The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and the Birth of the American Mafia (2 page)

DAVID HENNESSY New Orleans police chief mortally wounded in a shotgun ambush, December 1890. Told a friend: “The dagoes did it.”

JOSEPH MACHECA Powerful New Orleans shipping boss; Sicilian born and alleged to have been a prominent local Mafia figure.

CHARLES AND TONY MATRANGA Born in Monreale, Sicily, and influential on the New Orleans waterfront. Italian police documents name Tony Matranga as one of the bosses of the New Orleans offshoot of the Monreale Mafia; witnesses in Louisiana describe initiation ceremonies organized by his brother. Tony Matranga lost a leg in battle with the rival Provenzano clan; Charles survived the Parish Prison lynching, March 1891.

WILLIAM PARKERSON New Orleans lawyer and vigilante leader who led the eight-thousand-strong mob that burst into New Orleans’s Parish Prison and murdered eleven Sicilians accused of involvement in the Hennessy murder—America’s worst mass lynching.

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JOE BONANNO aka “Joe Bananas.” Influential second-generation Mafia boss and head of one of New York’s five families; remained active into the 1960s. Played leading role on the Castellammarese side in 1930s Mafia war; met and described Morello, his enemy.

SALVATORE D’AQUILA aka “Totò.” Ruthless Palermo Mafioso and cheese importer who kept a low profile and headed his own family in Harlem from at least 1912 in rivalry to Morello’s. After the Clutch Hand’s imprisonment, had himself declared America’s boss of bosses in succession to him; later arranged for Morello and Lupo to be sentenced to death. Shot dead in 1928 ambush and succeeded by Masseria.

SEBASTIANO DOMINGO aka “Buster from Chicago.” Mafia gunman imported from Illinois to fight in the Castellammare War. Deadly sharpshooter. Victims included Giuseppe Morello, Manfredi Mineo, and Joe “the Baker” Catania, nephew of Ciro Terranova. Shot dead in Manhattan, 1932.

SALVATORE LUCANIA aka Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. Born Lercara Friddi, Sicily. Highly influential Mafia boss of the 1930s and 1940s; decades earlier, a key aide of Masseria; his decision to betray his boss brought the Castellammare War to a sudden end.

SALVATORE MARANZANO Highly educated, ambitious, a killer: the boss of the Castellammarese side in the 1930 Mafia war led the faction that killed Morello and Masseria. Murdered at the behest of Luciano and other Mafia leaders when he in turn became too grasping, September 1931.

GIUSEPPE MASSERIA aka “Joe the Boss.” Mafia boss of bosses after D’Aquila’s death. Rose to power during Morello’s imprisonment; a key ally and protector of the Morello-Terranova clan during the 1920s. Morello and Ciro Terranova were both his lieutenants.

MANFREDI MINEO aka Al. Palermo Mafioso who formed his own family in Brooklyn around 1910. Allied with the Morellos against D’Aquila in 1911-12. Later a Masseria ally; killed during the Castellammare War.

NICOLA SCHIRO aka “Cola.” Founder of the second of New York’s Mafia families; allied with Morellos against D’Aquila in 1911-12. Led Castellammarese Mafia faction in Brooklyn. Ousted by Maranzano and returned to Italy.

JOE VALACHI aka “Joe Cago.” Neapolitan burglar recruited by the Castellammarese during the 1930 Mafia war. Sworn enemy of Ciro Terranova; friend of Alessandro Vollero; memoirs gave first inside look at the Morello-era Mafia.

UMBERTO VALENTI aka “the Ghost.” Cruel and effective Morello ally then rival; member of the D’Aquila family. Had Vincenzo Terranova murdered, 1922; killed in revenge three months later.

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NICOLA GENTILE Born Agrigento, Sicily; American Mafia killer and diplomat whose smooth journey through half a dozen U.S. families gives vital insight into the fraternity in Morello’s time. Helped save the Clutch Hand’s life in 1920. Died in Sicily sometime after 1974.

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RALPH DANIELLO aka “the Barber.” Real name Alfonso Pepe. Low-level Camorra cocaine dealer and gunman who turned informant when his bosses refused to help his wife and family. Betrayed entire Camorra leadership and cleared up twenty-three unsolved murders; his evidence led to half a dozen capital trials and the jailing of Alessandro Vollero and Pellegrino Marano. Given a suspended sentence as a reward for his information. Later served five years for felonious assault. Murdered in Newark soon after his release from prison, 1925.

PELLEGRINO MARAñO Camorra boss in New York. Ran the Coney Island gang. Jailed on Daniello’s evidence after trial for second-degree murder.

