Did his connections to rum-running do him in?

CRANSTON – “After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited,” so said the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Nationwide prohibition lasted from 1920 to 1933, creating all sorts of financially beautiful opportunities for bootleggers and rumrunners.

Cranston police were given a tip that a booze-filled boat might be coming ashore to unload its liquid booty along upper Narragansett Bay on the night of June 16, 1922. While patrolling the shore, an officer saw a rowboat with two men deliver three cases of alcohol to a nearby cove. The officer telephoned for headquarters and additional men were sent out to search for the craft from which the rowboat had been launched.

At about 1:30 that morning, they captured the auxiliary schooner Katie B, which had just returned from Bermuda, with 100 cases of liquor in her hold as well as a single barrel of intoxicating drink, all valued at over $100,000. Frank W. Fairfax, a resident of New Orleans and the captain of the schooner, was arrested on a charge of importation of liquor. He pleaded guilty and was and fined $100. Charles Reitman, a 53-year-old from Cranston, was charged with importing, exporting and possession of liquor. He pleaded not guilty and was held for a hearing. Charles Ray Hacking, a 24-year-old from Providence and Cranston was fined $50 for his connection with affair as a member of the crew, a charge which he pleaded guilty to. Authorities had the Katie B temporarily secured to the dock of the Rhode Island Yacht Club.

During the summer of 1923, Hacking became owner and master of his own boat. “The Companion” was a 33-foot-long yawl yacht weighing 12 tons, built in Pawtuxet in 1900. By the winter of 1925, he was captaining the two-masted auxiliary schooner “Star.” In Jan. of that year, he and his two-man crew were bound from Providence to Cape May when they began flying distress signals. A boat from the Cape May dry Navy base responded to Hereford Inlet in New Jersey where Hacking explained that their food was running low and that the gasoline engine was disabled, preventing him from getting to port. He requested a tow to Atlantic City and a few minutes later, a Coast Guard boat arrived to serve the purpose.    

 Three years later and back on land, Hacking was charged with reckless driving and being a fugitive from justice after violating the Dyer Act – a law enacted in 1919 which made interstate transportation of stolen vehicles a federal crime. In 1930, police found Hacking dead. Motorists discovered the body of a male lying on the side of the road in Attleboro, not far from the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border, on the night of Feb. 25. He had been dead for less than an hour and the driver’s license in his pocket identified him as 32-year-old Charles Ray Hacking. He had been shot three times – once through the chest at close range, once beneath the right arm and once through the base of the spine with a .38 calibre gun and soft lead bullets. He had been terribly beaten prior to death and his head bared a deep gash and bruising. Authorities believed he had been beaten then shot to death in the car, then thrown from the car while it was moving, the body sliding several feet to the roadside.

Those who were friends with Hacking went into hiding. It was no secret that when he wasn’t rum-running, he was double-crossing rumrunners by feeding information to the police. An ensuing investigation suggested that Hacking had been thought to blame for the recent capture of the 65-foot rumrunner “Monolola” near Fall River, Mass. and that he had been enticed to enter a car for what would be his last ride with the promise of money. But those who knew what happened, even those in his corner, weren’t saying a word. When it came to tragic deaths and disappearances in the illegal liquor business, anyone could be next. 

Hacking’s body was taken to Cranston and his mother began preparations for his funeral.