 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein along with my co-host partner in crime, the doctor Dewi Bucciolato. Hi everyone. Hey now we're going to give you another quick hitter episode right now and just do a quick update on some pretty intriguing news to come out this past week on a couple whole case murders in the Philadelphia area related to the Bruno Scarfield crime family. Retired crime scene investigator John Taggart did an interview with Philly Prime podcast Dave Schratwizer and they did a deep dive into two of the half dozen unsolved cold case mob murders that hang over the head of the Philly mob leadership. I don't think these cases will ever come in form of an indictment, but there are about six or seven murders that you in theory if investigators got what they wanted could tie this current group of Philly mob leaders to but again I don't think it's going to happen. So the big news that the big takeaway from from the interviews you talked about the 1999 Ronnie church he hit church he was a former conciliary under Ralph Natali. And then he talked more recently, and this is the bigger news about long time Philadelphia mafia figure Raymond Long John O who had been a confidant of Angelo Bruno was a guy that was a was very trusted the consummate mob politician was was known as the liaison for the Philly mafia to the bikers to the blacks to the Irish to the labor unions to the drug trade. Big earner went to prison for 20 years comes out in 1999 and starts to have issues with the then sitting administration of the Philadelphia mob which was led by Uncle Joe again be who is now allegedly the conciliary and Long John is murdered we all know this back in the winter of 2002. The news that came out at the time and that's been, you know, part of the narrative, or the the mystique over this unsolved murder because it was a big deal and Long John was killed he was a staple in the papers in Philadelphia when he was on the streets in the 70s and 80s. It has always believed it's always been believed that it was two shooters, two trigger men in the Long John, but according to Tiger, only one shooter in that hit so it totally just throws in the garbage. This belief this narrative that there were two trigger men, the rumors that it had to have existed for the last 20 years is that it was two brothers that made their bones on the Long John head. Again, that has been a tagger and Philly prime took a sledgehammer through that narrative and we know now that it was one shooter that was probably laying in wait for for Martin Ronald to pull out of the alley behind his house to go to a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. And this was one shooter and they got him three shots all three shots connected. And he ends up trying to drive himself to the hospital crashes into a fire hydrant lingers for about two and a half weeks eventually dies on February 5 2002. Jimmy, any just Yeah, I want to ask you about sources. You know a lot more about Philly than I do so when when there was this you say there was this narrative that it was two shooters. Were you hearing that from sources and law enforcement sources on the street both was that so I witnesses what was that where's that coming from this came out in the press right after Okay, the murder when there was all the speculation and back then the media was covering this thing sure a lot different than they cover it now and he had all the media outlets in Philadelphia. TV and print. Putting out stories on what led to modern honor's murder and the circumstances in the carrying out carrying out of it and I don't know if it came from investigators that leaked to the press. But this very early on there was this belief that it was to to shooters to trigger men. Later, Johnny gongs, Johnny Casasanto was murdered. And one of the reasons at the time is given for his murder, it's not true. One of the reasons was that gongs was going around bragging that him and his brother had been the trigger men on the long john hit. That was not true he might have been bragging about it, but it wasn't true. So that also fueled the rumor mill. And then, as the years went on, I'm not going to name names that Casasanto thing that's been out in the public so I don't have a problem saying that. But there's another set of brothers that are pretty heavily tied into the leadership of the Philadelphia mafia, and they were after people kind of dismissed that it was the Casasanto brothers they started naming these other two sets of men. But now it looks like it was neither of those scenarios. It was, it was a long, long time. And yeah, Martin Rano is interesting. In some ways he was like, as I like to say he was the, the meth king before meth was cool. I have a morbid sense of humor. He was like the Walter White before Walter White, not as a chemist, obviously, but just as a kingpin. I mean he was a meth kingpin. Supplying a lot in the 70s. Yeah. He had access to the precursor chemicals that other people weren't able to get their hands on. And so he was supplying the bikers and then also he had other drug connections with the Philly black mafia. Yeah, I mean, that's one of probably wouldn't you say in the last 20 years, 25 years, one of the biggest mob hits in there. I mean, we have sale, Montana, what was going on in Canada, but in the United States, all that other stuff with the