Inter-family cooperation on hits

[dack2001]

Think Stillitano was killed by the Narducci brothers not Martorano or Berkery. It was partly as a favor from the Philly admin to the Gambinos but also due to the respect for Nicky Russo. I think the North Irish guys were used to set him up but Leonetti indicated that the Narducci brothers were responsible for the killing.

[chin_gigante]

Think Stillitano was killed by the Narducci brothers not Martorano or Berkery. It was partly as a favor from the Philly admin to the Gambinos but also due to the respect for Nicky Russo. I think the North Irish guys were used to set him up but Leonetti indicated that the Narducci brothers were responsible for the killing.

Where did you see that Leonetti indicated the Narducci brothers were behind it? I tried looking but I couldn't find it myself. The only suspects I've been able to identify are Raymond Martorano, John Berkery and Steven Alexander. This is everything I've got on the Stillitano murder:

Philip Leonetti (Mafia Prince)

Me and Sammy [Gravano] had become very close and we would go out drinking together or go out to dinner when he would come down to Atlantic City. I helped him when he got assigned the contract on this guy Frankie Stillitano, who everybody called Frankie Steele in 1981 after Frankie killed Nick Russo's son in Trenton.
My uncle and Nick Russo had always been close; they were in Yardville together. We used to call him the Reverend. Nick Russo ran the Gambino family's operations in Trenton. Our family also had a presence in Trenton, and everything was always smooth between the two families because Nick was an absolute gentleman.
Now Frankie Stillitano was a cowboy, a renegade ad he had some problems with Nick Russo and ultimately Nick Russo's son. One night after they had an altercation, Stillitano opened up on them as they left a bar in Trenton and he shot Nick Russo and killed his son.
The Gambinos were looking to kill Stillitano, but no one could find him. He went into hiding. Sammy came down and saw me and my uncle and he asked us for our help in trying to find him. This was after Sammy and his crew had done the Johnny Keys hit while we were on trial.

Scarfo and Leonetti knew that Frankie Stillitano had connections to a loose-knit group of Irish gangsters that worked out of Northeast Philadelphia.

We found him and shot him in the head and left his body in the trunk of a car at the Philadelphia Airport.
Sammy came right down to thank us for whacking this guy out. That’s the kind of guy he was – he was very big on respect.

Richard Behar (http://content.time.com/time/magazine/a ... 66,00.html)

According to a five- page debriefing obtained by TIME, Leonetti told federal agents in late 1989 about the 1981 Valentine's Day murder of gangster Frank Stillitano, whose body had been found in the trunk of a rental car. Leonetti said members of the Philadelphia crime family had met with Gravano and other Gambino mobsters at Bally's Park Place Casino in Atlantic City, where they reached an agreement that the Philadelphia group would kill Stillitano as a favor to the New York faction. After the rubout, Leonetti and his pals visited Gravano at his home on Staten Island, where Gravano thanked them for a job well done, according to the debriefing.

Marguerite del Giudice (https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/02/maga ... e-mob.html)

The first time Leonetti met Castellano was in the summer of 1981. Scarfo had just become the boss in Philadelphia, Leonetti testified, "and he wanted to meet Paul Castellano as the boss." Introductions were made all around; they kissed, and Castellano thanked Scarfo for arranging the murder of a Trenton mobster -- "an outlaw," Leonetti called him -- named Frank (Frankie Stale) Stillitano, who, Philadelphia police say, killed the son of a Gambino-family soldier named Nick Russo in 1979.

Frank Friel (Breaking the Mob)

John Berkery's cooperation paid off well for him. Over the years that followed, he became a leg-breaker for the mob, a successful loan shark, and my chief suspect in the Frankie Stillitano murder.

George Anastasia (https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipp ... TKVAUNUrlM)

Police say Martorano and convicted drug dealer John Berkery are prime suspects in the slaying of Trenton mobster Frank "Frankie Stale" Stillitano, whose body was found stuffed in the trunk of a car at Philadelphia’s International Airport on Feb. 26 1981. Investigators say Stillitano, 30, was killed as a favor to leaders of the New York Gambino organized crime family.
A third suspect in the slaying has been identified as a Berkery associate involved in gambling and loan sharking in Northeast Philadelphia.

Stuart Ditzen (https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/176383457/)

Berkery said yesterday that he had known since May 1989 that two mobsters turned FBI informers, Philip "Crazy Phil" Leonetti and Lawrence "Yogi" Merlino, had fingered him for involvement in the Stillitano murder.

