It was mainly due to his brother billy veasey , he was worried for his young brother and urged him to get out of the life , stanfa found out and ordered him to be killed , he was summoned to a meeting were frank martines and al pagano tried unsuccessfully tried to murder him . The rest is history , he testified against stanfa putting him away for life , his brother billy was murdered on the day john was due to testify to try and silence him . It didn't work and made him an even more determined to testify , I wouldn't like to be the killers of billy veasey , John is a maniac and I have no doubt he will not rest until he has avenged his brothers death