Three Men Get Life Sentences for Thames Street Firebomb Deaths

Baltimore Sun headline
Baltimore Sun headline

This is a crazy story, and Iโ€™m sure itโ€™s been lost to history. This is an article that we dug up in the Baltimore Sun from October 5th, 1947.

ย Three men yesterday were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Maryland Penitentiary in connection with the fire-bomb murder of six seamen in a Thames street rooming house last year.

They are Walter Haas, 34, former official of a seamenโ€™s union; Marty Vitko, 25, of Philadelphia, and Kennon W. Langham, 22, originally from Alabama.

โ€ฆ

The fire at Thames street occurred during a water-front strike. A week before a fire-bomb was set off in the house during the early morning hours a wrench had been thrown through a window of the house bearing a note which contained a threat against โ€œfinksโ€ and โ€œscabs.โ€

When Haas was tried and admitted throwing the wrench through the window, but denied he had any part in the fire, the prosecution showed that Haas left Baltimore a few hours after the fire in company with Vitko and Langham.