Charlie Weber was a career politician in the Democratic "Machine" of Chicago. In 1922 he was elected a state senator and served for 30 years. In 1955 he became alderman of the 45th Ward. He acquired a personal fortune by running a tavern which later became the Zum Deutchen Eck restaurant on Southport Ave. and a prohibition-era distillery at 1414 W. Roscoe.

Weber broke with Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Machine when he refused to support John F. Kennedy for president and instead backed Lyndon B. Johnson. He learned from Murray "the Camel" Humphreys that Kennedy had some skeletons in his closet and was not "our kind of people."

August 16, 1960. Weber had returned to his high-walled home and parked his Cadillac in his garage (pictured here) for the night. The engine of his Cadillac was either accidentally or deliberately turned on. A trapdoor in the ceiling of the garage was open, allowing carbon monoxide to fill the home. The next morning a friend found Charlie and his wife Emma collapsed on the floor, dead. An autopsy simply revealed that they died from carbon monoxide poisoning. If it were a homocide, the murderer has never been caught.

Coincidentally or not, in the 13 months leading up to this, three other prominent Chicagoans died of carbon monoxide from automobile fumes.