TONY NOTARO Camorra gunman who turned informant to save his life and helped convict the Neapolitans’ New York leadership.

ANTONIO PARETTI aka “Tony the Shoemaker.” Camorra gunman who took part in numerous murders. Fled to Italy. Returned to New York, 1925, and was convicted and executed for his part in the Nick Terranova slaying.

ALPHONSE SGROIA aka “the Butcher.” Camorra gunman who killed four. With Daniello and Notaro, turned informant to save his life; gave evidence against fellow Camorrists including Paretti.

ALESSANDRO VOLLERO Camorra boss in Brooklyn; led Navy Street gang. Allied with Terranova brothers against Giosue Gallucci, then turned on the Harlem Mafia and tried to seize control of its rackets. Was winning “Camorra war” when Daniello turned traitor; subsequently convicted of murder, had capital sentence overturned on appeal, and served fifteen years in Sing Sing. Met Joe Valachi in jail; fearing Mafia vengeance, retired to Italy on his release.

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GIOSUE GALLUCCI aka “the King of Little Italy.” Influential Neapolitan politician and racketeer who rose to power in Harlem after Morello’s 1910 conviction. Ran highly profitable “Royal Italian Lottery.” Had numerous enemies—ten bodyguards were killed defending him. Survived half a dozen assassination attempts and two serious bullet wounds in all, but was killed by a group of Mafia and Camorra gunmen sent by Nick Terranova and Alessandro Vollero, 1915.

JACK GLEASON Irish member of the 1900 Morello counterfeiting gang. Mollie Callahan’s sweetheart; gave Secret Service information relating to her disappearance.

EDWARD KELLY, CHAS BROWN, AND JOHN DUFFY Irish queer-pushers arrested in North Beach, May 1900, for passing Morello bills.

PAUL KELLY Real name Paolo Vaccarelli. Intelligent and able early Italian gang boss who fell from power after the rise of the Mafia. Moved to Harlem under Morello’s protection and reinvented himself as an early exponent of labor racketeering.

LUIGI LAZZAZZARA Partner of Pasquarella Spinelli in the Murder Stable. Chief suspect in her murder; took control of the property and ran it until stabbed to death outside the premises, February 1914. A likely Morello family victim, police theorized.

ANIELLO PRISCO aka “Zopo the Gimp.” Freelance extortionist who fell foul of Gallucci; murdered December 1912.

TOM SMITH Irish blacksmith and boodle carrier associated with the 1900 Morello counterfeiting gang.

GIULIANO SPERLOZZA Leading Black Hand extortionist and Morello enemy, victim of extremely inventive assassination, 1908.

PASQUARELLA SPINELLI Sicilian owner of the East 108th Street Murder Stable. A Morello ally; murdered on the premises March 1912.

HENRY THOMPSON aka “Dude.” Irishman who headed a gang of queer-pushers responsible for passing Morello’s crude 1900 counterfeits.

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THEODORE BINGHAM Army general and New York police commissioner; dispatched Petrosino on his fatal mission to Sicily.

ARTHUR CAREY Detective sergeant; homicide specialist who investigated the Barrel Murder, 1903.

MICHAEL FIASCHETTI Born in Rome; a leading member of the Italian Squad after Petrosino’s death; investigated Camorra in Naples and Mafia “Good Killers” gang in New York and New Jersey, 1921.

JOE PETROSINO Best-known detective in New York. An Italian, born Padula, Naples; immigrated to the United States in 1870s and worked as a shoeshine boy and foreman on the garbage scows; recommended to the NYPD by Captain Alexander “Clubber” Williams despite his diminutive height and joined the police in 1883. Promoted to detective by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt a dozen years later; investigated Barrel Murder, 1903; lieutenant in charge of the Italian Squad, 1906. Sent to Sicily in 1909 to gather information expected to lead to the deportation of Italian criminals; murdered in Palermo with the knowledge and active collusion of the Morello family.

ANTONIO VACHRIS Genoese head of the Italian Squad in Brooklyn. Investigated the Catania “sack murder” in 1902 and the Salvatore Marchiani murder and dismemberment five years later. Warned Petrosino against traveling to Sicily.

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THOMAS CALLAGHAN Teenage agent sent into the Morellos’ tenement home to gather evidence of the internal layout. Survived an encounter with the Clutch Hand to become head of the agency’s Chicago bureau.

