 Welcome back into the original gangsters podcast. I am your co-host Scott Bernstein along with my partner in crime and co-conspirator The doctor Jimmy Bucci Lado. Hi everyone. Hey now and behind the glass. We got our Producer extraordinaire Benito Agosta, Benia Agusta. Hola. It was really the MVP of the summer of 2022. Yes This week we're going to discuss some real-time mob murder news that is a Combination of old school and new school If you've been paying attention to the news out of Las Vegas there have been bodies that have been Popping up in Lake Mead, which is the largest Reservoir in the United States It's the biggest body of water in Nevada and it's been a place That just like the desert in Las Vegas where there's been a lot of problems solved the bottom of Lake Mead Has solved a lot of problems and some of those problems were were mob related and tied into the Very bloody high-profile Off the rails Rain of Tony the Ants Bellattro who ran the Vegas underworld from the early 70s till he was murdered in 1986 and then you had a an entire movie based on on his His maniacal Run atop the rackets and in the desert the movie casino with Joe Pesci Playing a character based on spallotro. So starting in May Bodies began to emerge from Lake Mead. There's a drastic dip in water level head drop and first crisis level at this point first body was found on May 1st and The most recent body was found this week Second week of August and there are five Specific cold case mob murders that the FBI and in in Las Vegas as well as the LA Sorry the LVPD and Clark Clark County sheriffs are Doing a Kind of a drill down on going back over these missing person cases that they believed were mob hits and trying to connect these Victims to potentially to the bodies that they have found so family affair greed treachery betrayal in the Chicago mafia was my book I covered the 2007 operation family secrets trial the biggest prosecution of organized crime figures mafia figures in in the Chicago area and The reason that's tied to Las Vegas is because Tony spallotro Who's the guy we'll be talking about in this episode the the mob boss of Las Vegas Joe Pesci in the movie casino? Came from Chicago and was sent to Las Vegas by the mafia dons in Chicago to look after a series of investments made by a consortium if you will of Midwest mafia families into the Las Vegas hotel and gaming industry and Spallotro had proven himself quite capable of He he was a little guy about five four But very very ferocious and very very lethal probably had two dozen bodies to his credit when he left for Las Vegas in 1971 and When he eventually was killed in 1986 Authorities were connecting, you know, maybe three dozen gangland hits and in those 15 years so so what year did he go out there went out in 71 and was killed in June of 86 So he's going out there Correct me if this if I'm wrong. He's going out there to if we're going to be more specific to protect the skim and Protect outfit Controlled casinos from other because there were other wise guys out there Like I said, it was more of like a cons was like a mob consortium Yeah, the Chicago mob was that you know the the apex of that power pyramid, but you had crime families representing Cleveland Detroit Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis That were all knee-deep in Vegas gaming industry investments and Chicago being You know the the biggest family of all those families and the one with the most interests Wanted their own guy there and they had had their own guy there before a guy named Marshall Cofano Johnny shoes who Which is I guess it's somewhat ironic that they moved him out of Vegas because he was being to camera-friendly and They thought that he was too high profile high profile and they bring splotcher and to replace him and If you were if you thought that Marshall Cofano was being high profile in the 60s. Yeah, it's it's it's on a different Planet than the type of high profile behavior that splotcher was exhibiting in the 70s and 80s So you didn't really solve the problem and actually in actuality you made the problem a lot worse And Ben have you you've seen Casino, right? Of course. Yeah, so when I I mean when I we talked about protecting the skim I know it's one of Scott me and Scott's favorite scenes But the reason I have to protect the skim is because the guys on the inside who are running the skim will skim from right the mafia When they say in the movie they look you can't expect if you're I think I don't remember was the voiceover by Pesci or If it was the the guy that they were holding responsible They said you can't expect the higher guys to steal for you for you and not not expect them to steal from you Right, right. So yeah, keep an eye on the guys were yeah, and then the mafia guy says are you telling me that? Well, no, he says you tell me that we're being ripped off by our own guys And