Paul Rametta Shot Down By Luther Frey, Marion Daily Republican, Dec. 8, 1950
A gun duel which blazed briefly across North Court Street early Thursday evening (Dec. 7) left one man dead as his slayer calmly telephoned police. The slain man was Paul Rametta, Marion truck operator.
Held in the county jail Friday pending a coroner’s investigation of the shooting was Luther Frey, 31, of Marion, ex-convict.
Rametta was killed by a shot gun blast fired by Frey in front of the Castellano Café. Frey stood beside a taxicab across the street and fired after he had sent the cab driver inside to call Rametta out.
Chief of Police Zoral Buckner said Frey told authorities that Rametta fired first, missing him with two bullets.
Rametta fell in the snow in front of the café when the shotgun charge struck him in the head. He was taken in an ambulance to Herrin hospital but was dead upon arrival.
Frey turned from the scene of the shooting and walked into Bay’s Market and café. He made two telephone calls, one to someone whom he told, “I shot the &%$#@#” and the other to police.
The shooting climaxed difficulty between the two men which occurred earlier Thursday.
Buckner and Sheriff Ora Kirby said that Frey related after the shooting that he had met Rametta late Thursday afternoon in a tavern on North Market Street. With Rametta, was Alex “Chuck” McCluskie, 31, a truck driver employed by Rametta.
Frey and McCluskie had engaged in a fight recently, and Frey told the authorities that Rametta challenged him to try to “whip him again.”
Frey said he accepted the challenge and the three men went in Rametta’s truck to a spot near the Feurer Implement Co. east of Marion on Rt. 13. There Frey and McCluskie squared away for a fist fight.
Frey claimed that he got the better of McCluskie again, and that Rametta grabbed a hammer from the truck and hit Frey in the face.
Rametta and McCluskie then left in the truck, Frey said, while he hitched a ride to Marion with a passing motorist.
Buckner said that shortly before 5 p.m. Frey’s wife, Mrs. Sophia Frey, telephoned police that her husband had “just come home beat up”, got a shotgun and left, saying he was “going to kill somebody.” She asked police to look for him.
Buckner and Officer Herman May searched for Frey around the city without success. Later Mrs. Frey telephoned police headquarters again, and said that Frey had returned home, and “everything is all right”.
About 6:20 p.m. Frey himself phoned headquarters from Bay’s Market on North Court St. and said, “send the police and an ambulance.”
May and Sheriff Kirby drove to the scene of the shooting. Frey saw them coming and walked out in the road to meet them. He handed a 12 gauge shotgun to the sheriff and surrendered.
A .38 caliber revolver was found by Rametta’s body. It had been fired two times.
Frey had followed Rametta to the café in a taxicab driven by Bill Jennings. Ordering Jennings to stop the cab across the street, Frey sent the driver inside to tell Rametta he wanted his hat and overcoat which had been left in Rametta’s truck at the scene of the fight with McCluskie.
Frey told the officers that when Rametta came out of the café and saw him standing across the street, Rametta opened fire with a revolver. Frey said he answered with a shot from his gun.
The police chief said pellets from the shotgun blast struck Rametta in the back of the head.
McCluskie was taken into custody for questioning. Sheriff Kirby said Friday that McCluskie verified part of Frey’s story about their fight, but said that he didn’t know whether Rametta struck Frey with a hammer or not.
Frey’s face bore the marks of a severe beating.
Frey is known to authorities for numerous arrests. He pleaded guilty in Circuit Court, September 28, 1948 to the burglary of the Eagles home in Carterville and was sentenced to one year to life imprisonment. He was released from Menard last year. He lived at 811 W. Union Street and worked as a miner.
He had previously been indicted on robbery and assault charges which were dismissed.
Rametta, who lived with his wife and two children at 800 North Highland, was born to Paul and Dorothy Visco Rametta on April 27, 1914 in Marion. He married Violet Caldwell in Charleston, Mo. in 1938.
