way of life, it was what you did," says former K&A production worker John McManus, reached at his Fishtown home.

McManus can't recall exactly how many houses he robbed - probably thousands, he says. He stole and spent untold amounts of money and felt no guilt, then or now. Now nearly 76, McManus spent almost a third of his life in prison, but to him that was simply the cost of doing business.

"I never hated cops," he says. "That was their job. And my job was getting the money."

But by the 1970s, with the advent of new home-protection technologies like motion sensors, the burglary trade was losing its luster. At the same time, Philadelphia was becoming known as the methamphetamine capital of the country. Some K&A crew members moved into the drug trade, where they could make 10 times the money with one-tenth the effort. But with the drugs came guns, violence, and long prison terms.

---

Last May, Hornblum was excited to be heading to BookExpo America, in New York, where he'd be signing copies of Confessions beside big-time authors such as John Irving and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

His publisher, the usually staid Temple University Press, was even flexing some promotional muscle, making Confessions its lead book. But a couple of days before the Expo, Hornblum says, Temple executives got in touch.

"There's a problem," they told him.

Actually, there was more than a problem. The publisher, as a crook in Hornblum's book might say, had taken a powder.

Temple Press had received a letter from Berkery, warning that he would sue if he was mentioned in Confessions.

In his letter, Berkery admitted to having had some "minor scrapes with the law" many years ago, but said that was before he completed bachelor's and master's degrees and a year of law school. The book's publication would irreparably harm his family, he said.

"Once that happens," Berkery wrote, "I will have no further compunction about the bad publicity and will come at Hornblum (and you if necessary and anyone else who shares culpability in this slanderous scheme) with every legal remedy at my disposal."

Temple Press director Alex Holzman immediately responded with a conciliatory letter: The publisher canceled all promotional events, put a hold on future shipments of books, and was trying to recall copies already sent to stores.

A few months later, Temple Press wound up dropping Confessions altogether. Efforts to contact Holzman and editor-in-chief Janet Francendese last week were unsuccessful.

Fortunately for Hornblum, Barricade Books, the feisty Fort Lee, N.J., outfit known for handling subjects that make other publishers nervous, picked up Confessions. Now Barricade is promoting it as "the book the mob tried to suppress."

Company vice president Jeff Nordstedt said last week that a first printing of 5,000 copies had sold out and a second printing of 5,000 was under way. "The thing is just percolating," he said.

And that's good news for Hornblum, whose previous book, Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison, was not exactly a beach read. He thinks Confessions will be a hit with everyone who's interested in Philly crime lore.

Well, practically everyone, Hornblum adds. Some of the people in his book could still face prosecution for past crimes, and may not want Confessions to find a wide readership.

Which is why, he says, he doesn't sleep alone.

---

Contact staff writer Jeff Gammage at 215-854-2810 or jgammage@phillynews.com.
© 2006 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
www.philly.com

www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/latest/14513845.htm

Posted on Sat, May. 06, 2006
Police, FBI announce seizure of killer heroin
Eight men were arrested with 25,000 packets of the drug. Authorities declined to give details, saying users might flock to the site of the bust.
By Julie Stoiber
Inquirer Staff Writer

Killer heroin headed for the streets was seized this week by Philadelphia Police and the FBI, and eight men were arrested, officials said yesterday, even as the number of overdose deaths climbed.

"There's still a significant amount of heroin on the street, and a significant amount of heroin tainted with fentanyl," said Capt. Chris Werner, head of the Philadelphia Police Narcotics Field Unit at Hunting Park Avenue and G Street, in announcing the seizure of 25,000 packets worth of the drug. "Users are playing Russian roulette."

Since mid-April, nearly 30 people in Philadelphia and South Jersey have died after overdosing on heroin laced with the synthetic morphine. Chicago and Harrisburg also have reported heroin-fentanyl deaths, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Capt. Len Ditchkofsky, head of the East Detective Division, said that anyone found distributing heroin cut with fentanyl would face charges of attempted murder, reckless endangerment, and risking a catastrophe in addition to drug charges.

Werner declined to give specifics about the suspects or where the busts took place, saying they might attract more users to those neighborhoods.

