James M. "Jim" Tolliver (died 1924) was an FBI agent who, posing as Iowa-born Bureau of Prohibition agent Warren Knox, led the FBI's investigation into Enoch Thompson's criminal empire in 1924. Tolliver was murdered by Eli Thompson in 1924.
Biography[]
James M. Tolliver was from rural America, and he served in the US Army's intelligence branch during World War I, learning fluent German and being trained in interrogation. He joined the FBI (then known as the "Bureau of Investigation") under J. Edgar Hoover after leaving the military and attending law school alongside Hoover. During Prohibition in the 1920s, Tolliver was given the task of infiltrating the corrupt Bureau of Prohibition in Atlantic City and investigating the role of Enoch Thompson in bootlegging. In January 1924, Agent Tolliver arrived in Atlantic City under the alias of "Warren Knox", and he invented a new identity; he was a man from Atkin, Iowa, just 12 miles from Cedar Rapids, and he failed civics in the fifth grade.
Agent Knox[]
Tolliver in 1924
As Agent Knox, Tolliver pretended to be dumb, and he was partnered with corrupt agent Stan Sawicki under Supervisor Frederick Elliott, who was also corrupt. Tolliver met Thompson and Mickey Doyle through Sawicki, who was on Thompson's payroll. Tolliver would meet Elmer Borst at Doyle's warehouse on one occasion, and Borst attempted to ask him for paid protection of his own distillery from local thieves; he told him that he had a shotgun trap in his back door in order to ward off thieves. Tolliver decided to lure Sawicki into a trap, telling him about the protection deal. Sawicki went through the back door to meet Borst, only to be killed by the shotgun booby trap. Borst, hearing the shotgun blast, headed to the door to see who had been killed, only to be shot in the head by Tolliver. Tolliver told Sawicki that he would wait until he composed himself to call for help, and he let Sawicki die. Tolliver would return to the bureau to report Elliott's involvement in corruption, and Elliott was forced to retire.
Weak link[]
Tolliver began to corroborate his investigations, and he concluded that Enoch Thompson was the leader of a nationwide crime syndicate that included links to bootleggers Mickey Doyle in southern New Jersey, Waxey Gordon in Pennsylvania, Arnold Rothstein in New York, Charles Solomon in Boston, George Remus in Ohio, and Johnny Torrio in Illinois, but Hoover believed that Tolliver's claims were unverified. Tolliver decided to seek a weak link in Thompson's organization, and he interrogated his butler Eddie Kessler after arresting him at the Atlantic City train station. Kessler was psychologically tortured before he decided to tell Tolliver that Thompson had ordered him to give some money to Ralph Capone, and Tolliver let Kessler go afterwards; Kessler jumped out of a window that night, feeling guilty about betraying Thompson. Tolliver lost his "weak link", and he had to look elsewhere; he was mad when Hoover took the credit for his discoveries. Tolliver decided to use Eli Thompson as his weak link, and he forced him to arrange a meeting between Thompson and several other crime bosses.
Downfall[]
Tolliver's death
Tolliver and several agents waited at the Blenheim Hotel to ambush the meeting, but none of the people arrived; instead, Enoch Thompson angrily confronted Eli and nearly killed him, had it not been for the arrival of Willie Thompson. Tolliver confronted his fellow agent, who called him crazy due to Tolliver's belief that him and Hoover were conspiring against him. Tolliver headed to Eli Thompson's house to inform him that his son would go to jail and be raped, leading to a violent fight between the two men in Eli's living room. The fight was brutal, and Tolliver wound up being choked on his own necktie before Eli repeatedly hit his head and smashed a vase onto it, goring Tolliver's body.