Visiting Kansas City

[Angelo Santino]

Currently putting together a list of members. The FBI docs provided a list of names, still working on them. The FBN book has names that the FBI didn't mention as members but some of them like the Chiapettas and DiGiovannis we know were. Here's the other names, I know next to nothing about this city so if someone can assist that'd be great-

1 Leonard Affronti (5/28/1898 - 3/30/1960)

2 Giacomo Ancona (1/10/1889 - 4/27/1968)

3 Antonino Bonino (3/9/1905 - 11/26/1980)

4 Paul Catanzaro (11/9/1984 - ?)

5 Frank DeLuca (4-1-1898 - 5/12/1967)

6 Joseph DeLuca (4/17/1893 - ?)

7 Frank LaRocca (2/14/1889 - 12/27/1976

8 Joseph Olivo (2/14/1899 - 2/20/1972)

9 Alexander Presta (*listed as a suspected member/associate in 67) (7/9/02 - 8/26/1974

Listed but we confirmed older members-

Vincenzo Chiapetta
Joseph DiGiovanni
Peter DiGiovanni

[Angelo Santino]

I don't know the hierarchy of 1963 beyond Nick Civella and Thomas Simone as B & U.

John Mangiaracina, born 8/3/1911 in Independence, LA, to parents Cologero Mangiaracina and Filippa Accardo, both from Castelvetrano. Frank Guerera's mother was a Mangiarcina as was John Molle (Mule)'s.

[motorfab]

I'm not an expert about KC, far from it, but I like to read about them. Here is a list of members from 1967 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... search=t-2

For the leadership https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... search=t-2

[nash143]

I put a 68 chart together here - viewtopic.php?f=32&t=4594&start=15

As far as I remember, all the members were from MF files.

[Antiliar]

I asked Gary Jenkins, who used to be with the Intelligence Department of the KCPD, about the setup. I said Willie Cammisano Sr had a crew and he believes he was a capo. Unfortunately, they didn't have anyone to provide inside information.

[B.]

Ed's articles on KC informants are great for understanding the basics:

https://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/infcrapisi.html

https://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/infgurera.html

In terms of breaking down the structure and full membership, I haven't seen much. There were elders/possibly a consiglio who Civella reported to. Crapisi believed there was some sort of hierarchy beneath the admin but didn't know terms like capodecina.

St. Louis underboss John Vitale mentioned Thomas Simone, Joe Gurera, and "Black Louis" as members circa January 1963. Also based on Vitale's comments, Kansas City was like Detroit and Chicago in that they took the murder requirement seriously when it came to inducting members. I'd guess they were pretty small and selective, though Vitale commented that Kansas City and Chicago both did a good job training new recruits to replace older members dying off while St. Louis didn't.

[PolackTony]

Currently putting together a list of members. The FBI docs provided a list of names, still working on them. The FBN book has names that the FBI didn't mention as members but some of them like the Chiapettas and DiGiovannis we know were. Here's the other names, I know next to nothing about this city so if someone can assist that'd be great-

1 Leonard Affronti (5/28/1898 - 3/30/1960)

2 Giacomo Ancona (1/10/1889 - 4/27/1968)

3 Antonino Bonino (3/9/1905 - 11/26/1980)

4 Paul Catanzaro (11/9/1984 - ?)

5 Frank DeLuca (4-1-1898 - 5/12/1967)

6 Joseph DeLuca (4/17/1893 - ?)

7 Frank LaRocca (2/14/1889 - 12/27/1976

8 Joseph Olivo (2/14/1899 - 2/20/1972)

9 Alexander Presta (*listed as a suspected member/associate in 67) (7/9/02 - 8/26/1974

Listed but we confirmed older members-

Vincenzo Chiapetta
Joseph DiGiovanni
Peter DiGiovanni

Just to get the ball rolling here.

Leonardo "Lonnie" Affronti was born in 1898 (though some records state 1899) in KC to Antonio Affronti of Ventimiglia and Antonina "Lena" Fradella of Trabia. Parents arrived in KC ~1893 and operated a grocery store at 517 Gillis St. His older sister Angelina Afrronti married a Rocco Manzo of Campobello di Mazzara. All three comuni are also places that connect strongly to Chicago as well.

Giacomo "Jack" Ancona was born 1889 in Castelvetrano to Giuseppe Ancona and Rosa Conte. Ancona emigrated to KC in 1912 with his wife Giovannina "Jennie" LoSciuto/Sciuto, also from Castelvetrano. Jack's sister Delia Ancona married a Phillip Sciuto as well.

Antonino "Anthony" Bonino was born in 1905 in Gibellina to Nunzio Bonino and Vincenza Scandiolata. He arrived in NYC in 1923 bound for KC where his uncle Gioacchino Binaggia was already living. In 1937, he married Vincenza "Virigina" Solito, who was born in KC to Giuseppe Solito and Maria Giannusa, who I were very likely also from Trapani province (possibly Gibellina or Castelvetrano).

Paolo "Paul" Catanzaro was born in 1884 in Gibellina (died in 1969 in KC). He arrived in NOLA in 1902, and in 1912 married Mary Molinaro who was born ~1896 in KC (parents may have been Baresi, not positive).

