PolackTony wrote: ↑Sat Oct 01, 2022 3:56 pm
Antiliar wrote: ↑Sat Oct 01, 2022 2:25 pm
Interesting that Gnolfo's alias was Abbatte:
DATE OF OFFENSE: MAY 31, 1930
Victim Name: Gnolfo, Philip, "Abalte"
Address: Peoria St.
Case Number: 10048
Case Description: Gnolfo, Philip, alias Abatte - Age 41 - Shot to death at 9:45 AM, 5/31/30, while driving his auto south in Peoria St. between 18th and 19th Sts., by five unknown men in another machine who drove alongside and emptied shotguns into his car. Two other men with him, Carmi Guelvi of Toledo and Jos. Fiannaca of Rochester, NY, were wounded. 21 Dist.
At the time of his murder, police told the papers that Gnolfo had been a member of the “Genna gang” and an associate of Orazio Tropea who fled Chicago in 1926 for Rockford (his apparent address when he was killed was still in Rockford), and that he had just recently returned to Chicago to retake his old bootlegging interests (unlikely; not an opportune time to set up shop in Chicago, to say the least). Gnolfo had been acquitted for a 1915 murder in Greensburg, PA (makes sense, given that he was Villarosano) and was a suspect in three Chicago murders, including Genna BIL Henry Spingola. Police believed also that Gnolfo was an Aiello guy and that he had imported his two wounded companions just the day before the shooting to Chicago as bodyguards. Various papers gave different garbled versions of their names. A more plausible name for “Guelvi” was “William Carnido”. This could match some Caronitos from Agrigento who settled in Cleveland. Joseph Fianacca would match a Giuseppe Fiannacca in Rochester, who I believe was most likely from Realmonte, Agrigento. Fiannacca told CPD that he was an olive oil salesman in Chicago on business. The three men were driving near Peoria and 19th St, south of the Taylor St Patch, when another vehicle pulled up alongside them and filled their car with shotgun slugs.
One article on the Gnolfo hit cited investigators as stating that all three men had been present at a meeting in Cleveland a year before, in which Aiello and a number of men from Rockford had also been alleged to have been present. Would seem like they were referring to the Hotel Statler meeting, unless the Aiello group had another meeting in Cleveland some time in early 1929 (if so, that would’ve been right around when Joe Giunta got whacked).
Several days after the killing, police were investigating reports that Gnolfo had been responsible for operating a blast furnace that the “Aiello gang” was allegedly using as a crematory for its victims. After “loyal Capone gang” affiliate Thomas Somnerio (Sommario, born in Chicago Heights to a family from Crotone and Cosenza Calabria) was gunned down June 4th, investigators stated that they had info that Sommario’s killing was a reprisal for Gnolfo, as Sommario was allegedly responsible for the Gnolfo hit with Jack McGurn. Police also stated that Gnolfo was believed to have been responsible for the murder of McGurn’s stepfather.
As noted above, Filippo Gnolfo, aka "Abbate", born ~1887 in Villarosa, was a reputed Aiello supporter murdered in May of 1930, right around the same time that fellow alleged Aiello man Girolamo Intravaia (1928 Statler meeting attendee) seems to have also been murdered.
Gnolfo was also linked to the violence in and around Taylor St in 1926. On March 6, 1926 (3 days before Donato Cerone was shot), a man initially identified as "C. La Cognata" living on the 1100 block of S Racine, was shot to death while riding in a car with three men at 22nd (Cermak Rd) and Keeler in the South Lawndale neighborhood. Another vehicle pulled up next to them and opened fire from as many as five sawed-off shotguns; "La Cognata" was killed instantly with his head nearly blown completely off, while two of his companions were wounded. It subsequently came out that "La Cognata" was actually Giuseppe Calabrese. Calabrese was born ~1892 in Calascibetta and was married to Francesca Blando, also of Calascibetta. At the time of his killing, they lived at Taylor and Racine. According to investigators, the vehicle that Calabrese and his companions were riding in belonged to Filippo Gnolfo, who had been targeted in a series of failed shooting attempts and whose garage had recently been torched. They thus believed that Gnolfo had sent some of his men out to move his car to a safehouse, but his guys wound up making a trip out to Cicero. Gnolfo, a wholesale grocery salesman, lived one block south of Calabrese, at Lexington and Racine. Police believed that the attack against Gnolfo were retaliation for the murder of Henry Spingola, as Gnolfo had been stated to have been in hiding since Spingola was whacked. Gnolfo admitted to investigators that he had been a close personal friend of Orazio Tropea.
The driver of Gnolfo's car, also wounded in the shooting, was named as Ralph Cavalieri, and lived on DeKoven St. This was clearly Carmine "Ralph" Cavalieri, born in 1902 in Rende, Cosenza, Calabria.
