Detective Samuel Lucchino

Samuel Lucchino

Detective Sam Lucchino was shot and killed from ambush as he returned home at the end of his shift at 10:30 pm. He was walking up the stairs of his home, at 29 East Railroad Street, when two men approached him from behind and one shot him four times in front of his wife who was standing at their front door waiting for him. He was taken to Pittston Hospital where he died approximately one our later.

An investigation revealed that two men had been hired in New Jersey to murder Detective Lucchino as a result of an investigation he had been involved in. Both men were arrested, convicted of his murder, and both died in the electric chair on September 23, 1922.

At the time of their arrest, both suspects said a wealthy rock contractor paid them $3,500 to kill Detective Lucchino. A friend, the two were living with, came forward and supported their statement. At the time of his death Detective Lucchino was investigating the contractor for illegal interference in the strike of 10,000 employees of the Pennsylvania Coal Company. He was arrested, charged with murder, but released three days later when a judge ruled the evidence was insufficient. Authorities then became suspicious their friend when it was learned that he had recently been released from federal prison after serving a five year term for counterfeiting. It was Detective Lucchino's investigation of him that sent him to prison. In 1924 the contractor disappeared. His cloths were found along the shore of Lake Erie. It is believed that friends of the two executed killed him. Right after the executions the other man was forced into hiding after he was shot at several times. In 1928 he was charged in connection with another murder.

Detective Lucchino was survived by his wife, daughter, mother, and three siblings.