then the guy responds to yes called leakage and he says leakage my balls. I want my money Yeah, so he the I think it's I think he says you mean the money we're stealing they're stealing from us, right? So that I mean I Imagine I mean I've read your book But it was a while ago and I read Casino to from Pledge a long time ago, but I Imagine that was one of the main reasons to go out there was to keep an eye on the skim Well, that was the biggest racket of them all yeah was the fact that they had easy and total access To about a half dozen casinos Countrooms right in the count room is just what it sounds like it was a giant room without any windows where all the cash From the previous, you know four or five hours of gambling activity were were were funneled into and then counted and taken to a bank or a vault and When the mob had Unfettered access so they were just in there grabbing with both hands right every day So then spelotro goes out there and he realizes All we're doing is the skim like I can come out here. Yeah, I can sell drugs. I can loan shark I could get into you know theft I can run back door casinos for people that for people that don't want to go to the real Casinos will give them better eyes and we can be the loan sharks they go to when they need money Right, so he realizes there there's a lot of money to be made there that they're not on the street on the streets That they're not even capitalizing. I have nothing to do with what's going on in the casinos right and this was part of the the Insubordinate behavior or when it started And when I mean he started to go off the rails really quickly and and he had a 15-year run So I mean it shows you how What a three-winged circus that that his his regime was in Vegas And then you add in the fact and this is a a part of the story that I don't feel like has gotten anywhere near The level of chatter that it that it needs to to put everything in context. It's referenced in casino, but it throwing the the word cocaine and the fact that cocaine was booming around the country in the late 70s early 80s and Spelotro and everyone around spelotro were indulging and these weren't young guys these were guys in you know in their 40s and 50s and 60s and spelotro got I don't know if it was a full-fledged addiction, but a lot of what spelotro was doing was Was being Guided and in my mind in my research by the fact that he was stoned a big chunk of the time and and when you're a lunatic and You start doing cocaine you become more of a lunatic. So he was making bad decisions. Yeah, largely or at least Part of it was just how he was wired But but part of it was probably substance right and then you saw also in the movie and then let me Make very clear that I Can sit here and Jimmy and I can sit here and we could critique Marty Scorsese for what he did in the Irishman, but in terms of taking creative license and veering off from Reality to almost straight fiction good fellas in casino were the opposite of that they stuck mostly to what really happened and What you saw in casino the behavior that Joe Pesci was portraying Might not have really even been doing it justice and you had a situation where Joe Pesci's character in the movie Nikki Santoro in real life Tony spelotro starts sleeping with the wife of a very valuable Mob associate that was the inside guy In the movie. He's called ace rosting in real life. He was lefty Rosenthal He was running the inside for the mob. He's I mean it was probably the most important Cog in that entire wheel because he was the boots on the ground the day-to-day overseer of all of that from the inside and spelotro it was the guy that he was friends with from there when they were kids and they have some giant pissing contest that ends up with spelotro trying to show Rosenthal who's really boss and he and he starts sleeping with his wife and and wasn't very quiet about it and That didn't go over well with the especially the old-timers. Yeah in back in Chicago. The little guy He wouldn't be fucking the jew's wife would he? Because if he is it's a problem Yeah, and and we've talked to some people on air who knew him and we we've talked to a Guy off the record a maid guy by the way Scott and I have met with who was close with spelotro And they'll all tell you oh, that was just that was just Hollywood that he was really a chill Sweetheart sweet heart and I think that you know It's all relative right like if you're if you're his boy and you're with him on a day-to-day basis Yeah, you probably don't see this you don't you're not you don't see it the same way that someone else You know from the outside who's a more well-adjusted non-gangster, you know a civilian So it's just it's just kind of you're gonna say you didn't gamble that money and that's why your lights got turned off You tell me that That's don't make a fuck out of me. Don't make a fool out of me. That's