01/18/2025
July 1975: Last week, Michael D. Roberts — the pioneering editor of Cleveland Magazine's '70s hey day — died at 85. His legacy is of an editor who led a generation of great reporters and writers of creative non-fiction, but with experience covering the War in Vietnam on the ground, the White House and some of Cleveland's most contentious moments, he was also a star writer and reporter — a role he didn't totally give up as editor of Cleveland Magazine.
One of the magazine's most important beats in those days was the Cleveland mob, and Roberts wrote this cover story on the death of Shondor Burns, the mobster who died 50 years ago in March. On the eve of retirement, after bombing and shooting his way into the headlines for half a century, Cleveland's leading racketeer was murdered in a style he would have admired.
Where do you begin to look for the killer of a man feared and hated by so many? Read more: https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/articles/why-they-blew-shondor-birns-away
Cover by Raymond L. Gibson
