Parnell Steven "Stacks" Edwards (January 15, 1947
South BronxThe South Bronx is an area of the New York City borough of The Bronx. It strictly refers to the southwestern portion of the borough, and should not be confused with the southern Bronx. The true South Bronx, which was a legal designation through the 1960s, was a very small area which extended from...
– December 18, 1978
Morningside Heights, ManhattanMorningside Heights is a neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City and is chiefly known as the home of institutions such as Columbia University, Barnard College, the Manhattan School of Music, Bank Street College of Education, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the Riverside...
) was an African-American supporter of the
Black Panther PartyThe Black Panther Party was an African-American revolutionary organization established to promote Black Power, and by extension self-defense for blacks. It was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s...
who became associated with the infamous Jimmy Burke and
the Vario crewThe Vario Crew was a group in the Lucchese crime family, run by Caporegime Paul Vario from the early 1950s through to the early 1980s.-The Vario brothers:...
in 1967. Edwards was portrayed by
Samuel L. JacksonSamuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor. After Jackson became involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then, films. He had several small roles, before meeting his mentor, Morgan Freeman, and the director Spike Lee...
in the film
GoodfellasGoodfellas is a semi-fictional crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese...
.
Biography
Edwards was born in the South Bronx, to parents from
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties...
and
Northern VirginiaNorthern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the U.S. state of Virginia in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
. He was said to have been chubby at 5'8", 285 pounds, but became muscular from his visits to prison. He was a bodyguard for
Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali is a retired American boxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered one of the greatest heavyweight champions. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome...
. He met mobster Tommy DeSimone as a struggling
blues-rockBlues-rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a tube...
musician, singer and songwriter on
Queens BoulevardQueens Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Queens, connecting communities from Long Island City to Jamaica. It forms part of New York State Route 25.-Location:...
sometime during 1967, earning money as a street performer. At the time DeSimone was selling stolen
RolexRolex SA is a Swiss manufacturer of high quality, luxury wristwatches.Rolex watches are popularly regarded as status symbols and BusinessWeek magazine ranks Rolex #71 on its 2007 annual list of the 100 most valuable global brands...
watches. DeSimone began to think of Edwards as a "brother" and the two became close friends. Around this time, DeSimone adopted the same
integrationistRacial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
stance later adopted by
Colombo crime familyThe Colombo crime family is one of the "Five Families" that controls organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia...
mobsterA Gangster is a criminal who is a member of a crime organization, such as a gang. The terms are most commonly used in reference to members of the criminal organizations associated with American prohibition and the American offshoot of the Italian Mafia, such as the Chicago Outfit, the Philadelphia...
Joe GalloJoseph "Joey" Gallo , also known as "Crazy Joe" and "Joe the Blond", was a New York City gangster, gunman, and racketeer of the Profaci crime family . Joey and his two brothers would initiate one of the bloodiest mob conflicts since the Castellammarese War of 1931...
and Gallo associates, believing that Italian organized crime should work with black organized crime to increase power and profits.
Edwards and DeSimone became involved in credit card fraud and
carjacking' is a form of hijacking, where the crime is of stealing a motor vehicle and so also armed assault when the vehicle is occupied. Historically, such as in the rash of semi-trailer truck hijackings during the 1960s, the general term hijacking was used for that type of vehicle abduction, which did not...
with
Henry HillHenry Hill is a former American mobster, Lucchese crime family associate, and FBI informant whose life was immortalized in the book Wiseguy, written by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi, and the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas, in which Hill was played by Ray Liotta. He was the owner of a...
. Edwards later moved to East Harlem after becoming an associate of
the Vario CrewThe Vario Crew was a group in the Lucchese crime family, run by Caporegime Paul Vario from the early 1950s through to the early 1980s.-The Vario brothers:...
. Edwards was a heavy drug user, smoking marijuana before moving on to
heroinHeroin, or diacetylmorphine , also known as diamorphine , is a semi-synthetic opioid drug synthesized from morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy. It is the 3,6-diacetyl ester of morphine...
.
As a child growing up he was a fan of
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
,
jump bluesJump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. Jump blues was very popular in the 1940s and was called "rock and roll" in the 1950s.- Origins :...
and
gospelUrban contemporary gospel is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music...