Kitty Caparella (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2264497 ... one-photo/)

Under cross examination, [FBI supervisor Jim] Maher also testified that former mobsters told authorities that Martorano also set up the 1981 murders of Steve Booras in a South Philadelphia restaurant and Frank Stillitano, found stuffed in a car trunk at Philadelphia International Airport.

Thomas Gibbons ("Investigators: missing man was tied to mob killing", Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 May 1998)

A missing Somerton man whose severed arm was found Monday in a Trenton trash bin is believed by investigators to have played a role in the slaying of a New Jersey mobster whose body was found at Philadelphia International Airport 17 years ago.
Steven Alexander, 56, a former Philadelphia police officer, was never charged in connection with the killing. But police say they believe he was with at least two other men when Frank Stillitano, 30, of Trenton, was shot to death in a car, the lead investigator in the 1981 slaying said yesterday.
"We think Stevey Alexander was in the car," said Frank Friel, a retired Philadelphia police commander who has also served as director of public safety in Bensalem and is now president of a private security firm.

Marisol Bello ("Ex-cop had mob links", Philadelphia Daily News, 2 May 1998)

Investigators are looking into whether Alexander was involved in the 1981 mob hit of Trenton mobster Frank Stillitano, Golden said.
Stillitano's body was found in the trunk of a car parked in a garage at Philadelphia International Airport. He had been shot once behind the left ear and once in the left leg.
A former Philadelphia police homicide lieutenant in charge of the investigation into Stillitano's murder said Alexander became a suspect when an informant told detectives the ex-cop was in a car with Stillitano and a third person the night the mobster disappeared.
Former Lt. Frank Friel said the informant told them Alexander and the other person shot Stillitano in the Northeast and then drove his body to the airport, where they were picked up by another car.

This is also what I've got on the Stillitano murder from Underboss:

- Stillitano killed Nicholas Russo's son in a dispute
- Russo found Stillitano afterward and tried to kill him
- Russo and Stillitano were both shot but survived
- Paul Castellano then called Gravano in and gave him the contract on Stillitano
- Gravano checked Philadelphia area hospitals for Stillitano but couldn't find him
- He discovered that Stillitano had been taken to an undertaker who removed the bullet
- Some members of the Philadelphia family had been hanging out with Stillitano and took him to the undertaker
- Gravano reported back to Castellano because he didn't want to accidentally catch a Philadelphia member in the crossfire if he got a shot at Stillitano
- Castellano told Gravano to contact Scarfo
- Scarfo volunteered to handle the contract
- The Philadelphia family when killed Stillitano

...

I've also found this about Phil Narducci's involvement in a murder conspiracy involving New York that never happened. But it was years after the Stillitano murder. From Mafia Prince:

One time after my uncle became the boss, the Chin sent word through Bobby Manna that he wanted my uncle to send two shooters to New York to whack some guy out. My uncle said to me, "I want you to be one of them," and he asked me who I wanted to use as the second shooter, and I told him, "Philip Narducci." This was after Salvie had died, and both me and my uncle thought Philip Narducci was very capable. The hit got called off. My advice to whoever is running what's left of that organization in Philadelphia is to stay out of Philip's way.

[dack2001]

This may have been a throw away comment in interview on Youtube when he is talking about his relationship with Sammy. I remember vividly that detail. That doesn't mean my memory couldn't be wrong but I'm pretty sure he said something about them being responsible in that interview or in some other record. After seeing how Martorano handled the hit on McCullough, it would seem more likely that some other more capable crew did the shooting.

[davidf1989]

When Gotti's son was hit and killed, he had some Providence guys with the Patriarcas help make the neighbor disappear. Also didn't Patriarca Sr send Nicky Bianco and maybe some others to assist in the Gallo-Profaci war? I know Ray was called on for a few favors from various NY families.

Richie Gomes was one of the Patriarca's who took part in that murder allegedly. I think he was prison buddies with Gotti.

I don't think that Gomes was a made guy with the Patriarca crime family. He was part of the Ouimette's crew and a friend of John Gotti from Lewisburg.

http://res.providencejournal.com/hercul ... 61205.html

[Pmac2]

Gomes was half Portuguese or something. He met gotti in lewisburg in the 60tys and became close friends. Think that's what started the Gotti and rhode island relationship which went on for years. There was a handfull of pictures of Gotti and his crew all over rhode island with those guys. They disappeared of the internet. Who ever owned them took them away

[Browniety86]

I've heard stories that the Gambinos were really the ones who took out Decav underboss Jimmy Rotondo...but the story also says that Gotti confronted John Riggi at a wake after and Riggi looked scared shitless after...