WILLIAM FLYNN Native New Yorker born to Irish immigrant parents; former plumber and jailer; a highly talented natural detective who headed the Service’s New York bureau for fifteen years. Pursued Morellos for more than a decade; provided vital evidence in the Barrel Murder case and convicted forty-five members of the gang in 1909-10. Ran the only intelligence operation that penetrated the Mafia’s inner councils before the 1970s. Later highly effective counterintelligence chief during World War I; investigated anarchist bombings 1919-20; preceded Hoover as head of the FBI, then ran a private detective agency in New York until his death.

JOHN HENRY Long-serving New York operative involved in both the 1903 and 1909 Morello counterfeiting investigations.

CHARLES MAZZEI Italian counterfeiter and informant who gave Flynn valuable inside information about the Morello family’s activities.

LARRY RICHEY Born Ricci. Philadelphia Italian who joined the Secret Service at sixteen after stumbling into a counterfeiters’ lair; investigated 1903 Morello counterfeiting ring; later became a journalist and eventually the highly influential private secretary of President Herbert Hoover.

PETER RUBANO Flynn’s top Italian agent, infiltrated outer reaches of the Morello gang in the years 1906-10.

JOHN WILKIE Washington-based head of the Secret Service; a former Chicago newsman who penned the original “Indian Rope Trick” hoax.

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BARNET BAFF Feisty poultry dealer who refused to accept the prices imposed by the chicken cartel of Washington Market. Murdered by four hired gunmen, 1914.

LUIGI BONO Italian grocer from Highland, New York; axed to death on a tenement rooftop, 1911, and found horribly mutilated, apparently a Mafia victim suspected of talking to the police.

MOLLIE CALLAGHAN Maid hired to clean Morello’s rooms in 1899; discovered evidence of counterfeiting and disappeared that Christmas. Neither she nor her body was ever found.

KATRINA PASCUZZO Antonio Comito’s mistress; endured months with him in the Morello gang’s upstate headquarters.

SALVATORE ROMANO Doctor, born in Corleone, duped into treating sixty members of the Morello family for free and later into testifying in Morello’s favor at his 1910 counterfeiting trial. Lied on the stand; tried later for perjury.

CHAPTER 1
THE BARREL MYSTERY

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HE ROOM FELT LIKE THE BOTTOM OF A GRAVE. IT WAS DAMP, LOW
ceilinged, windowless, and—on this raw-boned New York night—as chilly and unwelcoming as a policeman’s stare.

Outside, on Prince Street in the heart of Little Italy, a fine drizzle slanted down to puddle amid the piles of rotting garbage strewn along the edges of the street, leaving the cobbles treacherous and greasy. Inside, beneath a billboard advertising lager beer, a featureless, cheap workingmen’s saloon stretched deep into the bowels of a dingy tenement. At this late hour—it was past three on the morning of April 14, 1903—the tavern was shuttered up and silent. But in the shadows at the far end of the bar there stood a rough-hewn, tightly closed door. And in the room behind that door, Benedetto Madonia sat eating his last supper.

The place was advertised as a spaghetti restaurant, but it was in truth an eating house of the most basic sort. An old stove squatted against one wall, belching fumes. Musty strings of garlic dangled from the walls, mingling their odor with the smell of boiling vegetables. The remaining fittings consisted of several rough, low tables, a handful of ancient chairs, and a rusting iron sink that jutted from a corner of the room. Gas lamps spewed out mustard light, and the naked floorboards had been scattered with cedar sawdust, which, at the end of a busy day, coagulated in a thick mix of spit, onion skins, and the butts of dark Italian cigars.

Madonia dug hungrily into a stew of beans, beets, and potatoes, hearty peasant food from his home province of Palermo. He was a powerfully built man of average height, handsome after the fashion of the time, with a high forehead, chestnut eyes, and a wave of thick brown hair. A large mustache, carefully waxed until it tapered to points, offset the sharp slash of his Roman nose. He dressed better than most workingmen, wearing a suit, high collar, tie, and well-soled shoes—all signs of some prosperity. Exactly how he earned his money, though, was scarcely obvious. If asked, Madonia claimed to be a stonemason. But even a casual observer could see that this was a man unused to manual labor. His forty-three-year-old body had begun to sag, and his soft hands—neatly manicured—bore no trace of an artisan’s calluses.

After a while the solitary diner, sated, thrust his bowl aside and glanced across the room to where a handful of companions lounged against one wall. Like him, they spoke Sicilian—a dialect so rich in words drawn from Spanish, Greek, and Arabic that it was scarcely intelligible, even to other Italians—and, like his, the jewelry and the clothes they wore were quite at odds with their supposed professions: laborer, farmer, clothes presser. Yet there was no mistaking the fact that Madonia was an outsider here. Immigrants though all those in the restaurant were, the others had become New Yorkers and now felt quite at home amid the teeming streets of the Italian colony. Madonia, on the other hand, had first come to Manhattan just a week ago and did not know the city. He found it disconcerting that he required an escort to find his way round Little Italy. Worse, he was growing increasingly alarmed at the way these men he barely knew muttered together in low voices, and spoke so elliptically that he could not grasp the meaning of their words.

