Danny Driscoll

Daniel Driscoll also known by his alias George Wallace (1855 – January 23, 1888) was an American criminal and co-leader of the Whyos Gang with Danny Lyons.

His arrest for the murder of well-known Five Points debutante Bridget "Beezy" Garrity during 1886 was followed by one of the most publicized trials of New York's history.

[1][2] Growing up in a Five Points tenement district, Daniel Driscoll amassed a considerable criminal record by the time he had become a young adult.

[3] On June 26, 1886, Driscoll rode by coach to a three-story brick house on the north side of Hester Street.

According to traditional accounts, Driscoll had been approached by Bridget "Beezy" Garrity, who claimed she had been cheated by the owner of a panel house operating within the Whyos territory.

[2] Although he had been barred from the property of the resident "bouncer" John McCarty (or McCarthy), with whom he had been involved in a long-standing feud, he arrived at the house with Garrity at around 4:00 am.

Alerted by her cries, Driscoll took his own revolver out and attempted to shoot McCarty by aiming at him from between the edge of the door and the doorjamb.

Driscoll was chased by police before disappearing into the open door of a Baxter Street tenement where his mother lived.

An extensive search of the area was conducted and he was eventually found by police hiding behind the door of an unoccupied apartment in the next building.

[3] Fifty members of the Whyos were in the courtroom at the time of his arraignment, however they were forced to leave by the presiding judge Justice Patterson.

Upon hearing this, he immediately handed his pistol to an officer, Peter Monahan, who found that the gun was fully loaded and no shots had been fired.

Driscoll interrupted court proceedings claiming that he himself was unarmed at the time of the incident and that McCarty was the only one who could have shot Garrity.

[5] On the last day of the trial, a doctor from St. Vincent's Hospital made a surprise appearance and testified that Garrity told him McCarthy was the man who shot her.

Prominent members of the Whyos Gang during its heyday in the late 1870s-early 1880s
Top row left to right: Baboon Connolly, Josh Hines , Bull Hurley
Middle row left to right: Clops Connelly, Dorsey Doyle, Googy Corcaran
Bottom row left to right: Mike Lloyd, Piker Ryan, Red Rocks Farrell
Danny Driscoll's criminal life depicted in an illustration from the New York World newspaper, January 23, 1888
Danny Driscoll was held in the Tombs Prison during the murder trial of Beezy Garrity and was later executed there.