Brooklyn Thrill Killers

Who is Brooklyn Thrill Killers?

The Brooklyn Thrill Killers were a gang of Jewish neo-Nazi teenage boys who, in the summer of 1954, killed two men and tortured several others in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.

The Brooklyn Thrill Killers were:

Robert Trachtenberg

Jack Koslow

Melvin Mittman

Jerome Lieberman

According to a 1954 article in Time Magazine, one of the boys turned State's evidence and another had the charges against him dismissed. The other two boys, aged 17 and 18, were found guilty of felony murder during the act of kidnapping because one victim had been dragged several blocks before being thrown in the river. This allowed the jury to suggest life in prison rather than send two youths to the electric chair. While Time didn't identify any of the boys, one of the two sentenced to life in prison was 18 year old Jack Koslow, identified by AP reports at the time as the 'brains' of the group.

Dr. Fredric Wertham cited the Thrill Killers as an example of the potential harm caused by comic books.