How Did Al Capone Die?
Mobsters DailyAl Capone died on January 25, 1947, at his Palm Island mansion in Miami Beach, eight years after prison released a man destroyed by untreated syphilis. He suffered a stroke on January 21, developed pneumonia, and died days later, aged 48, with the mental capacity doctors compared to a child's.
The disease prison could not cure
Capone contracted syphilis young and hid it. By his Alcatraz years the infection had attacked his brain, producing confusion and delusions — the decline detailed in Capone at Alcatraz. Penicillin came too late to reverse the damage. Transferred and then released in 1939, he was a celebrity name attached to a ruined man.
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Palm Island: babbling to ghosts
At Palm Island, Capone fished, dressed for dinners that existed in another decade, and reportedly talked with long-dead associates. Family shielded him from the empire Johnny Torrio built and he had expanded, by then run by successors. His final week — stroke, brief rally, pneumonia, death — closed the most famous career in American crime, a story that begins in the Luciano era.
Frequently asked questions
What killed Al Capone? Complications of advanced syphilis: he suffered a stroke, then pneumonia, dying on January 25, 1947.
How old was Capone when he died? He was 48, eight years after his release from federal custody in 1939.
Where is Capone buried? He was buried in the Chicago area, ultimately at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.
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