that's one of the best I find out to your game and I'll leave you where I find you I you know actually like I think that good fellas is a better movie But in terms of scenes that I like to recall and rewatch and that make me like amuse me Casino has I think has more like memorable if that makes sense and it's totality I think good fellas is better, but but like in terms of like those kinds of like scenes What kind of man are you? Yeah, your wife comes and tells Frankie you can't put the fucking power on cuz you're out gambling Yeah, fucking paycheck away and The Nero sits down with James Woods. There's another funny. Don't be a Again, that's another that was not diamond that wasn't exaggerated that wasn't You know created for the sake of the film All of those relationships the way they were portrayed were very accurate the in the movie Her name was ginger in real life. It was Jerry She was this You know Vegas Casino hustler slash high high-end escort that Had a Childhood boyfriend that that kind of shadowed her the rest of her life while she was out there Hustling and and you know on the move she would always kind of take care of this guy his name wasn't Lester diamond It was a similar name And he tried and just like in the movie this guy when when she gets her hooks into The Chicago mob and Rosenthal and splotch or this guy comes in and tries to leech off it Yeah, he's lucky didn't eat these lucky didn't tell you not to do it right now Fuck I'm taking for everything and then excuse me. Aren't you the or what do they correct me if I'm wrong? Aren't you the card shark? And then and then when James would just walk it away. He's like fucking bullshit He kick his ass in the parking lot. So it's a really I mean, that's a great movie It's it's a really interesting, you know period to research a lot of colorful characters But I mean it's obvious that he was a violent dude. So if these bodies are Emerging in Lake Mead, it's a drought crisis level. So I mean, how are they finding these bodies? I mean, are they like they're beached. They're just beached or they like out there walking around like stooping up fucking no and stuff. I mean, I'm not really They're beached but encased in mud. Okay You know, the first body was found Encased in a barrel The second body was found with two bullet holes in the back of the skull The last two that have been found in the last 10 days were found off of a swimming pier At a place within Lake Mead called Hemingway Harbor I think this is also a way for us to kind of draw to draw a through line from what's happening in 2022 and These bodies emerging and then back to the film and some of the characters that you saw in the movie Are now playing a role in this modern-day narrative specifically when it comes to the skim so one of the first if not the first name that started to be circulated as one of these The owner of These sets of remains that have been found is a guy named or was a guy named Jay Vandermark Who was the Chicago mobs? skim captain In the movie they changed his his name to John Nance But he he has a couple pretty big scenes in the movie He was the one that was we were recounting the the scene where they're talking about the people that are stealing in the Count room. He's the guy that's explaining it to the mob guys. He's the one that says it's called leakage Yeah, how does he get killed in the movie? I don't remember so in the movie They show you that and this was a little bit of dramatic license. They show you that he took off after The casino was raided now that part's true Casino is Rated the five casinos that were underneath the Chicago mob banner were raided in the summer of 1976 and Within a couple weeks you had two members of the splotter crew Show up missing one of them being Jay Vandermark who was the person that was in charge of the skim and who the FBI was looking to interview and he had left town the day that the the the raid had happened So in the movie they show you some unnamed hit man Track him down in Costa Rica. Oh, right. They shoot them in the pool. Yeah. Oh, that's that's Nancy. Okay That's not what really happened in reality. He vanished And then they took another situation that happened Where someone got killed in their pool and they just they just put him together I see so I got pulled in this the guy that got killed in his pool was a guy named Jerry Lisner Listener who had nothing to do with any of this and I'm assuming they thought that this guy was going to Snitch. Yeah, so they thought that Vandermark was gonna Give them up and then they also referenced this in the movie. They say that John Nance took off for Costa Rica and You know, this is like Joe Pesci narrating it and we thought that he was gonna Because his kid was all strung out on drugs to save his kid He's gonna give us all up and and him and his kid are gonna disappear into when it's protection and in that