Owned and operated by William F. Schofield,[1] better known as "Big Bill", a young Irishman who came to America with his wife, Nellie Malloy.
[2] The triggermen were members of Al Capone's Chicago Outfit: Frankie Yale,[3] John Scalise[4] and Albert Anselmi.
"Big Bill" lost everything but his flower shop, later renting from a Jewish family, one of his top clients who helped him through hard times.
He made the papers again in the late 1960s when "Big Bill’s" son, Stephen Eugene Schofield, was arrested and eventually charged with gambling, "Scof", as he was known to friends, was sentenced to one year at Sandstone Federal Penitentiary by Judge Julius Hoffman.
He painted the Schofield Family as willing participants in organized crime since the 1920s, pointing to its association with O’Banion and the North State Street Gang as proof.