Showing posts with label March 15. Show all posts
Showing posts with label March 15. Show all posts

15 March 2022

Remote bomb shreds Philly boss Testa

On this date in 1981...

Just before three o'clock on Sunday morning, March 15, 1981, an explosion shook the Girard Estates neighborhood of South Philadelphia. Patrol cars sped to the home of regional crime boss Philip C. "Chicken Man" Testa, 2117 West Porter Street. Officers found that the blast had thrown bricks, mortar and concrete from the home's front porch into the roadway - some bits of brick reached the grounds of Stephen Girard Park across the street. The porch roof, torn apart, had collapsed. The force of the explosion forced the home's front door fifteen feet into the residence.

On the far side of a thirty-inch wide crater punched through the six-inch concrete porch floor, officers found fifty-six-year-old Testa, somehow still alive.[1]

The explosion left Testa's body burned and as badly torn as the clothes he wore. His lower body was mangled. One of the officers told the press, "[Testa] looked like he went through a giant paper shredder."[2] Testa, unconscious, was rushed to St. Agnes Hospital, about a mile away at 1900 South Broad Street. Doctors did what they could to bring the bleeding under control. At four-fifteen, Testa died of his wounds.[3]

Assistant Medical Examiner Halbert Filinger blandly reported that death had been caused by "multiple injuries" to Testa's "head, trunk, arms and legs."[4] Filinger could have added that a contributing factor was Testa's forty-year-old decision to pursue an underworld career.

Philip Testa was the second Philadelphia crime boss to be murdered within a single year. (See Philadelphia Mob leaders at mafiahistory.us.) His predecessor and close friend Angelo Bruno was fatally shot on March 21, 1980. Since the Bruno assassination, the dead bodies of Philly mobsters had been regularly turning up. Authorities wondered if the violence was the result of internal rivalries, frustration over crime family rules against narcotics trafficking or efforts by aggressive New York Mafia bosses to seize control of Philadelphia and southern New Jersey rackets.[5]

Angelo Bruno (l) and Philip Testa

Investigators at Testa's residence concluded that a powerful bomb packed with nails exploded behind a short brick wall that edged the two-story duplex's front porch.

Testa, who lived alone since the 1980 death of his wife, arrived there after finishing a night's work at his business, Virgilio's Restaurant, 5 Bank Street in the Old City District. He double-parked his black, Chevrolet Caprice Classic in the street, climbed the steps onto the porch, where the bomb was hidden in shadows. Testa opened the home's storm door and was beginning to put a key in the front door lock when the bomb was detonated.[6]

The bomb must have been set off by a sort of remote control, investigators determined, and the person responsible must have been within sight of the porch at that moment.[7]

Testa's son Salvatore (center)

Killings within the Philly Mob continued after Testa was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in the borough of Yeadon.[8] Some of the homicides were determined to be the result of a vendetta pursued by Testa's son Salvatore.

Salvatore reportedly concluded that his father's murder was planned by important rackets figure Frank "Chickie" Narducci possibly in conspiracy with Testa's underboss Peter Casella.[9]

When Casella attempted to take over the organization, Nicodemo Scarfo and his allies in New York forced Casella out of Philadelphia and into a Florida retirement.[10]

Marinucci

Narducci, forty-nine, was shot to death in front of his South Philadelphia home on January 7, 1982. Informer Thomas DelGiorno later told authorities that Salvatore Testa was personally involved in the Narducci murder and made sure Narducci saw who was taking his life.[11]

On the one-year anniversary of the Testa bombing, Rocco "Rocky" Marinucci, thirty, owner of Pop's Pizza in South Philadelphia, was found dead in a pile of debris left at a parking lot, South Eighth Street and Tasker Street. Marinucci, previously a driver for Casella, had been questioned after the bombing at Testa's home, as some witnesses reported seeing a black van like one he used speeding away from the scene just after the explosion. Police discovered that Marinucci had been beaten as well as shot. They found three large firecrackers stuffed in the mouth of his corpse and interpreted that as a symbolic link to the 1981 bombing.[12]

In September 1983, Theodore DiPretoro, twenty-three, already serving a life prison sentence on another matter, confessed to participating in the Testa bombing with Marinucci.[13]

A year later, reportedly on orders from boss Scarfo, twenty-nine-year-old Salvatore Testa was shot to death, his body dumped beside a road in southern New Jersey.[14]

Notes

1- Sutton, William W. Jr., Ray Holton and Marc Schogol, "Bomb blast kills Testa at his S.Phila. home," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 16, 1981, p. 2; "Bomb kills mob boss Testa," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1981, p. 3.