. Growing up, his interest in music increased and he learned to play the
acoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only acoustic methods to project the sound produced by its strings. The term is a retronym, coined after the advent of electric guitars, which depend on electronic amplification to make their sound audible....
. As Edwards got older his tastes turned to
Fats DominoAntoine Dominique "Fats" Domino is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter.-Imperial Records era :...
, Clarence "Frogman" Henry,
Frankie FordFrankie Ford is an American rock and roll and rhythm and blues singer.He is the adopted son of Vincent and Anna Guzzo. He was born in Gretna, Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, where he still lives. Ford had a Top 20 hit with "Sea Cruise", sung to a previously recorded Huey...
,
Irma ThomasIrma Thomas is a Grammy Award winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans."...
,
The Neville BrothersThe Neville Brothers, an American R&B and Soul group, was formed in 1977 in New Orleans, Louisiana.- History :The group dates back to 1976, when the four brothers of the Neville family, Art , Charles , Aaron , and Cyril The Neville Brothers, an American R&B and Soul group, was formed in 1977 in New...
and
Dr. JohnMalcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer/songwriter, pianist and guitarist whose music combines blues, boogie woogie and rock and roll....
. When
rhythm and bluesRhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
became outdated he listened to
Ray CharlesRay Charles Robinson , known by his stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He brought a soulful sound to country music and pop standards through his Modern Sounds recordings, as well as a rendition of "America the Beautiful" that Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes called the "definitive version of...
,
Sam CookeSamuel "Sam" Cook was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music....
and
James BrownJames Joseph Brown , originally James Joseph Brown, Jr., also known as "The Godfather of Soul", was an American entertainer. He is recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music and was renowned for his vocals and feverish dancing...
and started performing
blues-rockBlues-rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a tube...
. Edwards worked the nightclub circuit and was hired on occasion by Burke for performances at
Robert's LoungeRobert's Lounge was a saloon that was owned by Lucchese crime family associate James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke. Located near John F. Kennedy International Airport, Robert's Lounge functioned as Burke's criminal headquarters from about 1957 to January 1979...
from 1967 to 1978, and by Hill at his night club The Suite as a regular performer from 1967 to 1972. Edwards formed a band called Grand Central Station in the early 1970s. He relied increasingly on organized crime rackets as a means of making money following his introduction into the Vario Crew by DeSimone.
An under-the-limit master
Edwards earned a reputation within the Vario Crew as being an "under the limit" master in
credit card fraudCredit card fraud is a wide-ranging term for theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction. The purpose may be to obtain goods without paying, or to obtain unauthorized funds from an account. Credit card fraud is also...
. He would go to a shopping center with a panel truck and purchase merchandise from the stores until he ran out of room on the truck. He would make $45 purchases on a card with a $50-expenditure limit every afternoon. His rampant shopping sprees would consist of blenders, transistor radios, cigarettes, razor blades and within two hours of steady shopping, call it quits. He had a girl from
South Ozone Park, QueensSouth Ozone Park is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Queens. It was originally developed as low-cost housing in the early 1900s. Its boundaries extend from the Aqueduct Racetrack to the Van Wyck Expressway. Its main thoroughfare is Rockaway Boulevard...
who worked for MasterCharge, delivering cards. She would bring Edwards official office memos keeping him informed about security checkups and credit checks. Among his contacts Edwards included a female associate who worked at a local bank. She would give him duplicates of the cards and inform him of the amount of credit that was attached. Before a card was put in an envelope for delivery to the cardholder, Edwards would have a duplicate. If a card had a $500
credit line he would go into stores where he and members of the Vario Crew were known, or visit places like The Suite,
The Bamboo LoungeThe Bamboo Lounge was a two-story Polynesian-themed night club, casino, fleamarket and mafia hangout. Was located on the SE corner of Rockaway Parkway and Avenue N in Canarsie . The Bamboo Lounge was burned down. Fire department investigators labeled it a "suspicious fire" but ruled "electrical"...
and
Robert's LoungeRobert's Lounge was a saloon that was owned by Lucchese crime family associate James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke. Located near John F. Kennedy International Airport, Robert's Lounge functioned as Burke's criminal headquarters from about 1957 to January 1979...
where he would punch out credit card slips. The associates he knew in the stores would call the bank and get authorization for whatever merchandise he wanted. The cardholder waiting for his card would never receive it and Edwards usually had enough time to make purchases on the certain card for about a month before it would be reported stolen.
