in basement of his West Orange home
On this date in 1959...
Mrs. Zwillman told police she recalled her husband getting up in the middle of the night complaining of chest pains. He responded to her concern by having her take a sleeping pill and return to bed.
Essex County Medical Examiner Dr. Edwin Albano almost immediately ruled the death a suicide by hanging. He also reported that Zwillman had kidney disease and an enlarged heart. (He had been seeing a heart specialist for some time.)
Zwillman's stepson John Steinbach revealed that the racketeer had been depressed and worried about a jury bribery case relating to a 1956 tax evasion trial that ended with a hung jury. Zwillman had reportedly battled deep depression since 1950, when Senate investigators recently began examining his role in the jukebox and coin-operated vending machine industry.
Steinbach said Zwillman was troubled by the questioning of Mafia big shot Gerard Catena two weeks earlier. Catena, one of the New York-area Mafiosi who had been a longtime Zwillman business partner, took the Fifth Amendment more than seventy times.
An estimated 150 mourners paid their respects on the evening of Feb. 26. Zwillman's funeral was held at Philip Anter & Son funeral home, 16 Stratford Place, Newark, the next afternoon. An estimated 1,500 people gathered outside the establishment. Just 350 of those were permitted inside. Reporters identified Manhattan restaurateur Toots Schor and movie producer Dory Schary at the funeral.
After a service by Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, Zwillman's remains were taken for burial to B'nai Abraham Cemetery in Union, New Jersey.
Read more about Zwillman:
"The Capone of New Jersey: Abner 'Longie' Zwillman," mafiahistory.us.