https://gangstersinc.org/profiles/blogs/colombo-associate-john-pappaJohn Pappa didn't become a crazy killer right away, in fact it looked like Pappa wouldn't go the same route his father had taken. After her gangster husband had been whacked John Pappa's mother moved to Holmdel, N.J.. There everything seemed to go just like she had wanted. Pappa did well in school and became a high school soccer star. But little Pappa secretly had different aspirations, he still wanted to become a made Mafia member. "He could not stay out of Brooklyn and Staten Island," said a source close to the Pappa family. "He was straddling two worlds." Pappa was so entranced by the mob, authorities said, that he had the credo "morte prima di disonore" (=death before dishonor) tattooed across his back. Pappa believed it applied to him and his father. Pappa started selling drugs and pretty soon tried to hook up with a crew run by James "Froggy" Galione a Lucchese mobster. John Pappa seemed to fit right in but Galione wouldn't take him in, Galione knew that back in 1975 Gerard Pappa, then a Genovese soldier, had fired the fatal shots that killed his father, a Gambino associate.
But the rejection didn't stop Pappa. Pretty soon thereafter he became close with the Colombo Crime Family. The Colombo Crime Family is one of the most troublesome Families in New York, having had several internal Family wars. In the early 90s the Colombo Family was caught up in a new internal war. This time it was the Persico faction led by official boss Carmine Persico against the faction led by acting boss Vic Orena, Orena started the war by wanting to be the official boss. John Pappa became an associate of a Mafia Family in serious problems and pretty soon his Family faction asked him to perform his duty as an Family associate: He had to go out and kill. The Persico faction was so weakened that they actually called upon the young associates to perform the hits. John Pappa however was willing and able and saw this as a good way to become a made member and so he went out to do his job and do it good.
