The Sixth Family Read Online Free Page B
Author: Lee Lamothe
Simon, appalled and frightened by Rizzuto’s threats, decided to settle this problem in the same anti-social way he dealt with his mounting debts. He reached out to his underworld contacts.
Vito Rizzuto was sleeping on his cot when three men slipped into his hideaway shack during the night of August 12, 1933. They wasted little time before bashing his head in with a cement block tamper, a heavy metal device made for compacting uneven concrete. The tamper was brought down again and again, up and down his body. Ropes were then looped around his neck and yanked, an unnecessary precaution as he was already dead. The assassins cloaked his body with cement bags and wrapped it again in the canvas cover of a cement block machine before dragging it into the nearby swamp, to the very spot where Rizzuto had been drawing water for the cement. They pushed him into it and left. He was 32 years old.
When the watchman at the stone quarry realized he had not seen Rizzuto for several weeks, he went to the shack to check on him. He found the door open and no sign of Rizzuto, although his “good” clothes had been left behind. Fearful, the watchman called the local sheriff, who arrived and immediately noticed a trail leading to the swamp; something heavy had been dragged from the shack. The sheriff then “sounded” the water in the swamp by poking down with a long steel bar. When foul-smelling bubbles arose, he dragged the water and soon found Rizzuto’s submerged corpse.
The autopsy report spares little detail: “[The victim’s] mutilated and battered body was found buried in a hole in a swamp near an abandoned stone quarry. Chief cause of death: fracture of skull—comp[ound]. Other causes: rupture of liver; internal hemorrhage; simple fracture of fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth ribs on left side.” Coroner Dr. Robert Cleaver, who conducted the examination, concluded: “Homicide by crushing instrument.”
When the victim was identified as Vito Rizzuto, police were not surprised. The activities of the arson ring had already come under investigation. A month before Rizzuto’s body was found, the New York State Police had received an alert from officers in Passaic County to be on the lookout for him. He was wanted for arson after a small hotel was torched.
The police investigation moved quickly. People who knew plenty were talking too much, particularly John Chirichello, Rizzuto’s friend, whom Simon had first approached with his arson scheme. Chirichello told police the details of the printing plant fire, as well as Simon’s subsequent dispute with Rizzuto over payment. Investigators, meanwhile, had determined that Stefano Spinello was the only person in New Jersey who knew where Rizzuto had been hiding.
Max Simon, Stefano Spinello, and a third man, Rosario Arcuro, another of Rizzuto’s friends, were charged with his murder. The theory of the prosecutor was that Simon had hired the other two to track down Rizzuto and kill him. They had killed Rizzuto either to protect Simon from Rizzuto’s revenge or to shut him up in the face of an investigation into the arson ring. The names of Rizzuto’s killers remain provocative: Spinello is also sometimes spelled Spinella—the last name of Calogero Renda’s mother’s family—and Arcuro has an alternate spelling of Arcuri—the name of a Sixth Family clan from Cattolica Eraclea who would remain close to the Rizzuto family to this day. Could he have been killed by kin? Answers do not come easy.
In response to the charges against him, Max Simon pulled every string he could wrap his crooked fingers around. After being convicted of the arson, he had a soft landing, editing a newspaper and writing columns from his jail cell and, able to acquire steaks and a stove to cook them on, maintained his rich diet. He only served nine months of his three-year sentence and was released after a special session of the New Jersey Court of Pardons. The murder charge was then
Vito Rizzuto was sleeping on his cot when three men slipped into his hideaway shack during the night of August 12, 1933. They wasted little time before bashing his head in with a cement block tamper, a heavy metal device made for compacting uneven concrete. The tamper was brought down again and again, up and down his body. Ropes were then looped around his neck and yanked, an unnecessary precaution as he was already dead. The assassins cloaked his body with cement bags and wrapped it again in the canvas cover of a cement block machine before dragging it into the nearby swamp, to the very spot where Rizzuto had been drawing water for the cement. They pushed him into it and left. He was 32 years old.
When the watchman at the stone quarry realized he had not seen Rizzuto for several weeks, he went to the shack to check on him. He found the door open and no sign of Rizzuto, although his “good” clothes had been left behind. Fearful, the watchman called the local sheriff, who arrived and immediately noticed a trail leading to the swamp; something heavy had been dragged from the shack. The sheriff then “sounded” the water in the swamp by poking down with a long steel bar. When foul-smelling bubbles arose, he dragged the water and soon found Rizzuto’s submerged corpse.
The autopsy report spares little detail: “[The victim’s] mutilated and battered body was found buried in a hole in a swamp near an abandoned stone quarry. Chief cause of death: fracture of skull—comp[ound]. Other causes: rupture of liver; internal hemorrhage; simple fracture of fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth ribs on left side.” Coroner Dr. Robert Cleaver, who conducted the examination, concluded: “Homicide by crushing instrument.”
When the victim was identified as Vito Rizzuto, police were not surprised. The activities of the arson ring had already come under investigation. A month before Rizzuto’s body was found, the New York State Police had received an alert from officers in Passaic County to be on the lookout for him. He was wanted for arson after a small hotel was torched.
The police investigation moved quickly. People who knew plenty were talking too much, particularly John Chirichello, Rizzuto’s friend, whom Simon had first approached with his arson scheme. Chirichello told police the details of the printing plant fire, as well as Simon’s subsequent dispute with Rizzuto over payment. Investigators, meanwhile, had determined that Stefano Spinello was the only person in New Jersey who knew where Rizzuto had been hiding.
Max Simon, Stefano Spinello, and a third man, Rosario Arcuro, another of Rizzuto’s friends, were charged with his murder. The theory of the prosecutor was that Simon had hired the other two to track down Rizzuto and kill him. They had killed Rizzuto either to protect Simon from Rizzuto’s revenge or to shut him up in the face of an investigation into the arson ring. The names of Rizzuto’s killers remain provocative: Spinello is also sometimes spelled Spinella—the last name of Calogero Renda’s mother’s family—and Arcuro has an alternate spelling of Arcuri—the name of a Sixth Family clan from Cattolica Eraclea who would remain close to the Rizzuto family to this day. Could he have been killed by kin? Answers do not come easy.
In response to the charges against him, Max Simon pulled every string he could wrap his crooked fingers around. After being convicted of the arson, he had a soft landing, editing a newspaper and writing columns from his jail cell and, able to acquire steaks and a stove to cook them on, maintained his rich diet. He only served nine months of his three-year sentence and was released after a special session of the New Jersey Court of Pardons. The murder charge was then
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