2- "Hint N.Y. mob killed crime boss in Philly," New York Daily News, March 16, 1981, p. 8.

3- Anastasia, George, Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob - the Mafia's Most Violent Family, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991, p. 108; Sutton, et al; "Bomb kills mob boss Testa."

4- "Bomb kills mob boss Testa."

5- Sutton, et al; "Hint N.Y. mob killed crime boss in Philly"; Culnan, Dennis M., and Margaret A. Scott, "Testa killed by bomb blast," Camden NJ Courier-Post, March 16, 1981, p. 1; "House bombing kills mob suspect," Newsday, March 16, 1981, p. 3.

6- "Bomb kills mob boss Testa"; Sutton, et al; Lawlor, Julia, Jack McGuire and Joe O'Dowd, "Suspect in Testa slaying murdered," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1982, p. 3. The Chevrolet was reportedly registered to his son. The restaurant was conducted in the name of his daughter. Testa and his son were the owners of the restaurant building, and Testa used a back room as his personal office.

7- Cooney, Tom, "The Mob Chronicles: Part 2: Indictments begin to break up the family," Philadelphia Daily News, April 24, 1987, p. 6; Daughen, Joseph R., "The bloody battle for control of the Phila. Mob," Philadelphia Daily News, April 24, 1987, p. 36; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1984 Report, presented to Pennsylvania General Assembly, p. 40; Lawlor, Julia, Jack McGuire and Joe O'Dowd, "Suspect in Testa slaying murdered," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1982, p. 3.

8- "Philip 'Chickenman' Testa," Memorial ID 18254, Find A Grave, findagrave.com, Nov. 2, 2000.

9- Cooney; Daughen.

10- Anastasia, p. 112.

11- Cooney; Daughen.

12- Cooney; Daughen; Lawlor, Julia, Jack McGuire and Joe O'Dowd, "Suspect in Testa slaying murdered," Philadelphia Daily News, March 16, 1982, p. 3; Shuttleworth, Ken, "Slaying may be tied to Testa killing," Camden NJ Courier-Post, March 16, 1982, p. 10.

13- "Philadelphia man pleads guilty in Testa slaying," New York Times, Sept. 21, 1983, p. 18.

14- Cooney; Daughen; Heneage, Bill, "Salvatore 'Salvy' Testa," Memorial ID 6529146, Find A Grave, findagrave.com, June 20, 2002.


16 March 2020

Bogus Blackhand bombing in Buffalo

Marital blowup nearly causes building blowup

In mid-March of 1918...

Buffalo Commercial
Claiming to be targets of "Black Hand" extortion, father and son Diego and Calogero "Charles" Alessi sought help from the Buffalo, New York, Police Department on Friday, March 15, 1918.

The Alessis, originally from Marianopoli, Sicily, had been in the United States for a couple of decades. Sixty-seven-year-old Diego worked as a laborer and grocer. Calogero, thirty-five, one of Diego's five sons, was employed as a motorman with the International Railway Company. The two men and their families lived at 122 Trenton Avenue in Buffalo.

That address had been Diego's home for at least ten years. Calogero, his wife and their two children, formerly residents of 32 Baker Street (where some other Alessi family members lived), had recently moved into a downstairs apartment in the Trenton Avenue home.

Calogero brought an unexploded bomb into police headquarters that Friday. He said he found it on the steps outside of the family home at about five o'clock that morning. His father instructed him to take it to the police. Eight family members had been inside the home when the bomb was placed. Calogero said his father had previously received and ignored mailed threats demanding hundreds of dollars.


