Toronto's unsolved Mafia rubouts

[Ed]

Good summary of unsolved Mafia hits going back to the 1960s (with pictures I couldn't figure out how to include).
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/ ... ia-rubouts


GANGLAND COLD CASES: Toronto's unsolved Mafia rubouts

They pop up periodically in the rosters of the dead on big city cold case pages across the continent.
Many of these investigations have been boxed up in evidence rooms for decades.
What they are is unsolved mob murders and southern Ontario has had no shortage of them with some stretching back to the 1960’s. Casualties in a never-ending war for criminal empire.

Times change, organized crime is eternal.

“Things have changed,” Toronto Police cold case chief Stephen Smith told The Toronto Sun. “In traditional organized crime murders, the people in conflict aren’t the ones doing the killing and that makes them more difficult to solve.”

Over the past two decades, the Mafia has outsourced its killing to street gangs who will murder for cash, guns, drugs or glory adding “another layer” to police investigations, Smith said.

“It’s too much for them to put themselves at risk … it’s easier tor them to pay for a sloppy job that can be corrected than to do it themselves,” Smith said, adding that for the aspiring hitmen, it can be a one-way ticket.

Just ask two of the men suspected of taking mob scion Angelo “Big Ang” Musitano off the board in 2017 along with innocent bystander, Mila Barberi two months prior.

Both were found murdered in Mexico. Apparently, there is no place in the sun for killers.

HERE ARE SOME SUSPECTED UNSOLVED MOB MURDERS

Reputed mobster Salvatore Triumbari was killed in a gangland-style execution in 1967. It remains unsolved.

SALVATORE TRIUMBARI – 1967

Salvatore “Sammy” Triumbari is one of Toronto’s oldest unsolved mob murders. Just after 6 a.m. on Jan. 6, 1967, the 34-year-old racketeer who was a member of the Siderno crime clan and a bottling company manager was gunned down in the driveway of his north Toronto home. His killers fled through his backyard to their getaway car one street over. Cops say that about three days before Triumbari was clipped, he had been marked for death following a sitdown at his home with 30 other local gangsters. Reason? Trumbari and fellow mobster, Filippe Vendemini had disfigured a rival.

Vendemini: Murdered in 1969 for disfiguring mobster.

FILIPPE VENDEMINI – 1969

Vendemini worked with Triumbari at the bottling company before opening his shoe store in 1968. He would not live to see 1970. His bullet-riddled body was found on June 6, 1969. The hit on the two men was ordered in Calabria and allegedly left in the capable hands of Michele “Mike the Baker” Racco to carry out. But when cops turned up the heat, Racco decided to spare the life of a third gangster marked for death.


JOSEPH SARRAINO – 1975

Little is known about the Sarraino homicide. What is known is that the 30-year-old was found suffering from a gunshot wound behind a gas station near Royal York Rd. and Trehorne Dr. around 5:10 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1975. He later died in hospital.

KENNY WORTH – 1975

Worth was just 17-years-old when he paid the ultimate price for his involvement in a mob-connected jewel theft ring. On June 24, 1975 around 8:15 a.m. walkers in Serena Grundy Park found Worth’s lifeless body. He had been shot to death. For years, whispers in the underworld pointed to mob enforcer Ian Rosenberg as the killer. Reason? Cops wanted to talk to Worth and Rosenberg feared the teen would rat them out. But Rosenberg ain’t talking: He had his ticket punched on April 22, 1977.

SALVATORE PALMERITI – 1976

The 18-year-old Italian youth was spending four months in Canada when he was murdered on June 6, 1976. Palmeriti was found with two bullets in his head in an abandoned building on Bayview Ave. On the night he was slain, the youth went out to play pool at Regina Billiards. The two main theories were that a) It was a revenge murder for a botched hit in Italy or b) the murder was a “peace offering” to end fighting between mob factions in the Big Smoke.

ANTHONY CARNOVALE – 1980

Drug trafficker Carnovale, 30, was on parole and facing another dope dealing trial. Bullets are a fine way to keep a man quiet and on Friday, Jan. 11, 1980 as he sat watching TV at his girlfriend’s Keele St. apartment, two shotgun blasts did their due diligence. The shells slammed into Carnovale’s chest, obliterating his heart and lungs. A silver or grey Cadillac with a black vinyl roof raced from the scene in the minutes after the trigger was pulled.

VINCENZO CHERUBINO – 1983

Cherubino was rubbed out on Dec. 2, 1983 in the middle of the day. Cops say he was shot in the head and chest inside a moving car before the hit team dumped him on Rosemount Ave. in the Dufferin St. and St. Clair Ave. W. area. He staggered for around 100 feet before collapsing and dying. He had been photographed meeting with a Racco associate the day before he was murdered.