played a role in some of the Mindset in and wanting to get rid of Vandermark and then Vandermark's son Jeff who was a drug Addled ended up being killed in the months after that and that wasn't a missing person He they found him in in his apartment in Las Vegas, and he was a drug dealer drug dealer drug addicts both But Vandermark just disappeared he left Las Vegas he was last seen in Arizona hanging out with So we should let people know that when splotcher got sent out to Las Vegas in 1971 Not only did he he see this kind of new frontier with you know, they've only been worried about the inside all these years I'm gonna start worrying about the outside. He also got ambitious and said well Why why do I why do I have to be hemmed in to Las Vegas? I can set up crews in LA and in San Diego and in Phoenix so, you know, he set up satellite operations with You know placing one of his loyalists in each one of those Cities and they're already out for guys in Phoenix. Did they did they bump heads? Splotcher seems to be not like a very delicate dramatic guy I wouldn't surprise me if some of his guys. He had his guy Pauli shiro out there. They called him Pauli the Indian Oh, yeah, and that sounds familiar. That's who Vandermark was last Seen with okay was with the the Arizona splotcher crew and he was at one of their Nightclubs or restaurants. So he clearly felt safe. It felt comfortable. He was he was running from the the cop Stensibly he was running from the cops that I think he thought that the mob was gonna help hide him and right and in reality The mob killed him. So he's he's someone that they suspect authority suspect is one of these bodies Yeah, so that was the first name that started to really get traction when people were playing the guessing game on on who Who these bodies belong to? So he vanished on August 1st 76 Fast-forward two and a half weeks August 18th another member of the splotcher crew From Chicago his name was John Panagio tacos was Greek, but he went by the I don't want to say it was a nickname. I think it was more of like a Alias he went by Johnny Pappas and Pappas had come out to Las Vegas in the early 70s started to work at a lot of the mob-owned casinos as a pit boss as a manager Ah He was also from my research heavily involved in Democratic Party politics out in Nevada between The late 60s and when he vanished in 76 And then in 74 he was given a very plumb job. They gave him control of a Ritzy teamsters funded casino and resort that actually Rested on Lake Mead. It was called the Echo Bay resort and Pappas was in charge of the Echo Bay resort and according to Law enforcement and formant files he was dabbling in quite a few illicit activities helping skin money steal money and I Don't think it's a coincidence that two guys disappeared in the weeks after the FBI raids five of the mob on casinos and So Pappas disappeared on August 18th on his way to a restaurant called Jojo's To what he he was going to a meeting where he thought he was going to be discussing selling his boat So those are two of the top candidates. So those are the two names that first surfaced Then you started to hear about a Drug dealer named William Crespo went by the nickname Billy Bahama and he was a Cuban and This now is moving into the 80s. So Both of Pappas and Vandermark disappear August of 76 this is 82 winner of 82 into 83 and Billy Crespo and this is this is a part of the story. I didn't really know although it doesn't surprise me Crespo Was a courier for skim money But unlike the other couriers that would be going back and forth between Las Vegas and the Midwest and dropping money off in Milwaukee Kansas City Detroit Cleveland, Chicago There were other couriers that were going south and Investing skim money into drug deals So Crespo wait a minute, sorry to interrupt They're freelancing like skimming from the skim or they're doing this on behalf of connected guys I can't speak to that because we know I mean mafia guys This goes back to something we've talked about a lot that the so-called prohibition on drugs We know and that might come from the top But we know that individual made guys put money on the streets, right? And so I'm just financing right drug deals See again, I don't know I never heard of Billy Crespo before a couple months ago I didn't know anything about casino skim money being sent down to Miami and Put into the cocaine market And in some ways, I think they were washing the money and bringing it Back cleaner. I don't know exactly how But well, there's sure a lot of real estate. Yeah, there was a real estate boom at that time because of all the cocaine money so Crespo Was back and forth between Miami Chicago Vegas it was kind of going like on a regular basis was taking the trip between all three of those cities and He got I think it was holidays 1982 in between in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and