Friday Wars

The Friday Wars were a series of shootings taking place in Kennedy, Illinois from January 18, 1983 to April 22, 1983. The events are called "The Friday Wars" because the attacks began and ended on a Friday. The shootings were sparked by the extortion of the Russian-mob controlled Captain's Bar by the Kennedy crime family.

The Friday Wars resulted in the murder of approximately 17 people, including 7 civilians and Franco Cavell, Don of the Kennedy crime family.

Extortion of Captain's Bar and assassination of Thomas Lee
On January 9, 1983; three men entered the Captain's Bar on the 3700 block of West 19th Street in Downtown Kennedy, Illinois, while the bartender cleaned the establishment shortly after closing. The men proceeded to assault the bartender, demanding that the business pay a regular "street tax"; making threats against the life of the bartender and the business. When the bartender did not comply, two of the three men pulled firearms and forced him to open and empty the cash register. After giving the men the cash, the men ganged up on the bartender and continued to assault him. The bartender, 51-year-old Charles Carson, died less than four hours later of asphyxiation caused by multiple blows to the neck, chest and skull.

After reviewing the bar's security tapes, local mob boss and owner of the bar, Nikolai Kortseska, organized an in-family hit on the extortioners. Fearing running into the law, Kortseska's crew buried Carson themselves somewhere near Eastmain Heights, Indiana. On January 18, 1983; two armed men, members of the Kennedy crime family, entered the bar after closing. Members of Kortseska's mob ambushed the men, opening fire on them using semi-automatic AK47 rifles. One of the men was shot in the leg twice and fled the scene wounded. The other man was shot in the foot and tackled by his assailant. He was then tied up and beaten repeatedly, being forced to speak of the planning of the extortion attempts. This man, Thomas Lee, was then stuffed into the back of a Lincoln Continental and driven to a warehouse on the city's east side, where he was kept hostage and eventually shot in the head days later.

The Meetings and the Murder of Franco Cavell
The surviving gunman, Andrew Morello, made Kennedy crime family Don Franco Cavell aware of what had happened in the bar. On January 25, 1983; a group of street thugs commissioned by Cavell's consiglierge proceeded to firebomb the Captain's Bar, leaving it heavily damaged. The bar was boarded up and closed down days later.

One critical piece of information that Kortseska's mob had retrieved from the kidnapped gunman was a schedule for a high-profit drug deal taking place in a small industrial compound on the west side of the city between the Kennedy crime family and a small mob from Chicago. A group of 18 mobsters from Kortseska's crew met in the compound on the day of the drug deal, February 5, 1983; and staked out the warehouses awaiting the arrival of the two mobs.

The mobs met in a small alleyway near the center of the compound around 3:30 in the morning. Kortseska's crew, using walkie-talkie radios to communicate, organized around every direction of the deal. After four minutes of reconnaissance, the crew opened fire, killing six of the seven mobsters involved in the deal, four belonging to the Kennedy crime family; and injuring the other. Factory workers coming in to work in the compound immediately called police.

Kortseska's crew also received information on a meeting between Don Cavell and his Capos taking place on February 19 at a gentleman's club on Eastwood Boulevard downtown. Nikolai Kortseska himself, along with four accomplices, entered the club with smuggled snub-nose revolvers hidden in their undergarments. They paid to enter the VIP section of the club, but instead of staying in their room, they split up and proceeded into each of the six rooms in the section, randomly opening fire on the patrons inside. Cavell was killed in the gunfire, and Kortseska and his crew attempted to escape. Four out of the five men, including Kortseska himself, failed to escape before being taken down by armed security.

Nikolai Kortseska was put on trial on April 17, 1983. On April 22, he was convicted of Murder, Contract Killing, Racketeering and Organized Crime. He was sentenced to life in prison and death by lethal injection. Kortseska was executed on July 17, 1992; the second death penalty execution in the state of Illinois.