 Welcome into Original Gangsters podcast, another quick hitter edition. This week on the pod, we're talking about the Mafia in Connecticut. The five families have had a presence there for a while specifically, and particularly the Gambino's, the Genovese, and the Columbos. And I'm going to break down the top 15 Mafia murders in the history of the state of Connecticut. Let's start at number 15. Billy Shemansky was a Gambino crime family associate that was shot dead in a high speed chase with his killers on Merritt Parkway in Stratford, April 7th, 1980. He was a thief, kind of an independent strong arm collecting for the Gambino's in Connecticut. The guy that killed him, who was another Gambino associate, ends up in the trunk of his car, or I should say, behind the wheel of his car at a Howard Johnson's in Stamford, Connecticut, a couple weeks later. Number 14 is Eric Miller, a boxer, mob enforcer, drug dealer. He was killed, found shot in the back of his head behind the wheel of his Chevy Blazer on Lead Yard Street, December 27th, 1988. His demise was triggered by a physical altercation that he got into with New England Mafia underboss Billy Grasso, who we'll talk about later. But before Billy Grasso was killed, he had Eric Miller killed because Eric Miller swung at him and punched him out. It was outside of his restaurant, Franko's, on Franklin Street in Hartford. New Haven, sorry, not Harvard, New Haven. And there was a verbal sparring match between Miller and one of Grasso's lieutenants, Jackie Johns. They were playfully joking. One was calling the other an ethnic slur. And then an ethnic slur came back, Irish, Italian. They were just joking around. Grasso heard it, heard the Italian ethnic slur, got very upset. He was out gardening out in front of the restaurant and lunged at Eric Miller with some gardening scissors. And Miller punched him out. A couple of months later, Miller was killed. Let's move on to number 13, Tommy Pinocchio, Thomas Rispoli, a low-level New Haven hoodlum that popped up dead two weeks after getting into a physical altercation with Billy Grasso and Billy Grasso's mentor, White Tropiano. Again, another name we'll hear later in this list. This happened November 24th, 1962. Rispoli's naked and battered body was discovered in a Branford, Connecticut basement. His skull had been bashed in with a blunt object and he was shot three times. Let's move on. Number 12, May 18th, 1988, Billy Hot Dog Grant is murdered. He owned the very popular Augie and Ray's hot dog and hamburger shop in East Hartford. He was somebody that was a big-time bookie. As Billy Grasso's power arose in the New England mafia, so did Billy Grant's. Grant was in charge of a safe house operation for the New York Five families that he was running on behalf of the New England mob, where guys in the New York families that were facing cases and wanted to go on the lam would hide out in Connecticut in places that Billy Grant owned. One of the very powerful members of the New York mob that was hiding out there, Allie Boy Persico, the brother of Carmine the snake Persico, the Columbia mafia boss, was given up or was believed that Billy Grant had given him up and Billy Grant was killed for that. The belief is that Billy Grant was killed in the parking lot of West Farms Mall in Farmington and then buried in a nearby residence or underneath a nearby residence. Number 11, Salvatore Mickey the face Corona disappeared May 1987. He was a kind of an international man of mystery mob button. One of Raymond patriarch of the New England mafia Don's kind of favored narcotics lieutenants. He was very cultured. He was somebody that was using computers to launder money and using computers to email people before anybody knew what email was. He went on the run from a big drug case. He was hiding when he was in hiding. He found out that his wife was sleeping with a friend of his and became obsessed with killing that friend. He got Billy Grasso's help. They went and they killed a Boston hotel executive named Ted Burns buried him underneath the same residence that they most likely buried Billy Grant in. Let's move to number 10 Tommy Vestano. They called him Tommy the blonde. He was a Genovese crime family soldier who was shot to death in the backyard of his Stratford, Connecticut residence. He had picked up his mentor, Midji Anousyado. Anousyado, Salvatore Midji Anousyado who was the Genovese couple there had picked him up at his home the day Van as she was considered a top suspect. In that case, he was also scheduled to testify an upcoming grand jury probing a legal gambling in Bridgeport. Let's move to number nine Johnny Palmeri November 10th, 1974. They called him Johnny Slew, a Gambino crime family Connecticut lieutenant. He was blown up in a car bomb in a bomb that was sorry in a explosive device that was in his trunk on Eastern Street in New Haven. He was a produce wholesaler explosive expert for the mob. And he was in a turf battle with Billy Grasso. So this was a couple months after Grasso had come home. He had met Raymond Patriarca in prison. They were cellmates. And when Grasso came home, he was on a fast track kind of moving from some of the New York families to New England. Eventually he would kill his mentor. We'll get to that in a second. I don't know if I mentioned that Tommy Vestano's murder was January 28, 1980. That's who I talked to before. I talked about before Johnny Slew, Johnny Palmeri November 10th, 1974. Number eight, Richard Biondi. They