At Reality Star’s Request, Body of Chicago Mob Boss Exhumed
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VH-1(CHICAGO) — The most notorious hitman in Chicago, a man believed by some to be behind the death of Marilyn Monroe, has risen from the dead.
The body of mob boss Frank “The German” Schweihs was exhumed from a Chicago cemetery this week at the request of his daughter Nora, who is currently a cast member on the VH1 reality show Mob Wives Chicago. Nearly four years after Schweihs’ death in a federal prison in July 2008, his daughter wants to verify that the body in the grave is actually that of her father. Last Friday Nora Schweihs obtained a court order from a Cook County judge to have her father’s remains exhumed.
On the VH1 show, Schweihs explained why she has embarked on this unusual mission.
“On the day of the funeral, the funeral director called and said, ‘I’m sorry, your dad’s not going to show up at the cemetery because the FBI just came in and confiscated his body.’ This feeling that I don’t know what happened to my dad – it’s eating me away inside,” she said.
“I never got to see his body actually lowered into the ground.”
But Schweihs has encountered obstacles along the way. For starters, she said, her family does not back her appearance on the show.
“Is my family supportive of the show? Absolutely not,” she acknowledged. “I’m not really on the best terms with my family over it.”
Frank Schweihs’ body was exhumed two days after the show premiered last Sunday. It wasn’t clear whether the body in the coffin was indeed that of her dad, though on Monday his daughter said on Twitter that she was “taking my dad back to his home the ocean in Florida.”
At the time of Frank Schweihs’ death, he was in prison for extortion, but had never been convicted of murder, despite being suspected of numerous killings. His daughter has argued that the suspicions are off the mark.
“My dad was portrayed that he killed Marilyn Monroe. I mean, I can go on and on and on and on. And guess what? Not once was he ever convicted of it,” she said on the show.
Monroe died in 1962 from a drug overdose and was listed by the coroner as a probable suicide.
She contents her father is her role model, a man who was in fact “the best person in the world.”
“I will live through him for the rest of my life because that’s the only person I want to be: strong, independent, straightforward, loyal, trustworthy and just right to the core,” she said. “I don’t pull any punches.”
When she was growing up, she recalled, the police were raiding her house and newspapers were blaring headlines about her father, but reality, she noted, was a different story.
“We had so much class,” she said. “I was drinking Dom Perignon when I was 5.”
The reality show has now provided her with the chance to set the record straight about her late father.
“I think it’s the best thing that ever happened to me because I finally have the German’s voice and now it’s my turn to explain to you that you’re wrong, all wrong, dead wrong,” she said.
“It’s my story. It’s my words. And it’s my life. And now it’s my time to tell the truth.”
Even if that means that her father can no longer rest in peace.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio