The Mississippi Gulf Coast and the Dixie Mafia spawned a story over 2 decades ago that is still discussed to this day in the contract murder of Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret, who was serving on the Biloxi City Council at the time of the hit. For our off coast readers I’ll add the Dixie Mafia is separate and distinct from the ethic based criminal organizations in NOLA though there has certainly been occasion for cross-pollination.
I mention all this because The Sun Herald’s Anita Lee, aka Miss Dixie has the story on the passing of the once formidable organized crime master mind Mike Gillich, the Flesh Trade mogul who Greenlit the Sherry’s in 1987, before becoming a stool pigeon to save himself a lengthy prison sentence for same.
I’m not going to rehash the events here, which netted former Biloxi Mayor Pete Halet a lengthy prison sentence for his role in the murder conspiracy of his law partner Vincent Sherry. Halet has served the bulk of his sentence and is due to be released from the federal pen in less than a year. That said and for the benefit of our out of town readers there are two books that are worth reading on the topic with the following caveats:
- The Dream Room was written by Gillich’s Gulfport based lawyer Chet Nicholson. It is a great book and if you know the lay of the land, you can decipher the fictionalization of events, which was purposeful to protect the identities of those still living. Anita pumps that book in today’s story on Gillich’s passing for good reason IMHO.
- Mississippi Mud was written by Edward Humes with the help of Lynne Sposito, the Sherry’s daughter. Released back in 1995 it is also very good but it only tells around 40% of the story as the fact Judge Sherry was as dirty as the day is long was omitted from the text.
Gillich’s passing is the story today here in Mississippi with press reports surfacing in all the major papers here along with a few blogs. And interesting side story from the Biloxi sex trade with NOLA based roots can be found on Slabbed here.
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