Involvement in Lufthansa heist
In 1978 Hill, working from a tipoff from bookmaker
Martin KrugmanMartin "Marty" Krugman was an associate of the Lucchese crime family and the basis for the character "Morrie Kessler" as depicted by Chuck Low in the 1990 film Goodfellas.-Biography:Marcin-Martin Krugman was a Passaic, New Jersey...
, told Burke of vast sums of cash being held overnight in a safe at the Lufthansa terminal at JFK airport in New York. Burke analyzed the possibilities and concluded that six men and two panel trucks would be needed to successfully
steal the cashThe Lufthansa heist was a robbery at John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels were stolen, at the time making it the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil...
. This was the first stage of the heist.
Burke assembled a crew, his son
Frank James BurkeFrank James Burke-Conway was the son of mobster Jimmy Burke and a Gambino crime family mob associate.-Mob relations:...
,
Joe ManriJoseph Manriquez-Manri or "Joe Buddha" was a suspect in the Lufthansa heist.-Employment at the JFK Airport:He was one of several brothers from a family of immigrants residing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...
,
Robert McMahonRobert McMahon, also known as "Frenchy" and "Bobby McMahon" , was the night-shift Air France cargo handling supervisor at John F. Kennedy International Airport from 1957 to his death in 1979...
,
Louis CaforaLouis Cafora-Carfora II, also known as "Fat Louis" and "The Whale" was a Colombo crime family loanshark and drug trafficker for the Lucchese crime family. Cafora allegedly participated in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at John F...
, Tommy DeSimone,
Paolo LiCastriPaolo LiCastri was a made man, or "Man of Honor" who worked under Carlo Gambino and Carmine Galante.-Biography:...
, Angelo Sepe, and Edwards. During the robbery, Edwards slugged Lufthansa employee Kerry Whalen. His job was to take the panel truck used in the heist and drive it to a junkyard in New Jersey, where mafia contacts would compact it and the evidence would be destroyed. The heist worked out better than Burke could have imagined, but Edwards neglected his duty and used cocaine and marijuana, visited his girlfriend Shelly, and fell asleep at her house. The police found the panel truck, parked in a no parking zone, with a muddy boot print matching a pair of shoes owned by Edwards.
Involvement in Black nationalism and the Black Panthers
Sometime after
Malcolm XMalcolm X , also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against...
's assassination in 1965, Edwards, like many other African-Americans, became involved in the
civil rights movementThe Civil Rights Movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. It was accompanied by much civil unrest and popular rebellion. The process was long and tenuous in many countries, and most of these movements did not achieve or...
, supporting the
Black Panther PartyThe Black Panther Party was an African-American revolutionary organization established to promote Black Power, and by extension self-defense for blacks. It was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s...
. He agreed with
Bobby SealeRobert George "Bobby" Seale , is an American civil rights activist, and revolutionary, who along with Huey P. Newton, co-founded the Black Panther Party For Self Defense on October 15, 1966....
and
Huey P. NewtonHuey Percy Newton , was co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, an African-American organization established to promote Black Power, civil rights and self-defense.- Early life :...
's rejection of the integrationist stance of Martin Luther King, and with their rejection of what they called the "power struggle."
Edwards's involvement in the
CountercultureCounterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition...
movement of the 1960s angered Burke and other mobsters, causing him to be a further outcast among the fellow robbers.