called him Richie the Pistol. He was a top enforcer for Midji Anunziato. He was killed inside his apartment in New Haven. Another casualty of a war that Anunziato was fighting with a local Irish mob led by Eddie Devlin. Biondi had threatened a group of Devlin's men in the morning of December 23, 1968. That evening they came by and the machine gummed him to death when he opened the front door of his house. Anunziato immediately had one of the Devlin gang members killed. Number seven, Paolo Paul the Greaser. Agresta, July 4th, 1974. He was a Gambino crime family. A drug and gambling lieutenant in Connecticut. Agresta disappeared on his way to a July 4th barbecue. He was one of a Gambino lieutenant, Frank Piccolo's main representatives in Canada. He was a native Italian, 68 when he died, did a lot of narcotics and gambling activity in the Bridgeford and Stanford area. He had reportedly been in a beef with Billy Grassa. Number six is Frankie Piccolo. They called him Frankie Cigars or the attorney. He was the Gambino's cop in Connecticut. He was gunned down outside his Bridgeport, or gunned down outside his Bridgeport headquarters, the bagel notch, in a phone booth September 19, 1981 on Main Street in Bridgeport. 58-year-old was very industrious. He got on the bad side of then Gambino godfather Paul Castellano. Piccolo had gotten pretty ambitious and was moving into Genovese territory, upsetting relations with Castellano and the Genovese administration back then, mainly the Chin, Tony Salerno and whatnot. And he was murdered. They called him the attorney because he was very argumentative and always wanted to make his case no matter whether he was right or wrong. Turned out to be wrong in 1981. Number five, we're now in the final five, top five murders in the history of the Connecticut Underworld. Thomas DeBriezy, they called him Tommy the enforcer, was found in the trunk of his car February 4, 1988. Was one of the guys that was running Fairfield County for the Gambino's, was found frozen stiff in his Cadillac in a shopping mall parking lot. He had fallen out of favor with John Gotti, who had killed Paul Castellano, as we know, took over Gotti was calling for DeBriezy to report to him. And DeBriezy never did. And Gotti would kill you for something like that. And he did when it came to Tommy DeBriezy. Number four, Ralph Whitey-Tropiano. He's gunned down in New York City in Brooklyn on April 30, 1980. He was the Colombo Crime Families couple in Connecticut. Billy Grasso's mentor had been a part of murder incorporated back in the 30s and 40s. And he groomed Grasso, but Grasso needed to remove him to take over his rackets and then eventually transition into the Patriarcha Crime Family. And he did that, or allegedly he did that. And it was one of the people that arranged for Tropiano's murder. It also came out in Tropiano's latter years that he had a debrief with the FBI to get a prison term for shaking trash companies cut down or shortened. Number three, Ralph Maley was really the first kind of big-time gangster star in Connecticut. It was a real mafia powerhouse. It was in a lot of the headlines in the 40s and 50s. He was a part of the Genovese Crime Family and base in New Haven was found shot to death on the side of the road in East Rock Park. He'd been out drinking with Midgee and Nunziato and they had been at a place called Lips Bar and Grill. Nunziato killed Maley and then taken over his territory and became the couple of Genovese in Connecticut for the next 30 years. And then we get to Midgee and Nunziato's assassination. June 19, 1979, they called him Midgee because it was like a play on Midgee because he was a small guy. He was in charge of the rackets for the Genovese Cranfamy. From Genovese Crime Family disappeared from East Haven after getting into a car with his driver and bodyguard, Tommy the Blonde, Vestano. He was supposed to be going to meet Billy Grasso. Nunziato was 59 and had been running the Genovese affairs since he killed Ralph Maley and took it over. He's alleged to have ordered the robbery stickups of some backdoor gambling dens that Billy Grasso was running. So that gets us to Billy Grasso, the number one mafia murder in the history of Connecticut. They call him the wild man or the wild guy because he was hair triggered, a bit of a rogue in some ways. He was also just maniacal and ruthless and very violence prone, a guy that probably had two dozen or more bodies. He disappears, or I shouldn't say, he's kidnapped and murdered June 3, 1989 in the middle of a New England mafia war. He had become the underboss of the Patriarchal Crime Family underneath Old Man Patriarcha's son, Jr., his successor, and the guys in Boston did not want juniors, their boss, and they knew by killing Billy Grasso and attempting to kill Cadillac Frank Salemi. They could remove Jr. and Patriarcha from the Boston chair, and that's what they did. And Billy Grasso was kidnapped and told that he was going to a meeting in Worcester, but in reality he was shot in the back of the head by some of his own guys in a van shortly after getting into it to go to the purported meeting and they left him in Weathersfield on the banks of the Connecticut River. That is the Top 15 Mafia Murders in the history of Connecticut, brought to you by the OG podcast. Please like, subscribe, and share. We'll be back with a longer form episode later this week for Benny behind the glass and for Jimmy who will join us later this week. Scott Bernstein, OG Pod, out.