In the seven years since he immigrated to Canada from Italy, Cherubino had never held a job.

ANTONIO COTRONEO – 1986

On Sept. 4, 1986, just after 5:30 a.m., Cotroneo was stabbed to death in the parking lot of his Lawrence Ave. W. apartment building. Witnesses told cops that the killer was a younger man who stabbed the wholesaler in the chest, neck and arm. The killer was described as between 20 and 25 years old, with a medium build and dark or black mid-length hair. Detectives believe the suspect hitchhiked out of the area with a woman.

Derango. Taken for a ride.
GIOVANNI DERANGO – 1996

Derango took a ride on Nov. 19, 1996 and never came back. Cops say the 22-year-old got into a red-coloured car outside the Caffe Lamezia at 2438 Dufferin St. about 30 minutes before he was found suffering from gunshot wounds outside the Phil White Arena at 400 Arlington Ave. around 7:36 p.m. Derango later died in hospital. His pals clammed up.


FRANK ROBERTS – 1998

The inventor of the Obus Forme backrest was executed on Aug. 13, 1998, by a killer who shot him in the head and chest outside his Toronto factory. Roberts — who pals said had “no enemies” — was gunned down after a person approached his Mercedes-Benz and briefly spoke with him. The tycoon’s personal life came under scrutiny when reports of a mistress surfaced.


Patricia Real. The only woman on the list. TORONTO SUN
PATRICIA REAL – 2000

The only woman on the roster, Real, 46, was reportedly the girlfriend of her boss, reputed mobster Gaetano Panepinto. She was shot to death on July 17, 2000 with a pair of bullets to the head. Her ex-boyfriend, Ron Harper, 54, who killed himself in a hotel room was one of the main suspects. The masked killer fled on a bicycle. Panepinto would soon follow her to the grave.


Casket salesman Gaetano Panepinto.
GAETANO PANEPINTO – 2000

The funeral casket salesman and mob enforcer was clipped on Oct. 3, 2000. Panepinto, 41, had links to gangsters in Buffalo and Montreal. His life ended when hitmen sprayed his Cadillac with gunfire on Bloor St. W. “No doubt, this is a hit,” homicide Det.-Sgt. Mike Davis told The Sun at the time. Panepinto was transported to hospital, where he died shortly after arrival.

Goodbye to Joe Racco. TORONTO SUN
GIUSEPPE ‘JOE’ RACCO – 2000

Racco, 68, died after he was shot on Nov. 22, 2000 with a small-calibre bullet at the Commisso Bros. & Racco Italian Bakery on Eddystone Ave., a business he co-owned with partner Frank Pizzimenti. Police sources told The Sun at the time that Racco was associated with members of the Siderno Mafia group.

Pizzimenti. Murdered.
FRANCO PIZZIMENTI – 2002

The “hard-working” 64-year-old businessman shot to death on Feb. 2, 2002 outside his Commisso Bros. & Racco bakery on Kincort St., in the Caledonia Rd.-Castlefield Ave. area. Pizzimenti had been sitting in his Alfa Romeo when a man approached the passenger side and began shooting. The father of four was struck by four bullets and pronounced dead at the scene. His partner Racco was murdered two years earlier.

Murdered on Christmas Day.
VITO GIRDONA – 2013

The 59-year-old gambler was murdered on Christmas Day 2013 at his home at 35 Ettrick Cres. He had been involved in a lawsuit involving his brothers who claimed he was fleecing their dementia-stricken mother. Court documents said: “Vito testified that he dropped out of school in Grade 12. He has never worked. He has lived at his parents’ home through-out. Vito’s evidence was that he gambled for a living. He declares no income from gambling, however, and has been on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) for some time.”

Patriarca: Shot to death in his garage.
ALFREDO PATRIARCA – 2016

On Jan. 20, 2016, around 6:25 p.m., Patriarca, 42, is seen on CCTV pulling into his driveway near The Kingsway and Princess Margaret Blvd. Within minutes a triggerman parked a bullet into the father of two, who cops said had suspected mob ties. In the summer of 2012, Patriarca was watching Euro Cup soccer with Johnnie Raposo on the patio of a crowded College St. cafe when an alleged hit man dressed as a construction worker gunned down the 35-year-old Raposo.

[antimafia]

Ed,

Thanks for creating this thread. In his article, Brad Hunter strictly listed cold cases that happened within the City of Toronto's boundaries. If okay with you and others, I'd like the thread to be a place anyone can also post about mob-related cold cases in Ontario.

