Recent additions to the Who Was Who collection of American Mafia biographies:

Frank “Butsey” Morelli was an early leader of Italian organized crime in Rhode Island, mentoring a number of later Mafiosi, including Raymond Patriarca and Henry Tameleo. Morelli and some of his brothers long have been suspected of involvement in the April 1920 South Braintree, Massachusetts, robbery-murders for which Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in August 1927.

Gaspare Messina was one of just two men known to have served as temporary boss of bosses of the American Mafia. He is also distinguished among Mafia leaders by his lack of arrests and apparent competence as a legitimate businessman.

Vincenzo “Jimmy Marino” LePore was one of a small number of Salvatore Maranzano loyalists murdered following Maranzano’s Sept. 10, 1931, assassination. His killing helped to give life to the “Night of Sicilian Vespers” legend in the U.S. Mafia.

Currently under construction:

We are adding an extensive timeline relating to Jimmy Hoffa and his involvement in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union. At this moment the timeline features nearly 200 events up through the year 1959. All timeline items provide source information. Click on the document icon in an item to acquire source reference details.

You can access the timeline through this link: http://mafiahistory.us/a028/f_hoffatime.html

As always, we welcome your comments / criticisms.

A biography of Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo has been added to the website’s Who Was Who section.

Alo
Alo

Alo, a longtime pal of Meyer Lansky, was the inspiration for a number of fictional underworld characters, including “Johnny Ola” of the movie, The Godfather Part II.

In real life, Alo was born in Harlem and became an important figure in the Genovese Crime Family, organizing rackets in Bronx and Westchester Counties, as well as in eastern Florida. He helped to link the crime organization led by Frank Costello, and later Vito Genovese, with Lansky. (Three dozen sources are listed following the article.)

After his retirement, former NYPD Homicide Bureau leader Arthur A. Carey penned an autobiographical book called, Memoirs of a Murder Man. A chapter in that book looked back at the 1903 Barrel Murder and police efforts to put the early Mafia organization of Giuseppe Morello out of business.

Carey
Carey

Carey’s account is noticeably different from the better known story told by William Flynn of the U.S. Secret Service (significant when you note that Flynn’s was published first in book and serial forms and was certainly available to Carey at the time he wrote his book). That Carey chapter, entitled “Murder While You Wait,” has been added to the website.

Several biographies have been added to the Who Was Who section of the website (click on a name to jump to the bio):

All of these biographies have source listings at the end.

A biography of Brooklyn Mafioso Frank “Frankie Shots” Abbatemarco has been added to the American Mafia site’s Who Was Who. Abbatemarco, brother of Mike Abbatemarco, became a powerful and independent-minded capodecina in the Profaci Crime Family. His 1959 murder appeared to be intended to restore discipline in the Profaci organization but, instead, triggered a determined revolt by the Gallo group in South Brooklyn.

A biography of Brooklyn gangster Michael “Mike Schatz (or Shots)” Abbatemarco has been added to the American Mafia site’s Who Was Who. Abbatemarco reportedly was a close associate of Frank Yale, who met his end at about the same time and in about the same manner as Yale.

Barrel Mystery

About one hundred pages of The Barrel Mystery by William J. Flynn can now be accessed on the American Mafia history website.

The Barrel Mystery, published in 1919 (copyright has expired), is the story of U.S. Secret Service efforts to help solve the “barrel murder” of 1903 and to dismantle Mafia counterfeiting operations supervised by Mafia boss of bosses Giuseppe Morello and his brother-in-law Ignazio Lupo. Author Flynn was head of the New York office of the Secret Service when Morello and his men were finally brought to justice.

Portions of the book were previously published on our Caged Wolves website. It is our hope to soon have the entire book available online.

American Mafia website homepage

We have been working on a number of adjustments to the website in order to make it more “friendly” to mobile device users.

Changes include less reliance on table formatting, scalable images and typesizes, and larger link buttons. These were prompted by Google’s announcement that sites deemed unfriendly to mobile users would be ranked poorly in web searches from mobile devices. But we believe the site generally benefits from a cleaner, more streamlined look.

Even desktop users will find the site easier to use, as most pages will require no specific web browser width – the page contents should size to fit whatever area your browser window is sized to.

As always, we welcome your feedback on these changes and on any other issues you may have with the American Mafia history website.