Madonia had little chance to grapple with this mystery. The Sicilian had barely finished his meal when, with a click that echoed loudly through the room, the solitary door into the restaurant swung open and a second group of men appeared. In the sickly flicker of the gaslight Madonia made out the face of one he knew: Tommaso Petto, an oval-faced hulk of muscle and menace whose broad chest, strong arms, and limited intelligence had won him the nickname of “the Ox.” Behind him, another figure lurked, silhouetted momentarily against one wall of the saloon. It was that of a man of slender build and middling height, his eyes twin drops of jet, like black holes bored into his skull. The newcomer’s face was expressionless and gaunt, his skin rough, his chin and cheeks unshaven. He wore his mustache ragged, like a brigand’s.

The Ox stepped instinctively aside, allowing the slight figure to step into the room. As he did so, a spasm of anxiety ran through the other figures in the restaurant. This was their leader, and they showed him fearful deference. Not one of the half-dozen others present dared to return his gaze directly.

Madonia himself was not immune to the terror that the black-eyed man inspired. The newcomer’s voice, when he spoke, was parched, his gestures undemonstrative and minimal. Above all, there was the disconcerting way he swathed the right side of his body in a voluminous brown shawl. The arm that he kept hidden was, Madonia knew, appallingly deformed. The forearm itself was stunted, no more than half the length of any normal man’s. Worse still, its hand was nothing but a claw. It lacked, from birth, the thumb and first four of its fingers. Only the little finger, useless on its own, remained, like the cruel joke of some uncaring deity. Black eyes’ name was Giuseppe Morello, but his maimed appendage had earned him the nickname “Clutch” or “the Clutch Hand.”

Morello wasted little time on ceremony. A single gesture from his good left hand sufficed; two of the men who had been lounging along the wall jerked up and pinioned Madonia, each seizing an arm as they dragged the diner to his feet. Their prisoner struggled briefly but without effect; grasped none too gently by his wrists and shoulders, he had no chance of escape. To shout out was hopeless; the room was too far from the sidewalk for even a full-blown scream of terror to be audible. Half standing, half supported by his captors, he writhed helplessly as the black-eyed man approached.

Exactly what passed between Madonia and the Clutch Hand is uncertain. There may have been a brief but angry conversation. Most likely the word
nemico
, enemy, was used. Perhaps Madonia, aware, far too late, of the lethal danger he was in, begged uselessly for mercy. If so, his words had no effect. Another gesture from the black-eyed man and the two associates restraining the prisoner dragged him swiftly across the floor toward the rusty sink. A rough hand seized Madonia by the hair, yanking his head back and exposing his throat. At this, a third man lunged forward wielding a stiletto—a thin-bladed dagger, honed to razor sharpness and some fourteen inches long. A second’s pause, to gauge angle and distance, and the blade was thrust home, sideways on, above the Adam’s apple.

The blow was struck with such brutal strength that it pierced Madonia’s windpipe from front to back and continued on till it struck bone. The men holding the captive felt his frame collapse, limbs rubbery and unresponsive, as the weapon was withdrawn. Using all their strength, they hauled the dying man back to his feet as Petto the Ox stepped up, his own knife in his hand. A single sweeping slash from left to right, so fierce it cut right through Madonia’s thick three-ply linen collar, severed both throat and jugular vein, all but beheading the prisoner.

Shocking though this violence was, it was premeditated. As life left Madonia in gouts, the men gripping his arms forced his head over the sink so that each succeeding pulse of blood drummed against the iron and gurgled down into the drains. The little that escaped fell onto the victim’s clothes or was soaked up by the sawdust underfoot. None reached the floorboards to stain them and leave lasting evidence of the crime.

It took a minute, maybe more, for the awful flow of blood to ebb. As it did, thick fingers reached around Madonia’s gashed neck and tied a square of gunnysack around his throat. The coarse fabric absorbed the dying trickle from the wounds as the corpse was doubled, lifted bodily, and carried to the center of the room. There other hands had dragged a barrel, three feet high, of the sort supplied by wholesalers to New York’s stores. A layer of muck and sawdust, scooped up from the floor, had been spread inside to absorb any remaining blood, and the dead man’s body was forced inside with uncaring savagery.

