Irving "Puggy" Feinstein (October 6, 1909 – September 5, 1939) was a Jewish-American mobster involved in illegal gambling and labor racketeering with Louis "Lepke" Buchalter. Puggy had made the mistake of attempting to move into turf which was not his own.Jay Maeder, ''Big Town, Big Time'', Sports Publishing LLC, 1998,
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He was later murdered by several members of

Murder, Inc. Murder, Inc. (Murder, Incorporated) was an organized crime group, active from 1929 to 1941, that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicatea closely connected criminal organization that included the Italian-American Mafia, the ...

including Abe Reles,

Martin Goldstein Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein ( – June 12, 1941) was a member of a gang of hitmen, operating out of Brooklyn, New York in the 1930s, known as Murder, Inc. Born Meyer Goldstein, Goldstein grew up in East New York, Brooklyn, New York, and initi ...

, and

Harry Strauss __NOTOC__ Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss (July 28, 1909 – June 12, 1941) was a prolific contract killer for Murder, Inc. in the 1930s. He reportedly killed over one hundred men (some historians put the number as high as 500)Carl Sifakis, ...

. The murder occurred in the living room of Reles' own house on E. 91 St. in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. While Harry Strauss was icepicking Puggy Feinstein to death, Puggy fought back and took a few bites out of Strauss's finger. Irate over the turn of events, Strauss and a few of his coworkers decided to make Feinstein's demise more painful and lengthened. They did so by a process which incorporates a rope being looped around the victim's neck and feet, so that as he struggled, he would slowly strangle himself. Still aggravated over the wound on his finger, Strauss and his associates took the body to a vacant lot and set it on fire. Strauss was eventually indicted for his murder, due in part to the testimony of Reles, and sentenced to death on May 10, 1939. In his court testimony, Reles explained that the hit was carried out by Murder, Inc. for New York mobster

Albert Anastasia Umberto "Albert" Anastasia (, ; ; September 26, 1902 – October 25, 1957) was an Italian-American mobster, hitman, and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organizat ...

. He also said that Puggy had doublecrossed

Vincent Mangano Vincent Mangano (born Vincenzo Giovanni Mangano; ; March 28, 1888 – disappeared April 19, 1951, declared dead October 30, 1961) was an Italian-born mobster also known as "Vincent The Executioner" as named in a Brooklyn newspaper, and the head of ...

, the boss of the Mangano family, which Anastasia belonged to.

*Block, Alan A. ''East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930-1950''. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1983. *Cohen, Rich. ''Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. *Flowers, R. Barrie and H. Loraine. ''Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers and Victims of the Twentieth Century''. McFarland & Company, 2004. *Turkus, Burton B. and Sid Feder. ''Murder, Inc.: The Story of "the Syndicate"''. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003. {{DEFAULTSORT:Feinstein, Irving 1909 births 1939 deaths 1939 murders in the United States Murdered Jewish American gangsters People murdered by Murder, Inc. People murdered in New York City Male murder victims Deaths by strangulation in the United States 20th-century American Jews

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