The so-called “hit list” probably went by the same order as Accardo gave the questions to his younger protégé Tony Spilotro. For example, the first question probably went something like on, who the hell “hacked” the alarm system and obviously Spilotro’s answer was Johnny Mendell and so he was the first one destined to “step to the other side”. On January 16, 1978, Mendell received a phone call from Ronnie Jarrett and told him that he, meaning Jarrett, had something good for him. Story goes that Jarrett brought Mendell to a garage where he was greeted by the Calabrese brothers and Frank Saladino, who in turn wore plastic gloves on their hands. Mendell probably was tortured for awhile and then his dead corpse appeared almost a month later on February 20, 1978, in a trunk of car on the city’s South Side. He had countless cigarette burns all over his body and multiple stab wounds and in the end his throat was cut from ear to ear. Obviously being viciously tortured is not a pleasant thing and so I believe that Mendell probably “sang” a little bit regarding the question on who planned the burglary and so next in line on the Outfit’s “hit list” became Moretti and later the whole burglary crew, meaning from that point on, the so-called domino effect of Accardo’s throat-slashing campaign began. The second unlucky guy, who crossed the paths with the Outfit’s hit-team, was Bernard Ryan. He fell on the same trick by receiving a phone call from John DiFronzo who in turn told him that he had some job which involved golden coins. Later, Ryan’s corpse appeared four days after Mendell was kidnapped, in the trunk of his 1976 Lincoln, which was parked in Stone Park. Ryan’s throat was cut multiple times and on top of that he was shot four times in the head, quite violent death signs which indicate that “somebody” was quite mad at the victim regarding “something”.


On January 31, 1978, Moretti together with his long time associate Donald Renno were driving around the Cicero area, when suddenly a black van crossed their path, three guys with ski-masks and guns pulled them out of their car, placed them in the back of the van, and sped off into a unknown direction. Later the two dead bodies of Moretti and Renno appeared on February 4, 1978, in the trunk of Renno’s Cadillac which was parked in the lot of Esther’s Place at 5009 South Central Avenue, Stickney. According to the gruesome death and wounds which were found all over Moretti’s body, obviously the Outfit knew that he was the one who planned the burglary on Accardo’s home. The victim’s face was all burned out with an acetylene torch, the torso was all cut open and some of the internal organs were removed, and he was also castrated. As for Renno, he was found wedged next to his friend “only” with his throat cut from ear to ear, obviously because he was only a so-called “collateral damage” in this whole situation. Two days before the two bodies were discovered, on February 2, 1978, the well-dressed body of Moretti’s close associate Steve Garcia also popped up in the trunk of a rental car which was parked at the Sheraton O’Hare Hotel on Manheim Road. Same as Ryan, Garcia’s throat was also cut multiple times which indicates that the killers knew that he was close to Moretti and gave him a violent and painful death.


Immediately after the discovery of Moretti’s dead corpse, the feds decided to raid his home and search for some clues. When the cops entered the victim’s home, they found almost nothing except for one “weird” detail which was a load of boxes filled with silver and golden cufflinks. Now, the so-called wired detail regarding the cufflinks was that these gifts were usually given by high profile members from the Mob to their lower level associates as some sort of gratitude or as Christmas gifts. But also for those who were not members of the Outfit, they rarely knew that the “generous” act sometimes might’ve represented a farewell gift, meaning somebody was going to get clipped. For example, Vince Moretti’s brother Salvatore, before he was killed, allegedly Giancana gave him a pair of diamond cufflinks in a fake appreciation of a job well done, which in reality was a disaster and became Salvatore’s demise. Obviously the point of the gift was to relax their targets before they made the attack. But I’m quite confused on who could’ve relaxed Vince Moretti that much after robbing the house of one of the most dangerous individuals in the country. I mean, I’m also confused on why the hell Moretti and the rest of the guys involved didn’t skip the country or least the state of Illinois. All of the suspected burglars wondered freely around the city of Chicago like nothing ever happened. I cannot believe that they were so stupid to think that Accardo wouldn’t guess on who really burglarized him. That is the most mysterious thing for me regarding the coolness of the alleged burglars after they allegedly pulled off one of the most dangerous “jobs” of the century.