One arm and a leg projected from the barrel, but that was immaterial; Morello and his men had no interest in concealing the body. Madonia’s corpse was meant to be discovered, and the savage wounds it bore were a deterrent. Still, there was no point in chancing premature detection. An old overcoat, its labels carefully removed, was spread over the protruding limbs and the barrel wrestled and maneuvered back into the saloon and thence through a door that opened onto an alley. A decrepit one-horse covered wagon stood there, waiting in the darkness. Several of the Sicilians combined their strength and heaved their burden onto it; two men, hunched now in heavy cloaks, climbed on. And, with a creak of springs and clop of hooves, Benedetto Madonia embarked upon his final journey.

AN HOUR OR SO LATER
, shortly after dawn, a cleaning woman by the name of Frances Connors left her apartment on the East Side and set off to the nearest bakery to buy rolls.

Her neighborhood was desperately impoverished. Connors’s tenement stood between a failing livery stable, its business proclaimed in peeling paint, and a collapsing row of billboards buttressed with iron scrap. To her right, as she turned out of her apartment, the East River slopped a tide of stinking effluent against crumbling wharfs. To her left, a warehouse full of cackling poultry leaned hard against a factory. And directly ahead, where East 11th Street met Avenue D, her route to the nearest bakery took her past the scarred exterior of Mallet & Handle’s lumberyard.

Mallet & Handle’s was just as filthy and decrepit as East 11th Street itself. The yard smelled sourly of refuse, and its walls were pocked with unwashed windows swathed protectively in chicken wire. Most days deliveries piled up haphazardly outside, forcing passersby to pick their way through ragged piles of timber. This morning, though, another obstacle blocked Connors’s path. A barrel, covered with an overcoat, sat squarely in the middle of the pavement.

The lights were coming on in nearby tenements and the rain had all but ceased, but it was still too early for the stevedores and sweatshop workers of the neighborhood to be about. No one saw Mrs. Connors chance upon the barrel. No one watched her size up the obstruction, or lift a corner of the cloth to peer inside. They heard the Irishwoman, though. What Connors saw brought a scream to her lips so full of terror that heads came thrusting out of windows up and down the street. The cleaner had exposed the right arm and the left leg of a corpse. And below them, peering out from sawdust dark with blood, a face with a high forehead, chestnut eyes, and thick brown hair.

Connors’s cries brought the local watchman running. He, in turn, ran for the police. Patrolman John Winters, who hastened up from his post nearby, pulled away the coat and saw at once that the man in the barrel was dead; his gashed throat and the chalky pallor of his skin were proof of that. Long blasts on the policeman’s whistle brought reinforcements rushing to the scene. One man was sent to phone the men of the Detective Bureau while the others set about examining their find.

It was a horrific job. Everything that Winters touched was sticky with gore; the face and body of the dead man were spattered, the clothes saturated; blood oozed between the barrel’s staves. But there was little to show how the corpse had found its way to East 11th Street. Rain had wiped out traces of the covered wagon’s journey; footprints had dissolved to mud, cart tracks had been obliterated. And though Sergeant Bauer, of the Union Street station house, had passed the lumberyard at 5:15
A.M
. and was quite certain that the barrel had not been present then, door-to-door inquiries along both sides of the street failed to reveal a single person who had seen the wagon as it rumbled down the road or had any idea how it could have been unloaded by Mallet & Handle’s without anybody noticing.

Forensic science was still in its infancy in turn-of-the-century Manhattan; fingerprinting, just introduced by Scotland Yard, had yet to be adopted by the New York Police Department (NYPD), and the notion of preserving a crime scene was unheard of. Not bothering to wait for the detectives of the 14th Precinct to appear, Winters prized Madonia’s body from the barrel—a difficult job, as it was wedged firmly inside—and stretched it out amid the puddles to examine it for clues. No effort was made to protect the body from the elements, but the patrolman did observe two details of importance: the coat that had covered the barrel was only slightly wet, despite the drizzle of that night, and the body beneath it remained warm to the touch. Plainly the butchered corpse had been abandoned only recently, and the man himself had not been dead for long.

It was left to Detective Sergeant Arthur Carey to start a systematic search. Carey, the first policeman with experience of murder to reach the spot, tagged the contents of Madonia’s pockets; they consisted of a crucifix, a date stamp, a solitary penny, and several handkerchiefs, one of them, small and drenched with perfume, evidently a woman’s. A watch chain dangled from the corpse’s waistcoat, but the watch was gone; there was no wallet, and no name sewn anywhere into the clothing. Even the labels in the victim’s underwear had been removed. “There was,” the detective conceded, having checked, “not a scrap of information on the body to establish identification.”