Morris Bolber was born in the Russian Empire during the 1880s and immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. Like many Jewish immigrants of his era, he settled in Philadelphia, where he sought both community and financial opportunity. Bolber was not a traditional gangster in the mold of Herman and Paul Petrillo. Instead, he operated on the fringes of superstition, spiritualism, and con artistry.

In South Philadelphia’s immigrant neighborhoods, folk magic and superstition retained a strong influence. Bolber exploited this cultural current, presenting himself as a fortune-teller, healer, and mystic. Known as “Louie, the Rabbi,” he cultivated a reputation as a man who could alter fate with charms, powders, and prayers. Though not actually a rabbi, the nickname emphasized his supposed wisdom and religious authority.

Bolber’s clients were often poor, working-class Italian and Jewish immigrants, especially women who were unhappy in their marriages or struggling with poverty. He gained their trust by offering spiritual solutions to deeply personal problems. Behind this facade, however, Bolber gradually became involved in more sinister activities as he aligned himself with the Petrillo cousins. Together, they formed what would become known as the Philadelphia Poison Ring.

By the early 1930s, Bolber had become a central recruiter for the gang. He acted as the bridge between the Petrillos and the community’s desperate women. His fortune-telling was not just a harmless fraud. It served as a gateway to murder-for-profit schemes that exploited superstition with deadly consequences.

Morris Bolber’s criminal involvement with the Petrillos took shape around 1932, when the cousins expanded their operations from staged accidents to deliberate poisoning. Herman and Paul relied on Bolber’s unique ability to find willing participants among superstitious and discontented women. These women were later dubbed “poison widows” by sensationalist newspapers.

They were told that magic powders, potions, or charms could remove obstacles in their lives—usually abusive or unwanted husbands. In reality, the so-called remedies were laced with arsenic or antimony, substances known to cause a slow and painful decline. The women administered the poisons believing they were partaking in harmless rituals or believing that their husbands would only be weakened rather than killed. Once the victims died, the gang collected on life insurance policies arranged by the Petrillos.

Bolber’s key role was recruitment and persuasion. He would identify vulnerable women, often recent immigrants who were lonely or financially struggling, and convince them that spiritual intervention was their only hope. He also arranged introductions to corrupt insurance agents who helped forge fraudulent policies without the victims’ knowledge.

By 1938, the murder ring’s activities began to unravel. The death of Ferdinando Alfonsi, who had been poisoned with arsenic, attracted the attention of both the public and the police. Undercover agents investigating Herman Petrillo for counterfeiting stumbled upon the murder conspiracy. As investigators dug deeper, they discovered that an organized murder-for-hire operation had been running for nearly a decade.

Bolber was arrested alongside the Petrillo cousins and many of their associates in late 1938. Unlike Herman and Paul, who fought their charges and were ultimately sentenced to death, Bolber took a different route. Realizing that the evidence against him was overwhelming, he agreed to cooperate with the authorities and became a state witness in 1939. His testimony proved crucial in securing the convictions of the Petrillos and several of the so-called poison widows.

Because of his cooperation, Bolber avoided execution. He was sentenced to prison and spent the remainder of his life behind bars. In 1944, only a few years after Herman and Paul were executed, Morris Bolber died in prison of natural causes.

Though he escaped the electric chair, Bolber's legacy remains tied to one of the most infamous murder-for-hire rings in American history. He represented the manipulative brain behind the Philadelphia Poison Ring. He wasn’t the one who committed the killings, but he was the one who convinced others to become instruments of death.