Gene Mustain - Murder Machine: A True Story of Murder, Madness, and the Mafia

A MODERN-DAY MURDER INCORPORATED... A VICIOUS GAMBINO CRIME FAMILY CREW... SO BRUTAL THAT EVEN JOHN GOTTI FEARED THEM... A VIVID, CHILLING TALE OF MOB TREACHERY AND DEPRAVITY THAT SHOULD DISPEL ANY REMAINING ROMANTIC MYTHS ABOUT MAFIA LIFE. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Library Journal

Nobody knows the mob like Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain, and in Murder Machine, theyve got the most amazing wiseguy story yet... the saga of a crew of serial killers run amok, a cross between The Godfather and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Gail Collins, columnist,
New York Newsday

Murder Machine shows us that the latest and last model for the mobs inspiration is Caligulas Romewhere murder is just another form of recreation... chillingly told.

Murray Kempton,
Pulitzer prizewinning columnist

This is the scariest book Ive ever read about the mob. Weve heard tales about professional killers and tales of solitary serial killers. But this is the tale of a complete gang of serial killers. They maimed. They tortured. They slaughtered. And they enjoyed it. After this, nobody can ever write another Mafia romance.

Pete Hamill

The authors re-create the DeMeo underworld in gripping detail... A MASTERPIECE OF TRUE-CRIME REPORTING.

Publishers Weekly

for Doreen, forever

for my wife, Barbara, and our children, Matthew, Jenna, and Craig

and for those New York Daily News strikers who stood tall and chased the bullies out of town

ONYX

Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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Published by Onyx, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Dutton edition.

First Onyx Printing, July 1993

Copyright Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci, 1992, 1993

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-101-66588-6

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It was about six p.m., already pitch black out, and one of those wet stingy snows was coming down hard. Mr. Todaro parked his car in the street in front of the crews clubhouse. He was an older gentleman, sixty, I think. What was about to happen to him was, well, to me it was something out of Auschwitz. Roy had ordered Freddy, who was like Roys servant, to lure Mr. Todaro to the clubhouse by making him think Roy had a used car to sell. But actually Roy was going to kill him so that the mans nephew, a friend of Roys, could take over Mr. Todaros film-production business. Roy was always available for this kind of work. After the first few, I think he started enjoying it.

Anyway, its dark and its snowing and as expected Mr. Todaro sees Roys guy Freddy waiting outside and says hello. They start walking toward the clubhouse. Now, there is a picture window with venetian blinds next to the doorway, and as Freddys walking he sees someone inside the clubhouse pinch the blinds and look out. All he sees is the persons eyeballs; its eerie and he begins to quiver. He knows Mr. Todaro is going to die, but hes never seen Roy DeMeo murder before.

Mr. Todaro goes in first. There is a living room off the hallway that leads to the kitchen. As soon as Mr. Todaro is past the opening to the living room, Freddy is startled to see someone he knows, Chris, leaping out into the hallway with a butcher knife in his hand; it was an almost balletic move. Chris, by the way, was the first kid to join Roys crew; at the moment, he doesnt have any clothes on, except for his Jockey shorts. He always worked in his underwear because he didnt want to bloody his clothes. Freddy starts to wet his pantshe believes Chris is going to stab himbut no, Chris just grabs him by the arm and wings him out of the way. You, over here! he says.

Freddy then sees Roy DeMeo coming out of the dark from the other end of the hall, just gliding along, and hes got a gun in one hand and a white towel in the other. He just glides up and shoots dumbfounded Mr. Todaro in the head, and before the man even hits the floor Roy is wrapping the towel around his head to prevent the blood from spurting all over. Then Chris comes over and stabs Mr. Todaro in the heart. Many times. That stops it from pumping blood, Roy tells Freddy, whos still shaking. The murder only takes a few seconds, but of course theyre not done yet. Theyre going to make Mr. Todaro disappear.

Some other kids in Roys crew appear from somewhere, and they all drag Mr. Todaros body across the kitchen and into the bathroom, where they put it in a bathtub. Now, before they begin cutting Mr. Todaro up, they have to wait forty-five minutes or so, until his blood congeals. Dismemberment isnt so messy that way, Roy tells Freddy, like Freddy was a medical student. So they wait. Maybe they even ordered a pizza, I dont know, but we do know they did that once while waiting. One of the men waiting actually lived in the clubhouse. The others called him Dracula, and not just because he had silver hair and a deep voice.

As I indicated, Mr. Todaro was one of those free-lance jobs that Roy and the crew did. There were a lot of those. But normally they were out making money for a gangster named Nino. You knew Nino was a gangster soon as he walked into a room; he was a murderer too, but did not do as much killing, and so far as we know, was not present for any of the dismemberments at the clubhouse. Neither was Dominick, who was the guy Nino used to collect his cash and keep an eye on the DeMeo crew. When Dominick was a little boy, Nino practically stole him from his father. Dominick went on to be a Green Beret war hero in Nam, and was a tough guy, but he did not have a killers eyes. Roy and his crew, they all did.