A reputed organizedâ€crime figure once charged with the murder of a restaurant owner who was a key witness in an investigation into an alleged extortion operation in Queens was found slain in the trunk of a car yesterday.
The body of the alleged crime figure, Thomas DiLio, was one of two that were found in the last two days in car trunks. The slayings were apparently unrelated.
The body of Mr. DeLio, 30 years old, of 19 Front Street in the Willamsburg section of Brooklyn, was found at 11:30 A.M. in the trunk of a 1972 Ford parked at 57th Avenue and Van Horn Street in Maspeth, Queens, the police said.
They said he had been reported missing on March 4 and had been dead for weeks. He was identified as the nephew of Pasquale Macciorole, a reputed Mafia figure.
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Along with three others, Mr. DiLio had been charged in 1972 with the gunning down of Conrad Greaves, a restaurant owner in Queens, who, at the time, was giving testimony implicating Pasquale Macciarole, among others, in an extortion scheme.
Eventually, one of the murder suspects was convicted, two were acquitted, and the charges were dropped against Mr. DiLio, the fourth.
The police said yesterday that Mr. DiLio had worked for his uncle's freight company in Jersey City and had been involved in an illegal cigarettedistribution operation. He was found dead, they said, in a car belonging to his girl friend, Elaine Noto of 51â€35 69th Street in Woodside.
The other body, found Wednesday night in the bloodstained trunk of a car in Coney Island, was identified as that of Anthony Orlando, 51 years old, of 466 77th Street in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.
The police identified him as gambler who had about $100 and a wristwatch at the time he was found. They said that he had been roughed up and stabbed to death, and that his wife had reported him missing on March 22.
