The Strange Case of Pearl Lusk and The X-ray Gun
Pearl Lusk being taken to the police station for questioning in 1946. Photo: New Yorker
In 1946, Pearl Lusk was given a job following a woman who she thought was a jewel thief. She was tasked with taking an x-ray photo of the woman with a hidden camera. It turned out the camera was a gun.
Who was Pearl Lusk?
After graduating from high school in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, Pearl Lusk, an 18-year-old blonde, made the decision to move to New York City in the fall of 1946. She briefly resided with her mother and stepfather, Estella and John Siemansky, in Brooklyn.
She soon moved out after obtaining a job as a salesgirl at the Oppenheim Collins department store in Manhattan. With a steady income, Pearl was able to afford a small room on the upper West Side of Manhattan, which she rented for $5.00 per week.
Pearl appeared to be doing well until Christmas Eve when the Christmas rush at the Oppenheim Collins department store ended, and she lost her job. Faced with financial difficulties and not wanting to live with her mother again, Pearl felt stuck.
Pearl Lusk and the Mysterious Allen La Rue
A few weeks before losing her job, she had met a charming man named Allen La Rue on the subway, who had asked her out for a drink. Pearl declined his invitation at the time but on December 26th, two days after losing her job, she ran into La Rue again on the subway.
This time she agreed to go out with him and they had a conversation about their jobs. Pearl lamented about her recent layoff while La Rue, who worked as an adjuster for an insurance company, revealed that he was investigating a case of stolen jewels involving a woman named Olga Trapani.
La Rue offered Pearl a job as his assistant, which involved trailing Ms. Trapani and gathering evidence for the company's case against her.
Pearl Lusk Follows Ms Trapani
Pearl, who was a big fan of detective stories, eagerly accepted the offer and transformed from an unemployed sales clerk to a private investigator named Pearl Lusk. LaRue accompanied her to the Croyden Hat Company, located at 43 West Thirty-Ninth Street in Manhattan, to identify the suspect. Pearl spent the next few days following Ms. Trapani's movements to and from work.
On Monday, December 30th, LaRue provided Pearl with a special camera that could take x-ray pictures, and instructed her to snap a picture of Ms. Trapani.
Pearl trailed the suspect until they both exited the train at the Fifty-fifth Street elevated station in Brooklyn. As soon as they reached the platform, Pearl pointed the camera at Ms. Trapani and pulled the looped tripwire that extended from the bottom of the camera. She then returned to Times Square and handed the camera to LaRue to develop the film.
Pearl Lusk Unintentionally Shoots Olga Trapani Rocco
Olga Trapani after her leg was amputated due to being shot by Pearl Lusk. Photo: Useless Information
The following morning, which was New Year's Eve, Pearl met LaRue at the Automat near Union Square at 8 AM. However, he informed her that the previous day's picture had not turned out as expected. To make up for it, he presented her with a larger and heavier camera, wrapped in red and green holiday paper. This camera was equipped with a similar trip wire to activate the shutter. Before Pearl left to carry out her mission, LaRue instructed her to aim the camera low, at Ms. Trapani's waist, where the jewels were likely pinned inside her dress.
Pearl followed the suspect until they both arrived at the Times Square station. Once they exited the train, Pearl knelt down on the platform, pointed the camera at Ms. Trapani's waist, and the camera detonated.
Ms. Trapani fell to the ground and began screaming. Transit Officer Joseph Bonistalli quickly arrived on the scene to investigate, and Pearl immediately claimed that someone had shot the woman after she took her picture.
It wasn't until another officer opened Pearl's package and revealed that her x-ray camera was actually a sawed-off shotgun concealed in two wooden cream cheese boxes that Pearl realized she was the one who had fired the shot.
Pearl and Olga Figure Out the Truth
The “x-ray camera” or concealed shotgun used to injure Olga Trapani.
Patrolman William Walsh asked Ms. Trapani why she had been shot, to which she replied that Pearl had not shot her, but rather her husband had. She spoke to another person and expressed that she believed she was going to die and that her husband had finally gotten her. She also wondered why the police had not intervened, suggesting that her husband had outsmarted them.
