Rockford Double Murder- Rocco Pranno Involved?

[cavita]

Patrickgold recently asked me about the circumstances surrounding the double murder of 32 year-old Octavio “Chico” Martinez and his 18 year-old girlfriend Ann Bergman and how the Chicago Outfit’s Rocco Pranno was suspected in the deaths. To back up a bit, On Tueday, August 7, 1962 Martinez and Bergman were at the Town Lounge at 602 West State Street in Rockford and had entered and won a dance contest. At about 12:55 a.m. the next morning the two had left the lounge and by 1:05 a.m. a truck driver had found Martinez’ body lying near the Kishwaukee Road turnoff in the middle of Belt Line Road, approximately five miles south of the tavern. He had been shot three times- once in the shoulder and twice in the heart. Martinez’ shoes were scuffed and he had bruises and road rash on his body indicating he had tried to escape a moving vehicle. Authorities surmised since Martinez’ car was found a block away from the tavern, he and Bergman were abducted in a vehicle and he tried to escape while the car was moving. As Martinez lay on the pavement, investigators theorized that he was shot in the shoulder to stop from escaping and then twice in the heart to kill him.

On August 14, the body of Ann Bergman was found 10 miles south of where Martinez’ body was found. Bergman’s body was found under some brush off a lonely country road just south of Byron, Illinois where present day East Marrill Road is located. Bergman had been shot once in the heart where her body was found.

What Belvidere, Illinois resident Clarence Foss told authorities is interesting. The 33-year-old Foss said he had been a representative of the Chicago Outfit in coin machines and numbers tickets in Winnebago and Boone Counties and the western part of McHenry County since 1958. Foss had told authorities that Martinez was also associated with “the syndicate here.” Foss had been called to Stone Park on August 17 for a meeting with Rocco Pranno and Julius Cohn, his superiors in the coin machine and numbers route. Pranno had told Foss, “I don’t want to see you any more, and I don’t want to see you talking to anybody else any more. If you do, you’ll have a caller.”

Foss had said he tried to get out of the business in 1959 and had been beaten up six times since that point. Foss had said he was unable to identify the men who beat him up. The only three he knew were Pranno, Cohn and a a guy they called “The Chief” or “Jelly Belly.” The most recent beating he said was two days after Martinez’ body was found and he was hospitalized for it. Foss then told authorities his story of his involvement with the Outfit. He was supplied with the machines and merchandise on a loan basis and was supposed to pay them back and they’d split 50-50. Foss said he was never able to pay them back and he ended up owing them more than what they loaned him due to interest.

Unverified reports linked Martinez with narcotics trafficking and he was reported to be in debt. Authorities had found Martinez had made frequent trips to and from Mexico with the latest trip being in July 1962. It was well known that Pranno was involved in the narcotics trade as well. Foss stated he did not know exactly what Martinez’ connection was with Pranno and Cohn, but he said he believed Martinez, like himself, was in debt to the syndicate. Efforts of authorities to link Martinez to Pranno and Cohn were unsuccessful so it is quite possible that Martinez was working with the Rockford Outfit. Family and friends stated that Martinez did not have large sums of money and spent money as soon as he earned it through his job at a furniture making company.

My thoughts are that if Martinez was involved with the Chicago Outfit, they did not kill him and Bergman since they were not familiar with the Rockford and Byron areas, rather they reached out to the Rockford LCN for this job as a favor. More than one person was obviously involved in the murders and the route the killers most likely took from the tavern were down South Winnebago Street to Montague Street, which was in the heart of Rockford’s “Little Italy.” From there they turned east to South Main Street where they headed south to Belt Line Road and Kishwaukee Road meet- this is where Martinez’ body was found. The killers then most likely drove south on Kishwaukee Road into Ogle County to Route 72 where they turned west until they turned south on Marrill Road and took a right on East Marrill Road where Bergman was killed and her body dumped. From there the murderers likely drove north into Byron, Illinois and took Route 2 north into Rockford.

Many witnesses reported to police that Martinez and Bergman were talking at length with an unidentified man in the Town Lounge the night of the dance contest and then later at the corner of West State and South Winnebago Street after they had left the tavern. A sketch was published in the newspapers of that man and it looked strikingly similar to Rockford LCN member Phil Priola. It was also noted in Priola’s FBI file that a Rockford Police Detective stated Priola was a prime suspect in the double murder. Another noteworthy fact is that the Town Lounge was secretly owned by Rockford LCN consigliere Joe Zito. Additionally, longtime Rockford LCN associate and frontman Joe Calcione was the manager of the Town Lounge. My thinking is that Calcione saw Martinez and Bergman enter the Town Lounge and placed a call to Priola who then arrived with one or two other men and they ambushed the couple in the parking lot behind the tavern.

[cavita]

More photos

[PolackTony]

Excellent write-up on this event. I had forgotten about the Octavio Martinez thing. Villain has always maintained that Chicago was receiving heroin from both the NYC and Detroit families, as well as having their own links to traffickers from Mexico. Martinez could certainly have been one of those links. My impression is that if so, he was a courier or liaison between Pranno (and possibly Rockford) and whoever the Mexican suppliers were.

Worth noting here also that “Jelly Belly” was the nickname of Sam Cozzo, a Grand Ave guy named as a Chicago member by the FBI in the 80s (after they had updated their criteria for assigning LCN membership) and the father of Jimmy Cozzo (Sam Cozzo was also the owner of Rose’s sandwich shop, where Dick Cain was whacked). Could’ve been more than one guy with that nickname, of course.

You’ve probably read it already, but this was what Ed Valin wrote about the Martinez/Pranno connection on “Rat Trap”:

Pranno used violence freely. He was a suspect in the 1962 murder of gangster Octavio Martinez and his girlfriend. Martinez allegedly acted as a "frontman" for Pranno as he attempted to expand his control over coin-operated machines in the Rockford, Illinois-area. Police accused Pranno of distributing narcotics using the network. According to investigators, Pranno had supplied Martinez with "substantial" money to purchase and install the machines. The Outfit allegedly killed Martinez when he was unable to repay the loans and attempted to "double-cross" Pranno.

Copied from: http://mafiahistory.us/rattrap/infstonepark.html

Source info:
 Valin, Edmond, "Stone Park was home to
early Outfit informants," The American Mafia, mafiahistory.us, accessed July 30, 2022.

Copyright © Edmond Valin

Stone Park was, of course, a cartoonishly corrupt and mobbed-up town, even by Chicagoland standards. One former Stone Park police chief, Harry Testa, was twice convicted for narcotics trafficking charges in later decades, for example.

And yeah, that sketch certainly resembles Phil Priola. You’re probably right that if Chicago had Martinez clipped, they’d have reached out to Rockford to take care of it. The fact that Pranno was involved in rackets even up into Winnebago County would mean that he would’ve necessarily had close ties to the Rockford family. Would be great to know more about what those ties entailed exactly.

[Patrickgold]

Excellent write up Cavita. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like it was a Rockford hit requested by the Outfit. Interesting that the Outfit used this Foss guy to watch over their gambling in the Rockford area. Cavita, any idea what happened to Foss?

Tony, great catch on the nickname Jelly Belly. It would not surprise me one bit if that was Cozzo. I mean how many people are nicknamed Jelly Belly?