Body tied to mob hit to be exhumed

[Wiseguy]

State Police to exhume body believe tied to mob hit in NYC
By Anthony Destefano, Newsday
October 24, 2017


State Police plan to exhume a body Thursday from a small upstate cemetery, believing the remains may contain evidence related to a New York City mob hit from the late 1960s, officials said.

In a missing persons bulletin issued Tuesday, police officials said they hope to uncover DNA evidence that can be used to match the remains with a possible relative.

State Police said it’s the oldest unidentified person case in New York.

The badly decomposed remains were found by telephone company workers on Jan. 20, 1969, not far from a stream near the town of Tuxedo. The area had been a historic dumping ground for mob killings, particularly of the Gambino crime family, law enforcement sources said.

“It is believed that this case and others were mob related,” State Police said in the bulletin.

In 1972, a torso, later identified as that of drug courier Louis J. Mileto of Bellmore, was found in the area, police noted. Mileto had been delivering heroin for Gambino crime family associate Herbert Sperling, who was convicted of drug trafficking in 1973 and is serving a life sentence in a federal prison hospital, authorities said.

The corpse discovered in 1969 was that of a white male, estimated to be between 45 and 55 years old, 145 pounds and about 5 -feet-5-inches tall. The victim, who had been shot in the head, was partly clothed, with brown pants, brown socks and a white undershirt. The body is interred at the Cemetery of the Highlands in upstate Highland Mills.

To aid in the identification, State Police on Tuesday issued photographs of jewelry found with the body: a Longines-Wittnauer wrist watch, a gold chain and a St. Christopher’s medal with the words “St. Christopher Protect Us.”

Police said that by releasing images of the jewelry, investigators hope someone will come forward with information.

One of the more notorious mob missing persons reports from December 1968 involved Michael Scandifia, a reputed Gambino crime family member, who lived in Hillsdale, New Jersey.

Scandifia was reported missing a month before the unidentified body was discovered in Tuxedo. Scandifia has never been found, but his vehicle was recovered not far from the discovery of the body, said a source familiar with the case. His disappearance remains of interest to police, the source added.

Scandifia, a reputed loan shark and gambler who ran an auto garage on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, was 50 years old and was awaiting sentencing on a federal crime of interstate transportation of counterfeit bonds when he went missing in December, 1968.

In 1963, Scandifia was accused of conspiring with NYPD officer Leonard Grossman, 40, of Brooklyn, to murder underworld informers. The charges against the two were dismissed after a court ruled that electronic surveillance had been conducted illegally. Coincidentally, Grossman, who was fired from the NYPD in November 1968, was reported missing at the same time as Scandifia.

In 1963, Scandifia was accused of conspiring with NYPD officer Leonard Grossman, 40, of Brooklyn, to murder underworld informers. The charges against the two were dismissed after a court ruled that electronic surveillance had been conducted illegally. Coincidentally, Grossman, who was fired from the NYPD in November 1968, was reported missing at the same time as Scandifia.

He has not been found.

https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/s ... 1.14600929

[The Greek]

Great article. Very interesting that thee was another mob cop

[Hailbritain]

Is this the same Scandifia that was involved in the plan to murder Neil dellacroce in the 60s ??

[Jonkaro]

Search turned up empty. Literally.

Police try to exhume mob victim, but they can't find remains



HIGHLAND MILLS, N.Y. – The decomposed body was found decades ago in a rural area where several victims of mob hits were dumped. The man's remains were buried in a cemetery in the 1970s, still unidentified.

Now, investigators want to exhume the remains to try to identify the man, but there's one problem: His grave is empty.

New York State Police investigators said this week that they would keep looking.

"We're like bulldogs," Senior Investigator Yan Salomon said Thursday when asked if police were frustrated at finding an empty grave.

The remains were found in January 1969 in a brook near Route 17 in the Orange County town of Tuxedo, 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of New York City. They were those of a white man, between 45 and 55 years old, who had been shot in the head in 1968, state police said. Clothing, a gold St. Christopher medal and a Longine watch were found with the body, investigators said.

Records for the cemetery in the hamlet of Highland Mills showed the remains were buried in the mid-1970s in a section for unidentified or unclaimed bodies.

Authorities hope to re-examine the remains in an effort to identify the man, believed to be one of several victims of mob-related killings in the late '60s and early '70s whose bodies were dumped in the region.

"With today's technology, we hope that we can find a family member's match by taking his DNA," Salomon said.

But when cemetery workers opened the grave Thursday, nothing was in it. It appears the remains were moved to a different part of the cemetery, officials said.

In 1968, the bodies of two organized crime members from New York were found dumped along a road in neighboring Sullivan County. Police said one of the men was the brother of a mob figure involved in the French Connection heroin ring in the 1960s.

In February 1972, a frozen torso was found in the trunk of a car that had been set on fire off Route 17 in another part of Orange County. The remains were later identified as those of a Long Island man who delivered heroin for an organized crime figure.

Later that summer, another man with mob links was fatally shot and dumped in Sullivan County. His girlfriend was also shot, but she survived and testified against the gunmen.

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/27/po ... mains.html