The Bondage Murders: Organized Crime In New York City 1923-1924

The Butterfly Murders, as they have come to be known, involved two bit player actresses who were murdered near Broadway in 1923 and 1924. The victims, Dorothy Dot Keenan and Louise Lawson, were more recognizable in their roles as society girls. They sat in cabarets waiting for rich men to lavish expensive furs and jewelry on them. Dot Keenan sometimes burned the twenty dollar bills that she was gifted with to light her cigarettes. These women died extremely violent deaths at the hands of bandits who entered their homes. In the case of Lawson, the intruders gained entry by impersonating men delivering liquor. As one reads my e-book he/she will realize that the murders of the actresses were merely the tip of the iceberg. The bandits continued their spree of preying on Manhattan's rich into July 1934. They often arrived masked. They brutalized their victims when they did not murder them. Literally thousands of dollars was stolen and the majority of the jewels were never recovered by New York City Police.