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WHO KILLED JIMMY LIBRIZE?

Niagara Falls was a different sort of place back in 1969. A prosperous city of 100,000 souls, with plants like Bell Aerospace, Hooker Chemical and Carborundum fueling a booming economy that now seems a distant and sometimes bitter memory.

Don Stefano Magaddino ran the Mob and much else from his funeral home fortress at Niagara Street and Portage Road, and Mayor E. Dent Lackey had yet to begin the program of urban renewal that would leave the city's downtown a devastated hulk.

And then there was Jimmy LiBrize, the diminutive but always flamboyant criminal defense attorney whose penchant for showmanship, both in the courtroom and as part of the city's thriving nightlife, made him something of a local character, if not a legend.

But all that came to a crashing halt early on the morning of Dec. 27, 1969, when someone -- using a hammer, a can opener and a knife -- unspeakably ended Jimmy's colorful career in the most gruesome fashion imaginable.

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