I don't agree with the reporter's inclusion, on the list, of the murders of Joe Racco in 2000 and Franco Pizzimenti in 2002, as I think that the murders were related to longstanding documented business disputes between members of the board of directors of the Commisso Bros. & Racco Italian Bakery, one said dispute being recorded in in minutes of board meetings; Pizzimenti also swore in an affidavit about the violence that occurred during one such meeting in January 1994. The company might have formally changed its name at some point--perhaps in 2012, when the bakery website was revamped (see commissobakery.com)--but I believe that the external store signs for the two bakery locations still display "Commisso Bros. & Racco Italian Bakery." I'll have to double check.

Reporter Peter Edwards recently wrote an article about the unsolved August 1988 murders of Richard and Annie Wilson, whose residence was on the Niagara Parkway in Niagara Falls, Ontario--see links below to the original article and to outline.com.

Peter Frumusa was no double murderer. Why would police trust a drug dealer nicknamed ‘The Snake’?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/0 ... snake.html

Link in case you hit a paywall: https://outline.com/GEXmkD

Some notes (I've provided sources at the very end of my post):

• In the article excerpt "Four years after the murder, a cook in a Niagara Falls restaurant run by a mobster, told the Star the murder was carried out over Annie Wilson’s debts," the cook is Cecil Cameron, the establishment where he worked is the closed-down Murphy's Restaurant in Niagara Falls (in Ontario; built in 1968), and the owner(s) were either 1. Carm Barillaro alone, or 2. Barillaro, Dominic Vaccaro (both Buffalo Family members), Frank Spadafora, and perhaps one or more other individuals. Vaccaro apparently had the nickname "Biggie."

• Cameron, who was a coke trafficker, became an informant.

• The man known as "Snake" is Frank Costello, who was a jailhouse informant.

• Peter Frumusa was not just a cocaine addict. He was also a coke dealer associated with Murphy's Restaurant. At the time of the murders of the Wilsons, he was delivering coke in Fort Erie, Ontario.

• The Wilsons were very badly beaten, and the bat used by the killers was stolen from Frumusa's vehicle. Cameron himself had a reputation around Niagara Falls for being proficient with a bat.

• Cameron claimed that one of the four killers was the maître d' at the restaurant, who wanted Annie Willson dead because she ran drugs for the mobster maître d' and owed him $10,000. In one of Peter Edwards's books co-authored with Antonio Nicaso, the maître d' is described as "another member of the organization, who like Barillaro was in his early forties, ambitious, and worked at the restaurant." As an aside, the co-authors also write that the maître d' was competition to Barillaro and, unlike Barillaro, was not intimidated by a senior Toronto mobster (himself a rival to Johnny Papalia) who regularly sent coke, hidden in cheese boxes, to Niagara Falls on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. There is reason to suspect that the maître d' at the time was Vaccaro, whose DOB is June 9, 1946. Cameron has also claimed that the other killers were Costello, a guy named "Dave," and at the time an Outlaws biker named "Randy."

Sources:

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s229/sh/ ... 0af53fa6c4

Deadly silence: Canadian mafia murders,"Marriage Made in Hell." ch. 9, pp. 113-25.

[motorfab]

About the Triumbari/Vendemini double murder, I wonder who the third man marked was

These two homicides may also be in the list of unsolved mob-related murders :

Rocco Belcastro in 1992 https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/homicide/case/13/1992

Charles Albert Melo in 1980 https://www.haltonpolice.ca/Modules/New ... 499895f7d8

Paul Volpe in 1983 too obviously

[Ed]

Antimafia, I like your idea.

I go to the Commisso's bakery a couple of times a year for their veal sandwiches. I'd love to find out the true story behind the murders.

Here's a followup article about Panepinto.

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/ ... erent-life

[NickleCity]

Another source on Murphy’s Restaurant mentioning Vaccaro, Spadafora, and Barillaro and the drug ring that anti references a couple posts above. https://buffalonews.com/news/figures-in ... 8e0b0.html

And this one’s indicating Barillaro and Vaccaro are made in Buffalo which also references a restaurant in NF Ont. that could be seized: https://buffalonews.com/news/14-suspect ... ee890.html

[thesalesexpert]

great interview with Antonio Nicaso:

https://youtu.be/LZkHlTJHt1I

[motorfab]

Enio "Pegleg" Mora in 1996 is another one, even if it's well known he was killed after not re-paid borrowed money to the Rizzutos. Giacinto Arcuri was briefly suspected and later acquited in 1998