Montreal's Top 10 gangland murders: # 10 Harry Davis

Harry Davis

  Harry Davis, a Romanian immigrant, was king of the Montreal's postwar gambling trade.
   The reign ended Thursday July 25, 1946 when Louis Bercowitz entered his gaming room at 1244 Stanley and filled Davis with bullets after a brief but frustrating conversation.
   Irving Ellis and a few others brought Davis to hospital but it was too late.
   Louis Bercowitz had pulled the trigger because he was irritated that Davis had forbidden him from opening his own gambling joint, a point Davis made by torching his joint on Mansfield.
   After killing Davis, Bercowitz bumped into Al Palmer at Slitkins and Slotkins nearby on Dorchester, (north side) and he brought him to the Herald where he and Ted McCormick held him in the woman's washroom from the until past the Gazette deadline, thereby giving themselves an exclusive on the story.
   Bercowitz had originally been hired by the Detroit mob to kill Davis but arrived too slowly and by this time Davis had already taken power over the city's illegal gambling business.
   The cops were supposedly going to shoot Becowitz to prevent their corruption rackets leaking out, which is why he surrendered to a journalist. He was sentenced to 15 years and moved to Mexico.
   The killing of Harry Davis wasn’t the first gangland slaying in this city.
   That distinction would go to a killing Davis ordered. Informant Charles Feigenbaum was shot dead on Esplanade across from Fletcher's Field in 1934 because his testimony had landed Davis into a 14 year sentence for morphine smuggling and he was also whipped with a dozen lashes.

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