[Browniety86]

I've heard stories that the Gambinos were really the ones who took out Decav underboss Jimmy Rotondo...but the story also says that Gotti confronted John Riggi at a wake after and Riggi looked scared shitless after...

[coldshoulder]

Wasn't Ray Ferritto a Los Angeles associate sent to Clevend to kill Danny Greene?

Ferritto was from Erie, PA and apparently was willing to travel to help various families out. I believe he was involved in a hit that took place at the LAX airport parking lot in the early 70's; and indeed he was part of the Danny Greene blow-up in Cleveland in 1977.

Greene's death and the relatively quick prosecution of Ferritto and Ronnie Carrabbia for his murder led to the Naples-Carrabbia war in the Youngstown-Warren area a few years later. Ronnie Carrabbia and his brothers Charlie and Orly were aligned with the Cleveland mob ruling family, while Joey Naples and Jimmy Prato were the Pittsburgh family's representatives in the Youngstown area. Charlie Carrabbia was getting increasingly brash and unruly, which led to a meeting between Naples and Prato and the top guys from Cleveland, Jack Licavoli and Angelo Lonardo, who gave their tacit approval for Charlie Crab to be taken out if he continued to get out of line. Soon thereafter, Charlie was set up by a phone call arranging a meet-up from Prato protégé Lenny Strollo, and he disappeared with his burned-up empty car being found in a secluded area in a park in the Cleveland area a few days later.

[davidf1989]

Gomes was half Portuguese or something. He met gotti in lewisburg in the 60tys and became close friends. Think that's what started the Gotti and rhode island relationship which went on for years. There was a handfull of pictures of Gotti and his crew all over rhode island with those guys. They disappeared of the internet. Who ever owned them took them away

Thanks for the information about Gomes and according to the book Last Good Heist written by Wayne Worcester and Tim White from WPRI about the bonded vault heist. Gomes had been an informant for the Rhode Island State police who gave up the names of the robbers.

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Good-Heist- ... 1493009591

[aleksandrored]

Wasn't Ray Ferritto a Los Angeles associate sent to Clevend to kill Danny Greene?

Ferritto was from Erie, PA and apparently was willing to travel to help various families out. I believe he was involved in a hit that took place at the LAX airport parking lot in the early 70's; and indeed he was part of the Danny Greene blow-up in Cleveland in 1977.

Greene's death and the relatively quick prosecution of Ferritto and Ronnie Carrabbia for his murder led to the Naples-Carrabbia war in the Youngstown-Warren area a few years later. Ronnie Carrabbia and his brothers Charlie and Orly were aligned with the Cleveland mob ruling family, while Joey Naples and Jimmy Prato were the Pittsburgh family's representatives in the Youngstown area. Charlie Carrabbia was getting increasingly brash and unruly, which led to a meeting between Naples and Prato and the top guys from Cleveland, Jack Licavoli and Angelo Lonardo, who gave their tacit approval for Charlie Crab to be taken out if he continued to get out of line. Soon thereafter, Charlie was set up by a phone call arranging a meet-up from Prato protégé Lenny Strollo, and he disappeared with his burned-up empty car being found in a secluded area in a park in the Cleveland area a few days later.

Thanks for the explanation.

[coldshoulder]

Ray Ferritto Wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Ferritto

[Browniety86]

The Genovese people took out Wild Billy Grasso too if I'm not mistaken?

[davidf1989]

The Genovese people took out Wild Billy Grasso too if I'm not mistaken?

I thought that Grasso was killed on the orders of the Boston Faction which were led by Ferrara, Russo and Carrozza who got his own crew to turn against him because the shooters were Gaetano Milano, Jackie Johns and Sonny Castagna. on the same day Salemme was shot at outside a pancake house in Saugus. I am not sure what the Genovese's involvement would be in either hit.

[Manf]

The Genovese family killing Frank Piccolo.

[Browniety86]

The Genovese people took out Wild Billy Grasso too if I'm not mistaken?

I thought that Grasso was killed on the orders of the Boston Faction which were led by Ferrara, Russo and Carrozza who got his own crew to turn against him because the shooters were Gaetano Milano, Jackie Johns and Sonny Castagna. on the same day Salemme was shot at outside a pancake house in Saugus. I am not sure what the Genovese's involvement would be in either hit.

He thought he was going to meet Carlo Mastototaro in Springfield is where the confusion came from. Thank you for clearing that up for me...