30 year old Christ Sofokleous who was alone in his car parked on Park Avenue just east of Belmont Avenue. Newspaper reports say the hospital (St. Elizabeth’s Hospital) was no more than 1000 feet away from the car bomb location. The bomb appeared to explode at about 11:50 AM on May 8th, 1959. Christ was alone in the car after visiting a girl in the neighborhood. A woman saw him get into the car and it just seemed to explode. Pieces of the cars hood and engine were hurled over 25 feet away. Hundreds flocked to the scene from the neighborhood and the nearby Bel-Mar Medical Center. Police said Sofokleous had parked the car on Park Avenue Thursday night. He and the woman walked to the car in the morning and got in. The woman was just walking back to her apartment near Park and Belmont when the blast came. Clad in a nightgown and house robe, she ran screaming to the car. She also ran after the ambulance when the victim was taken away.
Ronald “Ronnie the Crab” Carabbia was questioned in the bombing as he too apparently knew the woman the press dubbed the “aluminum blonde”. Sofokleous and Carabbia had a fist fight over the woman. He was never charged in this murder but received life in prison in the car bombing murder of Cleveland’s Danny Greene.
