They don’t just kill each other

Innocent victims of Mob violence are one of the most underreported aspects of organized crime. This is due in part to the persistent belief that mobsters only kill each other. Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is credited with advancing this narrative to soothe a business associate.

Building contractor Del Webb took over construction of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 1946 and found himself employed by Siegel, a mobster reputed to have killed more than a dozen people. In an oft-repeated anecdote, Siegel boasted to Webb about how he had personally killed 12 men who went against him. After noticing the panicked look on Webb’s face, he reassured him with the promise, “We only kill each other.”

But Siegel’s assertion is not true. The Mob’s “code of honor” is a folk tale. Not only are regular people caught in the crossfire of Mob violence, sometimes they are targeted. Here’s just a sampling of innocent victims of Mob violence.

Michael Vengalli – East Harlem, 1931

On a busy street in East Harlem in New York City on July 28, 1931, 5-year-old Michael Vengalli met his end in a volley of gunfire. Four other children, including Michael’s 7-year-old brother Salvatore, were injured.

It was 6:30 p.m. on a sweltering summer day in the mostly Italian neighborhood the Vengallis called home. That day, the temperature soared to 97 degrees. As families finished their evening meals, children went out into the street to enjoy the last hours of daylight and escape the oppressive heat of 1930s brownstones and tenements. As Michael and Salvatore played, a car drove past, and five occupants began firing into the crowd of people, aiming at bootlegger Joey Rao. Rao escaped unharmed, but Michael and Salvatore, along with 3-year-old Michael Bevilacqua, 5-year-old Samuel Divino and 14-year-old Flora D’Amelia, were hit.

Michael and Salvatore’s mother, Catherine, rushed out onto the street. Seeing Salvatore first, she immediately took him to Fifth Avenue Hospital in a taxi. Another mother found Michael and took him to Beth David Hospital. Michael died later that night.

Although mobsters Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll and Frank Giordano stood trial for the crime, no one was convicted.

Michael Vengalli died because of a gang dispute that bled out into the neighborhood of East Harlem. His killers likely did not intend to murder a child, but they had nonetheless planned a hit in a crowded, public space. Their negligence had consequences for people outside the organized crime lifestyle.

Frank Carramusa Jr. – Kansas City, 1919

Twelve years before Vengalli’s death, on March 28, 1919, Kansas City mobster Paul Catanzaro killed 11-year-old Frank Carramusa Jr. Catanzaro shot the boy as retaliation for an unpaid Black Hand extortion attempt. Frank’s father, a grocer in Kansas City’s Little Italy, had received threatening Black Hand letters. He refused to pay, and Catanzaro shot Frank Jr. while he rode in one of his father’s delivery trucks. Although the police caught Catanzaro, he was never convicted, in part because of threats made against eyewitnesses to the crime.

Johnny Castro – Miami, 1982

On February 7, 1982, 2-year-old Johnny Castro was killed by 9mm submachine gunfire during an attempt on the life of his father, Jesus Castro. The elder Castro worked as a bodyguard for Griselda Blanco’s drug cartel in Miami. Blanco ordered his death after she alleged he disrespected her sons by kicking one of them in the behind.

Blanco hitman Jorge Ayala was later convicted for carrying out the botched hit that took the toddler’s life. Blanco also served time for arranging this and two other hits.

Nicola Campolongo – Calabria, Italy, 2014

On January 16, 2014, in Calabria, Italy, 3-year-old Nicola “Coco” Campolongo was shot along with his grandfather, ‘Ndrangheta member Giuseppe Iannicelli, and his grandfather’s girlfriend. The three victims were found in Iannicelli’s burned-out Fiat Punto. Officials investigating the crime found Iannicelli’s body in the trunk and a 50-cent coin on the roof, a ‘Ndrangheta signature.

Campolongo’s mother and father were both serving prison sentences that left him and his siblings in their grandfather’s custody. Experts believe it was common knowledge that he took his grandson with him everywhere to deter violence.