One of craziest things which occurred during the murder spree was the using of the same situation by another gang for their own purposes. You see, a drug dealer named Bobby Hertogs disappeared on March 30, and on April 6, 1978, his body was found in the trunk of a stolen car which was left on a parking lot at 3552 West Grand Avenue on the city’s Near West Side. He was shot several times and his throat was cut from ear to ear. In reality, Hertogs was killed on the orders of Chicago drug kingpin Jack Farmer, who in turn copied the same method of Accardo’s hit team and so many investigators were manipulated and at the same time confused regarding Hertog’s killing. Another similar situation occurred when one random Outfit connected burglar without any evidence that he was involved in the burglary of Accardo’s home but same as everyone, he only knew and sometimes worked with these individuals. That guy went by the name of John McDonald who was found shot in the head and neck on April 14, 1978, in an alley behind 446 North Racine Avenue on the city’s Northwest Side. I believe that there are two reasons on why McDonald was killed. One was for just being made an example regarding the burglary of Accardo’s home and two he was actually killed because of some internal Outfit “politics”. I also believe that McDonald was lured or killed by his long time companions John Borsellino and Gerry Carusiello, which also makes me think that McDonald was killed regarding some conflict rather than the burglary. Some Mob authors stated in their projects, regarding the same subject, that McDonald’s throat was also cut as the rest of the previous victims. Well that’s not true because his throat was shot instead of cut which indicates that the killers were not from Accardo’s hit team. I also think that this might’ve not been a sanctioned murder by the Outfit but instead “somebody” decided to use the situation and to act on his own and to make things look like it was just another dead body in the “mysterious” killing spree. Right after the McDonald murder, the killings went on pause but now it was the government’s turn.


The sudden increase of Mob-related homicides apparently fanned the normally suspicious attitudes of the various law enforcement agencies to a fevered pitch and eventually, with the help of the FBI’s facts and reports, the government decided to bring Chicago’s “Mafia Don” Tony Accardo before a grand jury regarding the case. In September, 1978, during the federal investigation, besides Accardo, certain people were also brought before the grand jury to shed some light on the events, including members of the Accardo family such as his wife Clarice and his daughter Linda, and also his long time handyman Mike Volpe. Regarding the burglary in their home, the members of the Accardo family all denied that there was a break-in and later they all took the Fifth Amendment. So Accardo had a good reason to sit relaxed in his chair and wondered around with his innocent look like he wasn’t aware of what was going on. But Accardo’s chances of getting out of this one started decreasing, when his caretaker and friend, 75 year old Volpe took the stand and told the jury in fact that there was a break-in and that he reported it to his landlord and that was that. Now, even the birds on the trees and the rats in the sewers couldn’t believe what they’ve just heard? The whole Planet Earth stopped turning at least for a second. Everybody was stunned and even the judge and the prosecutors couldn’t believe their ears. I mean this guy was with Accardo for more than 30 years and heard and saw only God knows what, and all of a sudden he decided to spill the beans?! Even though all of the witnesses testified separately, when the hearings ended, Accardo jumped from his chair, took his family straight out of the building, jumped in the front seat of their car and sped off. As for Volpe, he had to take a cab into a certain death trip. Accardo received info from his lawyer Carl Walsh that Volpe opened his mouth since both Accardo and Volpe had the same attorney which was Walsh. When he arrived at the Accardo mansion, allegedly Volpe was greeted with a smile by the old gangster and was allegedly told not to worry and that he did the right thing. Who knows, maybe Volpe also received a box of cufflinks?!


Story goes that Volpe was indeed very loyal to Accardo because obviously, in such a long time period he might’ve heard or saw anything, but the problem for Accardo was that Volpe was clean, meaning he didn’t want to get involved or hear about murder. So maybe there was sort of a line between the two long time companions and the deal was that same line never to be crossed. But now they both crossed the line. Obviously, Accardo expected from Volpe to lie in front of the jury regarding the robbery since his whole family was implicated by the government. Accardo knew that if the feds had a proof that there was break-in, the possibility of implicating him in the murders was much higher. But now, his companion implicated him and his family. So one thing led to another and five days after the hearings, Mike Volpe left Accardo’s home and was never seen or heard from ever again. Some say he was dismembered and then thrown into a barrel filled with acid, some say he a crashed in some car and then thrown in a junk yard, and some even say that he was banished by Accardo in some foreign country, which I hardly believe is the truth. My personal pick is the second opinion, that Volpe was gone all together with his own car. No matter the deal, in Accardo’s mind Volpe talked and he had to go. That’s it.