he got Nailed coming on a plank. Excuse me. He got nailed coming on a plane from Miami to McCarran Airport, which is the airport in Las Vegas and they caught him With drug drugs and cash I think it was about fifty thousand dollars and Some kilos of cocaine and They think so this could be gangland related but not necessarily outfit Well, you know The police and and feds tie Crespo Displodra. Okay Now none again, we don't know We don't know, you know particulars on any of you know, yeah, we have a lot of speculation a lot of innuendo a lot of educated guesses but Do we don't have bodies or we might be able to they're not connected yet, but we matched it right so There's a lot of conjecture so Crespo flips and agrees to Give the feds information on money laundering and Teamster Pension fund fraud. Oh, oh, he did agree like that's known. Okay, and he was about to testify in a case against some mobbed-up casino execs in The summer of 83 and he disappeared a couple weeks before that and then the case fell apart I wonder what happened. I wonder if he I mean he should have been Protected at that point. I wonder what he like did he You know how those guys they go back and forth sometimes they decide that fuck it I'm not going to cooperate. I'm just gonna go like And sometimes I want to run or something. I want to play they want to play both sides of the fence Yeah, you want to be on the outside right and pretending that they're still a gangster as clean as a whistle Yeah, but in reality they're they're meeting and and planning and Coordinating with the government. Yeah a cooperate and then be eventually disappear into yeah witness protection Yeah, I mean we saw that with them big pussy and the surprise remember He was sometimes he thought he was like undercover secret agent, but then sometimes he's like I kind of like being a gangster I'm just gonna keep on there's a lot of gray there The the cooperators and the deals that they're making and what they're allowed to do or they're not allowed to do I mean it reaches all the way. We've talked about it with a whitey bulger and Greg Scarpa that's the highest level of Chicanery, I mean, I don't know where you have duplicity where you have cooperators that are given a license to kill Because of the operation or because of the cooperation they're giving over years and years and and they they operate with impunity But I think there are all different layers and levels to that where you know guys that might on Paper look like they're playing for team USA Yeah, yeah, maybe they are when it's beneficial with them, but they're not when it's not beneficial Yeah, but if they're wrong people find out they'll kill them in a second Right, you know and that's why it's a tightrope act because when the government finds out that you're doing yeah We go activity after you've caught your deal. Yeah deal is thrown off the window. Yeah, unless it's corrupt But right with even though The Vecchio got acquitted. Yeah, but but theoretically right that's what just happened. So Are there any other suspects? Yeah, I mean that's suspects, but so there's five potential five Homsitions five homicide probes We just went through three the last two one. We have a name and the other the final one we don't so 1977 guy named Bobby Shaw who was a member of splatros LA Crew I guess you could say I think he was back and forth between LA and Vegas drugs burglary Collections and He He disappeared May of 77 on his way From he had gone to LA To handle some business and then stopped to see his family. I believe he was at a family dinner in Fontana California which is in San Bernardino San Bernardino San Bernardino County and Kissed his family goodbye and never made it to Vegas where he was supposed to show up the next day Well one takeaway I have from this see what you guys think I know I know where you are This episode might not be as long as some of our others But we have to wrap up soon, but all of these guys none of these guys are Italian None of these guys are made guys So when like the shit gets where the shit hits the fan if you're not a made guy You're not Italian. You're the first on the chopping block. You notice that like I mean you like when they're ready to clean house You know if you're a made guy that becomes more complicated. You got to get you got to get more clearance You got to go through the protocols and get but like if it's just some motherfucker who's who's Greek or Irish or whatever Cuban Cuban Yeah, right. They'll I mean and you're done. It's a guy splotcher. Oh It's just uh, you know so Bobby teen man we can tie Bobby Shaw to or I can tie Bobby Shaw to Joey Hansen who was Spolato's LA lieutenant and Joey Hansen was very dangerous just like spolato grew up in Chicago but he wasn't Italian but gained the trust of Outfit bosses in Chicago because of the amount of alleged murders that he was involved in at