Lovett was brought to New York City as a child and first fell in with the local Irish gangs around the Brooklyn waterfront as a teenager.
[3] Despite being well-educated and articulate, Wild Bill was a temperamental alcoholic who made even his own men nervous (he shot one of them for pulling a cat's tail; Lovett loved animals and couldn't stand to see them suffer).
[4] Rather than move his gang into the new business of bootlegging, Lovett's main income came from dockside extortion, burglary, and other crimes.
The alleged attacker, Meehan gangster Garry Barry, was found stabbed to death on a Brooklyn street corner not long after.
Just five days later, Healy's alleged shooter, Frank Byrne, was walking near Nassau and Gold streets with James Martin when they were ambushed.
Wild Bill turned over command of the gang to new brother-in-law Pegleg Lonergan and bought a new house in Little Ferry, New Jersey.
[8] On October 30, 1923, Lovett went into New York City for the purpose of attending a job interview for the position of foreman of a silk factory.
The next morning, Anna Lovett managed to track her husband to Thomas Sand's saloon (the same place where Timmy Quilty had been killed months before).
Later that night, both Flynn and Lovett staggered into the rear of an abandoned store at 25 Bridge Street to sleep off their drunks.