Milton Beasley

Milton "Duke" Beasley (born 1933), also known as "Art" or "Mel Norris", was a freelance hitman for the Chicago Outfit, known primarily for the 1961 gangland slaying of government informant Bill Green.

When Bill Green, a member of a syndicate narcotics ring in Las Vegas, agreed to become a government informer in early 1961, Beasley was hired by members of the narcotics ring to murder Green before he could give states evidence. When Green was found in his car, shot twice in the head with a .25 caliber revolver, in Las Vegas on August 10, 1961, the California Bureau of Narcotics assigned agents John Warner and George E. Ohlson to investigate.

Although evidence at the crime scene revealed a single smudged fingerprint on Green's car door, his neighbor Mary Courtney claimed she heard unusual noises coming from Green's Nevada City residence as well as an interview with one of Green's acquaintances who told the two investigators information about Green's involvement with local gamblers, specifically a man "...he called "Duke", or something like it". Using a police teletype system, Warner and Ohlson checked with police officials in both Nevada and California on known criminals with an alias of Duke. A likely suspect, a Milton Beasley, matched the description from an arrest on drug related charges in the Oakland area although he was later released.

While Oakland detectives began keeping track of Beasley's whereabouts, Warner and Ohlson returned to Los Angeles then traveled to Oakland where they questioned Beasley in a local bar regarding the investigation however Beasley denied his involvement.

Further investigation however, began to point toward Beasley as the fingerprint on Green's door matched police records as well as being positively identified by Green's mother. Underworld criminal informants also claimed a man named Duke had been hired to murder Green for $5,000. Another Las Vegas contact later informed claimed to have established Beasley's whereabouts where, in the company of a known drug addict, he supposedly showed a .25 caliber revolver bragging he was going to come into some money soon. Although unemployed, Beasley purchased a Cadillac with cash one day following Green's murder and had driven to a Los Angeles hotel where he talked to a clerk about establishing his residence on the day of Green's murder.

With mounting evidence against him, as well as the testimony of one of the members who had hired Green, Beasley was finally convicted of first degree murder in February 1964 and sentenced by Judge John Mowbrey to life imprisonment without parole at the Nevada State Penitentiary.

Further reading

*Block, Eugene B. "Fifteen Clues: True Cases of Great Crime Detection". Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1965.