In October 2015, Cosimo Donato and Faustino Campilongo were arrested for their involvement in the murders. During the aftermath of Campolongo’s death, anti-‘Ndrangheta activists asserted that 30 children had died as a result of gang warfare since 1950.

Mary Bari – Brooklyn, 1984

Just as children have been both intentional and unintentional victims of Mob violence, girlfriends and wives of mobsters also have been targets. Mary Bari suffered such a fate on September 25, 1984, in Brooklyn, New York.

Bari began dating Colombo crime family underboss Alphonse Persico when she was a teenager. She had been with him for a decade when he went into hiding in 1980 following an extortion conviction. His associates believed she knew where he was hiding and feared she may give information to the FBI. In 1993, Colombo family member Carmine Sessa told the FBI that Bari was killed because she knew where Persico was hiding, and there were rumors she was already talking to the feds.

Greg Scarpa Sr. and other members of the Colombo family lured Bari to the Wimpy Boy Social Club in Brooklyn with the promise of a waitressing job. When she arrived, Greg Scarpa Jr. grabbed her and shoved her to the floor. His father then shot her three times.

Bess Greenbaum – Phoenix, 1958

Bess Greenbaum, wife of Phoenix mobster Gus Greenbaum, likewise met a grisly end, in her case alongside her husband. Gus, manager of the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, had a tense relationship with his Mob associates in the late 1950s as a result of personal debts related to gambling and drug addiction.

On the morning of December 3, 1958, the Greenbaums’ housekeeper Pearl Ray found them murdered in their Phoenix home. She last saw them alive the preceding evening, and Bess had driven her home at the end of her shift. Ray found Bess on a couch in the den, fully dressed, with her throat cut and wrists bound behind her. A severe blow fractured her skull, most likely from a decorative glass bottle found beside her.

Gus was found in the couple’s bedroom in his pajamas, with his throat slashed and nearly decapitated. Two hard blows to the rear of Gus’s skull each produced fractures. Pillows had been placed on both sides of their heads, presumably to muffle their screams. It is possible the killers only targeted Gus but decided to take out Bess as well when she arrived home earlier than expected.

The Greenbaum murders remain unsolved, but all signs point to a Mob hit. The killers wrapped the knife in a cellophane bag to avoid leaving fingerprints, and there were no clear signs of forced entry. Although a small amount of cash and a ring from Gus’s hand were missing, other valuables were undisturbed. Greenbaum’s tension with his Mob associates was well known in the underworld. And his sister-in-law Leone also had been murdered by suffocation in 1955.

Mildred Noble – Dallas, 1949

Mildred Noble, wife of Dallas gambling racketeer Herbert Noble, died on November 29, 1949, when she unintentionally detonated a car bomb meant for her husband. Herbert took Mildred’s car that morning, and when she went to leave in his Mercury later that day, nitroglycerin connected to the generator exploded. Mildred died instantly.

Although the culprit was never convicted, her death likely stemmed from a long-running feud between Herbert and fellow mobster Benny Binion related to competition in the Dallas gambling rackets. Herbert “The Cat” Noble survived numerous assassination attempts in the mid- to late 1940s. Although Binion moved to Las Vegas in 1946, the attempts on Noble’s life did not cease.

After Mildred’s death, Noble rarely left home, doing so only in an armored Ford. He had Dalmatians, Chihuahuas, peacocks and guinea hens as living security alarms, but they didn’t save him from a bomb planted in his driveway on August 7, 1951.

William Holmes – Detroit, 1937

Familial and romantic ties do not account for all innocent victims’ deaths. William Holmes, a Black doorman at Detroit’s Ten Forty Club, died when a car bomb intended for mobster Harry Millman detonated in the early morning of August 29, 1937. The Ten Forty Club was a popular hangout for Purple Gang members. Millman frequented the club and usually had Holmes pull his car around at the end of the night, but Holmes had no connection to the Purple Gang or Millman. Holmes was killed by the ten sticks of dynamite wired to the spark plugs. He became the first victim of a gangland car bombing in Detroit.

