Before Las Vegas was a gambling mecca and adult playland in the middle of the desert, it was a dusty stop along the railroad. That all changed when The Mob came to town.
Sixty years ago, the grisly killings of the Riviera Hotel’s president and his wife stunned Las Vegas and would haunt the casino industry for a generationThe ranch-style home at 1115 Monte Vista in the upscale Encanto neighborhood of Phoenix was quiet when the housekeeper arrived just before noon on Wednesday, December 3, 1958. High blood pressure and a bad heart kept Mrs. Pearl Ray from working full-time, but she enjoyed cleaning and cooking for Gustave “Gus” Greenbaum and his wife, Bess. Greenbaum was president of the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, but when he returned frequently to Phoenix, he liked her home cooking. Mrs. Greenbaum was very busy with her charities, but she took time Tuesday evening to give the maid a ride home at the end of a long day. They were awfully nice people, the housekeeper believed, and she’d liked working for their daughter, Mrs. Harold Tenenbom, too.Glancing at the kitchen she had cleaned a day earlier, Ray would recall to an Arizona Republic report