As a child, Wendy relished the small frontier town of Las Vegas, where she and a friend rode their horses to Caesars Palace and tied them up out front. But as a teenager in the 1970s, Wendy’s troubled home life and rebellious spirit led her to the legendary Horseshoe Club on Fremont Street, where she hooked up with Ted Binion, youngest son of notorious gambling figure Benny Binion. Her affair with the casino scion soon devolved into dalliances with high-rolling gamblers and suitcase deliveries of cash to Midwest mobsters.Binion then passed off Wendy like a trophy to Tom Hanley, a man thirty-nine years older, who nonetheless drew her affections and ultimately married her. But Hanley was no kindly old air-conditioning contractor. In partnership with his sadistic son, Gramby, Tom was a mob hitman. Wendy became a terrified and silent witness to his numerous crimes. Authorities say Hanley may have been responsible for more than twenty murders over three decades. He told Wendy he was involved in the murders of John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa. His underworld career culminated with the 1977 murder of powerful Culinary Union boss Al Bramlet.The Bramlet murder proved to be the Hanleys’ undoing. After a nationwide manhunt, the father-son duo was arrested in Phoenix. Seeking evidence, police tricked Wendy into leading them to a stash of jewelry taken from Bramlet after he was killed. Taken into the Federal Witness Protection Program, Tom Hanley died after serving one year in prison, while Gramby has lingered behind bars for two decades, living under an assumed identity.In addition to tracing Wendy Hanley’s harrowing life story, Vegas Rag Doll paints a vivid portrait of the final years of organized crime in Las Vegas, before the corporations took control. In a fascinating era when legitimate facades disguised dark secrets, Wendy Hanley had a front-row seat — and a knack for survival.