a young age And that's why he was given control of LA. I think there were some Discussions early on that they didn't want a non-Italian as a crew boss out there and Spolato got that Taking care of and smoothed over and Joey Hansen was this guy out there Bobby Shaw used to run with Joey Hansen Hansen Was also a character in the movie casino, but they changed his name to Jack Hardy but that the Jack Hardy character was supposed to be Joey Hansen and Hansen was a suspect in a Massacre that took place like two months after Bobby Shaw disappeared in Chicago. It was a Bookie office in Park Ridge, Illinois where four bookies got Killed execution style. That sounds like that's the kind of sounded like did the episode from this was 77 in Chicago. Yeah, we're talking about an instance in Detroit in 85 right where they killed three guys Yeah, bookies and one guy that just happened to be there to collect bets and the wrong place at the wrong time this was four bookies that Either were stealing from the Chicago mob or talking about going off on their own But Joey Hansen's considered to When he when Joey Hansen died of cancer, I believe in 03. He was still considered the top suspect in that Park Ridge Massacre and again in the timeline of this Bobby Shaw disappeared like seven weeks Before that. Well, it's it's believable to me that they would make that decision for him in LA Just like lefty Rosenthal in Vegas. The outfit is a lot traditionally a lot less uptight And the Detroit to a lot less uptight about like New York to me It's unimaginable that they would put a non-Italian in that in that level of the hierarchy And they had a Greek and San Diego Chris Petty. Yeah, right. So to me that that seems like Standard operating procedure for the outfit and they were sending part of the Outside rackets if you will in Las Vegas drugs gambling extortion prostitution burglary and the Chicago mob has always been a Group that's been heavy heavy in in the burglary rackets more so than I think any other crime. Yeah, I think so too and They would burglarize these High rollers their places not just their residents Not not just residential neighborhoods, but they would get tip-offs to Where they were staying in hotels and get access to those hotel rooms and they go into the same anyway They needed places to fence These these stolen goods. Yeah, and they needed places that weren't in Nevada So these these Arizona crew the Arizona crew and the law and the Los Angeles crew were very Integral to those Fencing operations and you can see here how that would get splotcher on trouble with some of the higher-ups in Chicago Because obviously they're crooks and they want to make money too They want the high their main Objectives the skim and they need high rollers and affluent people to feel comfortable When they're Las Vegas and if those people aren't comfortable because they're getting burglarized and there's a street violence You know drug dealing and shootings and things like that. That's not good for the I think the long-term Game, which is the skim. I think that the number that I'm remembering is before 1971 I think the previous Don't quote me on this but this anecdote is 99% true I think in the previous ten years or maybe it been the previous 20 years there have been five murders in Las Vegas and in the first three years of Splotcher Yeah, yeah You like tripled quadrupled the amount of hits and a very Short period of time and the point being that He announced his presence Authority to use a line from from bull Durham You know he showed up in town and he blew the doors off their hinges and I think it was The Chicago bosses at first were like, oh, you know He's he's feeling himself out there and we'll let him, you know get his footing and you know, I don't think I Think they got a kick out of it to some degree at first Even though to annoy them. It's like, oh, that's just Tony being Tony and then the axe started to wear thin really fast. Yeah, and He wasn't sharing the money that he was making from all these outside rackets with the guys he was supposed to be sharing it with right and By they don't want him to be doing it in the first place, but if he's gonna do it, you better And then you had a situation, you know, he's sleeping with lefty Rosenthal's wife Which bothered everybody and it's so it's shown in them in the movie but he didn't They make it seem like in the movie that Lefty Rosenthal or ace Rostin is blown up and then immediately Pilatro was killed Right, but there was four it was four years Pilatro lasted for four years after the the the car bombing attack on Rosenthal and the whole Rosenthal Pilatro Rosenthal wife love triangle So that was another four years and I think within those four years my point is that didn't get him killed right what got him killed at the end of the day was a deluge of Racketeering indictments that came down against all