Dominick Ragucci – Suffolk County, New York, 1979

Another reason that non-mobsters become innocent victims are cases of mistaken identity. Gambino crime family hitman Roy DeMeo killed Dominick Ragucci after mistaking him for a Cuban hitman on the evening of April 19, 1979.

Ragucci, an 18-year-old vacuum cleaner salesman and student, parked in front of DeMeo’s home after a sales meeting. The paranoid, drug-addled DeMeo approached Ragucci’s car alongside associate Joseph Guglielmo, intending to confront this would-be assassin. Ragucci sped off in a panic, and DeMeo and Guglielmo gave chase in DeMeo’s Cadillac. Ragucci could not lose them, and DeMeo fired at Ragucci’s car 20 times over more than seven miles of busy streets. Ragucci crashed into another car before coming to a final stop. DeMeo got out of his car and fired until Ragucci was dead.

Gambino family capo Nino Gaggi was reportedly furious over DeMeo’s mistake, and sources allege DeMeo privately expressed remorse. But none of that emotion could make up for Ragucci’s death nor the trauma endured by the many innocent bystanders who amazingly survived the reckless, high-speed chase.

Golden Dragon Massacre victims – San Francisco, 1977

In the early morning of September 4, 1977, diners at the Golden Dragon restaurant in San Francisco witnessed another example of mistaken identity gone horribly wrong. Earlier that year, a gang war erupted in San Francisco’s Chinatown between the Joe Boys and Wah Ching, two youth crime groups. Gang violence erupted after a dispute over the control of firework sales in the early summer.

After the Joe Boys discovered the vandalized grave of a fallen associate, they began planning an attack on Wah Ching leader Michael “Hot Dog” Louie at the Golden Dragon. On the evening of the massacre, four 17-year-old Joe Boys — Chester Yu, Curtis Tam, Melvin Yu and Peter Ng — traveled to the Golden Dragon. Chester Yu served as getaway driver while the others entered the restaurant. About 100 diners were there, including “Hot Dog” Louie and 10 other gang members seated in a booth on the upper level. Through a window, one of them spotted the gunmen approaching the restaurant, and Louie and his crew were able to duck and hide by the time the gunmen ran through the doors.

Other diners were not as lucky. Melvin Yu walked directly up to a young man seated at a table and shot him nine times. Yu likely mistook his victim for Louie or another Wah Ching leader, but the man was not a gang member. He was Paul Wada, a 25-year-old native San Franciscan, activist and law student at the University of San Francisco. His dining companion, Denise Louie — no relation to “Hot Dog” — was also killed. A fellow Asian American activist from Seattle, Washington, Louie was visiting Wada and other friends in the city.

As the gunmen proceeded through the restaurant, they shot indiscriminately at tables, particularly focused on young diners. In the end, they killed five and injured 11 people. In addition to Wada and Louie, two young San Franciscans, Calvin M. Fong, 18, and Donald Kwan, 20, died along with 48-year-old waiter Fong Wong.

A lot of what is known about the evening came from a former Joe Boy turned informant, Robert Woo, who later provided San Francisco Police with a recorded conversation with Curtis Tam recounting the events of the massacre. In 1978 and ’79, trials were held for all four perpetrators, along with Joe Boys boss Tom Yu and two other juveniles associated with planning the massacre. Melvin Yu and Peter Ng were found guilty on multiple counts of first-degree murder, Tam was found guilty of second-degree murder and ringleader Tom Yu was found guilty on five counts of first-degree murder.

The survivors of the Golden Dragon massacre and their loved ones still carry the scars of this senseless tragedy. So, too, do those touched by countless other cases of Mob violence against innocent victims. The societal cost of organized crime can be enumerated in many ways, and one is by the numbers of innocent victims who have lost their lives because of Mob conflicts.