Someone at the scene applied a tourniquet to Ms. Trapani's leg to stop the bleeding, and both women were taken to Roosevelt Hospital for treatment.
It was at the hospital where the strange pieces of this puzzle began to fit together. Olga Trapani, aged 28, had been Olga Trapani Rocco until her marriage of 1-1/2 years to Alphonse Rocco was annulled two months prior. Her husband had become increasingly jealous and she had been living in fear of him ever since.
When the police showed Pearl Lusk a picture of Mr. Rocco, she identified him as Allen LaRue, the same man who had hired her for the supposed investigation job. Interestingly, the police had already been searching for him.
Alphonse Rocco’s Crimes
Back in October, Olga Trapani Rocco had an encounter with her ex-husband, Alphonse Rocco, on her train ride to work.
After getting off the train and boarding another, Rocco threatened her with a knife and kidnapped her to a tourist cabin in Poughkeepsie.
After five days, she convinced him to take her back to Brooklyn where he dropped her off at her niece's house. A few weeks later, on November 1st, she was shot in her right leg while helping her mother set the dinner table.
The police were contacted and the suspect was identified as Al Rocco. After ten days in the hospital, Olga returned to work and saw Rocco peering out from behind a pillar supporting the elevated train on New Utrecht Avenue. On December 9th, she received a threatening phone call from him, warning her that he would kill her on his next attempt.
The threatening phone calls persisted daily, and Olga encountered Rocco several times during her commute, prompting the police to provide officers to escort her to and from work.
When detectives failed to show up on December 31st, Olga's sister accompanied her to the train station. Unfortunately, no one could have predicted Rocco's next move.
At 9:45 AM, Pearl Lusk unwittingly fired the camera gun, and Olga ended up having her leg amputated. A nine-state search was launched for Rocco, with no credible leads initially.
On January 5th, six days after the shooting, Rocco visited Dominick Rizzo's home, claiming to have a lead on some rare car parts. Mr. Rizzo, his nephew, and Rocco drove to the Catskills the following day to get the parts, but Rocco drove off in Mr. Rizzo's car, leaving them stranded.
When Rizzo's wife searched through Rocco's bag, she discovered .22 caliber cartridges and documents that positively identified him as the suspect the police had been looking for.
Rocco stole a car and drove about 30 minutes northwest where he brandished two guns and entered the home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Nash in Broome Center. He told them that he planned to stay indefinitely but the very next day he changed his mind and ordered Mr. Nash to drive him back to NYC. However, when Mr. Nash told Rocco that his car needed repair and couldn't make the trip, Rocco chose Grand Gorge instead. But, he then changed his mind again and demanded that Mr. Nash drive him to his hunting buddy's farm, Leroy Lewis.
The police caught up with Rocco, and they surrounded the farmhouse. When they entered, Mrs. Lewis informed them that Rocco had left about a half-hour earlier with one of their sleeping bags.
With ten inches of snow on the ground, the police followed Rocco's trail into the woods. They spotted him sleeping under a tree at night and fired a warning shot into the air. In response, Rocco fired four shots towards the flash, and officers returned fire. Three bullets ultimately ended Rocco's life while he was still halfway inside his sleeping bag.
Among his possessions, troopers found that the 29-year-old fugitive had two guns, $62.98 in cash, a photo of his ex-wife with another girl, a letter from another woman, his class 4F military draft card, two pairs of eyeglasses, his driver's license, a flashlight, and a wristwatch.
Court Proceedings
Pearl Lusk was released from custody a few days later, while Olga Trapani remained hospitalized for approximately two months. Trapani sued the City of New York for $200,000, which would equate to roughly $2 million in today's currency.
Her claim was that the police had not provided adequate protection from her ex-husband despite her numerous complaints, and that they had promised to safeguard her.
However, New York State Supreme Court Justice Joseph A. Cox dismissed the case on April 21st, 1953, stating that although he sympathized with her, she didn't have a legitimate case since her complaints had been filed against her ex-husband, not Pearl Lusk.
While the police should have protected her from Al Rocco, they had no reason to anticipate that they needed to protect her from Pearl Lusk and her x-ray camera gun.
Interestingly, Pearl and Olga became friends through their shared ordeal and stayed in touch for years after.
