Arthur L. Shapiro (died March 6, 1985) was a Columbus, Ohio attorney and partner in the law firm Schwartz, Shapiro, Kelm & Warren who was murdered execution-style one day before his scheduled testimony before a federal grand jury investigating tax evasion and questionable tax shelters. Shot twice in the head at point-blank range, his murder remains officially unsolved.

Shapiro was scheduled to testify about his failure to file income tax returns for seven years and investments in questionable tax shelters. On March 6, 1985—one day before his testimony—he was murdered. Columbus Police described it as a classic Mafia-style "hit." Shapiro's law partner Stanley Schwartz was Leslie Wexner's next-door neighbor in Bexley, Ohio. Shapiro was reportedly in direct contact with Robert Morosky, Vice-Chairman of The Limited. A 1991 Columbus Police Department Organized Crime Bureau memo documented "unusual interactive relationships" between multiple Wexner-connected organizations and stated: "Arthur Shapiro could have answered too many of these sorts of questions, and might have been forced to answer them in his impending Grand Jury hearing." Prime suspect Berry Kessler, a Columbus accountant who had worked with Shapiro, was later convicted of two unrelated murder-for-hire plots. He died in federal prison in 2005.

Sources

Ferrise, Adam. "25-year-old killing still puzzles." The Columbus Dispatch, March 6, 2010; Webb, Whitney. "A Kingpin, the Mob, and a Murder: The Deeper Mystery behind the Arthur Shapiro Homicide." Unlimited Hangout, August 12, 2021; Columbus Police Department Organized Crime Bureau memo, 1991.