Originally Posted by NYMafia
Originally Posted by dsd
Originally Posted by jace
So that is where the fake story comes from, Thom L. Jones. This part here is not believable:

Russo had hired two black people to wait on his guests. One was Charles Shepard, a local man, thirty-one year old part-time musician and bar tender. The other, was his common-in-law wife, Shirley Green, who worked as a waitress, and lived in Manhattan. There were over thirty people attending, including children. The party was held in the large basement area of the property. By the end of the night, Russo was either drunk or stoned or a combination of the two, and he noticed that Shepard was drinking his booze, and even worse, dancing and trying to make out with the wife of his nephew.

Incensed, he stormed upstairs into his bedroom where he kept a loaded .38 calibre hand gun, came tumbling back down the stairs and in front of the entire party, emptied the gun into Shepard, killing him instantly. The chaos that erupted must have been electrifying. While some of the guests held a struggling and screaming Shirley, Russo then staggered back to his bedroom, found his ammunition box, re-loaded the gun and went back down to the basement where he shot Shirley six times in the head.

The guests were hustled away to their homes, and along with three of his remaining friends, Russo carried the two bodies to a car which was driven to Pine Brook Road in Montville about fifteen miles away, and the two dead bodies were dumped unceremoniously into snow drifts that lined the street. They were discovered there the first day of January, and the New Jersey police mounted an investigation.

30 women and children, no witnesses, and the black man is forcing a woman to kiss him in front of everyone, including his own wife!!!!! No way. Considering how LE goes after mob cases, those people, including the grown up kids, would have been tracked downed questioned. It's an over the top story that may have some basis in fact, but cannot be anywhere near the truth. Thank you Furio for providing us with the source for the fictional tale.




Doesn't say the African American guy was " forcing" a ( white ) woman to kiss him, how'd you come to that?

What I've read is they were ' dancing ' together and I'm dubious that even happened.

How is it complete fiction , went to trial twice. And just because a mobster got off in 1970s New Jersey doesn't mean much.

Is anything more known about Fatty Russo. @NYMafia or anyone else




Dad, these were real events that took place. Not make believe or fantasy.

Joseph “Fatty” Russo was a reputed hoodlum, and he was said to have committed the double murders of two black people, Charles Sheppard and Shirley Green, who he had allegedly hired to serve as bartenders at a 1970 New Year’s Eve party he threw for guests at his NJ home.

About a year after the killings, in 1971 or so, he was arrested and charged with their murders. I don’t remember the exact particulars of the case, but I think he may have gone on the lam and was later recaptured.

During the course of the investigation, at one point it was also alleged that several Colombo Family figures, namely Joseph “Joe Yak” Yacovelli and Carmine “Sonny Pinto” DeBiase, helped to hide and protect Russo in the aftermath of the killings.



How would you know?