Ray County, Missouri - Miscellaneous History of the County ll from The Richmond Missourian 1942 Death of Gangster Recalls Murder Here The Report that Lonnie Affronti, Kansas City gangster of the 1930s, had died quietly recently has stirred memories of a brutal murder in Ray County 28 years ago. The Kansas City Star yesterday said it had learned the 61-year-old Affronti had died March 30 in the U.S. Medical Center in Spring field, the victim of a cancer. Affronti was accused of many crimes, most of them connected with narcotics peddling but the worst of them was the brutal murder of an Excelsior Springs woman on a side road off Highway 10 west of Richmond the morning of June 22, 1932. The Victim was Mrs. Azalea Ross, 28-year-old wife of Tom Ross, an Excelsior Springs cab driver who had informed on Affronti for selling morphine. The finger was pointed at Affronti immediately for the slaying. "Lonnie Affronti did it," tom Ross, himself wounded in the back, told The News a few hours after the ambush killing. The slaying took place in a wooed thicket just off the Rayville Road (now Route C) a few hundred yards north of highway 10. It was a spot where officers said narcotics and liquor had been exchanged for years. Mrs. And Mrs. Ross and another Excelsior Springs man, Homer Morrison had been in Richmond and had had breakfast at Elmer Pulse’s café on the west side of the Square. Apparently they were followed by Affronti as they drove back towards Excelsior in a Ford roadster. Morrison said the trio drove into a thicket and a Chevrolet came in after them. The was one gunman in the brush and the man in the car shouted "Kill them all" as he drove up. Morrison Said the man in the car fired at him with a 12-gauge shotgun, part of the load striking him in the left side and head. Ross, who was running, then was shot in the back, then was shot in the back and neck before the shotgun bearer, identified as Affronti, walked to the roadster and shot Mrs. Ross in the side at close range as she hovered behind the wheel. The gun, found later by the road was test by Prosecuting Attorney E.A. Farris and Deputy Sheriff L.D. Martin, who found the shell marking were the same as those which had been fired in the thicket. It Was Not until 11 years later that Affronti went to trial here for the murder. In the meantime, Affronti had eluded officers for five year until he was arrested in New York in late 1938 and sentenced to five years for possession of firearms. When he walked out of the New York prison, Ray County Sheriff J.D. Keel and a special deputy Lonnie Hamner, were waiting to bring him back here for the murder trial. Recalling Affronti today, Mr. Hamner said Affronti was " a model prisoner, nice, polite, one of those smart boys." A Ray County Circuit Court jury in 1943 sentenced Affronti to 10 years for the 1932 murder of Mrs. Ross. He went to prison but the next year the Federal authorities pulled him out and put him on trail on charges of selling morphine back at the time of the Ross slaying. Affronti was convicted in early 1944 and sentenced to 45, the term he was serving when he died last month. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Jenna Zunker USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free genealogical information on the Internet, data may be freely used for personal research and by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for profit or any form of presentation, must obtain the written consent of the file submitter, or their legal representative, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------