the biggest bosses in the Midwest that everybody pointed the finger directly at Pilatro for like all this heat that you've been bringing on us for 15 years has now Come to a head and we're all looking at dying behind bars Yeah, and This was alluded to in the movie, but I think I don't think it was emphasized enough. Just like I don't think the drugs were emphasized enough He had every intention and by 1985 86 Pilatro had every intention of killing his way to the top of the outfit he wanted to get to rally loyalists and go knock off Joe Ferriola Sam Carlesi Johnny DeFranco and Put his own people in Chicago and run everything from Vegas Even though he was only soldier at that right, I mean he he practically was But not officially even though he he sort of had that same status Yeah, and what does he say in casino like they think they're gonna want to go to war What are you talking to Frankie say? You know what I don't know yet, but I'm gonna say Go dig a hole Go find the Jew and and haven't taken that. Yeah, then he says he's like something he's like he's like did I say go now He's like yeah jigs and Tony guerrillas as if it's truly you're screwed they get a earn with the prick Yeah, of course So and Me being such a nerd and I have no idea if this is true, but there was a guy named Johnny apes So I think when they said Tony in my mind when the character Frank Marino says Tony guerrilla I think they just changed the name and they were actually it was actually a line about the real-life Chicago mobster Johnny apes Yeah, who was also kind of keeping tabs on Splotch and so splotch Thinks that he's going to a making ceremony for his brother and he thinks he's being promoted to couple regime But and we we've talked to other people though on and off the record Don't they think that he that he's still part of him suspected that this Could go wrong. No, they did they I think he wasn't naive about right? He thought that that this could this could go bad. Let's back up for one second. That makes sense before we talk about his murder Let's talk about the last Cold case homicide or missing persons that they're looking into yeah related to something that really had nothing to do with mob activity It had to do with a cocktail waitress spilling a drink on splotch row or one of splotch rows entourage and splotch row cursing her I guess he called her a cunt and Two days later she vanished Wow, there are people that Swear to the FBI that splotch got rid of her. There's no proof There's no like so they know the gender on one of one of those bodies is female that they found like me Or they haven't I they haven't I did but She I guess she she disappeared two days later and it was it was covered in the in the news It wasn't like yeah, you know a blip on the radar or a small little blurb At the end of the the last page of the paper to people I talked to this was like front page story We're still trying to track down who what her name was well He strikes me as a rogue enough person that it's some it seems plausible It took it took place at jubilation which I mean for most people might not care about this, but I'm I'm such a nerd Again trying to figure out if Tony girl. I was Johnny apes. It's it's so innocuous. It doesn't matter But jubilation for someone who I love pop culture and history and your jubilation was the studio 54 of The West Coast or at least of Las Vegas in the late 70s early 80s at the peak of the disco Trend and and the night clubbing Saturday night fever era Jubilation was the hottest spot to go in Las Vegas You know all the celebrities all of the high rollers all of the mob guys Would be every night at jubilation and it was right off the strip at Harmon Avenue, and it was actually Partially owned by Paul Enka Doesn't really resonate with people Not gangster at all Was like a crooner. It's like easy listening. Yeah, like the 60s. Yeah, and I guess he was in the midst of some type of comeback and People forget that jubilation was a Paul Enka Supported entity or whatever people just talk about jubilation means this this really hot spot nightclub, but it's kind of funny to again, it's hot spot and you don't think of Paul Enka as the you know, it's not like I'm telling you oh in 1979 David Lee Ross opened up Jubilation in Vegas. Yeah. Oh David Lee Ross leads here of Van Halen. That makes sense. Yeah Well pulling I mean at the time for like probably people who were in their 40s 50s 60s He he would have he would have been a bigger deal You know So, yeah, so that's one that that's where that took place There is a scene or two in in a casino where they're at a club and the club is supposed to be jubilation But uh, so yeah spolatro And his brother were called back to chicago June 1986 And they're told that uh Michael his younger brother and protégé Was going to be inducted into the outfit and that spolatro himself was being upped to capo regime