CHAPTER II
WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE FOR THE MURDER?
How do I know that Petto, the Ox, murdered Benedetto? you would ask.
And what could be the motive for his crime?
Follow me a little further.
In January, 1903, several months before Benedetto's body was found inthe barrel, three Italians were arrested in the City of Yonkers. Theywere Isadoro Crocervera, Salvatore Romano and Giuseppe DePriema. Thelatter is the brother-in-law of the barrel-murder victim. The threemen were apprehended by the local police in Yonkers on the charge ofpassing counterfeit five-dollar notes of the National Iron Bank ofMorristown, New Jersey. The Secret Service men were well aware thatthese notes were being imported from Italy by the Morello gang.
When I was called into the case, the Yonkers police, who made thearrest, told me that the three men were accompanied by anotherItalian, a short fellow, who got away. Knowing the ways of the gang,it was plain to me that the escaped Italian was the treasurer of thecrew passing the counterfeit money. Such a treasurer is always hidingin the distance with the greater bulk of the counterfeit bills for thepurpose of making a get-away if the passers get into trouble and arearrested. The treasurer is supposed to rush away to the secret meetingplace of the Black-Hand Society, where a counsel is held to decidejust what plan to follow in the effort to get the members who havebeen arrested out of their peril.
From the description given me of the Italian who made his get-away Irecognized him as a counterfeiter already registered in the files ofthe Secret Service as Number Six. I was also able to identifyCrocervera and DePriema as members of the Corleone gang.
My next move was to bring the Yonkers officers to New York and placethem where they could have a good look at Number Six. The officersidentified the man without hesitation. Number Six was arrested,therefore, on February 19, and gave the name of Giuseppe Giallambardo.He got six years.
The Black-Handers were puzzled. They could not understand how ithappened that Giallambardo had come into the toils unless one of thethree men arrested had "squealed." And perhaps I should say right herethat the gang never realized they were ever under surveillance, andthat every move made by them individually was noted in the dailyreports of Secret Service sent to Washington.
When Crocervera and DePriema were brought to my office I knewin advance that neither of them would talk, having had thecharacteristics of the men recorded long before they were arrested.However, in order to give Crocervera the impression that DePriema hadtold me a lot of the workings of the gang, I hit upon the idea ofkeeping DePriema in my inner office for several hours while Crocerveraremained in an outer office. I was timing my effort for a purpose. AsDePriema was leaving, I stepped to the door with him and shook hishand warmly and patted him on the back in order that Crocervera,seeing the performance, might gain the impression that DePriema hadconfessed all he knew about the gang. Naturally, the object of thismove was to tempt Crocervera to talk and give information importantto the government. But Crocervera did not talk. The subsequent arrestof Giallambardo served to strengthen the impression already planted inthe mind of Crocervera that DePriema had betrayed him, and weoverheard Crocervera telling this to the members of the gang whilethey were in our office.
The gang was not in position to take revenge on DePriema, as he was inSing Sing prison, where the three men had been sent upon conviction onthe charge of passing counterfeit money. Following the hereditarySicilian custom, the gang then proceeded to select a blood relative ofDePriema and mark him for murder. There being no male blood relativeof DePriema on this side of the Atlantic, the Black-Hand Societydecided that the nearest male relative must pay the penalty forDePriema's treason. Benedetto, the brother-in-law, was chosen as thesacrifice.
These details of the motive of the murder, and the society's choosingPetto, the Ox, to do the killing were confessed to me several yearslater by members of the gang after I succeeded in convicting them forcounterfeiting and had them sentenced to long terms in the FederalPenitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia.
As to the identity of Benedetto's kinsman, who made certain of his aimat Petto, the Ox, near the Italian rendezvous where "Il Bove" heldsway in the little Pennsylvania city, I can only answer at the presentwriting that the kinsman was not DePriema, because the latter wasstill in Sing Sing Prison when the murder of the man in the barrel wasavenged.
The Barrel Mystery Page 2