Zimmerman and Miller (l to r) of the Buffalo Police
Black Hand terrorism, consisting of mailed extortion letters, was becoming a common story, as successful Italian-Americans were increasingly targeted by extortion gangs. The front of Dr. A.J. Cetola's home at 65 Front Avenue recently had been torn off in an explosion following his refusal to pay extortion demands.

Police took custody of the bomb from Calogero Alessi and turned it over to City Chemist Herbert Hill for examination. Hill determined that the device contained sufficient explosives to destroy the entire building. He noted that some distinctive fabric was used inside the device and in its outer covering.

The incident earned attention from the press, but not nearly as much attention as what occurred a few days later.

Buffalo Evening News
Following a brief but apparently thorough investigation by Detective Sergeant Edward J. Newton, Detective Sergeant Charles F. Zimmerman, Detective Ralph Guastaferro and Inspector Charles N. Miller, two men were placed under arrest on Monday, March 18. The suspects were Diego and Calogero Alessi. They were charged with placing explosives at their own home. (At that time, Newton and Zimmerman were in charge of investigating cases in Buffalo's Italian community, and Miller was chief of the Buffalo Police Detective Bureau.)

The investigation revealed that there had been domestic trouble between Calogero and his wife of fifteen years, Mary. Calogero had been trying to convince Mary to leave and to take their two children with her. A search of the Alessi home turned up a pair of Calogero's pants that had been cut up. The fabric was a match for that contained in the bomb.

When interviewed by police, Mary Alessi said that her husband and in-laws had been working to push her out of the house. On the morning of March 15, she said, Calogero returned home from work at about two o'clock in the morning. She and Calogero had an argument, after which he left the home, locking her and the children inside. The bomb was found shortly after that. The discovery did cause Mary and the children to leave the home and return to 32 Baker Street. Mary quickly took a factory job for income.

The case against Diego and Calogero Alessi was dismissed in Buffalo City Court for lack of evidence. However, Calogero was then prosecuted for abandoning his family responsibilities. That case came before Judge William P. Brennan on May 13, 1918. Brennan questioned Mary Alessi about the relationship with her husband. She testified that she believed Calogero had grown tired of her and planned to scare her off through the use of the bomb.

Calogero Alessi was convicted. Judge Brennan sentenced him to probation and ordered him to provide support of $7 a week to his wife and children.


Sources:
  • "Bomb causes aged Italian to report," Buffalo Commercial, March 15, 1918, p. 11.
  • "Cleared on bomb charge; now must support family," Buffalo Courier, May 14, 1918, p. 2.
  • "Hold two for bomb probe," Buffalo Enquirer, March 19, 1918, p. 14.
  • "Men put bomb in front of own house, police say," Buffalo Evening News, March 19, 1918, p. 9.
  • "Must support family," Buffalo Enquirer, May 13, 1918, p. 12.
  • "That bomb was to scare wife," Buffalo Evening Times, March 19, 1918, p. 4.
  • "Told to pay for support of his wife and children," Buffalo Evening News, May 14, 1918, p. 15.
  • "Two planted bomb, say police," Buffalo Courier, March 19, 1918, p. 4.
  • Passenger manifest of S.S. Victoria, departed Naples on Sept. 29, 1899, arrived New York on Oct. 18, 1899.
  • Regan, J.E., "Chief Girvin's Buffalo Police," The National Police Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, July 1918, New York: National Police Journal, 1918.
  • Regan, John E., "The efficient police force of Buffalo, N.Y.," The Police Journal, Vol. IX, No. 4, April 1922, New York: Journal Publishing Company, 1922.
  • The Buffalo Courier 1916-1917 Classified Directory, Buffalo: Paul Goering & Co., 1916, p. 105.
  • The Buffalo Directory 1908, Buffalo: Courier Company of Buffalo, 1908, p. 129.
  • The Buffalo Directory 1918, Buffalo: J.W. Clement Co., 1918, p. 102.