But now the government was also mad and there was a good reason for them to be because they were the guilty ones for not protecting Volpe after his testimony. Even if he refused any government protection, they should’ve arrested him and at least place him in custody since the whole universe knew that by telling the truth, it was the end of him. And because of mistakes such as this one, sometimes the government looses its trust among the people. So the feds picked up a search warrant and showed up in front of Accardo’s home. In fact this time the feds secured a search warrant for the premises of the house for the purpose of locating personal effects including keys, wallet, credit cards, jewellery, clothing or any kind of belongings of Volpe. No one from the family was inside because Accardo and his wife were again vacationing in California, and his kids were with their families. So somebody called for Accardo’s daughter Linda, who in turn quickly arrived at the scene while throwing threats and bad words at the agents. When inside, the agents ransacked the whole place and they managed to find Accardo’s walk-in safe in his basement and inside they discovered somewhere around $275,000, two revolvers and a pair of diamond cufflinks. The cash was stashed in 55 stacks of $5,000 each and so the feds immediately “packed” everything up and took it to their “lab” for further investigation.


Again, the aging crime boss’ vacation was ruined since he was again forced to come back home to Chicago. When Accardo heard about the bad news, story goes that he again went “nuts” and immediately called for his lawyer Carl Walsh and filed for an appeal. During the hearings, the prosecutors suggested that the money had evidentiary value because it might’ve been possible evidence of a motive for the alleged burglary of Accardo's home. But Walsh said that even if the rumour was true, the government still had no right to maintain custody of the money because the property seized was taken from the alleged victim, instead of the alleged burglar. After that the government also suggested that the cash might be used as the evidence of "perjury" against the Accardo family during the hearings regarding the robbery. Again, even if this was true also, there was no sign of any kind of perjury since the Accardos decided to keep their mouths shut which was far from lying about any event. So one thing led to another and Accardo got his stash back, which was not something unusual since his whole criminal career he always somehow managed to beat the law.


The last chance the government had against Accardo, regarding the missing Mike Volpe, was taking his long time friend Nick Palermo before a grand jury under a grant of immunity from prosecution. It was the same tactic that got Sam Giancana in jail years ago and so the same happened to Palermo. On January 3, 1979, he refused to testify allegedly because he feared the emotional stress would further damage his already weak heart. But after hearing from a psychiatrist who examined Palermo that in fact he was quite stable individual, the jury found him in contempt of court for continuing to refuse to testify. Palermo was present in court, but did not testify during the three-hour hearing and so in the end he was sentenced to one year in jail. Palermo knew that the long time friendship with Accardo might’ve easily been gone down the toilet if he had said one word about the whole situation and that’s why he played it smart by keeping his mouth shut and taking the rep.


Also, during the investigations, the feds somehow realized that Accardo’s attorney and personal friend Carl Walsh, as lawyer for both Volpe and Accardo, was in a position to keep Accardo informed of what Volpe have told the grand jurors as well as what he may have been prepared to tell them. So the grand jury then subpoenaed Walsh, who they believed to be one of the last persons to have seen Volpe. Usually individuals like Walsh who are constantly associated with people like Accardo, they start to known more and more Mob secrets which gives them the nickname “Mob-lawyers”. But my point is that Walsh wasn’t some ordinary criminal but instead he was an attorney for some of the top level Outfit criminals in the city of Chicago, meaning he knew his way around the law. First of all he somehow managed to refuse from accepting the subpoena but again he was ordered to appear before the grand jury on July 11, 1979. Walsh came to the grand jury room on that date but refused to enter the room and so government filed a motion for a rule for Walsh to be held in contempt. But Walsh asserted that the attorney-client relationship will be endangered if he was compelled to testify and so the district court ruled that the government could not question Walsh unless it established that the materials and information sought were not covered by the attorney-client privilege which automatically made Accardo invincible.


Many situations remained unclear regarding the whole thing, until two decades later when Outfit hitman, turned informer, Nick Calabrese decided to shed some light over some of the murders. But the main problem for the government was that by that time Tony Accardo was long gone. He passed away from natural causes in 1992, untouched by the law his whole life. His legendary viciousness gave him the image of the “Boogeyman” among Chicago’s criminal brotherhood, which out of fear, most of them kneeled in front of their long time top boss. If you stood in front of the old man, you would’ve witnessed a mean old guy, who by this time was a nothing of a man but as we can see with the previous examples that he still commanded huge and deadly respect. The whole underworld was taught a lesson, which meant that the Chicago Outfit was still in full effect and was deadly as ever. Years later, few “geriatric” burglars decided to make the same “mistake”, meaning they planned to broke in the house of another fearsome Outfit “captain” but this time the burglars played it safe because the criminal big shot was already deceased.