and uh They were lord to a a residence in Bensonville, which is uh south right like it's like the first Suburb you hit going south of the chicago proper it actually actually might be a part of chicago. I'm not positive um And and he was They were both killed just like you saw in the movie except it didn't take place in a cornfield It happened in a basement and they were beaten strangled stopped to death and tony was Forced to watch his little brother Be murdered in front of him and tony also according to A future witness that was there Asked his killers if he could he could say hell mary say a prayer and they said no We're rejecting that uh that motion and another interesting aspect of it was He had made so he had made so many people so angry that You know normally a mob hit gets um ordered or green lit The guy that's ordering the mob hit is not going to be present at the mob hit let alone other uh administrators in that organization But uh with spolatro you had the entire Sitting admin of the chicago mob That wanted to be there to watch spolato be murdered So it acted it kind of twofold so spolato gets to the house And he sees all the bosses there So he immediately lowers his guard because he's like well, they're not going to kill me in front of all the bosses They're not going to right get their hands dirty like that, but they did and I think to your point About what they knew or they didn't know I think a lot of people have a lot of people have asked me this over the years um If you know if you if you know you're going somewhere where you could be killed Why did you go? And I and I said, I don't think you understand The life. I don't think you understand the code. Yeah, um spolatro knew there was a very good chance that he wasn't coming back from that meeting and he This is the life I've chosen and if this is how I got to go out this I'm going to go out Yeah, he wasn't going to go on the lamb you get sent for he walking Right You know, you don't walk. What does he say lefty right and it's your best friend who doesn't that's from oh I thought that was from uh godi No, I think it was uh, I think it's donnie braskin when he's like yeah, you get sent for right Yeah, he walking, you know, you don't walk out and it's your best friend who doesn't so I think are we ready? I think we're up against the women here. I think someone else has to get in the studio we're going to wrap it up, but so We'll keep you updated, you know what we're hearing from some of the Experts in in las vegas and I'm not talking about mob experts. I'm talking about, you know experts in in regards to to nature and and geology and and water levels Um, they're saying that they expect there could be another Couple dozen bodies that emerge in the next year that the the water level is going to keep dropping It's going to drop another possibly three to four feet And um, you're just going to keep on finding bodies the the one thing that I heard recently from a guy that was representing the The like for the I don't what you call it the state forest and nature preserved from nevada. He was just like Like dnr kind of yeah, he was saying this is the tip. He's like be prepared las vegas This is the tip of the iceberg or whatever you haven't seen any department of interior Whatever he's saying that like these first five you haven't seen anything yet. You're going to keep on finding bodies As the water level keeps dropping. So this is a this is a ongoing story real time Again blending old and new Uh, we'll keep you updated if there's any more um Names that that emerge as potential victims Again splotcher has been dead for you know since 86 I don't know if there are any Really people alive that you could eventually charge for any of these is just I think I doubt it, you know putting putting the um Putting those cases to bed and and having the families Finally have some closure. Last thing I'll say is that there is a family out there that has nothing to do with the mob and they're they're relative that they suspect could be one of these Bodies or sets of remains had nothing to do with the mob, but uh, it's a long time las vegas family whose dad or grandpa died in a Bolivian accident or should I die that disappeared disappeared in a bolivian accident in the 50s That same thing can have us. I mean that that can happen That's very very plausible that some of these are not gain right So if we have if at the end of the day a year from now, we have 30 bodies I don't think all 30 bodies are going to be tied to ganglion activity, but I think there's a good chance that Uh a percentage of them a nice chunk of them will yeah All right. Well, thanks for listening everyone. Please follow us on social media Uh twitter instagram facebook follow our new video channel on youtube and uh, i'm jimmy butchilado Scott Bernstein and ben In the house. Thanks for listening. See you guys next time