Showing posts with label Giannola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Giannola. Show all posts

02 October 2019

The Assassination of Sam Giannola

Detroit Mafia boss Sam Giannola

One hundred years ago today, Detroit Mafia boss Salvatore (Sam) Giannola was assassinated as he stepped from the American State Bank branch at the corner of Monroe and Russell streets in Detroit, Michigan. Giannola and his two brothers, Vito and Antonino (Tony), were natives of Terrasini, Sicily and had led the city's Mafia family since the spring of 1914, when they seized control of the burgàta after winning a gang war against incumbent boss Pietro Mirabile. 

Based in the southern Detroit suburb of Ford City, the Giannolas had gained untold wealth and power from their newfound positions at the head of the city's Mafia family. Unfortunately, they had also accumulated a host of enemies both inside and outside of their organization. Sam's brother Tony had been murdered in January 1919 and Sam led his faction in a blood feud against his enemies, a faction headed by Giovanni (John) Vitale. After a peace treaty had been enacted in late May, things seemed to have calmed on the surface, but the bad blood between Giannola and Vitale seemed set to erupt at any time.

On October 2, 1919, Sam spent a good chunk of the day at his Little Sicily headquarters, the Viviano Macaroni Manufacturing Company, at 277 Monroe Street. Around 2 o'clock that afternoon. Giannola went to the American State Bank to cash a $200 check (Sam was looking to place a bet on the upcoming Game 2 of the ongoing baseball World Series). After finishing his business, Giannola was confronted by three assassins who shot him multiple times. Sam staggered back inside the bank and collapsed to the floor, quickly dying of his wounds. His three assassins ran in opposite directions on Russell Street. Sam's funeral in Wyandotte four days later was a elegant and well-attended affair. His widow Rosa swore an oath of vengeance against his killers at his gravesite.

Detroit Free Press


One of Sam Giannola's accused killers, Calogero Arena, was actually found guilty of the crime in March 1920 and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Arena's conviction was reversed on appeal, and he was acquitted at his second trial.

If you'd like to read more about Sam Giannola's life and career, I invite you to check out my book Vìnnitta: The Birth of the Detroit Mafia


Sources:

The October 3-6, 1919 issues of the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, and Detroit Times

Sam Giannola, Michigan Department of Health, Certificate of Death, No. 9756 (1919).

Recorder's Court of the City of Detroit, The People of the State of Michigan vs. Cologero Arena for murder, 1919, Case # 30216.

Daniel Waugh. Vìnnitta: The Birth of the Detroit Mafia. Lulu Publishing Services, 2019. ISBN 9781483496276.


05 July 2019

New Book about the Detroit Mafia


It gives me great pleasure to present to you my fourth work; Vìnnitta: The Birth of the Detroit Mafia. This book is probably the most difficult one I have attempted yet. It had its origins in the early research that I was doing into the Purple Gang and other Prohibition-era gangs in the city. By the autumn of 1999, I had begun to notice repeated yet vague references to a gangster named Sam Giannola, who I had never heard of before. Further investigation revealed to me the existence of the so-called “Giannola-Vitale War,” which had apparently taken place in Detroit from 1918–1921, a few years before the Purple Gang had even come to power. Accounts of this conflict were conflicting and intriguing, with some claiming that over one hundred men had been killed during its duration. I took my first stab at fleshing out the story of the Giannola-Vitale War in my first attempt at a book during the winter of 2000–2001.

As the years passed, my research uncovered a lot of different factors and stories behind the rise of the city’s Mafia family. Some names, such as Giannola and Vitale, may have been known to criminologists while others, such as Caruso and Mirabile, were not. It is my hope that this work will provide a thorough look at the turbulent first years of the Detroit Mafia, culminating with the conclusion of the Giannola-Vitale feud in 1921. Complete portraits of the three Giannola brothers are drawn for the first time, as well as rivals such as John Vitale, Pete Mirabile and the two Adamo brothers. A fresh examination is also given to the Castellammare feud between the Buccellato, Bonanno, Bonventre, and Magaddino families.  
Giannola protégé and future Mafia boss Giuseppe "Pippinu" Zerilli

Early Detroit Mafia boss Sam Giannola.