Nick Calabrese


But before we step forward to the last chapter, first I want to tell you a short story of another, completely different and also Outfit-connected burglary group which was formed by street criminals and corrupt men from the law. This was a quite lucrative crew which operated from the mid 1980’s up until the late 1990’s and on top of that, they had their operations all around the country. They used very sophisticated methods of stealing, thus making millions of dollars in the process. So again, to understand the origins of this particular group we have to go back in time, for at least two decades, and witness the life of one corrupt Chicago cop who managed to split his life in two ways.


William “Bill” Hanhardt became a Chicago police officer back in 1953, and through years he constantly made headlines by arresting criminals all over town. By the early 1960’s, he and one of his partners John Hinchy led the so-called “burglary squad” for the Chicago department. Like for example in 1962, while staking out a North Side home, Hanhardt encountered three robbers with a submachine gun and ended up in a shootout in which two of the suspects were killed. After that, the man became a legend and was well respected all over the country. But the thing was that his honest image was false, because in reality he received bribes from top Chicago criminals, such as Angelo Volpe. During those days, almost every cop was “on the take”, just like days of Prohibition. Volpe was a guy who mostly operated as the overseer of the policy racket for the Outfit on the city’s South Side but during this period he also worked for the top boss of the Melrose Park area and all western suburbs, Sam Battaglia. So by being one of the syndicate’s payoff men, Volpe regularly gave Hanhardt his “cut” in all forms of bribes, from $1,000 a month to a new car almost every year. From this point on, by being constantly in direct contacts with all kinds of burglars and mobsters, I personally believe that Hanhardt became so corrupt and started making and planning his own schemes, obviously with the help of the same criminals.



William “Bill” Hanhardt


By the late 1960’s, most of the upper echelon of the so-called Melrose Park crew ended up in jail and so later many of the members stepped to the so-called Grand Avenue mob and Hanhardt’s new “sponsor” became one ruthless member of that crew, known as Tony Spilotro. Now this guy was also a former burglar, current hitman and extortionist and was also one of the Outfit’s so-called “representatives” in Arizona but later during the mid 1970’s, he became the Outfit’s representative in Las Vegas, Nevada. Besides being a killer, loan shark and extortionist, Spilotro also controlled two burglary crews, one in Chicago, which later transferred to Las Vegas and became known as the “Hole in the Wall Gang”, and another one in Arizona. Spilotro’s crew in Arizona was overseen by another Outfit member known as Paul Schiro, who in turn later succeeded Spilotro as the new representative down there.



Schiro was also a killer for Outfit and was a suspect in more than few murders. For example, he was the key suspect in the “Godfather” style murders of four businessmen on July 22, 1977, in an elevator of a Park Ridge office building. He was also suspect in the 1983 murder of the Outfit’s main union extortionist Allen Dorfman. This information came from form burglar-mobster-turned-informant known as Frank Cullotta, the same guy who often associated the Daddanos back in the 1960’s. Later he transferred to Las Vegas where he worked for Spilotro as a hitman and also as professional burglar in the “Hole in the Wall” gang. Cullotta told the investigators that he had overheard some of his mob associates discussing the Park Ridge murders and saying something like "Paulie does things in bunches." In plane words, Schiro was no joke. Everybody called him the “Indian” because of his similar looks of a Native American. It was all “feathers and drums” for Schiro since Arizona was considered by the National Crime Syndicate as “open territory” and everybody had their own operations. For example, Schiro was big in the prostitution business by controlling an extensive network of massage parlors in Phoenix, Tucson and Scottsdale, which were often visited by all kinds of lawyers, politicians, businessmen and judges, who were availing themselves with prostitutes and orgies. But “pimping” prostitutes to high clientele wasn’t Schiro’s main business, but instead it was burglarising.