risottos. And that was in Montreal in the United States. When you say he was one of that's one of the biggest names. Yeah, act in the last 25 years, 20 years. And there were a lot of people if you go back and read the coverage of his release. So he comes out of prison. A couple days before Thanksgiving 1999. He was serving life on a drug and murder case from 1982. The drug case had an out date. The murder didn't but the murder cases tossed by the appellate court it was related to John McCullough we talked about it a little bit on the Nicky Sarpo episode, the John McCullough murder that he's convicted of sentenced to life and then that case is tossed so he immediately walks out. I believe the Philadelphia Supreme Supreme Court ruled on it or the Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Philadelphia Supreme Court. Thank you Jimmy ruled on it on a Thursday and he came out on a Friday and then the following Thursday was Thanksgiving. So he came out and the media immediately was speculating that he was going to have problems with Joe the Gamby, who had just. It was actually similar he walked out a two years before that, and a murder case that got tossed he was looking at life. They came from a similar era. Honestly, Long John Montorano did not respect Joe the Gamby Long John Montorano was a big deal, even though he didn't have his button and it wasn't a couple was a big deal in the 1970s. Well, Gamby was a all due respect to Joe the Gamby's turned turned in to be a great mafia boss was a bartender when when Ray, Marterano was on the rise and wasn't even a made guy when when Ray Marterano went to prison. And that happens a lot where guys were guys OGs get out of prison and not just with the Italians. Yes, this is with black organized crime when the OG gets out and a dude who was like, you know, just a young up and comer is now a big deal. I mean, you see this in cinema all the time you remember Goodfellas Tommy and really bad with sopranos with with feature Tony soprano like but that's actually not that that's not unrealistic that that these kind of problems exist. And Long John, he said all the right things you look at the article that the Philadelphia Daily News did the day he gets out of prison he actually spoke to them gave him interview he says, I have no desire to come back. I want to go retire in Sicily. I don't know the guys that are running this thing right now referring to Joey Merlino, who at that time was actually in prison and handed over the day to the Gamby he's he was claiming he barely knew the Gamby. But then there was another insider quoted in that article saying, there's a very real possibility that in the coming months years, you'll have a shootout between Long John, Long John, Marterano and Joe Legambi for control of the Philadelphia mafia. Again, Joe Legambi has never been charged there's been no charges filed in this case. There's some wiretaps that allude to the Gamby maybe playing a role in it. Marterano had gone to Sicily for the holiday in 2001. He, according to his family he was going over there to do legitimate business to secure a cheese to cheese distributor for a cheese business back in Philadelphia. Rumors were flying around South Philly around the Legambi camp that he had gone over there to secure hit men and bring them back and go to war. You know, a couple weeks after he comes back, he's murdered. They clearly staked it, you know, state, they knew his routine. They knew that he had a doctor's appointment. That's, you know, I don't, again, I don't think anything will ever be solved. I don't think the case will ever make it in front of a jury, but it's very interesting for people that watch this stuff. I know it's inside baseball, but for the last 20 years, there's this belief that it's two shooters and John Taggart just comes and eliminates that belief dispels that notion it was one shooter. And the last thing we'll talk about just for a quick minute, Ronnie Turkey, his murder fall of 1999. And the only thing that we learned that we didn't know from Taggart's interview was that adding insult to injury. We knew that his body was found in the trunk of his Toyota Paseo. He was hog tied, he was naked. He had a bag over his head. He had been shot and stabbed. What we didn't know until this interview was that his body was doused with Viagra pills. There was like 50 Viagra pills on his body when they found him. Which is, I took it as just a slap, you know, just a slap in the face. Not meaning anything other than we didn't respect this guy. This guy was a weakling and we wanted you all to know that. Yeah, it's emasculating. Yeah. So, shout out to Dave Schratwizer, Philly Prime Podcast, Mob Talk Sit Down News, great interviews they did with John Taggart to illuminate this terrain that we didn't know about the Moderano and Turkey hits. Again, Joe Legambi, 84 years old right now, semi-retired. He'll never, if he was involved in this, it will never come back to bite him in my expert opinion. But definitely the fact that there have been a fresh set of eyes in recent years on these six or seven, I call them the new millennium mob murders in Philadelphia. They go from about 99 to 2012. There's one from back in, back in 96, Dutchy Avacoli, but there are six between 99 and 12. Who knows, but interesting insight for Jimmy Buccellato and Benny behind the glass, OG Pod, we're out.