"Users believe it's more potent," Werner said of the killer heroin. "It drives demand."

Much of the $250,000 worth of heroin confiscated this week was purchased in bulk by undercover officers who had infiltrated up to three city drug organizations, Werner said. Not all of it was tainted.

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office attributed 20 deaths between April 17 and 28 to opiates and fentanyl, compared with five such cases all of last year.

The term " 'opiates' is intentionally broad, but the likelihood is heroin," Health Department spokesman Jeff Moran said.

Medford police said a 22-year-old man died of a heroin overdose there yesterday, but did not know whether fentanyl was involved. In Camden, where at least eight deaths have been attributed to tainted heroin, no fatal overdoses were reported this week.

The heroin-fentanyl mix crops up sporadically around the country, said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Boosting heroin's potency with synthetic morphine is a way to attract buyers.

"It's marketing," Courtney said. "Very sick marketing."

The eight arrested this week in Philadelphia and charged with possession with intent to deliver and conspiracy were Troy Calloway, 24; Angelo Fernandez, 23; Charles Herrera, 27; Reynaldo Lupez-Perez, 24; Jose Monge, 18; Albert Perez, 19; William Serrano, 29, and Kelvin Torres, 20.

On April 25, Nick DiDonato lost his stepson to a suspected heroin overdose. Michael Messina, 33, was found dead in the upstairs of his family's home on the 800 block of Letona Street in South Philadelphia.

"We found needles, we found empty bags," DiDonato said. "I don't know where he got the stuff."

Messina had grappled with addiction for 13 years, going through rehab programs, trying to quit cold turkey. DiDonato said he and his wife, Stella, were awaiting the toxicology report on what caused his death.

"I know it was heroin - and I feel it was tampered with, though I can't prove that," DiDonato said.

Hordes of people have descended on the DiDonato home to offer condolences and tell stories about Messina, a St. John Neumann High School graduate who had worked as a waiter.

"Michael helped everybody else, but he couldn't help himself," his stepfather said.

DiDonato said he ran into someone on the street who he knew used heroin. "I told him, 'My son is dead, kid, you better get off the stuff.' "

---

Contact staff writer Julie Stoiber at 215-854-2468 or jstoiber@phillynews.com.

www.kyw1060.com/pages/34360.php



Rocky Statue Could be Headed Back to Art Museum
by KYW’s Mike Dunn

It looks like the "Rocky" statue is making a comeback at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the mayor says it’s a knockout for local tourism.

Mayor Street says the number one site that tourists here ask to see is not the Liberty Bell but the Rocky statue:

“There are so many people who really really relate to Philadelphia through that story and hard work and commitment and all, and I think it's good.”

So Street is thrilled that the statue may be moved to an area near the art museum. This time, though, it won’t be on the steps but on the grounds nearby. The Fairmount Park Commission on Wednesday approved moving the controversial statue from the Spectrum, in South Philadelphia, to an area near the art museum steps.

The city art commission must still okay the move, but attorney Jimmy Binns, who is pushing the idea, thinks the art experts won’t have a problem:

“This is not something that you get at the dollar store. This is a very impressive piece of sculpture by a very impressive sculptor, Thomas Schomberg.”

Binns says Stallone himself will pay for the move and the landscaping, which could be completed by year’s end -- when Stallone’s last "Rocky" film premieres. This renews a huge controversy from the 1980s over whether the statue should be on the steps themselves.

Earlier, city councilman Frank Rizzo seemed miffed that marketing may be deciding the issue:

“If we do a Donald Duck movie in the city of Philadelphia, are we going to have a Donald Duck statue?”

There was no immediate word on when the art commission would vote on the idea.

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The Rocky statue (featured in Rocky III) was moved to the Wachovia Spectrum stadium sometime in the late-80s or early-90s. It was at first controversial to "serious" art lovers to keep it at its movie location at the top of the Art Museum stairs.

An irony of Councilman Frank Rizzo's statement is that a huge statue of his father graces the steps of the city's municipal building:
community.webshots.com/photo/547466159/2192592790085748111taGkFQ