On Saturday, Nov. 3, 1949, Harold "Murph" Cohen, a gambler, tavernkeeper and one-time top amateur boxer, went missing after attending a ceremonial dinner at Gaetano's Restaurant, haunt of North Denver's Smaldone crime family.
The Rocky Mountain News dubbed the case the "Banquet of Death" - and it's never been solved.
Cohen, 38, was last seen wearing a "goldish brown" cardigan style jacket, a pearl gray sleeveless sweater, a "grayish blue" pair of trousers, brown shoes and a brown hat, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
His body was found on Feb. 11, 1950, in Blue Lake in Jefferson County, at Highway 58 at Indiana Street.
Though weighted down by a pair of 25-pound iron bars and bound in wire and rope, Cohen's body didn't sink to the bottom of the 90-foot-deep lake, but rested on a ledge. His body was spotted under four or five feet of water by two teenage boys and recovered by the Golden Fire Department, according to the Colorado Transcript newspaper. Autopsy results revealed he was alive when he was tossed into the water, about nine miles northwest of Denver, the News said. Today, the site of Blue Lake is owned by the Coor's brewery.
Three Denver men - described as "well known in gambling circles" - were questioned by police. They weren't identified publicly. (It should be noted three Smaldone brothers - Eugene, Clyde, and Clarence - owned Gaetano's.) Two years earlier - on Jan. 7, 1948 - Cohen's friend Mike Falbo was found dead in Adams County suffering gunshot wounds. Police theorized Falbo's death stemmed from a gang war between Denver gambling factions and that Cohen may have known who was responsible. Days after Cohen's body was found the News said "the police spotlight" focused briefly on two North Denver men but they denied any involvement. The Denver DA closed its investigations of the Cohen and Falbo slayings in 1952 without pressing charges.
Cohen, who resided at 1435 Stuart St., Denver, suffered a serious gunshot wound in a dispute over $10 on Oct. 17, 1948.
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