Passenger Concetto Lallone also took some buckshot to the head in the attack but survived. Lallone was born in 1896 in Calascibetta and arrived in Chicago with his wife Carmella Blando, sister of Calabrese's wife (their surname was sometimes given as Brandi/Branni, which would reflect local dialetto pronunciation). In 1927, Lallone was naturalized with one of his witnesses being Carmelo La Cognata (the name that Calabrese was either using as an alias or who the papers mixed up with Calabrese initially), who lived on the same block of Racine (1100 S) as Gnolfo. La Cognata was born about 1883 in Santa Croce Camerina, Ragusa -- he would seem to be an outlier, but bear in mind that Samuzzo Amatuna was from Pozzallo, Ragusa. Carmelo LaCognato was later killed in what was thought to have been an accidental shooting by 19-year-old Joseph Castaldo (not sure if this was the same Joe Castaldo later affiliated with Elmwood Park, or a relative, or unrelated); the two were allegedly inspecting a pistol when it went off.
Concetto Lallone, after surviving Chicago's bloody series of mafia wars, died in a work accident in 1936 and was buried alongside his cumpari Giuseppe Calabrese in Mt Carmel. At the time of the accident, Lallone was accompanied by his nephew, named as Thomas Blando. I think that there is a very strong chance that this was Gaetano "Guy/Tom" Blando who along with his son Dominick Blando was an apparent affiliate of the Elmwood Park crew many years later. Gaetano Blando was born in 1917 in Chicago to Domenico Blando and Maria Santo Stefano. Maria was born in Calascibetta but Domenico gave Calascibetta and Gangi, Palermo (very near the border with modern Enna province, then Caltanissetta) on different documents. As noted above, sisters Francesca and Carmella Blando were from Calascibetta, and their father was Gaetano Blando, also the name of Domenico Blando's father. Further, father Gaetano Blando matches a birth record in Gangi, so it would seem that all of these Blandos were one family.
Now, here's something else. Recall the "Michael Blando" who was an alleged partner of Antonino Spano "Il Cavaliero" and was murdered following Spano's hit in August of 1926. Spano, as has been mentioned a number of times, was a Taylor St Marsalese who reputedly betrayed the Gennas with Amatuna and Tropea; after the latter was killed, Spano fled to Chicago Heights and partnered with then-boss Filippo Piazza, until both were murdered soon after (my guess is that without Tropea, Spano may have transferred into the Heights Family or at least got protection from Piazza; Piazza's murder and the subsequent takeover of the Heights Family by Chicago may thus have been a consequence of or related to the war on Taylor St). "Blando's" actual surname was DelBuono, and his father was Giuseppe DelBuono of Calascibetta. His younger brother, Salvatore DelBuono, who afterward went by Sam Faragia (their mother's surname), was, of course, married to Mooney's kid sister Mary Annette Giancana (their descendants are the Faragias and Celozzis, the later of car dealership fame and alleged Joe Fosco death threat infamy). Given the "Blando" thing and shared peasani background, very possible that the DelBuonos were related to the Blandos; at the very least they were part of the same mafia faction on Taylor St.
The name of the fourth man in the car with Cavalieri, Calabrese, and Lallone, who was unwounded in the attack, was given as "Tony Ponetti". Given the strong Calascibetta connections here, I think it's a good chance that this may have been Tony Pinelli. We know that later, Pinelli -- as apparent capodecina of the Gary crew -- had strong connections to the Pittsburgh outfit, including boss John LaRocca, who was from Villarosa. If Pinelli started out working for the Villarosene Filippo Gnolfo, then this could have been part of the context of those later ties (there were also plenty of other Villaroseni in Chicago as well, of course). Now, before moving to Chicago, Gnolfo had also lived in PA. In 1914, his eldest child Jean Gnolfo was born in 1914 in Latrobe, Westmoreland County, PA (just to the east of the Pittsburgh metro area). By 1917, they were living in Chicago. At the time of the Calabrese murder, the Trib reported that when Gnolfo was previously seized (along with Calabrese and Cavalieri) in mass raids by Federal agents of Chicago "Sicilian" gangsters (some of the men seized and described as "Sicilians" were, of course, Mainlanders, such as Cavalieri), it turned out that he was a suspect in a 1915 murder in Greensburg, PA (also in Westmoreland County, and had fled PA after that. Gnolfo's wife was Caterina Sallomi, who I believe was also from Villarosa. Interesting to note that another woman named Maria Colaianni from Calascibetta was married to a Charles Sollami from Villarosa in Chicago -- later Chicago member Carlo Colianni was himself born Calogero Colaianni in Calascibetta and was a brother of Maria Sollami (in 1930, Colianni was living with Charles and Maria). There were also Sollamis who settled in Latrobe, PA.