Francesco "Frank" DeLuca was born in 1898 in Giardinello, Palermo province to Antonino De Luca and Antonina Buzzetti. It's unclear to me when exactly he arrived in the US. In 1956, he married Lilian Cora Buckner, who was born to an Anglo-American family in Polk County, MO. It seems that he also had an older brother named Giuseppe "Joe" DeLuca who lived in KC as well and was born in 1893 in Giardinello.

Frank LaRocca was born ~1889 in Italy. I've been unable to confirm his origins. In 1923, he married Francesca "Frances" Cerrito, born in Cefalu, in Cape Girardeau County, MO.

Joseph Olivo was born in 1899 in Kansas City to Michele "Marco" Olivo and Luigia "Louise" DeMaio. His parents were both born in Italy and married in 1891 in Cape Girardeau County, MO. Unable to confirm thier origins, but based on the surnames a very strong guess is that the father was either Calabrese or Messinese, and the mother Napolitan' or Calabrese.

Alexander Presta was born in 1902 in KC to Antonio Presta and Grazia Mazza of Cosenza province, Calabria. In 1924, he married Millie Nasello, who was born in KC to parents who may have been from Gangi, Palermo province.

The Digiovanni brothers (Giuseppe, Pietro, Paolo) were from Chiusa Sclafani. Given that this comune direclty borders Palazzo Adriano, where Nick DeJohn of Chicago's father was from, this may be significant. In the 1960s, a Chicago CI claimed that the upstart faction in Chicago (during the "Cheese War"), which apparently included DeJohn, had reached out to the KC Outfit for help, so the possibility that DeJohn may have been related to the KC DiGiovannis may be relevant there. Another potential link to Chicago is that Giuseppe DiGiovanni married a Jennie Fasone whose family seems to have been from Termini.

Antiliar and B. have both discussed Chiappetta previously, who was born in 1886 in Poggioreale.

[B.]

The Pueblo boss in the mid-1920s was a LaRocca who wanted to kill Chiappetta, but Gentile arranged Chiappetta to transfer to KC. Maybe a connection with this LaRocca. Seeing a lot of ties between KC and Pueblo -- Gibellina, Poggioreale, Burgio.

Good eye on the DiGiovannis. Never would have thought about them both coming from neighboring Arbereshe towns.

[PolackTony]

The Pueblo boss in the mid-1920s was a LaRocca who wanted to kill Chiappetta, but Gentile arranged Chiappetta to transfer to KC. Maybe a connection with this LaRocca. Seeing a lot of ties between KC and Pueblo -- Gibellina, Poggioreale, Burgio.

Good eye on the DiGiovannis. Never would have thought about them both coming from neighboring Arbereshe towns.

Could be a relation with the LaRocca in Pueblo, but that surname is common across Sicily and the Mainland. Where was the Pueblo guy from, Burgio?

[PolackTony]

William Cammisano was born 1914 in Williamsburg, IA, where Joseph Cammisano was also born in 1915. From the info I have, their parents were Vincenzo "Charles" Cammisano and Caterina "Catherine" Ruvolo. I haven't been able to confirm where the parents were from, but I strongly suspect that Vincenzo was from Camporeale, while there are Ruvolos documented in neighboring Alcamo. Very poor records on the Cammisano family, which is compounded by the fact that they often Anglicized the surname as "Cummings".

There was a significant community of Camporealesi in KC, where the Camporeale Society remains active today.

[Snakes]

Not sure if this helps 1960s lists but this is the 1985 membership list (from Scott D's thread):

[Snakes]

And 1993:

[PolackTony]

Thanks, Snakes. The 1985 chart strengthens the inference that Cammisano was a captain, though I'm assuming that the FBI was still just making this assumption rather than having member intel stating that he was.

[PolackTony]

Carl Gurera, Joe Gurera's father, was born in 1900 in KC to Giuseppe Gurera (given as Gurrera on his naturalization document) and Maria Cacioppo.

While some ancestry.com family trees state that the family was from Palermo, these have no documents to support that. There were many other Cacioppos in KC, however, and they were from Sambuca. I also suspect that "Gurera" is actually Guerrera, which is a surname documented in Sambuca (there were a bunch of "Gurreras" in Chicago from Sambuca also). So I think it's very likely that Carl's parents were actually from Sambuca.

In 1924, Carl married Elizabeth Mangiaracino. As CC has already stated, her parents were Calogero Mangiaracino and Filippa Accardo of Castelvetrano. After Carl was killed, apparently by the Mangiaracinos, Elizabeth remarried a Raymond Oliver born in CO, who could've been a relative of Joe Olivo. A lot of these people went by Americanized surnames: e.g., the Cammisanos as "Cummings", the Olivos as "Oliver", some of the Cacioppos as "Morgan", which further complicates the task of teasing out their genealogies.

Without going through the Castelvetrano records, I haven't been able to confirm Filippa Accardo's parents. The possibility that some major figures in the KC Outfit could've had a direct relation to Tony Accardo is obviously tantalizing.

[B.]

The KC Mangiaracinas also had ties to Birmingham where there was a Castelvetrano colony in the area. Mangiaracinas from Castelvetrano intermarried with the Riberesi mafiosi's kids in Russellville, Alabama, and KC member Salvatore Crapisi from Castelvetrano also lived in Russellville before KC. Joe Gurera hid out in Birmingham later. There was a Sambuca colony in Birmingham too.