In addition to giving an in-depth examination of the Mafia, I have also tried to recreate life in Detroit’s old Italian quarter and illuminate some individuals whose lives were affected either directly or indirectly by the gangsters, from the undertaker who ultimately ends up preparing many of his friends for burial during the violent underworld feuds; the deaf-mute barber who risks his life to provide information about Mafia crimes to the police; a frustrated housewife who longs for a wealthier life and gets in over her head with the Mafia or the group of hard-working Italian-born police detectives who tirelessly tried to bring the mafiùsi to justice. 

Special thanks to Scott Burnstein, James Buccellato, Thomas Hunt, and Richard Warner for helping to bring this work to fruition. 

Copies of Vinnitta can be purchased at the following links;

A link to a recent review of Vinnitta;

A link to a related article;

24 November 2018

Detroit gang feud claims Adamo brothers

On this date in 1913...

Detroit Free Press, Nov. 25, 1913.

Vito and Salvatore Adamo, leaders of a Sicilian underworld faction in Detroit, were murdered on their way home from work in the late afternoon of November 24, 1913.

The brothers worked as wine and liquor peddlers. At about five o'clock, they exited the saloon of their partner Peter Mirabella on Mullett Street (close to the current Nicolet Place) near Rivard Street. They walked along Mullett toward their residence, 486 Champlain Street (now East Lafayette). But they were ambushed.

Two men had been loitering on Mullett between Rivard and Russell Streets (Russell no longer reaches the area). As the Adamos approached, those men drew sawed-off shotguns from their coats, fired large slugs into the brothers and fled. Police arrived to find two dying men in the gutter in front of 170 Mullett Street.

Vito Adamo, thirty years old, died on the way to St. Mary's Hospital. Salvatore Adamo, twenty-one, died at the hospital about half an hour later. The Adamos were buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Thursday, November 27 - Thanksgiving.

Local authorities attributed the murders to an ongoing feud between Sicilian gangs in Detroit. Vito Adamo, with codefendant Phillip Buccellato, had recently been tried for and acquitted of the August 1913 murder of Carlo Caleca (also spelled Calego). Caleca was a Black Hand extortionist believed to be working with the Giannola Gang. The Adamo brothers were arrested following an early November attempt on the life of Italian banker and "padrone" Ferdinand Palma. They were released when they convinced authorities that they were close friends of Palma.

The Detroit underworld feud did not end with the deaths of the Adamos. Violence among local underworld factions continued through the Prohibition Era.


Death certificates for Salvatore and Vito Adamo.


Sources:
  • Carlo Calego Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, no. 6327, Aug. 8, 1913.
  • Salvatore Adamo Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, no. 9030, Nov. 24, 1913.
  • Vito Adamo Death Certificate, State of Michigan Department of State Division of Vital Statistics, no. 9029, Nov. 24, 1913.
  • "Dying statement may convict two," Detroit Free Press, Oct. 10, 1913, p. 8.
  • "Two exonerated in murder case," Detroit Free Press, Oct. 14, 1913, p. 5.
  • "Ten killed, six wounded; Black Hand record in Detroit in eleven months," Detroit Free Press, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 1.
  • "Two Italians, brothers, are fiend victims," Port Huron MI Times-Herald, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 6.
  • "Two more slain in Detroit streets in bitter Italian feud," Lansing MI State Journal, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 14.
  • "Two Sicilians slain in Italian colony of Detroit; feud result," Detroit Free Press, Nov. 25, 1913, p. 1.
  • "Two more marked for death in blood-feud of Detroit Sicilians," Detroit Free Press, Nov. 26, 1913, p. 1.
  • "Widow's oath is blamed for bomb deaths," Detroit Free Press, April 13, 1914, p. 1.