A barrel murder was a method for disposing of the bodies of people killed by early American
mafiosi
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
since the 1870s, although the earliest recorded barrel murders in New York were reported in 1895 and 1900.
The victims, usually Italian immigrants, would be found stuffed inside a barrel after being shot, stabbed, or strangled to death, and left on a random street corner or back alley, or shipped to a nonexistent address in another city. First used by the Sicilian Provenzano crime family in
and the
Morello crime family
The Morello crime family () was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defea ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, the barrel murders eventually alerted authorities to the existence of the Mafia, leading to the later investigation by New Orleans police chief
David C. Hennessy, whose own eventual assassination was attributed to Sicilian mafiosi in 1890, resulting in one of the
largest mass lynchings in U.S. history. New York detective
Joseph Petrosino
Joseph Petrosino (born Giuseppe Petrosino, ; August 30, 1860 – March 12, 1909) was an Italian-born New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who was a pioneer in the fight against organized crime. Crime fighting techniques that Petrosino ...
's early investigations into the New York barrel murders would lead to a crackdown against the Black Hand and the Morellos until his assassination in 1909. The Morellos, suspected of over 100 murders, continued to use the barrel murder for over thirty years until eventually ceasing after the (now well-publicized) murders resulted in unwanted attention from local authorities. Other non-Italian criminals used the same method to draw police suspicion away from themselves onto the Morellos and other Italian mafiosi.
Recent use
The method was later used in
Johnny Roselli
John "Handsome Johnny" Roselli (born Filippo Sacco; July 4, 1905 – August 7, 1976), sometimes spelled Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped that organization control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. In the ear ...
's death when he was found in a 55-gallon oil drum off the coast of
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
in 1976.
[{{cite magazine , title=Deep Six for Johnny , url= http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/R%20Disk/Roselli%20John/Item%2008.pdf , magazine=]Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
, pages=23–25 , date=August 23, 1976 , via=The Harold Weisberg Harold Weisberg (April 8, 1913 – February 21, 2002) served as an
Office of Strategic Services officer during World War II, a U.S. Senate staff member and investigative reporter, an investigator for the Senate Committee on Civil Liberties, and a ...
Archive It is generally believed Roselli was murdered in revenge for his skimming profits from Las Vegas casinos, but given Roselli's involvement with CIA plots against
Fidel Castro in Cuba, others have suggested that Roselli's death was not at the hands of fellow mobsters but that the killers used the barrel method to cast suspicion towards the Mafia.
Resources
External links
"The Barrel Murder (1903)" Gangrule.
Gangland warfare tactics
Criminal homicide
American Mafia