Paul Schiro


One of his main, and at the same time, quite lucrative schemes was stealing systematic diversion of gold and other precious metals from Motorola plants in the metropolitan Phoenix area. The whole thing started during the late 1960’s, when the Motorola Company managed to build a new plant in Tucson. But before building the first plant, story goes that they allegedly asked a favour from Sam Nanini for the land purchase. This guy was a former Chicagoan who later became a prominent Tucson businessman, who always spoke proudly of his Italian ancestry, his formation of Rock Road Construction Co. in Chicago, his Arizona property purchases which started way back in 1939, his Casas Adobes shopping center, Nanini cotton farm and plush Tucson National Golf Club. The thing was that Nanini had a quite long history of mob ties to ex-Capone gangsters from the past such as Mike Carrozzo and Louis Campagna and so with his help, the Outfit managed to place its claws into the Motorola firm. According to some reports, during the 1970’s, many millions of dollars in gold per year were being used as plating on circuit boards and in other electronic components. In turn, Schiro worked, or posed, as a cook at the Cappy’s Sandwiches bar at 51st Street, right across the Motorola factory and from that particular plant, most of the gold was being stolen. Later, the Outfit made sales of reprocessed gold bars on the international billion dollar market. Having the power over the executives at the company, the Outfit had a remarkable scheme, which was followed by silence, meaning the Motorola executives never called the cops on the sizable organized crime diversion of gold that went straight out the back door. The Outfit allegedly profited somewhere between $500,000 and $700,000 a year from the scheme but by the late 1970’s the Treasury Department had become aware of the bad situation within the Motorola section in Arizona and by the early 1980’s the government really got interested in the case and many people, or so-called “sacrificial lambs”, were placed behind bars, but the Outfit remained untouched.


By the mid 1980’s, Schiro’s second main scheme is where police officer Bill Hanhardt comes in. Now this was a very sophisticated operation which included stalking jewellery salesmen around the country and later robbing from their precious stash. The trick was that Schiro and the Outfit needed an inside information on these lucrative travellers such as their travel routes, resting places like hotels and apartments, and also private dealings. And how they planned to get that kind of information? Obviously the answer was, through Hanhardt, since he had quite an easy access to the police database and he also had the authority and people for surveillance over the targets. Most of this help came from Hanhardt’s old colleagues on the police force, since he had them all in his pocket because he was the one, who previously skyrocketed their careers. So after receiving the needed information, Schiro would send few of his specialized goons to make duplicate keys of the target’s car or home and also to collect private information from close sources. Sometimes they would send a prostitute to some rich businessman, who after a few hours usually remained only with his shorts on.


The crew was formed by a bunch of Outfit operatives, such as Sam DeStefano, William Brown, Joe Basinski, Sal Romano, Jimmy D’Antonio, Robert Paul and Guy Altobello, and all of these guys were professionals and they also knew an army of small time thieves. Some of these fellas came from a long bloodline of criminals, like for example DeStefano who in turn was the nephew of the late “Mad Sam” DeStefano, one of the Outfit’s most gruesome former members. The so-called “masterminds” of the group obviously were Schiro and Hanhardt, but the “leader of the pack”, meaning the burglary crew, was Basinski. He was a long time partner in crime with Hanhardt and he was the one who gathered the men and later directed the activities. Basinski’s job was to identify the potential targets by doing physical surveillance and running database searches, and later through telephone calls he informed his people regarding the target. If it was needed, he even recruited additional members for big time jobs and also fenced the stolen loot. Altobello’s job was to provide the other members of the crew with information regarding jewellery salespersons who conducted business with Altobello Jewelers, Inc., which was his personal jewellery store, and in addition to identifying salespersons, Altobello also provided information about the type and quality of merchandise they carried and how it was transported, their schedules, the vehicle license plates, and the type of vehicles they drove. In fact, he provided crucial information about the targets, thus making him an important and a significant contributor to the operations.


D’Antonio’s job was to provide the gang with all the needed tools and instrumentalities for the operation in order to assist in gaining access to vehicles, hotel rooms, safety deposit boxes and other locations, also tools to avoid detection or to escape law enforcement, including locksmith tools, key-making machines, related publications, automobile instruction books, automobile keys, hotel keys, key blanks, lock picks, "slim jims," smoke grenades, fake mustaches and fake beard, key cutting dies, wrenches and other hand tools, evasion devices, taser, cam set, key cutters, bullet proof vests, cameras, listening devices, and key code books. In other words, the guy had everything. Robert Paul was the guy with the mobile phones, walkie-talkies and all kinds of electronic communicators and Sal Romano knew how to handle alarms and he often travelled to Las Vegas where he operated with the “Hole in the Wall” gang, which in turn were betrayed by Romano since he wore a wire for the feds since 1979, but we’ll come to that later in the story. Now, usually the guys which did the street stuff or “dirty work” were Billy Brown, Basinski, DeStefano and Schiro or sometimes, only Schiro managed to finish the job all by himself. Schiro used simple techniques such as kicking the victim in the head, tying his hands and feet, and in the end, taking and walking away with his stash. Information from confidential informants identified Basinski and Brown, along with Schiro and D’Antonio, as members of Joseph Lombardo’s Grand Avenue Crew of the Chicago Outfit and described that group as an organized crime jewellery theft crew that worked closely with Hanhardt.