On July 1, 1928 Washington Heights dried fruit dealer and bootlegger received a phone call telling him to take his car to a garage. Instantly after he engaged the self-starter, he was blown through the roof of his auto, and killed immediately. One of his legs was found nearby as was a piece of the pipe bomb. Kanowitz murder remained unsolved. It is known that Benjamin Kanowitz was once married to Long Beach, New York college student/narcotics dealer Celia Meltzer. In 1929 Meltzer was tried and convicted for possessing illicit drugs at her residence.