Contract Murder in Pass Christian – A True Story Mississippi Gulf Coast setting with roots in Gulfport and Pass Christian New Orleans – Chicago – Mafia Connections
Pass Christian – “Riviera” of the Gulf Coast – Sex, violence, murder – loss of millions in personal treasures. A Gulfport girl grows up to marry a Mafia Doctor and becomes a multi-millionairess. After his death, she had numerous sexual encounters. Her psychologist friend tells all. Hurricane Camille closed down the case investigation, resulting in a murder mystery that has never been solved after more than 30 years have passed.
" " " Nana grew up in Gulfport during the Depression years when her father had to make up his salary deficiencies by rum-running during the piney woods moonshine making days of the 20s. Al Capone use to send his gang members to unload barges that were moored in the back streams of Bay St. Louis and stocked his trucks with contraband liquor, including high quality European imports from Haiti and Cuba and with freshly brewed “White Lightning” from the Kiln area. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, Nana packed her few personal items and took off with one of the Capone lieutenants as he made his last illegal truck run. She ended up in Chicago where she witnessed many of the changes that were taking place during the rise of Organized Crime and early conflicts with the FBI. Pregnant and wanting an abortion, she met and became the girl friend of the Mafia doctor who was hired to perform routine ministrations and surgeries on Mafia molls and prostitutes. Through that doctor, she met and married her first husband, Dr. Sylvester Brazo, a practicing psychiatrist who also became a trusted plastic surgeon of the Mafia hierarchy. Upon retiring from his practice in Chicago, Dr. Brazo, twenty-five years older than Nana, moved his wife back to her hometown of Gulfport where he died a few years later. Before his death, Dr. Brazo, befriended a local New Orleans psychiatrist, with whom, he entrusted Nana as a patient. Shortly after their marriage, Nana had shown signs of severe anxiety and paranoia. She was diagnosed as having borderline schizophrenia and having multi-personality traits. This resulted in many years of covert treatment processes and medications. Following her husband’s death in 1958, Nana befriended Gulf Coast psychologist, Dr. Olivier as her confidante. She was not a person who wished to remain in strict solitude. Having substantial wealth, Nana attracted one lover after another in seeking to satisfy the growing demand for sexual gratification of one of her feigned personalities. Wishing to remain distant, she never took her lovers home. She became pregnant by one of them and in a frenzy she thought first to have another abortion, but then, decided to give birth. When she could no longer hide her physical signs of pregnancy, she called her former doctor friend in Chicago. She then told her few acquaintances that she was taking a prolonged trip to Europe. Instead, she established herself in a Chicago apartment until she gave birth to her son. She hired a Mafia lawyer to place the child with an orphan’s home from where she had adoption papers prepared as the adopting parent. During her son's infancy, he was taken care of by a nanny who was established in an apartment in Mobile, Alabama. There, she visited them several times a month during the first year of the child’s growth. After she returned to Gulfport, she engaged in love trysts with occasional men with whom she met at the Yacht Club and local hotels. On one evening in early 1960, she became terrified when one of these male friends appeared at her home banging at her door in a drunken stupor. Frightened, she called the local police who simply shooed the offender off. This stalking episode resulted in Nana selling her Gulfport home and purchasing a new residence in a quiet west-end neighborhood of Pass Christian. The dwelling faced the Mississippi Sound and had large grounds that extended back to the railroad tracks. She soon became attracted to a large framed Polish man who told her that he would protect her from such terrifying incidents. Because of his flamboyant style and protective nature, she began to see more of him. She embellished the home and decided to marry her new Polish escort. This provided the scenario that allowed her to bring her “adopted” son, then, one year old, to live with them. The first five or six years were fun-loving and adventurous for Nana, but one day she arrived home to find her husband in the bath-tub with her son. With growing estrangement, she became embittered; and he became abusive and continued to have his way with the young growing boy. She asked for a divorce, but he would not acquiesce. He lavishly spent her money and at times, would beat her unconscious. When she sought an attorney, the Colonel had her arrested and charged with lunacy. After a week, she was released from the mental ward and sued for divorce, to which he countersued. In the meantime, she had befriended a New Orleans businessman who coaxed her into several real-estate ventures. One of these involved a large loan to a restaurateur who had Mafia connections in that city. Shortly after her divorce, she was brutally murdered. A state trooper who befriended her was the only person to pursue the investigations at his personal expense and time. These investigations went on for several months only to have all of the forensic evidence destroyed. The great Killer Storm, Camille, inundated and demolished the Pass Christian home as well as the crime evidence that was secured in the State Police station at Gulfport. The county District Attorney closed the case. Other than the actual murderer, the connected criminals are still at large.
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