Surviving besides his wife and two children Paul, 11, and Dorothy Adeline, 9, are five brothers and sisters: Bessie Viverito of Chicago; Andrew Rametta, 608 N. Court St.; Josephine Harper, Peoria; Francis Meneese, 703 W. White St.; Rose Lee Stubblefield of 1209 Hendrickson and Joe and Domenick Segretario of 610 N. Court Street.
Rametta attended the Marion city schools and was a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
Funeral services will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Frick Funeral Home. Interment will be in Rose Hill Cemetery.
The body will lie in state at the Frick Funeral Home from 7 p.m. Friday until the funeral hour.
An inquest will be held at Frick Funeral Home at 6 o’clock tonight.
Marion Cab Driver Held on Charge of Accessory to Murder, Daily Register, Harrisburg, Dec. 11, 1950
A cab driver who drove an ex-convict to the scene of a fatal gun duel was held today on a charge of accessory to murder.
Ralph Jennings was picked up in connection with the slaying of Paul Rametta, 36, who was shot down on a snow packed Marion street last Thursday night.
Charged with murder was Luther Frey, 31. Authorities said he and Rametta had argued earlier in the day and Frey went home for his shotgun.
Frey hired Jennings’ cab to take him to the café where Rametta had gone. Sheriff Ora Kirby said Rametta came out of the café and fired twice at Frey with a .38 caliber pistol. He was killed by a single blast from Frey’s 12 gauge shotgun.
Indicted at Marion for Fatal Gun Duel, Daily Register, Harrisburg, Feb. 8, 1951
Luther Frey, 31, was under indictment today for the murder of a 36 year old truck driver killed in a gun duel on a Marion street last December 7. Frey was ordered held without bail in the fatal shooting of Paul Rametta.
Jury Finds Luther Frey Innocent, Edwardsville Intelligencer, Feb. 15, 1952
Coal miner, Luther Frey, who once offered an eye for a fair trial, was a free man Friday for the first time in 14 months after a jury of seven men and five women found him innocent of murdering truck driver Paul Rametta.
The jury deliberated four and a half hours and returned the verdict about 10:30 p.m. Thursday after listening to State’s Attorney Carl D. Sneed demand the death penalty for Frey in the shotgun death of Rametta.
The 31 year old defendant had been held in lieu of $20,000 bail in the Williamson County jail since he surrendered at the scene of the shooting outside a Marion café on the night of Dec. 7, 1950.
The trial had been postponed four times. While confined, Frey wrote Attorney General Ivan Elliott, who lost and eye in a fireworks accident: “If you will see that I get a fair trial, I will give you my eye, either one.”
Elliott replied that it was an “impossible suggestion and can have no bearing on your case.”
Family Seeks $15,000 for Loss of Support, Daily Register, Harrisburg, Sept. 18, 1952
The family of Luther Frey has sued three Marion tavern keepers for a total of $15,000 for loss of support while Frey was in jail awaiting trial on a murder charge.
Frey was freed last Feb. 14 after he pleaded self-defense in the killing of Paul Rametta. He had been held in jail since Rametta was shot to death in front of a Marion restaurant Dec. 7, 1950.
Mrs. Sophia Frey and her daughter, Wanda, sued Bill’s Liquor Store and tavern owners Wiley George Jr., and Mack Ashman under the Illinois Dram Shop Act charging Frey obtained liquor at the taverns before the killing.
Frey is now serving a sentence at the Vandalia State Penal Farm for theft of an electric fan from a Marion tavern last month.
Receives One Year Sentence at Marion, Daily Register, Harrisburg, Oct. 13, 1953
Luther Frey, 34, Marion, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud in connection with the burning of two automobiles and was sentenced to one year in prison.
Frey was charged with trying to defraud an insurance company by helping burn autos owned by Everett Boner, and Roy J. Farthing Jr. last June.
Charges against Boner, Farthing, Jack Hoover and Paul Hancock, all of Marion, still are pending.
Frey was acquitted of a murder charge when he pleaded self-defense in the shotgun slaying of Paul Rametta, Marion, Dec. 7 1950.
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Sam’s Notes: Castellano Café was located at 802 N. Court, directly across the street from Bay’s Market in a two story stucco building which now houses Bleyer Insurance and Bay’s Market is now the Dollar General Store.