His black radical nationalist views were displayed to the fellow hijackers while he was attending a Christmas Day celebration at
Robert's LoungeRobert's Lounge was a saloon that was owned by Lucchese crime family associate James 'Jimmy the Gent' Burke. Located near John F. Kennedy International Airport, Robert's Lounge functioned as Burke's criminal headquarters from about 1957 to January 1979...
in South Ozone Park, Queens. The party was being thrown by Burke following the apparently successful Lufthansa heist. Edwards attended the party even after it was known that the authorities had found the
panel truckA panel truck is a windowless cargo van built on a truck chassis. Similar in function to its smaller cousin, the sedan delivery; which is a station wagon with no backseat, and no side windows aft of the front doors. Both types of vehicles are frequently used for delivery of flowers, retail bakery...
he was supposed to dispose of. That truck included fingerprints on a wallet stolen from one of the
LufthansaDeutsche Lufthansa AG is the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried, and the flag carrier of Germany. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fifth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried,...
employees who was attacked during the robbery. Hill later recalled the attendance of Edwards at the party in
Wiseguy: Life In A Mafia Family:
- "We were all having a good time when 'Stacks' sees my amount of money on me, and started to do his 'black dude' number, 'How come I'm fucking broke and all you whities got the money?' And then Edwards would persist in making racial jokes about the 'May-fia guys who got all those millions from the airport.'"
Hill recalled later in
Nicholas PileggiNicholas Pileggi is an Italian-American author and screenwriter.- Career :Pileggi is best known for writing the book Wiseguy, which he adapted into the movie Goodfellas, and for writing the book and screenplay Casino. The movie versions of both were co-written and directed by Martin Scorsese...
's
Wiseguy: My Life In A Mafia Family that he "knew that Stacks had signed his death warrant that day."
Edwards's bungling of his role in the
Lufthansa heistThe Lufthansa heist was a robbery at John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels were stolen, at the time making it the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil...
pushed Burke and fellow
gangsterA Gangster is a criminal who is a member of a crime organization, such as a gang. The terms are most commonly used in reference to members of the criminal organizations associated with American prohibition and the American offshoot of the Italian Mafia, such as the Chicago Outfit, the Philadelphia...
s to the limit, and Edwards was murdered a short time afterward.
Robert's Lounge
Edwards's ambition was to be a successful
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer and as such he performed at Burke's bar, Robert's Lounge, in South Ozone Park, Queens. His booking agent was Dante Barzotini. Edwards met Barzotini through DeSimone in 1967. He acted as a chauffeur for Burke and Paul Vario and was usually paid in stolen goods. He would take the stolen goods and sell them to independent stores in
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
and
Jackson HeightsJackson Heights is a place name used in the United States:*Jackson Heights, Queens, an area within the Queens section of New York City*Jackson Heights, Tampa, Florida, a residential neighborhood in within the East Tampa district of Tampa...
or at flea markets in the area.
Death
DeSimone was conflicted when mobster Joseph DiPalermo ordered him to kill Edwards, since Edwards was a close friend of DeSimone's. Although DeSimone had killed several people, he felt no closer to becoming a
made manA made man, also known as a wiseguy, made guy, man of honor, or Mafioso is someone who has been officially inducted into the Mafia .-Overview:...
and as such wasn't pleased about killing his friend. However, DiPalermo told him that he could be 'made' if he carried out the murder.
Edwards went into hiding in a South Ozone Park, Queens tenement. While there one morning sitting at his kitchen table eating a piece of chicken at breakfast, DeSimone and Sepe visited him. After Edwards allowed DeSimone and Sepe to enter, DeSimone killed Edwards with a .32 silencer-equipped pistol.
His girlfriend Shelly found him after coming home from shopping. The next day a distraught DeSimone called Edwards's mother, with whom DeSimone was close, and said, "I'm so sorry, mom, about what happened to Stacks." She asked what happened, and DeSimone hung up. She didn't find out what happened until Edwards's sister Essie called and told her. Shelly had called Essie the night before and told her.
Hill spent the week before Christmas 1978 with Edwards's distraught family; DeSimone never attended.
In popular culture
- In the 1990 film GoodFellas
Goodfellas is a semi-fictional crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese...
Edwards was played by actor Samuel L. JacksonSamuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor. After Jackson became involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then, films. He had several small roles, before meeting his mentor, Morgan Freeman, and the director Spike Lee...
- In the 2001 film for TV The Big Heist
The Big Heist is an American television movie which aired in 2001, on the A&E Television Networks.The film portrays the events of the of the 1978 Lufthansa Heist.-Cast:*Donald Sutherland as Jimmy Burke*John Heard as Richard Woods...
, he was portrayed by Bo Rucker.
External links